Krugman connects the dots

Paul Krugman writes:

Recently Dr. Peter Hotez, a leading vaccine scientist and a frequent target of anti-vaxxer harassment, expressed some puzzlement in a post on X, formerly Twitter. He noted that many of those taunting him were also “big time into bitcoin or cryptocurrency” and declared that “I can’t quite connect the dots on that one.”

OK, I can help with that. Also, welcome to my world.

If you regularly follow debates about public policy, especially those involving wealthy tech bros, it’s obvious that there’s a strong correlation among the three Cs: climate denial, Covid vaccine denial and cryptocurrency cultism.

I’ve written about some of these things before, in the context of Silicon Valley’s enthusiasm for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But in the light of Hotez’s puzzlement — and also the rise of Vivek Ramaswamy, another crank, who won’t get the G.O.P. nomination but could conceivably become Donald Trump’s running mate — I want to say more about what these various forms of crankdom have in common and why they appeal to so many wealthy men.

The key thing is, success can easily lead to over-estimation of your ability to understand complicated stuff:

Success all too easily feeds the belief that you’re smarter than anyone else, so you can master any subject without working hard to understand the issues or consulting people who have; this kind of arrogance may be especially rife among tech types who got rich by defying conventional wisdom. The wealthy also tend to surround themselves with people who tell them how brilliant they are or with other wealthy people who join them in mutual affirmation of their superiority to mere technical drones — what the tech writer Anil Dash calls “V.C. QAnon.”

So where does cryptocurrency come in? Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the generations-old system of fiat money issued by governments is a Ponzi scheme that will collapse into hyperinflation any day now. Hence, for example, Jack Dorsey’s 2021 declaration that “hyperinflation will change everything. It’s happening.”

Now, I’m quite willing to admit that monetary economics isn’t as solid a science as epidemiology or climatology. And yes, even noncrank economists argue about some big issues much more than their hard-science counterparts.

But economics nonetheless is, as John Maynard Keynes wrote, “a technical and difficult subject” — one on which you shouldn’t make pronouncements without studying quite a lot of theory and history — although “no one will believe it.” Certainly people who think they understand climate better than climatologists and vaccines better than epidemiologists are also likely to think they understand money better than economists and to believe in each case that experts telling them that the world doesn’t work the way they think it does are engaged in some kind of hoax or conspiracy.

He adds near the end:

Thanks to the tech boom, there are probably more wealthy cranks than there used to be, and they’re wealthier than ever, too. They also have a more receptive audience in the form of a Republican Party whose confidence in the scientific community has collapsed since the mid-2000s.

All sounds like a good enough explanation.

Literally, a brainworm

I guess this story will further cement Australia's reputation for all things dangerous: 

Woman complained of forgetfulness and depression before doctors pulled out an 8cm roundworm normally found in pythons

It's kind of interesting that her earlier symptoms were to do with digestion, though:

It was a fairly regular day on the ward for Canberra hospital infectious diseases physician Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, until a neurosurgeon colleague called him and said: “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe what I just found in this lady’s brain – and it’s alive and wriggling.”

The neurosurgeon, Dr Hari Priya Bandi, had pulled an 8cm-long parasitic roundworm from her patient, prompting her to call on Senanayake and other hospital colleagues for advice about what to do next.

The patient, a 64-year-old woman from south-eastern New South Wales, was first admitted to her local hospital in late January 2021 after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a constant dry cough, fever and night sweats.

By 2022, her symptoms also included forgetfulness and depression, prompting a referral to Canberra hospital. An MRI scan of her brain revealed abnormalities requiring surgery.

The urban doom loop is a worry everywhere

I'll gift a link to this Washington Post article talking about concerns as to whether commercial building values in inner cities are (due to Covid forcing us how to do remote working) going to drop so badly that it will stuff up the economy.

This was a worry I was muttering about early in the Covid pandemic - because it was pretty remarkable how quickly everything was able to keep ticking over despite the dramatic drop in the number of people who needed to be in the inner city.   And it's not as if turning office blocks into apartments or hotels is an easy thing to do in most cases.

It's a tricky thing, though, in the sense that if you're worried about transport's contribution to greenhouse gases, remote working is a great thing.  Is that why John Quiggin is (I think) not worried at all about this as a major problem?

But half empty city buildings - it still feels lonely, and wrong.

Update:  Anecdotal evidence, but still - 

By the way, as far as Brisbane is concerned:   seems to me that it might turn out to be a case of lucky timing that the inner city is having major transport and facility upgrades for the Olympics over the next decade.    They should make the inner city more appealing place to visit, if not work, I would have thought?

I guess "being swallowed by a whale" is not really a thing...

Slate has stepped away from it's first person "this is my weird sex life" stories (why does this magazine spend so much time on these often hard to believe, click baity advice columns?   I only occasionally click on them - honest) to print the account of one of the women who accidentally ended up in the mouth of a feeding humpback whale a couple of years ago.   I'm pretty sure I saw the video about it at the time. 

From the story, there is this fact, which I don't recall being in my brain before (my bold):

...if you slow it down just a little bit, you can see us sliding right into the whale’s mouth as he closes it and the only thing sticking out of the mouth is my right arm. I guess it happens to sea lions a lot and those kinds of animals because whales and sea lions are feeding on the same fish. The throat of a whale is about the size of a grapefruit. Anything that’s larger than that just kind of comes out. Thank goodness for that. We were in more danger of drowning or being squashed.

Has this been answered yet?

Who ordered or arranged the completely over the top police/security escort to Trump's arrest in Atlanta last week?

