The Purpose of Life

Sometimes seen as the ultimate question, the question of the purpose of life is something that nearly all humans think about at some point during their lives.  Well, I have the answer.

First, it depends.  It depends on what you believe in.  If you believe in God or some other Supreme Being, the purpose of life is dictated by your beliefs in the nature of that being.  If you don't believe, then the purpose of life is dictated by the nature of life in the universe.

Christianity (specifically, the mainstream modern "neo-Christianity" that subscribes to things like the Nicaean Creed) believes that God put humans on Earth to test them.  The purpose of life is to prove yourself worthy of living with God forever.  Most of neo-Christianity believes that this eternity consists entirely of singing praises to God forever.  The purpose of life for the neo-Christian is to avoid eternal punishment in hell, so you can spend eternity singing and perhaps playing harps for God's personal enjoyment.

Islam has similar beliefs to neo-Christianity, except with a bit more flexibility in the afterlife.  Islam claims that the righteous will receive rewards in this life, many of which are promised based on specific actions.  Since some of the promised rewards are wealth, influence, and worldly honor, it is clear that part of the purpose of life as established by Allah is living a comfortable life in his service.  After this life, the righteous Muslim is promised eighty thousand servants, seventy two wives (modern interpretation extends this to be husbands for women), and a house built of gems.  Clearly, earning a comfortable after-life (that includes "carnal pleasures") is also part of the purpose of life for the devout Muslim.  For the Muslim, the purpose of life is to avoid eternal punishment, so you can live comfortably in this life and for eternity.

Older oriental religions focus on living with your ancestors after this life.  Living comfortably and honorably is the purpose of life.  Honoring your ancestors is important, because family is the most important thing.  The honor of the family is the honor of the individual.  If an individual is dishonorable, the entire family is dishonored.  The purpose of life is to bring honor to your family and to live comfortably doing so.

Some religions believe in reincarnation.  Those religions typically believe in some kind of eternal progression.  The quality of each life lived determines the starting point for the next.  In Buddhism, the ultimate goal is enlightenment, which allows one to break the cycle of life and death and ascend to a higher state of being.  This is done through meditation and conquering the ego.  For Buddhists, the purpose of life is progression through learning and overcoming worldly desires, ultimately leading to enlightenment and ascension to a higher state of being.

For Mormons (a type of Christianity but not of neo-Christianity), the purpose of life is to realize Christ's commandment to become perfect like God.  The end goal of life is to become like God.  To do this, Mormon's believe that they have to prove themselves worthy (just like neo-Christian religions), but it goes one step further.  Mormons believe that the purpose of life is learn to be like God.  This includes things like learning to raise children and teach them about God.  It also includes gaining specific knowledge.  For Mormons, the purpose of life is to learn to be like God and prove themselves worthy of being like Him.

If you do not believe in God or some other kind of Supreme Being, life still has a purpose.  Some say that the purpose of life is whatever you want it to be, but that is a lie.  There is always something bigger than you that dictates the purpose of life.  If it is not God, it is nature.  Atheism offers what is perhaps the least individualistic purpose of life.  The first and primary purpose of life is self propagation.  Nature does not care about the individual, it cares about species, but only those species that can survive, and it cares about the system as a whole.  Nature is about the collective.  A species that does not contribute cannot survive.  If there is no God, the purpose of life is to sustain and propagate life.  For the individual, this means first, reproducing.  If an individual cannot reproduce, then the second purpose is to help those with similar genetics to reproduce and survive.  If there is no possible way the individual can contribute while alive, then the purpose of life is to die, to free up resources.  The law of nature is survival of the fittest.  Fitness is determined by how effectively an individual and a species can support and contribute to the system.  Unless you can live forever (in which case, the purpose of your life is whatever you want it to be), the purpose of life if there is no God, is to contribute to the system by reproducing and by helping to ensure the survival of the rest of your species at any cost.  Any self defined "purpose" beyond that will only be put up with by nature so long as it does not interfere with the real purpose of life.

Ultimately the purpose of life comes down to what you believe.  If you choose not to believe anything, it is completely impersonal and utilitarian.  If you do choose to believe in something, then the purpose of life will be what you believe it to be.  If course, only one of those beliefs (or lack thereof) can actually be correct, so there is ultimately one true purpose of life and many false ones.  That gets into the question of which religion is right, though, and that is outside the scope of this discussion.

UFOs and Other Improbable Things

Humans in general seem to have a very stubborn skeptical streak that is often taken to an extreme.  I am not just talking about UFOs.  I am talking about a large range of "supernatural" claims for which there is significant supporting evidence.  I am also talking about scientific claims sometimes even backed with fairly strong evidence.  Humans like to reject anything that seems improbable, despite whatever evidence exists.  Ironically, this extends to religion, but it can go both ways.

First I want to discuss UFOs.  Personally, I am a skeptic, but I am not a militant skeptic who gets verbally abusive when people think differently.  Several years ago, I watched a show on Discovery about UFO sighting and ancient evidence of alien visitors.  It changed my perspective entirely.  Now, I am not saying I suddenly believe in all of the alien visitor theories or anything, but I certainly don't think that everyone involved is crazy.  The thing is, there are a lot of people who claim to have observed alien activity.  These are not just run-of-the-mill crazies either.  There are astronauts, scientists, politicians, and military leaders who claim to have observed evidence.  Further, there are incidents on public record that not only have no explanation, but the records also state that those present claimed to have observed alien presence.  These incidents are not only on US records either.  There are recorded incidents from a range of countries, some of which had limited contact with other countries at the time.  The number and consistency of the claims is staggering.  Further, there is potential evidence of records of alien visits from a rather large number of ancient societies, again, with an amazing level of consistency.  The consistency of the records and various evidence is far greater than even the consistency among world religions over time and distance.  In short, the evidence supporting the theory that aliens have visited the Earth in the past, and may still be visiting regularly, is many times stronger than the evidence supporting the existence of Jesus Christ.

There are plenty of other "supernatural" theories that most people summarily dismiss without ever considering supporting evidence and lack of opposing evidence.  Alternative medicine is largely dismissed because of lack of evidence that it works, but because no one has seriously tested it, the lack of evidence is practically meaningless.  There is equally little evidence that it does not work.  Bigfoot has still not been disproved, largely because everyone searching wants to believe.  Without unbelievers getting involved, because they thing the whole thing is crazy, we cannot have evidence against it.  Things that are not supernatural are subject to this problem as well.  Many people don't believe that global warming is even real, despite some pretty solid evidence, largely because they don't want to believe.  They cannot see the rising temperatures with their own eyes, so they call those who believe crazy.  People seem to dismiss inconvenient ideas regardless of evidence, when the perceived probability is low.

Religion is affected by this problem as well.  Over the last several millenia, humans have used religion to explain things that they could not otherwise explain.  They attributed things they could not control to God, and sometimes they attributed things that were inconvenient for them to control to God.  Now, it is getting more common for people to summarily dismiss the idea of religion, despite claims from many civilizations that, while less consistent than alien theories, still have many common threads.  It is not unreasonable to be skeptical of religion and even to disbelieve in God, but it is completely unreasonable to deny any possibility that God could exist.  The supporting evidence for religion may be weak, but the opposing evidence does not exist at all!

The point of all of this is that believing the evidence supporting alien visitors is more rational than believing that all of the believers are crazy people.  There is no call for insulting people who are basing their beliefs on actual evidence, especially when you have no evidence that they are wrong.  And, if you are religious, consider that the evidence supporting alien visitors is far stronger than the evidence supporting your religion.  Personally, I remain skeptical, but I am not so deluded as to assume that anyone who believes differently is crazy.

"Not a Belief System"

One of the perennial arguments between atheists and theists (especially Christians and very especially evangelical Christians) is whether or not atheism qualifies as a religion.  Theists say that not believing in God qualifies just as much as a belief as believing in God.  Atheists say that atheism is a lack of belief, and therefore does not qualify as a belief system at all, making it a lack of religion.  Ultimately though, everyone involved in this argument is wrong in some way.  The problem is that the English language (as well as many European languages) hides the truth.

The language problem that causes the confusion in this debate is the difference between active and passive negatives.  English lacks a general purpose active negative.  To compensate for this, we often use the passive negative, "not," as an active negative, and we understand it as an active or passive negative based on context.  For example, I can say, "I don't like coffee."  Because the "not" in "don't" is a passive negative, this phrase does not imply that I dislike coffee.  It merely states that I don't particularly like it.  English speakers will infer that it means I dislike coffee though.  Now, there are special purpose active negatives, for example "dislike."  These are limited to specific applications though, and there is not always an appropriate active negative for a given application.  So instead, we infer "not" to be an active negative in many contexts where it makes sense.

This applies very directly to the above mentioned atheism argument.  The problem with the argument is that "not" is being used ambiguously, and each side is inferring what they need it to mean to support their argument.  The atheists are correct when they say that "not believing in God" is not a belief system.  The theists are inferring the "not" in the phrase means specifically disbelief, not just lack of belief.  They are wrong in this, as "not" is a passive negative, not an active negative.  The atheists are wrong in claiming that atheism is merely a lack of belief in God.  The ambiguity in the interpretation of the word "not" is convenient to the arguments of both sides, but it also makes them both wrong.

