Democracy=capitalism=evolution part 3: The Bad

"We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both. "

-Louis Brandeis

This is part three of a series of posts on capitalism, democracy and evolution. Please make sure you have read parts 1 and 2 first.

Addmittedly, this post has gotten much easier recently. Ever since the worldwide financial markets melted down, massive goverment bailouts were floated and financial institutions collapsed under the crushing weight of their own poor choices, it has become much easier to note and explain the flaws in capitalism. But I want to conclude this blog post series by looking at the issue from the same specific vantage point as the others in this series: a comparison between the forces that drive democracy, evolution and capitalism, and the parallels between them. Because there are perils inherent in these forces, and we would do well to heed and mitigate those perils, as much as we can.

Perhaps the single greatest mover in evolution is species extinction. Species extinction is required for the continual pace of evolution. We exist on this planet and thrive largely because of the billions of species who have been wiped off. Whether they were exterminated by a meteor impact, as were all species of dinosaur, or by being out-competed (as were the Neanderthals who once co-existed with our ancient acenstors), countless species no longer inhabit the earth. Extinction is required for new species to thrive because of the limited nature of resources. If a given species no longer competes for food, habitable land or other commodities, it opens up a niche in which a new species can emerge. So extinction is often the instigator of evolution. Further, it can also be the product of evolution. A new species better able to compete for a limited resource will often push another to extinction simply because they are better evolved to harness that resource. Nature is a harsh mistress, and we would all do well to remember that we exist merely as a result of the billions of species who died out to make way for us.

The problem is, when we extend this concept to capitalism, we can see it destroy people's lives. The clearest example of this is the current trend of outsourcing manufacturing to China. This has resulted not only in a raised standard of living for China, but for ourselves, as well (from a consumer products point of view). The massive drop in the prices of consumer goods has allowed us to explore new products to an extent we never would have otherwise. This isn't just pointless consumerist crap theory either. Everything from clothing to housing materials, from computers to telecommunications has been affected by this; it has allowed new ways of doing business and has drastically affected our ways of lives. But at what cost?

Because you see, nothing is really produced in the West any more. GM and Ford are struggling and relying on government handouts to stay afloat. Technology and textile companies have either closed up shop or moved overseas (even Levis, long a bastion of American production, no longer make any jeans in the United States). The American, Canadian and British manufacturing sectors are dying. And this trend will only continue: consumers pick less-expensive products, so nearly any company that chooses to produce locally will be out-competed by those who take advantage of the cheaper labour overseas; companies that produce in America will be rewarded with their own extinction. Many people feel that we are shopping ourselves into unemployment.

Of course, the market will correct for this. We will develop new avenues of revenue, new ways of doing business, and new areas of specialisation. If the global free market is about only one thing, that's it: specialisation. China has been able to leverage its huge population and lack of employment and safety standards to create a cheap, disposable workforce capable of churning out discount shoes by the cargo shipload. We blithely look the other way on human rights issues and the health and safety concerns, because who wants to pay double prices for their Nikes? Our specialisation has gone the other way: we focus on innovation and finance, service and ideas. These are the specialisations where our comparatively-highly-educated workforce can thrive. And in time, it will all balance out. As more and more of china's labour market is put to work, internal competition for jobs will increase and prices will rise. Eventually, the massive advantage they enjoy will dissipate. Simply put, the rising standard of living in China is a double-edged sword for them: soon there will be so much internal wage competition that it will be too expensive to hire them. This has already started to happen in India, where rising salaries have made offshoring less desireable than it used to be.

But the catch to these forces is time. Are we willing to watch the American economy spiral into depression in order to wait for Chinese labour to get more expensive? What if it takes 25 years? Evolution is amoral-it's a natural process and bears no thought to what we think of as right and wrong; if a species is ill-adapted, it will die, and that's just the way it is. But we as a people do care about right and wrong. Are the cheap televisions and shoes worth seeing average working people in our nations suffer for decades? Is it worth losing (possibly forever) control over our own production? There's a balance to be struck, when weighing up such options, and far too little thought has yet been paid to that.

The second danger that emerges from the evolution-capitalism parallel is that of short-sightedness, and it is this danger which has so recently and dramatically reared its ugly head. Because both forces (and political evolution too) are short-term reactionary processes. Species don't evolve according to what the conditions will be like, they evolve to what the conditions are now. People vote based on the current issues and political climes, not what they predict the world will need in some years' time. And stockholders make decisions for the direction of their companies based on short-term projections and market conditions. Often to their detriment.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the current "credit crunch", which was sparked by the failure in the US sub-prime lending market. A lack of regulation allowed (and almost required in many cases) banks to lend money to people who realistically were never going to be able to pay back the loans. And the thing was, from a typical capitalist point of view, this totally made sense. There was intense competition for new loan customers, and the US and UK were in the middle of a huge housing boom. Surely the money wold come back somehow. And further more, all those competitive forces, so shrewdly modelled after evolution? They would have crushed banks that didn't do it. The shareholders would have seen a dwindling of market share and revolted, and any potential customers would see that bank as small and less-capable. Further, the short-term loss of revenue would have made the banks less competitive. So from a pure market standpoint, in the short-term, the banks had to give these stupid loans. Because the market tends to ignore the long-term in favour of the short.

Similarly, many companies, when faced with slowing profits or a soured economy, will dump employees left and right, trying to cut costs. However, this is often a terrible strategy in the long-term. Apple is as successful as it is today largely because it bit the bullet and kept on its employees in the early 2000s, after the dot-com bubble burst and the tech industry took a pounding. They poured money into research and development, and were able to innovate their way to success. IBM did a similar thing, with equally successful results. On the other hand, Gateway divested itself of thousands of employees, and eventually tanked, selling off parts of itself to a variety of different countries; Motorola similarly laid off a staggering 50,000 employees, and is now struggling to find its place in the market. In both cases, short-term decisions were made that hurt the companies in the long haul.

Finally, the weakness in the market is where the evolutionary comparison falls down. That is the issue of collusion. Because we don't work solely on our instincts or what is best individually. Cartels such as DeBeers will actively work to counter market forces, one of the few times that the long-term is actually examined thoroughly. Companies will create artificial product differentiation, mislead consumers or spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about a competitor to try and trick people into buying a specific product. All of these work against the idea of a natural selection.

That fault, however, can actually be our salvation. Because humankind is unique on this planet in our ability harness foresight. We are not slaves to our instincts, nor are we incapable of thoughtful reactions. We can plan, scheme and werigh up different alternatives. And to my mind, this can be our greatest strength. Clearly the market forces are powerful. Also, as I stated in earlier posts, there are significant benefits to the market; I would never espouse a fully socialist/communist agenda, as such a concept has been shown time and again to be inefficient and a poor methodology for giving people what they want and need. However, equally crazy is an unfettered, unregulated free market. As the former employees of the Lehman Brothers about the perils of letting the market rule your every whim.

Only the craziest of free marketeers would ever espouse a total lack of regulation. Without regulation, companies would pollute the land, slaughter innocents and consume every resource they could lay hands on, all if it would attract a single new customer. They would lie, cheat and steal their way to profit, the only motivator that would matter. So clearly we need regulation to some degree. This article from Yahoo shows how thoughtful, well-planned regulation can be used; the Canadian banks have remained largely strong during this economic storm, due largely to legislation that prevented them from wantonly giving loans to everyone with a pulse.

Government has a role to play in all of this. I am not a bleeding-heart socialist, but neither am I a total libertarian. Government can use a light touch to mitigate the failings of the free market system in a ways that the businesses themselves never will. Whether that's limiting trade with China, or applying conditions that make them adhere to basic working standards, or whether it's preventing greedy, short-sighted financial institutions from running amok with the public's money, governmental regulation has a role to play in the market. But it's difficult for them to do, because they are open to extinction as well, from a short-sighted public; a group of people who want prosperity and splendour, but lack the motivation and training to truly evaluate long-term consequences (good and bad) of policy. So sometimes the government has to make choices that are unpopular. It might mean you can't afford to buy a house right now, but if you couldn't truly make the payments anyway, that's a sacrifice that might have to be made to prevent another depression.

Our role in this is as the evolutionary force behind the political wing. We can push our politicians to do better. Reward those who make the difficult but correct decisions. It might mean your next TV costs more, it might mean that your line of work is made obsolete and you need to re-train. But try to evaluate the politics and the economy for what it is: a fragile balance between the immediate future and the generations to come. We are more than merely a collection of instincts honed by millennia of evolution: we can plan for the future in a way nothing else we've known can. Let's flex those muscles and demand a better world.

