Events, News, Politics

US Healthcare, Taxes, and the 99%.

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As you can see from the title of this essay, I will be writing here on a matter of some importance, regarding the current climate of US politics which will connect to the recent events concerning Paul Ryan’s nomination by the Republican Party to run for Vice-President of the United States. And also, a rebuttal to some common arguments often made in his defense, as I understand them, because of course, many such people exist. I invite those members of the League of Reason forum who are from (living in) the United States in particular, to give me some feedback on this topic.

See here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/tax-cuts-for-the-rich-on-the-backs-of-the-middle-class-or-paul-ryan-has-balls-20110407

Indeed, it’s relatively well understood that Republican candidates of various sorts have somewhat of a history of backing ethically and/or logically indefensible positions, and it seems from a cursory scan of his views and proposed policies (I am unsure if I comprehensive catalogue of his and Romney’s views is available) that a vote for Ryan&Romney will result in a rather alarming series of (likely stupid) policy-decisions, namely: anti-social-welfare, so-called “cut-throat”-capitalism, plutocracy, and (perhaps) legislated religious instruction of some manner, though let’s hope not…

Perhaps his economic stance is not all that surprising, when he is apparently an apologist of Ayn Rand‘s political philosophies:

“‘Public welfare’ is the welfare of those who do not earn it; those who do, are entitled to no welfare.” Ayn Rand (in Atlas Shrugged, 1957)

Economics aside, on the social front, he has also stated that “[He] believes ending a pregnancy should be illegal even when it results from rape or incest, or endangers a woman’s health. He was a cosponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a federal bill defining fertilized eggs as human beings, which, if passed, would criminalize some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization.”
And this is just the one the one issue that immediately springs to my mind. Not to mention his views on drugs, gay-rights, and climate change, among other things, and I doubt that he accepts the theory of evolution, somehow, and it seems likely that all of these views are going to affect his policies in some way or another.

And while I realise that Obama has shown himself to be rather inept when it comes to economic issues in general, I haven’t seen any solid evidence that either Ryan or Romney are a significant improvement, and his “published plan” is risible indeed. I don’t believe (as he clearly does, and as a great many of his supporters do); that Obama’s actions are slowing economic prosperity. Because for a start, the most atrocious drop in credit over the last 70-80 years or so will take (likely) years yet for everyone in the United States to creep out of, and that would include almost everyone who makes some impact, e.g. home-owners, consumers (obviously), big and small business entities alike, and of course banks, etc. And with the developments in e.g. housing, I can almost guarantee that consumer-demand will improve. Owing to increased equity that buyers and sellers will use for improvements and suchlike. At this stage it’s hard to tell what will happen exactly.

Obama’s … populist ideologues (or seemingly so); have caused quite a lot of controversy in recent months, and are likely to last until November, but of course, when someone complains about this, it’s worth reminding them that in a first-world democracy such as the United States, the governing body of the state is (at least in principle); supposed to respond fairly to the needs of the population, if that makes adequate sense. And this is where the 99 per-cent come in, though bear in mind that I am referring to the “really existing” 99 per-cent, not the politically fanatical so-called “99 per-cent”.

First, I would like to start a serious discussion of taxes; which may then be continued in the Blog of Reason comments-section; for those of you who have chosen to read this far in, and are interested. And of course this is because the issue of taxation has become a somewhat urgent issue of late, especially in the campaigns. I have some distant family living in the eastern United States, who I have been in communication with via the internet for a significant number of weeks, regarding this topic, as I was curious at the time, and they gave me some much needed information. Suppose, for example, you earn between $6,000 and $7,000 per year, on a net of (for the purposes of argument, again); $25,000  amounting to approximately 26% federal tax rate. As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong on this): Mitt Romney’s effective tax-rate was 15%.

Though I should add: workers who are self-employed of which there are a great many get to take that 15 per-cent anyway, meaning a horrid obstruction to any potential job-makers who isn’t already in the “Tea Party” mindset, as many of the US Republicans are. The evidence all seems to point to the fact that the smaller and less recognised business-entities take on markedly more workers than any other business-category (or group) does; yet the majority of the tax-burden tends to be bestowed upon individual operators with little to no available capital to contribute.

