The "Should" Fallacy

I do hereby reject the use of the unconditional "should," for it is meaningless. The word is inherently tied to a condition or goal. If someone tells me, "you should move to California," he/she might really be saying is, "if your priorities agree with mine - warm, not-to-humid weather, sandy beaches, and an altogether mellow life over a bastion of culture and services and a lot of people - then you should move to California." I haven't quite decided whether the condition is fulfilled in my case, but if it isn't, then I should not move to California unless other considerations prevail - considerations which only I can evaluate.

Likewise, when you hear that "you should really get started on that paper," the speaker is hiding from you certain assumptions about your philosophies, moralities, and/or priorities. Perhaps you don't give half a shit about the class; perhaps you have other, more pressing assignments or issues with which to deal; perhaps you work best under pressure; or perhaps you're hung over and can only fuck it up at this point. In any of these cases, it's entirely possible that you shouldn't get started on that paper just yet, and whoever is lecturing you is dead wrong.

There are those that would even say that making such unconditional statements about oneself undermines one's own philosophies and such - that doing so removes the element of decision from whatever it is one "should" do. I'm weakly inclined to agree, but this exits the realm of mere language and enters that of psychology, and I'm no expert there.

Of course, I must allow for exceptions: "putting out that fire would reduce the severity of the burns that you no doubt already have on your arm" is a tad long-winded for the situation in which one would expect to hear it. Plus, it's usually safe to assume that the listener considers uncharred arms among his/her priorities.

Hell, even the conditional "should" is a very weak word, for it is next to impossible to include every condition in one sentence. So please, just avoid using it altogether.


In the interest of consolidating posts... the Giants are now 2-0! New York overcame a hurricane-inspired but turnover-troubled New Orleans team, 27-10, and now share first place in the division with only the Washington Redskins (Philadelphia and Dallas share third at 1-1). Schwing!

Energy (disambiguation page)

I think that theoretical physicists have crossed some kind of line in their use of the word "energy". Defined in language as "the ability to do work," energy takes on a more technical meaning in the context of physics. It is a mathematical construct that summarizes certain properties of an object. Kinetic energy is for the most part observable. Potential energy, to me, is a sort of fudge which completes the "conservation of energy" puzzle. Energy in all its forms provides a very useful way of analyzing and predicting physical phenomena without regarding extraneous details. It's great! Yet it is a mathematical construct. When physicists claim that the Universe, which appears to be made out of shit (remember, "their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff," and most of the shit in this universe ain't mine), is actually made of energy, they're really saying that the Universe is constructed from mathematical constructs, which in turn are constructed by mathematicians - and this seems to be the basis for some new religion worshipping mathematicians as Creators of the Universe. This of course is bullshit, and I call upon physicists to invent and popularize a new term for this "energy" of which they believe our world is woven.

But I mean to write not about physics, but about energy in the more human sense - roughly, a person's ability to do work, but with all the ideas connoted by the word. To get right to the point, I lack energy. I lack the energy of good rest; the energy of motivation and ambition; the energy of a curious mind; and the energy of social vigor, among others. The difficulty is that these energies are interdependent. For instance, I lack good rest because I never fatigue myself in the pursuit of ambitious goals. I lack social vigor because I'm not motivated to seek excitement. Energy begets energy, I suppose, but if I can't find something else that begets energy then I'm fucked. Coffee doesn't count.

Which brings me to liberals. It's hard to argue against the historical trends toward what we now call liberalism. Why? Young persons tend to be liberals, and young persons tend to have energy. Energy is everything in public policy*. After all, this country exists because a few revolutionaries had a fuckload of energy, and the loyalists here (who outnumbered them) couldn't match it. As long as liberals have more energy than conservatives, liberals will prevail. And just forget us libertarians; nobody has an energetic passion for freedom anymore.

Just to make my position clear, that's bad.

*Hyperbole. I'm sure to contradict it in the future. Please don't hold that against me.

