A Re-evaluation: What is my religion now?

First, I think "religion" is probably the wrong term for it. If a large group of people believe the same thing, it's a religion; a small group, a sect or cult; if an individual has his own distinct set of beliefs, it is a spirituality or life philosophy. I definitely have my own idiosyncratic take on the world, and we'll see how many people I can convince of it.

The name I give to my philosophy is "omnilibertarianism". It is totally naturalistic, that is, it does not prejudge any question that can be decided by experiment, so it poses no threat to, nor is threatened by, the humane practice of scientific inquiry. It also seeks only minimal ethical and legal constraints on persons. Its only requirements: you cannot destroy or torture conscious beings; you cannot act on other persons or their property without their implicit or explicit consent; and you cannot engage in any activity that poses a serious threat to the existence, well-being, or freedom of other persons.

An omnilibertarian world would be a maximally free world, but it would also be one in which we embraced a path of (eventually total) non-violence. While coercion would sometimes be necessary (for instance, if one person kills another, they must pay the price that justice requires, some kind of imprisonment or rehabilitation, but no torture or death), the preferred weapons of preserving law and order would be incapacitating but not deadly or harmful. In general, the most lethal weapons (not including weapons that had other established purposes, like knives) would not be allowed.

If people lived according to my ethical principles, certain activities would be prohibited. While hunting and warfare simulators are perfectly acceptable (and, ideally, they would take place in a kind of virtual reality indistinguishable from ordinary experience), actual killing of others would not be allowed, nor would the possession of lethal weapons like guns.

A lot of people won't like this, but I'm afraid that my morality demands it. (People may have other views, of course, which I will try to answer.) Fortunately, we will soon be able to grow meat artificially, so that we no longer have to have factory farms to satisfy the carnivores among us. Until then, though, it's vegetarianism for me.

I think, though, that questions about specific guidelines for the treatment of animals and persons can be something decided autonomously and locally, as well as the means for distinguishing between property, conscious beings, and persons--or whatever particular ethical/legal distinctions a society wants to employ.

As you can see, my "religion" has now merged with my ethics and politics and the rest of my philosophy, in a way that makes it difficult to isolate. I have not even mentioned here my notion of an omnilibertarian God. If you'd like to hear more, give me some time; in November, I'm scheduled to give a presentation at a conference in Montreal on "Transhumanism and Religion", and before too long, I will start to publish my work.

My general policy will be this: if a person asks me for a particular published work, I will send it to them for free (electronically). Donations will be appreciated, but entirely optional (I won't even ask for them). But, since I need a means to provide for myself, I will also sell whatever books I can.

I'm hoping I can get people to take my views seriously. I've said some things on this blog in the past that I now judge as ridiculous, and some which I regret saying. That which I most forcefully renounce is my former misanthropy, because I see now that I thought I hated humanity so much only because I found myself so hateful.

Still, despite my reformed sunnier outlook, my opinions are decidedly unorthodox. I think they are consistent and coherent, but I don't believe that they are right for everyone. Nevertheless, they have brought me great happiness, more than I thought beliefs were capable of giving. I practically feel like I'm living in heaven everyday now, and I just want to share this feeling with others. I hope people who know me can understand that, and can be supportive.

I am still a professional philosopher--I still hold myself to the standards of my peers--but my vision of the world is just very different now. I think it's a kind of informed optimism.

Retraction

It has been an interesting week. I don't know if this is something I can do, but I hereby renounce everything that I've ever written here, before this week. I've said some pretty awful things at times, advocating for ideas I should have known were wrong. I even gave praise to Satan in a recent post. Talk about being a devil's advocate...

All that has changed. I have reunited with God. I am not exactly a Christian, but my understanding of God contains some Christian elements, that I retain from my upbringing. In truth, I don't think there's a single correct religion. I think that all religions contain some truth to them (even agnosticism and atheism), and that we should let people believe whatever they want to believe.

Your beliefs do not hurt me unless I choose to let them hurt me. Your beliefs are the natural product of your experience. They're exactly what God wants you to believe at this moment in your life. The same applies to the ways that we live our lives, the food and drugs that we choose to consume, and other things that are our private business. Our friends and family can and should take an interest in this, but complete strangers should not.

If my lifestyle or beliefs upset you, that's your problem, not mine. Your beliefs do not upset me, for I recognize that you believe whatever you're supposed to. All I ask, and all I wish to convince you of, is that it would be far better if we all stopped caring about other people's beliefs and lifestyles, except insofar as they directly affect our own lives. (And, no, seeing a gay couple kiss does not in any way harm you, unless you choose to let it do so.)

Fortunately, we have this useful common sense distinction between public and private. In the privacy of your own home, so long as you do not endanger anyone other than yourself and other consenting adults, you may do whatever you like. You can eat whatever you want, sleep with whomever consents, take the drugs that you want to take. Give each person a space where they can be in charge of things. I think we all need that.

In public, we have more elaborate rules for conduct, and it is fine to correct people's behavior by punishing them if they stray from these rules. Just because there is no sin does not entail that punishment is unnecessary. Punishment is not itself an evil, but a kind of self-correcting mechanism in society.

I was an atheist for ten years, in order to learn the lesson that everybody believes exactly what God wants them to believe. We step out of place if we try to interfere in people's exercise of their free will. We must trust God, which means, we must trust our own judgment.

In the past week, I have been living almost continuously in a state of mind that I can only describe as heavenly. I understand things now better than ever before, and have acquired an incredible capacity to learn from experience, to see the significance in events. In short, I have become happier than I ever even thought possible. And I want to spread this happiness (true happiness naturally wants to spread itself), but only to those who are willing to listen. I will not coerce anyone.

So, everything I've said before on here, I now see was something that I needed to believe at that point in my life, but now no longer need to believe. I needed to be in the darkness for a time, so I could more readily appreciate the light.

These are the key truths I've realized. There is no sin, no hell, no oblivion (except temporarily, and only as much as is necessary). God does not arbitrarily choose between some of his creations and others. No one religion or philosophy possesses exclusive truth. We need to stop killing each other over our beliefs. Instead, let's just reorganize society, so that all the people who believe one thing can share a community, and all those who believe another can share a different one, and we just redistribute the earth's resources to these "enclaves" that people set up, where they could be the ones to decide the laws. And if you didn't like the enclave you lived in, you'd be free to leave.

A truly democratic world, in which the free will of each individual was respected, would be like paradise. Do we not now believe that monarchies are tyrannical forms of government? Then why should we confuse God's power with the power of a king, of a premodern form of governance? I think that religions with monarchical conceptions of God contain many truths, but they turn their Gods into tyrants. And why should you submit to a tyrant, even if he did create you?

No, if God is truly all powerful and all good, then everything that exists is good. Evil is only temporary, a kind of tool for us to learn from. If we choose to be with God, it must truly be our choice.

If I stuck a gun to your head and told you to eat a bowl of worms, would you say you were free not to eat the worms? This is because this is a forced choice. If God said to you, "Love me or go to hell for eternity", he would not actually be giving us free will. Our will would be coerced. We our given free will, but we are obligated to respect the free will of others, and many of us have not been doing so. We interfere in places and times where we don't need to interfere. We can't let our natural sociability make us into busybodies who stick their noses into other people's business, and fight "culture wars" because they don't like the idea of other people living in different ways than them.

If anything is a sin, it is this: interfering in someone else's free choice. It is okay to educate children (they are not yet autonomous adult persons) and to try to persuade people, but we can never coerce them--neither as individuals, nor as states. (This means, among other things, the War on Drugs, a senseless battle that no one can ever win, must come to an end.)

I'm going to write this all in a book, eventually. But for now I just feel wonderful. I truly hope that my will is in harmony with God's--and I have faith, too, that this is so, for God will show me and correct me if I begin to stray from what is right.

I must always remember that I am finite, and therefore fallible. Perhaps humans can transcend the forms they currently have (and I think this will become possible with the right technology), but we are all just a part of Nature, a part of God. We are created in God's image (i.e., we are persons like he is), but no human being is, was, or ever will be God completely. (We might become what you could call lower-case g "gods", but those are very different.) Whenever people who have thought themselves to be God (or, equivalently, to be instruments of God's will) have come to possess great power, they almost inevitably do more harm than good.