Sidebar: VHS vs. Beta This is a small note to respond to a comment that came in the facebook note of my first posting in this series. The assertion that was made in that comment was that the VHS vs. Beta format war of the 1980s was an example of collusion-that JVC and co. basically paid the movie industry to side with them, and Beta-a better technology-was killed off. THis has repeated itself to a degree with BluRay vs HD-DVD.

What I would say to this is yes, collusion between companies to subvert market forces played a significant role. However, the "Beta is better" claim is one of the assertions I hear all the time, and I wanted to clear one thing up: Beta was not better in every way. Picture quality was better, and the tapes lasted longer. True. However, at the time VHS was released, Beta could only hold one hour of video. This made it unsuitable for taping movies off the TV, as well as for containing an entire feature-length film from the studio. This, it turns out, was a major failing for the format. Sony had gambled that picture quality was more important to the public, and they were wrong. YouTube shows that people prize convenience over image quality in many cases.

So I think that Beta died quite rightly. By the time Sony released a version with an extended playback time, it was too late. VHS had become the format of choice (it was also much cheaper, incidentally) and Beta eventually faded to obsolescence, witht he exception of its professional counterpart, BetaCam, which was a different format and was used for decades in professional recording. In this case, though collusion was present and counter-acted the market forces, it was the market that decided: Sony had created a format well-adapted to some things, but not those things which the market prized. They were poorly adapted for feature-film recordings, and were thus made extinct by the comet of VHS.

"Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must do all the things that markets undo or cannot do."

-Benjamin Barber

Democracy=capitalism=evolution part 2: The Good

This is part 2 of this series of articles. Part 1 can be found here.

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

-Winston Churchill

OK, so assuming you've read part one of this article, you will hopefully be more or less on my side as to the whole idea that democracy, political thought and capitalism work in fundamentally the same manner. That is, they change and adapt over time, not necessarily getting better, just more complex and better-suited to the current environment. There are some flaws in this, specifically in terms of collusion between political parties or companies, and I will address those, but that's more in the third part of this article. This article instead focuses on why I think this is a good thing, and we why "like" the ideas of democracy and the free market as much as we do.

The fundamental way in which I feel all three systems are similar (for those too lazy to read the first article), is that small changes, taken in aggregate, can affect the course of progress. Buyers, voters and external influences each only affect the entire ecosystem in minute ways, the overall effect is major, and can sculpt the future of a species, a company or a political party.

This, then, represents the first way that all three systems are a good thing. Each voice matters. Every vote, every sale (or lack thereof) every life, death and procreation, matters. In a situation where we feel irrelevant or meaningless, or that we have no sway over anything, we do. We are the drivers of change. And this is huge. Compare it to a command economy where the decisions are made wholly by the party in charge of the country, and you can see the appeal of a democratic system. Even though the people might make terrible choices and vote in a terrible leader (and his even-worse son), at least it was their choice. It give the average person ownership in a way that no other system does as well. We get the leaders we want, and the leaders we deserve.

SImilarly, in a commercial setting, people often misunderstand the concept of value. They'll look at a product and say "that product totally isn't worth it", and they might be right... for them. But if a company does overprice a product, the consumers will "vote" with their wallets, not buy it and the company will either lower the prices or pull the product. One of the most fundamental misunderstandings about the market is that the price of a product bears any relation to the cost of producing it. Other than giving a minimum cost that the company will charge for that product, it's simply wrong to think of the retail price of something as a cost price plus markup. The retail price is set by what the company think customers are willing to pay. We get the prices we deserve.

An interesting off-shot to this is corporate governance. Another misunderstanding in the marketplace is that companies are required to do everything they can to make profit for their shareholders. They're not; they're required to do exactly what their shareholders really want. If every Microsoft shareholder turned up tomorrow and voted for Microsoft to become a non-profit company that donated its time and resources to making open-source software given away free to the third-world, that's exactly what Microsoft would have to do. Shareholders are voters, too, and in a very direct way. The only problem with that is that if you want enough votes to make even the slightest blip on the company's radar, you need to be insanely wealthy. It's a voting system with a very high barrier to entry.

The second reason that these systems can be a good thing is the idea of proportional representation. Now, obviously, most major systems of government don't use proportional representation, but the theory is sound, and is often even reflected in the systems of government we do use. The idea is that if a certain value is held by a certain percentage of the populace, that value will be represented by the government to the same level. For example, if 30% of the population wants looser gun control, in theory 30% of the elected officials should support that position. As I've said, this isn't true in practice; however, in many cases, it can be reflected, especially in multi-party systems. Even within the American two-party system, different senators or congresspeople within one party can have differing views, and these often end up presenting a good cross-section of the public opinion.

In evolution, this is represented by how useful a trait is, and the level at which is becomes mutually advantageous. There are some traits that would not be useful for every member of a species to have. For example, Robin Baker's book Sperm Wars discusses the comparative evolutionary advantages and disadvantages to bisexuality. Because it gives one a more-varied sexual experience, it can make a bisexual individual more competent sexually, and thus more attractive. However, it can also increase the risk of STDs, and if everyone were to be bisexual the increased experience advantage would dissipate. As such, there is a natural balance where some members of the species are bisexual, giving them an advantage, but the remainder gleam different advantages by being heterosexual (in a glaring omission, the book doesn't discuss homosexuality). There are other traits that follow this pattern well. In commerce, of course, the link is even more obvious: the more accurately a product represents the public's desire, the more it will be bought. If 20% of people absolutely want an FM radio on their MP3 player, those 20% will never be iPod owners.

The final benefit to these systems is closely related to the last point: the niche market. The Galapagos Islands is the ultimate niche markets, those tiny, far-of islands that so enthralled Darwin. In that remote location, a plethora of species existed which lived nowhere else in the world. Each had been tuned by evolution specifically to that environment, and likely would perish if it had to compete with species in the rest of the planet, just as external species would quite possibly have been out-competed in the Galapagos. Those species had found their niches and dominated therein. Again, this has parallels elsewhere. Single-issue political parties can garner enough support to influence the debate, or a small group of concerned citizens or special interest groups can make their voices heard on the national level or a local one, filling their niche with the political recognition it might never get elsewhere. Products of course, often have niche appeal. Apple's sales pale in comparison to those of Dell or HP, much less the entirety of the Windows PC ecosystem; but they have aggressively targeted specific niches like the home, student and creative markets and have done very well (for example, they dominate the graphic and video design industries). As a result, their success in these niches have allowed them to prosper, albeit in a more-limited way than Microsoft.

The other "good" thing about all these systems is their seemingly intrinsic appeal to us. Don't get me wrong, getting to democracy and a free market has not been an easy path. At times, it's been a veritable slog. But I think we find the concept of democracy to be intrinsically appealing. I think that's why it's taken such a firm hold over our consciousness, and why we hope to see it spread. Usually, in cases where democracy has failed to take root, it's the actions of a few individuals with a lot of power that has prevented it, not the will of the citizenry. The question is, why do we feel that appeal? Well, all the reasons I listed above demonstrate the advantages of democracy, but I think there's another aspect to it. You see, we often evolve to like things that are good for us. We find the taste of most harmful or poisonous foods to be disgusting, because those of us who like the taste of poisonous mushrooms tend to die off before we can pass on our genes. The reason we like the taste of fatty and sugary foods (much ot the chagrin of our waistlines) is because our cavemen ancestors needed those ingredients to survive treks across the ice-age planet which could often last for weeks before the next food source could be found. So we intrinsically "like" things that are overall "good" for us.

Thus, I think the appeal of democracy, and of the free market, stems from its similarity to evolution. I think that we feel an affinity for those processes because they so closely mimic the natural course of our own evolution. One of the big boons of evolutionary theory is that it's very easy to understand (residents of Kansas aside). You don't need fancy computers, you don't need complex equations. The basic principle of evolution just makes sense: advantageous traits get passed on, disadvantageous ones cause the individuals with those traits to die early and are thus not passed on. So I think we recognise, on a subconscious level, that the other systems bear striking similarity to evolution, and it is that which gives them their greatest appeal, even though we might not identify it as the reason. Nature has voted us into prominence, and we have modeled our most successful financial and political systems after its own mechanisms. Kind of a poetic tip of the hat, if you will.

Ironic sidebar:
A funny thing occurred to me while I was writing this. I paralleled democracy and a free market system to evolution, because the naturally advantageous traits tend to bubble to the top through a series of seemingly meaningless individual "votes". But look at the archetypal rival to a free market democracy: a communist/socialist command economy. In this situation, an elite group of party members runs the whole thing from on high. They decide who gets what, how much, and the denizens of that society are expected to follow an implicit moral code that they will work for the betterment of society, regardless of the lack of personal remunerative benefits (i.e. if they work harder, they still get paid the same). You know what that sounds like to me? Religion. God imparting his views and controlling the world from on high, with an implicit code of behaviours, monitored and enforced by the threat of damnation if the code is broken. How ironic that the system of governance that has most fervently sought to ban religion is the one it most closely resembles?

"Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people."

-Proudhon

Democracy=capitalism=evolution

"It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe."

-Richard Dawkins

This is part 1 of a series, which will probably go to three parts. Part 2 can be found here, part 3 will be linked when written.

A thought occurred to me the other week, and I thought to myself "where better to articulate this idea than my blog that nobody reads and I haven't updated in ages?" So, here I am. The thought that occurred to me is this: democracy, free-market capitalism and evolution are the same. Obviously, they apply to different areas of the world, but the main principles that underlie their operation are the same. This lends itself to a shared appeal and shared risks, and I think that if we observe the way things work in one area, we can often draw useful parallels to the others.

To keep this organised, because I think it might go a little long for a single post, I'm going to break this up into three areas. The first (this one) is going to be an outline of my hypothesis, and an explanation on why I feel this is the case. My intent is that by the end of this post, you will agree with my overall idea. The second post will discuss the benefits that this can bring, and also why this symmetry is inherently appealing to us. Finally, in the third post I will discuss the often-overlooked dangers and risks that arise as a result of this, especially in economics; I will also posit some potential solutions, if I'm feeling bold enough.

Evolution, capitalism and democracy are ultimately three forms of natural selection, each applies to different areas of life, obviously, but to address their similarities, there are are a few areas that stand out. If we examine the progress of the entire ecosystem, we see trends emerge in the complexity of individual species, species differentiation and species selection (the manner in which species thrive in certain environments or falter and die out). It is these areas that parallel one another in the three areas of life.

Species Selection: In every case, a variety of new "species" enter into the field of interest over time. In the case of evolution, these are different plant, animal and microbe species, introduced by random genetic variations on existing species; in capitalism, they are new business ideas and products, introduced by individuals out to make a profit; in democracy they are both new political ideas and entirely new political parties. In each case the new species is often a minor twist on an existing one, but is sometimes a radically different entity. In each case, myriad species throughout the biosphere/marketplace/political landscape compete, and over time each species will succeed or fail to differing degrees. The process by which this happens is through competition, and through a large number of small, externally influenced choices. A new biological species will compete for limited resources such as food and water with the existing species. Whatever trait makes them different from their predecessors will allow them to either out-compete the other species, or they will suffer as a result of it. Humankind's opposable thumbs allowed us to use tools in a way that gave us an advantage over those species lacking such a trait-this gave us greater access to food. In the marketplace, a product will either appeal to a wide range of people (the iPod, for example) or will sink miserably (the Ford Edsel). Individual transactions are each very small-one iPod purchase doesn't markedly change Apple's fortunes. But it is the aggregate advantages or disadvantages that allow them to compete. Similarly, in politics, a party's popularity depends on how it differentiates itself from its competitors; if you come out strongly against taxes, and that is an issue of great importance to people, your party will thrive through the aggregate of millions of individual votes.

In each case, it is the sum of a vast number of minute actions that allows a change to propagate throughout the landscape. If many individuals buy a product based on a specific feature, that feature will often spread to other products; at the same time, the progenitor of that feature will prosper. A party's politics garner it more or fewer votes, and this,taken at large, is the instrument of their success. As a new biological feature provides a benefit to a specific arena, it will become more common, or even omnipresent within that locale. However, in each case, what works in one place often doesn't translate elsewhere. Camels are biologically well-suited to desserts and have thrived there; however the trade-offs made to survive there make them poorly suited to colder climes. The politics of one country would be perpetually ill-suited to the different culture of another, and those same ideas will forever fail to take root. And products on the marketplace are often popular in only one region, as adhering to the tastes and preferences of that culture. Thriving in one area often requires trade-offs that make a species ill-suited to another climate.

Furthermore, the process of evolution involves the flaring up and dying out of different species. Many lines of animals and plants have gone completely extinct (dinosaurs, etc.). In this case, an external event changed the environment such that the unique attributes of that species made them ill-suited to their habitat. In the political world, ideologies come and go depending on the changing needs of its people. Communism and fascism, though both still in existence, lack the sway they once had. Feudalism is almost completely extinct in much of the world. These ideas-once more-are not inherently terrible; it's just that the environment changed such that they were no longer good fits. The marketplace is littered with dead products-when was the last time you bought a manual loom, a suit of plate mail armour or an eight-track player? As new products have arisen and been better suited to the then-current zeitgeist, entire lineages of products have fallen by the wayside.

An offshoot to this is the niche species. In each venue, niche species can exist. There exist certain animals that thrive in a very specific part of the world, or under very specific conditions. In that domain, they are king; outside of that domain, they rarely exist; the aforementioned camels are a perfect example of this. In products, companies will often target specific niches: Apple has gone after the home and consumer market with its computers, largely ignoring the enterprise/large business market. Again, they have been successful by doing this one thing well, which contrasts to Microsoft's strategy which is to spread Windows far and wide: business, home, Xbox, phone, cars, battleships, televisions, and more. The fact that Microsoft has obtained success in these myriad arenas shouldn't detract from Apple's success: though their overall size and finances are dwarfed by Microsoft, they make billions of dollars every year by targeting their niche, and doing it well. In the political arena, fringe political parties and ideas, and single-issue candidates can often achieve a measure of success by focusing, with pinpoint accuracy on a specific niche.

Species Complexity: It is a common misconception that in evolution, later ideas are somehow intrinsically "better". This implies a value judgment that's simply impossible to make in each case, as there is no universal indicator of "good" vs. "bad". Furthermore it implies a morality that doesn't make sense on a biological scale. However, there is an overall trend that can be observed throughout the history of biological evolution: increasing complexity. From basic protein chains and amino acids to single-celled creatures such as paramecia and bacteria, on up through multi-cellular microbes, to invertebrates, then vertebrates, through to today's multi-system, intelligent, blog-writing organisms. There are exceptions of course, and simple unicellular organisms obviously still exist, but the overall trend has been towards an increase in complexity.

The same is true of politics and commercial products. Three hundred years ago, there was no electricity, no computers; everything could be made by a small team of people or even individual blacksmiths, etc. Modern products are much more complex on average-they require teams with scores of people to design and build them; factories that cost billions of dollars. More and more products are unrepairable due to their complexity. This doesn't necessarily mean that the products are better than the old ones, but nobody can contest that an iPod is more complex than a gramophone. Simple products still exist-a fork today isn't terribly different than a fork 100 years ago, but the overall trend is clearly one of increasing complexity. Politics were a little faster, but the further back you go, the more simplistic the political platforms: taxes have always been an issue, but recent events such as internationalisation, terrorism, and the issues of race, religion and more have lent an importance and complexity to political platforms that simply didn't exist hundreds of years ago. It's not enough to have a view on local issues, taxes and whether slavery is a good thing or not (hint: no, it isn't); you now need to be well-versed in global issues, the effects of free trade and economic deregulation, international conflicts between nations big and small. Again, there are single-issues political parties that still exist (e.g. the Marijuana Party of Canada), but the overall trend has been towards increasingly-complex political platforms.

In every case, successive generations are modified versions of their predecessors. As a result, new features and designs have been incorporated into the existing motif. As a result, the trend is to increasingly complex and feature-rich products, political theories and species. Each betrays the history of its lineage: our history is written into our DNA, showing the fingerprints of our ancestors; modern products' complexity is due to their past advancements and the platform of a modern political party is a testament to those who came before.

Species Differentiation: In all three arenas, differentiation between species can happen in a myriad of ways. The first creatures to leave the oceans prospered because of their ability to breathe oxygen and survive outside water. Some species develop traits that allow then to eat foods others cannot access (e.g. giraffes) while others develop more predatory or defensive mechanisms (lions and armadillos, respectively). In politics, parties will choose single issues in which to plant their flag, or will target specific audiences that others ignore. Differentiation is even more pronounced in the marketplace. Apple, for example, has placed its bets on style and panache: the iPod lacks features such as an FM tuner, Windows Media support and built-in voice recording that other products have; yet Apple's style, fashionability and slick marketing have differentiated them in a way that other music players have been unable to match, to great success.

This links back to the first point, in that species selection happens based on the overall picture of a given species. However, it's important to note that whether the change happens from a product planning meeting, a genetic mutation or a new political strategy, that each species can differentiate itself in myriad ways. Some will be advantageous to the current climate, and the species will prosper, maintaining that trait. In other cases, they will have picked a trait that hurts them or gives no advantage, and the change will not take root.