Giants 1-0

That's right, the New York Giants have opened the 2005 season with a 42-19 win over the Arizona Cardinals. This is beautiful. It's so nice to be excited about a team again, after the collapse of the you-know-whos. (Note that this post is about the Giants, not the Mets)

Mets Keep Losing

The New York Mets are now 1-8 in September. It seems that they, like me, are incapable of performing under stress. Unlike me, they are professional athletes, and it seems to me that such a tendency to buckle should preclude their ascension to the Major Leagues.

Seriously though, they (as an organization) have some shitty luck. About eighty percent of the players on their 25-man roster (I have nothing to say about the September call-ups), including Carlos "Money Sink" Beltran, performed below expectations this season. And I don't mean marginally below expectations - you'd expect around half to perform at least a little worse than predicted - no, I mean serious letdowns that even a few carefully-measured kilos of Cialis can't fix*.

And the one player that has managed to notably exceed expections is a second-year player who gets paid next to nothing by MLB standards (of course, I refer to David Wright). Mr. Wright must cringe every time he hears an announcer say of him, "this guy's gonna be playin' third at Shea for the next decade!" I only hope that his spirits aren't crushed by the time he reaches free agency; only then can he pursue a decent career.

Okay, I promise: my next post will not have as its primary topic the New York Mets. I cannot, however, guarantee that there will be no mention of them.

*No, I don't have any idea how many times that line has been used, and I am completely unaware of the copyright The Tonight Show no doubt holds for it.

So Much for a Pennant Race

After losing 5 of their last 6, the Mets have dropped to 5 games behind the wild-card leading Astros, and they don't appear to have any life in them. And their bullpen is awful; the closer, Looper, had two chances last night, in the 9th and 10th innings, to pitch one scoreless inning and thereby secure a victory for New York. And twice he fucked up. So, two blown saves (one for Looper, one for Takatsu, who came in after Looper loaded the bases with no outs and actually managed to get the first two outs without allowing a run to score) in one game for the Amazin' Fuckups.

Gotta give it to them, though.... previous Mets teams lost hope in June, July, or early August. This one stuck around for awhile. But that only makes the fall further, the bones blown into more and smaller smithereens.

Also, the Braves are headed toward their 14th consecutive division title. Has anybody investigated this situation? Is it at all possible that they aren't somehow cheating? If 86 years without a championship is a curse bestowed by a fat baseballer, then 14 years of division titles must be the hand of Lucifer himself. Fortunately, our Lord is doing His part as well, and this doubtlessly will be the Braves' 13th year in 14 with a playoff berth and nothing but gate receipts to show for it. Of course, I'd like to have those gate receipts...

Zombie Grasshoppers

Imagine this: a worm infects a grasshopper and eats everything inside the grasshopper not required for short-term survival. It then compels the grasshopper to find some body of water and drown itself. The worm is returned to its aquatic home, nourished, and the zombie grasshopper dies! Holy shit!

It's true. This actually happens. Check out this NY Times article (registration may be required).

If you ask me, this parasitic worm makes a far better story than the stupid viruses in zombie films. Let this be a lesson to film producers worldwide.

Big Brother

To all the paranoid of the United States:

Most of the people actually keeping tabs on you are young people getting paid a few cents look you up in online phone books and records and add your address and phone number to a database or spreadsheet such that those employing their services, along with others who pay them for the privilege, may engage in correspondence with you.

In other words, "Big Brother" is not the government* - it's the spam infrastructure.

* yet.

Stock Market Blues

You might think that I, as a die-hard capitalist, would praise corporations. You might be wrong.

Capitalism is founded on the principle (among others) that the purpose of business activity is to maximize profit. Corporations, lacking the capacity to experience non-monetary utility (as people do), ought to be the absolute expression of this principle. Unfortunately, corporate structure has twisted the goals of the corpration: instead, executives are charged with the task of increasing shareholder value.

Often, the two ends are strongly linked together. But this is not always the case. Consider the chemical company BASF. BASF advertised itself on television a while back: "We don't make a lot of the products you buy; we make a lot of the products you buy better.™" Which products? Can I, a hypothetical viewer who was profoundly influenced by this advertisement, seek out and purchase some of these products which BASF has upgraded? No! Did BASF gain any customers by advertising to the public? Doubtful! Nay, what BASF must have in fact been advertising is its stock!

