Parenting as we know it is a horrid thing.

Children are dehumanised - parent knows best. You may say the parent usually does, and that's true, but usually the child doesn't disagree with his parent. In cases of a conflict, when a child is sufficiently confident to contradict his parent, his view must be taken seriously, just like one would listen if a friend thought you were in error.

Many parents consider children like clay to be sculpted into a good adult (read: valid person). This also dehumanises children who are people now. A child has preferences of his own, and these must be taken seriously, not the preferences of some imagined future person.

Parents believe that people can't always have what they want. In practice this is a transparent excuse to deny things to one's child. In principle, it says people are doomed to unhappiness. This is not true. Through a combination of creatively solving problems so people are better able realise their intentions and wants, and creatively analysing and changing their intentions and wants to better, more realisable ones, people can be very successful. There is nothing stopping them; the limiting factor is just their skill (morality).

Parents so often treat their own desires as unquestionable, unalterable truth, and from this point of view declare their children's desires impossible. Examples include the mundane (but still important) like a parent who insists he can't stand even the sound of violence and bans many movies from his home, or a parent who hates messes and insists child meticulously clean his room (why the child should clean the mess the parent hates is unclear). Another example would be a parent who says "I will feel like a failure if you do not graduate college, so you must go." Isn't it obvious this is the parent's problem and the solution is almost certainly for the parent to get over it? (unless child doesn't mind college, in which case parent is lucky and need not address his flaw) Sadly it is not.

Skools are a horrid place. It starts with legitimised grade falsification over discipline issues like attendance and participation, and often over being sufficiently deferential to the teacher. It continues with the implicit assumption that children must be forced to learn that comes out in the constant forced feedback to make sure students are paying attention. This takes forms like graded assignments, quizzes, and participation grades. Worse still is that teachers design tests based on what they consider important, and so one must listen to teacher to pass tests. Tests should be designed by third party certification agencies, and classes should be optional things designed to help people learn the material (only the parts they want to learn, which may or may not be what's on the test - student's decision). Much like SAT prep classes (I imagine - never been to one). Of course, there would be other classes not designed for any sort of certification, with no need for grades. By separating the issues of certification and education, schools would be able to focus on one and thus do it better. And when it became popular opinion that current certification methods hurt people (we all know no one likes tests, but few people seem to care), then new certification companies sporting new methods would spring up to compete with the testing-based ones. And people would flock to them.

At a glance, evolution and creationism are at drastic odds. One says that humans are descended from single-celled ocean creatures. The other that God created humans in approximately their current form.

Today, some argue that evolution and creationism are compatible. How can this be?

The way to argue for compatabilism is to assert that a definition of creationism, different from the common sense one, is in fact the correct one. So how are we to judge which definition is right? Let us examine the two candidate meanings of creationism.

The incompatabilist definition of creationism is that God created the world in 6 days less than 10,000 years ago, and created the animals approximately as they are today.

The compatabilist definition of creationism states: God created the world.

It may seem strange to choose between definitions when they mean different things, instead of simply assigning them different words. But ponder this question: which version of creationism should the proponents be defending, if they believe their theory is true and want to understand something through it?

There are two main things to be understood through creationism: Christianity, and physics. Thus, I propose that a bolder and scientific definition with more explanatory power would be better, and also one that matches the Bible.

Lots of explanatory power is preferable because explanations help us to understand. The incompatabilist definition says a number of things about reality, such as the age of the earth. In contrast, the compatabilist definition of creationism tells us very little; it doesn't give any details about God creating the world.

A more scientific definition is better for learning about physics because physics is concerned with scientific questions. To be scientific, a statement must be able to be criticised by observations or measurements.

Boldness is how much a statement exposes itself to criticism. Boldness is good because less bold statements are less conducive to making progress. This is because if one holds a bold theory, but is wrong, one stands the best chance of finding out his mistake and correcting it. By being exposed to criticism, bold, false ideas are best able to be replaced by better ideas.