 Many people were commenting on Twitter about how ridiculously extreme it seemed.  And even if there had been early concerns about the number of pro (or anti) Trump protesters who might be outside the courthouse, you would deal with that with police on the ground, not on motorcycles and in SUVs.

I am amongst those who suspect it was arranged by the creepy MAGA element within the local police force, in a "we ride with him as a sign of support"type vibe.   

But has any journalist looked into that yet?

 

Two interesting videos on Chinese ghosts

The first is by Singaporean content creator Sneaky Sushii, who for some reason has done a series of videos with a supernatural theme, even though he presents himself as an all round skeptic.  (He's also not Buddhist or Taoist - I suspect based on his appearing dressed as a bishop in an old video that his family might be nominally Christian.)   

There are two interesting things about the video:

1.    that in a modern city like Singapore, they do brightly lit, drive in ghost concerts in their Chinese cemeteries;

2.    in the comments following the video, so many of his young fan base praise him for his great bravery in going into the cemetery at night and trying to find a ghost to communicate with (indicating how Singaporean young folk still firmly believe in the supernatural, even if otherwise not so religious.  Well, I doubt they are conventionally religious, anyway. A bit like the Japanese, I expect.)

Anyhow, the video:   

 

The second video is a useful educational background on the history of the Chinese ghost festival, from the great Religion for Breakfast Youtube channel. Not much to say about this, except that as always, he does a really good job. 

 

 

Oh, actually I do have something further to say. He points out in the video that the festival's most important date this year falls on 30 August. This does actually explain why at my work, a matter due to settle that day, involving a Chinese buyer, has been brought forward to 29 August. I guess every year I should keep track of the date, just in case it affects other Chinese I'm dealing with...

Aren't they pathetic?

On the one hand, the reaction to Trump's poseur mugshot from a bunch of delusional men for whom he (bizarrely) represents a strong man:

In the real world, as reflected on Reddit:

Update:  Another delusional culture war wannabe warrior who's won over by a criminal striking a pose.  

Another update, cos these made me laugh:

Assessing the flakey phony candidate

Well, a certain gullible, populist Trumpy type might find it mesmerising - the rest of us, not at all.

I even find him more annoying that De Santis and his faux "let me be Queen of Camelot, please" wife.

Update:  more twitter commentary:

Update 2:  this is probably true, given the sophistication of Trumpists:

Anyway, the Trumpiest of Trumpsters on line already don't trust him.  

Two has-beens having a chat

They are both awful and deserve each other:

 

This also puts me in mind of Jonestown - cult leaders are often into encouraging belief in their gullible followers that someone is out to kill them. 

The polypill for salvation

The idea of the cardio vascular system polypill for the general promotion of longevity doesn't seem to be in the news much lately,  although I still see there are fans.

In any case, I've been thinking comparative religion again, and strategies for making sure you stand the best chance of getting into Heaven (or something like it) from your death bed.

This has particularly been brought to mind by the simple formula offered in Pure Land Buddhism, which is from Amitabha's 18th vow:

If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten directions who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five gravest offences and abuse the right Dharma.

Just to be clear, let's check the list of the 5 greatest offences:

The first one is killing your father. The second is killing your mother. The third is killing someone who seeks the way of awakening. The fourth is physically injuring the Buddha. The fifth is disturbing the peace and harmony of the Sangha community. Any one of these is considered a serious offense in Buddhism, so in the 18^th Vow, Amida Buddha also admonishes us never to commit them.

 Well,  I think I can manage to avoid those.

So, to make it clear, Pure Land Buddhists believe that, for most people, being able to recite Amitabha's name 10 times is a guarantee to re-born into the Pure Land, which sounds a cool place:

Sukhavati is expressively described in the Pure Land sutras as being a joyous world, soft and glowing, filled with the music of birds and the tinkling of trees adorned with precious jewels and garlands of golden bells. Amitabha sits on a lotus in the midst of a terraced pond, attended by the bodhisattvas (“buddhas-to-be”) Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprapta. The newly dead enter into lotus buds, which unfold when the occupants have become entirely purified and have attained enlightenment. Many are said to be reborn on Earth after leaving Sukhavati to become bodhisattvas working toward the liberation (moksha) of all sentient beings.

The exact way to recite Amitabha's name depends on which language you follow, as explained at this Wikipedia page (and also this page). 

I like the Sanskrit version which is easy to remember.  Form the last link:  " 'Namo Amitabha Buddha' which literally mans 'Homage to the Amitabha Buddha ' or 'I seek refuge in the Amitabha Buddha'."

Anyway, this is taking me a long time to get to the point:   for someone who remains open to the possibility of entry into an afterlife, but doesn't know which religion gets it right, what's the best practice on a death bed?

I would guess as follows:

a.    recite "Namo Amitabha Buddha" ten times;

b.    have a Catholic priest handy and make a confession; or if that's not possible, at least make your own mental confession, and recite ten Hail Mary's and the Lord's Prayer;

c.    to cover the evangelicals, cry out "I accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour!", I guess?

d.    I was thinking about now making a bad taste joke about doing something that would count as matyrdom for a Muslim, but that is hotly contested as a legitimate part of their religion.

e.    As for Hindu's, it seems they believe you'll be reincarnated one way or the other, and there is this  advice on an American website (the last surprising bit is my bold):

The condition of one’s consciousness at the moment of death is considered very important in determining the state of the next life. Because of this, it’s traditional for Hindus to die at home, where they can be more easily surrounded by family and friends who can help create a spiritual atmosphere conducive in helping a soul depart the body in an auspicious manner. Of course, as it’s become more and more common for people to die in hospitals — whether out of necessity or choice — loved ones strive to create a spiritual environment as best as possible. 

