Dear America

When the time comes, please elect this man.

Thanks!

Speak free

First things first: if I were to say I hated Japan (I don’t — it’s just an example), this would not be racism. No, it’s not particularly constructive or even coherent in that form (am I talking about the government, the culture, or something about the islands themselves?) but it’s certainly not racist, either.

If I said in earnest that I hated Japanese people, on the other hand, this would be pretty severe racial vilification. Anyone reading or hearing such remarks could conclude fairly quickly that I was a reprehensible moron and act accordingly. Therefore, however hurtful such racist remarks can be, I don’t believe that racists should be prevented at law from showing their true colours; I’d rather have those attitudes out in the open than festering unseen.

What if I were to say I despised the Indian caste system — would there be anything wrong with that? There’s nothing racist or discriminatory about it, so where does that leave us? Well, it’s ‘culturally insensitive’, for one. But the suggestion that I should refrain from making such criticism in the name of cultural sensitivity is insane; surely no idea should be held above criticism, especially by virtue of its origin!

I have a right to make these statements. So do you.

The equally ridiculous counterpart of this “foreign equals sacred” attitude is the “local equals sacred” cry of so-called patriots. How many times have you heard the term un-American abused? In recent years, it seems to have become increasingly popular to berate United States citizens who criticise their government or country in any way. Funny, that; I could have sworn that the US was founded on dissent.

Moving right on to religion. Secular states make up a large part of the developed world. A disappointing number of these states’ citizens and even leaders seem confused about this, but thankfully many of us do still have some measure of religious freedom. In spite of this freedom, however, religious criticism is far too widely considered taboo.

I’m sure it’s no easy job limiting the mayhem with so many religions coexisting — not when the majority are quite clear on this point, offering all sorts of lovely graphic suggestions on destroying one’s religious enemies. But let’s not cover it up; let’s hear it if Betty thinks her invisible friend can kick Bob’s invisible friend’s arse, so to speak. Yes, that was deliberately inflammatory; I’m trying to make the point that in a secular society, I’m not expected to hold something as sacred just because you do.

From the largest religious organisation (the Roman Catholic Church) to smaller cults (such as Scientology); from fledgling western cultures to the oldest ways, past down through hundreds of generations; scientific theories; economic models; philosophies; governments; whatever — let no idea be held above criticism. The best way to protect your freedom of speech is to exercise it liberally.

If you agree with all I’ve just said, then that’s great! If you think some or all of it’s rubbish, then that’s fine, too; tell me. I might not respect what you say, but I sure respect your right to say it.

MIT OpenCourseWare rocks my world

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is doing great things with its OpenCourseWare initiative, the existence of which reflects an attitude I can really respect. Take a look at the Wikipedia article for some interesting background and commentary.

Meanwhile, my place of study seems to be heading in roughly the opposite direction (DEAD LINK), and are pulling a lot of material that used to be publicly available.

UPDATE: The original page has now been removed from their public website, and moved to a private internal site. I can certainly understand the move; if I were them, I wouldn’t want the kind of organisational attitude revealed therein known publicly! Monash students and staff can view the new page here.

A heads-up on any other open educational resources like OpenCourseWare would be greatly appreciated!

This post has been an exercise in getting to the damn point. :)

Oh, for the love of reason!

I realise this makes three rather exasperated posts in a row, so I’ll try to keep this short, and I promise to follow up with something a little more on the positive side.

I was reminded the other day of a pet frustration of mine whilst reading this CBS News article. To be honest, I thought the whole thing a bit trite, and by no means would I trust the figures quoted, but one question in particular caught my eye: that of whether it is “still possible to start poor, work hard, and get rich”.

Tiny little alarm bells started ringing in my head before I had even read the answer, not because of the topic of the question itself, but from the way in which it was asked. Of course it’s still possible, I thought. Perhaps a better question could have been based on how likely respondents thought it is for this to happen now, relative to some previous period. What a waste of a question, I thought.

Maybe not so.

Apparently 18% of respondents offered a negative response to this question. Now my question is this: did all these people truly believe in the answer they gave, or were they simply displaying a form of stupidity that is all too often the norm? And remember, given a less polarising question, the portion of respondents in this category would likely be far greater.

I know a lot of people who would criticize that statement, saying I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s just common usage, they’d say. Don’t be so pedantic.

But is it really that trivial? Sure, it doesn’t help to waste time getting too hung up on minor technicalities in everyday conversation, but this isn’t exactly complex, it’s far from rare, and it’s more important than most of us care to admit. To accept and employ such broken reasoning — in this instance gross oversimplification — is to voluntarily corrupt one’s ability to reason.

Once you embrace this sort of corruption, you’re going to make poorer decisions. You’re going to be easier to deceive, and easier to manipulate, because you’ve discarded your defenses against these attacks. In turn, you’ll be more open to further corruptions of your mind, completing the vicious cycle.

And it will start with the small, ‘unimportant’ things like this.

With the United States’ Independence Day looming, I’ll finish up with a plea to all Americans: don’t think like the respondents of that survey. Take some responsibility for your thinking, keep yourself informed of the world around you and the actions of your government, and once you’ve done all that, go and exercise your right to vote. If you don’t, then come the 4^th of July next year, there might be nothing left to celebrate.

The war on what, now?

There are a few subjects that will inevitably recur on this blog, as they underlie many of my interests and passions. One of these subjects is that of freedom, so from time to time I’ll comment on ideas, people and organisations that promote freedom, and those ideas, people and organisations that strive to oppress.

My first victim is one of the latter: the so-called “War on Terror” waged by the United States of America (by which I mean the government thereof). I won’t go into too many details; most of what I could say here has been said before. Rather, I’d just like to reiterate a few key points.

My first recommendation is to read the Wikipedia article I linked to above; it offers a good primer for further contemplation.

Secondly I’d like to present a couple of choice quotes from this rant on the topic, which largely echo my sentiments:

Terrorism is a tactic. It makes no sense to launch a war against a tactic.

No, it certainly doesn’t, especially when many of your own military tactics, such as those employed in the initial shock and awe assaults bear such frightening similarities to the tactics of terrorism, which you so claim to despise. Hypocrisy aside, however, the quote says it all: you can’t wage a war against a tactic. You can’t defeat a tactic, because a tactic is an idea.

The only way for a tactic to be ‘defeated’ in any sense is for its proponents to reject it as a valid course of action, and I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Combine a people sufficiently passionate about a cause to fight and die for it with a population insufficient to match their enemy man-for-man, and terrorism will continue to present a very appealing opportunity.

The other problem with declaring “war” against a tactic, of course, is that there's no reasonable point at which the subjects of the war-making government can expect that “war” to end.

This presents the biggest problem of all: when a nation is at war, its citizens are generally more willing to sacrifice their freedoms in the short-term in the hope that supporting their government will help end the war quickly. In short, they become much easier to manipulate.

This is always a worry, but it is especially so in a war that has no attainable goal, and therefore no visible end. The United States is oppressing its own people in the name of a war that they can sustain for as long as it serves their purposes.

I find it terrifying that they’ve managed to get away with all this so easily, and for so long, but when you look a figures like these, it at least becomes a little easier to understand how they pulled it off.