Thursday, May 31, 2007

Saddam and Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was a seventeenth century philosopher who lives on as a scapegoat in many an Introduction to Philosophy class. Hobbes believed that without authority humans live "short, nasty, and brutish" lives. Therefore, he thought that a powerful central government was necessary for a stable and peaceful state. To most idealistic young students, myself included, this violates the notions that a government should be derived from the will of the population, and that a central authority should have only limited power over the lives of its subjects.

However, if you wanted to make a case to vindicate Hobbes, a terrific example exists in Iraq. Iraq was controlled by an extremely powerful tyrant who ruled with an iron fist and brutally suppressed dissent. This method of government held together three societies that hate each other for over a decade, even in the face of international sanctions and extreme pressure. As soon as Saddam Hussein, the Hobbesian totalitarian ruler, was removed, the society exploded into violence. Democracy and foreign influence have been unable to contain the turmoil, and life in Iraq has indeed become "short, nasty, and brutish."

While I'll probably never count myself a Hobbes disciple, this is certainly one example of a situation in which it would appear that the one solution an otherwise untenable situation was the supreme authority figure that Hobbes envisioned.

Quick Disclaimer: Please don't misread me to be saying that brutal tyranny is an acceptable form of government. My point is that a system in which I vehemently oppose finally and ironically has a case to support it.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Hog Hell

I try to avoid posting anecdotes from my personal life here, but I feel compelled to share a recent adventure.

Background:
My girlfriend, Katie, and I recently spent about 10 days in Costa Rica visiting our friend Ryan, who has been working at Luna Lodge. Luna is a resort in the beautiful and remote Osa peninsula. While there, we decided to hike into Corcavado National forest, supposedly described by National Geographic as "the most biologically intense place in the universe."

The rest of the story comes from an excerpt of a e-mail I sent out describing my trip:

To tell this story properly, let's back up a moment to Wednesday night. We are discussing the upcoming hike with Lana, Luna's owner, who served as a guide in the park for years before she created Luna. Ryan has led a few short day-trips into the park before, but our three-day foray will be far longer than anything he has previously done. Because of this, Lana wants us to talk to one of the Tico (costa Rican) guides to make sure we're prepared. Katie wonders whether there are any animals that we should be nervous about. Oscar, a guide, says that one should always be careful to watch for snakes, but the larger animals will pretty much leave you alone. That is, except for the peccaries. Two species of these wild pigs live in Corcavado, Oscar says, and one is especially pugnacious. It has developed a defense mechanism of swarming anything that might be a predator and goring it to death with their long tusks. So what should we do if we see any? Run? No, says, Oscar, try to pull yourself into a tree. That's the only safe way to escape.

This warning is somewhat unnerving, and throughout the hike down to the park, Katie theorizes about the possible fates that we might meet at the tusks of a pack of peccaries. Ryan and I attempt to convince her of the unlikeliness of this scenario. Peccaries are, after all, pretty rare. Less than a mile into the park, however (you saw this coming a long time back, didn't you?), we hear rustiling in the dark underbrush to our left. Peering though the trees, we soon determine that the source of the noise is, of course, a pack of peccaries. For the moment, they are rooting around in the ground. Thinking quickly, I did what any dumb tourist would do in such a situation: took a picture. The peccaries, however, did not take kindly to having their images forever immortalized on my computer. They stopped foraging, and some began to stalk closer to us, sizing us up.

Though Ryan thought that they were probably the more-docile of the two kinds of peccary, he was unsure of what to do. He coolly attempted to convey this to us in the most reassuring choice of words possible. "Guys," he said, "I have no idea what to do right now."

It was now clear that there were a lot of peccaries in the bushes, well over a dozen. Being on a trail in the thick rain forest, we had only two avenues of escape: down the trail or up the trail. I suggested that unsheathing the machete might be an appropriate course of action. While Ryan did that, I armed myself with a full Nalgene bottle from Katie's bag. It should be noted, by that way, that there was a distinct scarcity of climbable trees on that particular stretch of path. The peccaries continued to work their way closer, and Ryan whacked his machete on the ground in an attempt to scare them off. This didn't work. The peccaries startled, and immediately began pressing closer. Worse yet, one of the larger pigs had manuvered to outflank us, and was now walking down the path towards us.