Call me inexperienced in the world of business (which I am), but this seems like a massive perversion of capitialist philosophy. And I don't doubt that it causes massive inefficiencies. Like hundred-million dollar executives ("Wow! that company pays a ton of money to its CEO. He must be good, so I'm gonna buy stock!").

True: I don't know all the details, and I'd really appreciate some education in the matter. My thesis is this: the corporation as it exists today is an entity at odds with capitalism. As much good as corporations have done for this country (which I don't even begin to question), they could do better, if they/we could find ways to prioritize profit over value.

Any suggestions?

Liberal Battle Cries

"Peace! Land! Bread!"

New Deal, New Frontier, Great Society. Affirmative Action, Social Security, Welfare.

Lock-box.

Want to create a liberal war-cry of your own? It's easy! Just think of an issue about which you care, remove any complicating details (including all those that seem to weaken your stance on the issue), and reduce to a phrase or command of three words or fewer. Exclaim. Repeat. Now it's no longer an issue, it's a cause.

Take, for instance, "Help the poor." What was once a complicated issue involving rights, ethics, morals, economics, and law is now a single-minded quest which any good citizen can understand and support. Sounds almost - oh, I don't know... religious, doesn't it? Just a thought.

My dear readers, take pity on us libertarians, for we have not such purely noble calls to arms. "Shrink the government!" we cry. "Leave me alone!" we plead. "Let those who wish to help the poor do so by methods of their own choosing!" Are you rushing to enlist yet?

Nay, we must win our allies through intelligent discourse. And just as we cannot win arguments with people shouting "You're lying!" or "You're stupid!" or "Fuck you!" at everything we say, we cannot hold intelligent discourse with liberals' Commandment-quality aphorisms.

Juicy Virginia Ham

Isn't advertising great?

Yes, I hold that it is great, no matter what y'all may think. These days, it pays for absolutely everything anybody sees, reads, hears, says, writes, or reckons. Advertising rocks the house.

I have but one thing to say to the benevolent gods of ad-heaven that reflects anything but thanks and praise: don't make comments on my blog.

In Honor of the Chief Justice

In yesterday's rant, I failed to say anything about the deceased Rehnquist - his death was incidental to the topic of my post. To be honest, I don't very much want to talk about him, but in his honor I shall post a line from his master's thesis at Stanford:

The highest end which the state can serve is to serve no end at all, but merely exist as a means for the individuals within it to realize their own ends.

'Nuff said.

A 24-Hour Human Interest Story

This is the first post here, and it was inspired by (and copied from) an email I wrote today. "Holy shit," I thought as I finished off the message to a college buddy, "this would make an excellent blog entry. If I had a blog."

Now I have a blog, and I shall use it to rant.

As you probably know, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died last night. When I woke up today, I felt like seeing what some political insiders had to say about it and about who might replace him and when... so I turned to CNN and the rest (FOX News, MSNBC, etc.: the jewels of the Cable TV Empire). As bad as these networks may be at providing news per se, they're usually very good about getting a bunch of people to talk about whatever news they do report, and many of these people are either intelligent or important (sometimes both!).

I found nothing. Every news network was showing footage of hurricane wreckage with some anchor commenting on it without actually providing information. The one short bit on Rehnquist that I did see was an anchor interviewing someone who didn't seem to know any more than anyone else, and the two of them were splitting time in a small box on the left side of the screen while uninformative hurricane wreckage occupied a larger box on the right. What a fucking outrage - not to mention an insult to the late Rehnquist.

It's the OJ trial all over again! Although this time the story is important, it's in a way worse: the hurricane story is rather deep, with political, economic, and cultural implications worldwide, but the networks, despite round-the-clock hurricane coverage, don't even scratch the surface. It's all about the rescue and relief efforts - I do care about these, but ten to fifteen minutes of evening coverage could get me all the important information concerning their progress. Essentially, it's a 24-hour human interest story on three channels
every day. And people are eating it up!

That said, the whole thing is quite the tragedy, and I don't mean to belittle it. But I don't need to tell you that; just tune in to CNN.

Briefly.