End Result: At the end of the day, the goal of any species is survival-to expand, to prosper and to pass its genes on. A company wants to increase its profits. A political party wants to get more votses, and thus obtain more power. Richard Dawkins speaks of the "Selfish Gene", the idea that we are but vessels for our genes. Any trait that can be passed on will propagate if it is beneficial for the current situation and will fade away if not. This same idea exists in other forms in the other two arenas. Adam smith spoke of the "unseen hand" of the market place: that economic forces would naturally push the better-adapted ideas to the top and subvert those poorly adapted to the current consumer climate. Politically, this is the entire concept of democracy: that votes represent individual endorsements, and that the ideas with the most pertinence to the wider society will prosper.

And this, then, is the crux of my argument. A vote is like a purchase which is like the survival of an individual member of a species. Each contributes only a little to the grander picture. Nobody can look at a single vote, or a single product sold, or an individual animal or plant that survives and see what will come in the future. But the sum total of the individuals that survive, over time, will dictate the nature of any and all future species; products that sell well give indications of the public's wants and needs and companies will respond in kind, creating more products with those features, ensuring that the successful and well-adapted features spread across the market; political forces respond not to single votes, but to the overall feeling of the nation. If an idea is insanely popular with 20% of the public, the party that espouses that idea should get 20% of the votes. The result is a government comprised in equal parts of the wishes and desires of the public (in theory-obviously other factors can and do influence this). Similarly the public receives exactly the products they most desire because any company releasing a product ill-suited to common desires will be ignominiously shunted from the marketplace. It's a vicious world in many ways, but one in which each individual matters. Though our contributions may be small, we vote-whether at the ballot box or the cash register. And just as a species' future is dictated by how well it responds to nature's votes (the lives or deaths of individuals of that species) so too do our products and our political representation evolve, adapt and grow ever more complex to meet the demands of the public. The selfish gene, the invisible hand and the "one man, one vote" policy all give a system where small, seemingly insignificant pushes and prods add up to powerful forces, capable of swaying the fates of entire species.

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

-Winston Churchill

Nitpicking Star Trek First Contact

"Resistance is futile"

-Every Borg ever in every Star Trek series that featured them

So, I know it's by no means a new movie, but I just finished re-watching First Contact (the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie). I still think it's awesome, clearly the best of the TNG movies, and in contention (with Star Trek 4, naturally) for the best Star Trek movie ever made. However, some niggling things did bother me:

1. The Borg go back in time to assimilate Earth. They choose the time when mankind is about to launch its first warp-capable ship. Now, their goal of assimilation is to "add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own". So, if they want the technological distinctiveness, don't destroy the warp ship! Let them advance a bit, but then attack them while they're still weak. And if you just want the biological distinctiveness? Go back even further, why cut it so close? This bugged me about Terminator 1 & 2 as well. Fuck killing John Connor or his mother. Go back to colonial times and kill his great-great-great-grandmother or something. No giant steel factories back them to get knocked into, no pneumatic presses to be crushed by. Now, as for First Contact, if your goal is to incorporate biological diversity in the hopes of creating a perfect species, and you have access to fucking time travel, just go back in time until every species was in its caveman days and incorporate all the biodiversity you want with no resistance whatsoever. You may not get the tech, but who cares? You'll have nobody to fight and thus won't need the high tech anyway.
2. Deanna Troi finds Zephram Cochrane and gets pissed with him on Tequila. Used to synthehol, this intoxication is understandable. She passes out on the table stone cold wasted. But then half an hour later she's up and about and sober, talking about the future? What the hell?
3. Here's another thing that bugs me about Sci-Fi, as much as I love it. If human beings aren't alone in the galaxy, we're probably not really that unique. So it's just hubris to think that we are. Every species the Borg encounters, they assimilate en masse. But they meet humans, and what do they do? They turn Picard into Locutus of Borg, make him an equal to the Borg Queen/Hive Mind. What the hell makes us so special, and so much better than the Romulans, Klingons etc. that we're seemingly the only species where one of our cohort gets to retain individuality-gets a name, a special positions etc.-in a society that embodies hive mind conformity. That's just hubris on the part of the writers.
4. The Borg take over the majority of the Enterprise. To kill them, Data ruptures the primary warp core plasma conduit, destroying the organic part of the Borg Queen. Yet, within half a day, they manage to hide the entire 24th-century Federation flagship from the Vulcan vessel that notices a tiny warp signature from Cochrane's rocket, and then facilitate all the repairs necessary to get the hell out of there (including reproducing the Borg's time travel to get them back to the 24th century), within a few hours? I don't buy it! The Borg had totally interfaced with the Enterprise's circuitry and taken over all of engineering and over half of the rest of the ship, the deflector dish had been shot into space, and the warp core's plasma conduits had been cracked open by Data's mighty fists of fury. And all that only takes a day to undo, despite like 75% of the crew having been killed/assimilated by the Borg?
5. Hey guys, here's an idea: let's not waste some of the coolest high tech we've ever seen! Picard, I'm sure it was very cathartic to break the Borg Queen's metallic spine. But you know what would've been more cathartic? Studying it, so when you encounter the Borg again, you know how they operate. And you obviously figured out a way to travel through time, in order to get home; do you not think that might be knowledge people would want in the future? In Star Trek 4, they could only travel through time by getting a tiny Klingon Bird of Prey and whipping around a star's gravitational field (or something like that). You just found a way to move a 700m-long ship through time to a precise temporal destination. That seems like knowledge you might want to share, yet never again do we see time travel in any future movies.

Anyway, I know this was a nerdy and silly rant, full of pedantry, but still, these things irked me. I am happy to give lots of suspension of disbelief to futuristic sci-fi, but this was just silly and seems like sloppy/lazy script writing. The movie was still great, but why make such minor elements so improbable?

"Brave words. I've heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created. But, now they are all Borg."

-The Borg Queen

Marseilles. First impressions: somewhat unimpressed

"The reason why all of us naturally began to live in France is because France has scientific methods, machines and electricity, but does not really believe that these things have anything to do with the real business of living."

- Gertrude Stein

So, as most of you are probably aware, I am currently in France. I'm here to do a series of experiments that I either cannot do in Manchester, or cannot otherwise outsource. In many cases, we would send off my samples to the lab in which I'm now working, they would do the processing and return them; however, they are seriously short-staffed and unable to process them independently, hence my presence here.

To that end, I recently flew to Marseilles to work in the IM2NP (The Institut Matériaux Microélectronique Nanosciences de Provence) at the Université de Paul Cézanne, faculty of St. Jérôme. I won't bore you with the details of what I'm doing here (until I get into my "What Do I Do" series of posts about my work, but the short version is that I'm layering very thin layers of germanium on the samples I created in Manchester.

Anyway, that's not really what this post is about. What I want to talk about is my initial impressions of Marseilles. Basically, it's a pretty mixed bag. So let's go with the tried-and-true (and somewhat trite) formula of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good: Well, to start with, it's been mostly beautiful since I arrived. In stark contrast to Manchester's cold, grey, drizzly springs, Marseilles, situated in the lovely south of France, is pretty sweet at this time of year. Though I had some showers initially, and some chilly air to boot, for the most part, it's been just right: high teens or low-twenties, sunny, and just generally very pleasant.

Second, the people I work with seem very nice, genuine and intelligent. I've met the majority of the people with whom I'll be working, and they all seem to be upstanding guys and girls. So, working should be pretty decent. Also, Isabelle, the woman in charge of the lab here, is a bit more proactive about pushing me to work, which I really do need; a more laissez-faire attitude results in me slacking off. A lot. As in, what I've done for the last 30 months or so. So, with any luck, that'll spur me into doing some solid work, which I sorely need to do. Similarly, I have a few friends here (Véronique, Sandrine and her husband Damien). So, it's been great to see all of them again, and all have been very accommodating to me.

Finally, the food. Though I haven't really sampled too much French cuisine yet, I had some lovely dishes at the conference Isabelle held last week. Furthermore, the French have refined cheese and bread-making to an art, something I have enjoyed already, and intend to continue doing so.

