Crime and Punishment

In this country, politicians often like to talk about being tough on crime. Unfortunately they are rarely tough on crime, what they are is tough on criminals. Our criminal justice system is unquestionably focused primarily on punishment, it is regulated vengeance, with a side order of supposed "deterrence". Yet there's little evidence that prison time is a particularly strong deterrent for the most common type of criminals. Consider this TED talk.

The FATALITY rate during the crack epidemic for low level drug dealers was absurd, and yet people continued to do it. If the fear of death doesn't dissuade people from committing crimes, what chance does 5-20 years of prison stand? So our prisons are simply warehouses intended to make the rest of the population feel better because the criminals are "paying for their crimes". Yet crime is still a major problem, and though violent crime rates has been steadily declining for decades, our incarceration rates are higher than ever. This is because we treat criminals as the disease, rather than crime. Criminals are symptoms, and incarcerating them is just treating the symptom. Crime is a societal disease which grows most readily in areas of persistent poverty, disenfranchisement, and lack of stability. So long as we simply leave crime to fester in our prison populations and then release them back into the same desperate communities they came from, with no serious attempt at treating the underlying causes of the disease, with no intervention to change the social dynamic from which consistent crime originates, we will never see a truly profound reduction in crime. Simply writing off criminals as "deserving what they get" is both unethical and horribly shortsighted, as it ignores the reality of recidivism and the long term impacts of a large convict and ex-convict population, a population even more locked out of the system which is meant to nurture this country and all it's citizens. So long as we have large populations of people who feel that the system hurts them more than helps them, we will continue to see high crime rates, and all the costs associated. There are people looking to change our approach to crime and punishment, among them Shaka Senghor.

Three Reforms

TL:DR - Our political process is broken, to fix it we need to stop letting every rich person or company that wants to influence policy spend as much as they like trying to elect people who will therefore be beholden to them, stop letting which ever party is in power draw district lines to artificially skew representation in their own favor, by creating increasingly safe districts for both parties (but more of them for their own, with fewer, even less politically diverse districts for their opponents) and change the way we vote so that your second, third, fourth, and so on choices are also considered, allowing you to vote for who you want, then who you'd prefer, then who'd you accept, and then who you really would rather not have, removing the requirement that you vote not so much as for one person, as against that person's opponent (who ACTUALLY voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein?). Doing so would allow moderates to get (and stay) elected, and third party candidates to actually see how much support they have when people aren't forced to chose the most likely winner they don't hate.

*Edit* And if you are convinced about these reforms here's an organization that's doing something about them and other reforms aimed at fixing our electoral process. http://www.fairvote.org/


The political process is, to my mind, and apparently that of about 93% of America, broken. Never have we been so united about how terribly our government is doing it's job, and so divided on who's to blame. I, as a liberal, find it oh so easy to blame conservatives, the Tea Party, and the Republicans. I could point to their stated primary goal of making Obama a one term president, or their insistence on denying even the existence of anthropogenic climate change, or their overuse of the filibuster, or their holding the countries finances and thus economy hostage in order to try to score a political victory. All of this I have done as have other liberals, but the fact is that I'm biased and I can find plenty of instances of liberals taking a political victory over a compromise that would actually help the American people. Why do we have this state of affairs? I propose that it is because of a structural problem with our democracy which has become more evident as time wears on and the political process becomes increasingly important in people's lives. We have a system which rewards ideological purity over statesmanship and effective compromise building, one which almost mandates a two party system, and one which is heavily polluted by special interests and money. Our political duopoly has created a scenario of constant campaign and almost no actual governing, and it has led to a bifurcation of the populace, with a shrinking group of people in the middle, and a growing group of people who are so fed up with the system that they reject it out of hand. We have a system which encourages secrecy and deceit, and discourages candidness.

  I refuse to accept this as an inherent flaw in the democratic system, but rather as a bug, which can be fixed with the proper application of reforms. The first is campaign finance reform, which I've written about before and won't go over again. The others are redistricting reform, and voting reform.

Redistricting reform is something you may have heard about, or more likely the problem which it aims to correct, gerrymandering. The problem is that we allow politicians to draw up voting districts, which back in the days of limited data, was not a big problem because mostly politicians just used common sense and tried to keep districts fairly normally shaped. Increasingly however politicians and their partisan advisers have complex population data which allows them to craft districts which are very safe for their party, while limiting the number of safe or even competitive districts the other party has. This happens every 10 years, and 4 years ago Republicans used their newly gained power in many states to draw up districts that allowed them to win over 53% of the house seats in 2012 with under 49% of the vote. This however is not really the problem, though it irks me as a liberal. The problem is that we've allowed political parties to create districts designed to be "safe" for their candidate. While of course it is inevitable that some regions of the country will be overwhelmingly supportive of some ideology or party, intentionally creating such districts in toxic to our political process. The reason for this is simple. Instead of trying to find a compromise, appeal to moderates of both parties, and focus on the general election when the most people are going to vote, in a great many districts the focus is on the primary. This is highlighted by the Tea Party wing of the Republican party which has been very effective and winning high profile primaries and forcing the entire party towards the extreme right wing. Democrats however are no doubt concerned in many of their districts more with getting the nomination than with appealing to those in the middle, much less the other side. This means that extremism is rewarded and bipartisanship is more of a liability than an asset. The solution for this could be non-partisan panels, or perhaps even better, simply an algorithm which takes population data and creates districts which minimize distance to the reasonable polling stations for each district while keeping the districts with equal populations. No potential for gerrymandering, and an almost guaranteed increase in the number of competitive districts.

Perhaps even more important than redistricting reform (though not as important in my estimation as campaign finance reform) is voting reform. I mentioned the need for candidates to aim for moderate voters from both parties, since doing so would allow them to reach across the aisle, made deals which allow legislation to go forward, and preferably, to do so while using the ideologies and expertise of all politicians to create particularly robust laws which work to improve the nation for all, regardless of political preference. In order for this to happen however, we cannot continue to use a voting system which is absolutely rife with inherent flaws. The most important of these flaws is the obvious encouragement of strategic voting. Strategic voting is something nearly everyone does, including myself, every time they vote. At its most basic it means choosing who you vote for by criteria other than who you most want to win. Generally this is expressed by people of all political ideologies choosing either a Republican or a Democrat, even though there may well be people in the race who they would rather have voted for, because they know that a vote for their preferred person is a vote thrown away. This means that people who vote for their preferred choice, something I think we can all agree is a good thing, are often effectively disenfranchised, their voice unheard. To many this seems like an intractable problem, inherent to the whole concept of voting, however that is only true in our (America's) most common voting technique. There are many systems out there which aim to correct for this problem, including one which California has adopted known as "Ranked Choice Voting" or "Instant Runoff". In this system you may vote for as many candidates you would like, in order from most preferred to least preferred. Then when the votes are counted, if one person got a majority of the first choice votes then he or she is the winner, if not then the person who got the fewest is eliminated and everyone who chose that person has their vote switched to their second choice. This continues until one person has a majority. It ensures that voting for one candidate doesn't make any other candidate you might chose less likely to be elected, so long as they are also on your ballot. The only way a candidate can be hurt by your vote is if someone you placed higher than them gets elected. This system works well for eliminating strategic voting, and giving voters the option to honestly voice their opinion as to who should win without fear of disenfranchisement. It does little however to increase bipartisanship or moderate candidates. Instead I support what's known as "condorcet voting" The process of casting a ballot remains the same as the ranked choice, with each voter placing their choices in order from favorite to least favorite. The winner however is chosen by comparing all candidates in the field to each other as if it were a two person race, and finding the candidate who is ranked higher than all the others by a majority of the voters. This is difficult to understand, but the math isn't actually that hard. I'd suggest googling it if you want more details on how it works. What it does better than ranked choice however, is allow a nuanced vote from each voter, since it is not simply a matter of who gets the most first place votes, but also who is commonly accepted as a better option than most. In such a system a candidate could win not because they were beloved by many people, but because they were respected, or at least not reviled, by most people. This could well encourage moderates from both parties, both the voters and the candidates, to take back some control from the more extreme wings, and in so doing create a real middle ground where deals can be made and legislation drafted.

Ultimately what we want is a representative democracy where the people elected are generally respected by those they represent, even by many who disagree with much of their ideology. One where Republicans, instead of slavishly sticking by "no new taxes" and "small government" could focus on improving efficiency without limiting the scope or quality of much needed programs. One in which Democrats, instead of seeing any criticism of the cost of our social safety net and the problem of constant state dependency could instead work with Republicans to find solutions that actually improve the financial status of impoverished Americans, thereby changing them from a burden on the state to an asset. What we want is a system which uses passionate, well informed difference of opinion to craft legislation which is more effective than what either side could have created without opposition, one which views political opponents not as enemies but as partners. We need to chance our political process in order to change our political outcomes. Rather than rejecting politicians and the political process and pointless and out of touch, lets work to improve is, and bring it back in touch.

