Reasons to be glad we're ruled by a bunch of hypcritical morons.

Let me show you this completely incomprehensible table, which effectively shows an example of what game theory would call ‘the prisoner’s dilemma’.

	B
A	-1, -1	-1,000,000,000,001, 0
	0, -1,000,000,000,001	-1,000,000,000,000, -1,000,000,000,000

If you already know game theory, you might want to skip this paragraph. That’s called a payoff matrix. A can choose the top row or the bottom row, whilst B can choose the left column or the right column. These choices are combined to pick a cell (A chooses top, B chooses right, the top right cell is selected, for example), and the payoffs in the selected cells are given – A gets the 1^st number as a payoff, and B the second. Therefore, B wants to make the 2^nd number as high as possible (regardless of what A ends up with), and A wants to make the 1^st number as high as possible (with likewise disregard for what happens to B). So, it should be pretty obvious which is the best cell, which cell A wants to end up in, and which cell B wants to end up in. Here’s the unfortunate thing – no matter what B does, A gets a better result by choosing the bottom row. Only slightly better, true, but better nonetheless. Likewise, no matter what A does, B gets a better result by choosing the right column. Thus, despite how bad of a result it is, if both A and B are at least somewhat logical, they’re going to end up in the ‘we are both incredibly screwed’ cell in the bottom right.

Sorry for a bit of a boring explanation. Let’s talk about something that couldn’t possibly be seen as being boring. Nuclear war!* Let’s assume that we’re back in the Cold War. There are only two sides**, and both of them have enough nuclear weaponry to utterly destroy the other one. Furthermore, let us assume that the decision about whether or not to nuke the other side is going to be made by two people who are entirely logical, but who don’t know about the existence of the other one***. Let’s take a look at their thought processes:

If the other side launches nukes at us, that’s really, really bad. So let’s assign it a value like negative one billion****, to symbolise the fact that we’ll all be dead – probably something we want to avoid. We can’t give it –infinity, though, since if we’re going to be nuked anyway, we’re still going to want to do everything else that’s in our best interests, and a negative infinity would eliminate all the differences between courses of action†. Furthermore, I want to act entirely in our best interests. Having the other side around is bad for us. They’re all annoying and wrong and trying to impose their values on us. Plus, they’re using up resources which, frankly, we could use. All in all, it would be better for us if they just went away. So let’s assign a negative value to their continued existence. Just a negative one, since it’s infinitely less important that they die than that we survive, but a negative value nonetheless.

Now look at the table above. Yeah. A logical person with the ability to end the Cold War in nuclear apocalypse would probably have done so. The only possible reason why they might not have done so is if they thought that their enemies in the Cold War existing was actually better than if they didn’t exist. Now, that’s a possibility. That must be considered. But in that case there is no situation where nukes would be launched. This leads to several conclusions. Firstly, scrap the nuclear deterrent, secretly replace it with gigantic novelty piñatas. Second, why exactly bare we fighting the Cold War in the first place? There is one decent reason to value the other side in the middle of the Cold War is that you value the people on the other side – after all, the people can’t really be blamed for the actions of their rulers, and killing them all might be seen as the greater of two evils. But that throws question on what, exactly, the purpose of the Cold War even is. The Cold war was fought by economics and by proxy, and when banks fail, it is seldom the bankers who starve. You’re doing the same thing on a smaller scale. Obviously, there’s still a case to be made for fighting defensively, but not for any kind of attack.

And even if you can justify that to yourself, if you’re one the Capitalist side††, you’re being a complete hypocrite. Democracy is government by, with, and for the people. The main thing here is that it’s government ‘for’ the people – you should be following entirely the interests of your people. That’s how democratic theory works. And as for by/with the people, I’m guessing that, sadly, if you’d asked every American whether they wanted all the Communists to just die, they’re is probably at least one point in the War where they would’ve said ‘yes’. Plus, ‘for’ does seem to trump ‘by’ and ‘with’, since ‘by’ and ‘with’ are pretty much covered by ‘being elected’, and judging by the tendency of governments to ignore what the people want’ in favour of ‘what’s actually good for them’†††.

What’s my point, you may ask? I have no particular point (except that, whilst you could use game theory to program a computer to run the country, you probably shouldn’t). A national government acting only in its country’s interests relies on its own stupidity for the survival of the planet, and if they’re all acting in the global interest, it’s probably going to be better to be entirely replace them with a global government (though the ‘global governance’ thing is something that deserves rather more direct examination – this is part of it, but it’s a bit tangential). It’s just something that’s fun to think about.

