It's the End of 2018

Weren't anti-agathics supposed to be invented this year?

Still no sign of Augustus Caesar (aka Francis X. MacHinery). President Crassus is bad enough.

Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?

The above question is asked in The New York Times by Todd May, a philosophy professor. His answer: “I want to suggest, at least tentatively, both that it would be a tragedy and that it might just be a good thing.”

My reactions:

• Incredulous stare.
• There are Ouden worshippers (cf. Past Master by R. A. Lafferty) out there.
• Professor May's concern for animal suffering is clearly zoocentric. Don't plants get a say? Humanity has been very good for plants owing to all the CO₂ fertilizer we've been adding to the air.
• He's also for gun control. Shouldn't a philosophy professor have a need for logical consistency?
• Philosophy isn't all pointless bulshytt; some of it is harmful bulshytt.
• Note to philosophers: In That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, Frost was not the hero.

A Brief Note on the Election

Trump lost; Kavanaugh won.

The vote for the House of Representatives was a proxy vote for approval of Trump. Approval of Trump was, in turn, a proxy for approval of immigration. Immigration won.

The vote for the Senate was a proxy vote for approval of Kavanaugh. Approval of Kavanaugh was, in turn, a proxy for approval of abortion. Abortion lost.

In other words, Americans voted in favor of the recognition of the rights of Potential Americans.

Addendum: The reversal at the end of the third paragraph has been corrected.

The Second Amendment and Censorship

How I came to realize the importance of the 2nd Amendment

It was very indirect. It started when I saw Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience in a bookstore. Needless to say, I bought a copy. One of the chapters was “Life (with all its problems) in space” by Alfred Crosby. I then noticed a book by Alfred Crosby Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (it's not as nutty as it sounds) in a bookstore. (Bookstores are what we used before the Web was invented.) I bought that and noticed references to Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill. I found and read that and then noticed another book by William McNeill In Pursuit of Power in a bookstore. That was the book that made me realize the importance of free (liber) weaponry.

When only the State could afford the best weapons, we saw increasingly authoritarian governments. This happened in the Bronze Age, in the early Gunpowder Era, and the era between the invention of machine guns and the AK-47. The ability to buy weapons really is important.

The relevance to censorship

But that isn't what I'm talking about in this post. I'm talking about censorship. If we wanted to keep me away taking the Second Amendment seriously, it could be interrupted at many stages.

We could keep professors from publishing ThoughtCrime. We could keep other scholars from citing the professors who published ThoughtCrime. We could ruin the careers of other scholars who cited a professor who published ThoughtCrime and disinvite them from conferences.

This is another case in which a system with many layers is vulnerable to censorship. The Internet escaped that in the early stages because there were (for a while) fewer layers. In other words, we must be very resistant to any attempt to spread a blacklist. It's one thing to shun someone you think is a jerk. It's another thing to shun people six degrees away from him/her/whatever. It might even be worth shunning people who try that (but not shun their friends.)

On the other hand, we've see this before … in the form of secondary boycotts by labor unions. At least you can't get “good goons” any more.

The Other Side of the Leftward Drift

A few years ago, I speculated:

The leftward drift of formerly-conservative Supreme Court Justices (discussed here) can be explained fairly easily. Much of the time, conservative is a synonym for “willing to crack down on people who are Not Like Us.” When such a conservative becomes a Supreme Court Justice, the people who are Like Us changes from the middle classes to the political activist class and the people who Not Like Us changes from the lower classes to state legislatures.

We now see the flip side of that: We have just confirmed a Supreme-Court Justice who was faced with some of the same tactics used to crack down on people who are Not Like Us: multiple charges so maybe one would stick, threats of draconian penalties in case of failure to cooperate, potential charges for allegedly-false statements, and of course trusting polygraphs. That may immunize him against the leftward drift. Kavanaugh may even be surprisingly liberal on defendant's rights.

On the other hand, don't count on that last.

Conversation between 1978 Me and 2018 Me

1978 me: What's occurring in 2018?

2018 me: We might finally get enough judges on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade. They're holding hearings. There's a professor on one side and someone who spent his school years in a haze on the other.

1978 me: I hope the professor wins and that pro-abortion pothead loses!

2018 me: No, it's the guy in a haze who's backed by pro-lifers.

1978 me: What!?!?!

Internet in Series vs. Internet in Parallel

There's a potentially worrisome development:

One of the things that is becoming clear, to me at least, is that the layered model (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model) the whole internet is built on, is censorship friendly. And I don't just mean OSI, but the layers in the app layer. I'll unpack.

