Careful What You Wish For...

The Bush Admin has created a clear world view that “rogue nations” that sponsor terrorists must not develop Weapons of Mass Destruction, on pain of destruction. Presumably they feel that by invading Iraq they have (or will eventually have) set the example which will persuade all such nations into eliminating all WMD or development programs.

Really? Put yourself in the place of the guy in charge of a third world nation surrounded by dangerous, well-armed neighbors, and on the pointy end of US saber-rattling. Assume for arguments sake that, unlike Administration portrayals, you are reasonably rational, and while you may have some really nasty playmates, you also do not want to visit Armageddon upon either yourself, your Regime, or your Nation. In fact, let’s go all the way and assume you are a true patriot, and will do whatever it takes to protect your country from invasion a la Iraq. What are the lessons you’ve learned from the Bush policies so far?

I think it’s pretty obvious that if you do not have even a plausible threat of WMD, you are stuck and will need to play ball with the US (like most Middle-East kingdoms/dictatorships, Libya in particular), or be crushed (Iraq, Taliban Afghanistan). It’s pretty clear that you don’t want to bluff if everybody knows you are bluffing (hello Saddam!). Of course there IS the “Crazy as a Dog” gambit – be such an utterly violent, chaotic mess that nobody wants anything to do with you (Somalia in the ‘90’s, Sudan in the ‘00’s). But that option violates our initial assumptions, so we’ll let that one go.

Lesson #1: If ya don’t got it, and can’t get it: play ball or foam at the mouth.

What if you do have WMD working and complete with long-range delivery systems? Pakistan tested a bomb (maybe their only one…) and by doing so made it pretty darn clear to both India AND the US that there was no point in fucking with them – despite their blatant and prolific support of both the Kashmiri terrorists (of concern to India), the Taliban (of concern to you-know-who), and North Korea (selling nukes to NK – how stupid is THAT?!). But what is anybody going to do? Invade? Whups, there goes Delhi… Nope – India negotiated a cease-fire and we make them our ally. I guess North Korea saw that and thought they could pull off the same trick (and maybe get those darn heating oil shipments re-started), but that didn’t work. But they did get everybody’s attention, and now everybody is convinced NK has nukes and will use them. I guess you could say that they are using both the “WMD” AND the “Crazy Like a Dog” gambits.

Lesson #2: If ya got it, flaunt it. At best you join the Nuclear Club, and become pals with the big dogs – a Player at last. At worst, you’ll be a pariah. In any case, they leave you alone. Which is, of course, all that you really wanted anyway.

What if you have WMD programs, but nothing you can use yet? Well let’s think this one through… this is the most important case, and has real implications on the ground today… The most important fact to consider is that Iraq changed everything. Thanks to that dumb-ass Saddam trying to bluff his way out (violating Lesson #1), the US is now completely focused on, and tied up in, Iraq. So tied up, in fact, that the US realistically can’t pull another Iraq for another couple of years, although they certainly can (or could get someone else to) execute some nasty air-strikes. So what would you do? I believe you would do this:
1) Drive my WMD programs as hard as possible. The sooner I have these, the sooner I am safe from invasion. Lesson #3 taken to heart.
2) Officially, have nothing to do with Iraq. Unofficially, do everything possible to keep the yanks busy in Iraq. Whip up the martyr’s brigades, saturate the airwaves with US “atrocities”, send fighters, weapons, money, whatever it takes to keep Iraq in flames (all in secret, of course, and it’ll help to regularly decry this or that atrocity on either side, just to keep everybody guessing). How many of you are old enough to remember the phrase “proxy war”?
3) Same applies for Palestine, although here a real effort at peace will work just as well. Whatever it takes to keep the Israeli’s tied up at home – since they, for all practical purposes, are just an arm of the US military. If the yanks don’t bomb your breeder reactor, they will.
4) Absolutely fawn all over the AEA, the UN and the EU countries. Those outfits are sooo bureaucratic, sooo slow moving, sooo desperate to not have to take any unpleasant action, that you can keep your programs going for decades before they get wise. Shit, if that moron Saddam could do it you can. And while the Americans may bitch and moan, they’ll be forced to let the Europeans take care of it, 'cause they have their hands full.

By the time Iraq and the AEA all gets sorted out, you’ll have already tested one or two nukes and that, as they say, is that.

