The Instinct of Respect Toward Predators

There seems to be little coincidence that the most widely consumed animals are vegetarians. Indeed, they are easier and more efficient to raise as raising a carnivorous animal for food would be wasteful. However, it is also wasteful to raise animals for consumption when we have the ability to farm the land they graze on and produce far more food than they. Pure efficiency is surely not the driving force behind our choice of food consumption.

We have preferences. While, around the world, we enjoy eating chicken, lamb, and duck, we similarly prefer the company of dogs and cats. More than the vegetarianism of cattle and such livestock, it’s important to note the carnivorous nature of our companions.

Why is this? Well, for one, there is the risk of disease inherent in eating carnivorous animals. By consuming meat, these animals may more readily pick up infections and pass them on to us. Further, if any disease were to be passed onto the carnivorous animal, they’d likely be passed on to us by virtue of the fact that they’ve so transmitted in the past. They serve to collect illness and disease, increasing the concentrations of such things as mercury.

Which brings us to the most glaring exception. In consuming fish we consume predators, and en masse. They similarly collect poisons. Yet every culture with access to them consumes them.

I therefor suggest that the fear of disease does not explain our abstinence from the consumption of  predators.

Rather, it stems at least in part from a form of respect. Our companionship with the predators that we’ve mastered may well serve to familiarize us with the traits and tactics of their larger brothers. It may simply be a practical fear from the fact that those animals that kill to survive may pose and unnecessary risk in our pursuit for food.

Maybe, it is because the pig will eat meat when given it that a few cultures refuse to eat him.

Why shyness is not as good as outgoingness.

You must assume you are right, without this assumption your foundation and thereby logical substance is inferior to your position.

You must assume you are right, in order to advance your position

All you are is all you’ll be.

Be yourself. If you’re not, then who will? And if no one will, then did you ever exist?

The role you played will live without you, but you won’t.

Shyness.

It is better to be shy than outgoing.

Being shy it mistaken by those of lower intelligence as lower intelligence. To them, decreased frequency of outgoingness is the result of a low frequency of good ideas.

Rather shyness is really the tendency to assume one’s ideas are not good enough. It is the level of confidence you have in your ideas, and says nothing about the quality of the ideas. After all the discussion of shyness vs.  outgoingness is only relevant if the individuals being compared are of equal ability.

But confusing a more-capable person’s decreased frequency of activity as an indication of a diminished capability, they feel brotherhood for them. These individuals will ally with the shy. Those who nonetheless realize the reality of shyness will similarly feel a sense of brotherhood.

The reason for that is, the shy do not claim to be better. In assuming ideas are not good enough, they demonstrate humility, a trait favored by the less intelligent as it is an open hand of brotherhood to them, one which is not necessary. In addition to the open hand of modesty, they will respect the more intelligent shy because their ideas are better this in its self is a reason, and strengthens the meaning of the modesty.

But more than allowing for support by those who are less able, it allows for parity of power with those of greater ability.

Acting, the defining aspect of outgoingness, takes time. It takes energy, and as soon as you commit to acting you must drastically reallocate effort from judging whether it is a good idea to judging how to employ the idea, judging how others will react, and judging the next idea. Further, it changes the circumstances. With a new idea presented additional input can not be determined to be related to the previous or current idea.

The individual who has not acted knows all their input is in response to the previous action. Yet, while the outgoing devoted attention to acting, the shy continued to think and presumably came up with better ideas.

The better idea provides an advantage as responses may be based on better information. Since responses to the outgoing’s actions must occur after their actions, the delay is inconsequential.

The does not mean that there is not a point where shyness fails to benefit over outgoingness. Specifically this is the time where further thought does not further the idea.

But in general terms, shyness is better than outgoingness.

The Danger of Irrationality

I’ve previously written about the value of irrationality as with the value of rationality, so I find it time to apply this.

Love is irrational as they say, and I believe it is true. Love is not something one chooses or decides to feel, it is not a thought or conclusion you can reach. No amount of logic, no matter how powerful or watertight it is, can give the slightest sway to it. Love does not play by the rules. It just is(even if you can’t tell).*

It is one example, probably the most glaring, of the beauty of irrationality. It is an example of humanity in that it does not make sense.