You can see the rest of the explanation on Twitter, but I'll summarize it here: The Internet currently requires numerous layers to all work together to get something through. If the censorship people can shut off just one layer, they've won. To make matters worse, if they look like they might possibly shut off one layer, the other layers might go along avoid getting caught.

This was not a problem with the classic Internet: just the computers and wires. It wasn't even much of a problem with Usenet. Today, if they can shut off the wires (what the net-neutrality people claim to be worried about), the DNS servers (what the people insisting on US oversight are worried about), the search engines, the anti-DDOS companies, the social networks, the web browsers (the most recent Firefox release sends all DNS requests to a central location), or other things I won't know about until the possemaniacs try taking them over, then they've won.

A mathematical model

If you have 1 layer and 3 providers in each layer and each provider has a 50% chance of folding in response to a possemaniac, then the probability of censorship is 12.5%.

If you have 10 layers and 3 providers in each layer and each provider has a 50% chance of folding in response to a possemaniac, then the probability of censorship is 73.7%.

Maybe the answer is more vertical integration. In other words, a web browser from a search-engine company, an operating-systems company, or a hardware company might not be such a bad idea. This also means the standard response to a potential left-wing oligopoly (break them up!) is wrong-headed.

By the way, how much would it cost to start one minimal viable company in each layer? I suspect it could be done for under a billion. So … All you need is at least one zillionaire (preferably partly retired but with some years left) … I'm sure the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel, Robert Mercer, or even Paul Allen will be up to it.

A Reaction to The Transhumanist Bill of Rights—Version 2.0

The Transhumanist Bill of Rights—Version 2.0 (seen via Instapundit) includes (with my reactions):

“All sentient entities should be the beneficiaries of a system of universal health care.”

Does ‘universal’ mean universal? Does this apply to entities in the Boötes void?

“For instance, a cryonics patient has the right to determine in advance that the patient’s body shall be cryopreserved and kept under specified conditions, in spite of any legal definition of death that might apply to that patient under cryopreservation.”

So… If you were accidentally cryopreserved and didn't leave such a directive, you have no rights?

“All sentient entities are entitled to reproductive freedom, including through novel means such as the creation of mind clones, monoparent children, or benevolent artificial general intelligence.”

I'm glad to see this. Version 1.0 was written by Zoltan Istvan, who has also advocated parenting licenses.

“All sentient entities also have the right to prevent unauthorized reproduction of themselves in both a physical and a digital context.”

If such an unauthorized reproduction occurs anyway, does the being in question have rights?

“All sentient entities should be protected from discrimination based on their physical form in the context of business transactions and law enforcement.”

Does that mean you cannot require, for example, the ability to breathe chlorine as a prerequisite for employment?

“All sentient entities have the right to defend themselves from attack, in both physical and virtual worlds.”

“Societies of the present and future should afford all sentient entities sufficient basic access to wealth and resources to sustain the basic requirements of existence in a civilized society and function as the foundation for pursuits of self-improvement.”

Does the first mean you are permitted to defend yourself against the tax collectors needed for the second?

“Lying for political gain or intentionally fomenting irrational fears among the general public should entail heavy political penalties for the officials who engage in such behaviors.”

So… We can hang (or do the equivalent to) environmentalists?

“In addition to the rights enumerated herein, this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS hereby incorporates by reference all of the rights expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and hereby extends these rights to all entities encompassed by this TRANSHUMANIST BILL OF RIGHTS.”

Uh oh. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes:

These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Idealist translation: All good stuff! No bad stuff!
Realist translation: The preceding 28 articles guarantee hot air. Anything they promise can be set aside if someone influential decides they're inconvenient.

Ban Straws?

Okay. Now they're just trolling us.

The response to bans on plastic straws is, of course, expensive metal straws that can only be cleaned with difficulty. The next step after metal straws will be to notice that not everyone can afford metal straws and to set up a government agency to get metal straws into the hands of the proletariat … who are then expected to be grateful. That, in turn, will be followed by sneering at the people who complained about the original regulation combined with accusing them of being hypocrites when they also criticize the agency.

I have three questions about this:

1. If a couple with a child are arrested for the illegal manufacture, sale, or transportation of plastic straws, should the child be separated from the parents or should there be a family jail?