To say nothing of this being grotesquely unfair (not to mention profoundly stupid, and anti-competitive) it seems flagrantly obvious that the Democrats (flawed as their own policies may be at present in many regards); do have a valid point when they speak of these disparities, and the fact that huge businesses have succeeded in almost completely externalising the costs of maintaining the infrastructure on which their financial survival depends, to the poor and the workers. Specifically, people who don’t have obscenely expensive legal and accountancy departments to help them horde their earnings (capital) after having already effectively circumnavigated income-taxes on capital-gains as almost all distinguished Republicans tend to do. And still I wonder if Romney & Ryan’s visions of so-called “business-amicable” tax codes work as a means of increasing the rate of productive investment? Merely type “Reaganomics” into any search-engine, so that you can see what I mean.

An equitable and evenly distributed tax-burden (“pay your fair share” encapsulates this theory, I feel), would not be inherently anti-business. It would be sound, fair, and logical. I must stress that the issue is not about being anti-corporation, or anti[/i[-big-businesses. It’s about being pro-fairness. What’s more, is that criticising Obama for not having a jobs-plan as many have done, and as Paul Ryan’s superior (Romney) has done is nonsense too! After all; we could critique possible [i]flaws in his plan, but one does in fact exist, as the above-linked article points out.

“In his news conference, Romney emphasized four ideas in his plan: expanding domestic energy production, working out trade agreements with Latin America, cracking down on China and cutting the corporate tax rate. These are all reasonable ideas. But working out trade agreements takes a long time. Getting the Keystone oil pipeline up and running takes a long time. Rewriting and implementing a new corporate tax code takes a long time. Changing China’s policies takes a long time. It’s difficult to see how any of these ideas creates a substantial number of jobs quickly.

Obama also tends to emphasize four parts of his plan: increasing infrastructure investment, hiring more state and local workers, doubling the size of the payroll tax cut and adding a new set of tax cuts for small businesses and companies that hire new employees. Two of those policies imply directly hiring hundreds of thousands of workers. The other two move money into the economy immediately. It’s easier to see how these policies lead to more jobs and demand in the short term.

In terms of the deficit, the Obama administration has put forward a specific set of ideas mostly by eliminating itemized deductions for wealthier Americans to pay for its plan. The Romney campaign has not yet said how it will cut corporate and individual tax rates without increasing the deficit.

In a sense, what’s really interesting about the Romney and Obama plans is that they don’t conflict with one another. Obama has a set of ideas for boosting job creation now. Romney has a set of ideas for long-term economic growth. You could implement all of Obama’s 41 bullet points and all of Romney’s 59 bullet points simultaneously. There’s nothing about increasing infrastructure investment that keeps you from cutting corporate taxes, for instance.”

Source

Also this:

“Paul Ryan has been a fan of sequestration for his entire career in the House. He has repeatedly called for discretionary spending caps backed by a sequester. On August 1, 2011, he got what he has always wanted. Now that the sequestration might actually take place he says it’s “not good government.””

And this….
[youtube]-3H6HTRToRg[/youtube]

… And so forth.

Now onto the issue of medical costs:
Net cost relative to the true medical expense(s) should remain relatively stable for the foreseeable future at least, from much of the evidence that I’ve seen. At least, the overall expense of the health-insurance system in place should go down. I’ll bet that in order to get good employees, businesses are off-setting the lack of insurance with higher wages in at least some cases, in all probability. And while it is indeed mostly accurate, that the ACA requires additional coverage(s) for various reasons, remember that kids (or their parents) will have to pay into the system to get coverage for them or the kids, and apparently the point of that was (1) so that these same people would not go uninsured, and/or (2) such that they make few withdraws on the healthcare system, which was supposed to remunerate costs for insurers!

