Why do you need a new year?

It is a strange tradition to me, to pick a random date on the calender and decide that that day will be the beginning of a new start.  Sure, it is easy to remember the new year.  It is a good particular time, a good way to gauge your progress.  But there is also a feeling of getting a "clean slate" and I feel like that is awfully odd.  If a new year can give you a clean slate, so can any new day.  People who recover from drug addiction often have this mentality.  "I have been sober since _____."  To them, that is their new year, their new slate.  This is true for everyone.  Everyone can pick any day, any moment, to be the beginning of their new slate on any issue.

The End of the Internet Revolution

This is something I was thinking about last night.  The internet is often associated with a large amount of change.  You read articles where people say that things are "moving faster and faster."  As if to imply that change is happening more and more frequently.  However, I am curious how much we can maintain this level of evolution.  Will there be a point at which we stop adding websites to the internet that will become "mainstays"?  And are there websites that have already become mainstays and won't ever move, like utility companies in real industry?

Two examples of internet mainstays that come to mind are Google, and Facebook. Both of have functions that are integral to the way that users interact with the internet.  Facebook has become a way for people to communicate with their friends interests through the internet, thus the integral function of Facebook becomes the social center of the internet.  While this was still being fought out in the early internet phase, there was a chance that a messenger service, or e-mail, or myspace, could become this mainstay.  However, right now it looks like Facebook has won that social war.

Similarly, Google has become the vehicle through which people interact with information on the internet.  Facebook has a little of this, in its new "like" application. (Shameless plug, check press facebook like to the right if you like this post!) The like function makes it so that we interact with information socially.  We find out what websites our friends like, rather than directly searching for information.  However, Google allows us to directly connect with information and search out the information that we find useful in the most efficient means possible.  And beat out early sites like askjeeves.com, yahoo.com, etc. in the early competitive phase of the internet.

Now, the question I wonder is if these websites, along with a few other will become mainstays of the internet.  If, 40 years from now we will still be using these websites in (largely) the same fundamental ways that I identified above: Facebook as the core of social networking; Google as our fundamental connection to information. I feel that we will.  They have permanent industries that the internet revolves around in many ways.

To me this signals the end of integral internet revolutions, websites that change the way we interact within the internet.  I think there is still a lot of room for innovation and new ideas to come to fruition.  But I feel like we have reached the point where those ideas have started to revolve around ideas that already exist.  That in order for them to be successful they require these fundamental instruments (I like the name that I just came up with in my head "internet utility companies" or "internet utilities") to operate.

For example, the newest innovation on the internet that has become really big is twitter (now with 200 million users.) However, when it first came out people said that it was merely texting your facebook statuses to your friends.  Which essentially it is.  And it has now been linked with facebook in such a way that you can twitter your facebook status, or turn your facebook statuses into twitters.  In this way, while twitter is a separate organism its social networking happens through facebook.

Google, on the other end of the spectrum, has become a mechanism by which different websites search for different things.  So, if you go to site specific search engines on many sites it is "powered by google."  Google has developed into a microcosmic search engine tool, just as much as it is a macrocosmic search engine.  It's still the basis for internet information seeking.  Thus, the nature of information seeking (using keywords, rather than the social information seeking of facebook) has routed itself through Google.

These websites have become fundamental to the way that the internet functions, and consequently, I think internet innovation surrounds them.  They have become the spiders behind the "web" of the internet.  Before I wrote this post I had started to think that the internet had reached a "limit" of innovation.  However, as I continued to write it I have started to think that it hasn't reached its "limit" but instead has just finally found form.  That the chaos that seethed at the beginning of the internet has now resolved itself into certain structures.

I think in a few years this form will solidify even more.  We will really begin to see the structure behind the way the internet operates.  And I think that those core forms, like Facebook and Google, possibly others that I haven't identified will remain part of the internet for many years to come.  Innovation will happen on the internet, and will happen fast, however the broad changes in the fundamental way that we interact throughout the world will slow down.  I think the last twenty years or so will be looked at as the period of the "internet revolution."  Where this mode of information sharing was new and exciting, and no one knew quite what would happen with it.

However, I think this period has ended.  That while the internet (and improved telecommunications in general) has increased the speed at which ideas move and come to fruition fundamentally, it won't constantly improve the speed of information sharing.  At some point we will stop feeling like change is happening "faster and faster" and instead it will just happen at the speed it happens at.  A speed which will be defined by the speed at which these core structures of the internet can distribute information.  And will in general be fast.