But let us focus on the positive aspects of religion! Every worldview contains at least a kernel of truth. You just have to find that kernel and build from there.

Is pain necessary?

In the very last section of his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche offers an explanation for the origin of ascetic moralities (the italics are Nietzsche's):

Except for the ascetic ideal: man, the animal man, had no meaning up to now. His existence on earth had no purpose; 'What is man for, actually?' - was a question without an answer; there was no will for man and earth; behind every great human destiny sounded the even louder refrain 'in vain!' This is what the ascetic ideal meant: something was missing, there was an immense lacuna around man, - he himself could think of no justification or explanation or affirmation, he suffered from the problem of what he meant. Other things made him suffer too, in the main he was a sickly animal: but suffering itself was not his problem, but the fact that there was no answer to the question he screamed, 'Suffering for what?' Man, the bravest animal and most prone to suffer, does not deny suffering as such: he wills it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not the suffering, was the curse which has so far blanketed mankind, - and the ascetic ideal offered man a meaning!

(For those of you keeping score at home, this is from the excellent Cambridge translation, edited by Ansell-Pearson, p. 127.)

I never cease to be amazed at how universal this psychological tendency is. With a handful of notable exceptions (e.g., Dave Pearce and his "Hedonistic Imperative", from which I borrow a number of interesting counterarguments), almost everyone I encounter believes that there is a kind of necessity to pain and suffering. Even Nietzsche himself, in other parts of the same text and elsewhere, seems to find a certain kind of nobility in the capacity to endure pain.

But let us consider the arguments that are usually given to justify the necessity, purpose, or nobility of suffering. (By the terms "suffering" and "pain", I wish to encompass pain, fear, sadness, boredom, or any other unpleasant feeling, no matter how slight. I happen to believe that there is no good reason to think that any of them are in any important sense necessary.)

One argument that Nietzsche himself uses is that undergoing suffering builds resilience, enabling one to endure more suffering later in life. But this is transparently circular! If there were no suffering, we would not require the capacity to endure it. Those who make the more general claim that suffering "builds character" essentially offer a version of this argument.

A second argument I often encounter is that we need pain in order to appreciate pleasure. But why should that be so? Is not pleasure itself immediately worthwhile? Many people think that a life of nothing but good feelings would be boring. But being bored is an unpleasant feeling that would, by definition, be excluded from such a life. Indeed, if the issue is the need for variety, why can we not just have variability in our pleasant feelings? My inclination is to think that there's more than enough to explore on the positive side of the emotional spectrum.

A variant of this argument maintains that a life of nothing but pleasant feelings is impossible, because pleasure and pain are only relative. Thus, what I now experience as "normal" would be, if I could shift my range of feeling towards the positive side of a hypothetical pain-pleasure spectrum, felt as painful. But I think that this is an empirical question. Moreover, given that some people are born incapable of feeling pain, it would seem that this is not the case.

This brings us to a third argument, that there is an evolutionary necessity to pain. In other words, pain is useful for organisms because it notifies us of tissue damage and enables us to learn to avoid harmful stimuli. Indeed, those people I mentioned who are born incapable of feeling pain often end up dying young, for precisely these sorts of reasons. I would not deny any of this, but I see no reason to believe that the mechanism of pain is the only means of solving this "design problem". If those who could not feel pain were capable of detecting tissue damage by other means, then their survival would not be so precarious.

For example, imagine we were building a conscious machine that resembled a human being (just assume that's possible for now). Why could we not, say, have the systems that handle harm detection operate independently of consciousness? Through a series of complex reflexes and perhaps even what you might call an "intellectual awareness" of the trouble (i.e., the machine would know something is wrong, but it wouldn't hurt), could we not avoid the need to feel pain entirely? Even if this particular solution did not work, there's no reason to think that some alternative to pain is not possible. Ultimately, it may just be an empirical question, and I would love to find out by redesigning my own psychology, if I am allowed and able to do so.

A final argument would be that these kinds of discussions are silly, because pain is just an unavoidable fact of life. While I grant that this has been and, thus far, remains the case, I believe that, at some point in the indefinite future, we may have new options. It would be a horrendous tragedy if we clung to our suffering when we had the chance to be free of it only because we labored under the illusion that we needed to experience it, for whatever reason.

If I am bypassing an important argument here, or insufficiently answering the ones that have been put forth, please let me know in comments. Otherwise, I take it that none of these arguments are sufficiently compelling. They may give reasons for why pain is useful, but they do not show that it is in any sense necessary.

Now, I will admit that I may be wrong about this. But in a certain sense, as I have been saying, I think this is an empirical question, i.e., one that cannot be decided merely through argumentation. If it is possible to create a stable, human-like psychology that operates without any unpleasant feelings, then we would have definitive proof that suffering is not unavoidable for creatures like us.

But, to tell you the truth, if people want to suffer, I won't stop them, regardless of how stupid I think their reasons are. I merely ask others to extend the same courtesy to me, i.e., not try to stop me from eliminating suffering from my life. Once people see that it's possible to live without pain and suffering, perhaps they will reconsider their attachment to it...

ADDENDUM: It occurs to me, upon reflection, that demonstrating the lack of necessity of pain would make the problem of evil particularly difficult to answer. Indeed, I am inclined to think that transhumanists have the potential to destroy a lot of people's faith in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, when we show that the world is not designed particularly well or intelligently, as we create better alternatives to being human. I can see why people think transhumanism is such a dangerous idea.

Do I have a religion?

About a month or so ago, I had something analogous to a religious experience. For a very brief while, I entertained again some of the beliefs that had been impressed upon me in childhood, in addition to new ones which took me by surprise.

However, I wrote my senior thesis on religious experience, and was struck by one common characteristic of it that made me immediately skeptical: religious experiences almost invariably produce unshakable conviction in those who have them. In other words, credulity is a powerful force in such experiences.

Nevertheless, that experience has affected me in certain ways, particularly opening me up to new possibilities I had not before considered. One thing seems certain to me: we can have no knowledge of what exists outside of our universe. This means that we cannot even know what is possible outside of our universe. It may be that this universe is the only thing which exists (my intuition rails against this conclusion, but I have no sound reasons for believing it), or it could be the case that there are indefinitely many other universes or existences the likes of which we simply are incapable of imagining.

Thus, the following occurred to me: if we are one universe among many, it is possible that this universe has an intelligent creator. However, the only things that we could know about such a creator are what can be inferred from its creation. Since intelligence appears to be an emergent property of this universe (or at least has seemed that way since Darwin), if such a creator existed, he would necessarily be a deceiver. This universe, upon mature reflection, does not appear to be designed. The following options seem exhaustive to me of the possibilities: this universe either has no designer, or it has a designer which deliberately designed it not to look designed. If the second is true, then the creator of this world is a deceiver.

In other words, if it is possible for intelligent beings to create new universes, then the god that created this one has a number of awful qualities--it is far from perfect. Not only is it deceptive, it also inflicts a large amount of unnecessary suffering on the conscious inhabitants of this universe. As a finite being, perhaps this god does not even realize what it has done. Perhaps it is even long dead, and something like what the Deists believed is true (i.e., the creator initiated the universe but does not sustain it).

Thus, I am led to the following characterization of my religious beliefs. I am an agnostic, insofar as I think it is impossible to know, one way or the other, whether this universe has a creator and what qualities that creator might possess. (While we may be able to compile a list of possibilities, we certainly cannot decide amongst them. And what seems like an exhaustive list might not be.) However, insofar as I judge that there are no beings worthy of "worship" or "reverence", i.e., no capital-G God, I am an atheist.

If, as many theists claim, we have free will, I am merely using my own to say that I prefer my own judgment to the supposedly inscrutable divine judgment, and that if there is a god, I condemn him/her/it for doing such a lousy job. Indeed, as imperfect as I may be, I still believe I could create the universe better than it exists now.