Lesson #3: In public - Cozy up to the international bureaucrats. In private - fight the proxy war in Iraq and get those damn nukes as fast as you can.

The Bush neo-cons have wished for a new World Order. And now they have it. But it is not, unfortunately, democracy in the Islamic world; it’s a world where it is in the manifest self-interest of the enemies of the United States to simultaneously work against any possible success in Iraq (not that that flame needs any external fanning...) and to develop WMD, preferably nuclear, as fast as possible. Sun Tzu in his “Art of War” stated that you must always leave your enemy an escape; when people fight to the death they fight most fiercely. The Bush neo-cons left an escape path all right, and it even has an exit sign; except this exit sign glows blue.

A Question of No Moral Value

Y’know, the more of these I write, the more I feel like the world is just a giant Kindergarten, filled to overflowing with 5 year olds…

The famous “Moral Values” exit poll question. I was wondering what the heck that really was… for all the media play that this got, and the host of earth-shaking conclusions derived from it, they never did seem to explain what, exactly, the question was…

So here it is (from the Seattle Times article linked at the end):

In exit polls conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, "moral values" was one of seven items in a question that asked, "Which one issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president." The other issues were taxes, education, Iraq, terrorism, economy/jobs, and health care.

Twenty-two percent chose "moral values," followed by the economy (20 percent), terrorism (19 percent) and Iraq (15 percent), according to the polls, which surveyed more than 13,600 voters and were conducted for The Associated Press and the major television networks.

Well, ask a stupid question…. The problem with such a question is that the answers are pre-defined; it’s a classic case of framing both the question and the answer to suit some goal, apparently not one of simply gathering data. I suppose it helps the analysis – just add up the ticks next to each box, but it doesn’t tell you what’s on voter’s minds when they exit the poll… which is what was supposed to happen. Imagine you are a pro-lifer (or pro-choice) – Abortion ain’t one of the options… sorry, THAT’s not a valid election issue! In the Seattle Times article you can read what was REALLY on voters minds (Iraq of course) when the pollsters simply asked what they thought the top issue was in deciding who they would vote for.

And what the fuck does “moral values” mean anyway?! “Yes, I voted for the man I thought had the least moral values!” (hey –ife was GOOD under Slick Willie!). OF COURSE “moral values” comes out on top; it means whatever you want it to mean. Conservatives think it means forcing Democracy (well, voting for their next dictator) on Iraq, Liberals think it means leaving Iraq (fleeing like rats off a sinking ship, more like). So it's no surprise, but it’s stupid. Stupid that it was asked in the first place, and stupid that NOBODY in the media bothered to look at the question before they spewed nonsense about what it all meant.

At least somebody got it right eventually. Here’s the Seattle Times story – a quick and informative read:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002088898_values12.html

Presidential Biology

Here’s a quote from George W Bush, from back in 2000. This is the President of the (for now at least) most scientifically advanced nation on earth on the single most important principle of biology, without which biology is just a long list of names:

“On the issue of Evolution, the jury is still out on how God created the Earth.”

Hooooooweeeee…. For some of you this is probably Old News, but hey, it was new to me last week.

Well I suppose it’s no surprise – your President is a Creationist, or is al least willing to pander to Creationists in public. You know: God created the Universe in 6 days (it was such hard work he had to take Sunday off to watch Football), Noah’s flood killed all the extinct animals like dinosaurs (NO Tyrannosaurs allowed on deck!)… and just so happened to arrange the fossils in layers so it looks like they are in evolutionary order (that’s gotta be the most anal retentive catastrophic flood ever…), … that sort of stuff. Genesis as LITERAL truth.

I wonder if there is a connection between this and the 2004 Republican hysteria over those pesky “trial lawyers” and related evil-doers such as “activist judges”…

Well, I guess if you really believe God literally created the Earth in 6 days, and the “Faith-Based” world that goes with that (Faith-based education, medicine, social services, economics…), then I can see why you might have a problem with Lawyers and Judges running around suing incompetent people who fuck things up. Insisting on upholding modern legal principles like freedom of thought and speech, separation of Church and State, scientific regulation of medical and industrial practices, etc., etc.. would not be conducive to the spread of Faith-Based initiatives… especially in medicine… Anyway, the Faithful can’t be held accountable by lowly Trial Lawyers and Activist Judges! They are held to Judgment by a Higher Power!