I have a strange mind.


*At least one person has probably already worked out where this is going.
**Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Word to draw an seven***-dimensional table, and because this starts to get a lot more complicated if we have more sides.
***Of course Israel doesn’t have nukes, silly. What on earth are you talking about? And North Korea’s nuclear weapons are too pathetic to count.
****Because if they did know anything about each other, everything gets a lot more complicated, and because it is (fortunately) the middle of the Cold War, and information about the other side’s methods of deciding whether or not to fire nukes probably isn’t going to be made public.
*****I am British. I use British billions. I believe that’s the equivalent of a trillion in America.
†This would still work, incidentally, even if you replaced the negative one billion with a negative infinity.
††Socialism, incidentally, has a significant advantage here, in that it can fight the Cold War without compromising their principles. It has its principles compromised in other ways, instead.

†††Greece

Freedom of speech

Holidays. Meaning I have time to write things*. I have difficulty finding things to write sometimes. It still amazes me that anyone actually reads this stuff. And on the subject of writing complete drivel, let’s talk about freedom of speech**.

Freedom of speech is something a lot of people understand. Whenever someone tells someone what to say, they bring up the idea of freedom of speech to defend their right to call someone a ‘frigid bastard who’s afraid of human contact’***. The thing is, people seem to completely fail to understand what freedom of speech actually means.

You see, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of speech for you. Wait. Sorry. Yes it does, that was a stupid thing to say. What I mean is that it doesn’t mean freedom of speech only for you. Yes, under the principles of freedom of speech, you are perfectly free to say that asexuals**** are mentally handicapped autistics, or, indeed, that we’re subhuman. However, we are then free to say that you’re an ignorant idiot, or, indeed, that you should be burned alive for your bigotry. And if you’re criticising a slightly more public group – say if you said exactly the same thing about women, and say if you’re famous yourself they’re free to carry out a sustained campaign of abuse in several national newspapers. You can complain, yeah, but they can say whatever the hell they want about you, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. That’s not an attack on the freedom of speech. Stopping it would be an attack on freedom of speech. That’s freedom for you – noone said it had to be nice. Actually, complete freedom almost never is – that’s why the social contract exists in the first place†.

A slightly more contentious issue is the idea of online censorship. You exercise your freedom of speech on Acebook††, and explain your point of view that deviant sexualities don’t really exist, they’re just signs of mental deficiency and demonic position. You are immediately banned, and your post is deleted. That’s a violation of your freedom of speech, surely? After all, the evil moderators are cruelly violating your freedom to state your point of view. It’s censorship, pure and simple.

Yeah. No. That’s wrong. Understandable, yeah – not like the ‘I can say whatever I like but you can’t’ one. That one’s just stupid. The thing is, you have the right to say whatever you want. Noone has any responsibility to give you a platform, any more than the national gallery has any responsibility to display your retarded fingerpaintings†††, or than a publisher has any responsibility to publish your book, even when it is clearly a timeless masterpiece deserving of a place in the literary pantheon, nay even a place far above those mere scribblers who have in the past pretended to some measure of literary talent.

Ahem. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. Noone has any responsibility to give you a platform for your views. You can say whatever you want to say, but they don’t have to give you a platform to say it. Not only that, whilst you have the perfect right to say whatever you like, in the same way that you have the right to paint whatever you like, that doesn’t violate the property right. You aren’t allowed to paint graffiti on someone’s wall against their wishes, and in the same way, you aren’t allowed to write rubbish on someone’s wall if they don’t want you to‡, or indeed to write anything on anything owned by someone else without permission. And since most parts of the internet are owned by someone, yeah, banning you from posting on a particular part of the internet, or publishing articles in a paper etc. is perfectly fine under freedom of speech. Obviously it’s a bit different if the government does that, it’s a bit different, but if it’s the legitimate owner (or someone appointed by same), it’s perfectly legitimate for them to stop you saying what they don’t want you to say on the internet, no matter how reasonable what you’re saying is. Weirdly, stopping what looks like censorship is actually more of a restriction of freedom than not doing so.

Not really sure why I wrote this, just felt like it. I was getting annoyed with people who invoke 'freedom of speech' without really knowing what it was they were invoking. For anyone wondering, I don't really even believe in 'freeedom of speech'. I belive in 'freedom of expression' - expressing whatever ideas you want, but not in expressing them however you want. I've done too much debating to think that that's the same thing.

