24.1.04

Monsanto?

I juts hit upon some proof that my classes this semester are going to be less politically radical than last semester: the reading for my Environmental Decision Making class just cited Monsanto as an example of an environmentally responsible company.
Stentor Danielson, 23:51,

Dictionary-Powered Howard

Since I'm still getting hits like crazy from people searching for "Howard Dean remix," I thought I'd do one of my own. Perhaps if Dean had given his speech like this he wouldn't have gotten so much bad press. Thank you to the pronouncers at Merriam-Webster Online.
Stentor Danielson, 22:36,

23.1.04

Kerry's An Environmentalist -- Trust Me

Veteran Environmental Leader Gives Kerry The Green Light ... Any Democratic candidate will be better than George Bush on all these issues [renewable energy, healthy environment, biodiversity, civil liberties]. But only Kerry can stand up and discuss each in depth without notes -- with a nuanced understanding of science and economics and diplomacy and philosophy -- and explain his decisions to the public in simple words that make sense.

I guess Grist is in the habit of running uninformative endorsements. I mentioned before that the endorsement of Dean they highlighted said nothing in particular about what Dean would do better for the environment, instead relying on the changes in process under Dean that would allow citizen environmentalism a larger voice. Now, in this long article on Kerry, endorser Dennis Hayes appears to offer only two actual facts to support his assertion that Kerry deserves the support of environmentalists (he has a 96% environmental voting record and he's the only candidate who mentions the environment in every speech). While the only other candidate's environmental record that I've looked at in any detail is Dean's, I see no reason to dispute the conclusion that Kerry is one of, if not the, best candidate for the environment. But the endorsement article doesn't really make the case.
Stentor Danielson, 22:13,

A Visual Remix

I haven't done any cartoons in a while, since The Scarlet hasn't been publishing. I had an idea for one the other day, but I don't have access to a scanner and I wasn't sure if I could draw it convincingly. I don't usually do photoshopped comics, but today I've decided to bring you my artist's rendition of the sentiment expressed here:


(source, source)
Stentor Danielson, 18:42,

Dean Remix Revisited

For the legions of people still arriving here searching for "Howard Dean remix," I offer a link to DeanGoesNuts.com. Some of the dozens of remixes there are pretty bad -- just a song with "yeeaargh!" spliced over it. Others are well-done.
Stentor Danielson, 15:04,

22.1.04

it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a sapm are

We're going to cteplmoe this peroscs! Oh yeah!
Stentor Danielson, 11:08,

21.1.04

Howard Dean Remix

It looks like I've been inadvertantly doing Howard Dean a favor. I've suddenly gotten a whole pile of hits from people searching for "Howard Dean remix." I assume they're looking for this file, which is a remix of the post-Iowa speech that has been billed as his "Waterloo" because he got so caught up in his hardcore supporters' energy that he came off looking more like a pro wrestler than a president. But until this post, my only mention of a Howard Dean remix (ranked quite high -- perhaps because search engines haven't yet indexed mentions of the new remix) was to this file, which is a remix of his stump speech. Optimistic Deaniacs can now imagine hordes of people coming to debitage and downloading a file with the intent of laughing at Dean's insanity, but instead hearing his case against his opponents and being convinced that he's the man.

UPDATE: Turns out there are at least two remixes of the Iowa speech floating around. I found this one via the Dean Nation blog.
Stentor Danielson, 17:34,

Sagan Versus Habermas

Scientists Look For The Physics Behind A Miracle The study, published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences and reported upon today in The Moscow Times, concluded that a reef running to the north side of the Red Sea could have been the "dry land" upon which the Jews crossed the sea, provided that a 30-meter-per-second wind blew across the sea all night. The cessation of the wind would then lead to the drowning of the pursuing Egyptian forces, trapped on the reef as the waters returned, as recorded in the Bible. -- via The Right Christians

These kinds of stories (see also the theory that Noah's Flood is based on the bursting of the Black Sea, or that Atlantis is a misremembered version of the explosion of Thera and the fall of the Minoan civilization) have an understandable appeal today. For the believer, they can validate the myth and lift the burden of believing in a major supernatural intervention. For the nonbeliever, they can eliminate the need to bring in God to explain things. Both views, however, seem to partake of what I would call Saganism* -- the idea that myth is a primitive form of science, attempting the same objective rendering of the facts but without the techniques of modern verification. So we can look back at the marvels recorded by prescientific people and see that they were just guesses at explaining things that we now understand better.