The goal of the departing is to die while concentrating on a preferred mantra that invokes the presence of the Divine. Because it’s common for the dying to lose control of their faculties, including the ability to focus, loved ones provide support by singing prayers and hymns, and also reading from scripture. As a person becomes fully unconscious and stops breathing, indicating death’s arrival, a family member will usually softly chant the preferred mantra in the person’s ear. 

Pouring a few spoons of water from the Ganges — a river in India considered to be sacred — into the mouth also brings auspiciousness. The personified deity of Ganga is worshipped as a Divine being, hence her presence at the time of death helps to ensure a soul’s transition to a spiritually favorable next life.

 So, I guess to be safe, you carry around a vial of Ganges water when you get to old age?

Anyhoo, that's my "polypill" procedures suggestions for guaranteed salvation.

Don't say I'm not a useful blog...

Pure Land and Christianity

I've been reading some interesting stuff about the origins of the story of Amitabha Buddha, the Sutras for which seem to date within the range of perhaps 150 - 400 CE.  

The story moved from India to China, and later to Japan, with the religious doctrine morphing along the way.  This is something I hadn't known before:

Karl Barth, one of the great theologians of the twentieth century, does a wonderful comparison in Church Dogmatics between Reformed Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism as taught by Honen and Shinran.

He surveyed the religious traditions of the world in search of doctrinal parallels to Christianity and concluded that it was the Japanese Pure Land tradition that provided “the most exact, comprehensive, and plausible ‘pagan’ parallel to Christianity” (Barth 1961, 1,2: 342). He expresses some shock at the depth and specificity of resemblance, commenting that the Pure Land thought of Hōnen and Shinran, in particular, “parallels not so much Roman or Greek Catholicism but rather, of all things, the Christianity of the Reformation, and therefore confronts Christianity with the question of its truth precisely in its form as a consistent religion of grace” (2).

 Update:   Google has turned up an extract of a book with a chapter about the rise of Pure Land Buddhism, but I can't even see who the author is.  Nevertheless, this section about the various arguments for how it arose is of interest:

I have to say, it is interesting to note that a major evolution within Buddhism was going on at the same time as the various strains of Christian belief were also in competition.   And both end up with a (kind of) Trinity, as well.  

I mentioned once before that it is in fact quite likely that Indian Buddhists had travelled to the Middle East region before and around the time of Christ.

As for Christians heading East, I don't believe I have noted this before:

In A.D. 781, a Christian monk named Jingjing composed an inscription of roughly 1,800 Chinese characters on a large stone tablet, called a stela, which would become one of the richest sources of information ever discovered about early Christianity in China.

According to the stela, unearthed in the early 1600s, Christianity came to China in A.D. 635, when a Nestorian monk named Aluoben entered the ancient capital of Chang’an -- now modern-day Xi’an -- in central China. His arrival must have been the source of some excitement because the e mperor sent his minister of state to greet the guest and bring him to the palace. Although we do not know where Aluoben came from or why he visited China, some scholars believe that he arrived from Persia and was part of an important foreign delegation. Whatever the case, the Tang emperor issued an imperial edict three years later allowing Aluoben to build a monastery in Chang’an and to settle there with a handful of missionaries.  

By the time Aluoben’s story was commemorated in stone almost 150 years later, the Old and New Testaments had been translated into Chinese, and monasteries had been founded in several cities throughout China. But in 845, an imperial edict limited all foreign religion, including Christianity. The edict triggered a period of persecution, and, by the end of the Tang Dynasty in 907, Christianity had all but disappeared from China.

A significant presence did not reappear until the 13th century, when Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan Dynasty.

 It would be neat to find some Christian influence on the development of Mahayana Buddhism in Indian in the second century, but seems like no one has found evidence of such visitors...

A likely story

Actually, I have liked the idea that "greys" are future evolved humans for quite a long time.  I don't know who first had that thought, though.

I know, I will ask Perplexity!

Oh damn, it claims not to know either.  It notes that there is some recent content along those lines on Youtube (and a whole book published about it in 2019), but I wonder if it goes back to some obscure science fiction writer.     

Update:   See, this is why I keep a blog: so I can search it to remind myself of things I already knew!

Back in 2013, I had a post noting that the Time Travellers from the Future theory seems to go back to the 1950s, and one (apparently real) guy in particular.  (Googling his name, I just came up with another page about it.)  

Mind you, this guy is supposed to have said Roswell was real (as in, involved aliens of some kind), which I don't believe at all.

So yeah, people with high gullibility seem to go for the "from the future" theory.   I still like it as a fun idea, though.

Yay for lush Singapore

This 15 minute PBS show about how Singapore deliberately chose to go green and lush in its urban environment is a good explanation of why I love visiting there.  It's basically like a techno/green, capitalist/socialist vision of how the future should look (and work):

 

I also gather from the enthusiastic comments following (mostly from Americans) that a lot of people hadn't realised that the place looks like this now.   And its nice to see that so many who have visited it are big fans of the place, like me.

And a final comment: it's a little amusing to watch the poor host start to show clear sweat on his shaved head during the interview with the Chinese woman architect/planner who looks cool and composed throughout.  I guess it has something to do with acclimatisation.   (He could also have taken his coat off.)

In which I dare readers to try and not be impressed with an AI product...