Which reminds me, here’s another “W” quote – this time when asked if he was going to ask his Dad for advice on whether or not to invade Iraq:

"he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher father that I appeal to."

Hmm. I wonder what He said. Sure hope it wasn’t Him who came up with the Nigerian Yellowcake story…

Well, its all a Big Lie anyway. This Administration found God because they knew that was the key to power. If they REALLY believed what they preached, Cheney for one wouldn’t be wasting his time with scientifically educated people like Cardiologists. Hmmm… I wonder… if he really did go to some quack Laying on of Hands to cure his heart condition, and died, would John Edwards take the case?

The Epidemiology of Faith

Faith, in particular in the religious sense, is a fascinating thing. Unquestioning belief in something for which there is no proof. And in many cases, unquestioning belief in things which are demonstrably false. In the modern world, which exists solely due to the quantifiable, objective success of Science, Faith like that requires some truly impressive feats of intellectual gymnastics. Yet billions of people, by far the majority of the people living on the planet, live their lives according to the demands and constraints of religions based solely on their Faith. Clearly this is something that demands a scientific explanation.

So what are the characteristics that we must explain? There are literally thousands of different religions, and they are wildly different. Fortunately the specific details of any one religion are irrelevant; we need to look at the common features. All claim to be the one and only true explanation for the origin and nature of the world (yet all the explanations are different). All religions invoke mystical or divine entities of some sort as the underlying explanation for everything in the world. All religions are based on, and/or make a host of, either unprovable or demonstrably incorrect statements. All exert (or try to) direct and immediate control over all aspects of personal and group behavior and their social interactions. Most, if not all, religions insist on unquestioning belief, and most use the implausibility of their tenets as a test of their adherent’s faith. In other words, the more absurd the beliefs you hold, and the more strongly you hold them, the more faithful you are. All religions purport to explain everything, and do to do so completely. All religions, once established, persist with remarkable fidelity from person to person, generation to generation, place to place. And we’re talking thousands of generations for some religions!

The scientific explanation starts with the meme, a term coined by Richard Dawkins in analogy to the biological gene to label a self-replicating piece of human culture. Simple examples include skateboarding, the scientific method, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Babe Ruth’s Curse on the Boston Red Sox, etc.. Any piece of culture can in principle be a meme, but the ones of interest are the successful ones; the ones that replicate themselves in lots of people’s minds and become a part of human culture. Successful memes are digital watches and rock music, unsuccessful memes are… um… well just look through the discount book bins at your local Outlet Mall (speaking of successful memes…!). Anyway, its safe to say that Religions can be classified as memes, and I’m going to coin the term remes to cover the general category of religious memes.

I will propose that there are three basic types of remes:
(1) General purpose remes. These probably were the precursors to the remes that comprise modern religions. Think of these as the “religious feeling” remes. These “prepare the ground” and/or “provide the tools” for the religion-specific remes by providing the ideas and thought processes that the more specific remes latch onto. Examples I’d like to propose include: God(s) and Devil(s), good and evil, Heaven and Hell, mysteries/miracles that are not to be solved, absence of proof being a virtue, religious devotion in life determining your fate in the afterlife, etc.
(2) Transmission remes. These provide a means for efficient transmission from person to person. Examples here include remes for: religious xenophobia (people who do not believe your religion are competition (or outright evil)), missionary/evangelical beliefs - believing people who do not belong to your religion must be “saved” or will suffer a horrible fate, infallibility of religious authority, allegiance to religious community, etc.
(3) Religion-specific remes. These are the remes that you see manifested in the daily activity of religion. Remes like symbols (crucifixes), rituals (praying at the wailing Wall, pilgrimage to Mecca), texts (Bible, Koran), prayers, stories, music, etc.

There is one other critical characteristic of remes that distinguished them from most other memes. Remes are entirely self-referential. Religions are “closed systems”; everything is explained by the religion, everything is explained in reference to the religion. Each religion is complete unto itself. This is unlike other, “open system” ways of looking at the world like Art or Science, where external inputs and cross-referencing occur all the time. Science and Art are open-ended, growing systems. Religions are immutable. This immutability, and the excellent fidelity with which religions are transmitted through time and space, is a critical attribute in understanding remes.