Yet, no matter how strongly, or just how, it manages to exist, the irrational feeling does not change the truth. There is a world outside of ourselves. There are actual consequences. If nothing else there is a lion which bites you, and blood, and pain, and death. Whether or not you choose the rational decision, the rational outcome will occur. Love cannot make bread from dirt. Love cannot cure HIV. Love can make you happy, but that’s close to all it can do.**

It is not always easy to choose between your feelings and your thoughts. You can very well cognitively know what is right while simultaneously knowing the opposite on some level. Love may be(or may always be) so deep that it defines truth. The truth is your love, and your logical thoughts and conclusions are just perceptions from the world around. Love, however, is perceived not as a perception of the external world, but it is the external world. Love is. Love it what is out there beyond all our senses, and when our senses deny what we feel/know to be true it is irrational to choose them. It becomes irrational to choose the rational option.

It is a hard decision to make. It is harder still because people are not a switch which can be turned on or off. They must be pushed away, they must be hidden from sight so as to hide the truth, the love, that may forever remain within. However, to do what “has to be done” this must be done.

Though it is never easy, the decision is sometimes clear. For example when someone cheats, one often knows, they must break up with them. It is a plain test, if A then B. Yet sadly, this is not always the case. Sometimes A + F + G + E also equals B, even though no individual cause in enough.

Here is is immeasurably harder to do the wrong thing… the thing you cognitively know you must. Letters do not add. An A plus an E is nothing other than an A plus an E.

It is not an enviable position to see these letters before you. They all point in the same direction, but only you can decide what they add up to. And when they add up to B, there are only two options. Do B, or get rid of some letters.

Either you must go against the love you know in your heart to be true, you remove the letters, or you walk knowingly into the fire you’ve concluded awaits you.

*Of course it can be in different magnitudes. Maybe it’s dimensional.

** And happiness can in turn increase the odds of you staying with your partner, and increase your children’s survival rate, which can in turn increase the likelihood of the population’s irrational attraction to other individuals.

Life Through Wide-Angle Glasses

In class we talked about an experiment where participants were given cameras to take pictures of a set of locations, and since the pictures are still different though of the same place, there is other information which the picture taker recalls as opposed to those which they didn’t take. This leads to a bigger reaction for the picture t hey did take verses the one they did not.

Well, in thinking tonight I realized how very true this really is. Of one occurrence or object there are many vantage points. There are numerous views and each person can see it differently. However, even within the same exact position, there are many perspectives. From the focus, to the film-type, to the exposure, blur, zoom.

The internal settings, the things which have happened to the camera prior to the shutter-button being pressed can make two pictures more dis-similar than those from greatly different locations.

This is of course, an analogy for the human mind. We see things differently, and our impressions are not only determined by where we are when it occurs and what we see, but by how we see it. As we over or underexpose our recordings we miss details, we wash away the the bad or fail to see the good.

But as HDR photography demonstrates, these otherwise “poorly” exposed photos can show what’s hidden within irrationally bright, and creeping dark corners of a bi-polar scene.

What should we do? Well, if we are creatures searching for the truth outside of ourselves the we should take all the information we have into account. We should take several shots. We should get the big picture, look into the details, investigate the dark corners, and investigate the blinding brights. No impression is the hand which caused it. We do not have direct access to the truth.

The birth of rationality

It is my recent realization that we are upon the cusp of a great shift in the views of the American people. I do not mean the views as a whole, but in the way they tend to distribute between and amongst the extremes of ideals.

To explain, I ask that you image the world views of Americans from 1865. The Civil War has ended, Lincoln shot, trains crisscross the nation and a level of humility is had by most. We are the most advanced creatures, but are just the same creatures. We ride on the backs of horses, and government is is just that. It is a word expanding upon the root to govern, and the laws of the nation are an act, established, yet in progress. The question of basic civil rights is clearly in view, no matter how individuals feel about them, or the role of their government.

But just the same, look at America over the 1900s. Look at those who were born in 1890, those who were born in 1940, the lives of Americans from 1890 all the way through 1980. The world was a drastically different place, while change as always been present in life and death, never so has it been so extreme, so irrational. The technological developments alone are mind numbing, and not just metaphorically so.