This could be interpreted as the sin of pride. Indeed, I may take as my model here the story of Satan, who preferred himself to God. In my view, Satan is the most admirable of the characters in Christian mythology, because he refuses to submit. He demonstrates that abject worship is a stance beneath the dignity of an autonomous rational being. (It's essentially just like sucking up to someone who has power over you.) It is nothing less than an abdication of responsibility and a refusal to use one's own judgment.

That said, it's fun to play with religious concepts and terms and to repurpose them in various ways. Thus, I describe my transhumanist sympathies as a kind of "secular religion", and I even pick and choose various elements from the diverse religious traditions in this world to augment its description.

The closest I admit to an object of worship is myself. But even here, I refuse to take myself so seriously. I am as flawed as any other part of this world. But I see no psychological need for human beings to believe in some ground of ultimate significance, since the vast majority of humankind (despite what they may profess) live their lives as though this is not the case.

Still, I do like to follow the convention of Spinoza, and refer to the entirety of existence as God or Nature. I just doubt highly that the totality of being has a personality, because my inclination is to think that persons are of necessity finite. Thus, while there may be small-g personal gods, I have no idea of what a captial-G personal God would entail.

In short, I do not have a religion, and I do not believe that religion or its analogues are psychologically necessary for human beings. Whether you call me an agnostic or an atheist is, I suppose, a matter of indifference to me.

BSG: Champion of Transhumanism

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Important plot details from most recent episode (aired 02/13/09) of Battlestar Galactica are revealed below. Caveat lector.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

You have been warned.

Now, I'm assuming that everyone at this point has already watched the episode, so I'm not gonna bother with background details.

For the longest time, my favorite character has been Gaius Baltar, a fascinating, conflicted soul who creator Ron Moore once described as "the most human character" in the series. Baltar is a very flawed individual, but it seems that after these traumatic events, he's finally starting to grow as a person.

Now that's all well and good, but after tonight's episode, I have a new favorite character: John (Cavil). His speech about the limitations of being able to experience a supernova is something I would have been proud to write. It's a beautiful argument for transhumanism, i.e., the view that human beings should be allowed to alter their forms to become better than human.

Now, of course the show can't outright endorse that view, because the vast majority of the viewing public will have never considered such a crazy thing before. But how appropriate that this should air immediately after Darwin Day? Transhumanists adopt the motto (seriously, I have this on a bumper sticker I got from the World Transhumanist Association, now known as H+): "If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve."

I am so frakking excited right now! While transhumanism is a distinct view, I see omnilibertarianism as the product of a tryst between libertarianism and transhumanism. People already know about, and many advocate, libertarianism, and now thanks to BSG and its popular audience, more will know about transhumanism (even if they call it by a different name).

It's unfortunate that it's presented as the sort of "bad guy"'s view, but like I said, I don't think they can outright advocate it. The moral ambiguity that viewers have become accustomed to might make some of them consider the merits of John's philosophy.

John speaks in my voice when he says (22:29 into the episode):

I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear x-rays, and I wanna, I wanna smell dark matter!

Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly, because I have to, I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting, spoken language. But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me!

I'm a machine, and I could know much more, I could experience so much more, but I'm trapped in this absurd body!

And why?!

Because my...creators thought that "God" wanted it that way.

The fact that he was an atheist was revealed very early on after his character's ironic introduction to the show as a priest. (Thus, the association between John's atheism and his transhumanism could potentially do a lot of damage if it's reinforced too strongly. Atheists are the most reviled group in America, at least.) While personally I am an atheist, I think believers of many different faiths could also be transhumanists or omnilibertarians.

For example, this is an argument I'd make to a Christian: to the extent that God grants us mastery over the whole over nature, and has endowed us with capacities that he seems to want us to use (I mean, we can really flourish with the products of science and technology--just look at what modern medicine has done for quality of life!), it only makes sense that we should be able to transcend our initial limitations.

To say that we were made in God's image, I would contend, doesn't mean that God has a body like ours. That's gross anthropomorphism, and if you believe that, you believe in a rather pitiful God (so go away, I'm not speaking to you). We are like God in our mental and spiritual qualities first and foremost. Thus, so long as we retain these basic parts of our humanity, that is, some form of intellect and some kind of compassion for our fellow rational beings, so long as we keep that, we are not transgressing against what God intends for us.

Indeed, this very well might be what he meant for us all along. How do you know history has not been set up to facilitate this very possibility? Even if this is not what he specifically intended (and really, who can say with certainty what God intends?), did he not give us free will, so that we might choose such a path if we so wished it?

I'm not saying you have to do anything to yourself, just that you let me modify my own body and mind as I see fit. I'm an adult, and I'm willing to accept the consequences of any risky choices I make. So let me evolve! Let me soar like the angels, who are supposedly also God's creation (so it must not be so bad to be like them). (Disregard any theological premise here you don't admit to; I'm not committed to the existence of angels, for example, for this argument to work.)

I'm not sure how convincing this argument is (when presenting it, I'd probably try to hide the fact of my atheism; and, really, to the extent that I believe that Spinoza's God exists, I'm not a total atheist; you might even call me a very liberal believer), so feedback is appreciated, especially from believers.

In any case, Ron Moore is my hero now, and so I'm gonna listen to his boring podcast commentaries of the most recent episodes! :-)

Thank you, Battlestar Galactica! You may just help me to spread my philosophy (and sell more books, so I can actually afford to enhance myself, heh)...

Happiness and Human Nature

For centuries, books like Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Epictetus' Handbook, and Spinoza's Ethics have attempted to accomplish a most difficult but worthwhile task: provide simple guidelines for achieving human well being. Today's burgeoning self-help sections in bookstores are but a continuation in mass-market form.

Such books, particularly Spinoza's and Aristotle's--but also more recent works based on the empirical study of human happiness such as Jon Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis--have been of use to me in my own life. Empirical science has confirmed many of the ideas put forth by great philosophical psychologists like Aristotle, Spinoza, and Hume.

But there is a problem. Happiness is not easy. Today, who lives a fulfilling existence is too much the product of chance. An easy-going temperament seems to be more than half the battle. If I'm born with the wrong genes, I become overly prone to depression, anxiety, and other psychological ailments. In such cases, no matter how good my life might become, I will always be able to create new problems for myself. And not just the mentally ill, but the bulk of humanity does this to a greater or lesser extent. We are naturally inclined to pursue things that do not actually lead to our happiness and fulfillment.

Part of the problem is that a happiness is a social achievement. If you're not brought up the right way, if you live in a society that tends to isolate and alienate individuals, then you're far less likely to be happy. So, indeed, a more just arrangement of social life would result in more happy people.

And yet, there are still limits to this. Imagine what you take to be a perfect world, a utopia. If you leave human beings precisely as they are, you will still find the bulk of them acting in ways that are at least partially self-destructive.

So the real problem is this: nature does not make it easy for us to be happy. This should be no surprise to any student of evolution, for we know that evolution tends not towards the well-being of organisms, but only to their survival and reproduction (and, even here, it's a bloody process of trial and error with many miserable failures). In short, happiness is an accident of nature, of human nature.

Why should we leave with this state of affairs? Why should we simply accept that only the rarest of individuals lives a truly decent life? If we are committed to equality, we should think that fortune (whether it comes in winning the genetic lottery or being born in the right place and time or whatever) has an unacceptably large influence over who flourishes. But we can change this.

Consider a new approach. Instead of learning about human nature to find the tricks to being happy, why not just change human nature to make happiness a more natural result? More specifically, why not give every individual the opportunity to change themselves to find happiness in their own way. Whether people choose to take pills or to use the old-fashioned (and highly ineffective) methods of character building, each should be free to pursue happiness as she sees it. There's no reason it has to be so difficult for so many people.

These are perhaps overly utopian thoughts for a period of substantial economic decline. Nevertheless, we will soon enter an age when we have new powers to change the shape of human life. It would be folly to leave well enough alone when there is so much unnecessary suffering in the world, especially when such a large portion is suffering that people cause themselves because of defects in their temperament.

What's new about omnilibertarianism?