The other key to understanding remes is the mechanics of their transmission. Let’s start by clearing up any possible confusion right now - remes are not biological entities; they are ideas. They are not literally inherited. Religions are absorbed in early childhood directly from parents or religious authorities close to the family. No one adopts a religion by studying all the available options and selecting the one that makes the most sense.

As far as anyone can tell, and as the vast number of different religions testifies, children start out tabla rasa (blank slate). When very young, children absorb memes and remes from the outside world, and they are uniquely well adapted to do so. Children perform amazing feats of meme absorption. They learn language, culture, behavior, and information of all sorts and they do so en mass. They have to – human society is a complex thing, and it all needs to be learned as fast as possible for a child to survive. And given all the monumental variety of natural and cultural environments in which humans live, children NEED to be tabla rasa, and they need to absorb as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Young children are completely open to whatever memes they are exposed to, good, bad or ugly. You can tell little kids just about anything and they will believe it – think Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

So to summarize:
Religions are composed of a unique set of remes. Religions live in people’s brains. To survive, religions must be learned by other people’s brains. Children are born tabla-rasa and immersed in a culture filled with people who believe that religion. Children learn the religion and the cycle repeats. Religions use conversion and human reproduction to grow and spread. Different religions propagate and compete in the environment of human culture. The most successful religions are the ones that are most successful at generating new adherents. Any successful religion will be characterized by a set of beliefs that ensure its faithful spread throughout human populations.

But wait, I can write that same paragraph in purely scientific, biological terms:
Viruses are comprised of a unique set of genes. Viruses live in peoples bodies. To survive, viruses must infect other people’s bodies. Children are born without an immune system and immersed in an environment filled with vectors infected with that virus. Children are infected by the virus and the cycle repeats. Viruses use infection and cellular reproduction to grow and spread. Different viruses propagate and compete in the environment of human beings. The most successful viruses are the ones that are most successful at infecting new hosts. Any successful virus will be characterized by a set of genes that ensure its faithful spread throughout human populations.

Religions in human culture behave like viruses in human biology. I know it sounds ugly, but I do NOT mean it that way. Ignore the emotional baggage attached to viruses and simply think of them as a biologist (or computer scientist) does – objectively, without judgment. Viruses cannot reproduce themselves – they need a host. They are basically is a small package of DNA inside a protein shell containing just enough genes to use a host’s cellular machinery in order to make more copies of itself. The viral reme model of religion sounds like this:

R-viruses are comprised of a unique set of remes. R-viruses live in peoples brains. To survive, r-viruses must infect other people’s brains. Children are born without an immune system and immersed in an environment filled with vectors infected with that r-virus. Children are infected by the r-virus and the cycle repeats. R-viruses use infection and human reproduction to grow and spread. Different r-viruses propagate and compete in the environment of human culture. The most successful r-viruses are the ones that are most successful at infecting new hosts. Any successful r-virus will be characterized by a set of remes that ensure its faithful spread throughout human populations.

In my opinion the analogy is absolutely compelling, and not just with respects to the mechanisms of religion, but to its effects on human society.

This analogy suggests an entirely new line of scientific research. It suggests the possibility of Theology becoming a Science: if the viral model of religion is correct, then, in what has to be the ultimate irony, religion can be studied by many of the most powerful tools of biology: evolutionary theory, ecology, and yes, epidemiology.


This is my version of Richard Dawkins’ Viruses of the Mind (Chapter 3.2 in A Devil’s Chaplain, Houghton-Mifflin, 2003). The chapter in that book is, in turn, a reprint of the original article in B. Dahlbom (ed.), Dennet and His Critics: Demystifying Mind (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993). This meme has been bubbling around in my mind for many years, but as usual, Richard beat me to it, and he did a better job. But I took a quite different tack, and I encourage you to read his article.

Election Maps

Some people have way too much free time... even more than me, it seems...

Next time some red-stater points to the Electoral College map and tries to impress you with how much dirt voted for Bush, refer them to these much more informative maps:

The now famous "purple map":
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

And some fascinating Cartograms (states deformed to represent number of votes):
http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/election04/election.html
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/2004_ELECTIONRESULTS_GRAPHIC/

These are clear proof that the US ain't nearly as polarized as the winner-take-all electoral map makes things appear.

What ARE Conservatives Conserving?