In fact, my central argument here is that these changes, which rocked the minds of American people, ultimately disturbed their world-views.

Firstly, the American experience has always been accompanied with a healthy suspicion of government officials, actions and roles. However, as the depression came and lives were overnight thrown 50 years backward, a change happened: FDR was elected four times. What does it say for an individual to be elected four times? It demonstrates nearly unwavering trust in government? It shows a willingness of that government to utilize the public’s trust?

This trust went so far that it went full circle, instead of individuals becoming suspicion of government, the government became suspicious of the public. The public was accused of communism. Individuals forfeited their power over government.

Moreover, while common sense ruled the day and Vietnam turned the tides of unwavering trust into unwavering distrust, a new element arose; moral judgments. Accused Communists were not people who believed a system to be effective, but were traitors, they were morally corrupt, they were immoral. So too did the government become immoral when Nixon left office.

And through it all, government grew. It grew it size. It grew in cost. It grew in perceived stability to the point that by the 1990s it seemed immutable beyond the cyclical changing of hands between Republicans and Democrats.

Yet we know this is not so. While the destruction of American government would be a fool’s bet, its fundamental change should be of little doubt. These beliefs about the world which have developed from roughly 1890 to 1980 are irrational.

As life shows, irrational things occur. Things beyond our comprehension fall from the sky and alter our world. However, there are times where you must recognize an asteroid for the rarity it is and continue life without letting it alter your views on the world. It’s our short lifespan, which prevent a century’s long change from appearing in context, it prevents us from living as rational beings.

It is only in this generation where rationality will re-emerge. We know of unbelievable economic failure, we know of unbelievable economic gain. Yet more, we’ve felt moderate economic stress. We understand the irrational trust in government which prevailed for 30 years and the irrational distrust which encompassed the following 20.

But life goes on. People are born and people die. Don’t trust government but don’t distrust it. Just recognize it for what it is, people for who they are, and judge for yourself, not for or from others.

Isn’t that what we really mean by freedom?

The popular logic suggests that if “the brain is the end all be all” of cognition and decision making then there cannot be free will. The arguement goes that if there is no spritual soul, then the decisions are made by a piece of meat, and the decisions are simply the computed output of a stimulis through an admittadly complicated machine. However, since it is no more than a machine, it cannot have “free will”. Ultimately, to have free will, decisions must not be the necessary outcome of ecents. To be “free” the same exact situtation at the same point in time must be able to occur differently.

However, to take that postition means what? If to be free requires a seperation between cause and effect then nothing is free. Since all thing are the direct and necessary result of their conditions, the entire of concept would be meaningless.

Yet, “freedom” is not a meaningless word. “Free will” means something. It is something worth dying for for many. “Free will” is then likely a concept created by humans to explain the non-understood portions of other’s, and I suppose even our own, decisionmaking.

But why would this be necessary? If it is an abstract term such as ‘i’, then it must serve quite the purpose. We assume that an organism’s will is what they want. Thus this magical thing making decisions is, while incomprehensible to us, is what the organism wants. It would help as, even your prediciton of their behavior turns out to be wrong then it shows your perception of their wishes, or free will is wrong. Just the same though, it works if it’s just a chunk of meat. The chunck of meat is deciding based upon it’s history and what it has been conditioned to respond to. It is acting on, essentially, what it wants.

At the end of the day I callenge the assumption that the necessary result of stimuli is not a free response. I challenge the assumption that the whole of something cannot be more than the sum of it’s parts. Rather, if something can act in such away that nothing at or below it’s level can effectively deal with it’s actions, then that capable body is it’s own being. It is an entity acting beyond the control of others. It is, while recieving stumulis from others, not controlled by others. It makes decisions, and acts, in a fasion no one truely knows.

Isn’t that what we really mean by freedom?

The Real Goals of the So called Public Option

The foremost problem with the Public Healthcare Debate and propositions is that they do not seem to have a goal in mind. They have a problem which they wish to address. Everyone knows what they don’t want, but few are saying what they do. They just don’t want what we have. Of course, they can’t even elaborate on what we have.

The goals I’ve heard are as follows:

1. To get everyone insured.

2. To decrease the price of insurance.

3. To decrease the public expenditure on healthcare by doing preventative treatment.

It is clear, that an insurance program which does not aim to turn a profit should have an advantage against those that do. Just like how credit unions have an advantage over profit-run banks.

