If you're going to deny one of physics most fundamental principals and the theory that explains it, you'd better be packing some serious heat. I won't pretend to be a physicist, but since it's my second favourite of the hard sciences, I felt like this particular page was a big, fat, slow ball over home plate.
I am going to do a point-by-point refutation of Conservapedia's "Counterexamples to Relativity" page, ignoring the political screed at the top, which is nonsense on the face and requires none of my art to be discredited. I think a refutation of their "45 counterexamples; any one [of which] shows that the theory is incorrect" will suffice.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Where Were You?
I had just turned eleven when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on the eleventh of September, 2001. I remember it because my brother swears up and down that we were going to fly to Disney Land that evening, a fact of which I have no recollection beyond his protestations. It was the early morning and I was up. It was a Tuesday, and I remember that because Tuesdays were a reading day and not a math day, and the tuesday book was Silverwing by Kenneth Opal, a book I have thoroughly forgotten.
Its weird what things your memory catches and what things they know. I know exactly where every classroom I ever had a class in at Uplands Elementary was, same with Beaconsfield Middle and Saint John High. Can't remember more than a dozen teachers without thinking heavily, though.
You remember weird things. I remember my brother coming down and seeing it on the news. That itself was wierd. Grandma watched the news in the morning down in the sitting room, but this was up in the living room, and mom and dad were watching it. I remember two things: the look my brother gave my mother (he'd have been nine at the time), and the surreal feeling that the television had to be showing a movie or something.
By the time I was awake that day, even with my childhood tendancy to wake up early, both towers were already struck. I think they were even already talking about terrorism then, but I don't really remember. I remember it looked wrong. Fake, somehow. You have to remember, I lived in a pretty remote neck of the woods back then. New York itself was only slightly more real than middle earth, and only then by virtue of the fact that I had been to a couple of towns in Alaska and a reasonable amount of Washington State by then and America was sort of solidified as "rude Canada" in my brain.
I'm even reasonably certain I went to school that day, but I think I got sent home. I know there was an announcement over the PA at the time and for the first time ever, everyone in the class shut up entirely to listen to it. Getting a pack of sixth graders to pay attention to anyone was hard back then, made harder by the fact that mine was a split class, and half fifth graders.
Again, it's funny what you remember.
So... where were you?
Its weird what things your memory catches and what things they know. I know exactly where every classroom I ever had a class in at Uplands Elementary was, same with Beaconsfield Middle and Saint John High. Can't remember more than a dozen teachers without thinking heavily, though.
You remember weird things. I remember my brother coming down and seeing it on the news. That itself was wierd. Grandma watched the news in the morning down in the sitting room, but this was up in the living room, and mom and dad were watching it. I remember two things: the look my brother gave my mother (he'd have been nine at the time), and the surreal feeling that the television had to be showing a movie or something.
By the time I was awake that day, even with my childhood tendancy to wake up early, both towers were already struck. I think they were even already talking about terrorism then, but I don't really remember. I remember it looked wrong. Fake, somehow. You have to remember, I lived in a pretty remote neck of the woods back then. New York itself was only slightly more real than middle earth, and only then by virtue of the fact that I had been to a couple of towns in Alaska and a reasonable amount of Washington State by then and America was sort of solidified as "rude Canada" in my brain.
I'm even reasonably certain I went to school that day, but I think I got sent home. I know there was an announcement over the PA at the time and for the first time ever, everyone in the class shut up entirely to listen to it. Getting a pack of sixth graders to pay attention to anyone was hard back then, made harder by the fact that mine was a split class, and half fifth graders.
Again, it's funny what you remember.
So... where were you?
Saturday, September 8, 2012
The Danger (And Benefit) of Absolute Morality
It's been a subject of debate for, frankly, as long as I can remember. We all know from infancy that there is such a thing as right and wrong. What seems to be a bone of contention is whether or not something is right or wrong in every given test case - if morality is absolute.
Meet Andy. Andy is a hypothetical person belonging to the middle economic class of a fully modern, westernized country. Andy was "brought up right" and is generally concerned with the rightness or wrongness of their actions. We're going to follow Andy as they run through some simple scenarios.
Andy is walking down the street when they encounter two others, Bobby and Casey. Bobby has backed Casey into a corner, which distresses Casey. Because Andy is only just encountering the pair, Andy cannot determine the exact mode of conflict, except that Casey is distraught, and Bobby seems not to care.
As a moral case, we know that violence is wrong. Sure, most of us are accustomed to violence through film, television, and gaming - but we know that violence, particularly for its own sake, is wrong. If we treat this as an absolute, however, the ways in which Andy can help Casey are limited. Does Andy approach Bobby and offer to be a mediator in this dispute, which like as not could start a fight? Or does Andy move on, inform the police, and leave Casey figuratively twisting in the wind? Further, if Andy does intervene, that intervention would commit them to see the end of that conflict, however it develops. Were Bobby to round on Andy and attack, Andy would be forced to defend against that attack - or does the absolute wrongness of violence mean that Andy should simply take what is coming?
While we're mulling over those particular waters, let's take an ethics question that should be familiar to ever business student.