So, in summary, the way that the internet "changes" in terms of broadness of form, and speed of change will level out.  New ideas will happen and they will happen fast, but those ideas won't fundamentally change the way that we interact.  Those interaction-based changes have mostly already happened and are establishing set means for information exchange to occur.  There may be many more amazing internet ideas and internet companies.  But the utilities, the internet infrastructure, has already been established and is here to stay.

(Just a side note, if you like this article, subscribe by e-mail, share the article on facebook, or like this article on stumbleupon.  In that way you can use those core mechanisms and help share information faster! :-).)

True reconilliation?

I recently read an article in TIME magazine ("Obama and McConnell: The Odd Couple" http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2039941,00.html) that raised a lot of questions for me. It is about how McConnell and Obama are seeking middle ground and working out issues, despite an extreme history of partisanship.  Yet the entire discourse surrounding their "middle ground" is edged with the language of their partisanship.  Their union becomes just another tool in order to advance partisan goals.  For example:

Obama is determined to win back independent voters over the coming year by demonstrating that he can channel the partisan furies in Washington into productive, bipartisan policies.

 Now, to me, this is rather odd.  The idea that the point of reaching bipartisan solution on issues is to win votes for your side.  Forgive me for being naive, but shouldn't bipartisan solution exist for its own sake?  Shouldn't our politicians be problem solvers first partisans second?  The partisanship representing a natural approval or disapproval of ideas, or a way for voters to decide which ideas have more weight? But instead, there is the impression that the natural relationship that problem solving has to partisanship is reversed.  They attempt to reach bipartisan solutions in order to make it so that they can become partisan enough to not have to need to really work with the other side.  McConnell, at least in the way he is painted by TIME has, perhaps, a slightly healthier viewpoint:

McConnell, a consummate legislator, does not view compromise as a synonym for surrender, especially if Obama is willing to make deals with the Republican side of the aisle. "The work on the tax package was a good example of an area where we can do some business," McConnell told TIME over the holiday break. "And in the future, if the President is willing to move in a different direction, taking positions that I and my members hold anyway, why would we reject that?"

This is interesting to me in that, while he doesn't see "compromise as a synonym for surrender" that is just because in order for the president to compromise he has to surrender.  The form of compromise he is talking about is really just where one side passes the deal of the other.  It is not a union of ideas in any significant sense.  However, the next bit in this article gave me some hope.

McConnell has already signaled his willingness to work with the White House on energy policy, particularly nuclear and coal subsidies, as well as long-range entitlement reform. White House aides are pushing for bipartisan cooperation on further education reforms.
 

I think it is good that they want to work together on these issues.  Even if the specific policies that are talked about in this article are traditionally republican energy policies.  It is still a step in the right direction because it seems that they are actually going to help compile ideas and attempt to come up with a successful policy from the merger of those ideas.  However, this line is what scares me:

But if there is room for such cooperation, no one expects the two leaders to become friends.

Because what it implies is that while they may work together, they still see each other as enemies.  As people who sit on other sides of the aisle and want very different things.  Each exchange is one of sacrifice, where they have to sacrifice ideas they like for ones that they don't and would rather not.  They don't see it as a true process of reconciling ideas, but instead a painful process where they don't get everything they "want."  They are giving ideas over to their enemies.  Not constructing a cogent policy.

So, the question of this post:

The one argument I often hear that has some truth to it is that these policies where they just merge ideas are often weaker than policies that would be more "pure."  While I said this has some truth, I often hear it from extreme partisans.  But have believed it myself at the time. So, I'm curious what type of political reconciliation people think tends to be better (and if it tends to be better).

Is cutting deals where both sides get their policies passed is true reconciliation?  Can we have such an inconsistent legislative agenda as to just pass a conservative and a liberal agenda and actually establish a better future?  Would following the vision of one side be preferable or less preferable than this sort of reconciliation? Or, would it be, as I think it would be, better to try and form a bipartisan vision of a political agenda, and what would that look like?

Anyway, I am inviting people to post their ideas on this matter.  If you find this question interesting also please feel free to share this post on facebook or twitter!  The link to do this is on the side.

