One Law For All

I just signed this: http://www.shariapetition.com/ . I'm number 7727, if you want to see me there. You should sign it, too; Sharia has no place in any free and civilised country.

Morality and knowledge creation

Is morality defined as "the action that creates the most knowledge"? Let us imagine a situation, for example, in which a man who will die tomorrow may have performed on him an experiment which may provide scientists with a cure that will save thousands, but the procedure is very painful, and the man—even though he will die tomorrow—does not consent to having the experiment performed on him. Clearly the moral course of action is not to perform the experiment upon the subject, but this is not the course of action which creates the most knowledge.

I propose, however, that it is only the propensity of humans to be mistaken that makes this action immoral.

Conjecture 1: morality is theories on how to live best, how to make good decisions

Conjecture 2: morality is objective

Conjecture 3: that morality is objective means that in any given situation, with all current best theories that are available, there is one best decision to make, and that same decision is best to make from any perspective.

So in the situation described above, if we could persuade the dying man that it is best to undergo the painful experiment, and he were to consent, then it would be the moral course of action to perform the experiment. It would be moral because it creates the most knowledge. However, since the man has not been persuaded, the fact that we would have to coerce him makes performing the experiment immoral. Why is it immoral? Because we already know that coercion prevents knowledge creation. We are fallible. If we cannot persuade another person that we are right, it is infallibilist and inhibiting of knowledge creation to force our will on them anyway.

In both hypothetical situations—the one in which the man is persuaded and the one in which he is not—morality can be derived from whatever creates most knowledge.

A Jihad on Civilisation

In light of today's announcement by Osama Bin Laden, I thought of a lot of things to say. An attack on the terrorists; a speech on Israel's merits; a declaration of my support for the Jews.

Considering my heinous lack of posting here lately, this may seem a bit of a cop-out. However, I don't think that my confidence in Israel is best served by a plea of defence, nor do Islam's disgusting faults deserve restating, as they are self-evident. For now, I have only one thing to say, and rest assured I take today's announcement as merely an excuse to say it:

Am Yisrael Chai! ♡

Israel, the Czechs, Fawstin and Dexter

I'm more than aware that most of the world hates Israel. This is because most of the world is anti-semitic, true, but there it is. And yet every so often you hear a few wonderful remarks from those people with the backbone to speak truth and take the consequences. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Geert Wilders. Ayn Rand. The Jyllands-Posten caricaturists. And if you're wondering what the Jyllands-Posten cartoons have to do with Israel, I'll remind you: Israel is fighting the terrorists and defending civilisation.
I remember last year noticing and being surprised and happy that Canada swore to defend Israel. This year, it's come from a most unlikely source: the Czech Republic.

"[Czech Foreign Minister] Schwarzenberg, a staunch ally of Washington, said Hamas had excluded itself from serious political debate due to its rocket attacks on Israel. He also indirectly blamed the group for the growing death toll, saying it put its bases and gun warehouses in densely populated areas.

"Why am I one of the few that have expressed understanding for Israel? ... I am enjoying the luxury of telling the truth,“ Schwarzenberg told the daily."[1]

Damn, it's nice to hear that. At least not everyone is insane. Speaking of insane, Pigman and Dexter. Those of utter moral cowardice often seem to express some measure of horror at cartoonist Bosch Fawstin's violent anti-Islam art. Our government would probably classify slogans such as 'Give Us Liberty, Give Them Death' as hate speech and send an angry letter or two to Mr Fawstin. In response, and since I particularly like that poster, I invite those who dislike Fawstin's art and his character, Pigman, to consider Dexter.

Dexter is a serial killer. He's smart. He's also a forensic detective, specialising in blood-spatter analysis. He has a compulsion to murder—but instead of becoming a rampaging psychopath, he sets himself moral guidelines on who he is allowed to kill. He won't kill children. He will kill those who are murderers themselves and who in his judgement will beyond reasonable doubt kill again; those who pose a danger to innocent people. If I recall correctly, Dexter's first kill of the show was a man who had murdered some little boys.