It is equally accurate that insurance-industry/industries’ (over)reaction to ACA was (or is) also a large contributing factor. Yes, there is a real market uncertainty, and insurers need to insure themselves against that (ha!). But the increase in insurance-provider(s)’ profits since the passage of PPACA have been breathtaking, even as insurers themselves have caused or increased deductibles and cut-payouts, etc. That’s what they call a “parlay”, as far as I know…. hmm…

In fact the covering of…25 or 26 year-olds for example, is obviously going to cost something. The ACA requires them to be on a plan, but doesn’t force their parents to take them. So the end-bearer of the decision will have to be made amongst families themselves … as with most things in the “science” of economics, estimates fluctuate somewhat wildly depending on which numbers you trust, but here’s one that puts it at 2.5 “M” (million). What complicates matters is also the fact that existing conditions are enormous by comparison. Here for example, a Forbes contributor claims that… err… “adult-children” (?) inclusion causes merely 1-3% increases in premiums.

When it comes to government’s role in controlling large sectors of the economy, it’s worth keeping in mind that insurance, at least as it is in the US, is rather like a banking entity. You can only seem to find a loan (insurance) when you don’t need it (or access to much medical care) and unfettered, unregulated capitalism of the kind supported by Republicans like Mitt Romney and now Paul Ryan, proved itself insufficient to fix the problem either. It is time that the United States joins the rest of the first world with regard to healthcare.

The insurance companies are on-the-whole; usurious to charge vastly more than is actually necessitated by the increase in their operating expense. Insurers must all have at least some idea of what will happen to their overall expenses upon the time when they are forced to cover all of the people to whom they had previously denied coverage previously (for very well-studied reasons, indeed)! They’ve denied people coverage because they knew what the costs would be.

At this rate (no pun intended) we could very easily see a re-run of what happened with Pell Grant: educators simply ended up raising tuition at a rate commensurate with that payable by the average pupil, and thus direct health-care providers could do the same …but that’s another story. Also slightly troublesome is the fact that it is actually illegal in the US for healthcare providers to do some extremely simple market-research. It is illegal for e.g. an allergist or a dermatologist to even ask what any given competitor(s) charge for equivalent procedures.

And as for the actual costs, here is something I found quite easily off the internet:

A remaining question is whether other aspects of the ACA might also have contributed to the premium increase. Kaiser argues, plausibly, that the two factors it considered were the most direct link between the ACA and 2011 premiums. But perhaps there were indirect links as well?

I expect we will hear critics of the ACA make exactly that argument in the days ahead. Somewhat surprisingly, though, the first example I found came from the Administration. Writing on the White House blog, health adviser and deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle pins some of the blame for higher premiums on insurance companies overestimating what their costs would be:

[list][2011 health insurance] premiums were generally set in 2010, when insurance companies thought medical costs would be significantly higher than they turned out to be. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the health insurance employer cost index (a measure of the price of health care services) was the lowest it has been in over 10 years in the first half of 2011. Additionally, some insurers assumed that the Affordable Care Act would dramatically raise their costs. In the end, both assumptions were wrong, but insurance companies still charged high premiums and earned impressive profits. Wall Street analysts’ review of results from the first quarter of 2011 found that 13 of the top 14 health insurers exceeded their earnings expectations, with profits that were over 45 percent higher than estimated. (emphasis added)

DeParle thus believes that the ACA did lead to higher premiums in 2011 beyond what can be explained by direct cost increases, but only because insurers overreacted. In other words, the ACA did cause premium increases beyond what can be explained by costs (since insurers would not have made the mistake about ACA costs otherwise), but the ACA doesn’t deserve the blame for those premium increases.[/list]

Source: Health Insurance Premiums Skyrocket

Some would argue that the rest of the first-world (as I said above) are being held back from economic prosperity through their government-run services…such as healthcare.

Not so.

Per capita healthcare-spending:
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/images/OECDChart1.gif
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/images/OECDChart2.gif

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/oecd042111.cfm

Look at the outlier in the above graph, Norway. A country that spends more on universal-healthcare than any other country that has it and still almost a third less (per recipient) than the US. There are obviously a plethora of reasons why nations that do indeed have universal healthcare may fare better or worse than others, but think about it logically: all of them, are spending half as much per-person than the United States is, on GDP and healthcare! Not to mention that judging by these countries’ average life-expectancies , they’re receiving somewhat improved treatment to that of the US in several important respects, and as such; I’m sure that they (countries with universal healthcare) are all VASTLY more productive, as well. (If you look at the list linked here, notice that the three countries ahead of the United States all have a more productive healthcare-system. Whether these are correlated is not clear, but I would think so). In summary, universal healthcare while expensive is clearly not nearly as expensive as its absence, and the US is an archetypal example of what happens in its absence….