The Derivative of a Policy

Last night I had a discussion with one of my friends where he said that the only way to objectively judge a policy is to quantify it.  I said to him that this doesn't work because then it becomes a discussion of which numbers.  "The GDP went up 10%, but only for the upper 10% of the U.S."

Policy issues, no matter how quantified, we came to conclude, always reduce to questions of philosophy.  Consequently, reaching a deeper philosophical consensus on issues, will allow us to come up with a better mode of analysis for each issue.  However, I feel that often these issues are relative based on the particular issue that we are facing.  So perhaps we need to strike a middle ground between finding a larger general consensus, but a consensus that still oscillates between different view points and allows for a certain level of leeway on an issue by issue basis.  Although, that would seem like the status quo.  I think the difference, the important difference, is the direction of the discussion.

In our current discourse we oscillate around a central policy by attempting to rip control of the policy away from the oppositional party.  Which makes it so that these changes often result in dramatic oscillations.  "Back lash."  A series of intensely progressive, state-interventionist policies will be followed by the destruction of government agencies and a huge amount of tax reduction.  Thus we are left with something like more spending and less taxes.  Less government, and more government responsibility.  I think a discourse of "resolution" solves these issues because its goal is to develop a collective vision rather than having two parties fight to see which vision will win out, where in the end, both lose, and so do we.

In Depth Explanation of Blog's Philosophy Part 3 (Dialectics vs. More Complex Structures)

I think this is an important issue to address because it gets at the fundamental way I initially wanted to structure this blog.  And I guess it is an appropriate thing to resolve before I move on into doing other concepts.

A dialectic is based in the Greek philosophical dialogues which involved two different perspectives on an issue and attempted to reach truth through discussion.  Neither side was very beholden to their perspectives, but instead they tore apart their opponents ideas and attempted to reach the "golden nugget of truth" that existed within it.  Or, as it tends to play out, prove the idea of their opponent false altogether.

I think that the last aspect of a dialectic discussion is actually what this blog is against.  The idea that in order to reach truth you must "destroy" an argument, and in so doing you will reach a more accurate conclusion.  I don't think that this tends to work out, as I explained in the Explanation of the Blog's Philosophy part 1.  Instead, I think that this form of dialectic has led to people who really think about both sides of an issue to feel that both sides are false.  That there is very rarely a "correct" answer when there are two opposing viewpoints that are critical of each other.

(The exception of course being like issues of race, or sexual orientation, where in my view there is clearly a correct side.  However, I think that to say that someone should be "equal" is actually the middle of the road argument.  It suggests everyone is the same, which is the middle between two radical perspectives of one group should be stronger, and another should be weaker.)

In that way I have come to like the Hegelian form of dialectic.  Where there is a thesis an antithesis and then the solution to these two ideas is the synthesis.  (For example, thesis = dogs, antithesis = cat, synthesis = cat-dog.)  The flaw in this thinking is obviously "more complex structures" we can have more than two oppositional ideas.  There could be three ideas that interact, or whatever.  Dropping into a thesis-antithesis pair (sometimes referred to as a dichotomy), is a fairly simplistic form of thinking sometimes.

However, I really like the idea of "merging" concepts that exists there.  And ultimately that is the form of analysis that I want to establish in this blog.  One in which we focus on a framework of "resolution" rather than opposition.  Consequently, the more complex structures of analysis that were taken in opposition to the dialectic are actually possible within a sort of dialectic. 

We could take three ideas and merge them together just as easily (well, just as theoretically possibly) as we merge together two ideas, and I actually think that this is would be a beautiful thing to do.  I think the more we merge together the more truth we would be able to get out of the merger.  And this kind of touches upon a direction I want to take this blog in eventually, namely, merging ideas that have already been merged together.

And so I guess as a response to this criticism, people should feel free to suggest 3 opposing ideas, or 4 opposing ideas just as much as they are free to suggest 2 opposing ideas.  The interesting thing about these two "opposing ideas," though, is that I don't really feel that they were ever opposing at all.  But maybe that is the point of all this.

A Slippery Slope Fallacy Society

I had a discussion today that reminded me of the importance of this blog's mission.  My mom and my Grandma and I had an in depth discussion about the health care bill.  My Grandma was opposed to this because it "allowed for the government to tell us to buy a product" (referring to the mandate that everyone buy health insurance). Now what was interesting to me about this discussion is that it ended up about being what a bill "justified" rather than the actual merits of the bill.