The incompatabilist definition of creationism is partially scientific and very bold -- it would be proven false if we could show any of the following: the world is older than 10,000 years, the world was created in more or less than 6 days, or animals have changed significantly over the years. In contrast, the compatabilist definition of creationism is unscientific because no measurement or observation could possibly prove God didn't create the world. It is also less bold, because it uses vagueness to avoid being contradicted or criticised.

For creationism to help us understand Christianity, creationism must match what the Bible says about creation.

The incompatabilist definition of creationism matches the Bible very well. Someone unaware of the debate who was asked to write a book report summarising what the Bible says about creation would almost certainly say something similar. By contrast, the compatabilist definition was intentionally designed with concerns other than the scripture in mind, namely how to say something similar to the Bible without contradicting evolution. Thus it matches the Bible less well.

The incompatabilist definition has come out better on every count, and thus we shall use it.

-------------

On the incompatabilist side are arguments such as:
1) Without God, why would people act morally?
2) God created the world in 6 days, not billions of years.
3) Evolution says I came from a monkey; I didn't.

On the compatabilist side are arguments like:
4) Why can't I believe in evolution and creation?
5) Maybe God created the Big Bang then let evolution be his method of creating the world.
6) How do you know how long a day is before the sun is created? Maybe the six days God created the world in were billions of years long.

The first incompatabilist argument is a version of this argument: "If I am wrong, the world is grey and gloomy, therefore I am right." This is a fallacy because something depressing could be true.

The second argument is a claim about what creationism says. It matches our preferred definition, so it is strong for the same reasons we chose that definition.

The third argument contains a fallacy and a valid point. The valid point is that creationism says people did not come from lesser creatures, but evolution does, therefore they are in conflict. The fallacy is the implication that you should believe you didn't come from a monkey because this guy says you didn't, which is an argument from authority.

Moving on the the incompatabilist arguments, the fourth argument is ambiguous. It may mean that the arguer sees no contradiction between evolution and creation, thus they do not contradict (a fallacy -- argument from ignorance). Or it may mean that the arguer is not yet persuaded, which is no argument that he is right.

Argument five may seem reasonable, but it conflicts with our definition of creationism. It is poor for the same reasons the compatabilist definition of creationism is poor.

Argument six attacks the meaning of a day. This is very silly, because everyone, compatabilists included, live their lives as if a day is 24 hours long. For example, compatabilists show up for work on time, and do not say on Monday morning, "It's still sunday, I don't work today."

I conclude the incompatabilist position is better. Its definition of creationism is preferable, it has a strong argument behind it (that 6 days and billions of years are, in fact, different lengths of times), and no reasonable arguments for the opposing view exist.

Glossary:

Incompatabilist: A person who believes creationism and evolution contradict each other.

Compatabilist: A person who believes creationism and evolution do not contradict each other.

Physics: The science devoted to learning about physical reality. It contains biology, chemistry and biological evolution.

Boldness is how much a statement exposes itself to criticism.

Scientific Proposition: A proposition that can be criticised by observations or measurements.

Explanatory Power is how much something tells us (about anything).

The moral question, How To Live, is hard to answer. But it's especially hard to answer in spoken language. Many of the concepts involved are difficult to put into words. It's hard to find examples that aren't highly personal, and hard to understand for strangers. But I was just playing Tetris, and I think it will do nicely to illustrate a part of the answer.

For those who don't know, Tetris is a game of falling blocks of varied shapes, and you must choose where they fall to make them fit together into solid lines. You have to be quick to decide where to put a block because you only have a limited time before it falls.

Some people might be tempted to pause their Tetris game for every new block and calculate exactly where the best spot is. I'm sure this is possible. However, to get a good score in real time, you can't just calculate exactly what to do.

Similarly, in real life, we never have unlimited time to make a decision.

How, then, do Tetris players play, if not by calculating what choice is best? They use their intuitions. They create various patterns they are familiar with and consider good. And they set specific goals within the game and play moves designed to achieve those.

Example patterns to aim for are: higher on the edges, lower in the middle, or bumpy shapes, or flat lines. Or everything solid except one thin line to be filled in later with a single line piece for bonus points (if you clear many lines at once you get more points).