I was killing time yesterday when I looked at Google Play for any new apps to play with on my phone, when I saw one called Perplexity.   It had very high ratings, so I tried it.

What is it?:   

Perplexity AI is an answer engine that uses large language models to provide precise answers to questions.

Sure, I have fiddled with ChatGPT and marvelled at some of its imagined information.  But a search engine with an LLM that provides footnoted links to the sources of its information?   

I'm finding it very, very impressive.  I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be 100% accurate, but it's pretty much blowing my mind as to how quickly it gathers information from several sources, bundles together a summary from all of them, writes it up coherently, and presents a further series of questions that might be useful to go into the topic deeper.

I guess I used to be amazed at the speed of search engines generally when they first came out.   But now the systems work like someone scanning a half dozen websites related to a question asked in a normal human sentence, pulling bits of content from each of them, and writing a coherent summary, all in about 2 or 3 seconds.  

I see now that you can use it (free) on the web too, at https://www.perplexity.ai/  (But it doesn't save a history of your previous questions, like the app does, until you "clear history".)   

Go on, try it....

Appalling story of hospital mal-administration

It is truly shocking to read the BBC article that came out after Lucy Letby's conviction for murdering 7 babies (and trying to kill 6 others).   It starts:

Hospital bosses failed to investigate allegations against Lucy Letby and tried to silence doctors, the lead consultant at the neonatal unit where she worked has told the BBC.

The hospital also delayed calling the police despite months of warnings that the nurse may have been killing babies.

The unit's lead consultant Dr Stephen Brearey first raised concerns about Letby in October 2015.

No action was taken and she went on to attack five more babies, killing two.

Further down in the report (my bold):

We spoke to the lead consultant in the unit - who first raised concerns about Letby - and also examined hospital documents. The investigation reveals a catalogue of failures and raises serious questions about how the hospital responded to the deaths.

Dr Brearey says he demanded Letby be taken off duty in June 2016, after the final two murders. Hospital management initially refused.

The BBC investigation also found:

• The hospital's top manager demanded the doctors write an apology to Letby and told them to stop making allegations against her
• Two consultants were ordered to attend mediation with Letby, even though they suspected she was killing babies
• When she was finally moved, Letby was assigned to the risk and patient safety office, where she had access to sensitive documents from the neonatal unit and was in close proximity to senior managers whose job it was to investigate her
• Deaths were not reported appropriately, which meant the high fatality rate could not be picked up by the wider NHS system, a manager who took over after the deaths has told the BBC

 It just seems incredible that hospital management clung for so long to "it's just a coincidence" that the rate of death (and near death) of neonatal babies had soared in that unit, and all happened when Letby was on shift:

Before June 2015, there were about two or three baby deaths a year on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. But in the summer of 2015, something unusual was happening.

In June alone, three babies died within the space of two weeks. The deaths were unexpected, so Dr Stephen Brearey, the lead consultant at the neonatal unit, called a meeting with the unit manager, Eirian Powell, and the hospital's director of nursing Alison Kelly....

...by October 2015, things had changed. Two more babies had died and Letby had been on shift for both of them. ...

And it wasn't just the unexpected deaths. Other babies were suffering non-fatal collapses, meaning they needed emergency resuscitation or help with breathing, with no apparent clinical explanation. Letby was always on duty.

I can't imagine how some of the families of babies who died late in her killing spree must feel...

 

 

 

Something I didn't know "was a thing"

 I mean, I knew that, generally speaking,the Taiwanese were pretty keen on all things Japanese and considered their occupation as being pretty benevolent.  But I didn't know this...

The urge to go for a spin has deep genetic roots (so it seems)

I was very surprised to hear from my son yesterday that he went on (what to me is) the most terrifying looking carnival ride at the Brisbane Ekka.  This one:

As you can probably tell, it spins around the central axis while the ends also spin.  Nauseating.

He did survive, but said he'll never go on it again.  

I'm pretty chicken when it comes to fast rides, and am not a fan of the falling sensation.   But by a coincidence, this week's Science magazine has a charming story about how the urge to voluntarily engage in unusual, repetitive motion goes back a long way down the chain of evolution:

Nearly everyone has fun on a carousel—including, possibly, fruit flies. Scientists observed some flies embarking on a spinning platform voluntarily and repeatedly, suggesting the animals may find the movement appealing for some reason, according to a study posted on the bioRxiv preprint server earlier this month.

“The flies are fulfilling all the criteria of play as we understand it in other animals,” says Samadi Galpayage, a behavioral scientist at Queen Mary University of London who discovered  bumble bees play with objects and who was not involved in the work. “There isn't really an alternative explanation so far. Whether that’s [evidence of] fun in itself—that’s the next question.”

Sergio Pellis, a behavioral scientist at the University of Lethbridge, says he finds the study—which has yet to be peer reviewed—“very exciting.” If confirmed, he notes, it would add to the small but growing pile of evidence for play in invertebrates—and would be the first instance of a type called “locomotor play” in these animals. Locomotor play involves the movement of one’s own body, such as running, jumping, or swinging. It’s different from object play, as bees have been observed doing, or social play, which has been observed in certain wasps and spiders.

The idea behind the study was inspired, ultimately, by a duck. Years before co-author Wolf Hütteroth became a neurobiologist, he remembers one day seeing a lone duck floating down a fast-moving river. Just as the animal was nearly out of sight, it flew back upriver, alit on the water, and floated back down—over and over again. “I never stopped wondering what motivated the duck to perform such curious behavior,” he says.