While I felt the same as her, that the health care bill's mandate to force people to buy health care was bad, and many of our justifications were the same, we still didn't feel the same in that I didn't believe that the health care bill necessarily "justified" anything.  I think pragmatically, the mandate could force people who can't afford health insurance to buy it, and then pay a fine if they can't afford it, which is wrong, and will lead to a lot of issues.  But it's not because the passage of the bill means that we will eventually live in a Marxist or communist or fascist or totalitarian etc state.

To say that one "policy" justifies another causes us to fall into the slippery slope fallacy.  (Something we see a lot of Glenn Beck's TV show, for example.)  Where a simple policy is similar to that of another country that did something despicable and consequently we will do something despicable because we have a similar policy.  That is ridiculous.

I will give an example of this sort of logic.  The NAZI's provided health insurance for their veterans.  The U.S. too gives health insurance to our veterans.  Consequently, the US will soon become NAZI Germany. 

In a lecture once I heard a joke about this sort of philosophical application.  The lecturer called it the transitive property of Hitler's pants.  "Hitler wears pants, you wear pants, consequently, you are Hitler."  It is ridiculous, but a similar, almost as extreme, sort of logic is used on a regular basis in the discussions we have about policies in this country.

I think ultimately this is why we have so much trouble reaching conclusions on policy issues.  Because instead of debating the benefits of a policy, we also debate what a policy justifies.  People reach extreme conclusions about policies by comparing them to similar policies that are far more draconian than the policy itself. I'm not worried about all of this in the abstract, like that we might get to the point where all our political discussions consist of slippery slope fallacies and we don't get anywhere in our political discussions.  Because that itself would be a slippery slope fallacy. I am worried because I think that we are already there. And to me, that is far more worrying than the existential threat of Hitler's pants.

A Thought About the Blog

So, today I decided that in addition to the main project of the blog, I want to explain basic philosophy to people who read the blog so that they can understand what is going on.  Philosophy, particularly of the sort that I want to be talking about which will probably always be also sociological, needs to be understood I think by everyone, since they are so pertinent to our daily life.  I think that is what has lead to the decline of the quality of conversation in this country, that elites have filled what is actually going on with so much jargon (political, financial, and otherwise) that many people just don't understand what is going on anymore.

In Depth Explanation of Blog's Philosophy Part 2

(continued from last post)
Rather, I think that the mode of analysis we should take is one of a merger of ideas.  It is a project that people should take on.  Everyone should be willing to get release themselves of their ideological leaning and address each issue as a pragmatic issue.  But, in order to do this we must also be able to merge our modes of analysis.  We must align our goals and each have reciprocal feelings of what a problem is.  I may think that poverty is a problem, whereas a libertarian would think the government taking money from individuals to help impoverished people is a problem.

That's why there had to be some pretense for how I am evaluating these issues.  And I am really looking for people who can break down what I am saying here and come up with better solutions.  But for now, I am thinking that there needs to be two ideological premises (which of course, can at any point be undermined) but that to which we should try to stick.

The first is utilitarianism in its most simplistic sense - the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
The second is pragmatism - in that we need to come up with working solutions to each problem.

The reason for the second is a belief I have developed over time.  Which is that ideologies themselves are problems and not smart ways of evaluating issues.  For example, if Marxism were the correct system for the human good then, if we made pragmatic solutions to every problem, in the eye that we were trying to help the general welfare of society, then we would naturally end up under a Marxist system.  I think the requirement is that we look for the good of all people when evaluating these issues (if there is an issue that falls under a pre-tense of being one that could benefit people or not.)

In Depth Explanation part 3 will be addressing the issue of dialectics vs. more complex structures that my friend suggested to me.

Poll For The Week/Month

My friend showed me these busts which he saw at an art museum in New York.
(Man With Constipation.)

The friend of the artist hung out with this guy named Mesmer (where the mesmerize came from.)  Who was a hypnotist and also believed that your inner personality reflected on your physical features.  Which lead to an interesting discussion about whether or not your physical features really do reflect your personality.

Anyway, the poll is the result of that debate.

And here is the link to the website with the busts if you want to take a look at more. 
http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/items/1454.

In Depth Explanation of Blog's Philosophy Part 1

I have kind of given blurbs thus far explaining what the point of this site is.  I want to flesh out some of the details a little.  Although, to be fair I have not fleshed out all the details in my head and am still working it out.  Which is why this is a project.

