A moral choice: Part 2, the Freedom

Last time I posed some moral questions about killing and such nasty stuff. And looked at them from lets say a practical point of view. Now let's switch to looking from the perspective of freedom. Basically this is something like the other side of Utilitarism vs Kantianism. You would be very well off reading Kant's (who is probably the greatest philosopher, IMHO) books. And you will see that he is highly practical too, just smart about it.

We will be revising the dilemmas from the first part in this new light.

So let's start off with the first question: would you kill the guy on the tracks? Remember the discussion about guilt? and conscience? Well, Kant thinks that listening to our conscience is the only means of being free. It is the most intimate part of ourselves giving us advice on how we should behave. How can we even begin to imagine that if we do anything else than listen to ourselves we are really free? Here's a quote from Heinlein that might help you in your struggles:

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Then what about the uneasy part? Why do we usually associate conscience with a negative sentiment? With a preacher-like figure making reproaches instead of a helpful advisor? Well because we are not perfect and we are ashamed of it. But of course this implies we do have an image of our perfect self, and we should do everything we can to fulfill that image of ourselves. Whenever there is something to decide a good advice would be to ask yourself: What would Jesus the perfect me do?

Remember the other guy from last time? The fat guy you have to push? Of course it is immoral to push the guy. The moral problem with killing him being that the fat guy was not involved. He only gets involved if you push him, meaning you take away his freedom. People should not be used as means to an end. Did you see a flaw in this argument? I'll tell you my take on it anyway. How does this differ from the other guy? the one who is already on the tracks? He is not involved and I would guess he sure as hell doesn't want to die. The answer is: you are not in his shoes. Think about it for a moment, you cannot switch places with the guy on the tracks, but you could switch places with the fat guy. If it is moral for you to push the fat guy to save 5 people, it would be just as moral for the fat guy to push you. Frankly, your chances are pretty slim compared to the fat guy :P

And that is a highly condensed but pretty usable lesson on Kantian morality: A thing is moral if you would want it to become an universal law. Have fun with it, you just won the gold ticket of being a better person. Well unless you have inhuman views like killing all the Jews (and there you have what's wrong with the answer to the Hitler question).

But are we free to choose? or are we conditioned by our biology and surroundings?
We, generally, seem to be tricked. Here's Dan Ariely explaining it with a couple of amusing examples:

Did you like the metaphor about illusions? It looks like scientists like it a lot. I stumble upon it time and time again. Here are some more examples. Ok, so this guy likes illusions too, but he did something even more interesting. He made an experiment that tests people's willing. He measured brainwaves while instructing people to wiggle their fingers at any given time. You would expect first to see an impulse of willing to do the action and then see the waves that actually carry out the action. Actually this looks more like:

 To hear the interview about wiggling go to the last part (about min 15) of this:



Their results says that our conscious will is just a rationalization. Think that this takes away your free will? Maybe. But is it bad? Well, freedom implies making choices and if you need reminding about how terrified we are about decisions scroll a little bit up and watch Dan Ariely talking about doctors giving people a hip replacement. I'll elaborate about making decisions and if that's good or bad in some future installment I haven't planned out yet. If you are confident about making decisions, go back and read the books referenced in the previous post. Freedom is often an illusion, not always having freedom could be a blessing. And I leave you with another insightful Heinlein quote:

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

A moral choice: Part 1, the Science

What got me going this time is a debate about what is right and what is wrong. And how people make these decisions. It's from this Radiolab episode:

It has an interesting and not so interesting part. The interesting parts are the ones dealing with this guy's research, which luckily is summarized on his homepage. I'll just go ahead and copy/paste the first problem:

A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Do you turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one?  Once again, the trolley is headed for five people. You are standing next to a large man on a footbridge spanning the tracks. The only way to save the five people is to push this man off the footbridge and into the path of the trolley.  Do you push the fat man?

What struck me as odd is that there seems to be a consensus. Something like 90% of people answered Yes to the first and No to the second. If you did too, than congratulations you fit in. If not you are a monster and should be put to death. Well not exactly, but you get the point. I have to admit I was confused at both questions, because you do not have enough information: the life of that one man can be infinitely more worth than those of the 5 put together, but who are you to judge that? Anyway, adding such information I guess says more about the one answering the question...

What still leaves me confused is that being right by being consistent, a thing which is believed we do subconsciously, is socially unacceptable. I felt that asking the first question right before asking the second would condition people to realize that the two cases are the same and thus make them give the same answer in order to keep consistency (see the Influence book). Obviously I was wrong. By being right I mean of course doing the rational thing, calculating and killing the 1 to save the 5. That is after all what separates us from animals, right? Our rationality... and we will see what role it plays in the choices that we make (for an alternative take a look at part 2: Freedom). But first let's look at the second dilemma and our options. Here it is:

It's war time, and you are hiding in a basement with several other people.  The enemy soldiers are outside.  Your baby starts to cry loudly, and if nothing is done the soldiers will find you and kill you, your baby, and everyone else in the basement.  The only way to prevent this from happening is to cover your baby's mouth, but if you do this the baby will smother to death.  Do you kill your own baby?

A rational answer (so rational it becomes inhuman) would be: sure, you could always make more; but I am pretty sure I couldn't be able to, already at theoretical level, not to mention the emotional response triggered by holding the little one in your hands. And you should be aware that the emotional response is much stronger than you predict the emotional response to be (see the Predictably Irrational book). On the other hand the cynical point of view is: what do you care if the whole village dies? when you weigh it against your child, there are enough people in the world anyway... 

I don't like these lose, lose questions but apparently we can't help but find them fascinating. The child scene was analyzed in the last episode of M.A.S.H. Very powerful moment (for more on the use of moral choices in media stay tuned for part 3: Entertainment).

Now lets look a bit more at what they did here: What if it was someone else's baby? Specifically, let's take a look at this popular quiz, often found told as a joke (don't know why, maybe people think this is dark humor):

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, and she had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?

If you answered yes you just killed Beethoven. (Ignore the fact that this is totally bullshit, meaning the facts are not right, the idea is that you might have killed Beethoven. I think the point here is that it is not for you to decide)

This question often goes together with another:

It is time to elect the world leader, and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

• Candidate A associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
• Candidate B was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.
• Candidate C is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Now for the revealing: Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt, Candidate B is Winston Churchill, and Candidate C is Adolph Hitler. Anyway, I would say this only proves one thing: Hitler is the man people really want, why do people say he was evil? And you get what you deserve. Or was it more like: careful what you wish... ?

It's time to be wrapping up, don't you think? Instead of a conclusion we will be looking at the most important question of all: how do we decide? What are our moral choices based on? Is it society, upbringing etc or is it something deeper? something that is in our nature... maybe in our genes or in the place we usually go to look for answers: the brain.

Remember Joshua Green? Here's what he found: different parts of the brain light up when we do rational choices, compared to those that light up when something more instinctive is involved. For the first question, about 1 guy on the rails vs 5, only the rational parts fire up. However, when the fat guy is concerned, we "know" that it is wrong to push to kill one of our own kind, so the other parts light up more intensely. It is basically a shouting match between different parts of yourself. But what happens in the case of the baby, where they are almost evenly matched? Scientific answer: you "exhibit increased activity in anterior regions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" (or something like that, just listen to it on the Radiolab episode at the top, it's clearer). You know, the part of the brain that is more developed in humans. This gives it a nudge toward the rational side.

The distinctly human nature manifesting itself is the one making us kill our own child. And here I was thinking that the highest expression of human nature is a cat giving its life to protect its young.

PS. I'm sure this cat stuff is paraphrasing some famous quote. And I thought it was from Heinlein, but it seems I can't quite trace it.

Page not found

404
A site's 404 page is one of the best places to express creativity and keep the user entertained, and you don't have to worry about consistency and such, because nobody is supposed to see it right?
Anyway here is a collection of the most widely used examples:  http://blogof.francescomugnai.com/2008/08/the-100-most-funny-and-unusual-404-error-pages/

And if you want some more words around your examples to make one too, take a look here:  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/25/wanted-your-404-error-pages/ and here  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/17/404-error-pages-reloaded/

But the reason I wrote this post is because of the coolest one of them all, the one from Github:  https://github.com/404.
And because they might change it and just for fun here it is embedded in the blog post:

Btw. Did I mention you need to move your mouse over it?

Metal of 2010

As a new year begins, I'm making a list to remember my favorites and not-so-favorites of the last one. So here is a top-n in music:

1. Avantasia - The Wicked Symphony & Angel of Babylon
Following his worst release yet (Edguy - Tinnitus Sanctus) Tobias Sammet returns with a great offering. These two are great albums that maintain the new hard-rock style of The Scarecrow, and if he would have put a tremendous amount of extra effort and condensed them into one album I think one of the best albums of metal history could have resulted.
2. Star One - Victims of the Modern Age
Although I didn't get into it immediately I find myself listening to it time and time again. I guess it helps that songs are inspired by SF cult classic movies.
3. Rhapsody of Fire - The Frozen Tears of Angels
This is the best Rhapsody album I have listened too, even better than the ones which made them famous and overall a power metal masterpiece.
4. Vanden Plas - The Seraphic Clockwork
A new band for me and this, their best album, got my attention and I loved it.
5. Cynic - Re-Traced
A curious, new, less metal mixing of Traced in Air. Couldn't be as good as that one though.
6. Orpahned Land - The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Not as good as Mabool. but one of the best pieces of strange folkish metal.
7. Allen/Lande - The Showdown
Not as good as the previous 2 albums, but still pretty solid.
8. Nachtgeschrei - Ardeo
Not their best, but a folk metal album I enjoyed very much. Fejd's debut Eifur seems ok too, but Swedish just doesn't do anything for me. Heljareyga also are worth mentioning for the same considerations.
9. Alter Bridge - AB III
Liking this one makes me feel like a poser.
10. Tarja Turunen - What Lies Beneath
The style didn't change but this was surprisingly likeable.
11. Therion - Sitra Ahra
Strangely, I don't really like the band but this seemed like their best album to date.
12. Joe Satriani - Black Holes and Wormhole Wizards
Don't really like Satriani either, or any solo guitarists for that matter, but again this seemed his best album to date.

Albums which, surprisingly, didn't do much for me although I had high hopes:

• Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier (still expecting another Number of the Beast)
• Apocalyptica - 7th Symphony 
• Masterplan - Time to be King (Jorn Lande is back but Masterplan isn't)
• Scorpions - Sting in the Tail
• Blind Guardian - At the Edge of Time (it's supposed to be a big deal but I don't see it, yet)
• Pain of Salvation - Road Salt One
• Anathema - We're here because we're here (maybe I'll give it another go)
• Sabaton - Coat of Arms (they raised the bar a lot with the Art of War, well they lowered it again)
• Rhapsody of Fire - The Cold Embrace of Fear (not a great follow-up to their other album of the year)
• James LaBrie - Static Impulse (how does he go with death growls? sad year for Dream Theater)
• Grave Digger - The Clans Will Rise Again (I think this is their cheesiest stuff)

Special award for live album goes to Opeth - Live at the Royal Albert Hall. I don't generally like live albums but this one was great.

Another special award is going to bands who give out their stuff for free. These would be Iron Thrones, Torture Division and Ironwood (from worst to best), although they are all in the black-death area which I don't find quite enjoyable. A special award goes to How to Destroy Angels for most disturbing video I have ever seen:

If you like this kind of music I would also recommend Ice Ages - Buried Silence which I discovered this year. But I don't think that it can stir any healthy emotions.

Conclusion? more disappointing than not, with a lot of delays (lots for next year), so let's hope for a better new year :)

Customer Care

I'm sure there was a time when you got frustrated with bad service or customer care. Well, that really shouldn't happen, but the good news is it can help you stand apart. Like this guy (you need to read the text):

This thing is so awesome it almost makes me feel bad about not trying to find this guy online and asking for permission to post his masterpiece, because that's what it is, it's the Mona Lisa of customer care.

If this got you interested and want to know more about how to do good customer care, have a look at Joel's blog, especially this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

Of course you could also be at the opposite side of the spectrum, like a bank let's say. That can help you stand out too, but maybe not in the way you wanted. And there is room for awesomeness here too... It's just that you're not the one doing it and it's sad.

Btw. If you feel you don't have the talent for this, you can still try, see the giraffe neck below:

The manliest thing ever

More words would just ruin the manliness, but if you don't want to buy this truck this is what it says about you:

Two rednecks, Bubba and Cooter, decide to go to college. Bubba goes first, and he is advised to take maths, history and logic.

-- "What's logic?" says Bubba.

-- "Well, let me give you an example," says the professor. "Do you own a tractor?"

-- "Sure do," says Bubba.

-- "Okay. Then I assume, using logic, that you have a yard."

-- "That's real good," says Bubba, in awe.

-- "Logic also tells me that since you have a yard, you also have a house. Is that right?"

-- "Gawly!” says Bubba.

-- "And since you own a house and a house is tough to take care of by yourself, the odds are that you have a wife. Right?"

-- "Betty Mae! This is incredible!"

-- "Finally, since you have a wife, logically I can assume you are heterosexual. Is that right?"

-- "You are absolutely right! Why that's the most fascinatin' thang I ever heerd of. I can't wait to take this here logic class!"

Bubba, proud of the new world opening up to him, goes back into the hallway where Cooter is waiting.

-- "So what classes are ya takin’?" says Cooter.

-- "Maths, history and logic," says Bubba.

-- "What in tarnation is logic?"

-- "Let me give you an example," says Bubba. "Do you own a tractor?"

-- "No."

-- "Then you’re gay."

Gulliver's travels

With the new movie of resonant title but little promise I would like to discuss the loss of values. Why is it that people even consider making a crappy movie and dragging a good name in the mud? You know like they did for the Time Machine, and to a lesser extent once before. That was a brilliant book. Anyway, now: Gulliver's travels.

There's really nothing more to say as the original book was filled with political thoughts while satirizing the then popular travel novels. A movie filled with political insight and satirizing today's 3D movies would have been more appropriate. So that you can get a proper taste of Jonathan Swift take a look here. Disclaimer: this article is not for the faint of heart, but you should at least read the introduction and the end. The depiction kind of makes me sad as nothing seems to have changed considerably... To get an idea this is how I found out about the essay, starting from this demotivational poster:

How to Raise Your I.Q. by Eating Gifted Children

How this book could ever get written and published is beyond me... am I the only one who thinks there are retarded people out there who might take it literally? Like the ones making these crappy movies.

To end on a happier note: For a brilliant film inspired by the book, but having little to do with it, I recommend Laputa. While it does have some touching and almost deep moments it is clearly an action movie, much better than almost anything Hollywood put out lately.

PS. Should you be looking for the book, I found it here.