The Bad: In short: the residence. I'm staying in student halls while here, kindly set up by my host. However, the French halls have clearly earned their reputations for being god-awful. Firstly, the fall prey to the typical shortcomings of student residences; they're small, loud (at all hours), ugly and dirty. Fair enough. My room is equipped with a single bed-this is something I swore I'd never sleep in again, but fair enough, it's par for the course for student halls. The kitchen is awful-three small electric hot plates (two of which have no knobs and the feet are broken off so you have to prop up the front to keep your pan from sliding off and only one of which has an exhaust hood over it), no stove, no garbage can (seriously), etc. The coin laundromat in the residence is expensive and doesn't provide any change. But the biggest affront, for me is that there's no internet access in the rooms. The only internet you can get in the hall is through the mini internet cafe thing in the front. It consists of five computers (only four work at all), all running a stripped-down version of Internet Explorer that reboots itself every half hour or so, discarding anything you've written. Also, it's so limited that I can't even delete messages in my webmail-I just get a "not authorised" message; and don't even think about doing anything that requires Flash, Java or sound or any kind-that's just crazy talk. They're slow, connected to ancient 15" CRT monitors and generally in poor repair. I know this may seem like a minor, whiney gripe, but it's a really big thing for me-the internet is how I keep in touch with friends and family, it's my primary source of entertainment when on my own, I use it to research, relax and play, and it's a big blow for me to not have it. At least the office has a (really fast) broadband connection, and I now have 24/7 access.

In addition to the internet thing, the hall is also located in a really dodgy area of town. I have been repeatedly warned not to walk alone at night, especially from the metro station (which would be about a 40-minute walk). As I understand it, the odds are pretty good I'd be mugged/stabbed/whatever. So, I'm heeding that advice. This wouldn't be a huge problem except that the bus from the metro station to my hall stops at 8:30 every night, a ridiculously-early hour for such a big city. There are night buses from downtown, but they are slow, infrequent, potentially dangerous and stop running at about 12:30AM, which makes going out for an evening on the town difficult. Especially because there is no nightlife whatsoever in the area of my hall. None. There's an internet cafe, a corner shop, two restaurants, two laundromats, a pharmacy and a bakery within a twenty-minute walk. That's it.

Basically, the area feels somewhat like a ghetto in a country much more financially destitute than France. I realise that Marseilles is a fairly poor city, but really-this is France! Not Rwanda, not Afghanistan, France. They should be able to do better than this. As for the hall, it just reeks of "bare minimum effort". There are walls and a ceiling and we should be happy for that, dammit. Any other amenities, anything to make one's personal life "enjoyable" is just lunacy. There's a comprehensive lack of attention to detail that's pervasive in the design and implementation of these mediocre living spaces. I don't expect the Taj Mahal, but for a prosperous first-world nation to not provide at least basic internet access to its student, in 2008, is ridiculous.

The Ugly: The city in general is not so much with the pretty ugly. There are exceptions, and areas of the city that predate WWII are generally quaint and pretty. There are a fair arrangement of churches, the harbour is lovely, and the surrounding scenery exquisite. However, most of the buildings can be generously described as "utilitarian". They are boxy, plain, poured-concrete structures; they are drab and at times dilapidated. The university buildings are equally boxy and uninteresting. It's not a big deal by any stretch, but don't come to Marseilles if you expect picturesque French villas nestled around the Mediterranean.

I'll be in Marseilles for a total of about two months. Having been here for two weeks, I already am a bit homesick, and am pretty frustrated with some of the shortcomings I've seen. I expected better, especially given this is the second-largest city in a country known for its history, prosperity and modernity. France should be a beacon of good social order, with well-equipped public transportation and a modern infrastructure, both physical and digital. I hope my opinion will improve, but right now-though the people seem lovely, and it's great to see my friends here again-I have been largely unimpressed with the city itself. Maybe time will change that opinion.

"I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French."

-Charles de Gaulle

Not all atheists are snobs

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

-Richard Dawkins

There's a blog I read with great regularity (whenever a new article pops up on my RSS feed), called Violent Acres; I like it so much, it's one of the few links in my sidebar. Generally, V (as the author is known) is astute and clever; often controversial, but generally she at least makes good points. But I feel that her recent post, Atheists are Snobs, misses the mark in a way very few of her others ever had. It's not because I'm an atheist myself (I am); it's because I think she falls prey to the exact same generalisations she preaches against.

Take this quotation, for example:

Atheists think they’re being clever with their spaghetti monster analogies and fairy tale rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they come off sound like condescending pricks.

This is where I think the first flaw comes in. She paints all atheists with the same brush. This includes zealots (and there are atheistic zealots) and moderates, intellectuals and dumbasses. She paints Richard Dawkins-a well-spoken, erudite opponent of organised religion-with the same brush as the mouth-breathers who decide that a facebook forum about Apple computers is the right place to rehash the same old creationism-vs-evolution argument again and again in stilted English and poorly-constructed critiques.

The problem is, there are many of us, and we're just as diverse as any other group. I'm an atheist, but I've been to Baptist, Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Protestant churches. I've been in love twice-once with a Mennonite and once with a Catholic, and have dated girls who were Christian, Hindu and atheist. I discuss religion frequently with my friends, religious and atheist alike. I think religion does some wonderful things in the world (charity, preaching morals, anti-drug programs and so forth), and does some terrible things (inspiring divisiveness, crusading against science, blocking the distribution of condoms to Africa and so forth). I have no problem with someone being religious, and am actually intrigued as to what compels them to their faith. Not so I can dissuade them from it, but because I think it speaks to a core need in ourselves, something V addresses when she says:

I, myself, have not been able to claim belief in a higher power for many, many years. However, I can still see the value in Religion. Perhaps growing up without a strong parental figure in my life made me recognize the possible value of a loving Father figure up in the sky watching out for me. And hey, I try my best not forget that sometimes we all need something to believe in.

So, I get it-I accept that faith in a higher power is an almost intrinsic characteristic of humanity. Hell, I often wish I could feel what religious people feel. That confidence, that peace which must accompany an unwavering belief in something bigger than us, with a plan for all of us, a glorified father figure who wants us all to be happy (despite plagues, famine war, and so on). I really do wish I could believe that. But too many things don't add up and I can't bring myself to believe (I won't go into the details here, you probably know them all by now).

Later on, V gets somewhat personal in her attacks, and pushes her stereotype further:

Most Atheists have the tendency to thumb their noses at Jesus, and then log onto World of Warcraft so they can pretend to be an orc for a couple of hours. They sneer at the Bible, but have no problem playing endless hours of vampire role playing games. The message is clear. Fantasies are OK as long as they include gratuitous violence and some sort of porn.

She has now labelled the majority of atheists as basement-dwelling anti-social troglodytes (not to mention implying that being a World of Warcraft fan makes one guilty of being just that). I don't play WoW, I don't even play much in the way of computer games. I'm a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, a nerdy profession indeed, but I nonetheless have a significant social life and the social skills to match. But again, that's not the point. The point is those last two sentences.

"The message is clear. Fantasies are OK as long as they include gratuitous violence and some sort of porn," she says smugly and-dare I say it-rather snobbishly. Putting aside the inherent superiority she touts over the 8.5 million people with the audacity to enjoy an online game, it is here that she shows her lack of comprehension. Because the message is clear, she just didn't read it right; the message is this: "Fantasies are OK, as long as everyone knows they're fantasies, and nobody tried to work them into broader life and legislation and as long as they do no harm". Nobody credible, or with any authority, believes that World of Warcraft is factual, and nobody proposes laws requiring that children be equipped with a helmet of +5 protection when leaving the house.

See, this is the main bone of contention amongst the atheists, to the extent that we can all agree on something: religion isn't science. Creationism has become one of the core battlegrounds in the brewing religious furor between the believers and we godless heathens. I have no real problem with people choosing to believe that the earth was created in seven days by an omnipotent deity. I think it's a little crazy, but I believe in their right to believe in crazy things. What bothers me is when school boards in Kansas vote to teach Intelligent Design (a thinly-veiled code-word for Creationism) in schools. What bothers me is when I get told I'm inferior and damned to an eternity of hellfire and torture because I don't believe. What bothers me is when religion gets in the way of common sense, ultimately causing harm. In short, what bothers me is the zealots, the religious extremists.

But you know what? I don't think all Christians are like this. In fact, I don't think the overwhelming majority of Christians are like this. While we're at it, I don't think the majority of Muslims are suicide bombers in waiting. I think, regardless of the religion, that the majority of the people who practise said religion are decent, moderate, often intelligent people who happen to believe something I don't. And you know what? It would be categorically wrong of me to classify all Christians as bible-thumping, evolution-denying wacknuts. But those are the ones that get the media attention; it is those squeaky wheels that get the grease and therefore many people castigate all Christians for the outlandish actions of a vocal few. And people who do paint with this broad are brush are shortsighted and quick to judgement. So why is it OK to paint all atheists with the same broad brush?

