The Google God

Tonight's discourse:

Pace: I really think once people realise the efficiency, many will start programming to the Google Ap engine


Consigliere: uuuuuuuuuugh
that's a TERRIBLE idea
we already have one giant fucking monolith, i.e. Microsoft
why would we want to trade one for another?
the last thing the web needs is a single point of failure, like if google goes down and takes everybody's webapps with it


Pace: they are at least better than M$ - should theoretically still be reployable elsewhere without too much modification


Consigliere: they're only tbetter than M$ at the moment b/c htey';re not as big/dominant
but they certainly will become so
and there's a huge difference between "theoretically" and "in realitiy"


Pace: they do support open source though


Consigliere: it doesn't matter
I"m glad they do
but it'd still be a single point of failure


Pace: agreed


Consigliere: and god only knows what they'd do with all that data once they had it


Pace: they would become God


Consigliere: yeah, but a God beholden to capitalist shareholders


Pace: yes


Consigliere: it woudl be very Old Testament


Pace: haha

Mormons

PBS recently produced a 4 hour documenatary series about the Mormons (torrents). An accurate and fairly respectful work, it does gloss over some of the stranger sides of Mormon theology. Mormonism is in many respects an American Muslim styled religion although this parallel is completely ignored by the documentary and probably most Mormons themselves. South Park had a very good episode "All About the Mormons" from Season 7. Given that Mormons now even have a US Presidential candidate, they are worth understanding.

N-tuplets

Humanity has long been plagued with the very difficult task of bearing and birthing children. It is one of the most dangerous periods of life for both mother and child. Complications from this ordeal more often than not resulted in mortality. Today, modern medical science has drastically reduced the probability of death from such complications and has even given fertility hope to many couples who would have been doomed by their own biology never to produce viable offspring. Unfortunately, the innate drive to reproduce has caused many couples to push their own biology to the limit of medical science in trying to produce offspring. Once impregnated through a cocktail of drugs, hormones and possibly invasive procedures sometimes involving third parties as donors or hosts, couples will then decide to try to simultaneously bring multiple babies to term even as many as 7 at a time. If this is not a crime against those children and a crime against nature then I do not know what is. The children tend to be born prematurely and are at extreme risk through their entire development process. The most bizarre part is that these couples will not terminate some of the pregnancies for the good of the rest because of their religious hang-ups. I can appreciate an anti-abortionist position, but for a woman to undergo such unnatural and dangerous procedures and then claim a profound respect for the dignity of human life is well beyond my comprehension.

When technology is sufficiently advanced, one can more seriously consider a Brave New World in which children are grown by the hundreds in artificial wombs. In such a scenario, there would presumably be little danger to the child's safety or development. A person could then spawn as many genetically similar children as they had desire and means to support.

Here on early 21st Century Earth, upright, large brained humans cannot reproduce in litters. Reproductive technologies are very fresh and need not be used lightly to satisfy some perverted fantasy or primitive impulse. There are literally millions of unwanted or orphaned children around the world. Infertile parents should consider adoption. I propose that carrying greater than 3 unnaturally conceived children simultaneously to term should be criminally prosecuted or prohibitively taxed. Society might also consider removing the children from those households since clearly such parents are unfit.

Regulatory Bodies and Societal Detriment

I have made several statements regarding the absurdity of the FDA's announced position that cannabis has no proven medical benefit. It undermines the legitimacy of this administrative authority. Politically motivated lies and interdiction on medicine, the most sacred of human institutions, originating from the medical regulatory body itself cannot be tolerated. A caveat emptor, free market for medicine would be preferable to draconian restrictions by religiously driven inquisitions.

Now there is some hope. Americans for Safe Access has sued the FDA for violating the Data Quality Act. This comes via the Drug Law Blog (RSS), a very informative source for legal developments in the execrable "War on Drugs," a war against human dignity itself.