There is already a word for "not believing in God."  That word is "agnosticism."  Agnostics are apathetic to the existence of God.  They do not claim that He does not exist, but they do not choose to believe in Him either.  When a person says, "I don't believe in God," they are saying that they are agnostic.  When atheists say that, they mean that they disbelieve in God, not that they are apathetic to His existence.  The meaning of the words they are saying is different from what they intend those words to mean, but it makes a convenient argument to misconstrue their intending meaning when they are trying to prove that atheism is not a belief system.  When an atheist says, "I do not believe in God," what they mean is that they disbelieve in God or that they believe that God does not exist.  When you look at the root meaning, where "not" is being used as an active negative in the phrase, "I do not believe in God," it becomes very clear that atheism is indeed a belief system, not merely a lack of belief.

When atheists argue that atheism is not a belief system, they are deliberately confusing agnosticism with atheism to support their argument.  Ultimately, both sides are confused by the lack of a general purpose active negative in English and related languages, and to be honest, most people that do not know a language that contains a general purpose active negative may never realize that this is a problem.

What the whole thing comes down to though, is that atheism is a belief system.  Whether it is a religion or not is another matter entirely, as this depends largely on how "religion" is defined.  If it is defined as a belief system, then atheism is a religion (as well as anti-vax, essential oils, and a whole range of other minor belief systems).  If religion requires some kind of deity, then it is only a belief system if you can show that secularism is a deity.  If it merely requires a higher power (with or without sentience), belief in science would be sufficient to make it a religion.  In the end, the question of whether or not atheism is a religion is still subject to debate, but there is no question that it is a belief system.

To Swear...

... is to admit defeat.

I have an enormous vocabulary, and I am something of a genius in logic.  Sometimes people pick arguments with me.  The first time they have to swear at me to make their point, I am done, because to swear is to admit defeat.  Typically, they don't understand this, so I am going to elaborate.

First, before I explain, I want to point out that the first time a person swears in an argument, they almost always open a hole in their own position.  While I consider swearing itself an admission of defeat, the holes typically opened are almost always easier to attack than the actual swearing.  With my rather large vocabulary, I never need to resort to swearing, even to insult someone in the most vile way possible (though, I stick to attacking their argument, the flaws in the argument, and the personal problems that lead to those flaws, as it is a logical fallacy to attack a person's character in ways that are totally unrelated to the argument).  It is typically unnecessary to point out the problem with swearing itself.

Now, why is swearing an admission of defeat?  Depending on the actual target of the swearing, it is one of a number of logical fallacies.  The most common one is ad hominem.  This is the logical fallacy of making a personal attack against the character of your opponent.  It is a logical fallacy, because the character of your opponent has no bearing on the validity and correctness of the argument.  When a person says "mother [extremely foul swear word that I am not going to repeat]," they are accusing their opponent of a particularly vile form of incest.  Whether this accusation is true or not, it has no bearing on the validity of the argument.  Almost as often, the swearing is directed at the argument itself.  Unless the swear word (or words) is being used literally (and makes sense in that context), the attack makes no logical sense.  This logical fallacy is called a non sequitur, which translates to "it does not follow."  For instance, "That argument is [crap spelled with an 'sh']," means nothing, and as evidence against an argument, it is a non sequitur (in fact, this could also be considered circular reasoning, "Your argument is wrong, because it is crap, because it is wrong..." which is another logical fallacy).  In nearly any other case, swearing amounts to the person making a non-sense statement because he or she cannot think of any more counter arguments that are logically valid (which also counts as a non sequitur).  In all three cases, the opponent has been reduced to either using faulty logic or giving up the argument altogether in favor of changing the subject.  These are all admissions of defeat.

The worst thing about swearing is that it is actually not that offensive.  When used in a non-literal sense or out of context, swearing is meaningless.  One religious leader once said something to the effect of, "Swearing is the sign of a weak mind trying to make a strong statement."  Swearing is most often used as an "intensifier."  An intensifier is a word or phrase used to emphasize another statement.  Swearing used as an intensifier looses all of its meaning.  It is only offensive because it is a misuse of language.  Saying a word that literally means feces to intensify a statement deliberately ignores the actual meaning of the word.  This confuses communication, which devalues it.

Now, the reason for the statement about swearing being the sign of a weak mind is quite straight forward: There is always a better way.  In verbal conversation, speaking with more emphasis is often a completely sufficient way of intensifying a statement.  In written language, italics or bold type is a good solution, and when these are not available, the judicious use of all caps can be effective (using all caps liberally makes them loose their effect, much like the excessive use of swearing).  When these are not sufficient though, a good vocabulary can beat pretty much anything.  A good vocabulary can be used to construct statements far more insulting and vile than any amount of swearing.  Likewise, a good vocabulary can get across any statement at any intensity, without a single swear word.  Even better, responding to swearing with a far more vile insult without using a single swear word is far more infuriating than just swearing back.  Let me be clear, I am not advocating being rude, insulting, or otherwise uncivil.  If you must though, do it right. 

The worst (or maybe best...) insult is not the one that your opponent immediately counters.  The worst insult is the one that your opponent does not realize was insulting until a week later (or even better, until he gets home and looks up one or more of the words you used).  There is nothing more petty than a comeback that is a week late, and there is nothing more humiliating than being the person who only realizes they have been insulted once it is far too late to ever respond.  Even one swear word can ruin the perfect insult.

The only thing better than the week-out insult is the insult that is recognized immediately, but which there is still no comeback for that is not petty.  If you want to gain some skill in this watch (or better, read) Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility (actually, any Jane Austin), and Taming of the Shrew (I am sure Shakespeare has other good stuff as well) multiple times (you will not catch all of the veiled insults the first five or so times).  The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, has some good stuff as well, but make sure to get the Stratford Festival version (none of the others do it justice).  The British upper class evidently raised this to an art form.

Death of Small Gods

There is this thing about modern physics that has always bothered me.  It is closely related to the atheist assertion that people tend to invent new gods every time they come across something they do not understand (this assertion is true).  Many ancient civilizations had Sun gods, Moon gods, various weather gods, and even fertility gods (or typically goddesses, but it is the same).  Now, I am not bashing religion.  Personally I believe in God, but I do not use my belief in God to explain away things that I do not understand.  Frankly, I love science, and I enjoy reading about new discoveries.  What bothers me is that modern particle physicists seem to be obsessed with inventing new particles every time they hit something they cannot explain.  Instead of inventing new gods all the time, modern scientists invent new particles all the time.  These are, in my estimation, little more than small gods.  Now, I will admit that on occasion, they are right.  It turns out, however, that sometimes they are epically wrong.  Recently, a large group of these small gods died.


Small gods interfere with real physics.  They lead us down paths that will ultimately turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money.  Supersymmetry is a theory that suggests that every known particle has a symmetric sibling with a higher mass.  This symmetric set of particles were invented to explain away why Higgs interactions do not cause a runaway increase in mass.  They also happen to explain some of dark matter theory.  They also happen not to exist.  At least, the LCH has not detected even one of them, and particle physicists think that it should have.  Supersymmetry has been a prevalent theory for a long time (invented in 1966 and seems to have gotten popular in 1981).  Since its inception in 1966, we have wasted 48 years on it.  Almost half a century of wasted work of at least thousands of physicists.  Of course, some parts of the theory seem to be correct, but those parts could easily have been discovered as parts of other theories.  Ultimately though, half of the particles of modern physics have turned out to be false gods.

All of the new theories also involve new particles, and who knows, maybe there are a few particles responsible for the effect.  This should be a learning experience though.  Just because inventing a whole bunch of new particles can easily explain a phenomenon does not mean that it is the right choice.  New particles are convenient because they add mathematical variables that can be manipulated to fit observations.  Sadly, this is much like inventing a Sun god (with a chariot and everything) to explain the observation of the huge ball of light in the sky.  In science, there are often unnoticed variables, and they may even be associated with unobserved particles.  Assuming that every inconsistency is the result of an unobserved particle is just bad science though.  Given how often we prove ourselves wrong, the initial assumption should be that we have missed a property of at least one existing particle.  Speculations about new particles are definitely appropriate.  Dedicating most of our resources to them, however, is probably a bad idea so long as we have not eliminated other less invasive explanations.

Overall, when small gods die, scientists should feel humiliation.  All of the scientists that have wasted half a century of work on supersymmetry should feel like a majority of their time was wasted.  They should feel like their worship of these small gods was pointless.  They should feel humiliated and embarrassed that they did not spend more time looking at alternatives that did not involve the invention of so many new gods.  I am not saying that they should stop doing physics.  They need to recognize their invention of new particles for what it is though: the invention of gods to explain nature.  This does not mean they should stop trying though.  Sometimes inventing new gods works out.  After all, the invention of the idea of anti-particles was another instance of almost doubling the number of known particles (of specific classes, anyhow), and it has been very well proven since.  While they should feel some amount of humiliation when they fail so epically, scientists should not allow themselves to get discouraged by failure.  They should learn from their mistakes, and then get back up and try again.

The problem with [your political ideology]

Let's talk about the problem with your political ideology.  I can cover far over half of the people in the U.S. (and probably most of the world) with these two: The problem with liberals is they believe that the government can solve all of their problems.  The problem with conservatives is that they believe the government is the source of all of their problems.  The third, and maybe the best, is moderates.  The problem with moderates is that they believe that there is a perfect balance where the government can solve just enough of their problems without causing them too many problems.  All three of these are wrong, and pretty much every political ideology believes that the government does or can do something that it cannot.  No government can solve all of our problems, and no government can be the cause of all of our problems.  Especially no government can strike a perfect balance, because there is no perfect balance.