Most atheists are decent, moderate, often intelligent people. We are well-intentioned and tolerant, we work we play and we socialise. We just happen to not believe in something that religious people do. But you know what-the wacknuts, the extremists, the ones who are not just non-religious, but who are actively against religion in all its forms, and are on some misguided quest to annihilate it? They're the ones who get the attention; they're the ones you remember. But someone as smart as V should know better, should look beyond that and realise they are the vocal minority. They are the atheistic equivalent to the Creation-preaching Kansas extremist Christians, they are the atheistic equivalent to Al-Qaeda (only less well-armed and well-funded). Their reaction is natural-when confronted with a strong, vocal minority, it makes some sense to react with equal fervour, but they do the rest of us a disservice because otherwise-right-thinking people like V are misled by that very fervour into believing we're all extremist atheists. And we're just not.

V, if you somehow read this, I hope you will realise that your post describes a mere minority of atheists, albeit those you're most likely to notice and remember. Just don't make the same foibles they do, by blaming the many for the extreme actions of the few. That's ill-informed, myopic and-to be brutally honest-a little bit snobby.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

-Albert Einstein.

Dear God, please save my son from TB

"If you can discover a better way of life than office-holding for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are truly rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness-a good and wise life."

-Plato

OK, I just made a really long post at a message board I frequent, and thought I'd share it here as well so that a few more people might read it. The background is this: A Wisconsin couple is under investigation after their child died as a result of a preventable illness. The reason the child died? Instead of her parents taking her to a doctor, who could have easily saved her, they prayed for her to get better. In lieu of medicine, they chose prayer. I asked on this message board what people thought about this, and about other crazy cures (witch doctors, crystal healing, homeopathy, etc.). Eventually, the debate became about whether the state has a right to tell use how to raise our kids, given that religious freedom is a protected right. Essentially, can the state intervene if people's religious beliefs are causing danger to their children? And if so, will this lead to a slippery slope where kids aren't allowed to play sports because it's dangerous, and all kids are forced to wear helmets when they cycle, etc.

Here are my thoughts. Basically, it's this: the parents were negligent, and should be treated as such. I will address the major themes discussed within this thread, and will apologise (though not profusely) for the very debater-y tone this post is about to take. And its extreme length.

Religion versus science
Nobody reading this is likely to question that medical science is imperfect, but it's miles and miles better than religion and faith healing, so I'm not going to say much on this. The reality is, certain diseases are highly predictable and highly treatable, and this sounds like one of them. No, it's not 100% but it's pretty close.

The role of the state, and the social contract
OK, welcome ladies and gentlemen to debater-land. What is the role of the state? Well, when someone chooses to be a citizen of a given society, they enter into an implicit social contract: they agree to certain things or they remove themselves from the state. Essentially, you cede certain rights in exchange for certain benefits. In an anarchistic nation, you could rape, murder, pillage and more at will. In every civil society on earth, we eliminate those rights. On a less-extreme example, you lose to right to retain all your income (i.e. taxes), and you lose the right, in most western states, to live in a mono-religious theocracy, whether you want that or not. In exchange, you get protection via the instruments of the state-police, military, education, health care. You enter into this collective willingly as an adult or under the auspices of your parents as a child, and you have to accept those conditions, or work from within to change them.

This isn't (yet) about the specifics of this case, just establishing the groundwork. We do give up certain things to the state in order to gain the benefits that come from it.

The state's duty of care
The state has a "duty of care" regarding its citizens. This means that, because they have chosen to buy into the state, have fed the state, and have ceded rights to the state, the state has not only the right to, but a responsibility to care for its citizens. This takes different forms in different places. Saudi citizens may want their religion preserved as one of the duties of care; Americans might want freedom to practice any religion protected. But ultimately, the will of the people must be represented, and the members of the state cared for.

Further, the state has an extra duty of care to the weaker, and less able to protect themselves, members of the state. Certain members of the state are better able to protect their own rights without state intervention, but others are more vulnerable. It's why there are laws against con artists, against fraud and discrimination, and why we codify laws protecting the disabled, for example. Children, of course, are the centerpiece of all this: children are the weakest members of society, the least able to protect themselves, and the most open to abuse, especially by their parents and/or guardians. So, the state institutes additional protections for children: abuse laws, statutory rape, etc., because they are not rationally-thinking individuals the way we consider adults to be.

Again, nothing specific to this case, just saying the government needs to protect children. Again, something we can all broadly agree on, I'd wager.

Religious freedom
In the states we're talking about (i.e. Western Liberal Democracies-WLDs for short from now on), religious freedom is protected. Religion is seen as a spiritual, personal choice, largely ungoverned by logic and reasoning, thus incapable of being regulated in the ways other things are. Therefore, WLDs pass laws to protect the right to worship in the way you see fit, and the protection of religious beliefs, even where it might seem to contravene other regulations (for example, it is often a protected right that Sikh men be allowed to wear a turban, even where a hat is part of the uniform for everyone else).

However, these rights are not universal. Where they impinge on the health and well-being of others, we curtail them. We do not allow animal sacrifices or child sex, even if it's a religious belief. That Sikh man I mentioned? If he wants to work at a job requiring a hard hat, that's a safety issue, and it takes precedence over his religious beliefs. There are certain laws which cannot be contravened, even for religious reasons.

Parental Rights
When you become a parent, you have taken on arguably the most important role in society: shepherding the next generation of citizens into adulthood. This comes with a weight of responsibility, and its a mantle that we can ill-afford to let people shrug off. Therefore, the state grants a limited right to parent upon its citizens. Anyone can become a parent, and for the most part the state won't step in. You want to teach your kid that black people are evil? You're a StormFront (a NeoNazi group with whom some members of the message board linked above have tangled from time to time) idiot, but that's allowed. You want to plonk him in front of the TV for 8 hours a day? Goodbye brain, but that's your right. But the awesome responsibility you have cannot be unilaterally discarded; you beat your child, we take him away. Rape her-we take her away. Let your child go without food, adequate clothing and shelter? We take them away. The state's duty of care extends as far as ensuring at least a bare minimum of care upon those unable to provide for themselves; if you have taken on this duty, it is one you cannot fully abdicate. It is a limited right to parent.

Balance of harms and the concept of reasonableness
OK, here's where it gets interesting: where do you draw the line? There is, indeed, a difference between active and passive harms. Beating a child isn't the same as allowing them to be harmed by inattention. However, we do criminalise negligence. If you refuse to feed your child, they will be removed from your care. If you refuse to educate them, they will be removed from your care. If you allow their father to rape them, even though you did not yourself participate, they will be removed from your care. Because you have been negligent to their upbringing.

So how, then, do we decide where this line is drawn? Through the balance of harms and reasonableness. The balance of harms says "if doing an act causes more harms than not doing it, it should be stopped". This is ultimately measured with reasonableness. Lawyers probably know more about reasonableness in a legal sense than I do, but I think it's safe to say that in many cases, it ultimately comes down to a judge or jury deciding what's reasonable to the common man, or something to that effect. That's how we judge the balance of harms. Of course kids should be allowed to play sports-the harm of being banned from that is significant, in terms of health and development, and the risk is comparatively low. The harms of refusing a child necessary medical treatment, however, are a world apart. There is no real benefit to doing so (personally, I'd be in favour of Jehovah's Witnesses-at least JW children-being forced to have blood transfusions, their religion be damned, but that's another debate for another day) and the harm is as severe a harm as can ever be placed on a child-death. Major harm, no tangible benefit: religious freedom can be curtailed.

In this case, though the science may be imperfect, as is all science, it provided a clear and obvious solution, one with a proven track record, and one that was infinitely more effective than prayer or faith healing, or crystals or any other wacky crap the parents might have tried. Science could have saved this child, by any reckoning. The parents should have known this. Do they have the right to their religious beliefs? Of course, but not at the expense of their child's life, when that life could have so easily been spared.

Where would I draw the line in government control over parenting? Reasonable limits. I think bike helmets on kids are great. Their hair might get messy, they might have to deal with some discomfort, but forcing parents to limit the severe head trauma their child might endure is a reasonable risk-it doesn't make cycling any less fun. What about obese children-another known health risk-parents are currently allowed to let their kids get fat? Sometimes I think a government-mandated fat camp would save society a lot of trouble, make for better, healthier children, save the health care system a bundle and generally be positive. So I somewhat support this, though I'm not 100% sure. While I'm at it, yes I think parents should be required to make their kids wear seatbelts in the car; yes I think they should be required to have smoke detectors in the house and yes, I think they should do everything reasonable to ensure their child survives risks to their safety.