I decided to upgrade my weapon from Nalgene to large, rotting stick. With Katie in between us, we continue slowly down the path. We can hear that there are peccaries moving up ahead of us, and decide that we must press on so that we do not find ourselves completely surrounded. We move on and on, and finally find that the peccaries, while still following us, are all behind us. The big pig on the path is studying us from about fifteen feet away. I whack my stick against a tree, and he startles again. We begin walking faster, and soon can hear no more movement behind us. Safe at last.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Choosing the Blue Pill

Okay, so you've just betrayed your fellow human freedom-fighters, and the evil artificial intelligence programs that rule the world are about to reward your disloyalty by plugging you back into the blissful ignorance of the Matrix. Before you go in, the machines are also offering to reward you by uploading five abilities of your choice into your mind. Which do you pick?

Basically, the question here is: if there was no cost in time, effort, and money spent attaining a learn-able talent, which ones would you choose? While you think that over, here are my picks:

1. Math
A major building block for other knowledge, with a complete understanding of mathematics, I can fairly easily move on to conquer the worlds of physics, chemistry, economics, etc.

2. The entirety of English literature
With the complete data base of books written in English encoded into my neurons, not only am I incredibly well prepared for any cocktail party or surprise English quiz, but I've also knocked off a good year or so of my life that would otherwise have been spent reading the books. And if I really want to read something new? Well, I can always go for modern literature, or rely on:

3. Fluency in Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese.
In addition to being able to communicate in most of the world, knowing two Romance languages and Chinese would make learning other languages much more readily accessible.

4. Tennis
Being talented at tennis requires a combination of qualities that translate well to most other sports: muscle-memory, speed, stamina, hand-eye coordination, and a good mental game. With tennis mastered, I could branch out to dominate other sports as well.

5. The canon of medical texts committed to memory
Having an enormous body of medical literature at my fingertips would make me the ultimate diagnosing machine. I could go through hundreds of patients a day, reading the case history and sending them to get the appropriate treatment. Each year I could helps tens of thousands of people get the appropriate care and save tons of time and money.


Runners-up:
Ice skating, the ability to play musical instruments, ability to read expressions, poker odds memorized, archive of all high level chess games

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Living on the edge

The best sort of joke is the one where, in the split second after it leaves your mouth, you experience a breathless moment of panic while you wait to see whether the joke's recipient will find it amusing or offensive.

For example, a mother recently wondered aloud in my presence why she was wearing a Cocopeli pin if he was a fertility god and she was over fifty. I helpfully suggested that perhaps it was for her 18 year-old daughter. I then carefully examined her eyes for any preliminary signs that I should commence fleeing across the dining room. Fortunately, she elected to consider my comment funny rather than grounds for a duel.

Sometimes I think that my appreciation for this sort of thrill verges on the dangerous side, like those who sate their taste for adrenaline by throwing themselves down steep hills with scant protective outrer-wear. In fact, those of you who know me personally should probably agree to some threshhold limit of offensiveness, which, once reached, should require you to kindly tie me down and have a humor intervention.


*Eclexia is going to be dormant for a week or so, as I am about to journey to the far off land of Costa Rica.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

And the winner is...

So, a few days ago I posted a semi-serious statistical analysis of the first Republican debate. At the end of the post, as you can read below, I promised to crown a winner in several days' time. After completing the post, I endeavored to rehabilitate my mind from the hours of sifting through talking points by thinking about anything and everything else. On Sunday, I published one of the filler posts that has been kicking around as a draft for a while to buy some time, but today I realized that I'd have to stop procrastinating and write this post. However, after reading over the numbers again, I decided that I didn't really want to anoint a single victor. Instead, I'll make the case for each of the candidates and let you decide.


