Letters to the Editor
Rob Seaman
Published Letters: 44 Editor's Choice: 4
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Drizzle, Drazzle, Drozzle, Drome
[Read the article: The big secret about secret societies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Be what you is and not what you is not...
A good review that will save many from reading the book. The truth revealed:
"If a cabal of evil masterminds really wanted to keep their fiendish plans quiet, they'd cook them up in a Christian Science Reading Room and hand out fliers on street corners."
...which describes the cabal of science precisely. How else could 500 or 5000 adherents meet inconspicuously - but in plain sight? Rent a convention center - put up a web site - schedule talks on incomprehensible topics. Muffins in the morning, stale turkey at lunch, Chimay and Three Philosophers late into the night - and plan world domination throughout.
The real cabal does consist of graduates of Yale. But not the rich New Haven legacy brats of the Brotherhood of Death - rather techno geeks with 1600 SATs. In point of fact, the first veil through which one passes on the way to revealing the hidden mysteries of the inner sanctum is precisely in gaming the benighted third degree ogres of the College Board.
The advantage of science as a basis for a secret society is that the mumbo jumbo actually works. One need only review the historical documents of former supreme Mysticete Don Herbert or his disciple Bill Nye.
The real mysteries are the questions one doesn't even know to ask.
...Time for this one to come home!
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Humans are part of nature...
[Read the article: Dawning of the age of the Anthropocene]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...for better or worse.
The idea that our various technologies have removed us from the "natural" flow of evolution is a hoot. Rather, our technologies represent the grandpappy of all extended phenotypes in Dawkins' terminology. Our food and shelter and clothing and technology bind us vastly more closely to evolutionary pressures than our peripatetic ancestors chasing down megafauna with atlatls.
Prior geologic boundaries are marked by biologically significant events. There is nothing remarkable about the habits of today's dominant lifeform similarly marking its temporal territory.
We're in for one heckuva punctuation point in evolution - whether or not it is followed by another tame equilibrium. (Actually "tame" is a far more aggressive term than anything emerging from the sans-human circle of life.)
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We vote AGAINST candidates, not for them
[Read the article: Your presidential candidate: Hot or not?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The eventual adoption of some simple variation of IRV is inevitable for three reasons: 1) it can be explained to the electorate, 2) it is the least (literally) that can be done, and 3) the political parties will accept the change (unlike getting rid of the electoral college, for instance).
My variation would look something like: vote YES for at most one, vote MAYBE for at most one, and vote NO for the rest. A majority of YESes wins outright, otherwise factor in the MAYBEs (in some fashion TBD). If there is no majority, delete the underperforming candidates and vote all over again. That is - NO wins by default.
Note that this could be used to eliminate the primary election season entirely.
The problem with range voting can be seen with reality TV shows. A popularity contest judged by millions of people with too much time on their hands results in polarizing candidates being preserved until the final showdown, while good consensus candidates depart week after week.
Rather the field should be pruned early by voting out those who are unacceptable. I haven't voted FOR a Presidential candidate since learning better with John Anderson. Every election is an obligation to vote (strategically or not) against some horrific monster. A good election is when I don't have to hold my nose to mark the ballot for the other candidate.
It never rises to the level of voting FOR one candidate over the other, always AGAINST. Factor this into the voting mathematics.
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multivariate world
[Read the article: John McCain is running for sissy in chief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another good review - meaning I another book I won't have to read.
We are complex creatures, more so our society. Any single coordinate used to rank humans, e.g., the sissy-schwarzenegger scale or a believer-nonbeliever axis of whatever sort, will fail to capture important aspects of - not just solving our problems, but of defining what those problems are in the first place.
If there is an essence of the argument the author is trying to make, it is that non-sissies are willing and eager to take action first and consider the consequences second. The failure of the argument is that "considering the consequences" is itself an action.
We know the value of a person from the results of their actions. Those results must be interpreted with care and in the right context.
The question isn't how annoying it is that people believe in global warming for the wrong reasons. The question is whether global warming is fact. This appears to be the case, but more to the point, if an extremely conservative (meaning liberal) agenda is followed and we aggressively attempt to mitigate global warming, well then, what is the harm should global warming be a fiction? On the other hand, a drowned Manhattan will be the result if we do nothing and global warming turns out to be fact.
What then is the proper public policy in the face of uncertainty?
Y2K was a non-issue precisely because we invested in mitigating it in advance. Very bad things would have happened otherwise.