Dear Google.

I'm not a software developer, not a coder, I don't even know HTML despite many years of swearing I'd learn it (some day, some day), but I am an avid software consumer, and a designer, and I feel I have some advice to give to you. Yes, I've going to give advice to one of the most successful and powerful software companies in the world.

Here it is.

Make google+ useful WITHOUT the social component, and then the social component will evolve on it's own, with the added benefit of it STILL being useful for people who don't give a damn about facebook OR google+ or the various other social networking sites.

Here's some ideas of how.

Make it replace iGoogle. I loved iGoogle, and was saddened to see it go. I had my e-mail, my weather, my news, my xkcd comic, and several other useful apps all in one place. I could have used it better if it were better designed, or I'd given it more thought, but it did what I needed and there's nothing out there that I like quite as much, especially because they aren't native to google, so my g-mail's a bit kludgy on them. So how about this.

Make my Google+ homepage work like that. Have apps that I can add, things like the much missed Google reader, which have the added advantage of linking right into the Google+ pages of the blogs, zines, and publications which are publishing the content, maybe even make THEIR Google+ profiles flexible enough and user friendly enough that they could easily use Google+ as their primary, or at least close secondary, online distribution venue. How much would you love that? In addition to all the feeds (using tags to tailor them to my interest, in addition to circles to allow me to include or exclude people and organization from different feeds) have apps like weather, taking it straight from your beautiful and useful weather search result app thing, games (Words with friends?) movie times, in other words, all the things you already had in iGoogle. Boom, people suddenly like seeing their social media homepage, and want to set it as their browser homepage, because it's not just a random feed of whatever their 400+ friends happen to have said recently. It could be sorted into categories, filtered, and mixed with decidedly non-social media but even more decidedly useful "apps".

Allow for an increased connection between Blogger and Google+. Currently it's just an option to link your blog to your Google+ account. If you could allow people to merge their blog with their google+, then go ahead and add an extra option of posting a status OR a blog post (or even a blog post with an accompanying status) then limiting the number of characters in a status update, that would be great. Rather than having overly long status updates, it would just automatically make it a blog post, which people could treat differently among the people/organizations they follow.

This is somewhat unrelated to Google+ but would be absolutely wonderful. Allow people to switch google services between accounts. It used to be that people had Gmail, and that was it. Well now they might well have Gmail, YouTube, GooglePlay, Google+, Blogger, and who knows how many other services on ONE ACCOUNT. That is so many places for there to be access, and since access to e-mail is pretty much an all access pass to someones ENTIRE LIFE these days, that's kind of scary/dangerous/annoying. For instance, someone might have a googleplay account they'd like to let their boyfriend access, just as a for instance, but not really give him their Gmail password because that's just kind of intrusive. Well, tough titty you say to the completely hypothetical girlfriend, because that googleplay account is inexorably linked to the Gmail account you set up ages ago and can't possibly abandon because it's your only contact for many people and would be a gigantic hassle. If however they could create a new Google account, one which didn't have any (important) Gmail attached they could use it for all their non essential google services while safeguarding their hyper important personal Gmail account which gives access to, as I said, practically their entire life. Awesome right. And I know you're all about having it all linked up for purposes of getting as much information as possible about every individual but frankly, that's creepy and it's why people are starting to turn on you. Fun bonus, people could create an account JUST FOR YOUTUBE, have it be named whatever they want, and not have their comments turn up with their Google+ page, thus responding in part to the many complaints your recent change to YouTube commenting garnered.

Just a few thoughts, go ahead and contact me if you want me to hash them out more for you, because I really do still like you, and want to see you succeed. My hourly rates for advice are extremely reasonable, and you're extremely rich, so that shouldn't be a deterrent.

With love
Jeff.

Campaign Finance Reform

    Our federal legislature is utterly dysfunctional at the moment. This is a widely accepted fact, including by most of the members of the federal legislature. There are a multitude of reasons for this, varying from political self sorting (the tendency for voters to chose to live in places where they feel they belong, thus creating radicalized districts and radicalized representatives with strong disincentives to compromise) to the compartmentalization of news, whereby voters opt to get their news from sources which generally espouse views they agree with. All of this has led to a rush for the wings in both political parties (with the Republican's leading the way, as might be expected from the party in the weaker position, but with Democrats increasingly responding with more calls for extreme liberalism.) Many of these problems are integral to our system of representative democracy, and are therefore very difficult to address.

    One major aspect of our political system, however, one which is broken so severely that it impacts nearly every step of the political process, is our campaign finance system. Every 4 years now BILLIONS of dollars are spent in the presidential election, along with the thousands of other smaller elections, some of them still involving many millions of dollars in ad buys. This money has many consequences for the American political system. The first, and most widely focused on is that it gives far too much power to the people and organizations supplying the money. This problem has been vastly exaggerated in the wake of Citizen's United and other related rollbacks of campaign finance restrictions. The power is wielded in several ways. The most direct of these is organizations like the Heritage Foundation spending huge sums on negative ad campaigns against politicians who go against their will, and bankrolling those they think will. With this kind of money legitimate candidates can essentially be shouted down and out of the race. Even small errors, or fallacious ones, can be repeated, reinforced, embellished upon, and repeated again until a candidate is widely known by that perceived "error" without that candidate being able to respond unless xe too has a large war chest to purchase counter ads, and ads which attack the opposition in order to change the tone of the campaign. Without that, almost inevitably, that candidate will lose. The fickleness of the average voter is well known, as are the effective methods for influencing them through advertizing.

     This leads to the next, and far less well known, problem caused by such tremendous amounts of money in politics. Time is money, and therefore money is time. Politicians have to spend a significant portion of their time and energy raising funds rather than working on policy. The parties have quotas for more senior and powerful legislators, money they're expected to raise in order for the party to back less senior and therefore more vulnerable candidates, and to keep on hand in case the opposing side tries to flood an election at the last minute, or other such maneuvers. Politicians have to put together dinners, call major donors, and, increasingly, woo lobbyists.

     Ah yes, lobbyists, the third major problem caused by the money. People often see lobbyists as the active pursuers of legislators, offering money, threatening to bankroll opponents, generally trying to get legislators (in particular) to do their will, a combination of bribery and extortion, all sanctioned by law. The reality is more nuanced, but in large part flipped. Legislators seek out lobbyists for many reasons, including funding.  Mostly lobbyists, as I understand them, are just political insiders who have been hired to be, more or less, private politicians. They study issues related to their employer's business or personal interests, work on policy, and draft legislation. They attend all the same events, move in the same circles as the elected officials, and they will be consulted by politicians from both sides of the aisle both for their expertise, and in order to determine how major interest groups are feeling about various pieces of legislation. Rarely, I suspect, will overt demands be made by lobbyists, though I'm sure it does happen, however in all these conversations, there will be the unspoken understanding that if the legislation goes the way of that lobbyists interests, the politicians involved will be viewed favorably by that lobbyist, and their fundraising will have gotten that much easier. The more powerful and wealthy the interest group, the more prestige will the lobbyist have, the more parties, and more important parties will xe be invited to, and the more credence will be given to xis suggestions. This is the subtle but powerful influence lobbyists have on the political system (emphasized no doubt by the fact that many lobbyists are friends and former co-workers of the more senior and thus influential politicians on BOTH sides.)

    The last impact I will discuss is the tendency for such huge sums of money to lead to entrenchment exclusion, and a close approximation of a plutocracy, wherein only those of a certain class, particularly those BORN of a certain class, have much of a chance at political power. Since there is such a tremendous financial barrier to get over, one which requires the help of monied connections poor and middle class people are unlikely to have. There are ways around this, and many examples of people who have gained popular support before receiving financial backing to turn their campaign into a viable one, but they are far rarer than might be expected in a country which purports to value "bootstraps" and "the common man". Instead we are given financial elites, with a well crafted and expensive veneer of everyman. Surely this has something to do with the deep sense of mistrust and apathy the average American now feels towards Washington.

    And what benefit is there to all this money? Certainly it raises the awareness of politics, but only in a very superficial way. Most people will be able to name the Democratic and Republican candidate in any presidential, and possibly Senate and House race they can vote in, but that might well be the extent of their knowledge. Others will buy into one sides advertizing, accepting it wholesale, and thus having a deeper, but fundamentally biased understanding of the race. Many Americans however seem to simply be burned out by all this advertising, considering, with some reason, that all politicians are essentially the same, crooks, and therefore none of the are worth paying attention to. This leaves us with many mainline Americans withdrawing from the political process, especially the primary elections, leaving only the most motivated, and often most extreme elements of both parties to dictate the fate of prospective politicians. This at a time when access to fairly non-biased, understandable information on every political candidate and issue is increasingly wide-spread and easy, at a time when the political challenges facing us are greater than perhaps ever before, and more complex.

