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Drew Graham

Like Andrew, Just With Less Anne

Mumblings and Musings

A son, a friend, a brother and a future fable frustrated and limited by his own ineptitude.

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Bertrand Russell's Teapot

Thank you, my friend, for motivating me to actually read Bertrand Russell's Is There A God?

Here is the famous extract, but it is all succinctly worded and beautiful to read.

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. 

But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. 

If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. 

It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history. Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd. In early civilizations there may be as much as one percent for which there is something to be said. In our own day.... But at this point I must be careful. We all know that there are absurd beliefs in Soviet Russia. If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. 

I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold. I cannot, therefore, think it presumptuous to doubt something which has long been held to be true, especially when this opinion has only prevailed in certain geographical regions, as is the case with all theological opinions."

From Bertrand Russell, "Is There a God?" (1952), in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68, ed. John G. Slater and Peter Köllner (London: Routledge, 1997)

Bitcoin

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As anyone that has engaged me in deep / philosophical conversation will know, I'm fascinated with the idea of open source government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance).

In a nutshell, the need for politicians and a central government disappeared once we were able to have many-to-many communications, which happened when Facebook happened. There's a lot more to it, but that's the gist. On a sidenote, check out https://joindiaspora.com/ which is basically an open-source version of Facebook. Such initiatives will be key in the development of open source governance.

One of the more far-fetched ideas of open source government is open source, distributed currency. Such an idea seems to be the opposite of what you need to have a currency - you need a distributor, a central repository to control the supply as the value of currency comes from it's natural scarcity when pegged to gold, silver etc, or it's artificial scarcity when it is economically illogical to forge and it's distribution is controlled. Without central distribution, you can't do either.

Some very clever guy called Satoshi Nakamoto has come up with an algorithm that is able to artificially limit the supply of something that is completely uncentralised; a peer to peer currency.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

The possibility are startling - ever since Nikon unpegged the US Dollar from the gold standard in 1971 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock), the US Dollar has been a currency backed by itself - effectively held up by nothing but confidence (see: sheep theory) and it's own supply (see: fractional reserve banking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking).

As a sidenote, ever since the Bretton Woods system came into force in 1944, all currencies were exchanged against the US Dollar, which was itself pegged against gold, thereby ensuring natural scarcity. Nixon's short-sighted, butt-saving fuckup of 1971 was akin to cutting the moorings of a ship with 100 other ships tied to it and saying "well, we're all in this together now guys."

So, the US Dollar is an unbacked currency that is centrally controlled.  Bitcoin is an unbacked currency that is not centrally controlled. Apart from some rich men in large buildings saying what a good idea it is, the two are pretty much the same.

This is another example of technology displacing the status quo with a better, fairer, more sustainable, self-regulating system. Which means that, as Jason Calcannis predicted (http://bit.ly/iuAp2g) it will be illegal before it reaches critical mass.

Today is a good day

Y'know there are elements of my job that I will miss. The fact that I'm able to sit in a cafe in a Chinatown townhouse mid-afternoon eating great food, drinking incredible coffee, slurping on a roseberry smothie fiddling with my iPad and managing-by-phone, and be as productive as if I was in the office (or more if you take into account the distance from the morons). And when I am 'at work' I'm generally surrounded by great people and I work on a FUCKING ADVENTURE PARK. Seriously, if it wasn't for the customers and politics I'd have the perfect job. Today, I shall not complain. Today I am happy. Today is a good day.

Cleaners...

I've got a cleaner because I don't have enough time (and, I'll be honest, can't be bothered) to clean my flat. But then leave work early to let her in, tidy up before she arrives and the have nothing to do whilst she cleans. It's so fucked up. It's like I'm paying someone for the motivation to do it myself.

But I know that if I didn't, I wouldn't do it.

Trying to explain The Black Swan

I'm reading a book - as anyone who has had contact with me in the last month will know - called The Black Swan.