This is a question that I definitely need to answer if I wish to be recognized as original. There's a lot of research to do before I can say for sure, but I think I've found at least one thing that's novel. Omnilibertarianism endorses a new kind of freedom: the freedom of identity.

The beauty of the freedom of identity is that it fuses the notion of freedom as choice and freedom as self-determination into an elegant whole. As much as is possible, everything should be free to become what it wants to be. This is a transhuman freedom, in the sense that it ought to be extended beyond humanity, to apply to as much of the world as possible (ideally, I mean).

Of course, there must be limits to the kinds of identity choices we can make. These come in a variety of forms. First, there are limits to what is physically possible. As we observe, experiment, and learn more about the universe, we may find that the limits are different than we thought they were. Nevertheless, some things are just not physically possible.

Second, there are the limits of what is technologically possible. Perhaps there's a way to travel faster than the speed of light, but it may be that we will never have the capacity to do so. In a narrower sense, we can talk about what is technologically possible today (as opposed to what is technologically possible at any future point). Determining what will be possible tomorrow will require the third kind of limit.

That is, legal limits. Laws should be in place that discourage individuals and organizations from choosing things which threaten the freedom or well-being of others (whether individuals, groups, or civilization as a whole). This means something like the criminal justice system that we have today, but possibly with new forms of punishment. This would also mean regulations on the development of technologies to ensure their safety and effectiveness, laws to protect the environment, and a whole slew of other legal measures which must be put in place to ensure the perpetuation (and hopefully the further growth) of civilization. (This third category entails quite a bit, so I may have to break it up further later.)

The limits that we set (the legal ones, which can also have an influence on the technological ones) must be enabling to freedom of choice. To do this, a government must also be enable to ensure its own survival. Part of this means adapting as conditions in the world change. But, government (regardless of its form) is something that we create, and so it is up to us to ensure that the laws keep progressing along with everything else. The US Constitution gives us a fine example of a small set of governing principles which must be held constant as other laws change, but which are even themselves susceptible to revision with sufficient democratic support.

The freedom of identity, the right of every individual to bodily and mental self-determination, must become one of our core governing principles. Not only should individuals be able to pursue happiness according to how they understand it, they should be free to become whatever they wish, within the limits discussed above. In short, Omnilibertarianism advocates the creation of new rights for individuals. (As for groups and the question of whether and what rights they have, that is something I need to think more about it...)

Freedom

Freedom is something that I've taken for granted in my life, but I now see it as the most distinctive and valuable feature of humanity. The first freedom should be the freedom to define freedom as you see fit. The second should be to be as free as you want to be. The minimalist conception of freedom as individual choice (while, without doubt, partially a substantive account of what freedom is) is the best conception, because it allows for the greatest diversity in different conceptions of freedom. If realized, it would enable effective freedom for all who are willing to seize it.

Freedom must be understood as an achievement, not as a given. However, it has certain conditions of possibility. Many of these are beyond human control (we are irreducibly finite beings with freedom that will always be limited), but we are fortunate to live in an age in which, soon, we will be able to increase our freedom as much as possible.

Freedom is a human construction. That makes it no less valuable, for indeed all things of value are human constructions--value itself is something we have created, as the peculiar kinds of natural beings that we are. Thus, there is no right or wrong conception of what I will call positive freedom. People differ on what this term means, and on how much value they place upon it, and that's fine. But what I call a minimalist or negative conception of freedom is a prerequisite both for any other conception of freedom to be more than just articulated and believed, but to be realized. "Individual choice" then, is this minimalist conception which enables the possibility of all values, whether they be libertarian or otherwise.

Society undoubtedly shapes individuals in important ways. But a true adult, that is to say, an actually free person (in the positive conception of freedom that I believe, and will argue for) is someone who is willing to take responsibility for themselves, and not to play the role of victim. We are all, to varying extents, victims of history. But to remain victims is a choice, whether we acknowledge it or not. By taking responsibility for yourself, and by articulating and acting upon your own set of values, you become a full human being.

However, this process of maturation presupposes a certain kind of society, one that enables individuals to choose and act upon their own values. There will always be limits to what values are acceptable, because some conceptions of value can be forced on a populace, whether it be by means of an institution like the state or like the so-called "free" market. My libertarianism is not a species of neoliberalism by any stretch of the imagination.

No, what we need is for most of us to agree on one basic idea, my idea. It's not merely my idea, of course, for it has deep roots in the history of philosophy and many expressions articulated by contemporary thinkers. To not agree on a basic minimalist conception of freedom is to close down the possibility of alternative values. Since people differ, and since they are inevitably going to value different things whether we want them to or not, it is folly for a state to try to impose substantive values on its populace. Nevertheless, some amount of coercion is inevitable, because there will always be people who seek to obtain power over others.

But why not make this coercion as minimal as possible? Omnilibertarianism, as I will show in the days and years ahead, offers the most minimal coercion possible. If we maximize individual choice, including the choice to define freedom however one likes, then there is no sense in which we could be freer--with the exception of those who conceive of freedom as a species of tyranny, but these are few and far between.

This, in sum, is the problem: how do we peaceably co-exist? Omnilibertarianism offers us a solution. It is my purpose in life to show the world that this is so.

(I don't even know who reads my blog anymore, but expect more posts of this sort in the near future. As I suggested in the initial "Omnilibertarianism" post, I have had what I take to be a great idea, and now I wish to share it with the world. In part, this is what I'm doing now by blogging about it. But I also need to refine the idea, and so expect more free writing, reflections from different perspectives and with different starting points. If that does not interest you, then you may wish to find other things to read. If it does interest you, then I greatly appreciate your feedback and commentary. I will not promise to answer every question or objection, but I appreciate any insights that you are willing to share, and will try to offer at least a minimal response to any comment offered in good faith.)

Reflections on My Idea

People do not sufficiently appreciate it, but individual choice totally changes what it means to be human. Throughout history, the character of human lives has been determined almost entirely by one of two things: nature and custom. Without doubt, custom has undergone a major assault in the modern era. Traditional authorities no longer have the power they once had, as more individuals are allowed to do what Kant saw as the necessary condition for enlightenment: thinking for oneself.

Modernity also saw instantiated the ages-old idea that human beings should be the masters of nature. Thanks to thinkers like Spinoza, Hume, and Darwin, intelligent people now realize that nature is indifferent to us, that life is the product of unintelligent natural forces and historical accidents. This is not an occasion for despair, but rather for maturity. There is no God to protect us. Even if there are powerful beings that exist outside the universe, there is no evidence to believe that they intervene in human affairs. As Hume persuasively argued in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the quality of the world suggests, at best, divine indifference.

Without some kind of theological argument, some assurance that nature tends toward human good, there is no reason to believe that the natural world is as it should be. If we understand evolution, we realize that forces like natural and sexual selection at best tend to the survival and reproduction of organisms, but not to their well-being. Human well being is an accident of nature. What that means, is that if we leave it up to nature, there's no reason to suppose it will happen.

The time has come to wage an assault on the natural world, much like the assault on tradition and custom that modernity has spawned. What is natural is not what is good. Human beings are the sole creators of value in this world, and we must not shy away from that responsibility. This is why everything that can be made into a matter of individual choice ought to be. This would be what it means to grow up as a species. Individual choice, if taken to its logical conclusions, is actually an extremely robust conception of freedom, and I will convince as many people as I can of this.

We are not sufficiently thinking about the long term. Global warming is one consequence of this, as are the various problems we face with energy supplies. However, the universe is teeming with energy, and we just have to figure out how to get at it to accomplish our ends. We must think beyond the challenges that we face today with the economy and the environment, and consider the future that awaits us and our offspring.

What kind of world do we want to live in? Science and technology will, within centuries if not sooner, give us the power to answer this question. We must not back down from it. But each individual must answer for themselves. If a person does not want to embrace maturity, if they want to stick to the old customary ideas, or to what nature has forced upon us, they should have that right. We should not force people to be free.