So, starting with the liberal ideology: Government cannot solve problems.  I expect the initial reaction of nearly anyone (the exception being some anarchists) is to reject this statement.  Governments appear to solve all sorts of problems.  In reality though, governments only cover up problems or create them.  A government might make laws that ultimately prevent murder.  So, have they solved the problem of murder?  No, because murder is not the problem.  Anger or hatred is the problem, murder is merely one of the many symptoms of the problem.  Government might be able to prevent the symptoms, but the problem persists, and it will continue to persist, because anger and hatred are human problems that no government has or can have control over.  Welfare does not solve the problem of poverty.  It covers up the problem of greed.  Tariffs do not solve the problem of poor economic decisions, like welfare, they cover up the problem of greed.  The best governments can only protect people from the poor choices that are the symptoms of problems that cannot be solved.  If governments could solve problems, then they would solve all of the world's problems and then go extinct because there would be no problems left for them to solve.  Government cannot solve all of our problems.  They can only cover them up, and really they can only cover up a limited subset of our problems, not all of them.

Unlike solving problems, governments can cause problems.  In fact, their track record suggests that this is the only thing governments can do consistently.  Thankfully, governments can only cause a limited subset of our problems, not all of them.  Even a tyrannical dictator cannot cause all of the problems his subjects have.  If a dictator has enough subjects to actually be considered a legitimate dictator, he has too many subjects to completely control their lives.  Subjects that are not ruled with a perfect iron fist will cause each other problems that are not the fault of the government.  In fact, a typical dictator has minions who do most of the harm.  Without the minions, the government would have little power to cause problems.  While governments can cause problems, all problems governments cause are indirect.  The problems are caused directly by other people, not by the governments.  Thus, governments cannot be the cause of all of our problems.  They can only cause a limited subset of our problems, and only if people act as their tools.

The balance problem is hairy.  First, because few people agree on what a perfect balance is, it is impossible for a government with enough subjects to be considered a legitimate government to strike a perfect balance.  There is no balance that a consensus will establish as official.  This is why democratic forms of government only require a majority vote, not a unanimous vote.  In fact, it is extremely unlikely that any government will even completely satisfy a majority of its subjects.  There is no perfect balance for government.  The only really noble goal of governments with respect to balance is to minimize the number of people that are completely dissatisfied.

The above three cover pretty much every political ideology, except maybe one.  The problem with anarchy is that humans are idiots and refuse to cooperate in the effort to solve all problems.  Without government, there is no protection from the symptoms of the problems that people create.  If everyone would be civil without law or social pressure breathing down their necks, anarchy would be great.  The problem is that civilizations require enforcement of civility to remain civilized, because humans are inherently uncivilized barbarians (yep, it turns out it is the truth; if you doubt it, look at any country where the government has failed and there was no protection from greed and stupidity for any length of time).

The problem of government comes down to two axioms.  The first is, all solvable problems are caused by people.  The second is, solvable problems can only be solved by people.  These two axioms contain the secret knowledge to eliminating the need for government.  This is the secret: If all solvable problems are caused by people, and all solvable problems can be solved by people, then if all people will stop causing problems and start solving them, there will be no problems that can be avoided and all problems that are unavoidable will be solved.

The reason we need governments is that many people refuse to stop causing problems, and many people refuse to solve problems.  It only takes one person to break the solution to all problems.  Governments suck.  They cause problems.  They do not solve problems.  Instead they hide problems.  Unfortunately, so long as even one person will not cooperate in eliminating all problems, governments are necessary to protect everyone else from those who will not cooperate.  The existence of governments, however, does not give anyone the right to refuse to cooperate.  Cooperating in the elimination of problems is the responsibility of every person capable of such cooperation.

There is no perfect, or even entirely correct, political ideology.  I am fine with it if you choose to keep your political ideology after reading this.  Please help with the task of eliminating all problems though.  Quit causing problems, and start solving them instead.  It is your responsibility to do this, no matter how rich, poor, weak, or powerful you are.

IGMO?

What is Indirect Genetically Modified Organisms?  Well, it is a term I just invented, but it is a process that was invented millenia ago.  Nearly all of the food that we eat is, technically, genetically modified.  Now, the term GMO, used in a legal sense, means an organism that is the consequence of directly manipulating the DNA of another organism.  Most GMO used currently modifies plants to make them resistant to strong herbicides, so that the herbicides can be used to kill potentially harmful weeds without harming the main crop.  The main argument against direct genetic modification is that the consequences of directly altering DNA are not well understood.  In theory, it is possible that a single very minor change to DNA could cause the production of a toxic substance in a plant or animal, that could make it unfit for human consumption.  While there are regulations in place requiring extensive testing, it is impossible to comprehensively test to ensure that nothing harmful is being distributed to the public.

Indirect Genetically Modified Organisms use a less intrusive method for altering DNA.  In fact, when the process was invented, DNA had not even been discovered.  Today we call this process "selective breeding" or "animal husbandry."  It takes advantage of the ideas behind natural selection to modify an organism to be what we want or need.  This takes longer than direct genetic modification, but it is also more reliable and predictable.  The interesting part is, nearly everything we eat is IGMO!  Cows, pigs, and chickens did not magically start out as domesticated farm animals.  Non-IGMO turkeys are scrawny, with tough meat.  There is evidence that wheat did not even start out as a grain (it would have been similar to amaranth and other pseudo-grains).  In fact, it is possible that the true grains in general are entirely man made.  Similarly, most vegetables and fruits we eat are the result of thousands of years of IGMO.

Is there anything we eat that is not IGMO?  Probably.  Most foods that are not deliberately cultivated by man are probably not IGMO, though it is almost certain that we have had some impact on them (through our impact on the environment).  Most fish are probably not IGMO, though, we do not know if previous civilizations might have practiced some kind of selective breeding with fish that were then let back into the wild.  Also, some fungi, like truffles, are still gathered in the wild, which means that they are probably not IGMO either (it is possible, however, that liberal gathering of easily visible truffles may have unintentionally caused genetic selections that resulted in making them extremely difficult to find; that said, pigs like truffles too, so it is equally likely that wild pigs caused this trait).

I would say that it is almost certain that man has had some kind of genetic influence on pretty much all food that we eat.  I would not use the term IGMO to refer to foods that have not been intentionally modified though.  So foods that have only been genetically modified as a side effect of our environmental impact or gathering patterns would not be IGMO, but foods that we have deliberately selected for specific traits would be IGMO.

Anyhow, the point of all of this is: There is very little food that we eat that has not been deliberately genetically modified by humans.  The means of genetic modification are varied, and it is possible that some are safer than others, but it is all still genetic modification.  I am not saying that we should not be skeptical of direct genetic modification used in the food industry, and there are plenty of reasons to oppose it besides potential toxin risk (for instance, some U.S. companies donate GMO seeds to 3rd world farmers to get them dependent on the better growth properties of the seeds, then stop donating and use patent law to extort money out them).  What I am saying is, fearing GMO for its own sake is absurd, because nearly everything we eat is some kind of GMO.

Morality of Government Social Programs

This post is aimed primarily at Christians and more specifically at conservative Christians.  I have probably mentioned it before, but I think it deserves mention here.  I am a conservative Christian (unless you are one of the misinformed people that do not believe Mormons are Christians).  I am not saying you should stop reading if you are not Christian, as this does apply, to a lesser degree, to most religions and maybe even some to Atheism.

First, ask yourselves if it is morally right for governments to take money from their subjects (in the form of taxes) to protect them from criminals.  If you don't know what I am talking about, governments spend tax money on police, prisons, and sometimes even rehabilitation facilities and mental wards for this purpose, not to mention other forms of law enforcement.  Most people I know have no problem with governments doing this, and many even think that the U.S. government is not doing enough to protect them.  Also, ask yourselves if it is morally right for a government to enforce religious laws, or laws with a religious basis.  As you ask yourself this, consider certain parts of the Ten Commandments, for instance, "Thou shalt not steal," and "Thou shalt not kill."  In fact, I cannot think of many U.S. laws that are not based on Christian moral laws found in the Bible.

Now, let's discuss government social programs.  Most conservative Christians are strongly opposed to government social programs (except, rather hypocritically, Social Security).  Why is this?  I actually am not sure, but I will try to think of some potential reasons anyway.  One argument I frequently hear is that it is wrong for the government to take their hard earned money and give it to other people.  One guy told me that it takes away the free agency of those with the money, because it forces them to give to the poor, instead of allowing them to choose how to use the money.  Some people say that poor people deserve what they get, because they are obviously lazy otherwise they would not be poor.  I have heard it compared to theft.  Most conservative Christians use arguments that all come back to a feeling that it somehow violates their freedom, for the government to use tax money to help those in need.