Sam Brownback
Brownback's first accomplishment was having a "B" in the beginning of his last name, netting him the lead-off position in this list. Brownback successfully positioned himself as a hardcore conservative. His goal was to pick off some far right votes, and he was thus able to shoot from the hip. He successfully answered 85% of the questions, which one can afford to do if he is unworried about alienating the centrist vote. He also got the opportunity to declare his anti-abortion and anti-evolution stance, scored a Reagan reference, and managed a subtle attack on his more moderate opponents. The final reason Brownback won: he was able to get in on 13 different questions more than any of the other fringe candidates, and even tying him with Giuliani. So without further ado, congratulations Sam Brownback.

Jim Gilmore
Gilmore successfully kept his head down in what turned out to be a gotcha-question free-for-all. Recognizing early on that the tricky questions threatened death-by-Youtube to anyone who stuck his head out too far, Gilmore kept his head down and lived to fight another day. He squirmed his way out of 2/3 of the questions he was asked, more by far than any of the other candidate. This included a crucial obfuscation on his murky stance on abortion. He tied Brownback with 3 platitudes, offering up lofty--but safe--rhetoric. Gilmore also managed a Reagan reference and several subtle attacks. Most importantly, he won by being one of the few candidates to maintain his appeal to both the Right and center by not offering up any material to compromise his hold on either demographic.

Rudy Giuliani (did I really promise to do everyone? whew...)
Rudy notched some serious face time. The front-runner entering into the debate, Giuliani realized that in a fractured Republican field and and bad political climate, conservatives would be forced to lean in the direction of electability, instead of for the socially-conservative candidate that they might prefer. Recognizing this, Giuliani maintained his pro-abortion position, while still throwing the Right a bone ("I hate abortions"). Finally, Giuliani tied Romney for the most unprompted Reagan references, tapping into the cult of celebrity popular with the Republican camp.

Mike Huckabee
Huckabee entered the debate as the dark horse, and managed to maintain this position. Like Brownback, the former governor hopes to capture the Conservative Christian votes that stray from the Big Three. Huckabee staked himself solidly in the Right's camp with anti-evolution and abortion positions. In fact, Huckabee was so confident in his conservative positioning that he was the lone candidate who did not go out of his way to include President Reagan in one of his responses.

Duncan Hunter
Like Gilmore, the Californian also managed to lay low. However, unlike Gilmore, Hunter accomplished this while only dodging a single question. He gave straight answers, and did a good job striking an iron while it was hot: Hunter's pet issue is immigration and border control, which is peaking at the moment. Furthermore, Hunter established himself as a candidate of substance by answering his questions without a single empty platitude. I doing so he strengthened his position as the pet candidate of conservative intelligentsia, including George Will. All in all, the Representative did a good job gaining his exposure without compromising integrity.

John McCain
McCain fired up the old Straight Talk Express, breaking out lines like "I'll follow [bin Laden] to the gates of Hell", and clarifying his belief in evolution with "when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also." McCain attempted to revive the rebellious outsider status that made him the media darling in 2000. Furthermore, McCain made important gains on Giuliani by sticking to his guns on the war, staking out an anti-abortion position, and tying Romney for the most questions asked. McCain also made a point to address the camera directly, distinguishing himself from the other candidates, and preempted the issue of age by pointing out the elephant in the room.

Mitt Romney
For this endorsement, just look to the post-debatee polls. Almost all of them have Romney winning the debate. He demonstrated a knack for filling up his time with sharp answers. He was physically the most appealing candidate. He had a direct, if suspicious, answer on the issue of abortion. He invoked Reagan twice, went attack and platitude-free, tied McCain for the most questions fielded, and managed to answer fully 80% of them. He also squeezed through the issue of his religion, offering up a JFK-esque response. So Romney managed to shed two of his major parachutes, gave substantial answers, and made himself a media darling. Not bad for an hour and a half.