Oh yeah. One last thing. Also, if for some reason you want to read more of my rambling, Old Acanthus finally got restored it’s here‡‡‡. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but the content probably won’t end up being the same as what’s on here. I’m not sure. I don’t think all of it as is high quality as what I’ve written here‡‡‡‡, but if you want to read it, it’s there.

*Spending holidays writing blog posts. I’d say it was sad, but I already know I have no life.

**I just want to point out the segue there. Y’know, since it was so subtle, you might not’ve noticed it.

***To be fair, that describes me perfectly. It’s a bit much to assume on the basis of my sexuality, thought.

****Or any other minority group – it should be obvious why I’m using aces as my example, but it applies equally to every group.

†Actually, virtually noone believes in complete freedom of speech. Freedom of speech kinda includes not only minor, harmless things like slander and blackmail, but also giving one’s generals the order to invade that small country to the east of you and murder those who are not of the master race. Probably what I’m talking about would be described more accurately as ‘freedom of expression’ (and yes, I'm aware that I'm not using 'freedom of expression' in the normal way).

††And no, that’s not a typo.

†††I’d be worried about offending someone who actually paints for the national gallery, but I think the chances of anyone that talented reading my drivel is slim to none††††.

††††And now I’ve offended both my readers, so balance is restored.

‡I don’t particularly want to get into an argument about who, exactly someone’s Facebook page belongs to. It’s either Facebook, in which case they give the right to decide what goes on someone’s wall to that person, or the person whose profile the wall is part of. I suspect the former, but I really can’t be bothered to work it out.

‡‡Incidentally, I think this is the most footnotes I’ve ever put in a single piece. And this being that it’s me, that’s saying a lot.

‡‡‡Yes, the web address is almost the same. I didn’t expect to be using this blog very long, so I don’t bother with differentiating it.

‡‡‡‡And, again, that’s saying a lot.

The morality of serial-genocide

OK, I don’t normally respond to particular people. I’ll respond to a general sentiment I’ve heard from a few people, but this will be the first time I’ve gone to something I can point to, and here’s the link. Actually, there are a few things on that blog I disagree with, but for now let’s look at what’s written under ‘Irony meter goes off the scale’

Actually, before I start, let me just say, I’m doing this because I respect the author, at least somewhat. I’m doing this because I love you, so I’m going to do as I do with everything I love - dismantle you in a clinical manner, and then laugh at everything that's wrong with you.

OK then; let’s start with a quote from the text: “One of the most common pieces of bigotry aimed at atheism is that it doesn’t provide any basis for morality. It’s widely assumed that without religion — without moral teachings from religious traditions, and without fear of eternal punishment and desire for eternal reward — people would behave entirely selfishly, with no concern for others.” Did you notice what was wrong with that statement? It makes two statements, and tries to pass it off as just one. To say that atheism doesn’t provide a basis for morality doesn’t really mean that it means that people will act immorally if they’re atheist. It means that there is no reason for them to act morally. Now, I could probably accept this was just an unfortunate term. But the author absolutely and continually conflates the two points. She talks about the ‘clearest moral principles imaginable’. Really? Why? What, in short, is the source of these ‘clearest moral principles’, which apparently exist by which to condemn people?

There are quite a few answers I can give to this question, all of which I will now enumerate:

1: The amoralist’s answer: There’s no such thing as morality

2: The truly relativist answer: morality is individual to the person doing it. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ exist only within the context of the individual.

3: The slightly less relativist answer: morality is individual to the society of the person doing it. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ exist only within the context of a particular society or social group.

4: The humanist absolutist answer (also known as ‘the utterly idiotic for many and varied reasons’ answer): Morality is created by the human race as a whole, but is timeless and unchanging within that context. Morality is a human construct, but still exists eternally and unchangeably.

5: The divine command answer: Morality is created by God. His laws are always right; one has a moral duty to follow him.

6: The true absolutist answer: Morality is inherent and timeless truth. Right exists. Wrong exists. Anyone or anything can be judged by this standard, God as much as any human being.

Seriously. There is, as far as I'm aware, absolutely no other explanation.

So what answer can we have that will make these ‘clearest moral principles’ consistent? Clearly, the first three don’t work, as under those we can’t say that genocide is wrong if it’s perfectly acceptable in some cultures, or to some people. We can’t take five, because the author of the blog admits elsewhere in this post that under divine command ethics it’s possible to defend exactly what the author’s condemning. Also, the author’s an atheist. That leaves four and six.