When I tell people how it is revolutionary and incredible and blah blah, they ask why. And I can't explain the premise of the book succinctly and the conversation ends with them thinking I'm mad or stupid. Or both.

So, in a way that can be edited and revised, here goes...

We used to believe that all swans were white. But then someone found a black swan in Australia, and suddenly not all swans are white. The important fact is that no matter how many white swans we saw, it didn't allow us to accurately say "all swans are white" as witnessing any number of white swans did not prove the non-existance of black swans. Yet we said it, and took it as an absolute, unequivocal truth. And we naturally do this with the entire world every day. And we're wrong.

A black swan 'event' is one that is unforeseen due to this (and four other) illogical tendencies of humans, that also has massive consequences and that we apply post-event explanations to.

You're now on page 135.

Now read Malcolm Gladwell's 2002 piece on the author's investment fund:
http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm

The idea of a 'perfect storm' of unlikely events is commonly understood. It's the explanation for air crashes and financial crashes and other disasters. And as humans we accept the 'perfect storm' explanation. But we shouldn't, we should understand that nearly all events of note, good or bad, are caused by 'perfect storm' black swan events. Our very existence is a black swan event. Yet our daily routine is betting *against* black swan events, which are bound to happen eventually!

Look, I'm not mad. Or stupid. Just read the damn book, OK?
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp/1400063515

Human's puny brains

I'm currently fascinated with how we (humans) struggle with scale.

Killing 10 people is appalling. Killing a million is a statistic.

People can't visualize the difference between 1 in ten thousand and 1 in a million. But the first even will happen 100 times before the second happens once. We can fathom this on a theoretical scale, but when applied to our lives we don't act on it; gambling, medical procedures, travel decisions.

And we can't conceive facts like the entire computing power of every device ever made in history - every computer, every space shuttle, every super computer, every PS3 - does not come close to a single human brain.

And that in the summer of 1982 American banks lost more than their entire profits up to that point. Everything. And more.

It's like our brains just haven't develop to think at this scale. Any why would they? Evolutionarily (is that even a word?) we're still concerned with saber tooth tigers and picking berries.

The Double Standard of Religion

It is scary to witness how ingrained the idea of religious sanctity is.

Every time I want to make a comment on religion - any religion - my mind does a double take and thinks "Noooo. You can't say that. You might offend someone." I have to remind myself of the double standard at play. And then I take a sometimes-secret delight in saying it.

On a basic level, I could say to someone "God works in mysterious ways" and, regardless of their beliefs, there is no expectation of offense. 

Or I could say "I am a conservative" and, although a heated debate may ensue, no offense would be expected to be taken.

However, if I were to say that "there is no god", it is considered insensitive.

Putting aside the differences in rationality for the three statements (which itself makes the sanctity even more ridiculous), each one of those statements should be as acceptable or unacceptable as the other.

So this is another small rally cry to other committed atheists; do not adhere to the double standard. Do not allow logic to be browbeaten by the hangover from generations of ignorance.

As usual, no-one sums it up better than Douglas Adams.

[taken from http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'. The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking 'Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?' but I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'.

It's rather like, if you think back in terms of animal evolution, an animal that's grown an incredible carapace around it, such as a tortoise - that's a great survival strategy because nothing can get through it; or maybe like a poisonous fish that nothing will come close to, which therefore thrives by keeping away any challenges to what it is it is. In the case of an idea, if we think 'Here is an idea that is protected by holiness or sanctity', what does it mean? Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard (Dawkins) creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.

Proper Gander

I know I've blagged this subject before, but this is today's Straits Times front page:

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Imagine the Telegraph or Times having a similar lead story in the UK.

RECENT GOVERNMENT INITIATIVE WORKING WELL

or

CAMERON'S PLAN WORKING

It would just never happen. I'm not saying one is right and the other wrong, but the truth often lies between the two extremes. Singapore will hail failures as successes and the UK will hail successes as failures. How about calling a win a win, a fail a fail and getting on with our lives?

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