Example goals to aim for are to uncover a buried hole so it can be filled in, or to not stack more pieces over a certain feature.

So suppose we find ten people with different intuitions and have them all play 10,000 games of Tetris. We ignore the first 2,000 as just practice. During those practice games, players will learn how best to achieve their personal goals. They'll learn all the little tricks that help them get where they're trying to go. They'll learn pattern recognition and come to intuitively respond to all the common patterns.

Coming back to morality, they are learning how to get what they want.

In the later games, we will see some players are better, and some are worse. And we will see they all consistently play in certain ways which they feel are best (they were asked to try their best every game, and perhaps paid depending how well they score).

Each player represents a set of intuitions that together those intuitions are a Tetris playing strategy, and the best strategy will on average score highest. The others are doomed to mediocrity.

However, there's one more thing! I used to create holes to fill in for bonus points a lot, and if the line to fill them in didn't come for long enough, I'd lose (lines have a 1/7 chance to come, but if you play enough, sometimes you won't get one for thirty pieces). I don't do this nearly as much anymore. When I see holes like that I worry.

I used to create flat areas. They seemed less messed up. But it turns out a lot of pieces don't fit nicely onto flat, and work better on bumpy shapes.

I used to put a lot of pieces in the middle if that seemed convenient, or a bunch on the edge if that was. Didn't care which. Now I've changed this, and I go to significant lengths to stack the edges and keep the middle low.

I used to hate to bury any holes intentionally, and would put it off as long as possible, letting the holes get deeper, and sometimes getting out of it, and sometimes getting screwed. Now I do damage control early. I can recover from lots of small problems, but I can't risk any big ones if I want to score well.

So the point is, to be truly good at Tetris, one must change his intuitions, to feel that certain patterns are better, and others worse, than one originally felt. With enough changes, I've found I die much less.

And back to morality, to be truly moral, besides figuring out how to achieve what you want, like, and intend, you must also find ways to change what you want to better things. No matter how good you are at creating holes in your Tetris position in search of bonus points, or how good you are at making flat structures, you'll never be very good.

article

SADDAM HUSSEIN GAVE $25,000 TO FAMILIES OF SUICIDE BOMBERS. HE SHOT AT OUR AIRPLANES. HE SHOT AT OUR PILOTS. HE HAD WMD PROGRAMS, EVEN IF THEY MAY HAVE BEEN INCOMPETENT. HE WANTED WMDS, AND HE WANTED TO USE THEM. HE HARBORED TERRORISTS, AND TERRORIST TRAINING CAMPS. HE WAS KNOWN FOR SUCH ACTS AS ATTACKING TWO NEIGHBORS, SHOOTING MISSILES AT ISRAEL IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR B/C HE'S EVIL, AND MASS MURDERING HIS OWN PEOPLE. NONE OF THIS IS CONTROVERSIAL. HOW DOES THIS NOT QUALIFY AS "DANGEROUS"?

Has been just fine. Attack the president on strategy, fine, but not tactics. He is privy to info you're not and advisors you're not to decide which road which supply truck should use. You *do not* know better how to plan those details. The people planning the details are not incompetent.

Because sponsoring terrorism and killing people doesn't justify force against him...

what, there are other identical threats? which other threat is the same? idiot.

It's working. If you disagree, argue it.

Of course Bush's view is clear. His strategy is to fight offense, kill the badguys wherever they may be found, and help people be free whenever we have the opportunity. He's only said this 47 times, though...

Why quote an idiot? Why propose lunatic theories w/ no argument? Bush said he will stand firm and win, remember? He said Iraq is a key battleground that we must be victorious on, remember?

