lederhosen

A hypothetical:

( Cut for discussion of domestic violence. )

I have mixed feelings about Pharyngula. Lots of nifty science, but Myers' attitude towards religion irritates me more than a little. Sunday, he posted this:

I'm afraid the kooks and RaptureReady folks and Left Behind fans and Christian Reconstructionists and Dispensationalists and Bible Belt prudes are the face of American Christianity. Don't complain to me: it's the Christians who ought to be deeply, shamefully embarrassed about this…but as usual, I expect they'll find it easier to complain about those damned godless people who dare to hold up a mirror.

In comments below, he expanded on that:

As I said, I know all Christians aren't like that...but it is simply the case that your religion has acquired a serious PR problem. And I am going to be mean and tell you that the moderate, sensible, rational Christians who have let this go on should bear a good part of the blame.

And then today, referring to the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent support of evolution, he said:

On the one hand, it's good to have a religious authority figure coming down on the side of sense. I applaud the sentiment of his statements, and hope they have some positive influence. On the other hand, I don't give a flying firkin what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks, and would question his authority to even make such a pronouncement.

This is exactly what I was talking about a few weeks back. If you don't want people to bring religion into the public discourse on creationism/sexual freedom/whatever, don't complain about the religious moderates just because they're not bringing religion into it. You can argue that religion should keep out of these debates, you can argue that moderates ought to leap into these debates to answer their extremist coreligionists, but arguing both at once is kinda inconsistent.

(X-posted to sceptics)

This is one of those urban myths that just WILL NOT DIE. Every couple of years somebody claims that old windows are thicker at the bottom because glass is a slow-flowing liquid, somebody demolishes it, and a couple of years later it rears its head again. But it's an interesting subject none the less, because the reasons *why* it's so hard to dispel touch on several different aspects of science.

I was originally going to call this 'Glass Is Not A Liquid', but that was a little harder to defend; over very large timescales the distinction between liquid and solid becomes less clear, as discussed below. But I'm happy to assert that for practical purposes, glass is as 'solid' as many other things we have no hesitation in calling solid.

( States of matter, viscosity, amorphous solids, confirmation bias, and creep. )

silmaril asked a while back, and recent news reminded me of it, so: the Vaccination Rant. (Edit: Now with more LJ-cutting for your Friends page.)

There are two main angles to the vaccination/anti-vaccination debate: the scientific ("do the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks?" - i.e. "should we get vaccinated?") and the civil-liberties ("given what we know about the science, should we compel others to be vaccinated?") (There's also a third angle, but I'll leave that till the end.)

I'm not in favour of making all vaccinations compulsory, but I believe there is a very strong argument for some vaccinations to be every bit as compulsory as, say, paying your taxes. When I talk about the "anti-vaccination movement" here, I'm not talking about every instance where people have opposed a specific vaccine; I'm talking about people who are categorically opposed to mandatory vaccination in all cases.

( Part 1: the scientific angle )

Part 2: the ethical angle

But let's leave the science for a moment, and move onto ethics. We know vaccines have risks and benefits, and we know the ratio of these varies from one individual to another. Could compulsory vaccine be justifiable?

I went a-browsing through anti-vaccination sites and picked out several pertinent quotes, fairly typical of anti-vaccination material:

( Spot the common mistake. )

( Worked example: the Green Snuffles. )
Although RL epidemiology is more complicated than that simple model, the same principle holds. The argument "it's my kid, so it's my choice" is dishonest, and looking solely at the the benefits to your kid (supposing that there *are* benefits) is selfishness. It's not just freeloading, enjoying the benefit of other kids' vaccinations without offering the same benefit to others; you're actually increasing the risk to the same kids whose vaccinations are protecting *your* child.

Every parent wants their child to be happy and healthy, but that doesn't give them the right to achieve that at another kid's expense. Would you teach your kid to steal other kids' lunch money?

*****

Speaking of vaccinations, there are two new vaccines coming out for the Human Papilloma Virus. So far, it's looking pretty good: near-100% effectiveness against two major strains of a virus that infects half of all sexually-active women in the USA and appears to be behind 100% of cervical cancer cases - one of the major causes of death in women, particularly young women.

( You'd think people would welcome this. )

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knocked on the head for his labours.

To do good to Mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for Freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hanged, you’ll get knighted.
- Lord Byron, 'Impromptu'

I've been posting a lot of angry & negative things here lately. It's hard *not* to get worked up about the mess the world is in, and one of the ways I deal with that is venting about it on LJ. But most of the stuff that gets me grumpy is happening to other people; when it comes to my own life, I have little enough to complain about, and that's worth remembering.