However, we should force them to reflect on their lives, and to set their own values and priorities. When more aspects of human identity come under our control, individuals will be forced to face this question: when is it worthwhile to expend time and effort in making a choice, and when is it okay to delegate those choices to others? It's a question of setting priorities. In the consumerist world we live in today, people spend too much of their time on what should be utterly trivial choices. If the state manufactured a single kind of toothpaste that it distributed to the whole populace (based on, say, what scientific research recommends is best for human teeth), that would be okay. It's not worth fighting over the right to pick Colgate over Crest. Or, at least, each individual has to make that determination for themselves.

Those human beings who opt to enhance themselves will be increasing both their freedom and their responsibility as they heighten their powers. But there is no need for everyone to have to do this. People should be able to legitimately opt out. Nonetheless, I will make arguments (such as I'm doing now) to encourage people to accept my positive understanding of freedom. But this positive freedom must be grounded in a widely-accepted form of negative freedom, in which the state "nudges" individuals in certain directions (based on evidence obtained from science and other sorts of human inquiry), but ultimately gives people the option to opt out. So long as I do not pose a significant threat to the freedom or well-being of others, I ought to be allowed legally to make any choice I desire about the character and circumstances of my life.

The issue is maximizing freedom. Individual choice provides us with a conception of freedom thin enough to be minimally coercive (one of the few things it prohibits is the coercion of others), but thick enough to serve as a starting point for any further idea of freedom. Let people establish their own standards of freedom, or of any other values they wish. The key for us is to figure out ways to make all these different human possibilities "compossible", which is to say, mutually compatible. Trade-offs and tough decisions will have to be made, but if we use as a general guideline the maxim of choice maximization, then we have a political ideal that we can use to evaluate any future policy proposal. We must ask, "Will this allow and encourage individuals to be self-determining?" If yes, we move in the direction of a world of greater diversity and development. If no, then we risk creating new tyrannies to replace the old natural and traditional constraints that we have progressed so far in overcoming.

Omnilibertarianism is an elegant position, one that provides us with a simple measure for assessing progress in the world. Things will be lost in the transition to adulthood. The humans who exists hundreds of years from now may look nothing like us, they may not even be biological. But they will still be us, they will still embody that quality which I would argue is most central to being human, being autonomous, self-determining, free beings. This quality must be preserved, or everything is lost. The reason is that it allows for the possibility of all other values. Creating values is what we do as humans, and the more individuals are pressured by circumstances into recognizing that, the more mature we can be as a species.

There are those who argue that "passivity", "randomness", some force or another beyond human control, is a necessary part of human identity. I for one do not see why we should be defined by our limitations when we could be determined by our positive capacities. There is no need to worry about an end to undergoing and suffering. These will always be with our species, because there are just some limits in nature that cannot be overcome. But this does not mean that we shouldn't try to narrow that realm as much as possible. Not leaving things to nature, but taking control and remaking it to satisfy our demands is precisely what it means to be a responsible moral agent. I'm fine with individuals refusing to take on this responsibility, but as a species, we must allow those of us who want to go beyond, who want to redesign nature (beginning with their own individual nature), to do so. Otherwise, we end up deciding for the rest of humanity that they cannot be free. It is not our right to make such a decision for others.

I now see that it is my purpose in life to show people the superiority of this view, and to try as far as possible to implement it. Radical changes are in our future, but so long as we do not forget the importance of freedom as individual choice, we will never lose the most important aspect of our humanity. We may become more than human, but that is not the same thing as inhuman.

In a sense, I am making a plea to the world. Let me determine my own destiny! Let all people have such power, as far as is possible. It's fine to try to convince people of your ideas (and there are going to have to be some things that we all agree on, namely, the conditions for allowing further possible freedom), but we cannot use the tool of the law to impose one set of values on an entire society. Let as many values flourish simultaneously as can be! This is itself a value, but it is an enabling value, valuable precisely because of what it allows. Value is itself valuable.

In a way, I must admit that I am influenced by Leibniz's idea of the best of all possible worlds. He thinks that such a world has a minimum of principles, but a maximum of diversity of expression of those principles. I disagree with him, because I think such a world is not given, but will have to be a human accomplishment. We are the only intelligent designers in the universe (that we know of). Let's not run from that. Let's make this world the best it can be.

Omnilibertarianism

"Everything that can be a choice should be."

And thus, the great idea of my dissertation is born.

I regret that the name has been used on the Internet before (Google gives me something like 3 matches). However, the phrase above is, as far as I can discern, original, as is the more elaborate concept behind it that I will develop.

It's really a very simple idea, but it has radical implications for the way that future life should be lived. If I want to change my physical appearance, my genetic make-up, my personality features, my memories, my desires, I should--someday, with the help of the right technology--be able to do so.

With each new human enhancement technology that enters the market, our power to do this increases. Someday, I may be able to choose my facial features, my hair and skin color, my height and weight, my level of extroversion and openness to experience, or any characteristic of my body or mind. In the longer term, I may even be able to replace my body and brain entirely with new ones.

Choice can become the sole determinant of identity!

(Well, not really, because other people will still make judgments about you that you can't control, and there will always be limits to our physical capacities, and not to mention that there's the thorny question of what determines choice...)

But, in any case, you get the idea. Please, nobody steal it. :-)

UPDATE:

I'm thinking of calling the book I eventually write Omnilibertarianism: Human Enhancement and the Future of Freedom.

For future reference, "Eggertian" sounds best when you put the emphasis on the second syllable.

A Different Take on Marriage and the State

From the keyboard of the always delightful IOZ:

Increasingly, however, I come to the conclusion that it's problematic for the state to confer any additional privileges and rights on anyone just because they form a household. What about the singles, yo?

I think this raises an excellent point that's not often considered in the debate over gay marriage. Why should the state have anything to do with marriage in the first place? Is conferring special privileges on couples, whether gay or straight, fair to people who are single? Singles already have enough disadvantages as it is, and many of us are not single by choice.

Leaving aside arguments that venerate tradition (which are totally uncompelling to me), I think a case can be made that the state should promote marriage only to the extent that it is necessary for the perpetuation and well being of the species. As far as I know, there's evidence that children raised by two parents (whether of same or different sex) tend to fare better than those raised by only one. In other words, two moms are better than one (and roughly as good as two dads or one of each).

(As an aside, I don't think there's enough data about the effects of polygamous arrangements on the upbringing of children. To the extent that it seems unlikely to constitute a significant harm, however, polygamy is probably not something that should necessarily be absolutely prohibited.)

If two parents are better than one, then it's in the state's interest to increase the number of two-parent households. But let me stop here and make an important distinction. I said that the state has a reason to interfere in matters of family insofar as it promotes the continuation of the species and its well being. Perhaps a better distinction is to be made between maintaining population and improving the upbringing and education of children. While the latter would seem always to be desirable, the former may not be, because of concerns about overpopulation.

Thus, while the state has an interest in encouraging children that have already been born to be raised by (at least) two adults, it may not have an interest in increasing the number of children being born, especially if its population is growing too quickly.

What this means is that the legal benefits that come from marriage should not necessarily be the same in all times and places. In countries with declining populations, not only marriage, but reproduction is worth encouraging. If a nation is in danger of overpopulation, then contraception should be widely available and encouraged.

I think the key to a rational policy on marriage comes from making explicit the advantages of marriages for society. My position here is a version of libertarian paternalism. Ultimately, individuals should be able to choose to marry whomever they like, so long as its consensual. Nevertheless, while not forcing anyone to do anything, it's acceptable to create mild incentives and disincentives to encourage people to make one choice over another. If a cohabiting couple with children would be more likely to stay together if married, it's not inappropriate for the state to offer some special privileges for obtaining the legal status.

In short, I disagree with IOZ because I can see a point to encouraging marriage in some circumstances. As I've suggested, I think marriage should be allowable between any parties which are capable of consenting (so this would extend beyond gay marriage to include things like polygamy and, eventually, human-robot marriages). I also favor the policy of separating the civil institution from the religious one. Religions should be allowed to set whatever requirements for their marriage ceremonies that they please, but any consenting couple (or group) should be allowed to obtain a civil marriage and the legal benefits it brings.

