Sam Harris, reason, the common agenda, discussion of Deep Topics

Sam Harris gave a speech to the American Athiest Alliance about how he doesn’t think atheists should identify themselves as such.He wants atheists to be champions of reason, maybe, but campaigners against belief?No.He makes an interesting case. I think the video would be interesting for any person who thinks about these things. Sam Harris, by the way, wrote The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, of which I have read neither.

There are some really subtle issues here that surround the contention that atheism constitutes just another religion.The idea is this: there are a lot of people who identify themselves as atheists, and they have a social agenda based on their stated and committed belief.Based on this, they form a de facto religion.The fact that the core belief of this “religion” is that there is no god is somewhat irrelevant; if the group of people take up the structure of a religion, so the theory goes, so it should count as one.

I can see the logic in that argument, but most atheists I know are not that kind of atheist.They don’t belong to an atheist club and they don’t see themselves as ascribing to an external social agenda.They don’t commit themselves to the belief that there is not a god; they simply don’t care.It might be better called Apatheism (apathy-ism). That’s different again from agnosticism, which holds that the issue might be important, but we just don’t have an answer.

Apatheism can’t be called a religion in the same way that the American Athiest Alliance can be called a religion, even in the superficial sense.The point is that, on the whole, the agenda of thinking, caring people is not served by anyone representing themselves as anti-religion. For people who care to talk about these issues like truth and morality (the non-apatheists) the common ground is the desire for reason and understanding what is going on.Those desires are served by people being kind and reasonable to each other.

And when it comes to intellectual pursuits, intellectual honesty and integrity are things upon which people of any creed may insist.Even people without any other creed can insist on intellectual honesty and integrity.And that’s enough to accomplish our shared agenda.Nobody needs to insist on anybody giving up a belief as long as it is either (1) held up to standards of reason, or (2) held only as a private conviction and not as a social standard.

Reason is the cornerstone of a civil social space for a diversity of opinion and perspective.The Big Upshot is that I am not going to insist that people agree, but in the interest of a discussion I insist only that they be reasonable – that is that the views that they contend that I should also hold must be internally consistent and consistent with the observations of the world which we can all share.And even then, I certainly acknowledge silence as another option.

Thanks for reading.

-Peter

Durable goods, maintenance, the maker ethos, and the first inroad to voluntary simplicity

Durable goods:

Real durable goods last and can be repaired and maintained.Then there are consumables, things you use for a while then throw away.The problem is that some things, in order to be competitive in price, look like durables but actually are designed to be consumables.Take air conditioners for example.

The laboratory where I work bought a a consumer-quality air conditioner for ~$500.It was supposed to run in a hot lab to take the thermal stress of some of the equipment.Within a year it had failed.It seems that the fail point was a single motor among 3 or 4 of the motors in there.Now, there might be a cascade failure situation.But in the end, it’s probably one motor replacement and the thing is back in shape.But we can’t get that one motor.The company won’t sell us just a part, and they want $75 plus transportation to have a rep come look at it without any guarantee he will be able to do anything.

So, what we have here is a disturbingly common situation of a consumable product masquerading as a durable product.What that means is that AC units used to be considered something you install, maintain, fix and keep around.It was durable.Maybe it cost $1000, but you expect that with $100 per year maintenance, it will last forever.Well, this AC unit only cost $500! A great deal! Except it wasn’t a durable good.It doesn’t cost $100 per year to maintain, it has to be fully replaced every year.

This is a different business model.How this works: produce the cheapest possible product in order to compete for foolish consumers’ attention.People are going to impulse buy on credit, so they are not investigating what is the best deal.So the lowest sticker price is going to get the sale.And, if the product is cheap and breaks, that’s all the better.Since it had a very limited warranty and no plan for maintenance (this thing doesn’t even have screws – it’s snapped together) it was virtually guaranteed to produce a second sale quite soon after.

Now I’m far from being the first to notice this trend; there is a growing subculture of people who are saying they want to be anti-consumers.They want to conserve and maintain.It’s a service-oriented culture that looks at making things last rather than making more things.I like that mentality for lots of reasons.It means more thought has to go into the product.It means less stress on the environment.It makes people more aware of their purchases and happy with their decisions.It’s a lower stress, higher reward lifestyle for more people. The people involved are contributing directly to the quality of each others’ lives rather than trying to produce as much crap as possible and trick each other into buying it.

-Peter

P.S. Here’s the Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping to break it down.

Some thoughts about credibility

Credibility is one of the most fundamental aspects of how we deal with people. It may not have anything to do with how much we like a person, or how much we trust them with other aspects of friendship. Someone’s credibility is concerned with how much stock you can place in someone’s statements.In science, I deal with this all of the time. Just because someone has a degree does not make them credible.Indeed, there are plenty of people with a degree in a field who are not a reliable source of information about that particular field, much less other aspects of life. Case in point: you can find an MD to endorse anything.