The first argument, that it is wrong for the government to take their money and give it to other people, is clearly flawed.  In fact, this is the only thing that the government does with tax money.  Tax money is given to police officers in the form of wages.  It is given to contractors to build prisons, roads, military bases, tanks, Humvees, aircraft, and all sorts of other things.  Our government does not save any tax money (actually, they pretty much always spend more than they get), so they cannot be reasonably accused of hoarding it.  Now, note that the one thing these all have in common is that the government gets some value out of the money, in labor or goods.  If you think this is the difference though, consider also that the government donates money, without any explicit obligation, to 3rd world countries, to feed people who are starving.  They even donate money, in the form of weapons, and sometimes even troops, to help warring countries, again without any explicit obligation.  Is this morally wrong?  Is it morally wrong for the government to spend our money to help people in other countries?  Maybe you would say that it depends on our business relationship with those countries.  For instance, you might say that it was not immoral to help out Kuwait, because we were buying oil from them, and if they were captured, it might increase the price of that oil, or even make it entirely unavailable to us.  Is any of this really that different from helping U.S. citizens when they need it, though?  Some of the poor in the U.S. can, and will, escape poverty, if they are given a leg up in the form of financial help.  These people will ultimately become tax payers and will most likely eventually pay enough in taxes to pay back their welfare benefits.

The second argument is absurd.  If using tax money is immoral because it deprives the payer of their agency to choose how to spend it, then it is equally immoral to prevent a murderer from killing, or a thief from stealing.  If a man wants to murder someone, but the government imprisons him, is this not taking away his agency to choose what he does?  You might say that his actions would have hurt someone, while the tax payer's actions would not have.  Aside from the fact that there is no way to know this (the tax payer might have used the money to hire a hit man, or to get drunk and beat his wife), would it not result in harm if the money was not given to the people that need it to survive?  The only difference is intent.  In court, the difference of intent is the difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree murder.  The harm was still done, and the fault still exists.  Intent cannot reverse the harm done.  Laws are designed to limit agency to reduce harm done and to increase fairness.  A law that does not limit agency is pointless, so this argument really just does not make sense.

I hope that the argument that the poor deserve poverty has been sufficiently debunked by our recent recession that no one still believes it.  With over 8% unemployment (which does not count those who are unemployed and still want jobs, but who have given up searching), it should be clear that a significant portion of the population who are in poverty are people who are trying to get jobs.  Claiming that these people deserve poverty because they are lazy is a foul lie.  In addition, out of those who are not employed and are not looking for jobs, many are single parents.  In fact, I would also include in this category couples with children, where one is disabled and the other cannot work much because someone has to care for the children and the disabled spouse, parents where their spouse is lazy and they are stuck caring for children and the lazy spouse, as well as anyone living in a place where there are no jobs available nearby and they cannot afford to move somewhere where jobs are available within a reasonable distance.  Most people who fall into the category are already working more than 40 hours a week caring for other people, and it is a shameful travesty of justice that we allow them to remain in poverty given how hard they are working.  I would even argue that most of these people are doing work that is much more important and valuable than anything that anyone working regular profitable jobs are doing (what do you think is more important, managing one large business, or raising the children who will eventually be expected to take over jobs including your job, the jobs of the entire government, and every other job in the U.S., not to mention a bunch more that have yet to be created).  If you still believe that not working a normal job justifies poverty, you need to read my opinion on the Death Penalty.

As far as arguments that compare Social Welfare to theft, the government has a legal right (according to an amendment to the U.S. Constitution) to tax us.  Thus, according to the law, taxing us is in no way theft.  While the Constitution does strictly limit how this tax money can be used, and the limitations do not include any allowance for it to be used for social programs, violation of the Constitution is also not theft.  Furthermore, any fault for such misuse of tax funds is not the responsibility of the entire government.  It is the responsibility of the President (who has sworn to protect and uphold the Constitution) and the Supreme Court (who's job it is to review laws and determine if they legal according to the Constitution).  It is in no way theft though.

Now, I want to discuss the underlying concern of all of these arguments.  All of these arguments come back to the idea that spending tax money on Social Welfare somehow violates the freedom of the tax payers that fund it.  We have already established that the government has the right to directly tax the people, through a Constitutional amendment (and, amendments cannot be declared unconstitutional, because they are part of the Constitution, and thus define themselves as Constitutional).  The government technically does not have the right (Constitutionally) to spend tax money on Social Welfare, but it is hard to argue that it violates the freedom of the people, when a majority of the people appear to support these programs.  Our government is based on a democratic system.  Democratic freedom is ultimately defined as the right for people to be governed as they see fit (this is based on many publications written around the time that the Constitution was actually written).  In a democratic system, this is accomplished by designing the government and its laws based on the desires of the majority of the people (because it is impossible for each person to be governed exactly how they want to be, when the population is greater than one).  In short, if the majority of the people want tax money to be spent on Social Welfare, then it is a larger violation of freedom to refuse their desires than to spend the tax money on Social Welfare.  You might consider government Social Welfare programs to violate your freedom, but your opinion is not the only one that matters.

Next I want to look at the religious implications of Social Welfare.  I have already hinted at where this is going.  Now it is time to discuss it.  Since the U.S. is still a vast majority Christian, and this article is designed for Christian readers, I am going to focus on Christian religion.  The Bible has a lot of commandments besides the ten brought down from the mountain by Moses.  Many of our laws are based on those first ten commandments.  Many are also based on an earlier part of the Bible where God granted Adam and Eve (and ultimately everyone) free agency.  Most of our laws are designed to mediate agency such that everyone has an equal share.  There is no specific commandment in the Bible against imprisoning someone against their will, however, this is a clear violation of another person's freedom, so we have a law against it to protect agency.  Many conservative Christians, however, ignore the laws that go beyond agency and the Ten Commandments.  Jesus Himself decreed that people should "clothe the naked," "feed the hungry," and do a great deal of other similar things.  This is Social Welfare.

Does the government have the right or responsibility to enforce Christian commandments regarding Social Welfare?  Most arguments I have heard say "no."  The most common arguments are first, that the government does not have the right to enforce religious laws and second, that it deprives the giver of the blessings if they are forced to give.  The first argument is clearly wrong, given that nearly every U.S. law is a religious law, that is being enforced by the government.  If fact, by this argument, I could start a new religion, make a law for that religion that is the same as a government law, and the government law would immediately cease to be valid.  It should be fairly obvious that the claim that the government has no right to enforce religious laws is absurd.  The second, that it deprives the giver of blessings, is also questionable.  This argument depends on the assumption that Jesus decreed His Social Welfare laws to give people an opportunity to obtain blessings, not because He believed that wealthy people have an obligation to help those in need.  This would imply that all of the commandments are intended to be selfish, for instance, that not murdering is not about protecting the potential victim, but about getting blessings for the potential criminal.  I hope you see how clearly absurd this is as well as I do.

If the "welfare" commandments Jesus decreed are designed to help the poor and not to give blessings to the rich, then the claim that forcing the wealthy to give to the poor is wrong because it deprives them of blessings is invalid.  In short, blessings are a beneficial byproduct of giving, not the objective and thus should not even be considered in this argument.  (Besides this, I think this claim is a lie.  I believe that someone who willingly gives, even if they are compelled to do so, will get any blessings associated with giving.  The only people who will not get blessings are those who would not have given if they had not been compelled to give.  I think the Bible even says as much.)  Given that these religious laws are designed to help and protect people, just like the Ten Commandments, I find no religious reason that the government should not use tax money to provide for the needs of those who cannot afford to do so themselves.  In fact, I find that it is equally acceptable for the government to provide Social Welfare as it is to outlaw murder and theft, from a religious perspective.  Further, I don't see why conservative Christians, who claim to believe and follow the commandments given in the Bible, don't strongly support adding this commandment to codified law.  It seems hypocritical that Christians should support laws banning same sex marriage (a position which, contrary to the claims of certain people, is supported in the Bible), but not support laws enforcing commandments concerning welfare given by Jesus Himself.

There is still the issue of Constitutionality.  This is the only valid argument against government Social Welfare.  The Constitution gives an explicit list of powers the Federal Government has, and Social Welfare is not included in that list.  (Note, however, that all other powers not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution are granted to the states.  This means that the states do have the Constitutional right to create Social Welfare programs.)  There are two ways of getting around this.  Obviously, an amendment could be made adding the right of the Federal Government to create Social Welfare programs to the above mentioned list.  The second, and in my opinion much better, way would be for all Social Welfare programs to be managed per state.  Not only would this be entirely legal, it would also help those programs to be better tailored to the situations within each state (one problem with Federal welfare programs is that they cannot keep up with differences in cost of living between different states and even different regions within states).

This is a call to all Christians to reconsider your positions on government Social Welfare programs.  I am not asking you to become liberals (and I certainly do not consider myself liberal even though I support well managed welfare), but rather, I am asking you to think for yourselves.  Welfare is not a purely liberal subject, but if conservatives don't start playing a serious part in the discussion of how to best do it, it will be controlled entirely be liberals.  We need to make welfare a bipartisan effort.  I think that this is the only way to create a truly good welfare system.  If we don't do this, then we will be pushing away the poor among us, and other, really important conservative issues will ultimately die with the loss of their support.

Lord Rybec

Minimum Wage Drives Inflation

Many years ago, I was attending the Alaska State Fair with a friend.  One of the buildings was full of booths for various organizations: mostly businesses, with a few political organizations.  One booth was run by an organization campaigning for increasing minimum wage (I no longer recall if it was State or Federal).  My friend decided to tell them why minimum wage should not be increased.  He told them that increasing minimum wage would drive inflation.  The two people in the booth quickly and deftly tore his argument to shreds.  My friend did not loose the argument because he was wrong though.  He lost it because he did not have a strong enough understanding of economics to back his claim.  His argument is actually supported by a great deal of evidence, and even a simple philosophical argument can show that it must be true.