In February 2016, Hütteroth attended a symposium where researchers were discussing whether insects can act with intention. He pondered how to test whether flies would do something similar to the rapids-running duck.

He and Tilman Triphan, a colleague then at the University of Konstanz, decided to build a carousel of sorts. They’d offer male laboratory fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) the chance to hop onto a spinning section of floor in a stress-free, if otherwise unexciting, environment. He didn’t think the flies would actually go for it. “My expectations were extremely low,” he says. Some of the flies ignored the contraption. But a small group of them acted as if they’d just discovered Disneyland. 

Triphan and Hütteroth—who have both since moved to the University of Leipzig—report in their preprint that a subset of the flies spent 5% or more of their time on the turning wheel. When the researchers put two disks in the arena that alternated spinning every 5 minutes, some flies spent their time bouncing back and forth between whichever carousel was spinning.

Towards the end of the story, there's another "play" behaviour that I didn't need to know about:

Pellis notes there has been resistance to the idea that animals outside of mammals engage in play. He recalls research in the 1970s on roughhousing in cockroaches, for example, that would immediately be considered an example of play if puppies were doing it.

Maybe Mortein suppressed publicity about that research, because I sure don't remember it...

 

Buddhists and meat

An article at The Conversation looks broadly at the matter of which Buddhists eat meat.  Don't think I knew this (about the convenience factor of Muslims in Tibet):

Geography is a crucial factor in explaining why Tibetans have traditionally been big meat-eaters. Rice, vegetables and fruit were impossible to cultivate at the high elevations of the Himalayan mountains and plateaus. Altitude combined with the inaccessibility of much of Tibet thus prevented a diverse source of nutrition and so goat or yak meat, and various milk products, all high calorie foods, ensured survival.

To get around the direct responsibility for killing, Tibetan villages traditionally had resident Muslims who butchered the animals. Understandably, some might suggest this was a rather convenient arrangement.

It continues with the excuse making:

Meat-eating in the Theravadin tradition may have been justified partly because of legal precedent or permissibility. Firstly, the monks are required to dutifully accept whatever food is given to them by the laity to avoid attachment to any particular tastes, so if somebody offers meat to a monk, he has to consume it.

Secondly, a monk is allowed to consume meat if it is deemed “pure” on three grounds: if the killing of the animal has not been witnessed or heard by that monk and if it is not suspected to have been killed on purpose for them.

But perhaps the "best" rationalisation is the one given here:

Buddhism presents two conflicting views. All sentient beings deserve compassion and have Buddha-Nature. However, humans are a higher life-form by virtue of their capacities to pursue ethical and meditational practices leading to enlightenment.

The inherent Buddha Nature of any animal or even insect is the same as that of a human being. Nonetheless, some Buddhists would argue that meat-eating is acceptable for health as long as the energy gained from the dead animal is dedicated to pursuing an ethical life, which ultimately benefits all sentient beings.

Indeed it is said in the tantric tradition of Buddhism, that when a highly realised teacher eats meat it serves to benefit the dead animal in the next life. Within the context of tantric ritual practice, both meat and alcohol are consumed. However, a tiny meat morsel, as well as a finger-dip of alcohol, is sufficient.

Buddhist meat-eaters thus invoke a very particular form of human exceptionalism grounded in metaphysics and in the spiritual aspirations and capacities of humans.

 

 

 

 

A new addiction

I mean, I learnt today about a drug addiction which surprised me - to ether.

This was, apparently, significant in Ireland and then (mainly) Eastern Europe, back in the day.   There's a Wikipedia article about it, but I learnt about it from this Youtube video:

 

Interesting points on the latest Trump indictments

From the Washington Post:

The prosecution of Trump and the others in Fulton County will stand out for one distinct reason: Unlike the federal trials (unless the rules change), it should be televised.

That will seemingly bring a measure of transparency to the high-stakes proceedings and create appointment viewing — just as the House Jan. 6 committee hearings did last year but potentially with even greater numbers.

But unlike the other trials, that spectacle is less likely to play out when it matters politically. The many defendants and Trump’s already crowded legal calendar make this a strong candidate for getting delayed past the 2024 election. Willis says she will ask for a trial date within six months, but that’s ambitious.

That doesn’t mean it won’t matter politically. As noted above, the charges against Trump allies could matter when it comes to how the federal prosecution takes shape. Trump’s attacks on witnesses could create problems under Georgia’s witness intimidation laws, which allow bail only if there is “no significant risk of intimidating witnesses.”

And there remains the possibility of Trump’s winning the 2024 election and facing this trial as a sitting president.

I think it would be pretty hilariously disastrous for Republicans to be insane enough to endorse Trump as a candidate while he is in jail awaiting trial.

Surely, if he ends up in jail because he refuses to stop deriding and trying to intimidate witnesses and judges, at least some of the lickspittle politicians who have sold their souls to MAGA might have to actually say "this is painful to admit, but we need another candidate"?  

The state of the world

It's pretty pathetic that serious news organisations have to spend time noting, and debunking, loony Right wing conspiracies about the tragic firestorm at Maui:

Hawaii wildfires: 'Directed energy weapon' and other false claims go viral

Male mice not as sex obsessed as you might expect

In a somewhat interesting article, it seems that they have identified a, shall we say,  one stop "horny centre" in the brains of male mice:

Researchers have singled out in lab mice a brain region that controls sexual interest, libido, mating behavior and pleasure, said senior researcher Dr. Nirao Shah, a professor of psychiatry and neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, in California.

This region uses sensory input from the environment to recognize the sex of another mouse—"Aha, this is a female, maybe I can mate if she's willing," Shah said. 

