where morality fails

life tends to be an evolutionary tautology: that which survives and sustains itself (through fitness) is life, because life is, by definition, that which survives and sustains itself. unfit ("maladaptive") life-forms eventually cease to bear offspring and slip through the cracks, leaving mere echoes in nature's graveyard. dead men tell no tales they'd say, though tales may be told of dead men. the same theme applies to ideas and character traits, doubly so if these are of genetic origin. take morality and kindness, for instance.

imagine a utopia where everyone in the population is kind to one another: when one falls, another steps in to help him up; trust is not even a word in their vocabulary because distrust doesn't exist so they've never had to define it! now introduce one schemer, someone who acts intelligently towards (solely) his own interest. the schemer will eventually game the entire population and if they don't learn to game the schemer (by becoming schemers themselves), they will be overrun. at the same time, if everyone becomes a schemer the population system starts to fail because a lack of victims means that schemes no longer pay off. neither of these extremes are sustainable. the former requires an absolute blissful ignorance (not likely), the latter becomes chaos (likely to fail).

one would think then that life may go on if civilisation were to find a stable equilibrium, somewhere in between these extremes. one strategy might be to take the middle ground between morality and intelligence: you start off giving others the benefit of the doubt and treat them kindly, and reciprocate their reaction from then on. if they don't game you in response to your kindness, you trust them; if they game you, you game them back from then on. according the linked article, this middle ground between morality and intelligence, which lies very close to the heart of "fairness", is a golden rule for behaviour, in a game-theoretic way. but in life there are no golden rules. life's uncaring whims require a jeet kune do approach, a form of no forms and all forms whose roots lie in the golden paradox that "there are no golden rules." or as an older, wiser, less impulsive person might say: "even gold may erode with the ravages of time and circumstance."

it's not unwise to think that what should matter in determining the philosophy you apply to a situation is the totality of the situation at hand: all its specifics and all its context weighed together to devise the most efficient response. but efficiency is a dangerous word: it is always intelligent, but it may or may not be "moral". what happens when morality meets efficiency? can they be reconciled? what would be the essence of an efficient morality? we don't have to speculate, we can see it all around us: individuals banding together, exercising great kindness at local levels (family, friends, tribe, team, country) to advance their own cause but at the same time acting against the cause of others on a global level.

the truth is direct and simple: our own intelligence conspires with our circumstances to circumvent morality when it no longer yields a beneficial return. morality, it would seem, is situation-dependent. at some point it becomes un-scalable: the more people in a population, the harder it becomes to calculate an optimum solution for everyone and the easier it becomes to revert to self-interest.

our chosen philosophical oxymoron of the day, efficient morality, would exist perhaps on the verge just before morality fails (as an adaptive strategy to life). past that point lies a slippery slope to a cynic's pyrrhic wet dream: an ocean of schemers.

the point of failure cannot be manoeuvred solely by attempting to inculcate kindness in humans; a hungry man is an angry man. biological impulse wins that race by a mile. we can, however, attempt to control the conditions that destabilise the verge. that is, to balance our behaviours we must attack the circumstances that generate them. in boring physical terms this means we must balance the supply and demand for resources by 1) controlling population growth and 2) working on new technologies to better provide (food, energy) for the population. this sounds neither noble nor glamorous, but it is necessary. if it is true what the cynics say -that moral actions barely exist outside the forms of a façade, a conspicuous commodity exchanged for kudos in the modern world- then as populations continue to grow, putting pressure on resources and making it impossible to provide for everyone, it is not improbable that we as a civilisation are nearing a point where morality fails.

the superficial

in an age where critical thinking is for the squares, i often find myself surrounded by circular reasoning. actually, that may not be the best title: "recursive idiocy" may be more apt a description. where do i see this phenomenon today? in the transmutation of words, which once had underlying meaning and context, to labels, now used for simplistic characterizations that are both highly efficient and grossly inaccurate under scrutiny. for example: someone becomes a celebrity simply for being well known, or something is called art because its creator calls himself an artist, or using the word negro on a census form creates an uproar just because a word with multiple contexts has one negative context. in this world of politically correct, contextually incorrect, labels a child growing up today might think that the statement "Check here if you are of Negro descent" is more cause for concern than "African-Americans are at greater risk of unfair sentencing in the penal system."

here's the graphite from my pencil, marry me

just a reminder to all mis-informed ladies: diamonds are not worth what they make you believe. don't be caught by the price manipulation and marketing hype, unless you compare yourself to a mere piece of carbon. cuz you know, you're all truly such *complex* pieces of carbon that you should be treated with commensurate respect.

