Paradox Point

On the Origin of Knowledge

2012-03-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

On the Origin of Knowledge

Where does design come from? Design is encapsulated knowledge, so rephrase the question. Where does knowledge come from? Or in other words: what is learning?

              Suppose that you know something. How did you learn it? I know of two general methods:
               1. A wise and kind teacher taught me.
               2. I taught myself, by trial and error and thought and luck.

With method 1 I can rightly ask who taught my teacher. And with method 2 I can rightly complain of having a fool for a teacher. Of course most people mix these methods. They trust, but from time to time they verify.

Translated into cosmic terms, method 1 corresponds to intelligent design, and method 2 translates into evolution. There are other translations: to monarchy, religion and command economics, for method 1, and democracy, science, and free markets, for method 2.

There are two problems with method 1, the wise teacher. First of all, are you sure that the teacher is wise? For who taught the teacher? The second problem is that it has no way to correct errors, it can only accumulate them. After the teacher stops teaching, it's all downhill, as the students and their students wander ever more astray from the original pure word. Therefore method 1 is inherently tragic.

But method 2 - self-teaching - is inherently comic, for it is all about error-correction. The autodidact has a fool for a teacher, and knows it too; and that precisely is philosophy. The philosopher loves wisdom, but does not necessarily possess the beloved; so the tale is a farce.

Loyal students are conformist; autodidacts are eccentric. Is the universe conformist or eccentric? I'm not sure; what am I to compare it to? Classical physics tended towards predictability, but quantum physics is eccentric. Biology rigidly conforms to chemical laws, but evolution is eccentric. Is the universe mixed?

Against Miracles and Special Effects

2012-03-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Against Miracles and Special Effects

Dear reader, please compare and contrast Bullwinkle and Jar Jar Binks. Both are animated cinema characters; both are tall, lumpy doofuses. But they differ in two ways: one is animated by the highest computer technology, but the other is crudely hand-drawn; and one character is loved by fandom, but the other is reviled. Which is which?

Jar Jar Binks is the high-tech toon, a real joy to look at; but is despised by fans. Bullwinkle is the low-tech toon, visibly slap-dash; and beloved. But surely this is strange, at least from George Lucas’s point of view. Why does investment in animation technology yield negative returns on customer satisfaction? The fans love special effects; why hate Jar Jar Binks, who is nothing but?

Because Jar Jar Binks was badly written. He, and his whole movie, had no point, no plot, no sense, and no respect for character, actor, or movie viewer. It is as if all the money spent on Special Effects had to be taken out of the Creative Writing budget; whereas with the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, it is as if all the money saved on the animation was spent on the writing.

Let us call this the Bullwinkle-Binks Effect; that there is a tradeoff, in the cinema, between special effects and creative writing. The better the glitz, the worse the words! This is not due to a literal transfer of funds between two departments – though that too happens – but more of an institutional problem.

The trouble with special effects is that they cost a lot of money, which the investors want back. Therefore further risk, inevitable with creative writing, is unacceptable. The special effects must tell a conventional story. They cheapen the tale, in proportion to the money spent.

Whereas creative writing is cheap, so it plus cheap animation can take bigger risks; and a story is remembered for what it risked. The worse the look, the better the story it can afford to tell.

Special effects ruin movies because they break rules, distract audiences, stultify plotting and reward bad writing. Good writing needs no special effects; it is its own special effect. Movies needing special effects have moronic dialog, wooden acting, cardboard characters, stupid plot twists, boring action, senseless violence and repellent values; whereas a well-written tale can be told on a bare stage, and the people will remember it, and beg to hear it again.

All of these artistic objections to special effects in cinema also apply to miracles in religion. Miracles ruin religious tales the same way that special effects ruin movies; by breaking rules, distracting audiences, and rewarding bad writing. This includes moronic dialog, wooden acting, cardboard characters, stupid plot twists, boring action, senseless violence and repellent values. This is because miracles strain the suspension of disbelief; and so the tale-teller cannot risk telling the truly incredible truths. So the brighter the miracle, the duller the tale.

Whereas a good story, well-told told straight from life, can melt a heart of stone.

If you doubt me, then consider the tale of Jonah. What do the people remember about Jonah? The whale! A big flashy miracle, and that’s all that people remember!