No, the media does that. Over and over and over. The administration never has, never will. Remember this press briefing?

media: Did you overestimate how ez it would be?

ari: no

media: didn't you say it'd be a cakewalk?

ari: no, you guys said that.

media: didn't you fail to warn us it'd be hard?

ari: we warned you on 321 occassions. *lists them all*

media: shouldn't you have warned us more clearly?

ari: we feel the 321 warnings were very clear.

media: isn't it going badly because you overestimated how ez it would be?

ari: you already asked that.

media: are you sure you sent enough body armor for our troops?

ari: Bush asked all his generals if they had everything they needed and felt comfortable with the war plan and felt it would work and we would win. They all said yes. Of course we will continue to send additional supplies, but quit arguing tactics, you don't know what you're talking about.

media: isn't it a quagmire like vietnam because they are fighting back so intensely?

ari: ask me that again in 3 days after we take the capital. this is going even faster than the last gulf war. idiots.

and that's enough of that. off to take a shower. ugh.

Parents have this broccoli stuff they've decided is Good For You, and make you eat it. They don't listen when you say you prefer steak.

Schools have this Educational Method (including homework, tests, textbooks, lectures, etc) they've decided is Good For You, and they have the Right Answers (which are sometimes wrong), which are also Good For You. They make you eat it. And they sure don't offer steak.

PS you can tell textbooks are worse than real books, because when real people (not students) go to a bookstore to buy something, they don't choose a textbook.

i think the worst thing about the romance meme is the criteria for how ppl become romantically attracted to each other. sensible criteria on the matter seem to me things like: current closeness, impressiveness (to you, not in general), interest in person's worldview, shared interests.

one implication of my criteria is that as people became better friends, they would be more attracted to each other. another is not being attracted to someone who's worldview you know nothing about.

the actual criteria are something of a mystery to me. i know appearance is one. i know of the badboy/girl meme. i know people say they want someone "smart, funny, beautiful/hot". i know most people have different taste in friends and lovers (my criteria approximately are what people use for friendship). if anyone understands the romantic criteria better, do comment.

curi42 (4:31:35 PM): here are 2 contrasting approaches: approach 1:
curi42 (4:32:57 PM): jack thinks about what he wants to do the next week. on monday he wants to go swimming, play Quake, and chat w/ Jill about bikes. on tuesday he wants to go to school, play Quake, and go for a walk w/ Jill. on wednesday he wants to cut class and go to the beach with jill, then go to a movie with jill, then play warcraft.
curi42 (4:33:19 PM): and some people might declare, *from the actions*, that they are dating.
curi42 (4:34:11 PM): approach 2: jack asks jill to be his girlfriend. he then decides that b/c she's his gf, they should do things every day. comes up w/ things for each day. may even end up w/ the same list as in approach one.
curi42 (4:34:23 PM): but the difference is, *from the type of relationship*, the actions are determined.

The knowledge to enable traditional lives is embedded in the fabric of our society. It is prudent only to struggle against the current of convention when a great moral principle is at stake. If we exert ourselves over trivialities, we will not have the stamina to triumph in the most necessary of trials. A righteous man may be tempted to take upon himself many causes, great and small, simply because he believes them for the best. But a wise man will consider where his efforts will have the greatest effect, and temper his zeal with that wisdom.

When we consider the question of monogamy, we must bear in mind that any deviation is a great undertaking. If we reject the common wisdom of our society on an issue as fundamental as what sort of family to have, and what is a good relationship, we will find ourselves always alone even amongst the many. We will be pariahs, and only a very few will ever want to be close to us. That is a path of innumerable hardships. But it may have merit. The time will come when we must advance beyond the shackles of an ancient tradition from the darkest days of man, and who is to say that time should not be now?

But the most gainful of all steps forward are gradual ones, because they start with our best and improve upon that. Starting from beginnings is a most enormous chore. Added to that is a most intricate problem: we must, at every step of the way, stand on solid ground. We need to step from one belief that is workable to another that is also workable, never staying for more than moments where we cannot stand. The most sure way to ensure constant function in our lives is to take only tiny steps, always ready to retreat. A revolutionary change is a great risk, because we cannot retreat even if we later judge it a misadventure, or even a catastrophe.