( Things to be happy about. )

Browsing an article on John Wyndham:

Wyndham's work owes much to H.G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), but its conservative arguments reflected the political change in the United Kingdom - The Web [sic - correct title is just 'Web'] appeared in the same year, when Margaret Thatcher was appointed prime minister.

One *teensy* problem with that theory - Web was published posthumously. Wyndham died in 1969, during the not-particularly-Thatcherite Labour government of Harold Wilson. This would be less silly if the article didn't give the correct date for Wyndham's death in the very next paragraph, and at the beginning of the article. Over-interpretation of books always annoyed me, so I get cheap laughs when it falls apart.

( Read more... )

Provoked (and I mean that in the nicest way) by a post from laochbrann:

What are the rules that govern behaviour selection in a potentially violent confrontation?
- For any given behaviour in such a confrontation, what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks associated with that behaviour?
- How can a game be designed that encourages players to select effective behaviours in potentially violent situations?

(FWIW, I have seen a Flash game that touches on this, but it's pretty limited.)

One of the catches in using game theory to evaluate/suggest behaviour is that the context of the game is crucial to answering this sort of question. If you treat a given scenario as an isolated problem, you can end up with a very different answer from the one you get if you view it as one in a long sequence of interactions.

( Read more... )

I guess the short answer to those questions is "it's very difficult" ;-)

My turn came up to speak at Wafflers on Friday.

( Wafflers. )

Friday's topic was "What news from the Rialto?" and I had six weeks' notice to prepare a speech, which of course means that I did most of the preparation on Friday afternoon. I knew immediately how I was going to tie in that line - I spent five years of my life with the SCA, much of it on rec.org.sca, which is nicknamed the 'Rialto', and I knew what I was going to use for material, but it took a long time to figure out what I was actually going to do with it; the tone kept turning out far too negative, which wasn't something I wanted to do and wouldn't have been much fun for the audience either. Who wants to hear me bitch about SCA politics?

Around 6 pm I had a couple of printouts of source material, and I'd worked out the structure. Rey and da_norvegicus went out to get dinner and a DVD for him, and I tried to rehearse it.

I really must learn not to do that. Rehearsal simply doesn't work for me. I get nervous, I stammer, I stall. I forget what comes next and have to check my notes, then I have no idea how to link what I just said to what comes next. I stand there for thirty seconds without anything to say thinking "oh god imagine if I did this in front of PEOPLE!" and I come away from it more rattled than when I began.

When we got to Wafflers, I reminded myself of what does work for me: not worrying about it. Had dinner, chatted with friends, left my notes in my pocket and paid them no mind. One brief look-through in the break, and then I paid attention to the two speakers who were on before me. Got up, gave my talk, and it went beautifully. It flowed from one thing to another, I kept the tone upbeat, spoke confidently, and got a very positive reaction. I had my notes in hand, but I only needed them once, and that was for a foreign name; looking through them afterwards, I'd remembered everything I meant to say. All in all, one of my better efforts, which surprised me very much.

I think there are two things to be gained from rehearsal: knowledge and confidence. But neither of those really work for me. I prefer to base a talk on things I already know, rather than looking them up for the talk, and the best way for me to learn a structure seems to be through the process of planning it. (The productive thing about notes for me is not reading them, but writing them.) As for confidence, rehearsing only seems to destroy that in me; the only thing I've found that really works is to take my ability to do it on faith. Once I know the material and how it hangs together, I can make the rest up as I go, and this works far better than trying to write a mental script for myself and then regurgitate it.

( Business as usual for Iraq. )
If I was running the PRC, and I was determined to invade Taiwan, I'd be waiting for the USA to finally decide to withdraw from Iraq. I'd launch my attack either shortly after the decision had been publicly announced (when the USA's political will for another war would be at its weakest), or in the middle of the pullout (when resources are tied up with the withdrawal and soldiers are psychologically ready to go home, but not enough has yet been freed up to help in Taiwan).

I'd aim for a fast invasion without much artillery or bombing beforehand. This would mean losing a lot of PRC soldiers, but it would reduce the media impact, which would in turn reduce the USA's desire to fight, and conscription + China = no problem replacing them. A bit of "I'm sorry, this line's really noisy" to stall protests while the invasion is completed, and by the time the USA realises what's happened, they're looking at attempting to re-invade an island (with no cooperative neighbours from whom a ground assault might be launched) not far off the coast of a nuclear-armed superpower, while still smarting from Iraq. At which point, they might just subside into tut-tutting and maybe a few sanctions and disapproving looks.

(I'm no military strategist, so I'd be much obliged if somebody could tell me why China wouldn't want to do things this way.)

In lighter news, a very accurate summary of Ep III. And you wouldn't *believe* how expressive Dog-Or can be when Rey gets home in the morning and he decides it's Time For A Walk. Cavorting around the door, making a hopeful singing noise, and looking up with Big Puppy Eyes...