Who notices that Jonah is a satire of all the other prophets? The world’s worst prophet, he had to be forced, by sea monster if need be, to preach to Nineveh and save it. He wanted it doomed! And when the city is saved, he sees a giant gourd or something grow and wither, and he mourns it. OK, that’s weird. Was the gourd a mushroom cloud, blipping out of existence, thus saving the city to the regret of Jonah, world’s worst prophet? Or maybe it was the mushroom that Jonah took before seeing the mushroom?

All of this was funny enough, and surely a tip-off to anyone with a clue. Then add to that the whale tale! (A submarine, perhaps?) The capper was the last line, delivered by the Lord:

“And should I not care for Nineveh, that great city, with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

What boffs! Have some pity for 120,000 morons, and their cattle too! A great last line; but who remembers it? Almost nobody! And why? Because of that ridiculous fish story!

And that is how miracles ruin religion.

On the Misanthropic Principle

2012-03-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

On the Misanthropic Principle

Cosmologists recently have been speculating about an "anthropic principle", an alleged fine-tuning of the constants of physics in favor of life. I am skeptical; until astronomers get observations of alternate possible universes, there is no way to tell what the odds are for life for universes in general. We can only observe this universe.

And when we observe this universe, do we see one fine-tuned for life? I think not. 99.99999+ percent of the universe, by volume, is cold dark irradiated vacuum, utterly devoid of all life, and indeed of much anything. Of the small fraction that's not hard vacuum, most of it is star fire.

In fact we know of only one planet with life on it, our own. Mars just might have bacteria on it, and maybe there's life under the ice on Europa, or in Enceladus, or on Titan. Maybe. But even if every moon and every planet in the entire universe were crammed with life, still life would remain a minuscule fraction of the universe, whether measured by space, mass/energy, or information. And it took the universe 13,700,000,000 years to produce what little life it has.

Therefore the universe, considered as an engine for generating life, is remarkably inefficient. In fact I would say that it is fine-tuned, but not for the production of life, but against it. It isn't 100% lifeless, so it isn't perfectly tuned against life, but it is 99.999999+% lifeless, and that's pretty good fine tuning.

I call that the Misanthropic Principle. It states that the Universe is so made to have as little life in it as possible. To confirm this, you need merely go outdoors one night and point your telescope at the Moon.

Looking at the night sky leads me to suspect that the universe is fine-tuned for the production of cold dark irradiated vacuum. What purpose that serves escapes me.

On Irreducible Complexity

2012-03-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

On Irreducible Complexity

- and the Boston street grid

A rabbi once asked me how irreducibly complex systems could arise from evolution. I replied; how else? An intelligently designed system is never irreducibly complex; instead it is as reducible as possible! Intelligent designers use the KISS principle; Keep It Simple, Stupid: and that is because true intelligence recognizes the limitations of intelligence.

Consider two street traffic grids; that of San Francisco and that of Boston. The first is rationally planned; it was laid out with straightedge and protractor; and as a result it is not complex at all. Whereas the street plan of Boston evolved over centuries, by random variation and natural selection. It started with cow paths; the cow paths became lanes, then streets; then came centuries of tweaking by Boston politicians and contractors. Thanks to cows, politicians and contractors, the street grid of Boston is the irreducibly complex system it is today.

Once I asked my father (of blessed memory), "Is the street grid of Boston intelligently designed? After all, it's irreducibly complex." He laughed. You have to be from Boston to really get this joke.

On the First Cause and the Why Game

2012-03-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

On the First Cause and the Why Game

If there is a Designer, then who designed the Designer? This silly riddle leads us straight to that old philosophical chestnut; the Paradox of the First Cause. What caused the First Cause?

This in turn reminds me of the Why Game. If you've met small children, then you probably know how that game goes. The child asks, "Why is the sky blue?" "Well, dear, when you look at the sky you see through a lot of air, and that's blue." "Why?" "Because air has a very light blue tint." "Why?" "Because it deflects blue light and lets red light through." "Why?" "Because of Raleigh scattering." "Why?"

Why, why, why! Pretty soon you're discussing quantum mechanics, and then comes one more "Why?" than you can answer. And that is the child's version of the Paradox of the First Cause.