[center]http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/assets_c/2012/06/mf%20healthcaremap%20p-thumb-615x314-91612.jpg[/center]

The above map shows, in green, countries that administer some sort of universal health care plan. Most are through compulsory but government-subsidized public insurance plans, such as the UK’s National Health Service. Some countries that have socialized and ostensibly universal health care systems but do not actually apply them universally, for example in poverty- and corruption-rife states in Africa or Latin America, are not counted.

What’s astonishing is how cleanly the green and grey separate the developed nations from the developing, almost categorically. Nearly the entire developed world is colored, from Europe to the Asian powerhouses to South America’s southern cone to the Anglophone states of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The only developed outliers are a few still-troubled Balkan states, the Soviet-style autocracy of Belarus, and the U.S. of A., the richest nation in the world.

See: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/

Some weeks ago, I watched Paul Ryan’s Vice-President Acceptance Speech (VPAC); and it seems to offer some horrifying prospects indeed, for America. The mere thought of this man being a mere heartbeat away from occupying the Oval Office (Romney too); is quite scary indeed. A line from William Shakespeare’s Richard III keeps echoing in my brain “Woe to the land that’s govern’d by a child!” I am tired of his cliched and grossly rhetorical approach, and as far as I could see, he laid out no discernible outline plan detailing his “solutions”. And after watching Romney’s acceptance-speech sometime afterwards, I cannot help but speculate that the “Grand Old Party” would be significantly better equipped with Condi as their candidate. Innumerable vapid banalities on “the ‘promise’ of America”, and so much outworn, tedious elocution about what it means “to be an American”.

I found this segment in particular to behighly disturbing:

 

      “And I will guarantee America’s first liberty, the freedom of religion.”

 

      [APPLAUSE]

 

      “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. And to heal the planet.”

 

      [LAUGHTER]

 

      “My promise is to help you and your family.”

 

    [APPLAUSE]

….
So…legislated Christianity (as I highly doubt that either Romney or Ryan intend to protect the Wall of Separation, or indeed the establishment clause), and uncritical denial of anthropogenic-climate-change….

So far as I can tell, that’s just about it. And the events observed since then on this topic, have been less than appealing as well. I’m struggling to see anything other than destruction to come out of these events, if these people are elected to public office (as President and Vice-President)… if there are any point that need clarification, or for example, their chances of being elected (may be discussed); please do so…

Thanks for reading.

Events, History, Literature, Reason, Religion, YouTube

A Demon in the rough!

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I believe i have caught our little Romanian friend being … lets just say “economical with the truth again”! Remember his ranting about apparent “atheist myths” in which the examples provided in that League of Reason thread at least turned out not to be so? Well he made a little video about it which what, is it meant to be another thing? Anyways one of the first things he pointed out was an atheist group misquoting Thomas Jefferson, which to be fair is a legitimate complaint. Seeing as I raised it too (in these forums). It may be useful to just keep it in mind.

With regards to the latter point, it seems our friend cannot quite hold himself to quite the same standard he uses to judge others (its hardly news to some I know). He recently made a video critiquing a Zomgitscriss video about “disproving god”, an expected enough thing for a theist to do right? I’m not going to dispute Vyck’s main case against Zomgitscriss here, that is not my Forte. I’ll leave that to someone else, if they dare.

What this post adressess instead is just one point of the video, perhaps a minor point yes, but one nonetheless. He asked about 1:25 into the video “why so angry?” to paraphrase before bringing up this obviously meant to be “suggestive” quotation as an answer:

“We shall unleash the Nihilists and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil.” – Albert Pike’s letter to Manzini (August 15, 1871.)

VyckRo likes to parade himself as a beacon of “Christian rationalism” on youtube (its evident in the video). Ok sometimes he actually gets it right. I agree with him that the so called “Dark ages” is a myth (although i maintain it is a general misconception). Other times he gets it so completely horribly wrong, like maintaining that LoR is an “atheist forum”, and thats one of his more “milder” claims!