    Beyond the burnout, there is the waste. Money spent on elections, past a certain point, is essentially wasted. It doesn't produce any real increase in knowledge, or participation, not when it's constantly be countered by money on the other side. It is money used to cancel out other money, and that is truly inexcusable.

    So those are the problems, here's a possible solution.

Establish a fund, cared for by the federal government, which bankrolls political campaigns up to a point. Require that people achieve a threshold of signatures before receiving this funding, to ensure the money isn't wasted on non-viable candidates. Candidates can use these funds up to the limit, and beyond that limit they have to raise their own funds. These could be raised up to twice the federal funds, with each dollar raised taxed at 50% to help pay for the general fund. That is to say, if a presidential candidate reached the say, 10 million dollar limit on federal funds, and wished to raise more, they could raise up to 20 million more, but 10 million of that would be placed back in the general fund. Outside groups which wanted to campaign for an issue (directly campaigning against or for a candidate wouldn't be allowed) could go through the same process, receiving funds if they reached a threshold of signatures, or simply paying for it themselves, but with a 50% tax. Different levels of funding could be set for different numbers of signatures, and different offices/issues.

     There would be kinks that have to be worked out, but the returns would be a drastic increase in accessibility, a change in focus for politicians from working with lobbyists to working with citizens, and a huge saving in both time and money for all politicians who would no longer have to worry about being massively outspent, or having to raise huge amounts of money. Setting the limit far lower than common values currently spent on elections would also mean campaigns would have to be more efficient, search for ways of reaching voters that cost little, and produce much, far better practice for actual governance than swimming in a sea of money and focusing on how to make sure it keeps pouring in. The reality is that these days, with the internet, many voters can be reached not by jamming ads down their throats, but by engaging them in ways they care about, addressing issues they want addressed in more than superficial ways.

     I know this won't solve all the problems our political system is suffering from, but it's a good start, and to my mind, one which really HAS to be the start, since without a major shakeup of how we conduct business in Washington, there won't be any significant progress in dealing with all the OTHER challenges we face. We have to change the paradigm under which laws are made, before we can hope for those laws to be changed in any meaningful way.

Student Political Party Party-Off

Holy cow, another microblog.... you know, for me. Though this one is a bit of a cheat since it's really just an overlong facebook status. Cheers all four of you readers who get this on facebook AND Google plus.

I think, as a means of boosting political awareness and engagement and raising funds to do even more of that, all party affiliated student groups should get together at every university where enough exist, and create an early in the fall semester Party party off. Essentially this would be a competition in which each political party's student group would host a party, raising money, planning, advertising and so on. Then on the arranged date, early in the semester they would all host simultaneous parties, preferably in fairly close proximity to one another. Wristbands would be sold which would gain access, and alcohol rights to all of the parties, and people would go from party to party, and then, at some point in the near future there would be a vote (with people turning in their wristband as the vote, ensuring no voter fraud, just for you Young Republicans out there) as to which Party's party was best. The money earned from the wristband sales would be split with 15% going to the outright winner, and the remaining 85% being split between all the teams according to their percentage of the vote. This would be an excellent fundraiser, and an amusing way of creating a uniquely student appropriate parody of the political process which may none the less educate and interest some of the people who get involved to help with the party, and even some who attend the event(s).

The "Sustainability" movement in architecture.

Architecture has had many styles, or movements. They blend, and are fractured, and are in some ways arbitrary, however as the job of Master Builder transformed into the profession of Architect and communication and literature became more widespread, and education more formalized, movements began to be recognized in their own time. Of this modern era of Architecture the most important, defining movement was appropriately, the Modernist movement. It is a broad term, with many internal divisions and precursors, and the era it covers is nebulous in the extreme, but it is a recognizable movement, and it is one which transformed, dramatically, not merely the aesthetic of Architecture, or even the structure, or functional theory of Architecture. It transformed the entirely philosophy of the profession, it introduced social duty, an engineering of society through the design of buildings. It taught that architects were in the vanguard of progress, interdisciplinary designers who drew upon the most up to date theories of structure, materials, social science, health, and industrial design. There were many different visions of the future that was to be built, and the style of buildings varied greatly, but there was a tremendously powerful underlying intention, and belief. Since that movement (roughly 1900-1950, with a buffer of about 10 years on either side) there have largely been a series of reactions to it, followed by odd excursions into different materials, aesthetics, colors, etc. From Brutalism to Deconstructivism the movements were largely concerned with skinning. Many of the advances made in the Modernist movement have been continued, some even improved upon, but much of the social duty of architects appeared to have been forgotten, the structural advances were increasingly left to engineers, and residential design stagnated.

 I see the Sustainability movement to be fundamentally similar in scope and importance as the Modernist movement. It is the most important movement since the Modernist, and has the possibility of even eclipsing it. The Modernist movement was born of a need for designers to solve the problems of the turn of the century, the growth of the middle class, the aftershocks of the industrial revolution, and indeed, two world wars.  These were huge social challenges, and so there was a great need for a change of paradigm in order to come up with solutions, and architects were major players in that paradigm change. So it is/should/shall be with Climate Change and the Sustainability movement. In fact, Climate Change is only part of the problem, the world is facing a huge number of changes all occurring at once. The climate is changing, deserts are expanding, and society is urbanizing and becoming increasingly interconnected. Poor countries are getting richer, and better educated. Oil is running low, technology is outpacing governments, and species are going extinct at an alarming rate, most of which is not the result of Climate Change, but will no doubt be amplified by it. Humans are not merely posing a threat to one another, we are literally threatening the wellbeing of the global ecosystem. This challenge is almost certainly greater than that faced by the Modernists.

The challenge is greater, and it is also more multifaceted, fortunately, the tools we've got are FAR FAR better than the modernists had. We can automate, compute, and calculate things that were far beyond the abilities of the modernists. The modernists considered the ways in which people lived, or could live if given the right environment, They considered the structure, and aesthetic of materials, but little of their function in terms of insulation, or for that matter, health. They dreamed up new structural systems to reach great heights, but gave very little thought to the impact of their buildings, or their materials, on the environment. Since the Modernist movement however much of the focus in architecture has reverted to the skin of the building, and architects have withdrawn from the position as engineer, to be largely concerned with the look and to a greater or lesser extend, feel, and function of the space. The sustainability movement needs architects who consider ways of integrating the building into the environment, building with a focus on efficiency, and low impact, including finding ways of building less. Architects will have to once again be multidisciplinary, to integrate plants into their designs, make use of emerging materials and systems, understand end users needs and proclivities to tailor the buildings to those so that the building functions like the delicate, efficient, vibrant, evolving environment it should be. Architects will have to learn to take cues from nature in order to design buildings, and spaces, which are in tune with nature, rather than in harmful discord. Buildings will have to be made with both an entrance strategy and an exit one, or designed to have an extendible lifespan. It's an exciting time to be in the field, since the stakes are high, and the weapons at our disposal are powerful. 

How I've taught myself to love the homophobe, but hate the homophobia.

You like that title? That's right regressionist homophobic religious types, I've found Jesus, in that I've found that core part of his message, empathy. I understand why you rally so strongly against homosexuality, it's acceptance in our culture, and the equal treatment of those who practice it. I don't accept it, I know it to be wrong, unnecessary,  and immoral, but I understand how you arrive at it with only good intentions, and bad logic.

You will never read this, likely almost no one will, but perhaps some liberals will and it will give them insight into your mindset.

There are two types of you, and I know you both, deep down.

There are the ones who are rarely, if ever, tempted by homosexual desires.
And there are those of you who, almost certainly in secret, have felt, still feel, perhaps ONLY feel attraction to who's bits look a bit like your bits.