Any parent experienced in the Why Game knows that there are only three ways out:

1. "Shut up, kid, or else." That is the Authoritarian solution to the Paradox.

2. "Because!" That is the Rhetorical solution.

3. "I don't know." That is the Philosophical solution.

Option 1 works in the short term, but requires the use of force. It also sets a bad example for the child.

Option 2 requires a lot of fast double-talk, and it teaches the child evasion.

Option 3 is honest and direct. But it also mean that the child wins the game, and will repeat it soon.

These same three options apply, when the game is scaled up to nominal grown-ups asking society "Why?" When some snotty-nosed philosopher keeps hammering on some silly question (like, who designed the Designer), then eventually options 1, 2 or 3 come into play; authority, rhetoric or philosophy.

Sometimes society blurts out all three in succession: "Shut up, philosopher, or else, because I don't know!"

On Designers

2012-03-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

On Designers

Once a rabbi, discussing evolution and intelligent design with me, mentioned a Cyber 205 supercomputer. He asked: can such a thing come to be merely by evolving? Did it not need a designer?

My reply: yes in fact it did come to be by evolving; for it was a successor to previous models of computer, less developed, leading back through adding machine to abacus to counting board. Nor did the Cyber 205 have a single designer. It had designers, plural, each one attending to some small detail of the emerging design; but that emerging design had no one person organizing it; it instead self-organized. It had to; no single human mind can comprehend it.

Human society in general is self-designed in this sense. It is, in general, an evolving system of independent agents operating with minimal central control. Some parts of human society are built in terms of intelligent design - that is, central control - but their actual level of social control, and the actual value of that control, is notoriously limited.

For instance, suppose that I were to order a loaf of bread delivered to a certain address; lo and behold, it arrives. That required a lot of social design. The wheat had to be grown, then harvested, then milled; the flour had to be trucked to the baker, the baker had to bake the bread, and the trucker had to deliver the bread. Along the way there were also bankers, traffic cops, and gas station clerks. That is a complex irreducible system. Does it follow that there must exist a Bread Commissar, who created and supervises the entire system?

No! There is no need for such a meddler; instead these activities organized themselves by voluntary agreement within the free market. Indeed, experience has taught us that if some land ever did appoint a Bread Commissar, then his crowning achievement would be the shutdown of all bread production.

Reasoning by analogy, I conclude that the complex subtle structure in the universe is not necessarily an argument for a single Designer. It could just as easily be an argument against one.

The Best of Faiths

2012-02-29T07:48:00.002-08:00

The Best of Faiths

And I, unworthy of it

Is there a God, and if so, then why is there suffering? Is God unfair? Or powerless? Or ignorant? God is said to be infinite in compassion, power and wisdom; but this is inconsistent with the reality of suffering. It is also at odds with Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, which proves that every social system is somewhere either unfair or indecisive or illogical or perverse.

I doubt there is a God, but I cannot prove a negative; therefore I am an agnostic. I doubt and I scoff; I agree with all of the faiths, about all of the other faiths.

This includes atheism, which I consider the most pious of faiths, and I mean that in a good way. Atheism gives God the perfect alibi; not present at the scene of the crime. Atheism is also the purest of faiths, for it demands neither tithe nor rite. Atheism is the most unified of faiths, for there are infinitely many ways for there to be one god, but only one way for there to be none. And atheism is the most mystical of faiths, for it denies the mind the all-too-human comfort of a finite image of the ultimate.

Atheism is therefore the best of faiths; but I myself am not the best of believers; so a doubter I remain. Maybe God exists and maybe not! But I'll gladly grant atheism this; if there is a God, then God is almost certainly not Yahweh, nor Christ, nor Allah, nor Krishna, nor Zeus, nor Odin, nor Quetzalcoatl, nor Yu-Huang, nor Horus, nor Marduk, nor any other human fiction.