I happen to have two serious problems with his “quotation”!

Continue reading A Demon in the rough! →

Culture, Events, History, Literature, Politics, Random, Reason, Religion

The Good and The Hatred

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Just recently I discovered various videos of Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett on YouTube (surrounding the AAI). They echoed opinions that are similar to mine and are quite harsh in their views on religion. I rediscovered this stance for me just recently again after a long time on hiatus. Now my experience is this: arguments on the ‘crimes’ of religions and their negative views are often met with justifications and relativizations; It is suggested that a position as mine is driven by hatred and intolerance.

There is the old question: How much tolerance for the enemies of tolerance?

Also recently, I found a documentary on the German church-critic Karlheinz Deschner (unfortunately not in English yet). It was titled: “the Hatefilled Eyes of Karlheinz Deschner’. The documentary is some kind of meta-discussion on his body of work which is, alas, not yet available in english, either. He basically wrote for 30 years, alone, on the “Criminal History of Christianity’ in 10 Volumes (!), currently writing the tenth and last one. Hopefull the whole is translated when he is done.

The title “the Hatefilled ‘¦’ is a quote of one of the Christian interviewees, who also appears in regular public TV sometimes. It reflects how some of the other Christian participants think. They are quite obsessed in trying to find a reason for Deschners engagement, trying to pull Ad Hominem Arguments against him. Deschner on the other hand is a rather gentle (very) old man, speaking softly and supports his work with tons of supportive evidence. He will probably not witness how his work is received and it may appear to him that it happens what the other side wants: that his book just collects dust (one of the christian interviewee says so).

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Culture, Literature, Philosophy, Reason, Religion, Science, YouTube

Critique Of Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

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On the Internet, I have encountered a prominent Philosopher of Religion called Alvin Plantinga who was once described by Time Magazine as a America’s leading orthodoxist Protestant Philosopher of God. He has made many anti-naturalistic arguments and theistic arguments in the past, has engaged in Public Discourse with atheists, rather like William Lane Craig. And also, William Lane Craig seems to be a fan of Plantinga’s misguided “Reformed Epistemology”. But that’s another story altogether. In our particular case, I intend to refute the various fallacious absurdities of Alvin Plantinga’s “Evolutionary Argument Against [Metaphysical] Naturalism”. Or rather more specifically, I will be critiquing all six parts together of a six-part series of lectures on YouTube. It is a talk by Plantinga entitled “An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism”. —see here. I may not be able to address every point as meticulously as I would like to, but I will give it a fair shot. Of course, it is doubtful that he has not simply ignored these criticisms if they have already been made in the past. Oh well… also, for expediency, here is an overview of Plantinga from Wikipedia. You will notice that like William Lane Craig, he is a Christian apologist, and has authored such books as God and Other Minds, and has even written a book entirely dedicated to the argument he presents in this 60 minute lecture. 🙂

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History, Literature, Research, Reviews

The Soviet Story, A critique (the first 20 mins).

I’ve been eyeing up to do something about this film for a little while, and whilst i enjoy mocking those derive all their ideas about the Soviet Union from the likes of Beck and said film. I’ve decided to calm down enough now, to do a proper critique of this movie, which for the time being can be located here.

Continue reading The Soviet Story, A critique (the first 20 mins). →

History, Philosophy, Politics, Reason, Religion, Reviews, YouTube

Ray Comfort is 180 degrees from reality

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Ok so i had a really good laugh today. I decided that a watching of Ray Comfort’s “180 movie” would be a good way to waste 33 mins of my life. The best synopsis of the contents of the film at present can be found on RationalWiki. But i can boil it down to two arguments Ray presents:

1) Hitler is Anti-christian.

2) Abortion in America is really akin to the Holocaust.

The second argument is really little more than the application of godwins law into a debate, furthermore the connection between abortion doctors in America today and the Nazis in the 1930’s and 1940’s is more silly and superficial than what Ray and his fellow religious propagandists make it out to be. Yes it is true that the Nazis used forced abortions upon women deemed “unAryan” (women who were Jewish or Slavic, etc.) in order to decrease their number as part of their eugenic policies, however for healthy Women of the Volksgemeinschaft it was a different story, because for them abortions were banned. Indeed in 1936, Heinrich Himmler created a Reich Central Office just for the purpose “for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion”! You know those two things Ray and his fellow religious fundamentalists don’t like. Being sarcastic here like i sometimes am, Does this mean that by ray’s logic he may be *shock horror* akin to a Nazi? In the real world, of course he isn’t!