I liked Dexter. He's like a superhero. He's like how Rorschach might have been if I had written Watchmen instead of Moore. He's not perfect, he is psychotic and compulsive. But he's also clever, and he's also moral. He forces his actions to be guided by his principles, and what results is a very human, believable character who in committing his murders does essentially nothing more than protect the innocent. It's probably good that he enjoys it; if he didn't, he might stop.

What Dexter's moral guidelines presuppose is that there are some people who deserve to die. Some people whose existence will do only one thing: harm innocent people. In the show, Dexter kills murderers. In real life, there are other threats to civilisation, too. Murderers not content with killing one man and instead working out the best ways to kill as many as possible in one go; and not for their watch or wallet, but because of their place of birth and the country in which they live. Rapists not content with picking off the most attractive girls, but choosing them on the basis of the colour of their skin and the western style of their clothing.

Give us Liberty, give them Death, indeed. Bosch, never stop drawing. Israel, America, never stop fighting. Let's make the best of 2009. Let's defend the West.

In the absence of good...

...evil prevails. I address this to those of you who believe that abstaining from the burden of moral decision-making is commendable, that fence-sitting is practical, that apathy is permissible: the side of good needs all the help it can get. There's no such thing as too much support for a moral idea. When you withdraw your support, you are leaving the way clear for the truly evil people to attack that idea, and try to tear it down. You think that because you abstained, you'll be spared the consequences. But the evildoers are often against you, too—perhaps it's because you're a woman, perhaps it's because you're a Westerner, perhaps it's because you work hard to make money—and against the foundations of the very culture that permits you the choice of abstaining, the Enlightened West.

By withdrawing your voice from the debate of principles you turn your back on the traditions of liberty that this culture enshrines and you pave the way for the brutality and abhorrence of institutions like Islam, Liberalism and Communism. At risk of quoting that too-oft quoted poem, "First they came...", I invite you to consider the world you tacitly promote: one in which nobody will speak up for you, as you always refused to speak up for them.

Evil Corporations

A conversation with my father - a man whose sociopolitical views could hardly be more opposite to mine - highlighted very well a fundamental lack of reason so characteristic of those who say that corporations are evil.

Father: Cigarette companies just make their money off the backs of the helplessly addicted.
Me: Ha, ha! You're joking, right?
Father: Certainly not! Cigarettes are a chemical addiction.
Me: ...Yes, but you don't really think that cigarette manufacturers are motivated to produce on that basis.
Father: Smokers are completely addicted to cigarettes. It's that that keeps the money coming in for the cigarette manufacturers.
Me: Demand for cigarettes is cultural, though. It originates from a time before people knew that it was bad for you (and if I recall correctly, they thought it was actually beneficial).
Father: No. Smokers can't stop buying cigarettes, they're addictive.
Me: Yes, but they weren't addicted before they started smoking, were they?
Father: ...

I really never got an answer to that. Do people not think at all before saying things like this? It's the matter of seconds to realise that the demand for cigarettes can't possibly originate from the addiction (I won't get into the idiocy of implying that chemical addiction is somehow irreversible, or nearly irreversible, or even that it has any great power over people. Especially considering my father brags about how easy it was for him to give up smoking!), because the demand must exist before the addiction is created.

Law-Abiding Citizen

Quoting from a recent Samizdata post,

It is only people who behave suspiciously who should – and quite rightly deserve to – fear. That is the purpose of having ID cards!”

“Like my friends and acquaintances, I cannot understand how a law abiding citizen can object to the proposal or how they will limit or infringe my “civil liberties”.

- Unnamed members of the public quoted as endorsing the Home Office view

This reminds me of something Ayn Rand said, "The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." Once your identity is known and recorded, it isn't going to change. Something like how nothing that is put on the internet ever comes off again. The same can't be said for the law. The phrase, "law-abiding citizen" does not contain any information about what "law-abiding" means. Giving a government power to change the law is good; how else would we be able to update it in light of new knowledge? Giving them both power to change the law, and one's own biometric data, is scary.

Not to mention: people who behave suspiciously? Let's just read that again. People who behave suspiciously deserve to fear. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Not people who do wrong, but people who look wrong? Did the person who wrote that have any idea what they were saying? Did they think before they began speaking? In this person's dream society, looking suspicious - which could mean anything; people are fallible! - is going to earn one a knock on the door at two in the morning. That is the purpose of having ID cards? Digusting.