Our philosophical argument starts with the obvious fact that businesses must raise prices when costs increase.  If a business has a large amount of money or resources saved, it might be able to delay raising prices, but most businesses either do not have much savings, or just do not choose to delay price increases for very long.  The only exception to this rule is a business that can find some way of offsetting cost increases by cutting costs elsewhere (but then, net costs did not actually increase, did they).  You might argue that some businesses are already charging high enough prices that an increase in costs would not force them to raise prices.  If you did, I would argue that such businesses have already pre-emptively raised their prices for that particular cost increase (and, even these businesses will probably raise their prices at a cost increase, to maintain their high profit margin).

Employee wages are a cost.  I would love to see anyone try to argue against this claim.  So, given this and the fact that businesses raise prices when costs increase, if wages increase, then prices will increase.  From this it follows that if minimum wage increases, then prices will increase.  (There is an exception to this as well.  If all businesses pay enough more than minimum wage that none are affected by an increase, then prices may not increase.  If even a few percent of employees have wage increases though, ripple effects will raise prices for all businesses.)  When average prices increase, we call this inflation.  Thus, increasing minimum wage drives inflation.  This is our philosophical argument showing that minimum wage drives inflation.

Besides this, we have plenty of evidence that supports this claim.  I am not going to build a strong case for this, but I will quote some statistics that support the claim that increasing minimum wage does not improve the situation.  I wrote a paper last year comparing compensation of average US workers with the compensation of slaves in various ancient and older civilizations.  During my research for this paper, I found that from 1960 to 2010, wage increases for the lower 99% of US wage earners averaged to around 75% (the upper 1% wages increased by 250%, which comes out to almost 77% for all wage earners), while average inflation was 659%.  These figures do not necessarily imply that minimum wage increases were responsible for the disparity, but they do clearly show that increases in minimum wage were nowhere near enough to keep wages fair.

Our philosophical argument clearly supports the claim that minimum wage increases drive inflation.  The empirical evidence that I presented clearly shows that minimum wage increases have not significantly improved the situation of US wage earners over the last 50 years.  From this it is clear that increasing minimum wage is not enough to keep US workers out of poverty, because businesses will just raise their prices to compensate and then use the added costs as an excuse to raise them a bit a more.

I also wanted to discuss unions driving wage increases, but I do not have much time.  Unions driving wage increases is straight up harmful.  The US steel workers union has pushed up wages for steel workers and has demanded longer paid breaks to a point that it is cheaper to import steel (which is extremely heavy and thus costly to ship) than to buy domestic steel.  Unions increase wages of small pockets of the population, and the rest of the population ends up paying for it.  Steel workers comprise a very small percentage of the US population, but their absurdly high wages cost everyone in the US, because steel is used in a great deal of our products.  Besides this, union officials also take wages from union dues, which further add to the cost of unions.  I would spend more time in this if I had it, but I think this should get my point across.

Anyhow, minimum wage increases, or any kind of forced wage increases, drive inflation.  The economics of this is not as complex as people imagine, but most people either believe this or not, without actually looking at the numbers or the logic behind it (even our government representatives do this).  The solution to this should be fairly obvious to an economist.  For any product (including labor), a supply and demand chart can be drawn.  On the chart, there is a point where supply and demand cross.  This point is the equilibrium point, where both supply and demand will tend strongly towards.  Artificially increasing or decreasing the price of a commodity (labor, in this case) will alter the balance.  Setting a price floor (minimum wage) will increase supply, but decrease demand, resulting in surplus (unemployment, for labor).  Setting a price ceiling will do the opposite, raise demand, and lower supply.  It is obvious that the government has a responsibility to make sure that businesses are paying people fairly, and minimum wage is an obvious solution to this, but this necessarily causes unemployment and, as shown above, drives inflation, because of the imbalance it causes in supply and demand.  The obvious solution is to set a price ceiling on labor (a maximum wage) that counteracts the effect of the minimum wage.  If we did this, we could increase minimum wage, and decrease maximum wage to a point where everyone is paid fairly.  This will ensure that everyone gets a wage that they can live on, but will also leave a range of possible wages so that more valuable workers can be paid more for their work.  CEOs that currently make $5,000 an hour won't like this, but I would guess that a vast majority of Americans would be happy to see these leeches get what they deserve (which is more like $50 or $100 an hour, if that).

Lord Rybec

Death Penalty

I support the death penalty. I support it in cases when someone is such a threat to society that it would not be just to force society to pay for their room and board in a jail. I support the death penalty in cases like first degree murder, violent rape, and similar extreme cases of violation of human rights. I don't support the death penalty because criminals deserve to be punished. I support it as a means of protecting society from dangerous criminals. I support it because I find it extremely unjust that society should be forced to pay the upkeep of these people who will never be safe to release into the general public.

I do not support the death penalty for laziness. Right, long ago laziness was the difference between obtaining enough food to eat, or starving to death. Back then the death penalty (by starvation) might have been just for those who were too lazy to pull their share of the weight. That was a law imposed by nature. In some places this natural law still holds sway over humans, but not in the US. According to Wikipedia, only 2-3 percent of the US labor population works in agriculture. "US agriculture has long since passed the point of being able to meet the demand for food in the US population. Much of US agricultural production is now exported to other countries. For example, the United States exports 60 percent of its wheat crop and 30 percent of its soybeans. Agricultural products make up 10 percent of all exported US merchandise." (portaec.net) Forcing people to starve because they are lazy, or because there is not enough work to go around is essentially enforcing the death penalty for laziness. In the case of those who are not working because they cannot find work, but are looking, it is enforcing the death penalty for involuntary laziness. I know of no State in the US that enforces the death penalty for involuntary homicide. Why then is it tolerated for involuntary laziness?


I also do not support the death penalty for those with health problems that prevent them from working, or health problems that cost too much for them to pay for on their pathetically low salary, even though they may work a full 40 hours a week. This goes back to the production issue. The US produces far more than it needs to survive. Doctors might deserve to get paid for their work, but no one deserves to die for their health problems just because they don't work or don't get paid enough. Are health problems really so dangerous to society at large that those who have them deserve the death penalty because they cannot afford to pay for care? Right, I understand that people with health problems might have been an inconvenience that could have substantially harmed the rest of society, long ago. Just like food though, this is not the case in the modern US. The claim that our society cannot afford to give health care to those who cannot afford it is a lie. Humans only need a few things for survival. Specifically, humans need food, water, shelter, and clothing (and not even this in some climates). If US society had to pay for health care for everyone who cannot afford it, which of those four things would we suddenly be unable to provide for everyone? In short, those who need health care, who cannot afford it for whatever reason, do not deserve the death penalty. Again, this especially applies to those who have heath problems involuntarily (voluntary health problems would include those caused be poor choices, like smoking or reckless driving).

The US produces enough for every single citizen to have enough food, water, housing, and clothing. Our current record unemployment is a testament to the fact that the US can produce enough for everyone, even when over half the population is not working. The fact that anyone lives on the streets involuntarily, the fact that anyone in the US is undernourished, and the fact that many people in the US die every day due to lack of medical care, is a testament to the fact that we are no better than uncivilized barbarians (actually, historically barbarians helped their own when needed). The fact that many US citizens take political stands in support of this barbarism is testament that even when the tools to create a Utopia are handed to them on a platter, petty humans will just use them to cruelly rip each other off.

I support the death penalty when a heinous crime has been committed and death is the only truly just punishment. I do not support the barbaric practice of death penalty by inaction when the only crimes are laziness and poor health, at least, not when these things do not pose the slightest threat to the rest of society. Right now, humans are still uncivilized barbarians. Yes, we are barbarians with buildings, computers, cellphone, cars, and all manner of technology, but we are still barbarians. It is time to choose: Are we going to be worthless barbarians forever, or are we going to take the tools we have been given and create a truly civilized Utopia? Are we going to rise from uncivilized barbarians to become the first civilized species on Earth, or are we going stay here, playing in our own filth and killing each other over century old ideals that no longer apply?

Lord Rybec

An Allegory About a Family

There is a family of five. There is a father, a mother, and three children. In order to make sure that everyone is pulling their own weight, the parents decided to set up a chore system. Each child must earn each meal, a small allowance, and a place to live and sleep by doing some amount of household work. The parents decided that each meal costs an hour of work, allowance costs an hour, and living space costs two hours. So, for three meals a day, a few dollars a week allowance, and a bedroom and bed to live and sleep in, each child was required to work for six hours each day (maybe they were allowed to take weekends off without penalties). Any child could take time off, but they would have to sacrifice meals or allowance, and if they skipped enough work, they would even have to leave home and find another place to live.

When they started this plan, it was easy to come up with enough work for their three children. One did laundry by hand, for several hours a week. Another mowed the lawn with a mechanical push mower for several hours a week. The third spent a few hours a day cooking meals. They all spent a few hours a week cleaning the various rooms in the house. The entire family lived fairly well. Each child earned their three meals a day, their weekly allowance, and their living quarters.