Gay Adoption

I came across this article this morning. The article arises from the current row in the UK concerning whether Catholic adoption agencies may exclude potential adoptive parents on the basis of sexual orientation. Most gays I know disagree with me in recognising pædophilia as a sexual orientation. Nevertheless I do and to the extent possible sympathise with those of such unfortunate predilections. Unlike normal homosexuality though, pædophiles require particular scrutiny and caution when it comes to interaction with children. The problem of adoption comes when normal homosexuals are conflated with pædophiles. If there were a high correlation between the two phenomenon, there may be a case to be made, but I have not seen any such evidence to that effect.

Homosexuals are just as capable as heterosexuals of providing prosperous homes and loving parenting. Indeed, given the population pressures our world is suffering combined with high levels of inequality, affluent homosexual adoptive couples are something of a godsend. Any people innocently, selflessly, and lovingly willing to give their time, energy, and soul to raising another's child should be revered in our society.

Regarding the legality of a religious organisation in discriminating adoptive couples, I must side with the religious organisations. Catholic organisations pushing for the right of discrimination against homosexuals are confused about child welfare and confused about the doctrines of their own faith. However, the right of conscientious action or objection for a religious organisation should be respected. Moreover, biological parents should have at least the control over their child's rearing in selecting adoption agencies holding similar values to their own. Therefore, the marginal decision for potentially gay versus straight adoption should rest with the biological parent. In this case, according special rights to gays in the guise of anti-discrimination actually amounts to pernicious undue privilege.

On the other side of the coin, the most harmful laws in this category are those which ban gay adoption.

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was one of the most articulate and rational thinkers of the past 50 years. A visionary, humanist, planetary scientist and professor at Cornell University, he put considerable effort into communicating the knowledge and implications of scientific revelation to the general public. On issues from science, public and foreign policy, and informed religious belief, he was an important voice for mankind. Indeed, when in my previous post I declared that technocrats should be the ones setting policy, I was referring to men such as him. His public television series 'Cosmos' should be required viewing.

He died 10 years ago.

Incidentally, most of his public writing was shaped by his regular use of cannabis. While he remained private about this issue during his life so as not to detract from his important public message, he anonymously advocated very strongly for its legalisation and responsible use.

Recently, his wife was interviewed recently by Ira Flatow on NPR Science Friday. This is an archived interview of Carl Sagan himself with Flatow from 1994 which I highly recommend.

My good friend Timothy recently posted about Sagan as well.

Carl Jung

Man's relation to God probably has to undergo a certain important change: Instead of the propitiating praise to an unpredictable king or the child's prayer to a loving father, the responsible living and fulfilling of the divine will in us will be our form of worship and commerce with God.

His goodness means grace and light and His dark side the terrible temptation of power.

Man has already received so much knowledge that he can destroy his own planet.

Let us hope that God's good spirit will guide him in his decisions, because it will depend upon man's decision whether God's creation will continue.

Nothing shows more drastically than this possibility how much of divine power has come within the reach of man.

-Carl G. Jung, Letter to Elined Kotschnig, 1956

Documentary 'Matter of the Heart' on Carl G. Jung.

What is Life?

Is each individual cell of a complex organism equivalent to the entire organism. Genetically speaking, yes. This has now been demonstrated. An entire mouse has been generated from a single non-reproductive blood cell. An egg cell was also used, but eggs are not themselves viable nor reproductive. This finding makes it clear that there is nothing particularly special about an embryonic stem cell from a philosophical point of view. Real scientists have known this for years despite what religious or political forces may imagine. In 'Monty Python's The Meaning of Life' there is the song 'Every Sperm is Sacred.' This parody of absurd religious thinking now should to be changed to 'Every Cell is Sacred.'

People should have the right to reproduce as they see fit assuming they have paid their dues/taxes to society and are not through recklessness creating a malformed or diseased offspring in an artificial way. Scientists should have the right to experiment with whatever cells they want to which are created artificially and have no possibility of causing human suffering.