When the government does go too far, we vote them out, we push for change in the legislature, we protest, we do whatever we have to. But given a child's inability to stand up for itself, I see nothing wrong with a societal collective, enshrined in law, stating that there are certain minimum standards of care you must provide your child; if you accept this highest of duties, you had damn well better accept the responsibilities or the power of the state will descend upon you with great fury for so highly damaging the most vulnerable citizens we have that you have abdicated your rights as a parent.

"You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms."

-Neal A. Maxwell

The iPhone SDK

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these."

- Steve Jobs

As a long-time Mac nerd, I've long been eagerly awaiting the software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For those not in the know, this is a piece of software that allows for the development of other software. Currently, the iPhone/iTouch ship with a set of applications (mail, Safari web browser, calendar etc.) and that's all there will ever be. You can use web calendars (like Google Calendar) when you have an internet connection, but you can't install any native applications the way you can on a computer. No games, no fancier word processors, nothing. Well, that's set to change, as the SDK is going to arrive in June. On Thursday, Apple unveiled the details of the SDK (overall analysis here, play-by-play description of the announcement event here), and I'd like to look at what we now know.

Before the event took place (it has been announced for some time that the SDK was coming), I had some questions I wanted answered, regarding the limitations of the SDK, and how applications would be distributed. Most of those questions have now been answered.

VOIP Applications. The iPhone obviously is primarily a voice device-it's a feature-packed phone to be sure, but a phone nonetheless. Further, it's a phone tied to specific network carriers (AT&T in the U.S., O2 in the U.K, Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany, for example). These carriers have invested billions of dollars into building their infrastructure, and nothing scares them more than VOIP. VOIP stands for Voice Over IP, and is an umbrella term for any technology that allows you to place phone calls over the internet; the most common example is Skype. By treating voice calls as data, these services can realise tremendous savings. For example, while it costs me about 10p-35p/minute to make local calls from my mobile phone, and about £1/minute or more to make international calls, I called some friends in Canada with Skype from my computer and it cost me about 25p for a half hour.

As Wi-Fi internet access proliferates, VOIP becomes even more powerful. Imagine I could use an iPhone, at home, to place Skype calls. If I'm outside the range of my Wi-Fi point, I use the cell network; but if I'm at home, I can call anywhere in the world for a fraction of the cost, and don't have to use any of the minutes I purchase from my mobile carrier. You can understand why they're scared: all of a sudden, I'd be using their expensive network about 10% as much as I do now. So, hearing Apple say they would allow VOIP applications on the iPhone is thrilling.

Verdict: Yay Apple! I know AT&T would probably rather you block VOIP in any way possible, but I look forward to be able to make very cheap calls when in range of a Wi-Fi point.

Software Distribution: Apple has decided that all iPhone apps are to reside on Apple's server, and be downloaded through what they're calling the app store. Free apps will not cost the developer anything for Apple to host (beyond an initial, and quite reasonable $99 for the SDK and developer's club membership) and paid apps will cost the developer 30% of the cost for Apple to host the programs. This differs dramatically from computer software, which can be hosted anywhere, and downloaded at will, and installed manually.

I'm torn on this decision. I was worried they'd require payment for all applications, and am relieved that they will allow free apps. The advantages of this model are that Apple can ensure that no applications contain viruses or any of the other malware that infests computers. Furthermore, they can maintain a certain level of quality control, and if something goes wrong, there is a single source to trace that application back. Finally, it means that there is one location where every piece of iPhone software can be found, making a single, simple solution to software. However, this incurs a fee for any developer wishing to profit from their applications and means there's also a single point of failure if things go wrong. More ominously, perhaps, it means that Apple has final say over what applications are permitted on your iPhone. They've said they'll allow VOIP (as I mentioned before), which indicates they're open to things which their business partners might not be the biggest fans of. However, they've already said, unsurprisingly, that they won't allow SIM-unlocking applications, which would allow iPhones to be used on networks other than AT&T, so clearly they're planning to pick and choose which apps are permitted.

I'm on the fence, because there are clear advantages to this strategy in terms of security, doubly important for this market; I'll accept crashing and freezing on my computer much more readily than on my phone, and a virus that could spread phone-to-phone is a terrifying concept. But Apple has to tread lightly. There are some applications I really want to see on the iPhone, such as a video player that plays all formats, not just H.264, the format Apple uses to sell videos in the iTunes store. This would perhaps hurt iTunes sales, so I wouldn't be shocked if Apple blocked it; but I hope they won't-that would show a penchant for application-filtering I would find disturbing. Similarly, a BitTorrent application, or other peer-to-peer software will provide an acid test; if Apple permits software that not only provides potential alternatives to buying stuff from the iTunes store, but also provides the possibility of being used to pirate movies, I'll know they're open-minded, and will be OK with the iPhone App Store. If they crackdown, I'll know they're intent on auditing my application choices, and will be wary.

Verdict: Wait and see. Will Apple allow applications to exist that could provide revenue-damaging, or potentially illegal activities, or will they enforce a puritanical code of ethics on all iPhones? I hope the former.

SDK Details: The SDK itself looks quite interesting (though keep in mind, I'm not a software developer, so I might be missing something). I think the $99 fee is reasonable-Microsoft's Visual Studio and MSDN access cost scads more, and the fee appears to be a one-time-only affair. I like that the SDK can access the positioning information, allowing the iPhone to tell you where it is geographically, using cellular tower and Wi-Fi HotSpot data. The iPhone simulator seems an excellent way to test one's applications before downloading them onto a real-world iPhone. And ultimately, it seems like Apple has finally embraced the reality that the iPhone isn't just a phone, it's a phone new portable computing platform. I can't wait to see what applications emerge in the coming months. I just might have to make an iPod Touch-sized dent in my bank account one of these days...

"My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod."

-Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft

Turkey

"No matter how rich and prosperous, a nation without independence, cannot be subject to any behaviour before the humanity, at a higher level than serving."
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

This past August, I was in Turkey, and I'm long overdue for a report on what went on and my thoughts on the whole shindig. It was an exciting and revelatory experience for me in many ways. Incidentally, sorry for this taking so long-pure laziness has made it so long overdue, the original writing date was last September. Sigh.

I was in Istanbul for the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC) 2007 (Aug 5-11), hosted by Koç University. But since I'd never been to Turkey, and had heard nothing but positive comments about it, I extended my trip by about a week before and after, to allow for some travel. I was there from July 31-Aug 17.

I arrived in Istanbul with Dan and Hannah; we met Shannon at the airport, and Julia joined us a half-hour later, also at the airport. We cabbed it into our hostel in Sultanahmet, the most tourist-heavy section of Istanbul, and also the section with some of the most beautiful sites-The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Grand Bazaar, to name but a few.

We spent the first day hitting the major tourist attractions, i.e. those noted above. I cannot emphasise enough how stunningly gorgeous the Blue Mosque (pictured below at night, from the rooftop bar in our youth hostel) and Hagia Sophia are. The Blue Mosque, especially, revels in its intricacy and beauty. I've long been a fan of the ornate, ancient cathedrals of Europe, and I am no hard-pressed to decide between the two genres of religious buildings. In either case, the tapestries, decorations, altars and mosaics and phenomenal. The Hagia Sophia has a slightly more austere look, possibly due to its age, possibly due to its conversion into a mosque from its original design as a cathedral, followed by its conversion into a museum. However, the dones and courtyards, and the expansive inner atrium all speak to a devotion to the almighty that I find equally understandable and inconceivable.


The Grand Bazaar, on the other hand, impressed me less. Though it certainly bore the thriving, vibrant air of bargaining and hustling I'd been lead to expect, I was disappointed at the repetitiveness and cheapness of the merchandise. This clearly is not where Turks come to shop, but rather where they relieve clueless tourists of their money. Chess sets, carpets and fake clothes/watches/handbags abound, oft-repeated from one stall to the next. Haggling is a must, and as it is a skill I lack, I most certainly was taken for a ride on the few items I did choose to purchase. I think I'll stick to eBay from now on. Inexplicably, I'd end up back at the bazaar at least three more times over the course of my trip. Go figure.

After this, we met up with Rosie and planned the next phase of our trip: Gallipoli. Dan had found out about a tour to Gallipoli, the area of Turkey in which allied forces (Dan's grandfather included) landed during the first world war. The tour we elected to go on was a two-day, all-inclusive affair; they included a bus trip to Channakale, a guided bus tour of the war sites and grave sites, a night in a local youth hostel and (the highlight of the trip), SCUBA diving down to WW1 wrecks.