One day, the father came home with a new invention. He had a gas powered lawn mower. The child that mowed the lawn discovered that the gas mower could mow the entire lawn in 30 minutes, instead of the 2 hours that were required for the mechanical push mower. Fortunately, there was always more work to be done and the hour and 30 minutes that were saved were instead spent doing other work.

Sometime later, the father came home with an electric washer and dryer. The child that did the laundry suddenly found that a task that used to take most of a day only took a few minutes here and there, leaving 5 hours of time to fill. With a little work, he found other jobs to take up this extra time.

Next came a microwave oven and microwave dinners, which left the third child with a few hours a day to make up. The same day, the father also brought home a vacuum cleaner, which cut several hours a week off of all the children's work. There was barely any work left to fill the extra time. The child who had been cooking meals found that he could only manage an hour of work a day with what was left. The other two children still had enough work for 3 meals a day and for living quarters, but not enough for any allowance. When the third child went to his parents begging for more work, they told him that there was not more work left to do. His two siblings told him that he was not looking hard enough for more work and told him he was lazy.

The parents discussed several solutions. First, they discussed dividing the work evenly amongst the children, but did the math and found that dividing the 11 hours of work 3 ways came out to 3 and 2/3 hours, which was only enough for each child to have living quarters and a single meal a day, with a second meal every now and then. This was discarded, since it would leave all 3 children malnourished and the current situation was bad for only 1 child. They considered just giving the third child food and shelter anyway, but found it unfair that he should be allowed to break the rules while the other two children had to work hard for their food and shelter, though they did decide to give him a little bit of food, so that he would not starve.

Eventually they found a solution that was not unfair to anyone and still provided the work that the third child needed to survive. They bought a shovel and assigned the child to dig holes on the land they owned just past the edge of the back yard. He was assigned to spend 7 hours a day digging holes, since he was already spending an hour a day making meals. No one needed the holes to be there and nobody benefited from their creation. The entire purpose of the work was to give the third child a way to fairly earn his food, shelter, and allowance.

Analysis:

Ok, if you had not yet guessed (and not read the title), this is an allegory. The parents are those in authority and power, including the government and large businesses. Of course, in real life the work that the "children" are doing directly benefits the "parents". Specifically, the parents tell the children what work to do and how to do it, and then keep a majority of the proceeds for themselves, giving the children only enough to survive and a little bit extra to prevent rebellion.

When the parents in this story obtain technology that reduces the work required for the same amount (or better) of production, instead of allowing the reduced costs of production to benefit the children, they require the children to do other work and keep all the increase for themselves, much like modern businesses.

When the work available is not enough to support all of the workers at the going rates for labor, the businesses blame those that do not have enough work and encourage other workers to believe that they are lazy, regardless of effort spent trying to find work.

When the government steps in to help those that are suffering due to lack of work, they are attacked because it is not fair that people who are not working are getting food and shelter. In short, many people believe that those who are unable to find work due to a lack of available work are the ones at fault and should starve out on the streets.

The current solution is to invent new work to employ some part of those that cannot find work. Much like the child that was given work digging holes, much of this work is pointless labor that accomplishes little or nothing. Further, much like the boy digging holes, some of this contrived work damages the environment and saps resources that we may need in the future.

The best solution the parents in the story had was to divide the work evenly amongst the children. Now, many people may find this to be a poor choice as it would spread resources too thin and none of the children would be able to survive. This is not true. Our economy, even when is was failing recently, is producing far more than is needed for our entire country. It is producing more than is needed for our country and all of our exports. If the analogy is accurate, the parents in the story had more than enough resources to feed, house, and pay their children, even if they were each only doing 3 and 2/3 hours of work a day (note that the children were accomplishing the same volume of work during the 11 hours total that they had previously done over the course of 18 hours; the parents were benefiting no less, even though the number of hours spent working was nearly halved). The reason that they did not split the work evenly is that they did not want to change the rules and they did not want to pay more for labor than they had originally decided on. In short, they liked living like kings at the expense of their children and were unwilling to give up any part of their own obscene salaries, even if it meant that one child was going to starve.

Over the last two centuries, we have advanced technologically by leaps and bounds. Work that used to require hundreds or thousands of people can now be done with only two or three people making sure the machines are working properly. You might argue that the machines have upkeep costs and initial costs that are fairly high, but keep in mind the businesses would not be using them if they cost as much or more than the human labor they replace. Machines that cost thousands of dollars over their lifetimes generally save millions of dollars in the wages of the people they replace. Somehow, in the last two centuries, businesses are making enormous amounts more money, while individuals are only making slightly higher wages (dollar amounts may be significantly higher, but measured by the value of the money, people now are making only barely more than people 100 years ago, and many are making less).

The point of this is that our society would not tolerate a family that was run like this. The parents would be subject to legal action for neglect and for exploitation of children. The workers in this country may be mostly adults, but we are being exploited just like the children in the story. Our government is playing the part of the good guy that makes sure everyone has enough to survive, but just like the bad parent, they are benefiting from our exploitation as well, and are not willing to make sure that we are treated fairly if it means that have to give that up.

I suggest that the best course of action would be first, to set a wage/salary cap. This would cap the hourly wage, as well as the yearly salary, of anyone working as an employee of a company. This includes board members and executive officers. If an owner of a company is taking a wage or salary, it would apply to that wage or salary equally. I further suggest that mandatory overtime pay begin at 20 hours per week (and 6 hours per day), instead of the current 40 and 8. This should not apply on a per job basis, but on a total hours worked. If a person has more than one job, the two jobs should split the overtime pay based on the percentage of time spent at each job. These requirements should be strictly enforced and heavily fined for infractions.

The intent of this plan is to discourage people from working multiple jobs (and discourage employers from hiring people already working another job), and to discourage employers from scheduling employees more than 20 hours in a week. This would double the number of full time jobs available and further increase jobs available as fewer people work multiple jobs. This is essentially forcing work to be split up more evenly. Employers would be forced to raise wages and/or lower prices, since 20 hours a week is not currently enough hours to survive on (and if they choose not to increase wages, they will loose employees or end up dealing with very large unions). The first step, capping wages and salaries, would help facilitate increasing wages and/or lower prices, since a lot of money will be saved by decreasing the wages of board members and officers of large businesses. The large companies are making enough to pay all of their employees fairly and still have plenty for upkeep and expansion. The problem is first, the extremely uneven distribution of wages and second, to rapid of expansion and development.

It is absurd to me that we are producing far more than we need and still we expect those that cannot find work to work for a living. I thought that the objective of technology and advancement was to reduce the amount of work required for people to survive. The information age would never have existed if we had not gotten to a point where we can produce enough for everyone, without needing everyone to work. The Renaissance would never have happened if the Greeks had not had slaves that were able to produce enough goods for the entire civilization, allowing everyone else time to theorize and philosophize, and now we have the ability to do this without slaves and yet somehow we are stuck expecting half of our population to find work that does not exist. We need to take advantage of this unique situation. I think the best way to do that is to reduce the work week by half, and encourage the populace to use the extra time doing things that are productive, like learning new things, experimenting and helping advance technology, and generally working to further improve our quality of life.

At the rate we are going, we are going to entirely replace the workforce with machines, produce extreme surplus, and everyone is still going to starve because we don't think it is fair that they should get any of those goods without doing their 40 hours a week.

Lord Rybec

What does that yacht represent?

If you asked your average CEO this question, in reference to a boat that he owns, he would probably tell you that it represents years of hard work. He would be right, but there is one thing he would not tell you (and probably does not even admit to himself).

That yacht represents years of hard work, but not his hard work. Yes, his work is represented in it, but only a very small portion of it actually represents his work. In reality, that yacht represents the hard work of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of minimum wage grunt workers (ok, maybe a bit above minimum wage, but not by much). Furthermore, the money that paid for it actually was probably earned in weeks or months, though the hours added together probably do add up to years.

If you do not see what I am getting, what I am saying is that the money that paid for that yacht was money fairly earned by bottom level employees, that was given to the CEO, instead of the employees that earned it. Now, I am not saying that every bit of profit generated should only go to the person directly responsible, but rather that each lower employee is being robbed a few dollars an hour, so that the CEO and upper management can have more money than they will ever need.

You might disagree with this (please shut up about it if you are in the upper management category, since you have a vested interest in opposing my position), so I am going to give you my reasoning.

Normal bottom tier employees in the US get paid $10 an hour or less. Now, assuming that this is the actual value of their labor, what do you think fair hourly wages would be for someone with a masters degree or PhD would be? Additional education does increase the value of one's work, so obviously, they should get paid more. In addition, they had to pay for this education (actually, in the US, most students are only paying for part of their education, while the government covers the rest), so the cost of time and money spent to gain the education have value. I submit that if the inherent value of education makes it worth paying for, then once you have graduated, the entire cost of your education has been compensated by the increase in value of your work. In other words, you can either claim added value for the education, or for the cost of the education, but not both.

Work experience also generally increases value of work (generally, but definitely not always). So, a person with an equivalent degree to a PhD, with twenty or thirty years of work experience obviously is capable of more valuable work than someone without, again, in most cases.