Ron Paul
No one made a more significant leap into the public eye than Ron Paul, vaulting from obscurity to YouTube hero status. Paul was the only man in the race against the war, and pressed his advantage with every opportunity. He racked up 9 total attacks, four more than all the other candidates combined, and managed to do it without sounding (too) shrill. All but one of his responses skewered his opponents on their backing of the war, and this may actually be a great strategy. Consider the numbers: though two-thirds of the American public opposes the war, a majority of the Republican base still supports it, so most of the Republican candidates have felt obliged to support it. However, there is still a significant percentage of Republicans who do oppose the war, and in a race in which the leading candidate has just better than a quarter of the votes, small slices of the pie become significant. The Texan's rhetoric, invoking Eisenhower and Nixon, reminded the conservative audience that they had won elections in the past on anti-war tickets. Perhaps this reminder will loosen some more votes to his side.

Tom Tancredo
The first Tommy T. in the debate demonstrated a knack for ducking a question gracefully. Of the three questions he avoided, he neatly avoided one with a platitude, and a second with a Reagan reference. The Colorado representative also joined Huckabee and Brownback as the lone three men expressing disbelief with the theory of evolution. A solid and safe performance, introducing Tacredo to the nation and putting the pieces in place for a later push.

Tommy Thompson
Nothing endears a person to a Republican audience like lines such as "[I was] the one that started welfare reform, reduced welfare caseload...in the state of Wisconsin, by 93%." and "[I] vetoed more than 1900 items in 14 years in office, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars." (the accuracy of these statements is in question, but that rarely matters in a debate). Thompson kept himself solidly in the majority, with stances against abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, and signaling that he believed in evolution. Thompson's neutral positioning is key for his game-theory strategy, recently cited by George Will:

In the last 24 elections, since 1912, winners of the presidency won a plurality of the states along the Mississippi. Today the Republican presidential candidate with perhaps the most impressive resume says:

Republicans should assume that in 2008 they will lose Ohio (20 electoral votes), where the state party's corruption and incompetence cost it the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat and a House seat in 2006. So the GOP candidate must carry Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota (27 electoral votes). In 2004, George W. Bush narrowly carried Iowa and narrowly lost Wisconsin and Minnesota, the only state that has voted Democratic in eight consecutive elections.

The man with the impressive resume is Tommy Thompson, who says he can carry those three Midwestern states.



So, congratulations to the winner(s). I hope to do one for the next Democratic debate, whenever that is, but that will require enough time having passed to make me forget how much time this took.

Thanks for visiting Eclexia.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Paint by neurons

I think that I am most awed by a piece of art when I realize that it was created from memory rather than by an artist looking at a subject. Some of Monet's sunset paintings, for example, depict a scene that occurred for a brief moment in the end of the day. Just minutes earlier or later, the light was different, and the composition would have been changed completely. Basically, Monet had just a fleeting chance to take in the competition, which he then reproduced from memory in perfect detail. Picasso is perhaps an even more impressive example. He would commit a composition to memory from a number of angles, then create a painting that was a composite of all these perspectives.

Recently I made the discovery that this phenomenon exists in literature, as well. A major aspect of literature is the accurate exposition of emotion and human thought. While there are some method writers out their who actively work themselves into the mood they are trying to replicate, most authors are writing from memory. You probably can recall a favorite passage in which a character undergoes a moment of emotion that really rang true (for me it's James Joyce's Araby). It was created by an author so in tune with the intricacies of emotion that s/he was able to access it even weeks or years removed from actually feeling it.

I believe that this ability to extrapolate, to know one's subject so innately that it can be reproduced from memory, is what makes a person a master of their craft.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Analyze this: Stats on the first Republican debate

Introduction
Last night was the first Republican primary debate, closely followed by the customary declarations of victory by all involved. Now, you won't see me knocking a person for claiming to have won something that does not have an empirical method for deciding a winner. Much the opposite: I've been known to declare victory in events ranging from formal dinners to flossing. However, as someone with some experience at winning the un-winnable, allow me to give the candidates a tip: you have to quantify something to support your claim. So, in order to help out the White House hopefuls: I have broken down the debate into several quantifiable categories so we can see who the winner truly was.


Key
RR: Unprompted Reagan reference
P: Platitude (idealistic statement unsupported by substantive explanation)
A: Attack on another candidate
QD: Questions dodged
TQ: Total number of questions asked
%: Percentage of questions answered (not dodged)

Note: a series of questions in a row on a single topic are counted as one question, and if the candidate initially avoided the question, then gave a direct answer after being prodded, it is counted as half a dodge. The yes/no questions to the entire field were not counted here, but appear below in the raw data section.

Candidate_________RR___P____A___QD_____TQ____%
Rudy Giuliani_________2____1_____0_____4______13____69%
Jim Gilmore: _________1____3_____2_____6______9_____33%
John McCain:_________1____1_____0_____4______15____73%
Mitt Romney:_________2____0_____0_____3______15____80%
Sam Brownback:_______1____3_____1_____2______13____85%
Mike Huckabee:_______0____1_____1_____2.5_____10____75%
Tommy Thompson:_____1____2_____0_____2.5_____9____72%
Tom Tancedo:_________1____1_____1_____2.5_____9____72%
Duncan Hunter:_______1____0_____0_____1_______9____89%
Ron Paul:____________1____0_____9_____1______10____90%


Where I got my Stats: The Raw Data
Here is a question by question break down of the debate. Each individual question is listed either as A (Answered), or U (Unanswered). If a series of questions were asked, they are contained within parentheses. References to Ronald Reagan (R), platitudes (P), and attacks on other candidates (X) are also listed adjacent to the answer. So: a UP denotes a question dodged with a platitude, an AX shows the answer was accompanied at a barb at one of the other candidates, and the rare URP stands for a response that does not answer the question, contains an unsupported platitude, and cites Ronald Reagan.


Key
A: Answered question
U: Unanswered question
R: Reagan reference
P: Platitude (idealistic statement unsupported by substantive explanation)
X: Attack on another candidate
Y and N: Answer to one of the 4 yes/no questions posed to the entire field. U can still be given if the question is dodged. The number following the letter gives a reference to the yes/no question that was asked.

Candidates' answers in order
Rudy Giuliani: A (PUR) Y1 U (UUN2) (AUUA) A A Y3 A Y4 A (UR) A A A
Jim Gilmore: (PU) (AU) N1 Y2 (AX) (PU) (PU) N3 U Y4 (RAX) A U
John McCain: (UA) (UA) A U1 Y2 (PA) (RA) A A Y3 U A U Y4 A A A A
Mitt Romney: A (RA) A N1 (UR) Y2 (AA) (AAA) (AX) (UN3) A A Y4 A U A A U
Sam Brownback: A (PA) N1 Y2 (RAP) A U N3 A N4 A (AP) (AX) U A A A
Mike Huckabee: A N1 U Y2 (AP) (AX) (UUA) U N3 A N4 A A A
Tommy Thompson: (AP) N1 Y2 A (UA) U (URP) N3 A Y4 A A A
Tom Tancedo: (UA) N1 A Y2 A (UR) (PU) N3 (AX) N4 A A A
Duncan Hunter: A Y1 A Y2 (RA) U A N3 A A Y4 A A
Ron Paul: (AX) N1 (AX) Y2 (AX) (AX) N3 (AX) Y4 U (AX) (AX) (AX) (AX)

1. Should a foreign-born citizen be eligible for the presidency?
2. Should Roe v. Wade be overturned?
3. Embryonic stem cell research: yes or no?
4. Evolution: real or not?

Notes: Whether or not a question was answered was determined by my own subjective analysis. If you feel that I have slighted any candidate, please feel free to contact me and make your case.

And yes, I did give Representative Tancredo a "Platitude" for his declaration, "No more platitudes."




The craziest moment of the debate in my eyes
There was one specific moment on the debate that really dropped my jaw and I would like to discuss. Here's Mayor Giuliani on what an American president should do in terms of Iran:

Giuliani: And [the Iranian PM] has to look at an American president, and he has to see Ronald Reagan. Remember the -- they looked in Ronald Reagan’s eyes, and two minutes they released the hostages.

Wow. Please tell me if my facts are wrong here, but I think that it was the secret shipments of weapons that convinced the Iranians to release the hostages, not President Reagan's eyes. As I recall that was something of a big deal, too. Not only was it giving in to terrorism, but it supplied a fanatic Islamic power with weapons, the same fanatic Islamic power that apparently now has enough weapon that it can loan them to Iraqi insurgents to kill US soldiers!

Did Mayor Giuliani really mean to suggest that he would have done the same thing? Is he saying that he would pay a ransom of weapons to the insurgents in Iraq to release a hostage? Probably not. Was Giulliani yearning to connect himself to Reagan so much that he was willing to invoke even Reagan's biggest blunder as long as he got a chance to speak the man's name? Definitely.




Stay tuned for...
Next time on Eclexia: I analyze the debate and chose a winner.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Darwin lives

Introduction
In most cases, evolution happens far to slowly to be observed in a single lifetime (the exception being single-cellular organisms, which can evolve a resistance to an antibiotic during an 8th period AP Biology class). However, there will likely be a few cases of evolution that will be visible over the next few hundred years. The explosive force of human society has catalyzed some evolutionary changes already: sea otters used to spend time on shore, but now spend their entire lives in the ocean, for example. Anatomical evolution generally happens over spans of time far too big to be observed, but some behavioral change occurs remarkably quickly. So, here are a few examples of evolution that I predict we will see within the millenium.

1. Squirrels: better understanding of roads
Squirrels have it hard-wired into their brain that at the first sign of trouble, the optimal course of action is to run to the nearest tree and climb it. For centuries, this strategy worked out pretty well for them, but recently has become a bit of a problem. For example, if the nearest tree happens to be on the far side of the road that you have just run 3/4 of the way across, you have a much better chance of getting squished. Since you see so many squirrels dead on the road, this is an evolutionary moment waiting to happen. Eventually, some squirrells will happen to have an instinctual preference towards fleeing to the nearest side of the road, and as there comrades are weeded out by speeding semis, these neo-squirrels will come to command a progressively larger chunk of squirrel-dom. Just watch: there will be far fewer squirrel-automobile fatalities is fifty years.

2. Birds/butterflies: greater role in pollination
As it stands, honeybees are responsible for pollinating something like 90% of the America's crops. This is an artificial monoply, created by the rie of farming. Bees were included in that process as the most easily-controllable pollinator out there. However, an artificially created one-species pollination system is unstable, and bees are bound to be challenged in their dominance of different plant species by various other pollinators. With bee colonies around the country collapsing, I bet you'll begin to see the proliferation bird and other insect species that are able to adapt to pollinate these now-unmated flowers.

3. Humans: long-term decision making
We've got short term decision making down to an art: if you're hungry, you eat. If something is thrown at you, you duck. In the moment, we are pretty good at recognizing dangers and needs. In the long term we're reasonably good, but you still see a whole lot more people fail to get around to paying off their mortgage than fail to duck when a bottle is thrown at them. I expect that the percentage of these poor long-term decision makers that are able to reproduce is lower than those who are able to get it together enough to find a house, a job, and otherwise negotiate the long-term challenges of life.



Some other thoughts random on human evolution:

• Taste buds: Eating sweet things is a biologically good decision in the wild, but proves to be a poor idea in modern society. Therefore, our brain's preference for sweet, energy-filled food is a relic of a caveman's life. Perhaps adapted taste buds will re-correct our diets and cut back on obesity in our world.

• Susceptibility to religious extremism: The early 20th century fear that Catholics would breed their way to world domination did not pan out, but the fact remains that the people that contribute the most members to the next generation very often belong to extreme religious sects. This would seem to suggest that fanaticism will be a cultivated phenotype in the future.

• Knees & ankles: If only we had invented agriculture just a few thousand years after after we began walking on two legs, maybe we wouldn't have so many knee and ankle injuries.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Random Prediction

Off the top of my head: As carbon usage gains more and more press, I bet you'll see Major League Baseball restructure its divisions. Instead of having both the American League and the National League spread out all over the country, there will be an Eastern and Western League like the NBA. This would greatly cut down on airline travel, if interleague play continues to be rare. You heard it here first.