On the Dilemma of the Damned Beloved

2012-02-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

On the Dilemma of the Damned Beloved

             Heinlein, in "Job, a Comedy of Justice", has our pious hero reject Heaven because his beloved pagan wife was not in it. In contrast, C.S.Lewis, in "The Great Divorce", shows a blessed lady send her damned husband back to Hell. I see in this a curious metaphysical moral dilemma; namely, are the saved to care about their loved ones amongst the damned, or not? If yes, then their bliss would be contaminated by grief for the suffering of their damned beloveds; if not, then they attain perfect bliss at the price of rejecting empathy, memory, and ultimately even free will.
             The saved with damned loved ones therefore face a Faustian bargain; either love with pain or pleasure without love. This is of course a test of character, pitting virtue against vice. I say that the virtuous choice would be to leave the soulless bliss of false Heaven and enter the soulful turmoil of false Hell, and this for the sake of love; for love is true Heaven.
             Hmm… that has fantasy-novel potential...

When I went Galt

2012-02-24T07:47:00.001-08:00

When I went Galt

When I was in graduate school at Berkeley, one of my colleagues was Matthew Weiner. Like me, he had a scraggly beard. Like me, he wore hippy-dippy Birkenstock sandals. And let's not forget the tie-dye T-shirts and the rainbow suspenders. But unlike me, he signed up for the IDA; the Institute for Defense Analysis. That is, he was a spook-in-training. He told me that the IDA was the most liberal of the spook shops; but I didn't buy it.

Maybe I'm blowing his cover by mentioning this. I doubt it, it was all in the open. And in any case, fukkit. And what's more, fukkim. Freakin' sell-out!

One day he approached me. How would I like to give a lecture, about my four-valued paradox logic, at the Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory? I said no. He shrugged; it's my loss.

But I didn't think so. Here was my reasoning: if I give that lecture, then what's the best-case scenario? The bomb-makers get interested, they study my graduate thesis, and then they incorporate my work into a weapon of mass destruction. And for that they hire me, and pay me top dollar too; but there's a downside.

For according to the Law of the Excluded Middle, either my brain-child, thus weaponized, gets used... or it does not. You'll grant that? And if it got used, then I personally would be involved in a deed of apocalyptic horror and evil; and in that case it would have been better if I had never been born. Whereas if it did not get used, then my thought and labor would moulder in some missile silo, achieving nothing but the negative task of 'deterrence'; and it would be as if I had never been born.

And so I calculated that Livermore Lab was offering me a no-win deal. Either it would be better that I had never been born, or it would be as if I had never been born. If that's not a Faustian bargain, then what is? Either an enormous negative return on my investment of time and thought and devotion, or a flat zero return; I figured that there was no way to profit from so Satanic an offer, so I turned it down. There was some shit that I would not eat.

My wife Sherri says she's proud of me for that, which is nice, but pride doesn't pay the bills. What's worse, I feel unfulfilled. Lorn of destiny. Diamond logic is good stuff, solid work with real uses; really it ought to be in computer chips all over the world, but it is not, because I refused to adapt it to the task of death, destruction, terror and domination. (A.k.a. "defense".)

I have been harshly punished for my moralistic pride; it has condemned me to a life without traction. Stagnant income for decades, no influence, obscure, ignored. Take that, Nat! How do you like your 'integrity', Mister Nobody? For what profit it a man to save his own soul but lose the world?

My personal tragedy is trivial, but many others share it. Multiply my underachievement by millions of others in the same position as mine. Result; decades of national stagnation. That's what happens when enough people go Galt.

‘Going Galt’ is perhaps a misnomer; for though my strike was based upon rational self-interest, it was enlightened self-interest; not very Randian. Perhaps you could instead say that I (and many others) ‘walked away from Omelas’.

***

I met Matthew Weiner again, years later. It was during the first Gulf War; you know, the one which didn't get Saddam Hussein, but did convince bin Laden that the USA is the Great Satan. I was walking through the U.C.Berkeley campus, which I hadn't visited for years, and suddenly I was face to face with him. We stopped and looked each other over. The junior spook still had a scraggly beard, and a tie-dye T-shirt, and clamdigger shorts, and rainbow suspenders, and Birkenstock sandals. I was clean-shaven, and was wearing a black shirt, black jacket, long black pants, black belt, black socks, and black leather shoes. I looked like an undertaker, for indeed I was consciously in mourning.

***

I sometimes thought about Matthew Weiner towards the end of the Bush Jr. years. I hear that the spooks were furious about Plame, and none too happy about being ordered to fit the facts to the policy. I've had sucky bosses too, but none of mine ever insisted that two plus two equals anything other than four.