So, back to the question: How much more is this person's work worth? I think that 10 time is probably a bit low. It is probably fairly reasonable for someone with a masters degree or maybe 25+ years experience, but I would buy that it is a bit low for a PhD with decades of experience. How about 100 times? Is it really possible that one persons work can be worth 100 times that of another person? It probably is possible. In engineering, it is not uncommon for one engineer to be 100 times more productive than another. In business, though, does 100 times seem reasonable? Note that we are considering value of work and productivity, not the actual money generated from that work (businesses do this all the time, when they choose to pay their lowest employees, who make up a majority of the workers, orders of magnitude less than the relatively small number of upper management). I think it is safe to say that 1000 times seems a bit absurd. Even in the above mentioned engineering example, generally a small group of 5 or 6 engineers can get similar productivity as a single 100 times engineer (this may not make mathematical sense right off, note that I am not adding the individual work of 5 or 6 people, rather I am accounting for the fact that generally groups working together can accomplish far more than each person working individually, especially in engineering). So, if 5 or 6 people can do the same work as the one, it cannot be considered reasonable that someone should be paid 1000 times that of the lowest workers. (Another thing to take into account is that complex executive style decisions can usually be made better by large groups of entirely uneducated people than one highly educated person. So, if 100 grunts can make group decisions better than one executive, the value of the work of the executive cannot reasonably be considered more than 100 times the value of a single grunt, even if his decisions generate far more profit than that.)

So, by this reasoning we have established that it is very likely that the work of a CEO cannot be worth more than 100 times the work of a single grunt employee. Now let's assume the grunt employee is getting paid $10 an hour. This means that the highest reasonable hourly wage for a CEO is $1,000 an hour (and even then, this value seems absurdly high). We are going to select a grunt that works 40 hours a week, with no vacation or sick time to determine yearly wages. With 52 weeks in a year, that makes his yearly pay $20,800. Now, I'll give the CEO the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume that it is fair to say that he works around the clock, every hour of every year. At $1,000 an hour, 24 hours a day, and 365 day a year, he would make $8.76 million a year. Ok, so most CEOs actually make less than this. Some make more and some, a lot more. Now, since we know that CEOs need to eat and sleep like the rest of us, let's see what happens when we make this more reasonable by assuming they work 16 hours a day (it is probably much closer to 12 or 14, if even that). Let's also give them 4 weeks (28 days for the math) of vacation time (time not spent working is non-productive and thus cannot be considered into fair pay). That gives us $5.392 million. A lot of CEOs do make more than that, though not by a whole lot.

Ok, so the grunt makes $20,800 a year, without vacations, while the CEO makes $5.392 million a year with. Even after the above reasoning, this seems pretty absurd. The CEO is getting paid over 259 times more. Yes, he works more hours, but does is really seem fair to pay him that much more for less than twice as many hours and several years of education?

Now, other things to keep in mind are cost of living. Everyone has this. If we assume that the grunt is renting an small apartment for $500 a month (from my experience, this seems to be a fair guess at a national average for reasonably habitable 1 bedroom apartments), then we can subtract $6,000 a year. If he pays $100 a month for food (this guy never eats out, always buys in bulk and rarely or never buys prepared food), that is another $1,200 a year. We will just assume that he never has doctor bills, utility bills, walks everywhere (no gas or insurance costs), and does not need things like toilet paper or deodorant. This means that he is getting $13,660 a year in spending money. The CEO, is getting $5.385 million in spending money. Yes, I know, he has a bigger house, a car, a yacht, etc... to maintain. These things are luxuries. He has them, because of the spending money. All he really needs to get by is the same things the grunt needs.

Ok, so now for the point. If the grunt is getting $13,660 spending money and the CEO is getting $5.385 million spending money, the CEO is getting 394 times the spending money that the grunt is. Now, in real life, the grunt is probably paying well over $12,000 a month for cost of living, and is bringing home less than $8,800 a year. The CEO is bringing home more like 611 times the spending money of the grunt, but even 394 times the spending money seems pretty absurd.

So, where is this money coming from? Don't tell me it comes from the corporation. The corporation does not make money, they just do business to earn money from people who are willing to pay for their products. You might tell me that the money comes from the customers and you would even be half right. If you follow the actual cash flow, the money does seem to come from the customers. It also comes from the employees, at least, in any instance where the employees are not being paid fairly.

Again, my reason is as follows. Let's take a company that starts out charging fair prices and paying fair wages. This company is essentially neutral. It does not unfairly take money out of the economy or withhold money from parts of the economy that has fairly earned it. Now, let's say this company raises its prices. It does not raise wages equivalently. It is now ripping off both its employees and its customers. By raising prices, it requires that others pay more for goods. When others have to pay more for goods, they will have to raise their own prices (that, or they will suffer unfairly). Eventually, everyone will have to raise prices, to compensate. If this company does not increase the wages of their employees, they are now paying their employees less than they were originally. Now, you might think that the employees are still getting paid the same and if you are counting pay only in dollars, you would be right. The catch is that the inflation caused by the increase in prices reduced the value of the money itself, thus if the people are getting paid the same amount of money, they are being paid less value for the same amount of work. In other words, the money that the company is overcharging is also the money that they are underpaying. When a company pays one person more than the value of their work, the company is helping that person steal money from their customers and their employees.

Now, let's take this one step further. Most CEOs also get many extra work benefits. To get a fair representation of how much they are actually making, you have to quantify the value of these benefits. Yes, the grunt is also getting benefits (he is working 40 hours a week, after all). Now, assuming the grunt can afford all of the benefits (most can't), the value of his benefits are still hundreds of time less than those of the CEO, if not thousands (this is not unusual, and that is just counting stock options). So, the CEO is making 200-500 times what the grunt is. Some of this is fair, but even if his work is only worth half of that, he is still overpaid by $2.69 million a year. He is stealing $2.69 million a year from the employees and customers of the business. That amount of theft is considered grand larceny. In the US, it is illegal for a poor person to commit this crime, but for a CEO no one even blinks.

Ever wondered why our economy is doing poorly? It is because the bottom resource is not even valued enough to pay for its own upkeep. Some products are fair to negotiate the lowest price for, but since labor costs actual man hours, if it is treated like one of these products, the economy will continue to flounder until it fails.

So, what does that yacht represent? It represents the theft of millions of dollars from those who can afford it the least. It represents the work of thousands or millions of other people, from whom the value was taken forceably and without consent. It represents the largest flaw in our legal system. Any other form of theft would be punished with severe consequences. This form, though, is rewarded with more riches than one person can ever spend.

Lord Rybec

Creationism

I think I understand the real issue between science and intelligent design/creationism. All the scientists see are a bunch of people who are trying to deride science by saying that it could not have happened on its own. All the creationist see are a bunch of people trying to disprove their religion and devalue their gods.

After the recent thing with global warming and suppressing unpopular theories and research, I really do not know the motives of those who are arguing against creationism, except that unproven theories should not be taught in schools as fact. The creationists however may have a valid point in their argument. Their argument is based on the fact that we really do not know how things came into existence. All science is is math. We cannot directly observe the creation of the universe. Even looking at microwave background noise cannot prove that the data obtained actually represents what happened at the beginning of time. The only part of science that is truly science is the math. Most scientific theories could easily be exchanged for a different theory that results in the same math. Maybe atoms do not actually exist, but when you look at them through a microscope, the math that we use to say they do exist results in images that appear to be atoms (I am not saying I believe this, just that it could be true). So, the creationists see scientific theories as just as valid as intelligent design, because there is no evidence that is absolute that science is right.

The real difference between science and intelligent design/creationism is this: Creationism can easily explain how we got here, but cannot understand the mechanics behind it. Science still cannot explain how we got here, but it is possible to understand the mechanics behind it (difficult, but possible). Beyond that, there are few real differences. Generally creationists do not care about the mechanics and scientists do, but that is the people, not the theories. There is not any evidence that creationism cannot be proven, but no one wants to prove it.

If you are still skeptical of my argument, try this theory. First I have to offer a disclaimer. I do not believe this theory. It is not intended as a serious scientific theory, only as an example to show that any science beyond the mathematics of science is on equal standing with less scientific theories that cannot be disproved. Last but not least, I really hope no idiot tries to make a religion out of this. Here it is.

Scientifically, what is the probability that some intelligent race will evolve in any given universe? Well, assuming the theory of evolution is true, we know that there must be some probability, however small. By increasing the chances, we can increase the probability the something will happen at least once. So, what is the probability that intelligent life will evolve in at least one out of one billion universes? It should be one billion times higher than the chance in only one universe. As we increase the number of universes the probability increases. As the number of universes approaches infinity, the probability approaches 100%. If there are an infinite number of universes, and an infinite amount of time is given, then the number of times this event occurs is necessarily infinite also.

So, since science says that there are infinite universes and infinite time, we can establish that infinite intelligent races have evolved. Now, what is the probability that at least one of these races has survived long enough to develop technology sufficiently powerful to control matter and energy on a large scale? Well, if there is any probability of this happening, and there are infinite chances, then it must happen an infinite number of times. So now we have established that if it is possible, then there exist an infinite number of civilizations with technology powerful enough to control matter on a large scale. So now, is it possible to create technology that can be used to travel between universes? If it is, what is the probability that one of these civilizations has discovered this technology? Even if the technology cannot be created, what is the probability that there are natural rifts between universes, which could be safely traversed with the proper technology?

So now we have intelligent civilizations that can travel between universes, and control matter. If they can control matter, they can probably extend their life spans indefinitely. Now, what if they have found a way of storing and transferring consciousness? Also, we must assume that this civilization is good and ethical, otherwise they would have destroyed themselves with their powerful technology, while fighting for power.