So – how do you evaluate someone’s credibility? A degree is not a bad place to start, I’ll admit.If someone has gone to the trouble to jump through hoops about some subject and invest some money, they probably have enough interest to stay informed.But that’s inductive reasoning, at best. What else is there? There’s how they dress. Believe it or not, that’s a big factor in many circles (consciously or otherwise).There are any number of other, external factors that might go into an initial evaluation of a person’s credibility.If you want an interesting book on some of the intangible, unconscious ways we make these judgments, have a look at Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink.

I suppose that in an ideal world, we would evaluate people’s ideas on their own merits.That is to say, if you want to know if a physicist’s ideas about high energy particle trajectories are correct, you learn high energy particle physics and work through his math.That’s probably not practical in most cases, and is likely impossible for most people.When it comes to complex intangibles (like particle physics and investments) people will gravitate to a source of authority and just trust that expert’s opinion.For that authority figure, I suggest that it makes sense to find someone who servers your interest.

So if you are looking for someone who serves your interest, how can you tell?It’s not unreasonable to concern yourself with how he dresses or how well his office is decorated.Did he take the time to consider your comfort?That’s one aspect of being polite.If you have the wherewithal to get into some of the technical nitty-gritty, it’s wise to check his opinions about big-picture subjects and see if he can state them clearly.Does he disagree with any of the big thinkers of the day?That may not be a bad thing, but he had better be able to explain where he departs from the status quo and why.Can his position be attacked by reductio ad absurdum?

But in the end, one of the biggest deciding factors is this: Follow the money.If you are considering taking someone’s advice, ask who is paying this person to advise you. The big upshot: ask yourself (1.) who made his suit and (2.) who paid for it.

-Peter

Inventions, patents, and how ‘great’ minds think alike

Years ago, I lived with a bunch of roommates in order to save money. It hurt my dating life, but they were a good bunch of guys. Over the course of the five years I lived with them, I had a number of epiphanies, and I would like to share two of them; both concerned dishes.

We moved out of a dilapidated cabin of a house (in which I lived in the partially finished basement) into a much nicer place we named the “Bagley Estate,” in honor of it being on Bagley street. Amusingly, I also worked in Bagley Hall at the U. of Washington. It was like I could never quite escape his legacy, this “Bagley” person. In any case, whenever roommates are involved, dirty dishes (almost) inevitably pile up due to the lack of accountability that comes with anonymity. This is related to a general school of thought about what happens without accountability (NSFW).

I hated the dish situation at the old place, and so I “invented” a “novel” solution. I gave away every piece of flatware and silverware that didn’t fit in a single load of the dishwasher. If the dishwasher was full there were no more dishes. As a consequence, there were very few dishes abandoned in the sink.

It got me to thinking, however, about the possibilities of a dishwasher designed for bachelors. It would have two halves. As dishes were used, they would be transfered from the clean compartment to the dirty compartment. Then, when the dirty compartment was full and the clean empty only one compartment need be run. Once it was clean there would be no need to unload it! Just start the process of transferring the dishes into the now empty compartment. I drew a crude schematic of the device. I considered applying for a patent.

Like most ideas, it had already been both invented and perfected. It is called a Double Dishwasher and there’s a stealth model that looks like two drawers.

If you don’t have $1000, or you don’t own your home, I have another idea. It’s a magnet that attaches to the front of your existing dishwasher. You only use half of the dishwasher and transfer dishes from the clean side to the dirty side (rinse them, of course). Since it will never have a full load, only use the “light wash” feature so you won’t feel guilty about wasting water. Pick one up for just 5.99!

-Peter

A little image of the Bachelor dishwasher magnet

Personal interactions, management, relationships and trust – Part 1

On personal leverage:

Low-level personal interactions come down to leverage. We can get into high-level personal interactions some other time; suffice it to say that they are a function of trust.Frankly, most inter-personal relations that I see are low-trust affairs. These are not bad people, and they don’t (apparently) have a dysfunctional relationship.But there is very little trust being exhibited.So they fall back on leverage.

Leverage 1: Money.This one is widely used in the workplace, home-life and most everywhere else.It can be generalized to other commodities, like sex or a place to live.The whole idea is this:”you want something that I have, and you will only get that thing if your behavior conforms to my expectations.”

Leverage 2: Being a Jerk: Another widely used leverage point at work and at home, people will motivate other people to change their behavior by treating them poorly.”If your behavior is not what I want, I will behave toward you in a threatening and cruel way.”

Leverage 3: Violence: Although not so common in functional relationships, perhaps the oldest way to get people to do what you want is to hurt them physically. It’s what people use when there is very limited communication or extremely low trust, as between warring clans of cavemen or with small children with limited understanding.”If you don’t stop that, I will spank you,” or between so-called adults, “If you don’t think this song is the greatest song ever, I will fight you.” (Ron Burgundy)

Whole books have been written about how to avoid people who use the “Being a Jerk” mode of leverage, like The No Asshole Rule. But avoidance is not the best strategy.Violence is right out.Money is the common denominator, but it’s still a weak way to deal with people.The big upshot: there is a better way.It’s about investing in relationships, not about other peoples’ behavior.

-Peter