Jürgen Habermas's thoughts (yeah, I know you're all getting tired of hearing about Habermas) on the structure of communication shed some light on what makes me uncomfortable with Saganism. Habermas states that every act of communication makes claims about three worlds -- the objective (regarding facts in the world we share), the intersubjective (regarding norms of social interaction), and the subjective (regarding personal experience). While those three elements are present in every utterance, in modern cultures they've been somewhat separated out so that each statement explicitly addresses one of the worlds. Along with that, we've developed three forms of reasoning, each corresponding to the characteristic perspective of one of the worlds (though it can be applied to any subject matter) -- science, ethics, and aesthetics. The boundaries between these subject areas, and the definition of what topics are amenable to what kind of reasoning, are open to negotiation within society.

However, Habermas stresses that this separation is distinctively modern. For premodern peoples, whose worldview he refers to as "mythic," the three worlds run together. They aren't thematized separately the way they are for us. Thus, when we hear a myth that tells a story about the past, our modern impulse is to treat it as part of the world where we would locate it -- the objective, dealt with by science (including history). We thus treat the myth as scientific/historical reasoning, and when it comes up short on that count, we arrive at Saganism. Studies like the one quoted above are attempts to validate the myth on scientific grounds.

Certainly myths did serve to represent the objective world for their tellers. Saganism's mistake is to forget that they also served to represent the intersubjective and subjective worlds, to express truths of how people should interact and how they experience their world. It is on these dimensions that myths retain most of their significance today. In its focus on the historical fact of Jesus' life (and consequently that of the rest of the Bible), Christianity has abetted Saganism (both with regard to Christian myths and, by extension, with regard to other religions' myths in the minds of people from Christian and post-Christian cultures). But when religion decides to step onto the objective playing field and go up against scientific reasoning, it has a history of either losing (as in the Copernican revolution) or of stunting our knowledge (as in creationism). And even if our modern ethical and aesthetic reasoning beats myths in the intersubjective and subjective worlds, recognizing that they must be confronted there enriches our understanding of myths.

*I haven't read Carl Sagan's books yet, but this theory aligns with what I've heard of his ideas.
Stentor Danielson, 17:21,

An Endangered Act

You can head over to Open Source Politics to read my latest contribution, a defense of the Endangered Species Act.
Stentor Danielson, 16:45,

Every Time You Hold A Door, God Kills A Kitten

This is kind of a frivolous example, but it highlights some interesting things about utilitarian cost-benefit analysis:

Chivalry's Genocide Yes, the practice of holding doors open is equivalent to mass murder. As I have explained, your average door holding transaction destroys a few net seconds of productive life. The average male lifespan in America is 77.2 years. This is equivalent to 2,434,579,200 seconds. If we estimate that every door holding destroys 3 seconds, we need only have a little over 800 million door holding transactions to destroy one modern American male's life. Let's suppose the average American woman has 500 doors held inefficiently for her in her life, although I suspect the true number is far higher. That means for every 1.6 million American women one man has been killed. The female population of the United States is a little over 143 million, so America's women are or will be collectively responsible for the deaths of about 90 men. Not terribly significant, but now add in Western Europe and any other cultures that condone this barbarous practice. Add all of the women who have lived and died since this traditional began. Factor in the reduced lifespands of men before modern times. Whatever the numbers you use, you're sure to reach thousands of men murdered by holding doors open.