Re: Power of Pride

2012-02-23T07:59:00.001-08:00

There’s a bumper sticker I’ve often seen. It has the words “Power of Pride”, on a swirling red and blue background of stripes and bars, vaguely reminiscent of an American flag. These bumper stickers first appeared during the Bush Jr. administration, during the run-up to the Iraq war.

Whenever I’ve seen that bumper sticker on a parked car, and I have a chance to leave a note, then I do so, and the note reads:

****

Re: Power of Pride

Your bumper sticker reads “Power of Pride”; but Power corrupts and Pride is a sin. I’d rather have Freedom than Power, and I’d rather have Conscience than Pride. Freedom of Conscience is like Heaven; Power of Pride is like someplace else.

****

Do white people exist?

2012-02-22T07:37:00.000-08:00

Do white people exist?

In previous posts on this blog I have questioned the existence of Santa Claus, and money, and intelligent life on Earth. I have done so for philosophical reasons, usually relating to the incompleteness theorems of metamathematics. But white people? Don’t they exist; and also black people, and yellow? Surely my own eyes will say yes.

But in fact my eyes say no! And so will yours, if only you use them.

For what is white? It is the color of paper, and clouds, and milk. Suppose you, the reader, were called a white person; and that you were to pour from a carton of milk into a clear glass; and you were to see, to your amazement, that the fluid in the glass was the exact same color as your hand. Would you drink it?

Of course not! You would sniff the glass suspiciously; you would empty the glass into a sink and run water to wash the sink clean; and then you would take that carton of milk back to the store, and demand your money back. Why? Because milk is white, but this stuff wasn’t!

If you ever saw a cloud the same color as you, and if it started to rain you-colored rain, then wouldn’t you hide indoors until it stopped? That wouldn’t be a normal cloud! Normal clouds are white!

Put a piece of white paper diagonally atop another piece. It will be hard to see the edge, for the two pieces of paper are the same color. Now put your hand atop a piece of white paper. It will be easy to see the outline of your hand, for the paper is white and you are not.

A purist would object that albinos exist, and albinos are white. Not exactly; for even albinos, though pale indeed, still show in their skin some yellow, from subcutaneous fat, and some red, from arteries, and some blue, from veins. So even albinos have a complex color, tertiary at least; and the rest of us have a quartenary skin color.

Seeking unbiased vision, I asked a professional artist what color I am. Katherine McKay said that I am a light, warm shade of brown. Now I am about as Caucasian as they come; indeed my grandparents came from Poland and the Ukraine, which neighbor the Caucasus mountain range; so if I am a shade of brown, then so is pretty much anyone else. (Slightly off-white pinkish albinos excluded.) If you were to write with ink the color of Louis Farrakhan on paper the color of Patrick Buchanan, then you would have to squint to read whatever you wrote, for you were writing with brown upon brown. Excluding the rare pinkish albino, we humans are basically mammal-colored.

So if anyone were to tell you that he saw a stadium full of white people, then he was seeing something that was not there and could not be. He was seeing with his preconceptions, not with his eyes. An illusion!

White people, and black people, and yellow people, are all of them hallucinations! And not figuratively, but literally!

On Cootie-Powered Idea Theft

2012-02-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

On Cootie-Powered Idea Theft

Normally, when you steal an idea from someone, then that person gets to keep the idea. In fact that person gets to take credit, and boast ‘at last you have caught up to me’. But what if you could steal someone’s ideas in a way that they can’t take credit, and must even repudiate? What if you could steal an idea out of someone’s head, so they don’t have it any more?

Impossible, you say? But we have witnessed just this happening with Barack Obama versus the Republican Party. Over and over he has taken their ideas, which they have repudiated! He has stolen so many of their own ideas out of their heads that they must now run on bad ideas, or no ideas at all!

Why is this so? How is it even possible? I blame Cooties.

Cooties are a children’s schoolyard fiction. They are a kind of invisible magical lice, undetectable to the bearer, but intolerable to everyone else. They contaminate individuals, and anything that individual touches. They come in Boy and Girl varieties; Boy Cooties on boys, Girl Cooties on girls, each repulsive to the other sex. In theory they can be cured by Cootie shots, but in practice the only thing a child can do when approached by someone with Cooties is to run away.