I’ll admit right off the bat that use this question as the title of an essay is not original. I suspect it’s been used many times before, but I particularly remember it being used back in Canada in reference to certain policies of conservatives belonging to, well, the Conservative Party. I’ll steal it anyway, ‘cause it just seems so darn appropriate looking forward to a second Bush term. The Republican Party, and the Bush Administration in particular, have a fascinating agenda in store for us over the next four years. So let’s look and see what these folks intend to Save for Posterity:

Yet another go at oil drilling in ANWR. The Administration will generally continue to open up National Forests, Monuments & Parks as well as Wilderness Areas to vastly increased resource exploitation.
… so they aren’t conserving the Environment…

Coal and Oil will continue to be the focus of our National Energy Policy. And of course, proper Forest Management includes widespread application of clear-cut logging and mineral extraction.
… so they aren’t conserving our Natural Resources…

More tax cuts, even in the face of the largest deficits AND debt in US history.
… so they aren’t conserving the National Treasure…

Continued unilateral action in the Iraq war, non-participation in International Agreements, and abandonment of the United Nations.
… so they aren’t conserving our (do we have any left?) International Goodwill…

Continued use of the US Armed Forces to implement Democracy in the Middle East, prosecute the War on Terror, contain the Axis of Evil, and generally participate in expansion of the American Empire and other kindergarten notions of Foreign Policy, all in the face of ongoing civilian “transformation” of Military planning and doctrine.
… so they aren’t conserving our Military Power…

Continuation, and perhaps expansion of the Patriot Act, use of Military Tribunals instead of Legal Due Process, more phonetically-based addition of names to the “Do Not Fly” list, and generally expanding the scope and authority of agencies of the Homeland Security Administration to monitor and prosecute the American Public.
… so they aren’t conserving our Civil Rights…

Gratuitous modification of the Constitution to pander to the Republican base (gay marriage amendment) and for obvious short-term political gain (allowing Arnold to run for President). And presumably expanded use of Gerrymandering following its successful use in Texas to add 3 Senate seats the Republican Majority.
…so they aren’t conserving the Constitution…

But wait! They ARE conserving something:
(1) The Wealth of the Rich,
(2) The Power and Influence of well-connected Defense Companies,
(3) Unrestricted Gun ownership, and
(4) The “Moral Values” of a small, fanatical, but very politically active religious sect.

Well whaddya know... I guess they ARE conservatives after all.

So There You Have It

I feel compelled, for completeness if nothing else, to write something now that the election is over, but to tell the truth… at this point I really don’t give a rat’s ass. Miracles aside, the election is over and Bush won. I’ve made my opinions quite clear. My opinions have not carried the day. Oh well. So here are my final thoughts on this election, and they are unashamedly bitter:

America has once again proven that despite its status as the world’s only (for now…) military superpower, it remains politically basically a backwater. Faith trumps thought. Vague, undefined “moral values” trump civil rights. Imperial ambitions trump alliance-building, Evangelical Christians trump the “melting pot”. Homogenous, rural, xenophobic, white America trumps heterogeneous, urban, liberal, multi-cultural America. Shoot… you can see it on the map: county-by county, with only a few exceptions, Kerry took the cities, Bush took everything else. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm.

So there you have it. Compassionate Conservatism has served its purpose - to make radicals seem moderate. That cover will be the first thing to go in January... The neo-cons get to strut their stuff another 4 years. The Evangelical’s get to re-make most key American institutions in their image. The voter’s get what they wanted, and probably what they deserve. In particular they get their wish to be ruled by people with unwavering conviction of the Rightness of their Cause. Careful what you wish for… you might get it. It's an interesting model, but sadly one that has been tried, and found wanting, a thousand times throughout history.

You know, maybe it’s a model developed by spending too much time driving across Texas… in the middle of the prairie, if you drive in a straight line you can get clear across the State… Even if, say, the road drifts a little to the left all that happens is you end up in a ditch covered in cow poop. But America doesn’t live on the plains, it lives in the mountains and a nasty winter storm is raging. If the road makes a hairpin right turn, that Texan will smash through the guardrail and fly off a cliff...

So let’s, for an instant, drop the analogies and be clear to all those rural “moral values” voters who think Bush is so clever: while you all were voting to keep gays unmarried, we were voting for our lives. When Al Qaida detonates a dirty bomb in a shipping container it’s Kerry voters who will die. You f***ers better have made the right call.

The driver has taken the wheel and is about to step on the gas. Let’s hope that THIS TIME he keeps his eyes on the road.