The tradition of monogamy is not a great and admirable thing. It is not a thriving, growing, inspirational way of life. It does not advance; for centuries, it has been stagnant. It gathers dust, and decays, and has the stench of irrationality. All the flaws of design, exacerbated by the years, make monogamy a most treacherous thing. Divorce and adultery are common place, and pledges of eternal love are broken like twigs. Families feud and grow bitter with resentment; romantic rivals are cast aside into the darkness. But even as we focus the spotlight on lovers, the picture is stained with pain and discolored with failed aspirations. The most passionate heights are a thing of wonder, but they come only in sporadic fits. At first, each day is filled with sunshine so great the greatest flaw can be overlooked, but sunshine fades and is replaced with the light of reason and then flaws are not overlooked. Lovers grow jealous and untrusting of whom they should trust in most. The candle of passion flickers and sputters out, despite the noblest of intentions. Who but a fool would wish to stake his fortunes and his joy on such a tempestuous creature?

There is a middle ground. We could endeavor to repair monogamy, to patch up the holes. We might look through the many aspects of monogamy with a critical eye, and make the alterations we find most necessary. But this is like cutting threads that hold a most precious artifact above a precipice, never knowing which ones will cause it to fall. We must be most cautious, and evaluate thoroughly the consequences, intended and accidental, of every change we make. And further, we must communicate all of our ideas to our partner, wary of every possible miscommunication. If all goes well, perhaps we will avoid some of the greater dangers of monogamy, and still focus most of our lives on other pursuits. But if it does not, we may find that wrestling with monogamy occupies much of our creativity, and yet we fight with a hand behind our back and a blindfold, never striving with all our might to make great and lasting improvements.

So we face a question of the utmost difficulty: to throw our lot in with a fickle and faithless custom; to fight a terrible and costly battle, outsiders in our own land; or to devote a portion of our efforts to the most delicate, and perhaps hopeless, of repairs. Each option is plausible.

Short version:

To carefully judge a new love interest against a current spouse, and make a wise judgment about who is preferable, requires a great deal of time and attention. However, single people pledge eternal love very quickly, even though their knowledge can be no more complete.

Expanded version:

Consider a man with a loving family, who has been married to his wife for no less than two decades. He is content, he has a good job, and his children have good prospects. He never fights with his wife. But, like every man, he knows there is more that could be attained. It is only natural to think that life would be even more pleasant if his wife had more skill with rhetoric, or a greater interest in ancient history, or liked to play tennis. But it is a virtue to remain content, and not be distressed by unavailable possibilities.

This man meets a new woman, who is lovely, and witty, and kind, and shares with him some qualities, interests, hobbies, and virtues that his wife does not share. He is intrigued, and starts to fall in love with her, and wonders if his life would be better with her. At this point a wise reader will object that the man proposes a most abrupt and immoderate change, and disaster is the likely outcome. But let us put aside any qualms about sudden, large changes, and consider another argument.

To decide in favor of the new woman, and to leave his family, the man must, in his best judgment, be confident he will be happier with her, and have a better life. He must know her flaws, to be certain he will not find them more loathsome than his wife's flaws. He must know her assets, to be certain they are greater than his wife's. He must know her interests and hobbies, to be sure he prefers them, and will not be giving up some most important ones. He must spend time with her, to see what she is like after the initial infatuation wears off. He must also see her in all manner of situations: when she is angry, when she is sad, when she is happy, when she is anxious, when she is scared; in this way, he will immunise himself to the possibility of a hidden flaw in her disposition that could cause him great grief. A sagacious reader will see the great weight of tasks necessary for the man to pass a considered judgment, and will see they must, to be done properly, take a great period of time.

Let us now consider a single man, who is a young adult. He has no family, but he hopes to have one soon. He meets a woman, and quickly falls in love with her, and they marry. It is a common story. But why should this young man have any better judgment, or faster wit, than the family man we considered first? All the considerations the family man needed to make about his new potential wife, so too a young man should make them about a potential wife, if he wishes to avoid mishap. Some have said the young man has less to lose, and it is acceptable for him to assume a greater risk. But he risks his future family, which he should value no less than the family man values his own family. And so he must exercise equal prudence and caution before embarking on such a great commitment.