So now, would it not be reasonable to assume that this race would be very careful about who is allowed to use their technology? Probably even with their own children. Maybe they would want to find a way to test their children, to make sure each one who is given access to this powerful technology will use it ethically and morally, because the consequences could be the destruction of their civilization. Of course, the best way to do this might be to allow them to grow up with no knowledge of the civilization, on some remote, but habitable world. They would watch their children and those who were unethical or immoral would not be given access to the technology and those who were would be. They would let them live their entire lives, watching them, and when they died, they would quickly upload their consciousness into whatever is used to store it, then they would judge each of their children and give them access only to that technology which they would not abuse.

If you want to go one step further, what if they told their children that they were God, and that they would be given a great reward if they were obedient (access to the technology). Then they would judge them based on what they did with that knowledge. They would not show themselves to most of their children, because that would taint the test. Some of those who would use the technology for evil might pretend to be good, then abuse their power once they were given it.

Anyhow, you should get the idea by now. Basically, I can use science to show that it is very probable that there is some supreme being/beings watching us and judging us. As a matter of fact, the probability of this depends entirely upon the probability of life evolving on its own. If that probability is low, then it is more likely that we are the offspring of some civilization that is testing us. If the probability of life evolving on its own is high, then it is more probable that we got here without outside interference.

Science can tell us what it sees, but it cannot tell us definitively what the data means. Science may be able to call data evidence for something, but it cannot call it proof. Even seeing something with your own eyes, or hearing it with your ears does not make it real. Not only can we hallucinate, but we also know that light and sound can be manipulated. Anything we see, hear, feel, smell, or taste could be invented by our own minds, or could be the result of the tinkering of others. The validity of science goes only as far as we can trust our own senses. The validity of religion ignores the senses and focuses on what we believe. It should be understood that neither senses nor belief is infallible. Thus, when creationists say that they think intelligent design should be taught along side scientific theory, they have a point. That does not mean I agree with them, but they do have a point.

My solution is much better. I think religion should be taught in schools. I do not think it should be taught like math or science, but it should be taught. Religion should be taught in classes specifically for religion. It should not focus on any single religion, but should teach about all major religions and some more important minor ones. One point that should be taught is what each religion believes in relation to where the world and humans came from. It should be impressed that this is not fact that is based on math or science, but things that people choose to believe. The students and teacher should never be allowed to debate over religion in this class, it should be limited entirely to teaching and learning, not discussing religion or accuracy of religious beliefs. Not only will this help students have a better understanding of why some people act differently, it will also help them get along with others who have different beliefs. Lastly, parents should be involved in the decision for a student to take the class. This will allow those who are afraid of their children learning intelligent design or other religious things to opt out of the class.

This solution should satisfy both parties, although I am sure they will both find some reason to argue about it.

Loyalty

Loyalty is one of the most misplaced things in our society. It seems to me that it has been for some time. I am not saying that loyalty is bad. What I am saying is that loyalty should not be given to organizations. Loyalty should only be given to individuals.

Being loyal to friends, family, and even to your deity can be a good, useful thing. Loyalty involves bonds which help us to defend our social group and our way of life. Loyalty to good individuals and to good values encourages us to be good people. Without loyalties we would just be a bunch of animals fighting to be on top (actually, even most animals have some amount of loyalty). Loyalty to friends and family should be a given. Loyalty to those who live around you, even though you may not know them well enough to call them friends, can help to keep a community stable and alive. In general, loyalty is the core of civilization.

Unfortunately, misplaced loyalty is the enemy of civilization. Even loyalty to an unseen deity is good, if the values associated with that deity encourage you to get along with those around you. Loyalty to organizations is a bad thing. Organizations do not have solid values and can easily be changed. To give your loyalty to an organization is to give your loyalty to whomever leads the organization, regardless of that person's ethics. Giving your loyalty to a good and wise king may be a good thing, but giving your loyalty to the government lead by that king is a poor choice, since the king may die or be driven out and your loyalty may end up in the hands of an evil usurper. Giving loyalty to a corporation which employs you may seem like a good thing, but where will your loyalty get you if someone in that corporation tells you to do something unethical?

In short, you should not give your loyalty to something which cannot return that loyalty. Corporations are required by law to do what is in the best interest of their shareholders. This means that they are only likely to be loyal to their employees if they think it is in the best interest of their shareholders. Organizations cannot be loyal to individuals. They may be able to do things which appear to show loyalty, but in reality, an organization must do what is required to preserve itself. (This is evident in the recent economical problems that have caused many businesses to default on their pension plans.)

Consider the situation if you have two friends which you are loyal to. Let's say they get in a fight and both expect you to show your loyalty by siding with them. You can choose either to be loyal to one but not the other, or you can stay out of it and be loyal to neither. Organizations have many 'friends' which may expect loyalty. Consider if the 500 people that the organization is 'friend' to get in a fight. Even if the fight is 50% on each side, the organization can be loyal to only 250 of them. If the odds are not even, the organization must be loyal to the larger part, otherwise it looses a majority of its support. This is true, even if the majority is in the wrong. This sort of thing happens frequently, when a customer of a business gets his way, even though he is wrong, because the organization cannot afford to loose the business of every customer that argues with them, even if they are wrong. If the business cannot even be loyal to itself, why would you think it could be loyal to a single employee?

Organizations are not stable. Individuals are not stable either, but they are far more stable than organizations. You can generally expect your friends' personalities to change only slowly, while even a small change in local leadership can dramatically effect how an organization operates and acts.

You may think that this only applies to organizations that are business oriented. You are wrong. Loyalty to a business is not the worst misplacement of loyalty. Loyalty to government is the most misplaced loyalty. Businesses have only limited power within their area of business. Governments have nearly unlimited power within their jurisdiction. This power is only limited by the willingness of the people to support that government. Giving unconditional loyalty to your government is a license for that government to do whatever they want, regardless of the will or needs of the people. Tyrannical governments persist because of the loyalty of their subjects and their military. Without this misplaced loyalty, no unjust government can exist.

So where should you put your loyalty? Your loyalty should be to the people of your country, if they are worthy of it (if they are not, you should get out, fast). This way, you are loyal to your government only inasmuch as it does what is in the best interest of the people. (I would like to note that "what is in the best interest of the people" does not mean what the government thinks is in their best interest. Since no person on Earth has any business deciding what is in the best interest of the rest of the people, the best way of determining this is by doing what a majority of people think is in their best interest. At least this way, if they are wrong, they are responsible for their own suffering.) Also, this way, if the government is not doing what is in the best interest of the people, you do not bear the responsibility for supporting the wrong actions.

Also, avoid giving your loyalty to individuals whom you do not know personally. Giving your loyalty to the people of your nation is one thing, but giving your loyalty to a leader whom you have never met is a poor choice. Remember that this leader may have some amount of control over the media of the country and that your knowledge of the leader's reputation is based entirely on information from sources whom you do not know the ethics of. This does not mean that every leader is probably a bad person who has been misrepresented by the media, but each leader could be a bad person who has been misrepresented by the media and you are better off keeping your loyalty than giving it to a person whom you know little of.

Give your loyalty to your god first (if you have one, and if he/she encourages good, civilized behavior), your family second, and your friends third. Fourth, you should give your loyalty to your people, not your country or its leader, unless the leader is a friend, whom you know to be worthy of your loyalty. Do not give your loyalty to some business or corporation which could change on a whim, except inasmuch as it helps you remain loyal to your god, family, friends, and people. This will help you to distinguish between things which are ethical and those which are unethical, but which may seem ambiguous at first glance.

Another note: I forgot to mention loyalty to self. If you are not loyal to yourself, you cannot be loyal to anyone else. This does not mean that you should not place others above yourself, but you should not place people or things to which you are not loyal above those to which you are loyal, including yourself. For instance, allowing a business to exploit you is not being loyal to yourself.

Also note that sometimes you must rescind your loyalty to someone, to maintain your loyalty for others. A good example is the commonly seen situation where a family member or a friend tries to protect someone who has committed a crime and is a danger to others. Generally, if an individual does something which requires you to be loyal to them, or loyal to everyone else, it is better to be loyal to the larger group. Being loyal to a criminal may endanger everyone else you think you are loyal to. Also, being loyal to a criminal will endanger you, so giving up your loyalty to everyone else, to keep your loyalty to a criminal, is also giving up your loyalty to yourself. The best measure in these situations is whether or not you can maintain loyalty to yourself. Being loyal to the group, when you know it is wrong is not being loyal to yourself. Being loyal to the individual, when that person represents a danger to you and others is also not being loyal to yourself.

Loyalty should never be given lightly, without much thought. Loyalty to the right people is what keeps civilization strong, loyalty to the wrong people destroys civilization, and loyalty to things which have arbitrary or changing ethics will destroy you.

When placing loyalties, you should first think about those whom you are already loyal to, and second you should think about how it will affect your loyalty to yourself. Sometimes being loyal will place your life in danger. Just remember that many people have given their lives to keep civilization strong. If you must give your life to be loyal to those who deserve your loyalty, at least you can know that your loyalty is well placed and you are not dying for some worthless cause. Sometimes you must do things which result in harm to you, to be loyal to yourself, your family, your friends, and your people.