“If you don’t support the price,” Andrei V. Polyakov, a spokesman for Alrosa, said, “a diamond becomes a mere piece of carbon.”

the sexist scientist

did you know that (1) women's shopping sprees can be linked to their periods? and (2) a good spanking may make you closer to your spouse? this may help explain why women who live together buy the same overpriced handbags and why rihanna still loves chris brown.

~~~

a tangential note: at the most fertile points of the menstrual cycle (prior to and around ovulation) women tend to have "more feminine" or higher pitched voices and are more attracted to rudebwoys. so guys, listen closely for those frequency cues, flirt aggressively, and send her off to the mall with a pat on the butt. if it's a really heavy flow, make it an outlet mall.

~~~

also, i'm pretty sure science will one day prove kanye west is the biggest battybwoy i've ever seen. first clue: he calls himself the "louis vuitton don".

the dragon

for others who might be interested in the real world run by the men in the shadows of power, a department of defense report on china's military strength [pdf].

phase transitions in society

in our universe changes in physical state variables such as pressure or temperature manifest as changes in the organization of matter. if water molecules gain enough energy they break free of the forces that bind them together in one phase (solid or liquid) and the system can change into something with appreciably different characteristics (liquid or gas).

human society can change in ways similar to matter. people are the atoms and molecules and insecurity (about survival or comfort) is the energy that agitates the system. the phase map would be a spectrum spanned by varying degrees of civilization: from war and anarchy to peace and utopia. the civilization we know lies at an equilibrium somewhere between those extremes.

as such, the civilization we know is a system sustained mainly by our sense of security. put less gently, it is an illusion fed by unthreatened resources. history teaches us that under the right conditions phase transitions of society to a more agitated state can happen quite unexpectedly, with complete disregard for the denial of those at the critical point who continue to employ the conventional wisdom of a different phase.

it should be the duty of responsible citizenry to think about the trends in society's state variables (the security of food, energy, shelter, wealth & income, opportunity...) long before we get to the precipice of a painful transition. obvious perhaps but we humans need to be reminded of this since we are subject to the whims of optimistic bias and often avoid critical examination of risk possibilities that may be extreme but are neither implausible nor fantastical.

it would not hurt to emulate a military mind's attitudes to preparedness:

"... prudent net and risk assessment of (1) the myriad waypoints along dangerous trend lines; (2) the sudden or unanticipated arrival at the end of the same trends; and finally, (3) rapid onset of the rarer “Black Swan” are increasingly important...

... Preemptive examination of the most plausible “known unknowns” represents a reasoned down payment on strategic preparedness and an essential defense investment in strategic hedging against an uncertain and dangerous future."

as a tangent note the following excerpt from the same paper linked above. interesting.

"Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security. Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock.

An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home."

iraqi politics of late

i'm no absolutist politician chanting "the surge worked"; my interpretation of reports is that the increased troop numbers definitely helped to increase security in Iraq when coupled with some serendipitous other happenings: on the Shiite side was Al-Sadr's cease-fire, on the Sunni side was the Anbar Awakening (sons of Iraq etc). the question of fragility of this particular order could potentially be raised... on one hand some are on the Americans' payroll and loyalty that is bought can be sold, on the other hand the Iraqis have probably been burnt a bit from the violent excesses of al-Qaeda. the Iraqis do seem to be stepping up; joint militia efforts are providing security in addition to that provided by increased American troop levels.

the really interesting thing to me however are the rumors of a covert assassination program using better monitoring and coordinating practices on the ground to track and kill off al-Qaeda members. this is the best thing i have heard in weeks. if you're tackling terrorist networks you must absolutely and resolutely wipe out their principals, while of course simultaneously tackling their principles through moral overtures and nation/economy building. i still don't understand why they invaded Iraq (the human costs are too high, and it just seemed like a misguided military move in the first place, with oil motives as well); targeted assassinations should have been the military approach to terrorism in general, in afghanistan, pakistan, saudi arabia and wherever else terrorist cells found safe haven. if only there was more information about this.

i am not a terrorist by the way. you can tell me what your plans are general petraeus.