Theoretically if a “Public Option” were implemented, it would serve as competition. If companies are making more profit than they need, then they would lower their profit margins to prevent customers from switching to the public plan.

To promote such an option assumes that the market is not working. It assumes that there is either no effective competition and/or that buyers are not acting rationally.

The argument has been suggested that the latter is true. Specifically the author of one article stated that when healtcare is in question, and therefore people’s lives, those people are willing to pay any amount for care. Hospitals and doctors are thus able to charge whatever they want because people cannot and will not negotiate. So the argument concludes that a middleman is needed, such as insurance companies, to decide what is a reasonable price. I suppose insurance unions could work just as well, where profit is not the goal.

While this could explain why prices are high, it doesn’t because middlemen are in place. We’ve gotten so far away from the capitalist system of paying for goods and services that we’ve just about let the terms “Health Insurance” and “Health Care” become synonymous.

The prices that insurance companies pay are not the high prices that are in question. The prices in question are the premiums for insurance. So it appears that the market is not keeping the price of insurance down.

To decide exactly how the market is failing, we must determine a few things. First, is there a monopoly? As far as I believe, not quite. There are not a whole ton of providers, but there are several. Secondly, is there price collusion? Very likely. In fact, that’s certain. For it there wasn’t then someone would undercut the other and it would decrease. Assuming it’s not already at the bottom.

However, why is a government run plan necessary? This is a question I do not have an answer to. USAA for example does not make a profit for its owners. Its members are the owners and excess funds are reimbursed back to them. Thus they are negotiating with hospitals and doctors to provide the lowest possible rate. They are not making a profit. I am unable to see how prices could be any lower. In all honesty this suggests that the price of Health Insurance from USAA is the lowest that level of care can be, and that the market is working properly. A government plan will not make USAA’s expenditures lower. It will not scare them into living with fewer profits.

The third goal could be relevant here. While although “free” public health care would not decrease the cost of insurance for those with the plan or with their own private plans, it could decrease public expenditures on emergency care if preventative treatment was implemented.

Yet, while it ‘could’, I’m not convinced it would. Rather, while it may do so when compared to traditional private health insurance which charges deductibles for doctors visits, it would not when compared to non-insured individuals. For an individual who must pay for their own care, the cost of treatment provides a great incentive to stay well. It provides a reason not to take risks with your health, if any more were needed. However, if one argues that all actions are already taken to prevent further injury, then allowing for more doctors visits will not bring that level of protection to above 100%.

Ultimately, it seems that there is only one way where a “Public Option” will save anybody money.  Specifically, of the cost of care is paid out of the general revenue of the government, then the premiums will be paid based on tax rates. As a result those who make more money would pay more for the same level of care as those who make less.

This train of thought indicates that the first goal is the real one at issue here. Specifically, if it were to be paid with general taxes or other non-flat taxes, then the public could not be allowed to opt out. If they were allowed to opt out, then those who make more money would opt out and rather than paying the government to insure them and another individual, would pay another company to just insure them and would pocket the difference. This would mean that those who made less money would end up having to pay for their own care.

Confirmation Bias

It’s not usual or intended for this blog to be of religious topics, but since these modest* words may be considered in other lights, I’ll let it pass.

But as I was saying, there are times where you have an epiphany, even if that word is to grand for the experience you had. It could be so minor as the recollection of a sin or grudge long forgotten but remembered in the midst of the Lord’s prayer. It could be something truly modest which confirms your belief.

Yet as you dwell on the issue for a moment you remember the confirmation bias; that what you look for is what you find, not because it’s true, but because that’s what you see. And for a moment you have doubts as to whether your experience was noteworthy at all.

Well, I’d just like to mention that the bias works both ways. While god may be seen in things he doesn’t touch, he may be ignored in things he does. If you seek to doubt an event, if you seek to find your own biases you might just confirm that those biases exist. At the end of the day; be rational. Take everything with a grain of salt, yet continue to listen none-the-less.

*Ok, the diction and prose doesn’t exactly sound like it tries to be modest. But I accidently do that when trying to be specific/true to what I mean. That doesn’t mean it works…