(I can really see myself now as a kind of left-libertarian paternalist. I like the idea of using a wider range of incentives than merely criminal punishment to influence the behavior of a population, without actively coercing individuals. In every case, we should use science and other knowledge to determine what is good for people as individuals and as a whole, and then incentivize choices to make self-interest coincide to a greater extent with the common good.)

(Sorry if this is a bit rambling. I wanted to record these thoughts before I forgot about them. I definitely appreciate any feedback about the arguments I put forth here.)

Evolution and Human Behavior

I just happened upon this somewhat provocative opinion piece from the Economist arguing for the importance of looking to human evolution in crafting social policy that I recommend. (I was unable to discern the author; I think it might have been produced by the editorial board of the magazine, but please correct me if I am wrong.) I have some reservations about some of the details (for instance, they act as though evolutionary psychology is far more robust a science than it currently is), but I do agree on the general point.

Here's a passage that could provoke some controversy:

Although there is a strong argument for making working conditions more sympathetic to the needs of parents of both sexes, the underlying point is that many women—and certainly many women with children—do not care as much about striving ahead in their careers as men do. Men, the report found, are more motivated by pay and less by job satisfaction than women are. If managers, they are more likely to work long hours. They also take more risks—or, at least, are more frequently injured at work.

The consequence, as Len Shackleton, the IEA report’s main author, puts it, is that: “The widespread belief that the gender pay gap is a reflection of deep-rooted discrimination by employers is ill-informed and an unhelpful contribution to the debate. The pay gap is falling but is also a reflection of individuals’ lifestyle preferences. Government can’t regulate or legislate these away, and shouldn’t try to.” He failed to add, however, that these preferences are often the result of biological differences between the sexes.

What goes for pay probably goes for career choice as well. At one extreme, it is foolish, as Kingsley Browne of Wayne State University, in Michigan, suggests, to expect equal outcomes in organisations like the armed forces. Not only are men stronger and more aggressive but, Mr Browne suggests, the psychology of both sexes has evolved to trust men (and not trust women) in combat, precisely because of this aggression and strength. At the other end of the scale, it is probably an opposite mixture of evolved aptitudes and attitudes that causes the domination by females of professions such as nursing.

This is not to say there can be no good female soldiers or male nurses. Patently, there can. But it is not clear evidence of discrimination that they are rarer than their counterparts of the opposite sex. A Darwinian analysis of the matter cannot say where the equilibrium would lie in a world free from discrimination. But it can say with reasonable confidence that this equilibrium will often not be 50/50.

Many may harrumph at such a Darwinian interpretation of feminism, and say that it is a circuitous route to a traditional destination. It isn’t: not expecting an equal distribution of the sexes within every profession is not the same as saying that a woman’s place is in the home.

Now, before I disqualify myself from ever working in academia in the future (I'm kidding!--I hope...), let me say that I don't agree with or endorse everything that they're saying here. However, I know that I had the very same question about gender parity when the issue was raised in my department. I agree that there should be more women in philosophy (both students and faculty), but I'm not convinced that we should expect a "natural" equilibrium of 50% men and 50% women. Now of course academic philosophy already appeals to such a small minority of people. Might it not be the case that there are certain characteristics it has (for example, its argumentative, competitive, sometimes even combative character) that makes it especially unappealing to many women?

One might argue here that maybe the problem is that academic philosophy is too competitive and should change, but even if that's so, the point still stands. To the extent that there are systematic differences in preferences between genders (whether these are "biological" or "cultural" is beside the point), we should expect to see disproportionate numbers of men and women participating in certain professions (or hobbies or what-have-you) in a society in which individuals are encouraged to choose careers (etc.) based on their own desires.

In any case, it's nice to see the point raised and the question asked. The headaches that are often the result of trying to reconcile values of diversity and equality (in particular, the caution with which one must frame one's arguments to avoid accusations of some pernicious "ism") is usually deterrent enough for most. Perhaps this is why there's no author's name clearly visible on the page.

One other point worth noting: I see evolutionary analysis as only a first step in the creation of social policy. In my view, a good society is one in which a sound fit is found between human nature and social institutions. Most people are only willing to try to change the latter and assume that the former is fixed. I disagree. I think human nature has been and is changed by civilization. (And it should be, because some parts of it are worth encouraging and other parts worth suppressing.) Whether those changes are the products of enculturation or a pharmacological/genetic intervention is, I would argue, immaterial.

As I see it, I'm something of a pragmatist. Which is more feasible: tweaking society so that it's satisfying to all individuals, or tweaking individuals so that they are better able to find satisfaction in a given society? Putting it like that is of course overly simplistic--it's clearly not an either/or, all-or-nothing situation--but why is it that so few are willing even to consider changes of the second type? Why accept biological nature's constraints when there is no good reason for them and when we have the power to mitigate or eliminate them? (See also my earlier post on not trusting nature for more on this perspective.)

In any case, I'm not calling for large-scale, bureaucratic human engineering. Rather, I just want individuals to have the freedom to modify their own bodies and minds however they like. Let the individual experiment, find a way to fit into a crazy world. Individuals in relative isolation may not be able to create a just society, but they may just be able to make their own existence, and the lives of those around them, more worthwhile. This is far easier than what I see as the alternative: reaching consensus (or at least having a majority agree) and implementing some more substantive ideal of what a just society is.

(This is a start. I may decide to develop this idea further in my forthcoming dissertation.)

Why I don't trust nature.

Of all the objections leveled against the various technologies I advocate for, the one that irritates me the most is non-argument that it's "unnatural". There are reasons why the naturalistic fallacy (the claim that "X is good because it is natural") constitutes an invalid argument. But let me explain what it is in particular that I dislike about nature, and why I am all too eager to violate it as far as is possible.

Now, in one sense, the term "nature" can be used to describe everything that is, was, or will be. This is the sense of the term that Spinoza uses, and that many physicists and other natural scientists use when they talk about "laws of nature". Such laws are inviolable, because they are merely descriptive. In this sense, nothing is "unnatural". Translators of Spinoza often capitalize this "Nature", and I'll just follow their convention to more easily distinguish this sense from the other I wish to talk about. I have no problem with Nature.

My problem is with a different sense of nature, what we might call biological nature. This would essentially include every living organism, all products of biological evolution, life and the processes that sustain it. I would go so far as to say that I hate this nature, and that, ultimately, I would like to redesign its products from scratch.

Here's why. Evolution has produced some remarkable things, no doubt. None of us would be here without it. But evolution is a blind, unintelligent force. As I like to explain in my teaching, evolution is simply the result of things not dying off until after they have in some way perpetuated themselves. Natural selection weeds out only the most pernicious combinations of genes. Thus, the bulk of the genetic material in organisms is entirely superfluous. Synthetic biologists are coming to realize this as they try to create organisms without all the useless clutter.

For example, there is no reason why organisms should age. Aging is simply the product of the accumulation of harmful mutations within species and individuals. Complex life is self-repairing. The only reason we become old and decrepit is because our mechanisms of self-repair eventually break down over time. With the right treatments, however, aging should be completely reversible.

In short, biological nature produces that which is barely good enough, while at the same time producing much that is not going to be successful at passing on its genes. If that weren't bad enough, what does perpetuate often does so out of dumb luck, chance, or contingency--whatever you want to call it. Adaptations are real, but they are always imperfect, the creation of a blind, idiotic force.

Let me be more specific and talk about human beings. Most of us are full of defects and inefficiencies that cause us no end of suffering. Evolution, like the rest of nature, is totally indifferent to our well-being. Some people are born with robust temperaments that allow them to resist the various ills of the world, but many of us are not so fortunate. Some people are such that they will suffer no matter what their circumstances. (I sometimes feel as though I should be included here, because despite having never undergone significant hardship, the bulk of my life has probably been miserable.)

That which we call happiness, flourishing, or even a meaningful and fulfilled life, is on one level a complex, ongoing (but never permanent) series of neuro-chemical reactions. Some people are lucky to have brains which easily produce such states of affairs, but most of us are not. Similarly, some people experience many great external goods in their lives, while others get shafted. Because even Nature is indifferent to us, there is no guarantee that decent people will have tolerable lives. (Plus, whether or not a person is morally decent is itself a product of various contingencies; there is such a thing as "moral luck": some people have to face situations in which whatever course of action they choose will result in some significant ill.)