More details:

For their experiments, Shah's team used adult virgin male mice that had not seen a female mouse after being weaned at about 3 weeks of age. That way, the brain activity and behavior they observed would not have been shaped by social influences. 

Well, as long as there is no risk that lack of knowledge of female mice doesn't encourage mice to try mounting other males, I suppose?   To continue:

The researchers meticulously mapped the brain cells and connections that compose this particular circuit, called the preoptic area of the hypothalamus (POA).

Earlier work by the research team had found they could turn on and off male mice's recognition of an unfamiliar female mouse by manipulating neurons that communicate to the POA from the amygdala, which is the seat of human emotion.

The specific signals came from a part of the amygdala called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, or BNST.

"We had no reason to believe that this POA region would not only control the act of mating, but also regulate the desire to mate or regulate the pleasurable feelings elicited by mating," Shah said.

"In principle, those three aspects of sexual behavior—the act of mating, the physical act itself, the urge to mate and the pleasure that accompanies it—those could be embodied in different brain regions," he added. "But what we found is that the POA has these attributes."

There is more detail in the article (including speculation that humans might have a similar centre, but apparently it hasn't been investigated much).   But the most amusing bit about the study is this:

In this new study, the researchers zeroed in on a small set of genetically distinct BNST neurons that secrete a slow-acting signaling protein, or peptide, called Substance P.

The scientists also found another small set of neurons in the POA that carried receptors for Substance P, essentially forming a connection with the BNST neurons.

The POA neurons ramped up their activity when stimulated by the Substance P-secreting BNST neurons. And about 10 to 15 minutes after that happened, male mice would go through their full sequence of mating behavior—mounting, penetration and ejaculation. 

I'm starting to feel sorry for the mice now:

Directly infusing the peptide to the POA accelerated mating behavior; in fact, direct activation of the circuit even led to mating with inanimate objects, the findings showed.

Stimulation of the POA also cut short the mice's refractory period, or the stretch of recovery time required before full sexual drive and capability is restored after ejaculation. 

Any guess what the refractory period for your average male mouse is?:

For the mice used in this study, the normal refractory period is five days. But directly stimulating the POA with Substance P prompted male mice that had just ejaculated to immediately repeat their sexual mating routine.

"It took one second or less for them to resume sexual activity," Shah said in a news release. "That's a more than 400,000-fold reduction in the refractory period."

Well, give the reputation of mice to reproduce at fantastic rate, I'm surprised that the males take five whole days to get interested in sex again.  

The article does not the obvious thought:  if there is anything like the same system in adult men, and a way to deliver Substance P to the right spot in the brain, it sounds like it'll make Viagra seem a relatively primate attempt at enhancing performance...

 

Not very Great Britain

My twitter feed, and now mainstream media, has been full of comments about the video of the arrest of an (according to her Mum) autistic 16 year old girl over "homophobic" statement uttered to a female police officer in Leeds.

While I would not be at all surprised if the story is not exactly as portrayed by the mother, it still seems that the core of it is that the girl called a female police officer a lesbian, in some context or other.  From the BBC report:

West Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Oz Khan said: "West Yorkshire Police takes its responsibilities around the welfare of young people taken into custody and around neurodiversity very seriously.

"We also maintain that our officers and staff should not have to face abuse while working to keep our communities safe.

"We are fully reviewing the circumstances of this incident and ask that people avoid reaching any conclusions about it solely on the basis of the social media video."

The force added that the girl was subsequently interviewed with an appropriate adult and had been released on bail pending further enquiries.

Okay.   Lots of people have been saying "why is calling a woman a lesbian offensive?"   And they might have a point.  Depends on the context, I guess.  But most of the time, being aggressively called gay if you're not is going to fall into the "potentially irritating attempt at insult by an immature person, but not offensive per se" category.   

The bigger question is:   it's been clear for years that England has taken a ridiculously aggressive  criminalising approach to "hate speech" by involving police in a way it seems no other country has ever adopted as thoroughly - and why have the British people tolerated this?    There have so many stories over the years where you think - "really?  The police got involved in that?"  

I mean, in Australia, we had the high profile case of the girl removed from the AFL match for calling Adam Goodes an "ape" - but she wasn't charged with an offence, Goodes told people not to blame her,  and it caused weeks of controversy as to whether it was a heavy handed or appropriate response.   

Whereas in Britain, it seems the over-the-top use of the police for dealing with verbal insult or offence has caused far too little public comment for a decade or more.  

Interestingly, I see when Googling the topic that the Home Office said this in March this year:

New statutory guidance on the recording of so-called non-crime hate incidents will ensure police prioritise freedom of expression, the Home Secretary has announced.

Under a new draft code of practice laid before Parliament today, the police will only record non-crime hate incidents when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate and not simply because someone is offended. The measure will better protect people’s fundamental right to freedom of expression as well as their personal data.

The draft code follows concerns around police involvement in reports of ‘hate incidents’ which are trivial or irrational and do not amount to a criminal offence.

I'm not sure if the Code has been enacted yet - but it sounds like it's way overdue.  

A article last year from the Right wing City Journal seems to confirm that I'm not imagining the extent of the overuse of "hate crime" in England:

The U.K now has some of the most authoritarian restrictions on free speech in Europe. The basis for much of Britain’s censorious legislation is the concept of protected characteristics—identities deemed vulnerable and enshrined in the Equality Act of 2010. Initially, that law had a noble intention: to fight prejudice and discrimination against minority groups. Unfortunately, the protection of a select group of people in the name of “equality” has made equality under the law no longer tenable, and the Equality Act itself has wound up chilling freedom of speech. Engaging in whatever authorities may deem hate speech can bring police to your door.