But for the purposes of this, im going to attempt to rebut his other argument, that Hitler was no Christian.

Continue reading Ray Comfort is 180 degrees from reality →

Philosophy, Politics, Religion

A justification for abortion

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The most common justification for abortion that I hear is to explain the differences between a foetus and a normal person. If a foetus lacks the important and distinguishing features that make killing a person wrong, the moral issue surrounding abortion is rendered null. While I so think personhood arguments provide valuable support for the legalisation of abortion, I also struggle when it comes to setting the actual legal limit for acceptable abortion implied by this argument. The limit could be wet at eight weeks when the foetus become recognisably human, or around 20 weeks when most of the personhood criteria are met, or some time after birth when full personhood is obtained. The first option is hardly different from a total abortion ban, the second leaves a period of pregnancy when abortion is outlawed, and the third justifies some types of infanticide. Because of these difficulties I prefer the dependence justification for abortion.

Basically, I would argue that while the foetus is absolutely dependent on the mother for nutrients, oxygen, and a safe environment she should be allowed to withdraw that support. The resulting death of the foetus, while predictable, is not murder because it results from the withdrawal of sustenance. I also add an extra requirement of exploring reasonable options that could avoid the need for an abortion but since current technology does not allow aborted embryos to survive and develop independently from the mother, abortion should remain legal.

However, over on M and M (New Zealand’s most popular Christian blog) I found a few counter-examples to my favoured arguments which gave me pause. While some are easy to answer others are a little trickier.

Example 1: “A hiker who breaks her leg a week’s walk from a road will die if her companions do not bring help.’

In New Zealand and other common law jurisdictions there is no duty to rescue. While we might look down on people who leave people to die rather than rescue them, it is not prosecuted as a criminal homicide or any other felony. See this example of mountain climbers being left to die on Everest. I would prefer the general principle that people attempt to rescue others if they are able to do so safely but I also don’t want to force someone into a potentially dangerous action if they are unwilling. This is consistent with my position on abortion. I would prefer if the potential mother to explore all options but if she is unwilling to go through the pregnancy, I would not force it upon her.

Example 2: “An elderly woman may be totally dependant on her children looking after her.’

This is similar to the problem above, there is no legal duty placed upon children to take of their parents in old age. It may be the respectful thing to do, but I do not want the law changed to force children to be responsible for their elderly parents.

Example 3: “A newborn is totally dependent on its mother if it happens to be born in an isolated area where there are no other lactating women and there are no means of bottle-feeding.’

This example I find harder to answer. One point to make is while the above two scenarios are realistic this one is fantastical and unlikely to occur in everyday life. There are always plenty of people around who could look after a new baby if required. Never-the-less, I think this scenario requires an answer: would it be acceptable for a mother to refuse life-sustaining support for her own child? There is a duty to rescue in a parent-child relationship and to refuse aid would be negligence at the least. The expectant mother and the foetus do share an approximation of the parent-child relationship so perhaps the pregnant women does have some duty to provide a life-sustaining environment for her offspring.

I throw it open to you. Is there a relevant difference between the two cases that doesn’t rely on a personhood argument?

Literature, Science

The Fabric of the Cosmos

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The Fabric of The Cosmos – Brian Greene

This book is a must read for anyone who is slightly apprehensive about reading books on complex physics due to it’s mathematical nature. Greene steers clear of any complex jargon, and explains ideas clearly an concisely, though you might find his use of characters from the Simpsons, and the X-files to explain relativity and quantum physics etc. somewhat patronizing (I certainly cringed a little bit at first, but I got used to it).