2. How stoned do you have to be to think a plastic straw is a problem requiring a ban?

3. What do “people of color” think about a straw ban?

Why the Left is Getting Hysterical about Judges

What if they really think that right-wing judges will do as much “legislating from the bench” as left-wing judges have?

This is not entirely a straw-man argument: There is a possibility that right-wing judges might stop “birthright citizenship” for children of illegal aliens. On the other hand, I've heard very little about this from the Left. Maybe they refuse to learn about the Right even to know what the real possibilities are.

One common type of legislating from the bench: Declare that a law that has a “disparate impact” on a favored group is unconstitutional. For example, carbon taxes will have a disparate impact on people in rural areas.

Another common type of legislating from the bench: Declare that the law MUST follow the current social preferences of the ruling class. One possibility is banning bilingual education. Another possibility is declaring that the phytoestrogens in soy feminize men and therefore interfere with the militia described in the Second Amendment. Tofu, tempeh, and even soy sauce will be forbidden to males.

To any Leftists reading this: Yes, some of the judicial decisions you applaud sound that nuts.

A “Bump-Stock” Compromise on Immigration

Let us compare the border-control issue to the gun-control issue.

A common argument for gun control is: “Look at all these gun massacres!” The obvious response is that the massacres are almost always in “gun-free” zones. There is an exception to that retort: The Las Vegas massacre of a few months ago was not in a “gun-free” zone. It may have been more effective than usual due to the use of bump stocks. As a result, the NRA uncharacteristically offered to compromise by accepting a ban on bump stocks.

A common argument for border control is: “Look at all these illegal aliens violating American traditions!” The obvious response is that high rates of immigration is an American tradition. There are two claimed exceptions to that retort: 1) Earlier immigration was mostly of Europeans; 2) the rate was, at most, 1.5% of the already-present population per year.

The first claimed exception might sound valid … except we heard it before.

• 18th century: These immigrants aren't English; they are different.
• 19th century: These immigrants aren't Protestant; they are differenter.
• 20th century: These immigrants aren't Western European; they are differentest.
• 21st century: These immigrants aren't European; they are [we must invent a new grammatical form for this].

For example, if we send advice to keep Muslims out to the year 1856 by chronophone, it will come out as a Roman Catholic ban.

On the other hand, the 1.5% limit appears to be reasonable. (For today's US, it's about 5 million per year.) So … Maybe we should set a limit of 1.5% of the already-present population per year. If it's exceeded, maybe we can auction off the permits. This will also prevent the nightmare scenario of 300 million Democratic voters arriving tomorrow. The proposed limit will not affect politics much in the short run and, in the long run, the descendants of the New Americans may change their minds as much as Southerners or Catholics have. We can already expect Mexicans to oppose asinine environmental regulations.

One more topic we must consider: The recent protests against enforcing immigration laws are about separating families. On the other hand, separating families is also done for violent or property crimes. On the gripping hand, this isn't a “crime” crime; it is a borderline case … similar to a ban on bump stocks. So … Should children be separated from parents if the parents violated a law against owning bump stocks without a license?

What Governor Cuomo Should Have Said

Governor Andrew Cuomo said:

As a New Yorker, I am a Muslim. I am a Jew. I am Black. I am gay. I am a woman seeking to control her body. We are one New York​.

He should have continued:

As a New Yorker, I am a fetus. I am Bernie Goetz. I am BlackRock. I am Donald Trump. I am The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and National Review. I belong in the city of Alexander Hamilton and Ayn Rand. I sneer at people worried about “over”population.

Asddendum: I just recalled a possibly-relevant Pauline Kael quote

I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.

Governor Cuomo is refusing to feel them.

A Suggestion for Liberals, Update

A libertarian took my suggestion before a liberal did.

Should Government Control of Space Travel Continue?

Elon Musks's recent stunt of putting his car in orbit has been greeted with whines from people claiming that, since governments started space exploration, we must continue government control. (There have been similar claims about nuclear energy or the Internet.)

That makes as much sense as claiming that, since Silicon Valley was started by a racist, we must ensure it is controlled by racists.

That makes as much sense as claiming that, since post offices were invented by the Persian Empire, all postage stamps must be sold by Iran.

That makes as much sense as claiming that, since Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney, the Disney Corporation must hold a perpetual copyright. This last is particularly important since many of the whines come from critics of Intellectual Property.

Meanwhile, I recommend that, if we free copyright after 70 years, maybe we should also deregulate technologies produced with government support after 70 years.

It's 2018

Aren't anti-agathics supposed to be invented this year?