This is an amusing application of cost-benefit analysis to everyday life. Will Baude's response (where I found the link) builds on the traditional utilitarian reasoning about money -- a dollar is worth a different amount to different people -- to say that in this case time isn't worth the same to everyone. Baude isn't usually in much of a hurry, so given the chances that the person behind him is in a hurry, it isn't necessarily inefficient to hold the door.

I think a more complete response would have to challenge the assumption, made by Slithery D and accepted by Baude, that the costs and benefits should be measured in time or time-quality. There are significant other benefits to door-holding that need to be taken into consideration. Most important, I think, is the effect on sociability. The positive benefits of interacting with another person, even if just through the brief contact of door-holding, have value beyond the time saved. The closing of the door behind the person in front of you symbolically reflects the social atomism that is shown in failing to hold the door when dictated either by calculation of the benefits of communal feeling or by commonly accepted standards of politeness.

UPDATE: Upon further thought, I have to question the conversation about the issue that Slithery D posted on his blog. It seems like quite an inefficient use of his time. He must have known that his explanation was quite unlikely to convince them, and thus the tradeoff against the utility of letting them think he was a jerk is questionable. And even if they were convinced, he seems to believe that door-holding is something nearly always done by men for women, and thus his arguments wouldn't have led his hearers to improve their door use efficiency, since they were women. It could perhaps be justified by the sociability criterion, but as I noted above, that would also destroy his argument against holding doors.
Stentor Danielson, 11:28,

20.1.04

More Water Problems In Central Asia

Kazakh Lake 'Could Dry Up' The UN has warned that Lake Balkhash, the second largest lake in Central Asia after the Aral Sea, could dry up, creating another major environmental crisis in the region. ... "Just like the Aral Sea, there is less and less water coming to the lake," he [UN representative Fikret Akcura] said when presenting a UNDP report on Kazakhstan's water resources. The Kazakh newspaper Megapolis reported late last year that, according to the latest data, the lake has already shrunk by over 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles).

The lack of progress being made on saving the Aral Sea doesn't give me a lot of hope for Lake Balkhash. One of the most important steps -- and one of the hardest, especially in the context of corrupt governments and strong pressure for economic development -- is to treat the lake itself as a water user. Declining water levels in the lake aren't just a symptom of poor water use upstream, or even a purely ecological problem. Between the saltiness of the lake and the pollutants that are in it, the dry lakebed will expose some pretty awful stuff to the wind -- and hence to anybody who farms or breathes near it. Allocating a big share of water to the lake can also be a good way of creating a safety net for water shortfalls. It's tempting, when there is a string of good years, to increase water use. But it's much harder to decrease water use in bad years, if the infrastructure has been put in place for stepped up farming or industry and people have become dependent on it. The lake's share would be a safety margin that could be partially tapped in bad years -- though there is the risk that "bad year" would be declared too easily in order to get at "unused" water, undermining the point of it.
Stentor Danielson, 23:35,

France Vs. Logic

France Debates Head Scarf Ban In Schools As France debates a plan to ban Islamic head scarves in public schools, the education minister said Tuesday that even some bandannas and beards should be barred from the classroom. ... The bandanna "will be banned, if young girls present it as a religious sign,'' said [Education Minister Luc] Ferry, who was presenting the proposal to lawmakers. Responding to a question, Ferry also said that beards would be banned, if they are worn for religious reasons, according to a report on France Info radio. ... President Jacques Chirac says the bill's goal is to protect France's secular underpinnings. However, it also is seen as a way to hold back the swell of Islamic fundamentalism in France's Muslim community--the largest in Western Europe.

So you're going to protect yourself from Islamic fundamentalism by making Muslims angry at you and confirming the fundamentalist belief that Islam and modern culture are incompatible. Next, Chirac will propose to keep French people safe from beestings by poking beehives with a stick.