OK, I called four ‘the utterly idiotic for many and varied reasons’ answer. Why? So. Many. Reasons. Because it’s literally impossible for us to know what this morality actually is. Since it’s eternal and manmade, it has to take account of not only everyone who has ever lived, but everyone who will ever live. Not only do we have no way of knowing what is ultimately right or wrong, so we can’t criticise anything, we can’t really blame anyone for anything since they had no way of knowing what was right and wrong. Can you really be blamed for doing something that was wrong if you didn’t know that it was wrong? That’s fascinating. I don’t think I even need to explain why. Also, nothing, nothing works that way. There is nothing else which is considered both human made and universal and unchanging at the same time.

That leaves us with only option six that the author of this blog can use to be even remotely consistent. A morality that exists entirely separate of any part of humanity, that simply is in the universe. OK then. That’s an interesting idea. But it’s rather incredibly far from clear that such a thing really exists*. So the author’s raging about how defending genocide is utterly wrong is rather less obviously true than one might think.

But unfortunately, I agree with the existence of a Universal morality. There are a lot of philosophers who’d say ‘if it was right for their culture, it was right for their culture, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ Incidentally, I’m pretty sure they’re all atheists, but that’s a side point. Lets accept the idea of there existing an independent, universal, unchanging morality. What does that imply? Well, for a start, it implies the existence of a realm beyond the physical, of the kind that Dawkins would probably get a little upset by. It requires the very ‘untestable belief in undetectable [things]’ that the author of this post complains religion does. ‘It ends the conversation. It cuts off inquiry: not only factual inquiry, but moral inquiry’. You’re affirming your belief that certain thing are utterly wrong, others are absolutely, ‘obviously’ morally right, and that others are absolutely ‘obviously’ morally wrong, and there’s really no way to continue that discussion. It’s not something you can prove or disprove. It’s just a faith statement, at least as much as ‘I believe in God’.

I’m not actually criticising that – like I said, I believe in absolute morality too. And to get anywhere in the moral debate you have to make some brute assumptions. To get anywhere in anything requires that you make some brute assumptions – ‘murdering people is bad’, ‘freedom is good’, ‘our senses are accurate’ etc. What I object to is the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of making all these complaints about religion, without actually examining their own alternative.

Don’t get me wrong. William Lane Craig is a bloody moron. What he wrote was one of the worst things a human has ever written. I understand why he said it, but it still makes me feel dirty to even read it. But you don’t need me to tell you that, any more than you need me to tell you the same thing about Mein Kampf**. The author of this blog*** has some good, convincing ideas, that it would be very easy to believe – who’s going to object to ‘genocide is bad’? I criticise it because it’s good – not nearly as bad as I’ve made out. If it were the blatant idiocy of some of those of all faiths****, I wouldn’t have bothered with it.

This was a little heavier than I like, so allow me to tell you that I have no more evidence to believe that my senses are accurate than to believe that bananas track down lone travellers in the rainforest and devour them. I will therefore be advising that innocent smoothies be taken along on every journey through the rainforest, to warn them off. Also, I spent part of last weekend dressed in a leather trenchcoat and a fez.

For those of you who survived the ridiculousness of that mental image, I’ll see if I can get something a bit less controversial than calling people who criticise genocide hypocrites up soon.

*It’s also not clear what’s in it if it does. That’s another thing that annoys me about this blog. The author complains about how religious people say that theirs is the true religion, because they’ve thought about it, and they feel it in their hearts, when other people have thought just as hard, and feel it just as much in their hearts, but come to the opposite conclusion. Fair enough point. Then the author does exactly the same thing themselves. I guarantee, absolutely guarantee that there is at least one person who has thought about this, probably a lot harder than the author of this blog post, and has come to the conclusion that children should be systematically slaughtered. Actually, I can name him. He was called Plato, and he said it in The Republic. I don’t think there’s a single logically coherent moral system that doesn’t violate some kind of common sense rule of morality.

**I really hope so, anyway.

***Who, for the record, I’ve purposefully depersonified**** her throughout, since it’s the ideas I’m trying to criticise, not the person. That the author is Greta Christina is totally irrelevant.

****Shut up Microsoft. That’s totally a word now.

*****And for the moment, atheism is a faith statement – ‘I believe that there is no God’. I’m not getting into the agnosticism debate right now.