The first, I consider understandably, and frankly, pretty typically lazy ethicists. Most ethical people fall into this category. Most people consider themselves ethical, so most people fall into this category. You learn a set of ethics, and then adapt them to your situational needs and desires, in order to make yourself feel good. This is fairly easy, and thus common. Often (in the USA and Europe) it's the bible, with various denominational, cultural, and personal slants upon it. Sometimes it's the law, including a collection of family law. Many rules are shared broadly (murder, theft-*with addendums, adultery, cruelty, etc.) others much more specific (you never sit in Dad's chair, no matter what.) These are learned, adhered to, and (usually) used to judge other people. Sometimes rules are considered to only apply to those within the culture group, other times not. The key point however is that often times, perhaps much more so today than in the past, people emphasize aspects of their personal rulebook which allow them to feel better about themselves and worse about other people (superior). Rich people considering how lazy, stupid, criminal, etc. the poor are, considering their lack of success to be a mark of poor character, since they themselves value success highly. This plays into their morality by making themselves feel better, which allows them to ignore those other aspects of their learned rulebook they are failing at (charity? fidelity? honesty? pride? greed? that's right boys, keep telling yourself how good you are.)
The same effect drives much of homophobia. It's an easily justified sin, whatever your feelings are towards the Biblical view of homosexuality, it's certainly easy to make the case that the Bible DOES condemn it. So it's not a stretch, but playing up it's importance is easy and lazy because most people don't have much in the way of homosexual tendencies, and so they can feel absolutely pure and free of sin in this regard, unlike for instance, violence, theft, lust, and so on. Even if they manage to remain righteous in act, they still feel the temptation, and that would of course make them worried, and feel bad, so they focus on something they are never tempted to do, homosexuality. This is then compounded by the fact that homosexual acts are indeed disgusting. To heterosexuals with very little experience, openness, or interest in homosexuality, rather as I'm fairly certain many strictly homosexual men and women find the concept of heterosexual acts utterly disgusting. (Am I right Lesbians, how disgusting is a dick?) This is simply the difference between sexuality, heightened by the unfamiliar, and cyclically reenforced by the learned unethical nature of the acts. It's not a rational basis for an ethical position, but it lends visceral credence to what they are being taught, their own bodies seem to reject the mere notion of the act, and so surely it must be both unnatural and sinister. This makes a very convincing case to someone who has absolutely nothing to lose by embracing the sinfulness of homosexuality with open arms. They get to feel pure, see others as sinners, and themselves and bulwarks of morality standing against a tide of terrible sinfulness, by which they themselves are not even tempted. What a glorious feeling that must be, and the best part is, up till recently (maybe) you were still the majority, and that meant you could stand against this seemingly powerful tide, and not be harmed by it, could win against it. This is changing, because the tide you are standing against isn't immorality overtaking society, it's progress in moral improvement, it's further civilizing, moving away from our brutal past into our more accepting future. But for 60+ years now, you've had a hell of a good time. Oh you've seen barriers fall, but most of your real strongholds held out till very recently. It wasn't a crime anymore, but then, neither are lots of sins, you still got to rail against it, hurt people who embraced it, marginalize them, demonize them. You've been fighting a war of attrition, and it let you ignore so many of your own demons, since you were busy fighting someone else's. And you were clothed in the pure shining cloth of morality, and godliness, and you KNEW you were fighting the good fight. You still do, but now you're losing it, the bulwarks are falling, and you will become mere footnotes in history, while champions of the movement will live on for many years as icons.
So you see, I understand the appeal, and know that many on my side would do the same had they simply been given a different rulebook. I know you're wrong, but I understand the appeal of believing you're right.

Then there are the others.
The ones who hide in a closet with an N.O.M. poster on the door.
Oh you poor poor people.
This time is hell for you.
You're lucky though, because this hell is far better, and won't last as long, as the hell which has existed for those who COULDN'T hold it in for the rest of recent history. Those people suffered tremendously throughout much of time, and just have to suffer somewhat tolerably for about 70 years.
But right now is nearing the worst of it.
What to I mean?
These are people who have learned that homosexuality is a sin, and because in their immediate circle, it is widely discussed and condemned, they have this emphasized, again and again. They worry about it more than ANY other sin, not because it's the worst, but because it's so prevalent, in their environment, and in their lives. Because after hearing this so much, they can't help but believe it strongly. This is then further reinforced by their fear, often legitimate, that if they acted upon, or embraced those urges their world could utterly collapse, family and friends would utterly abandon them, they could become outcasts in their school, town, church, business. They would be destroyed, and they aren't about to suffer both earthly and heavenly damnation, so they fight it. Now in the past, I'm sure that fight was sometimes difficult, but all of society was structured (by intent perhaps?) to defend against such actions, leaving people with an easier job avoiding temptation. Now however, just as the sin is increasingly emphasized, culture is moving towards accepting the sin, and temptation abounds. Hell the internet is right there, you could be with your new gay lover in literally days. I'll bet there are hundreds of beautiful gay men who would sleep with a Republican senator no matter what he looked like, or had said. Just for the bragging rights (Am I right Gays? Who doesn't want some of John's Boehner?)
eh hem, getting away from tempting people into sin, and back into commiserating in as offensive and insulting a way as possible.
I get why you would be absolutely frothing mad at all these liberals who are making it so easy for you to be tempted off your righteous path, you who are so naturally inclined to be tempted, you who have sacrificed sexual and relationship satisfaction for acceptance in the community and biblical morality for so long. I completely understand and feel for the hatred you would have towards those people who pile literal insult upon literal injury by, after creating a society which hurts you daily with temptations you dare not act on, and which acting on would do tremendous harm to you, then go about acting on the same impulses you dare not. And now, they're being fucking praised for it, winning all the rights you have sacrificed for, and being socially accepted. Plus they have MUCH MUCH better parties, those outted homos have all the luck amirite? How could you not fight tooth and nail for the societal armor that in the past sheathed those who like you had a tender hold on (hetero)sexual morality to begin with? How could you not lament and object to the granting of rights, freedoms, opportunities, and privileges to those people who have given in to their depravity while you have rejected it at great personal, and entirely secret, cost. Sadly though, you are so twisted about by fear and anger, you cannot see that the best path forward is to embrace the change, and in doing so accelerate it, so that you could possibly enjoy your own entirely ethical and honest sexual existence, and the personal success and acceptance you currently have (admittedly likely in a different community). The reason this hell is far less serious than that faced by those who couldn't suppress their feelings in the past is that you probably won't be killed no matter what you do. The reason it will be shorter lived is that there will reach a tipping point very soon where only in very small and isolated communities will anyone again grow up denying their sexuality out of fear, of immorality, of social rejection, of God.
Damn I'm a champion rambler. 
 

On science, and why people need to learn how it works

I'm going to try something new and radical in my young career as a blogger, something I've never tried before.

What you ask? A rough draft followed by an edited and well structured final post.
Not a chance oh hopeful one.

I'm trying for a SHORT POST!!!!!!

That's right, slightly less long winded and considerably less long worded, it'll be like jaunty high five rather than an uncomfortably prolonged hug.

The topic at hand.

Some people don't understand how science works.
I don't mean, they don't understand some scientific principle, I mean they are missing a fundamental  concept that's key to the whole business. They don't understand that science is interconnected, and impossible to map. They forget that many, possibly even most, scientific discoveries were made by people trying to figure out something else entirely. So I read an article talking about caffeine and it's effect (positive) on productivity, and about how this has been suggested as being of profound importance to the development of the recent history of the world.
      Some comments were along the lines of "no shit sherlock" to which I say, scientists look at Sherlock Holmes and say "don't be a pompous ass, there are dozens of scenarios equally as likely as the little fantasy you just cooked up, and when we are dealing with biology we barely understand, very little is self evident, and nothing is elementary". Science is always in a state of argument, that's why it advances.
      The most awful comments though are those (and I do see these often) that say things like "they should be spending time and money curing cancer, not conducting study x that I barely understand but think sounds wishy washy" or the snide "solved all the other problems in science then have ya". No, guess what, every scientist in the world is not going to spend each day trying to figure out how to solve cancer, because most scientists aren't suited to that work, and that's good, because it might be some marine biologist, or a sociologist who discovers some key bit of information that leads to a greater understanding of the disease and it's ultimate curing, because that's how science works. So when next you read some scientific study, feel free to criticize the method or conclusions (if you really understand them) but you better be very confident in your grasp of the science of the study before you criticize it's existence.

In defense, sort of, of America

Holy cow, this blog thing is almost becoming a thing.

I have this tendency to play devil's advocate, likely because I was raised on debate (thank you Pappy) and because for me the mental exercise of debating, and in considering subjects from multiple viewpoints is truly enjoyable, like a game. The point is that I find myself arguing different sides of an issue depending on where other people fall, but ultimately, if I sit down and work out my positions, it usually falls somewhere in the middle of the two extremes (extremes which I'm sorry to say are increasingly becoming the uniformly held beliefs of the majority of Americans). This is my attempt to describe this process, and also endorse a certain worldview.

It has to do with whether America is a armor clad knight striding through the world cutting bullies down to size with a sword called Justice while sheltering the oppressed masses with a shield called Freedom, or a flame eyed demon which spread like a virus over the globe, feeding it's insatiable hunger with the riches, lives, and very souls of the poor people over which it holds sway. Because this is the dichotomy that seems to be presented as the two options, and many people seem inclined to agree with one or the other position fairly completely. Obviously there are shades, but most people seem clustered around one of those two positions, and I want to scream at everyone NO!