As with all such war-memorial tours I've taken, this one was quite humbling. The territory was breathtakingly beautiful, from the azure ocean to the vibrant hillsides. To look out over such expanses and think of young men clawing their way up amidst machine-gun fire, to think of people spilling blood to either seize or defend such beautiful territory and the dominion of those who resided on it, is a shocking indictment of humanity.

The SCUBA diving was great, even though I got badly sunburned (due in part to my policy of staying out far too long because of my long-standing and never-successful policy of "if I'm not pink now, I never will be, right?" and due partly to Julia's sabotage of my lower back suntan lotion application.) We were cut somewhat short for time due to a few technical glitches early on, but I still got to go down and see a sunken desalinisation vessel. Apparently, the Turks had retrofitted a whaling boat to desalinate the sea water and provide fresh water for the troops. The thinking was that the allied ships wouldn't sink a civilian boat. This worked for awhile, until one of the allied warships finally asked the question "wait a minute! There aren't whales for thousands of miles, why do you need a whaling boat?", after which it was promptly sunk. This was my first time SCUBA-diving and I therefore had to stick close to the dive master, but it was a great experience. Once you get used to breathing through the regulator, the feeling of weightlessness really is amazing, and it was a great way to experience a small piece of history.

The next week was filled with debating, and I won't bore everyone with the details (all two of you who read this blog, anyway). Suffice it to say, it was filled with fun, merriment, pretension, drinking, socialising, catching up with old friends, meeting new friends, debating, debating and more debating, some more drinking, some wonderful buffets and some great parties. Koç put on an absolutely flawless tournament; from the food to the socials to the debating, everything was done to the highest standards and executed brilliantly. They are bidding for the world championships in 2010, and I hope they get it. Dan and I did alright at the tournament, but were disappointed by our early performance, which relegated us to some less-than-spectacular rooms later on. Highlights of the tournament for me were the night-time boat cruise of the Bosphorus river, the final round being held in a 5th century Byzantine cathedral, and the post-final clubbing in all our over-dressed, sweaty geekiness. You haven't lived until you've seen 200 debaters in a small, hot club in suits and ties, pretending they know how to dance.

After that, my plan had been to go to Safranbolu (a city in the north of Turkey that's generally out of the way and supposedly quite nice, old and quaint) for a day or so, then spend a few days in the Cappadocia region in the south, specifically hoping to solo-hike the length of the Ilhara Valley. However, after a solid week of debating, I was pretty worn out, and decided to spend a day at the beach, and doing some lounging around with various debaters at the university (which had a lovely pool). Both of these were nice and relaxing, and got my batteries well recharged; however, the lost time impinged on my other plans, and I had to scrap Safranbolu completely. In the end, though I greatly enjoyed the pool and beach time I had, I wish I'd been better organised about my travel plans; alas, it just gives me that much more to see on the next visit. And I did still get to see Cappadocia, which had been one of must-sees, and was a sublime experience.

Cappadocia, a region in the south of Turkey, is the centre of Turkey Christianity; for this reason, it is veritably littered with scores of ancient churches, frescoes and temples. What's fascinating about the region, however, is not that it is the epicentre of Christianity for the Turks; rather it is the unique landscapes and geological formations, and the resultant ways of life that took root there, creating environs that exist nowhere else and sit as monuments to austere beauty and workmanship. The central and preeminent feature of Cappadocia is the so-called "fairy chimneys" (pictured above). I won't go into detail about how these were formed, if you are curious, check out this brief Wikipedia article. Basically, ancient Turks can across these fairy chimneys and decided that they'd made great adobes. Therefore, the carved intricate, often multi-storey houses into the chimneys, and into many of the surrounding caves. They had windows, different rooms for different purposes, churches and more. The basically developed an entire society centred around the local geological formations. Interestingly, a few of these fairy chimneys are still inhabited, with some even being for sale.

This gives Cappadocia the feel of two very strong bits of fictional imagery: Bedrock City (from the Flintstones) and Tatooine (from Star Wars). Seeing dozens of caves (and pigeon coops) nestled into the windswept hills evokes both cultural images. I spent my time in Cappadocia both exploring on my own and on an organised tour. The open-air museum in Goreme features some of the most intricate fairy chimney abodes and many churches, and I spent a late morning/early afternoon perusing the museum. I then went off on my own, hiking through the nearby valley of swords, which contained a collection of smaller lumps, many of which were carved out, but the mority of them long since abandoned, and often eroded somewhat. It was tranquil and lovely, and when I crested the hill edging the valley, I could see down below a series of fields and what appeared to be some inhabited fairy chimneys. It was a scene of utter peace and exuded a sense of harmony. To enjoy the settings, I picked a cave carved into one of the lump-shaped abandoned mini-fairy chimneys and just read for several hours (Anil's Ghost for those that are curious, an amazingly descriptive work I'd highly recommend).
I also wrote some postcards, and may have napped for a short while. It was a lovely respite; while I enjoy an always-moving, see-everything-yo-can trip as well, there's something nice about just finding a shady, but still hot area, and relaxing completely.

The guided tour I did was of an underground city and a hike along the Ihhara Valley. The underground city, built millennia ago, and originally designed to house as many as 50,000 inhabitants. It was designed as a security feature, and was generally uninhabited. The idea was, the community would live in the city above, but if they were ever attacked, they could retreat to the underground city for refuge. The main access was through a narrow stairwell opening into a large chamber, thus allowing for an easy defence against any interlopers who might try to take over the city from above.

The Ihlara valley hike was quite possibly one of the most breathtaking walks I've ever taken. Cut through sandstone hills (with caves and churches carved into them at frequent intervals), the Ihlara Valley is a swath of lust foliage and a beautiful river amid the arid environs typical to that part of Anatolia. Pristine and dripping with a sense of history and grandeur, the valley is as yet not completely overrun by tourists, though they are plentiful. The hike takes about four hours, and you can hear the babbling of the river besides you at all times, while gazing up at the cliff face, in which thousands of people once lived, prayed and thrived. It's a truly unique locale, and although I was initially wary of taking a guided tour rather than going on my own, I'm glad that I did-it gave me a chance to see more than I would have otherwise, and the experience was wonderful. That night, I went out with some Canadians from the youth hostel in which I was staying (which, incidentally was built into a cave, very cool indeed) for an organised night of traditional Turkish dancing, food and wine. Very fun.

After that, I took the long bus ride back to Istanbul, where I stayed for a night before flying back to Manchester. The experience, I think it's fair to say, left me in some awe. Turkey is a fascinating country, and one about which I wish I knew more, and one to which I definitely aspire to return some day. Turkey is a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, yet officially secular. It's a country that is the gateway between Europe and the Middle East, and that encompasses both a diverse and proud history, and a modern bent. All of this is reflect in many aspects of Turkey, but doubly so in Istanbul itself.

In Istanbul, it is a common sight to see a 1500-year-old mosque cloistered next to a modern glass office building. Markets and bazaars coexist with electronics shops and cellular phone providers. The country's religiosity is evident in the existence of the (technically banned) headscarves worn by many women, yet the secularism that is bound in law is obvious, in the bohemian, party atmosphere of the night life and the modernity of dress. There are, of course, factions that think this movement has happened too quickly-the recent election of the AK party, though tempered by the military, has shown that there are many who object to the banning of religious icons in public. Turkey clashes with its ethnic Kurdish people demonstrate the tensions that exist within this frequently conquered state, once subjugated by the Ottoman empire, among others.

Turkey seems to stand at a crossroads, disparate views stretching forth in front of it. The minarets of mosques that are visible throughout show its adherence to its Islamic roots, yet Turkey's on-again-off-again desire to join the European Union has brought about changes to its human rights and social welfare policies that are more in line with liberal democracies. The appeals of each seems to be divergent, yet the Turkish people seem to handle this internal conflict with comparative aplomb, the glittering skylines and traditional architecture a monument to the republic that Ataturk crated, forged in the crucible of the first world war. Whether they embrace the traditional roots, mired in the past, adherent to religious teachings and traditional values, or embrace the modernity offered by the western world, with its potential pitfalls in economics and the often-implied loss of individuality and morality, is still to be decided. Whichever road Turkey takes, a culture so strong, so proud and so deserving on unity and preservation seems unlikely to disappear into the miasma of sameness so prevalent in other parts of the world. As part of the EU, or as an independent nation, Turkey will always be Turkey: hot, beautiful, austere and traditional; giving, exciting, modern and
dynamic. As the office towers continue to sprout, the dily calls to prayer from the Blue Mosque will no doubt echo into the evening's gloom, a haunting testament to the well-deserved pride of Turkish people, and their strength.

Following the military triumph we accomplished by bayonets, weapons and blood, we shall strive to win victories in such fields as culture, scholarship, science and economics.
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk