Category Archives: Philosophy

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

New Amsterdam

68 Comments

I don’t actually watch that much network television, but I have to admit that I probably watch more Foxfare than anything else.

Tonight, there premiered a new show, called “New Amsterdam.”

It’s an interesting premise. A man who was born in the early seventeenth century (or even a century before) is given eternal (or almost eternal–hang on) life in perpetual youth. He lives that long life in what was at that time New Amsterdam, but what become shortly thereafter (once the British took it from the Dutch) New York.

He sees the village evolve into a town, then into a city, then into the greatest city in the western world (if not the world itself), which is why it was attacked six and a half years ago by those to whom the western world is an anathema to their seventh-century beliefs. But I digress.

He becomes a homicide detective in that great city, and his knowledge of the past is a great aid in solving gotham crimes.

As I said, an interesting premise. I mean, given that CSI, Wherever, is one of the biggest hits on network television, how could any producer turn it down?

But there’s a (supposedly) dark undercurrent to the story.

His eternal life is not viewed, by the story writers or himself, as a blessing. It is apparently a curse. He cannot end his life volitionally. The only way to put an end to this (apparent, and obvious, at least to the script writers) misery of endless youth and health is to find his true love.

Then he can die.

Just how perverse is that?

Let’s parse it.

OK, so you’ve “suffered” through four centuries of youthful life, in perpetual health, in a world in which your chances of dying are nil, and you apparently don’t even suffer any pain, though this is a world in which even dentistry is barbaric for at least the first three hundred years. And now, after having seen a little village purchased with beads on a little island at the mouth of a river, you’ve watched it become the most powerful city on the planet, you want to check out?

You’re in the early twenty-first century, about to enter a world in which many may join you in your longevity, though without the “burden” if having to find their true love to end it.

Well, both boo, and hoo.

Here’s the thing that makes this science fiction (or rather, speculative fiction).

In the real world, people who are offered the gift of living forever will also have the capability of ending that endless life, barring some sadistic fascist government that (like some perceptions of God) thinks that the individuals are the property of the state, and not of themselves. If they really get tired of life, they will check out, either legally and easily, or illegally and in a more difficult manner. But the will to die, if it is strong enough, will win out.

So to me, the real suspension of disbelief in this new series is not that a man could live for four hundred years, but rather, that he would have to live that long in misery.

Thus, it is more of a morality tale, based on unrealistic premises, than one based on anything resembling the true future.

I hope that no one decides that long life is a bad thing, and more importantly, that no one thinks that it is something that no one should have, based on this foolish, deathist premise.

General Science, Philosophy, Space Science

Don’t Know Much About Gravity

18 Comments

…or at least as much as we think we do. Does the gravity model need to be adjusted?

In the one probe the researchers did not confirm a noticeable anomaly with, MESSENGER, the spacecraft approached the Earth at about latitude 31 degrees north and receded from the Earth at about latitude 32 degrees south. “This near-perfect symmetry about the equator seemed to result in a very small velocity change, in contrast to the five other flybys,” Anderson explained — so small no anomaly could be confirmed.

The five other flybys involved flights whose incoming and outgoing trajectories were asymmetrical with each other in terms of their orientation with Earth’s equator.

For instance, the NEAR mission approached Earth at about latitude 20 south and receded from the planet at about latitude 72 south. The spacecraft then seemed to fly 13 millimeters per second faster than expected. While this is just one-millionth of that probe’s total velocity, the precision of the velocity measurements was 0.1 millimeters per second, carried out as they were using radio waves bounced off the craft. This suggests the anomaly seen is real — and one needing an explanation.

Well, gravity just like evolution, is (in the words of anti-evolutionists) only a theory. It’s not reality–it’s simply an attempt to model it. And for most purposes, it does a pretty good job. But one of the reasons to do space, I think, is that it gives us new laboratories to make new discoveries about basic physics, the potential of which is unforeseeable.

General Science, Philosophy, Space Science

Don’t Know Much About Gravity

…or at least as much as we think we do. Does the gravity model need to be adjusted?

In the one probe the researchers did not confirm a noticeable anomaly with, MESSENGER, the spacecraft approached the Earth at about latitude 31 degrees north and receded from the Earth at about latitude 32 degrees south. “This near-perfect symmetry about the equator seemed to result in a very small velocity change, in contrast to the five other flybys,” Anderson explained — so small no anomaly could be confirmed.

The five other flybys involved flights whose incoming and outgoing trajectories were asymmetrical with each other in terms of their orientation with Earth’s equator.

For instance, the NEAR mission approached Earth at about latitude 20 south and receded from the planet at about latitude 72 south. The spacecraft then seemed to fly 13 millimeters per second faster than expected. While this is just one-millionth of that probe’s total velocity, the precision of the velocity measurements was 0.1 millimeters per second, carried out as they were using radio waves bounced off the craft. This suggests the anomaly seen is real — and one needing an explanation.

Well, gravity just like evolution, is (in the words of anti-evolutionists) only a theory. It’s not reality–it’s simply an attempt to model it. And for most purposes, it does a pretty good job. But one of the reasons to do space, I think, is that it gives us new laboratories to make new discoveries about basic physics, the potential of which is unforeseeable.

General Science, Philosophy, Space Science

Don’t Know Much About Gravity

…or at least as much as we think we do. Does the gravity model need to be adjusted?

In the one probe the researchers did not confirm a noticeable anomaly with, MESSENGER, the spacecraft approached the Earth at about latitude 31 degrees north and receded from the Earth at about latitude 32 degrees south. “This near-perfect symmetry about the equator seemed to result in a very small velocity change, in contrast to the five other flybys,” Anderson explained — so small no anomaly could be confirmed.

The five other flybys involved flights whose incoming and outgoing trajectories were asymmetrical with each other in terms of their orientation with Earth’s equator.

For instance, the NEAR mission approached Earth at about latitude 20 south and receded from the planet at about latitude 72 south. The spacecraft then seemed to fly 13 millimeters per second faster than expected. While this is just one-millionth of that probe’s total velocity, the precision of the velocity measurements was 0.1 millimeters per second, carried out as they were using radio waves bounced off the craft. This suggests the anomaly seen is real — and one needing an explanation.

Well, gravity just like evolution, is (in the words of anti-evolutionists) only a theory. It’s not reality–it’s simply an attempt to model it. And for most purposes, it does a pretty good job. But one of the reasons to do space, I think, is that it gives us new laboratories to make new discoveries about basic physics, the potential of which is unforeseeable.

Economics, Humor, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Idiot Alert

Over at Reason, the sad tale of a free-loader wannabe:

The group was now “out of food, hadn’t slept in days and were really cold,” and decided, in a grubby version of Dunkirk, to abandon the mission and head back to England. Boyles is disappointed-but not deterred. He is, the BBC reports, planning “to walk around the coast of Britain instead, learning French as he goes, so he can try again next year.” At which point the cycle begins anew, when, upon reaching Baden-Baden, the poor lad will realize that he should have also studied German.

As Wilde said in another context, one would have to have a heart of stone to read this and not laugh out loud.

Philosophy, Political Commentary

Was Burke A Fascist?

19 Comments

Some thoughts from Jonah.

And I thought this bit, while not directly pertinent to the point, did seem pertinent to some recent discussion here.

The reaction from so many liberals to William F. Buckley’s death is a good case in point. How many of them insist that even though Buckley recanted his earlier views on race that these views are all important and eternal when it comes to assessing the man? But the fact that the founding fathers of Progressivism and modern liberalism were chock-a-block with imperialists, racists, eugenicists, fascist-sympathizers and crypto-fascists is not only completely irrelevant but tediously old news? Am I alone in seeing a disconnect here?

No. No, you’re not.

General, Philosophy, Political Commentary

RIP WFB

23 Comments

While I’m not a conservative, and never have been, I came to appreciate William F. Buckley much more as I grew older and started reading National Review (though not consistently–I’ve never had a subscription) back in the Reagan years. An intellectual giant has passed.

The Corner is (not surprisingly) all WFB all the time right now.

[Update at 2:30 PM]

A tribute from Mario Cuomo:

I was privileged to know William Buckley for more than 20 years and was in fact his opponent in his last public debate.

He may not have been unique. But I have never encountered his match. He was a brilliant, gentle, charming philosopher, seer and advocate.

William Buckley died … but his complicated brilliance in thought and script will survive him for as long as words are read. And words are heard.

[Early evening update]

Bob Poole weighs in, with a libertarian perspective:

By creating National Review in 1955 as a serious, intellectually respectable conservative voice (challenging the New Deal consensus among thinking people), Buckley created space for the development of our movement. He kicked out the racists and conspiracy-mongers from conservatism and embraced Chicago and Austrian economists, introducing a new generation to Hayek, Mises, and Friedman. And thanks to the efforts of NR’s Frank Meyer to promote a “fusion” between economic (free-market) conservatives and social conservatives, Buckley and National Review fostered the growth of a large enough conservative movement to nominate Goldwater for president and ultimately to elect Ronald Reagan.

In many ways, this is a loss for the conservative (and libertarian) movements even greater than that of Reagan. But due to his influence, which is immeasurable, he leaves behind many to pick up and carry the torch for freedom forward.

[Evening update]

Ed Kilgore has further thoughts:

Buckley once said he offered his frequent polemical enemy Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a “plenary indulgence” for his errors after Schlesinger leaned over to him during a discussion of the despoilation of forests and whispered: “Better redwoods than deadwoods.” And that’s certainly how a lot of us on the Left feel about the legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr. (see progressive historian Rick Perlstein’s tribute to WFB’s decency and generosity at the Campaign for America’s Future site). He made us laugh, and made us think, and above all, taught us the value of the English language as a deft and infinitely expressive instrument of persuasion. I’ll miss him, and so should you.

It’s a shame that I have to suffer pea-brained feces-flingers in my comments section on the occasion of his passing. That person will clearly never be able to use the English language as an expressive instrument of persuasion, infinitely or otherwise. It’s sad that he’s unable to realize how unpersuasive, and deserving of the contempt of all, that he is. It’s equally sad that he has no sense whatever of shame, no matter how deserving.

[Update early Thursday morning]

The Washington Post says that Buckley will be missed. Well, not by certain scumbags in my comments section, of course. But who cares about them…?

[Update early morning on February 28th]

Here’s a huge compendium of encomia from all points on the political spectrum. Sadly, the only unbonum words that I’ve seen have been expressed in my own comments section. But then, I don’t deliberately go to the wacko leftists web sites.

Philosophy, Technology and Society

Terminators, Coming Up

4 Comments

Alan Boyle has an interesting post on the ethics of killer robots.

“Asimov contributed greatly in the sense that he put up a straw man to get the debate going on robotics,” Arkin said. “But it’s not a basis for morality. He created [the Three Laws] deliberately with gaps so you could have some interesting stories.”

Even without the Three Laws, there’s plenty in today’s debate over battlefield robotics to keep novelists and philosophers busy: Is it immoral to wage robotic war on humans? How many civilian casualties are acceptable when a robot is doing the fighting? If a killer robot goes haywire, who (or what) goes before the war-crimes tribunal?