It seems that the Republican Party thinks that Barack Obama has Cooties. Therefore he must not be touched, and nothing that he touches may be touched either. Normally Cootie-bearing would be career-ending for a politician, but Obama has found a way to turn Cooties to his advantage. For not only does he have Cooties, but anything that he’s for also has Cooties, and must be avoided by all right-wing-thinking people.

Therefore all he need do to deprive his political opponents of a useful idea is to say that he is for it. That gives the idea his Cooties, which they must flee. He keeps the idea, they lose it; he has stolen the idea out of their heads. Beware the power of the Cootie!

On the “too many” trope

2012-02-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

On the “too many” trope

A variant of the “too many” trope came up in the news recently. A certain Fox News commentator disgraced herself by saying that some female soldiers had been ‘raped too often’. The comedian Jon Stewart then asked if those soldiers should be raped ‘just enough’.

Just so! Let us focus on that phrase ‘too often’. It and variants are a common trope in political speech.

Candidates for office are wont to intone:

“For too long we have had to endure Z…”

“Too many hard-working Americans suffer from Z…”

“Too much Z is polluting our air…”

- for various values of Z. There’s also too often, too rarely, too little, too much, and on and on; and it’s always some evil that is in excess. But if that is the trouble, then what is the alternative?

Logic dictates that the only alternatives to ‘too many’ are ‘too few’ and ‘just enough’. So I ask, with Jon Stewart, if the Fox news commentator was calling for just enough rapes? Or even too few?

What would be ‘just enough’ rapes? For fewer than just enough would be too few. Well, how about a truly holy number; zero! More rapes than zero would be excessive, fewer would be impossible; therefore zero is the precise optimal number.

But if ‘just enough’ equals ‘zero’, then ‘too many’ equals ‘any at all’, and to say “too many people have suffered from Z” is the same as saying “people have suffered from Z”. So the words ‘too many’ can be deleted from all of its uses, without changing meaning.

But not without changing political effect! For to say ‘too many have suffered from Z’ is not just to say that Z exists and that people suffer from it; it also says that we, the people, have been tolerating a non-zero quantity of Z, and that it is now time to reduce Z to a lower, more tolerable, quantity. That lower quantity will probably not be zero; such rigor would probably be expensive, and we have other problems; but rest assured that we, the people, now aroused from our slumber, will combat Z until it declines to the point that we can return to our slumber.

Therefore the ‘too many’ trope is not telling you what is true, nor what is good, but instead how to think and what to feel. Worse, it does so covertly, while pretending to tell you what is true and good. The ‘too many’ trope conveys, not information, but manipulation.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 9

2012-02-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

Chapter Nine. Turning Tin Into Gold.

Sogwa hung out in the ship for a year, playing the Nerdlings’ video games and reading their comic books. Finally the big launch day came, and Sogwa snuck back to her house, making sure not to meet the other Sogwa on the way. Some Nerdlings came to say a fond farewell.

Sogwa said, “It is good to be home.”

The Nerdlings said, “It is good to go home.”

Sogwa said, “May you fly as fast as light.”

The Nerdlings said, “May you outlive all your creditors.”

Then they left, and they boarded the Crystal Cuddle Ship, and Sogwa watched through her front window as the super-ship lifted off from Earth. She saw, in the diamond window of the Crystal Cuddle Ship, a cat who looked just like her.

Sogwa then got busy buying things made out of tin. She spent all of her money on tin foil, tin cans, tin whistles, tin bells, tin drums, tin horns, tin horses, tin soldiers, tin medals, and tin trophies saying things like 7^TH PLACE , or NICE TRY , or GOOD SPORT. She jammed all that cheap junk into twenty-three jumbo-sized tin-plated trash cans.

She did this just in time, for as soon as the Nerdling ship lifted into space, the twenty-three trillionaires also began to buy tin. They spent all of their money on tin, and they turned all of that tin into gold. They sold all that gold to buy even more tin, which they turned into even more gold, and so on. They did this because they were all greedy, so they didn’t trust each other not to turn tin into gold, so each of them had to turn tin into gold, to keep up with the others.