The theory, as I understand it, is sort of like an English immersion program for immigrants to the US. If you force them to act as if they're secular, you'll break the hold of their old culture and teach them to assimilate. Instead, I would imagine the result will be to drive observant conservative Muslims out of the state school system. This would create a cultural divide as Muslim and non-Muslim students aren't exposed to each other, exacerbating the very problem the policy is designed to fix.
Stentor Danielson, 23:12,

19.1.04

Media Stereotyping

The media likes to pick a storyline for each candidate and run with it. As another data point: for their story about union-supported Dick Gephardt dropping out of the presidential race, the sidebar on Yahoo! News offers more stories about not the election, but about "Labor & Workplace."
Stentor Danielson, 23:01,

The Four Cs

Bush Administration Takes Aggressive Forest Thinning Measures Calling it the "new environmentalism," the U.S. Interior Department Thursday issued guidelines for stewardship contracts that allow private companies and communities to keep forest and rangeland products in exchange for services such as thinning trees and brush and removing wood. ... the Bush administration last week moved to streamline the logging of national forests for fuel reduction. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman issued an interim final rule for a special administrative review process for hazardous fuel reduction projects in national forests. The interim final rule is effective immediately, before the U.S. Forest Service has heard public comments, but the Service says it will accept comments from the public on the rule for 90 days. Implementing the rule before the public has commented does not bother Secretary Veneman. "I am very proud of this quick response to implement the Healthy Forests legislation," she said. "A pre-decisional administrative review process will assist federal land managers in reducing hazardous fuels in high priority areas. We are implementing this legislation aggressively to lessen the impacts of wildland fires on communities and our natural resources." ... Interior Department Assistant Secretary Rebecca Watson, said Thursday, "Stewardship contracting will demonstrate a 'new environmentalism' - land stewardship based on partnerships and common ground rather than litigation and confrontation. It is part of a new culture of communication, cooperation, and consultation, in the service of conservation - a culture that Secretary Norton calls the 'Four C's.'"

Those four Cs are very interesting. They represent an appealing ideal of more democratic environmental stewardship. But none of them seem to be implemented very well in the Healthy Forests initiative -- in fact, they were cited as by proponents of the Healthy Forests bill as being exactly the problem they were trying to solve.

Communication: The article above notes that the stewardship contract system is being implemented before they've heard public comments on it. This sort of desire for haste was part of the rationale for Healthy Forests. President Bush said in an appearance this summer: "If somebody has got a different point of view, we need to hear it. This is America. We expect to hear people's different points of view in this country. But we want people to understand that we're talking about the health of our forests, and if there's a high priority, we need to get after it before the forests burn and people lose life." In other words, communication is nice, but with these fires threatening there's no time to sit around talking. (This same point could be extended to cooperation and consultation, as it's not entirely clear how to draw the line between the first three Cs).

Cooperation: One of the key provisions of the Healthy Forests law is to reduce the scope for public challenges to fuel reduction projects. Certainly it will reduce the amount of overt conflict over management decisions. But cutting one party out of a decision is not the same as cooperating. Indeed, it reduces the cooperativeness of the final outcome because the Forest Service doesn't have to take citizens' views into account to as great a degree in drawing up the plan because unsatisfied citizens can't effectively complain through the courts.

Consultation: The opposition to consultation is a bit subtle. The Healthy Forests act directs judges hearing challenges to take into account the long-term health of the forest. Phrased that way it sounds fairly benign, but what it does is to 1) give the benefit of the doubt to the party proposing fuel reduction, and 2) establish by fiat what the management priorities will be. This sort of move isn't in and of itself bad -- it's at the heart of many environmental regulations -- but it is anti-consultative. It takes us away from what Habermas calls the "ideal speech situation," in which all parties have an equal opportunity to participate in setting the agenda.

Conservation: Environmentalists recieved substantial blame for the poor condition of the nation's forests. An irrational dedication to preserving the environment (particularly endangered species), they said, was at the root of the barriers placed in the way of fuel reduction, and hence was responsible for out-of-control fires that threatened lives and property. Granted, some people made the case (erroneous, in my view, given the actual extent of environmentalist obstructionism and the impacts of mechanical fuel reduction) that fuel reduction is in the long-term best interests of nature. But the dominant framing drew on the idea that environmentalists care more about nature than about people.
Stentor Danielson, 20:17,