For example, he employs Lisa and Bart Simpson to explain Einstein’s theory of special relativity. He asks us to imagine Lisa shooting a laser off into the distance, and Bart chasing it on his high powered skateboard. The skateboard can travel 500 million miles per hour, whilst the laser travels at 670 million miles an hour. From Lisa’s stand point she would say that the beam of light was speeding away from Bart at 170 million miles an hour, however when Bart returns he states that the speed of the light was racing away from him at 670 million miles per hour. “If Lisa had been able to see Bart’s watch as he sped along at 500 million miles per hour, she would have seen that it was ticking about two-thirds as fast as her own,’ he writes. The conclusion is stunning: the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time – an amazing truth, but I think it could have been explained without having to invoke Bart and Lisa Simpson!

Greene takes you through classical Newtonian physics, to the strange and counter intuitive realms of relativity and quantum physics (subjects I’d previously found daunting, but was surprised to find that I could actually grasp the basics of it and even explain it to people after reading), before asking questions about the nature of time at the level of both the Einsteinian and the quantum, moving on the origin of the universe, string theory and M-theory, and finally the prospects of teleportation and time travel.

Though the chapters themselves are quite long, each chapter is divided up into several parts under subheadings, so it’s an easy book to pick up and put down again, without feeling too lost. There’s plenty of illustrations, to aid your understanding of some of the concepts that he explains (this is particularly helpful when it comes to the quantum physics).

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to someone who, like me who initially feels challenged by physics and cosmology. It’s a really clear and easy to understand book, and you will find yourself being thrilled by many of the strange and wonderful concepts that it takes you through. If you’re already well versed in physics and cosmology, you will probably find the explanations and analogies in this book too patronizing and laboured, but for someone who feels daunted by the subjects covered, it is a perfect book to give you a basic grasp of the laws that govern the universe we live in. The Fabric of The Cosmos is an inspiring and enlightening read.

Rating: 9/10

Review by: Laurens

Literature

Mistakes Were Made

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“But not by me” reads the subtitle to this staple non-pology. Mistakes Were Made by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson is a fascinating look into the psychology of being wrong. Examples range from psychiatrists, scientists, politicians, TV hosts, all the way to regular people on the street. The focus of this book is not that people are wrong, but that they refuse to admit they are wrong even to themselves and thus confound the error. As I read this book there was a disconcerting transition from recognising the mistakes other people make to recognising those same mistakes in myself. It turns out that everybody errs and nobody admits to it.

The major driver behind our inability to admit mistakes is the need to reduce cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling of simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs. In this case the belief that ‘I am a good person’ conflicts with the belief ‘I made a mistake’ and rationalisation kicks in to try and eliminate one of these two beliefs. The easiest one to avoid is ‘I made a mistake’ and that is often the one to go. The authors talk about the numerous ways in which we all try and reduce dissonance. We blame other people, we come up with justifications for our actions, and we ignore evidence that shows we are wrong. Interestingly, we also rewrite our very memories of events to make them seem more favourable to our point of view. This chapter really made me question how accurate anyone (including myself) could be when trying to recall past events.

The most illuminating example(s) in Mistakes Were Made were those that dealt with recovered memories. Recovering memories used to be a legitimate psychiatric practice and helped thousands of people ‘remember’ child abuse, sexual assaults, satanic rituals, and even alien abductions. You’d think by the time aliens came up, the accuracy of the technique might be called into question but the authors do a great job of explaining how accepting small steps can lead to ending at ludicrous (even criminal) outcomes that would not have been accepted in the beginning. The allegations of parental sexual abuse had devastating impacts of real families and some of those involved still can’t admit they were wrong.

Mistakes Were Made contains numerous lessons that anyone could apply to their own lives. I learned a lot from this book and it changed the way I think about how other think and act. The central message from this book is that we all would be better off admitting to each other (and ourselves) when we are wrong.

Overall: 9/10 fantastic read.

Philosophy, Religion

A plea to theists: well I guess it is too late for you

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One of the greatest ironies in life is watching theists try to reason about moral philosophy. The mess of contradictions produced makes for some laugh-out-loud reading and can be terrific fun to unpack. Working through this kind of fractal wrongness can also help us to clarify our own moral reasoning and shows us why secular morality is superior to that of the religious.Exhibit A is Rabbi Moshe Averick’s A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late. I’ve picked out a few of the major problems and given my response to them.