Here's a little twist in the argument.
America's influence on the globe is first and foremost......
Good?
Bad?
Nope. Big

That's the main point, right there. America has HUGE gravity, and very large feet, where we step, we make big marks, and inevitably some people get trod on.

You know who practically nobody hates?
New Zealand
Know why?
Because Hobbits.
But also because New Zealand simply doesn't have a great deal of effect on the global scale, except in rugby. New Zealand didn't leave the Chechens hanging because New Zealand was never in the position to give the Chechens significant aid.

But America is a major player, and boy does it play. Sometimes well, sometimes not so well. On the balance, I'd say we've done pretty well long term, and kind of well short term, but to be fair, the game's gotten a lot harder.

So when people say things like "The terrorists hate us because we're free" or "because we're Christian and they want to destroy all religions aside from theirs" or similar I have to respond that in all likelihood the ones actually doing the fighting hate us because we've killed their friends and relatives, or because they know of people who have been killed and want to fight against the people who they believe (with some accuracy) WOULD kill their friends and relatives. The ones planning it will also have some of that drive, but will also see the damage the US has done, and while they too will be seeing an image skewed by their personal experience, desires, dogmas, and ignorance, they will nonetheless be acting in what they see as their own best interest, and the best interest of their people, perhaps all people. And it seems like I'm arguing that the terrorists are right, that America is evil and deserves to be destroyed, which is absolutely false, and is caused by this absurd notion that people have that "if you're not for us you're against us", the idea that if one takes issue with one side's argument, they must therefore be uniformly aligned with the direct opposite. So I will say this.

People who intentionally target individuals who are no direct threat to themselves(the targetters) or others (friends, co-workers, innocent bystanders if you can find any) are in the wrong. That is simple morality. The people responsible for the bombing of the Boston marathon may well have legitimate grievances with the United States Government, but they had NONE with the people who they attacked.

However, the USA has directly caused the deaths of far more civilians, far more children, women, old men, and unarmed workers or celebrants than it has suffered from terrorism in the years since 9/11, likely even including 9/11. There are differences, most of these deaths are caused by mistakes in response to the very real danger our soldiers faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not believe the US government has a policy of intentionally attacking civilians, yet we cannot ignore the damage we cause, and we cannot ignore that this damage gives root to the movements which in turn attack us.

And then there's the OTHER flip side.
To all those liberals who would focus on the negative results of American actions. While it is certainly true there are major gaps in our foreign policy, we do a tremendous amount of good, both in the form of direct aid/action, and in the form of innovations and breakthroughs which improve or save the lives of millions each year. In the long view, America has been a major force in nurturing the spread of Democracy from it's earliest years, it has contributed tremendously to the advancement of mankind, performed stellar service in two world wars, helped rebuild Japan and South Korea (admittedly after thoroughly knocking the former down in the first place but still) and nurture Taiwan, all three of which became havens of democracy, freedom, innovation and economic development. We produced Norman Borlaug and thus the Green Revolution, which, however you feel about GMOs and Monsanto, did save literally a billion people, which is nice to have on the resume.

Essentially it comes down to this.
Since at least the end of WWII, and to some extent before, America has been the single greatest force on the world stage, we have been challenged, but never surpassed. This may change, but it is fairly true for the last 60+years. So the question then becomes, has the world moved in a positive direction in that time?
Personally, I say yes. We've gone that whole time without a world war, which considering we went just 21 years between the first and the second, and we've only become MORE interconnected since. Perhaps we can thank the nuke for that, but then, America get's to claim that too. Okay, so climate change is going to be a problem, and perhaps that's the clincher for some people, that we've not done well, but I'll take the challenges of today and the tools we have to fight them over the challenges of any decade pre-1950 no question.
If the world has improved in that time, then it's hard to say that America has been the evil empire, we could do better, we SHOULD do better, hell we CAN do better (I'm not confident we WILL, but I'm working on that), be we've not done half bad.

Aquaponica

That's the name of my imaginary business. It's like having an imaginary friend, but for adults, a species I'm still unwilling to admit I am a part of, though I am perhaps willing to concede to some shared traits. Aquaponica is what I spend my spare daydreaming bandwidth on, when it's not clogged up with shadow debating gay marriage, or gun control, or the place for government owned industries. Aquaponica is a constantly changing concept which has been being slowly refined over the past half year or so, molded by time and the classes I'm in, into something that may actually be viable.

Some business student out there is probably thinking that I shouldn't be sharing my business ideas with the world, and to them I say this "A: I'm just cocky enough to think that no matter how much of my idea I share, no one will be able to execute it as well as I can, and thus I can out compete them, and B, lets face it this is pretty much just a personal journal that happens to be online, it's not like anyone reads this tripe".

So what the hell is it?

A bad name? Probably. An awesome concept for bringing the locavore movement to it's asymptote and using that asymptote as a symbiote for a probiote of a system which promotes healthy eating and sustainable production? Might be, if many of those words weren't made up. On the other hand we are talking about an imaginary business, so what's wrong with imagining some words?

Here's a quick list of things you'll have to know/accept to get the idea, skip any you already know... you know, if you feel like it.

Aquaponics- Some of you might know about hydroponics, which is plants grown without soil, all/most of their nutrients being delivered by the water which has a nutrient solution dissolved into it. Hydroponics is appreciated because it reduces disease and pests, and allows for careful tailoring of the nutrients to achieve tremendous growth. It is water intensive because the water has to be drained and replaced periodically to avoid the accumulation of dangerous chemicals which the plants cannot use and thus do not filter out of the water (salts mostly I think). Aquaponics is hydroponics+fish, except the fish provide the nutrients (for the most part) instead of added chemicals, while the plants filter the water for the fish, creating a system which requires far fewer inputs (the water is recycled, with most of the loss coming from transpiration) and requires less maintenance and care than either aquaculture (farming fish) or hydroponics. If this sounds familiar it's because a well known laboratory has been working on this model for quite some time, around 500 million years (pssst. the "laboratory" is earth).

Locavore- A movement which pushes the importance of eating food which has been produced near where it is being consumed. The main reason for this is to reduce carbon emissions associated with transporting food long distances, but there is also the desire for increased local self-reliance, and support for local businesses, and the advantages of freshness. It is fairly popular at the moment, and may well grow more popular as things like Global Climate Change (GCC) and Peak Oil (PO) begin to be recognized and felt more.

Peak Oil- Speaking of which. We are living on a finite planet, using finite resources. One of the main resources around which we have built our society around is petroleum ("oil"). PO is really more than just about petroleum though, it is short hand for the reality as we use more and more fossil fuels of all sorts, the amount available decreases, and the difficulty of accessing what IS there increases. For petroleum we are at, near, or past the point of peak production, which means costs will rise from now on, and probably faster than inflation. This means that infrastructures which are predicated on the cheap availability of fossil fuels are going to become increasingly expensive to maintain, and thus less competitive. This includes both conventional farming (which using tremendous amounts of petroleum to produce fertilizers and pesticides, in addition to running their large machines) and the global distribution network. Any good which has a large portion of it's cost devoted to transportation is likely going to see it's input costs rise as the various peaks are passed over the next decade or so.

Global Climate Change-It's happening, just fucking accept it. It means more extreme weather, which means less reliable weather. Droughts and floods will both occur more often, and be more extreme.

Food Dessert- These are areas in cities where it is difficult or impossible to find fresh food, typically poor areas where people are by virtue of price, culture, knowledge, and time less likely to purchase fresh foods, and therefore stores to not carry any. This creates a vicious cycle in which kids are raised on processed and unhealthy foods, and thus as adults seek those foods out, and give them to their kids, and it is at the heart of the plethora of health problems for which a major predictor is socioeconomic standing and location.

So the idea.
An aquaponic farm in the city, which includes a restaurant which serves the fish, poultry, and produce which is grown on site.

That's the basic framework, the details are where it gets really sexy.
First of all the whole set up has to be made beautiful, and the restaurant has to be cleanly integrated into the "farm". The restaurant will be filling a niche which for the most part doesn't exist. Many restaurants buy local food, some even grow some of the food they sell on the property, but I know of none where you can eat surrounded by the plants that grew your food, next to the tank that housed the fish you're eating, hearing the chickens that provided the eggs and meat. This means that the local aspect is a serious selling point, and should be emphasized, by making sure the whole farm is beautiful and clean, people will be encouraged to go out among the plants, and be confident that their food is being produced safely, sustainably, and ethically. This could even be integrated into the dining process by allowing people to go out and harvest the vegetables that will be used in their meal. A menu could include a list of ingredients that could be gathered by the diner, allowing them to pick precisely the food they want, even choosing different varieties of the same crop to give each dish a unique character. This would mean that part of the work of harvesting is turned into an added value to the customer, the value of choice (including the choice to NOT harvest their own food).