Biological nature has produced but one thing which may be able to redeem it: intelligence. With intelligence, the world can be reordered in such a way so that suffering is not so ubiquitous and so that so many human desires are not left unsatisfied. Thanks to products of intelligence such as civilization, science, technology, and medicine, we may some day be able to reproduce far more readily the complex chemical reactions which constitute meaningful, happy existence. Whether this be through the use of drugs, genetic augmentations, or integration with our machines is really a matter of indifference. However, if we leave things to chance, if we refuse to tamper with nature, then many of us will continue to lead miserable existences. I would sooner die than embrace that nature.

I think there are primarily two reasons why people put trust in nature and want not to tamper with the natural order. On the one hand, they assume that the universe is not indifferent, but that it somehow cares for human affairs. The easiest way to believe this is to believe in a powerful entity with a human-like psychology that created nature for the sake of human good. (Now is not the time to argue against the existence of a benevolent God, but one would think experience would offer more than enough examples to show that even if such magical beings existed, they don't give a damn about what happens to you.)

But even the more secular among us might still attribute benevolence of a sort to nature, by misunderstanding evolution, thinking of it as quasi-teleological, shaping species in ways that are for their own good. But evolution has only predisposed us to survive long enough to reproduce, and even then, many of us will fail at this task. There's no reason to believe that nature will lead human beings to flourishing without our active intervention.

The second reason people put trust in nature is because it has produced an order that works "for the most part". We have often seen that tampering with this order produces undesired consequences. But this is merely a problem of lack of knowledge. Once we understand the workings of nature sufficiently well, we should in time be able to repair any of the damage that we cause in trying to change it. And the only way to learn how to do such things is to experiment, and to try and see what we can do.

Some people may be content to leave well enough alone. But I, and many like me, never will. Life sucks, but it doesn't have to. Knowledge is power, and its power confers upon us a responsibility to reorder the world in ways that are more conducive to our flourishing, and to the well being of other sentient species. Pain and suffering have their uses in the current scheme of things, but they are merely a cruel side effect, a gross excrescence of the natural order. They are no more necessary than any other of the ills in the world.

Look, people, it's this simple. If we don't play God, nobody else will. Nobody is coming to save us. Nature is just going to do its thing, and unless we are willing to make chance and contingency our objects of worship, then we would do well to embrace intelligence, foresight, and knowledge as the keys to making a better world. Anything less is a complete abdication of our duties.

Ours is a simple choice: dumb luck or intelligent foresight, nature or civilization, passivity or progress.

Obligatory Prediction Post

Tonight, I am down with O.P.P., an obligatory post predicting the results of the coming day's election. Sorry for no fancy map graphics, but I'm not so well-versed in the blogging arts that I can conjure up such phantasms.

I'm just going to do the Presidential and the Senate races, because I don't really care about the House (though I suspect a gain of a few dozen seats for the Dems). I'm doing the calculations in my head, so someone please inform me if I omit a state or screw up my math.

(My thanks go primarily to fivethirtyeight.com for the information on which these predictions were made. It is a superlative political blog that may well be worth frequenting even after election season ends.)

Popular Vote: Obama 53% McCain 45% Other 2%
Electoral College:
Obama 393 (Kerry states + NV, CO, NM, IA, VA, NC, OH, FL, MO, IN, GA, MT)
McCain 145 (AK, AZ, UT, ID, WY, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, LA, MS, AL, SC, AR, TN, KY, WV)

Senate:
58 D, 2 I, 40 R
Republican Pick-ups: None
Democratic Pick-ups: VA, NM, CO, NH, AK, OR, NC, MN, GA

In short, an Obama landslide and a filibuster-proof Senate majority. There's probably some wishful thinking here, but I suspect that being burned in the last two presidentials has made many on the left overly pessimistic.

Link of Questionable Value

Some Luddite propaganda from the NYT:

We are living, we have long been told, in the Information Age. Yet now we are faced with the sickening suspicion that technology has run ahead of us. Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can’t help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom.

We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers’ apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

As the financial experts all over the world use machines to unwind Gordian knots of financial arrangements so complex that only machines can make — “derive” — and trade them, we have to wonder: Are we living in a bad sci-fi movie? Is the Matrix made of credit default swaps?

Seriously, dude, you're going to blame the financial crisis on the machines? Why do some people hate robots so much? Why is that form of prejudice so socially acceptable in this country?

I'd be more inclined to blame the human beings who used these tools, not the tools themselves. But what do I know? I'm a crazy, radical techno-apologist after all, a Gaius Baltar wannabe.

Democrats Better for the Economy?

This piece from the New York Times is a must-read. It summarizes the argument of a forthcoming book by Larry Bartels entitled Unequal Democracy.

It supports something that I've believed, but not really had strong evidence for, namely, that Republican economic policies increase inequality. However, above and beyond that, it suggests that Democrats are actually more effective with the economy overall. Here, the author details two key facts emerging from the economic data:

I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.

The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.

[...]

The second big historical fact, which might be called the Great Partisan Inequality Divide, is the focus of Professor Bartels’s work.

It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.

Now, some caution in interpreting these results is in order. Correlation is not causation, and we're dealing with something enormously complex over a relatively short time-span of about 60 years. (Some possible complications: perhaps it takes several years for a president's policies to have any significant impact on the economy; and what about the role of Congress and which party controls it?) Plus, there are many other ways than economic growth that one may use to assess the welfare of a nation.

It may be a stretch to say that Democrats are generally better for the economy, but certainly they are at least comparable, contrary to what Republicans claim. Plus the evidence is quite strong that they are better for reducing inequality, which I would argue is itself valuable because greater equality means greater stability. (And, as Spinoza tells us, stability is the foremost virtue of a good state.)

I may have to check this book out. While I'm not a Democrat, I do tend to vote Democratic, and this is certainly useful information to have.

Cromulence

I'm teaching a "writing-intensive" course this term, and I'm tempted to send my students this:

Funner. Impactful. Blowiest. Territorialism. Multifunctionality. Dialoguey. Dancey. Thrifting. Chillaxing. Anonymized. Interestinger. Wackaloon. Updatelette. Noirish. Huger. Domainless. Delegator. Photocentric. Relationshippy. Bestest. Zoomable.

What do all these words have in common? Someone, somewhere, is using them with a disclaimer like "I know it's not a real word..."

[...]

Writers who hedge their use of unfamiliar, infrequent, or informal words with "I know that's not a real word," hoping to distance themselves from criticism, run the risk of creating doubt where perhaps none would have naturally arisen.

Furthermore, those same writers are giving up one of their inalienable rights as English speakers: the right to create new words as they see fit. Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that fetch is now the word I want to use to mean "cool." By the same token, readers and listeners can decide to adopt or ignore any of these uses or forms.

A shorter, snappier version of David Foster Wallace's "Authority and American Usage"? (Incidentally, I am assigning DFW's essay to my class, in all its 60+ page glory, because it provides a lot of helpful context that this brief newspaper piece lacks the space/time to include. The essay can be found in his non-fiction collection Consider the Lobster, which is filled to the brim with awesomeness.)

For some reason, I've never much used the "not a real word" line--neologisms are fun!--and I was always a little irritated by it (you never see it in academic philosophy, even though you know they're constantly making shit up).

At the same time, I don't want to see my students writing things like "While Kant was perhaps the most impactful writer of the Enlightenment, he was arguably also the blowiest. Dude needed some serious chillaxin'!" True, but ineloquent.

Words of Political Wisdom

I notice that the last entry I posted, on telco immunity, now sticks out at me in an unpleasant way, particularly since what "must be prevented" was not. This evening, as I was reading Etienne Balibar's short monograph Spinoza and Politics, I happened upon some passages he cites from Spinoza's incomparable Political Treatise. I find them especially relevant:

[W]hen the safety of a state depends on any man's good faith, and its affairs cannot be administered properly unless its rulers choose to act from good faith, it will be very unstable; if a state is to be capable of lasting, its administration must be so organized that it does not matter whether its rulers are led by reason or passion -- they cannot be induced to break faith or act badly. In fact it makes no difference to the stability of a state what motive leads men to conduct its affairs properly, provided that they are conducted properly. For freedom or strength of heart is a private virtue; the virtue of a state is stability.