Meet Darian. Darian is Andy, except that Darian was born in a different part of the world - one of the many countries where it is customary to give a gift of some kind before concluding a deal, often as soon as the first negotiating session. In the west, many would see such a practice as a discreet form of bribery, a practice that we all agree is wrong. In Darian's homeland, however, the absence of such a gift is a gross insult. The gift serves to acknowledge that the recipient has something the giver wants, and that the exchange is intended to be genial and mutually productive.
Knowing this, should Andy accept the gift, and, moreover, should he reciprocate as is customary?
Absolute morality would be very useful, if we all could agree on the rules. Killing is absolutely wrong, but it is a wrong I would hope many would commit if their families themselves were threatened with death. Now, where Wrath is almost certainly my primary sin, I think most of my readers would agree.
Meet Andy. Andy is a hypothetical person belonging to the middle economic class of a fully modern, westernized country. Andy was "brought up right" and is generally concerned with the rightness or wrongness of their actions. We're going to follow Andy as they run through some simple scenarios.
Andy is walking down the street when they encounter two others, Bobby and Casey. Bobby has backed Casey into a corner, which distresses Casey. Because Andy is only just encountering the pair, Andy cannot determine the exact mode of conflict, except that Casey is distraught, and Bobby seems not to care.
As a moral case, we know that violence is wrong. Sure, most of us are accustomed to violence through film, television, and gaming - but we know that violence, particularly for its own sake, is wrong. If we treat this as an absolute, however, the ways in which Andy can help Casey are limited. Does Andy approach Bobby and offer to be a mediator in this dispute, which like as not could start a fight? Or does Andy move on, inform the police, and leave Casey figuratively twisting in the wind? Further, if Andy does intervene, that intervention would commit them to see the end of that conflict, however it develops. Were Bobby to round on Andy and attack, Andy would be forced to defend against that attack - or does the absolute wrongness of violence mean that Andy should simply take what is coming?
While we're mulling over those particular waters, let's take an ethics question that should be familiar to ever business student.
Meet Darian. Darian is Andy, except that Darian was born in a different part of the world - one of the many countries where it is customary to give a gift of some kind before concluding a deal, often as soon as the first negotiating session. In the west, many would see such a practice as a discreet form of bribery, a practice that we all agree is wrong. In Darian's homeland, however, the absence of such a gift is a gross insult. The gift serves to acknowledge that the recipient has something the giver wants, and that the exchange is intended to be genial and mutually productive.
Knowing this, should Andy accept the gift, and, moreover, should he reciprocate as is customary?
Absolute morality would be very useful, if we all could agree on the rules. Killing is absolutely wrong, but it is a wrong I would hope many would commit if their families themselves were threatened with death. Now, where Wrath is almost certainly my primary sin, I think most of my readers would agree.
Comfort Zones and Having Fun
You'd think after six years of dating we'd find a way for it to feel pretty proziac, but there's a lot of the commonplace we still haven't done. As it happened, last week my city also played host to the Exhibition, with its midway entertainments, rides, games, and, well, exhibits! I haven't been to an exhibition since I was a kid (which implies I'm not still a kid, I suppose), and therefore, it seemed like a better than perfect way to spend the afternoon.
Thing is, I'm something of a homebody. Since I stopped riding it daily to get to the high school, even the bus has begun to make me a little motion sick some days. If you combine a general dislike of new experiences with a predilection to minor motion sickness and a general hatred of crowds, you're going to start to understand why I sometimes need to think things through a little better.
Our first ride was the Ferris Wheel, an old favourite of mine, largely because it is predictable and I have a reasonably healthy understanding of the engineering forces involved and just what it would take for something to actually happen. It had rained a few hours before, and while people were starting to arrive again, the park was mostly empty. It made the ride very smooth, and I learned that Kat doesn't like Ferris Wheels. We watched some divers doing improbable things across the parkway, and I felt secured, somewhat, by Kat's anxiety. If we're both nervous, this could actually be a lot of fun.
As it turned out, the only thing that bothered Kat about Ferris Wheels was the vertigo she gets from heights. She rides amusement park rides like a boss. The first night I got pushed beyond my limits relatively early and I think that disappointed her. To this day, I don't begin to understand how she could handle the ride that shattered me considering her own anxieties and foibles, but that's neither here nor there.
The point of this story was that I still went back the next day. If anything, the next day should have been worse - it was hotter, the crowds were bigger, my proverbial blood sugar was low, and all told in the end I was predisposed to having a bad time... but I didn't. True, we rode different rides (except the Ferris Wheel, where we watched the sun set), but I actually had a blast. For one thing, I'd had a second look at the rides. I started to understand the forces that were actually at play (as opposed to the forces that felt like they were in play). On ride that looked rather tame was actually quite stomach-churning, whereas another, which looked like it would be frustrating, was actually very enjoyable and little more than being thrown around a nine-point star. I believed I described that one as trying to escape a frozen surface while being bungee-corded to the centre... and someone gives you a strong push.
In the end, what it really was was that I left my comfort zone and had fun. I'm already looking forward to doing it all again next year.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Aaah! Economics!
It is impossible to write a blog post about economics-in-general. It is, in fact, all I can do not to try, because that would be embarking on writing a book, and I would rather make my name in paid writing through fiction rather than non-fiction. So, if you're wondering where I've been, it's mostly been thinking about economics. I might even post on a small subject of it, if I find the time after work.
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