Another variation on this concept is the possibility of growing flowers around the space, in particular in ways which could be moved and arranged, so the space could be used as an event space, with living plants inside a climate controlled environment, which has been beautifully designed and built, and includes a commercial kitchen to produce food. Essentially the perfect wedding or other major event venue, since the flowers would be alive and growing, the food would be as fresh as it is possible to be, and there would be no worry about rain. We could offer a combination service, the food, the venue, and the flowers (including arrangement), and then the flowers could be cut and sold for off site events. Legally selling the exact same flower to two different people? Brilliant.

Then there's the opportunities offered by all that slow time in the kitchen, and all those veggies which weren't quite pretty enough for the customers to ask out on a dinner date, but who's insides are good as gold. Well, we just run that kitchen as often as we need to turn out a whole bunch of value-added products made from the unused produce. Sauces, pestos, frozen pizzas, canned goods, jams, herb mixes, and more could be produced and sold on site, in stores, or as part of a CSA.

Remember those flowers, and how pretty they were, and how good of a product they were on account of their high value? Well guess what, the fish can get in on this too, and not just fish. I think it's time for a break from reading, so here's a bit of beautiful for you to look at.

What the what? Is that real? Yup, blue marron, the most fabulous crustacean this side of the mantis shrimp

The best part about the above is that they are also delicious (though from what I can tell that bright blue doesn't survive the cooking process) so any marron that AREN'T blue shelled bombshells can just be cooked up and served as an exotic freshwater lobster equivalent. Beyond pretty crustaceans there's also Koi and other ornamental fish which can be sold for good prices and perform well in aquaponic systems. We could even sell ornamental fishtank+flower combos to people/companies which will maintain themselves so long as fish food is added. There's no end of commercialization opportunities.
As for how this can help solve food desserts I'll get to that later.

Refugee housing that turns into permanent housing by desalinating seawater.

That's what I'm working on.

Check it out, another blog post, so soon. Maybe this will become a thing for me, probably not, but we dream in order to have something to aim for. What's more this is a blog post about something other than gay marriage, because let's face it, I've got the opponents pretty well licked with my previous posts. Time Crunch Jeremy had time to send me a few more messages, naming me hateful, and finally uninterested in being moral, sadly he didn't bother to make any substantive responses to my points, because I'd have had a good laugh reading his attempts to justify his use of simplistic genetics, discredited studies, logical fallacies, and unsupported assertions, because I like a good laugh.

To the topic at hand.

I'm doing research, and it's super cool, on a hot topic, which I'm really warming to.

You know how every time your small coastal fishing village is destroyed by a tsunami, civil war, Cthulhu attack, etc.  you get gathered up and put in refugee camps. Then the first world (which is probably, let's face it, at the heart of your current predicament in one way or another), as represented by the UN presents you with this palatial accommodation?

Because you know who doesn't love camping? No one, I checked.

Doesn't that just SUCK?

I'm (figuratively) right there with you bro.

And here's the thing about me. It's basically impossible for me to see a problem without trying to think of a solutions.

If I could be less lazy and actually translate thought into action I might actually become a worthwhile contributing member of the global society.

Enter: The carrot (more accurately the UROP money)

AND

The Stick (shame at having received a much sought after UROP grant only to let it die on the well worn alter of my listlessness)

What's a UROP?
It stands for Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, which is a program devoted to paying students to research things. Sometime (often?) it's really just an extension of the student employment side of the university, since students will just join a professor's ongoing research project and take over a small part of it while being paid with UROP money. Mine is a project I dreamed up, and I'm being advised by the local guru of emerging construction materials, Professor Blaine Brownell, who I feel very privileged to be working with. The original proposal was simply an exploration of textile architecture, the opportunities afforded by emerging textiles, computer directed production, and designs tailored (quite literally har har) to a paradigm of flexible cladding material. The UROP office quite rightly recognized this as wishy washy nothingness and requested that I narrow my project to something more concrete, that could produce an tangible result after roughly 80 hours of work. I decided to go for

Designing a home for a family of four, which can be produced en-masse economically and shipped easily by utilizing the advantages of a primarily textile based construction paradigm

Because this is Academia, and that's how we talk here.

Essentially the project is to design a new type of refugee housing that uses clever design to deliver a quality product.

Now of course some of you clever cats are saying, "dude, all that curly writing is really just saying 'a tent' and you've already poked fun at the UN's tent" and you're right, tents are shelters which take advantage of a primarily textile based construction paradigm, but I want to make a home that uses textiles. The UN tent is a tent, and tents are intended to be very lightweight, quick to erect, and very importantly, temporary. The problem is that often, these refugee housing situations aren't, by any realistic standard, temporary. They can last for years, and I'd rather like to make those years somewhat less awful.

So I began this process, and in speaking with Blaine I/we developed an idea that might just be crazy enough to work, maybe, possibly, with luck and effort.

Check it out.

Lots of refugee situations occur in hot places near the ocean.
If you had to list things in the order of how much you absolutely need them to live it might go something like this.
Air
Water
Food
Shelter
There's probably some others that could fit in there, but that's a nicely Maslovian simple list. Shelter's already part of this little shindigg, food I'm still working on, air is free, but water, now water can be tricky. Clean, fresh water can be tough to get in normal circumstances throughout much of the developing world, add to this some disaster that forces people into refugee camps and you often have a major challenge getting them enough water for drinking and cooking. But look there, it's a massive supply of water, pity it's saline. So here's the concept.

You make a house with a double wall of textile, you use the tides to pump water to each house in the camp, then each house slowly releases that water to run down the inside of this double wall. The hot sun evaporates the water leaving behind salt crystals. Using the rest of the sea water to cool that air, the water condenses and is collected, now pure H20, to be used by the occupants of the home. The evaporating water keeps the interior of the house cool during the day, the large mass of seawater sitting next to your house keeps it warm at night, and the salt crystals accumulating inside your home's walls slowly build up and create a solid, permanent structure, which will probably look pretty darn baller.

So I've been researching solar desalination, salt construction, refugee housing, tidal pumps, and tent design. It's pretty fun.

Here's what I need to know.
How can the flow of water be simply but accurately calibrated to the evaporation rate so that water reaches the bottom but doesn't pool, and so that salt crystals are deposited evenly and steadily?
What do refugees really need from their housing, how does it differ from place to place?
What textiles would resist the salt water and the UV radiation, and how much do they cost.

Lots and lots more.

I'm hoping to make a test model of this concept, show that it can evaporate salt water and collect freshwater, solidify a wall with salt, and still be simple enough to produce fairly cheaply and shipped easily.

Any ideas are welcome, hell I'll even credit you.

Let me break this down for you

Apparently I only feel the need to write blog posts on the subject of homosexual rights/marriage... I swear I think about other things. Just yesterday I was imagining what it would be like to be in the middle ages with the knowledge and technology of today, because it would be awesome. I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to house thousands of refugees in homes which are comfortable, durable, and desalinate sea water using the sun, because I care about shit like that. But this is about the gays. Some guy sent me a message on facebook, because he noticed I'd been posting about this whole homosexuality thing, and felt he needed to set me straight about how homosexuality actually isn't "natural" to which I felt

"
You throw a stone of an argument about how homosexuality is "unnatural" I won't stop at breaking it down to pebbles by pointing out the many species IN NATURE that exhibit it, no I'll pull out every genetic, biological, evolutionary, sociological, and just plain logical weapon in my thoroughly overcrowded arsenal and break that shit down to CLAY, and then mold it into a sculpture of your blighted understanding and cram it up through your overly tight sphincter until it lodges in your lymph nodes in the hope that it can serve to filter your inane vitriol before it spreads too far and pollutes the progressive air this country is finally starting to breath you ass backwards, high school genetics toting, pseudo-logical, fallacy spewing half-wit.
" 

And so I did. Here's his part of the conversation. And yeah, I'm including his name because fuck him.

Jeremy Dueck

Jeff, I noticed you writing a LOT about homosexuality---you seem to have a lot of time on your hands... I don't have a lot of time so this will be short and we'll take religion out of the argument for once. Do us all a favor, and stop telling people that you know homosexuality is natural when you have no evidence either. Physically speaking the acts of gay men and women go against nature. Take all the gay people of the world and put them on an island... no outside contact... they will all be gone in one generation. Mother nature doesn't even accept homosexuality. Its true and there is no good argument against that. Some studies in pedophiles also suggest a difference in brain function... but it doesn't make it right. Now if you want to go further you can talk about genetics. If even 80% of the people were gay at one point thousands of years ago, they would pass on genetic traits that would end with each truly gay couple right? Just like blue eyes get passed along because being gay is a physical trait right? Two parents pass on specific traits but if both gay parents don't pass along any genes (or even if SOME have kids heterosexually and pass along some genes), you have a diminishing level of homosexual genetics. Oh and since homosexuality rises and falls with different nations prosperity levels... don't let that sway you either. The reality is this, you are trying to be fair, and courteous to others, I understand this. But its a weak viewpoint and you're wrong when you use common sense and reason.

And my, considerably longer (sorry Time Crunch Jeremy, but while vitriolic nothing speech can be whipped of in 144 characters, straightening out your bullshit with actual facts takes a bit more time) retort.

I'll take this point by point.
Natural=exists in nature
homosexuality does. Many animals exhibit it to various degrees (exclusive throughout life and circumstances, dependent upon age, open to either sex, so on an so forth)
If you put a bunch of sterile/infertile people on an island, or a bunch of asexual people, or a bunch of truly devout catholic priests and nuns, all will be gone within a generation, these people are not considered unnatural, or immoral, or icky
In fact, I'd bet that if you put a bunch of gay and lesbian people on an island, barring the effects of starvation, thirst, disease, insects, and lord of the flies style internal warfare, they would breed and continue and it... Would .... BE.......... FABULOUS!!!!!!!!
because here's the thing, homosexuality falls on a spectrum, or rather, marks one end of a spectrum (though in reality it's not just a bar, but we can simplify it to that for the purposes of this conversation) with heterosexuality falling at the other end. People fall at various points along this spectrum, typically however only those at the very gay end identify as gay, and people in the middle rarely identify as bi, because there is so much pressure to fall into the "traditional" sexual identity, so if you CAN be attracted to the other sex, you tend to identify as heterosexual. However many studies have shown that heterosexuals of both sexes often have homosexual encounters, fantasies, and desires. The point of all this is that on your hypothetical island you would have some people who were attracted to some of the opposite sex members, and then you'd have people who are just willing to have a slightly awkward foursome in order to have children because yes, just like straight people, some gay people have the urge to raise children, and just like straight people, sometimes they do an excellent job, sometimes not. Please change your thinking to include a non binary sexual identity. I personally identify as straight, yet I have had crushes on men, and have seriously considered acting on them, yet most of my crushes, and all of my experiences have been with women. I am a living breathing example of the non-binary nature of sexuality. I'd bet even you have felt attracted to men before, though I very much doubt you'd even be able to consciously recognize the feelings.
Ah yes, the "gays are like pedophiles" argument. Guess what, pedophiles are natural too, and some at least or biologically created. What they do is immoral by the application of most any ethical philosophy. Their actions cause harm to others, they infringe upon the rights of children. They are raping, because a child cannot give consent, we have chosen to set limits on how old you have to be to give consent for many contracts, because we recognize that underdeveloped brains can't make fully rational and fair judgements, and that there are inherent power disparities between nearly all adults and nearly all children. None of that exists with (legal) homosexual acts. The participants are willing, adult, fully cognitive individuals who are unlikely to experience any damage physical or psychological due to the act (assuming it's done safely, just like hetero-sex). So there's that licked.
Oh yes, and genetics. My parents both had blue eyes, I've got hazel eyes, according to the simplistic model many of us learned in school at some point this means my mom cheated, because two blue eyed people (blue eyes being regressive) must produce a blue eyed child. Of course, eye color is effected by several genes, and possibly other factors, so we get much more complex genetics. Homosexuality is biological, it is PROBABLY partly genetic as well. The difference is that biological means that there are identifiable differences at the physical level, different hormone levels, different finger lengths, other little markers. These could be related to genetics, yet they are almost certainly effected by the intra-uterine environment. The chemical cocktail a mother feeds to her fetus effects the biology of the child. The more older brothers you have, the more likely you are to have homosexual impulses (if you're male). This has been shown with several studies, and it is suggested that this is an evolutionary mechanism meant to limit conflict between brothers in tribal societies where an overabundance of unattached men had the severe downside of murder and civil war. Evidence of a partial genetic cause of homosexuality is based on studying identical twins vs fraternal twins, with the assumption that apart from the genetic difference, fraternal twins and identical twins would have the same shared experiences both in the womb and in their lives. Identical twins are more likely to share their twins sexual preference than fraternal, but from what I've read this is still a somewhat unclear relationship. The point is that genes are complex, they can float around for generation and then come together in some novel way to throw up someone who looks like no one else in the family except for an old engraving of someones great great grandfather, who he resembles near precisely. Don't assume you can make some simple gay+gay=gay, straight+straight=straight comparison, it's far FAR more complex than that, partly because there are many different factors ranging from genetics to BAC which can effect someones sexual identity, and partly because sexual identity is both a gradient, and fluid throughout life (it is statistically possible for a guy who has always been straight, in every way, at all times, never a single thought of men, to meet a guy who he ultimately falls in love with. That guy might be the only many in the entire world who the first guy is "gay" for, but there it is. That could happen, it's just unlikely.)
I doubt homosexuality rises or falls with a nations prosperity. I suspect openness about homosexuality rises and falls with a nations prosperity. This is because as nations get wealthier they get less dogmatic and more accepting of difference. There's good reason for this, in times of scarcity we look to our "tribes" the group of people we most closely associate with, and consider all others to be outsiders who are liable to be trying to take advantage of us, that IS genetic. As scarcity falls so too does suspicion, and we come to accept those who are different. Also the kind of society that accepts homosexuals tends to attract creative types who, these days especially, drive economies forward, increasing prosperity. That's why having homosexuals move to town is really really good for that town. Look it up, that's economics.
I am trying to be fair, actually no, I am being fair, and I'm also being logical, and reasonable, and sensible. I'm also being accepting, understanding, considerate, progressive, honest, ethical, and exceedingly thorough.
If you're still with me i'd like to point something out. You never made any argument that could be considered "moral"
To recap
-first you said it was unnatural (not a moral statement)
-then you talked about the ability to reproduce (not a moral statement)
-Then you compared homosexuality to pedophilia, but only to point out that the same arguments for the "naturalness" of homosexuality could be made about pedophilia. This is called the association fallacy, which often can fool people into THINKING a moral claim has been made, when in fact only a factual claim has been made. Your factual claim was correct but it was (not a moral claim)
-Then you talked about genetics, which was mostly wrong, but also (not a moral claim)
-Then there was the odd comment about prosperity.
So maybe you AREN'T trying to make a moral argument. So what if homosexuality WERE unnatural? So's marriage (no other species marries, hell, even the "monogamous" species cheat like crazy), oh and cars, those are unnatural, charity beyond your immediate social circle, that's unnatural. Lots of things we do are unnatural, lots of things we know to be immoral ARE natural (rape, very natural, so's infantacide) so WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING POINT?

Our Generations Civil Rights Movement

      I have been doing a lot of thinking about the subject of same sex marriage, and by extension civil rights in general, and I truly believe that this subject is our generations primary civil rights fight. I'm 22, I believe that at the very latest in 20 years this will be in a similar place as the race civil rights fight, that is to say not over, but no longer fighting an all out war against a clear opposing side (such as Jim Crow, segregation, overt racism etc. or in the homosexuality parallel, same sex marriage, adoptions rights, and widespread overt homophobia). I believe that children today are increasingly growing up in a world where they are genuinely unconcerned about sexual orientation, that within a few years most kids will come out when they want to, unafraid of social ostracism or parental, church, or social condemnation. So this is our fight, and winning is in how quickly we can achieve true equality. The best part about this fight is that as with all fights against intolerance it is one which works something like a ratchet, as homosexuality becomes more open, and as people learn that they do in fact know people who are homosexual (and trust me, you do, even if they aren't out), they have their preconceived notions stripped away, their prejudices and fears abolished, and they come to view homosexuals not as some fearful other, but just another part of the fabric of society of which they too are a part.

     I will therefore address the issue in several ways, in order to add my voice to the online conversation, and to help me organize the thoughts I've had on the topic. The first is a comparison of this fight to the one fought in the 50s-70s for race equality.

     One of the clearest parallels is the fact that this is at it's core a question of a majority which is not directly affected by legal and social discrimination facing the question of the morality of that discrimination, a question raised and driven by the minority and their allies among the majority. Black Americans found support among liberal progressives and religious organizations, and faced opposition from businesses, socially conservative regressives, and simply put, racist ignorants. Homosexuals are finding support from many of those same liberal progressives, and some of the same religious organizations (the "religion" I was raised with, Unitarian Universalism has been strongly active in both causes from their earliest days) yet many religious folk have been at the forefront of the anti-gay movement. These run the gamut from the spittle spewing "GOD HATES FAGS" crew to the more soft spoken "we don't hate you, we just want to help lead you away from sin and into grace" type, yet each does harm to people who want to live their lives as they were made, doing no harm to anyone by doing so.
   
    Miscegenation is a great example of the similarities, and represents where I see the future of same-sex marriage going. Once it was viewed as inherently wrong, and rightly illegal, now it is socially unacceptable to condemn it, though many from both races will still judge those who are in interracial relationships. Human attraction is a complex thing, we don't entirely understand what makes some people attracted to one feature, or one gender. Races mixing was viewed by many in earlier generations as unnatural and disgusting, much as homosexuality is viewed by some today, and was widely regarded as such quite recently. This is partly due to simple societal trends which stated one one hand that being attracted to your own race was the only normal condition, and on the other that being attracted to the opposite gender was the only normal condition. Both are reinforced by those people who do not feel much temptation to step outside those norms, and thus FEEL that the norms are correct. People often conflate gut reactions to some sort of implicit rightness of a position, our revulsion at the thought of pedophilia is then compared with heterosexual revulsion at the thought of homosexual sex and the two feelings being alike we assume both are equally unnatural. The same feelings affected people thinking about racial mixing in the middle of the last century and earlier. The difference between pedophilia on the one hand and miscegenation/homosexuality on the other though is harm done, and consent given. Children are not able to give consent, this is a view that is widely accepted by the public, and by psychologists; they don't have the mental or biophysical maturity to make and informed decision, and in a relationship between an adult and a child the inherent power-imbalance means that coercion is impossible to avoid. The same cannot be said of adults of different races, or the same gender. Simply accepting that since YOU don't see the attraction of homosexuality, and indeed are decidedly turned off by it that that means homosexuality is unnatural or wrong displays a lack of logic, and more importantly a lack of empathy.

     The Civil Rights Movement fought against the notion that separate could be equal, that there was some inherent distinction between white and black, that it was okay for people to be treated differently because of some characteristic that they could not change, and that did not, in any real way, change their character, or affect other people. It fought for equality, for fair treatment under the law, and for increased understanding of the plight of black Americans. It fought for love. MLK made much use of biblical lessons in his speeches, as is to be expected from a preacher, he drew on Jesus, a man who endorsed love and compassion, who endorsed empathy, rejection of dogma, acceptance, and forgiveness. That is what I, and fellow activists fighting for the rights of LGBT people and couples are asking for. Empathy for people different from yourselves, understanding of the plight they face for something they didn't choose, likely would not have chosen if they'd had a choice (for who in the present climate would prefer to feel an attraction that means they won't be able to marry the person they love, they will face hatred and intolerance on a daily basis, and will have to deal with and come to terms with the fact that many people say they are going to burn in hell?). We ask for fair treatment, for true equality, for acceptance instead of segregation. Same sex marriage may not be common in history, but neither is marriage purely for love, and for that matter, neither is miscegenation. There can be no argument which does not rely on misdirection, resorting to a narrow interpretation of religious doctrine, or simple ignorance and hatred which can be used to say the marriage should be restricted to people of opposite gender. Just as there couldn't be for denying the rights of people who wanted to marry outside of the socially accepted boundaries of race and culture.
Next up: why basing laws on religious doctrine is a dangerous path, why Christianity doesn't actually condemn homosexuality, and why arguments claiming to show the "damage" done by homosexuality to both society and individuals are absolute bunk.

Hope for a brighter next decade, if not tomorrow.

A number of TED talks, along with thoughts I've been having about the economy, environment, society, and future of said have coalesced today into a somewhat amorphous haze of a philosophy/hope for the future. There is a certain sense of dread which is facing the world at the moment. Conservatives see Big Government killing the economy and stealing their rights, liberals see conservatives threatening to destroy the planet, sell the nation to Big Business and steal THEIR rights. Europe is facing social and economic upheaval, Syria is imploding, China and the US are getting more and more antagonistic, and everywhere we look there seems to be more and more indications that the world is just plain going to shit. I do not want to give into this general ennui. I seek hope, and when I seek hope I often find TED talks a good place to find it. Such has been the case, because even as they present challenges, they also present opportunities.

Here's the first talk, which addresses the notion of measuring a nation's "happiness" and what it costs. This dovetails nicely with evidence that in America the income-happiness relationship plateaus at 75k a year, an amount which while substantial, is by no means exorbitant. The mean household income in the US is about 60k, but the median is only 44k. This is due to income inequality, which is next up in this post. But this is inherent to the American system, where there are certain conditions such as cost of living, and comparisons with our neighbors, and the "culture" which we absorb through media, and our daily observations. At 75k it's speculated, money is no longer a day to day worry, we feel our wealth compares favorably to most people around us, and thus don't suffer so much from social angst about people who have more than us. I feel however this number could be dropped considerably through a few different means, one is typically liberal, and that's a much stronger social safety net which would remove the fear of losing basic necessities such as health care, housing, and sustenance. The other is through a cultural change that focuses less on money and material gains, and more on social and experiential gains. A very full and enjoyable 2 month trip around Europe can be had for less than $5000 dollars per person, one around the US can be even cheaper, maybe $2000, if we valued that more than having a new impala to drive on the trip I think we'd be happier. Getting a nation full of happy people means ensuring no one is suffering a lack of basic needs because of lack of money, and changing the way we view success, from merely being a calculation of money made to an evaluation of how life is lived.
The next talk is about income inequality, and how among countries capable of providing basic needs to it's residents the actual average income or Purchasing Power Parity doesn't predict a variety of social ills, but income inequality DOES.

     This raises serious questions of morality, and even more, practicality. If we want to reduce crime, improve health, and prevent mental illness and addictions we should focus on bringing more equality to our country. Providing basic services is a good start as is making a tax system that is TRULY progressive, removing tax havens and heavily exploited deductions, and taxing capital gains in a progressive manner.
     The single best way to help even society out though is to ensure that each child born in this country is given as close as possible to equal opportunity as any other, whether born to a single mother who works two jobs, a homeless family, or Donald Trump. This means education, early childhood health, and nutrition. I believe that we need much much better social services for parents at the bottom of the income scale, to help provide them with care so they can keep working and still ensure their child gets the early life care, treatment, and nutrition that has been PROVEN to improve that child's performance in school, and through life. Long before children enter the school system their brains are developing and learning habits, among middle and upper class families this period is filled with books, lots of interaction, and programs designed to help that child develop strong mental processes, good social skills, inquisitiveness, creativity, and other traits associated with success and happiness. There's much research out there which shows how important those early years are for human development, and among wealthier Americans that research is known and applied, among parents struggling to get by though, there's a huge lack of both knowledge and opportunity to apply that knowledge, so children start out disadvantaged. After that they are placed in schools which are absolutely horribly unequal, in rich areas, property taxes mean that students have access to good teachers with a good teacher-student ratio, good supplies, support, programs devoted to children who either struggle or excel various areas. ALL schools should be improved and better funded because information is the only inexhaustible resource, and cultivating the minds that will create the next generation of great ideas is the single best investment any society can make, but special attention must be paid to evening the playing field so that the child of an indigent has as much chance of graduating from Harvard as the child of a US Senator.
     This is both a moral and a practical issue because children represent the future, and children of talent who because of social situations find themselves unable to use that talent represent a massively wasted resource, and a terrible shame for the society that thwarted them.
    Finally there's a video about the birth of a new type of organization, facilitated by the web, which I believe has the opportunity to unite capitalism with is focus on market forces and collective intelligence driving innovation and progress, and communism with it's desire for collective control of the means of production, decentralized power and a popular movement focused on the betterment of mankind instead of the accumulation of wealth.

I find in the open-source philosophy the possibility of an escape from the American focus on money and goods, and a renewed interest in social action, in charity, and in passionate innovation for the purpose of innovation, rather than for the purpose of getting paid. I dream of a future where we don't spend each day worrying about how we will pay the bills, or whether we are destroying the planet, or whether we can keep up with the proverbial "Joneses" where we measure our worth by what we've made with our lives, not how much we've made in our lives, when people are judged by the content of their character, and the content of their workshop, the the size of their pay package, where it's not the size of your house, but the taste you've put into it, and the life you've filled it with that impresses the neighbors. Refocusing on conservation, on charity, on love, passion, and ingenuity, and away from conspicuous consumption and affluenza is the way of the future, at least if we want that path to resemble the garden of eden, not Cormac McCarthy's Road.
-Jeff Trechter