I did a lot of debate in High School.  And after years of discussing both side of basically every issue I broke into a sort of nihilism.  Or disbelief that any idea could truly be logically valid, as you could make every idea sound good and sound logical if you thought about it for long enough. In fact, one time I read an article in a philosophical journal that was labeled "Resisting the Force of Argumentation" or something along those lines.  Which I found intriguing.

The reason it was intriguing to me, particularly as a debater, was that I thought that one could always be convinced by something as long as it sounded logical enough.  This article suggested that perhaps that wasn't the case, perhaps we should go with our base emotional reaction to an argument, even if we can't find flaws in it.  This brought to mind images of ignorant individuals who refuse to listen to egalitarian arguments because they just "feel" like some target group was inferior. 

Of course I could be misinterpreting the argument that the author was making.  Yet, the core concept that sticks with me upon writing this is that there is some falseness to "logic" and that perhaps solid "logic" isn't the best way to interpret an argument.  Most arguments it seem to me are logically sound, and attempts to invalidate the different premises of those arguments tend to break down into "tick for tack" (as Obama seems to like to say) arguments where nothing is accomplished but a form of intellectual exercise. 

The very intellectual act of an argument or debate (which makes up the crux of basically every piece of discourse around any topic of... well, discord) makes it impossible to develop real solutions.  Once people take sides all is lost.  So, rather, I think this mode of disagreement, pointing out flaws, leads to truth thinking is flawed.

Blog Advertising

I'm attempting to advertise and get my blog out there.  So as part of that I am making accounts on sites where you can post your blog and become part of the blogging community.  I will also get to see all the cool things that people are writing about and understand what is out there more.


Part of doing this though requires that I post a link to the community in order to "verify" my blog.

So here we go...
BlogCatalog

Project

I decided to re-frame what I am considering this blog to be in my head.  Not really an open diary of my thoughts and opinions for the day.  (Although there will be some of that.) But also what I am going to call an "intellectual project" where I think about how to resolve contradictory ideas in philosophy, sociology, etc.  The synthesis of antitheses, in a Hegelian sense, since I believe too much of our discourse is centered around diverging ideas and trying to prove one idea is "better than others" rather than an attempt to merge equally good (or probably equally bad, in reality) ideas.

I'm looking for people to contribute contradictory ideas.  And then the idea is that once I make a post explaining how I reconcile them, other people can post their opinions of how I reconciled them/help to better reconcile them.

I'm working on figuring out how to get more followers.  But if no one comments soon I will come up with my own idea for contradictory ideas, until more people start following the blog.

Focus

So, after thinking for a little while and reading.  I decided that this blog would be more effective if it had more focus.  So I am going to focus it as a public thought experiment of some ideas that I have been thinking about for a long time.

Mainly, the idea that we are too divisive in our thinking.  That true creative thinking develops from a union of ideas.  That reaching consensus is a truly beautiful gesture in human behavior.  And that's what is important to me.  To discover divisions and to figure out how to place them together.

And so REALLY IMPORTANTLY: While I realize that no one is following this blog right now, if someone happens to stumble upon it, please post two divergent ideas, two concept that seem at odds with each other.  (Examples: capitalism versus socialism, individualism versus collectivism, freedom versus equality).  And I want to try and think of resolutions to those ideas.  As a thought experiment. :-).

Alright, so, fuck it

Sooo, I am starting this narcissistic gesture called a blog.  Mostly because I think my thoughts are more important, and more in depth than most people's, and maybe if I place them publicly on the internet, then perhaps I won't have to overwhelm my friends with them.  Or perhaps I will remember them when I think back.  I have tried to keep a diary before, but I think it lacks a certain amount of showmanship and attention that I crave.  And at least here there is an off chance someone will stumbleupon my page?

I plan to talk about politics, sociology, philosophy, religious (spirituality), books (which tend to include many of those things), possibly finances, and inspirational self-help advice/thoughts.

I'll start with the latter of those things as it was the inspiration for this post:

Recently, when I have become overwhelmed with doubt and worry about the actions I choose to do are the wrong actions, I have started to say "fuck it," which I have found to be a very useful way of framing the situation.

Somehow, it sublimates laziness into action.  It's just easier not to get upset or worried about things.  Because, fuck it, it probably is a small deal anyway.

Edit:: In retrospect this post was way more cocky than I intended, and should be read as tongue in cheek.