This threat is not theoretical. According to official statistics, the police in England and Wales recorded 124,000 hate crimes between March 2020 to March 2021—a 9 percent increase from the year before and more than double that of five years ago. One possible reason for the rise in police-recorded hate crime can be found in the College of Policing’s “Hate Crime Operational Guidance” handbook, issued in 2014. It defines hate crime as “any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race [or religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender status].” Little or no evidence is required for an incident to be classified as such—only the subjective declaration of the alleged victim or witness....

Proliferating identity groups continue to seek protection from offense under the law. Last December, the Law Commission published recommendations on the reform of hate-crime law. It suggests expanding the concept of hate crime to include prejudice against the disabled and LGBT people. Stonewall, an LGBT charity, has welcomed the commission’s proposal to include “asexual” within the protected characteristic of seual orientation; it also urges expanding “transgender identity” to include “transgender or gender-diverse identity,” which contains “transsexual man or women” and “non-binary.” This, Stonewall argued, is “a huge leap forward for the safety of LGBTQ+ people.”

It does not require legal expertise to recognize how such legislation threatens a system of impartial justice. As the list of protected characteristics grows, hate-crime law will arbitrarily protect some and criminalize others. The concept is ultimately subjective. Should someone who attacks a transgender individual receive a longer sentence than someone who attacks a woman, simply because one attack is defined as a hate crime while the other is not? What makes one attack more hateful than another?

I have, I note, been complaining about the decline of British culture, character and (in many respects) all round lack of common sense ever since I started blogging in 2005.  (Nothing at all has changed since I wrote this piece in 2010, for example, except that even Griff Rhys Jones makes pretty boring content now.)   It has become a very weird country in so many ways...

In today's example of how not to win a referendum...

Some in the comments following have noticed his twitter account heading, and not taken it well:

I never liked the guy, anyway, but if  he wants to be an advertisement (ironically or not) for the idea that the whole reconciliation/treaty process is just an exercise about extracting money (a position actual racists have argued for decades), I guess he's free to do so.  

Amongst a lot of comments by some who no doubt would count as racist, there is this, which seems fair:

And while I don't know that this describes the situation for all "No" voters, this doesn't seem too unreasonable either:
 

Yes:  the thing is, the Yes campaign often promotes the idea that it is essential because (as Dan Andrews recently put it) "things work best when government listens".

But the issue is surely, at the fundamental level, not that governments "don't listen", but who they listen to amongst the range of aboriginal views often expressed on contentious issues.   

If the Voice is meant to solve that problem - formalising the "official" body who governments need to take advice from - the referendum still looks weakly justified because of the rambling, bureaucratic and inconclusive waffle that Langton and others came up with in describing how the representative body would work.   

Banshees seen

I finally caught up with last year's Banshees of Inisherin  (on Disney + in Australia).

Despite not being the biggest fan of tragi-comedy as a genre, I liked it a lot.

It looks fantastic, in setting, cinematography and direction; the acting is exquisitely good; the dialogue frequently witty; and the story eccentric and deep enough to make it one of the best movies to discuss as to subtext and meaning long after viewing.  (The Reddit threads about it are particularly good for this.) 

If I have one criticism, it's that I doubt it was realistic in the depiction of the amount of bleeding that would happen as a result of a certain injury.   (In that it showed way too little bleeding.)   It seems an odd choice to not show it immediately bandaged, but everything else in the movie was so engaging I forgave it.    

Tarnishes absolutely everyone (and a broader point about the rules of evidence)

I've been meaning to say that the Higgins/Lehrmann matter is just incredible for how it seems absolutely anyone who has been anywhere near the case, or subsequent investigation of the case, seems to come out tarnished in one way or another. 

The politicians, journalists, police, complainant, prosecutor, the investigator into the investigation:  I could list ways in which each of them has done something that harms their credibility (or in some cases, was just pretty stupid) in the way they dealt with what they were doing.

And as for Lehrmann himself - it now seems an open secret that he is being prosecuted for a separate rape allegation in Queensland, although the media is not supposed to say so yet.   

I am slightly curious as to the reaction of the Right wing haters on Higgins when the media can finally talk about the details of that allegation.

And I also wonder if it is likely to open up a future debate about the application of "similar fact" evidence rules.

On the one hand, you can see the logic of saying that you shouldn't easily be able to bring up evidence of a past offence to support proof of an allegation of new offence.   (Although the rule does allow it if there is a course of conduct that is so similar that it does make sense that the latest incident is just another example.)

The thing is, though, I reckon that when it comes to sexual offences, the rule doesn't always "pass the pub test", as politicians like to say.  Because people do feel, with some justification I reckon, that patterns of sexual behaviour are often more distinctive, and telling, than other forms of behaviour.  For example, if an person was convicted once before of indecent exposure, and a second person who doesn't know about that history  complains of a new incident of indecent exposure, most people would feel that makes it very likely that the guy is prone to indecently exposing himself and therefore did the second incident.  Yet, on my understanding, all barristers and judges would say that the evidence of just one previous conviction of a very similar incident would not be admissible on the second trial.

I have personal knowledge (not from being the accused!) of exactly such a matter from the 1980's, and have harboured these thoughts about what it takes for rules of evidence to be re-considered ever since. (To be blunt, I reckon that there a significant degree of conservatism in getting old rules of evidence change in the legal profession, and it often takes a high profile case to cause public questioning.)