 

Subjectivity
Averick’s main beef with atheistic morality is that is subjective:

“For the atheist, morality is simply a word that is used to describe the type of system that an individual or society subjectively prefers. Each society establishes, maintains, and modifies its values to suit its own needs.’

While some atheists do see morality as subjective there are also moral philosophies based on facts and a shared understanding of reality (i.e., objective). Rabbi Averick also thinks it is a problem that moral philosophy can update itself as new arguments are made and accepted. As someone who works in the sciences I am comfortable with knowledge improving as new facts are discovered and new ideas developed. There will be setbacks, aberrant paths that are found to be wrong, but on the long view a gradual improvement is continuously made. In modern social democracies can we really doubt that we are better off today than in the past? We have more freedoms and more rights than ever before. This is not the result of mere subjective whims that happened to go the right way, but a recognition that some actions of the past (e.g., slavery) were wrong and should no longer be permitted in our society. Dogmas, on the other hand, do not update and are stuck in our less enlightened past.

 

Peter Singer
Averick spends a significant chunk of the article attacking Peter Singer for his views on consequentialist utilitarianism. Which is an objective moral system. The Rabbi doesn’t seem to recognise that his criticism of moral subjectivism doesn’t apply to Singer but he continues regardless:

“Singer went on to explain that he is a “consequentialist.’ For the benefit of the philosophically challenged let me explain “consequentialism’ in a nutshell: If you like the consequences it’s ethical, if you don’t like the consequences it’s unethical. Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s ethical, if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s unethical.‘

What Singer’s philosophy actually entails is the evaluation of harm that results from an action. Utilitarianism considers happiness to be desirable and harm to be deleterious. This means that when assessing an action for its morality you should look at the consequences in terms of the people harmed and the people helped. So if enjoying child pornography and having sex with children harms someone then it is unethical. Since paedophilia often has traumatic effects on the child involved, their parents, and the wider community Singer would most likely find most cases of paedophilia morally wrong. So much for the slippery slope argument.

 

S.P.A.G.
Averick claims that since we resulted from slime (or from dust if you are Jewish, I guess that’s better?) that means we are morally bereft. The fact that we evolved from primates does not degrade humanity. It is thrilling to think that all species on this planet are interrelated though the process of evolution. What makes humans different, more significant than our jungle dwelling relatives, is our ability to reason. When we exercise our unique intelligence we get to make our own decisions about meaning, value, and morality. Atheists aren’t handed their morality from on high, we have to think about it, and thanks to evolution we have that ability. After spending most of the article decrying the ability of secular philosophers to reason about ethics, Averick engages in the most dishonest part of the article. He simply throws out a bunch of ethical rules without giving any justification for his claims.

  • All men are created in the image of God and are therefore inherently and intrinsically precious.
  • All men have been endowed by God with unalienable rights and among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  • Thou shalt not murder.
  • Thou shalt not steal.
  • Thou shalt not bear false witness.
  • Thou shalt not commit adultery, incest, or bestiality.
  • Thou shalt not have sex with children, and if you do you will be looked upon as a disgusting and contemptible criminal and will be treated as such.
  • Thou shall teach these laws to your children.

Fortunately, we can recognise the source for some of these claims, and they don’t come from a god. The ones about unalienable rights are from the American Declaration of Independence and the rules about murder, stealing, perjury, and adultery are from the Torah. These moral rules aren’t from God but from the men who wrote the documents. But where do the other bits and pieces come from? Since Averick hasn’t demonstrated God is the moral author, we have to conclude they come from Averick himself. The Rabbi simply prefers it to be the case that paedophilia is immoral and so claims that it is a divine command. This is merely Self-Projection As God. After spending an entire article railing against subjective morality we find that the only justification Averick has is that he just feels paedophilia is wrong (and God agrees with me!) Unfortunately for Averick the main point of his article is that atheism leads to paedophilia. It is rather easily countered by the mention to two religions: Catholicism and Islam. Both of these theistic beliefs have managed to rationalise and accept (respectively) the sexual molestation of children. If theistic societies are also capable of accepting paedophilia then Averick’s point is moot and it seems that God does not totally agree with our hapless Rabbi on the immorality of pedophilia.

Irony, it’s everywhere.