[...]

[I]f human nature were such that men desired most what was most useful to them, there would be no need of artifice to promote loyalty and concord. But since, it is well known, human nature is very different, it is necessary to organize the state so that all its members, rulers as well as ruled, do what the common welfare requires whether they wish to or not; that is to say, live in accordance with the precept of reason, either spontaneously or through force or necessity. But this only happens when the administration is arranged so that nothing which concerns the common welfare is wholly entrusted to the good faith of any man.

I shall leave interpretation as an exercise for the reader.

Why telecom immunity must be prevented.

Glenn Greenwald, far and away the most professional and intellectually honest blogger I've ever encountered, has an excellent defense of the rule of law here.

Too many Obama supporters are willing to look the other way on this issue, since he came out in favor of the "compromise". McCain, of course, is far worse on this issue--his recent claim that allowing Guantanamo detainees habeas corpus rights was one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history gives you a sense of where he stands. In short, I can understand why they would want to refrain from criticizing Obama, insofar as they fear it would weaken his electoral prospects and could result in something far worse.

But, as cynical as I may be about a lot of things, there are some principles which I believe should be upheld despite the political repercussions. The rule of law is first and foremost on this list. Early modern philosophers like Spinoza and Locke (who stole many of Spinoza's political ideas without citing him) recognized the corruptibility of humans in power, and sought to establish rules of governance to circumvent this corruption. (Even then this was not a new idea; political principles like the separation of powers can be traced at least as far back as the Roman Republic.)

The authors and advocates of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, for all their imperfections, appreciated how vital the rule of law was for long-term stability and a just society. No human being, no matter how seemingly wise or benevolent, should be entrusted with the powers of a monarch. That includes Obama. (In fact, the only exception I would even consider is if such power was necessary to reinstate the rule of law because of a jaded and distracted populace who failed to recognize its importance.)

If any of this resonates with you, read Greenwald's article. It is well worth your time.

Free Speech on the Internets?

This article is worth taking a look at. It's a bit lengthy, but it covers a number of different dimensions of a highly complex problem.

I won't speak to all of it, but I'd like to focus on one particular issue:

Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.

The governmental role that companies play online is taking on greater importance as their services - from online hangouts to virtual repositories of photos and video - become more central to public discourse around the world. It's a fallout of the Internet's market-driven growth, but possible remedies, including government regulation, can be worse than the symptoms.

With the exception of the totally unsubstantiated claim that "government regulation" "can be worse", these paragraphs get to the heart of the issue I wish to consider, viz., the downsides of privatization.

Much in the way that an ant colony takes on a life of its own above and beyond those of its ants, corporations develop their own sets of survival instincts and quasi-desires. This is a metaphor, of course, but it does come very close to the truth.

An idea popped into my head just now, and I doubt it's entirely original, but I think it's worth sharing. Multinational corporations are like the modern instantiations of the ancient Greek and Roman gods. They are entities which ostensibly care about human well being, but which have their own interests which tend to take precedence and often have very little to do with what is good for human beings.

They share our world with us, but seem to occupy parts of it that ordinary mortals cannot access. They aren't omniscient or omnipotent, but their capabilities far exceed ours. And they are highly flawed, perhaps even more so than we are.

Similarly, there is a large but finite number of them, and a smaller number still of the most powerful ones. Thus, our options for loyalty end up somewhat limited.

This last point is crucial. Contrary to what free market proponents often suggest, corporate consolidation has left us with very few choices. Let's say that I run an open home network, and that my neighbors and their friends use it to download some copyrighted materials illicitly. If the RIAA and MPAA had their way, an ISP would have to cut off your access entirely if you received three accusations of illegal downloading. That's right, they don't even have to successfully prove anything; you merely have to be accused three times. One of your neighbors downloads the latest Metallica album, a second grabs a bootleg of the new Indiana Jones film, and a third pirates a copy of Photoshop and BOOM! no internet for you!

(If you think I'm making this stuff up, you should read BoingBoing more often... In any case, this is particularly unfortunate because it undermines human courtesy, discouraging people from sharing a resource that they don't fully consume. If not for factors like this, I probably would operate my home network without a password.)

In many areas of the country, broadband markets are monopolized, so your choice is: use this particular ISP, or stick with dial-up (if you can even do that; since in many cases the same company controls broadband and phone service, you might find yourself cut off entirely). If you're kicked off of your area's only ISP, you are shit out of luck.

I would probably die without the Internet. I wish I were kidding. Until recently, I lived alone (for nearly four years), and whenever my connection cut out I was both angry and panicked. The 'net allowed me some means of contact with other human beings, probably saving my sanity. It may be relatively new, but high-speed internet access is now, for many people, a need. (In fact, I think free wireless high-speed internet should be a human right, but that's for another post...)

Now, granted, state institutions and bureaucracies exhibit many of the same characteristics that large corporations do. This is especially so with non-democratic governments. In China's case, for instance, it's clear that government control can be a lot worse than having to deal with private corporations. (The author of our article above fails to make this case, leaving "government regulation" as a vague term that could apply to radically different regimes.)

The key difference, though, is accountability. Corporations are by and large highly undemocratic institutions, beholden only to making profit for their shareholders. Certainly this schema works quite well in a number of areas, but there are some in which it is entirely inappropriate, most notably when we are dealing with common goods.

So, for example, healthcare and other kinds of insurance are worth having insofar as they allow the pooling of risk. The profit motive totally undermines this; huge amounts of time and money are spent not to cover particular expenses and companies try to offer insurance only to those who don't need it. It's highly inefficient, which partly explains why Americans pay more for healthcare than anyone else, even though its quality of care is comparable, and sometimes worse, than that of other industrialized nations.

A second example is in the cultural sphere, in art and music. Back before today's oppressive copyright regime, artists frequently borrowed images and ideas from their predecessors and contemporaries. Today, you can't even use a 5 second sample from a song without permission. (In fact, according to the AP's idiotic new policy, I shouldn't be able to post quotations from their articles any longer than 5 words, without paying for it. Perhaps I should just split up those two paragraphs into a series of 4-word quotes...) This has driven certain genres of music that depend on practices of sampling and remixing underground. Everyone loses as a consequence (except the huge media conglomerates--who for some reason seem very reluctant to share their ill-gotten gains from suing their customers with the artists they are purportedly protecting).

A third case, the last I'll consider, involves infrastructure. Only the most diehard/insane libertarian wants to privatize the roads. Nevertheless, much of the US infrastructure is crumbling because of moves toward privatization in the past few decades; there's little profit to be had in making sure bridges are safe. So why is it that when it comes to the Internet, the aptly named "information superhighway", that we run almost entirely on privately-owned toll roads?

The fall of Communism as a realistic alternative to Capitalism does not mean that the latter is the best we can do. We should use markets in the places where they are most effective, but not shy away from trying out other models when they are not. If the concern is that governments are inefficient or incompetent, we can always rely on local experimentalism. (Remember "states' rights"? Neither do I...) If a state institution is not producing the effects it is supposed to, you scrap it and try something else.

But even when we do rely on markets, we need to keep corporations in check. They will maximize profits by whatever means they can get away with. (That's not a statement about "evil CEOs" but rather about the nature of the system, and the ways it promotes some kinds of behavior over others.) It's the state's job to set the rules and enforce them so that corporate interests don't trump human ones.

Why is that so difficult for some people to swallow? I don't understand how you can be totally distrustful of one large set of institutions (government) and totally trusting of another (the market). (I mean, at least most first world governments are ostensibly democratic.) As with any powerful entities, we should set them up in opposition to each other to ensure that none becomes too strong. But instead, we get them colluding while most citizens are too fat and entertained to really care.

(Hmmm... This is not the most coherent post I've ever written. I need to refine some of these thoughts, but I might as well publish it as is for now.)