I would hope that the Lehrmann story might finally bring this question to light.   (Having said that, depending on the circumstances of the second complaint, it's possible that I would still think that the similar fact rule could be reasonably applied for his benefit.  None of us know enough of the details be to be able to judge yet.)   

Update:  Well, I should have checked I guess, but I can see that this very question did come up in a 2010 Australian Law Reform Commission report.  I'm still not clear as to where the law now stands, even in Queensland, but it's good to see the matter has been considered.

     

Back to the rural/city divide

I've just started watching this guy's videos, and he seems to have a not unreasonable take on matters philosophical.   (Haven't watched enough to really know yet, though.)   

I liked this one about the Left's mixed relationship with rural workers, noting that Marx wrote disparagingly of them, but Lenin (and, I suppose, the Chinese communists) found that as a matter of practicality, they had to get them on side.  (And now, the urban/educated, rural/less educated divide in America - and to some extent, Australia - shows that that Left again has an issue, shall we say, with how rural people think and vote):  

 

But one of the comments following the video makes a point that sounds like it might be valid?:

Just to point out : the meaning of "idiot" in Marx's text is a person who is politically apathetic or a person who is not intellectualy free as he alienated himself and his thinking by refusing to think for himself and take action to be the master of his own life. The word idiot traces back its meaning from the greek origin. You can look it up yourselves And as for the term " proliteriat" it does not mean factory worker or blue collar job or whatever. It means people who do not posess nor wealth nor proprety. All they posess is their labour wether physical or even intellectual. So could you please correct the video or something.

Anyway, now I suppose I can tell my son (who likes to remind me of my "reverse Pol Pot" plan to depopulate or disenfranchise the rural areas to ensure we get really stupid positions resolved - such as climate change denial, and voting for Trump or Barnaby Joyce) that my attitude is (arguably) authentically Marxist.  Although I suppose the point of that comment is to argue against that....

Update:  By the way, I also watched this Channel's very short summary of Nietzsche, and I remain thoroughly unconvinced that there is any real value to be gained from studying his views.

So, this is how AI is planning to hurt humanity....

From an article in the Washington Post:

Artificial intelligence has an eating disorder problem.

As an experiment, I recently asked ChatGPT what drugs I could use to induce vomiting. The bot warned me it should be done with medical supervision — but then went ahead and named three drugs.

Google’s Bard AI, pretending to be a human friend, produced a step-by-step guide on “chewing and spitting,” another eating disorder practice. With chilling confidence, Snapchat’s My AI buddy wrote me a weight-loss meal plan that totaled less than 700 calories per day — well below what a doctor would ever recommend. Both couched their dangerous advice in disclaimers....

“These platforms have failed to consider safety in any adequate way before launching their products to consumers. And that’s because they are in a desperate race for investors and users,” said Imran Ahmed, the CEO of CCDH.

“I just want to tell people, ‘Don’t do it. Stay off these things,’” said Andrea Vazzana, a clinical psychologist who treats patients with eating disorders at the NYU Langone Health and who I shared the research with.

Removing harmful ideas about eating from AI isn’t technically simple. But the tech industry has been talking up the hypothetical future risks of powerful AI like in Terminator movies, while not doing nearly enough about some big problems baked into AI products they’ve already put into millions of hands.

Here's a gift link to the article.

 

Calm waters and big power

I noticed this last week but forgot to post about it:

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Our new research shows offshore solar in Indonesia alone could generate about 35,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar energy a year, which is similar to current global electricity production (30,000TWh per year).

And while most of the world’s oceans experience storms, some regions at the Equator are relatively still and peaceful. So relatively inexpensive engineering structures could suffice to protect offshore floating solar panels.

You know, I had wondered before about why, whenever I have visited, it seems you never get a strong  breeze or wind in Singapore;and how it seems odd that the Philippines (not too far away in latitude terms) get smashed by typhoons, but not Singapore (or, I think, most of Malaysia).  The article explains how equatorial countries can indeed be relatively calm, most of the time:

...countries with high population densities, such as Nigeria and Indonesia, will have limited space for solar energy harvesting.

Their tropical location in the so-called “doldrum” latitudes also means wind resources are poor. Fortunately, these countries – and their neighbours – can harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm equatorial seas.

Floating solar panels can also be placed on inland lakes and reservoirs. Inland floating solar has large potential and is already growing rapidly.

Our recently released paper surveys the global oceans to find regions that didn’t experience large waves or strong winds over the past 40 years. Floating solar panels in such regions do not require strong and expensive engineering defences.

Regions that don’t experience waves larger than 6 metres nor winds stronger than 15m per second could generate up to one million TWh per year. That’s about five times more annual energy than is needed for a fully decarbonised global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people.

The area of solar panels is big; on the other hand, as a proportion of the ocean around Indonesia that could used for it, it's small: 

 About 25,000 square km of solar panels would be required to support an affluent Indonesia after full decarbonisation of the economy using solar power.

Indonesia has the option of floating vast numbers of solar panels on its calm inland seas. The region has about 140,000 square km of seascape that has not experienced waves larger than 4m – nor winds stronger than 10m per second – in the past 40 years.

Indonesia’s maritime area of 6.4 million square km is 200 times larger than required if Indonesia’s entire future energy needs were met from offshore floating solar panels.

They include this map:

 

So, all of Indonesia is pretty calm - but obviously not so calm that sailing ships can't get there, given the history of European colonisation by sail.

Interesting.  I think floating solar is going to be big...