Soon very little tin remained on Earth, but there was a lot of gold; so naturally gold was dirt cheap, and tin was expensive. Instead of putting soup into tin cans, people would put soup into gold cans, and that worked about as well as the old stuff did; and instead of saving gold coins, people would save tin coins, and these too worked about as well as the old stuff did.

But alas, the twenty-three trillionaires had all of their money in gold, which was dirt cheap, so they all went broke. They were too poor to run the world, so the world had to run itself. And the world did run itself, about as well as the twenty-three trillionaires did.

Meanwhile, clever Sogwa turned none of her tin into gold, even though she too knew the trick. She kept all her tin, and when the price of tin went up, she became a very rich kitty indeed.

That’s the story that Sogwa told me last night, and now I’ve told it to you. The End.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 8

2012-02-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

Chapter Eight. Yucky, Weird and Icky.

The Nerdlings said, “Dear Sogwa, how can we ever repay you?”

“Just take me home. I know a tiny trick with tin that will pay me well enough.”

So the Nerdlings carried Sogwa in triumph back to the Crystal Cuddle Ship, and waved goodbye as she got on board. She and the Nerdlings aboard lifted off planet and headed towards Earth. “For we must drop you off, and pick you up,” said the Nerdlings. “The Crystal Cuddle Ship is a time-loop ship; its past is its future, its future is its past. When you get back to Earth, do not, unless you must, talk with Sogwa! For it is weird and icky to meet yourself in a time-loop.”

“I did see another Sogwa a few times. We waved once.”

“Twice, you mean. Oh well, poor you,” said the Nerdlings.

“I do not understand,” said Sogwa.

“But you will,” said the Nerdlings.

Sogwa said, “How long to Earth?”

“Fifty thousand years Earth time, a hundred and forty-two years shipboard.”

“That’s still too long. So it’s lecture or freezer or Yucky Potion?” The Nerdlings nodded, and Sogwa thought it over. She had heard the lecture; and as for the freezer, no way! She sighed. “Bring me the Yucky Potion.”

They brought her the Yucky Potion. It was bright green, and it bubbled puffs of purple smoke. It smelled like liver, gasoline and mint. It was full of little squirmy bits. It was in a big gnarly goblet that you needed both paws to hold. Sogwa looked at the Yucky Potion, lifted it to her mouth, then lowered it, then quickly raised it up and drank it down in one, two, three, yuck, four, five, six big gulps.

And oh boy! It was so minty that she fell asleep right then and there. She would have hit the floor, but the Nerdlings caught her, for they are faster than a speeding bullet.

The Nerdlings laid Sogwa on a mat, and plunked her and the mat into a bin, and trundled her bin down to the luggage compartment. And there Sogwa slept off the yucky potion.

They woke her a hundred and forty-two years later, shipboard time, when they had reached Earth. She could still taste the mint. Yuck!

Through the ship’s diamond window she could see Earth, so big and round and blue and beautiful. They landed the Crystal Cuddle Ship, and since it is a time-loop ship, the Nerdlings invaded Earth all over again.

Once again they weren’t evil, just obnoxious; once again they asked Why far too many times; once again they embarrassed the wrong people to embarrass; once again something had to be done; and once again Sogwa came to visit.

The Sogwa on the ship kept out of the other Sogwa’s way, until the very end, when the other Sogwa was leaving. Sogwa was staring at her out the ship’s front door. The other Sogwa stopped, turned, and waved.

Sogwa thought, “Just because the other me waved last time doesn’t mean I have to. So I won’t.” But as she was thinking this, her right paw rose anyhow and waved back. Sogwa stared at her disobedient paw and ran back into the ship, yowling. She vowed not to meet her previous self again, for the Nerdlings were right; that sort of thing is weird and icky.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 7

2012-02-15T07:49:00.000-08:00

Chapter Seven. The Scary Menace.

They took Sogwa to Nerdle’s oldest city, and its worst neighborhood, and its grungiest street, and its creakiest abandoned house. They took her right up to the door of the dimmest room of the creakiest house on the grungiest street of the worst neighborhood of the oldest city on Nerdle; and from within she could hear an ominous humming noise. The Nerdlings cried, “That’s it, that’s it, it’s the Scary Menace, it’s... it’s... it’s...”

Sogwa boldly flung the door wide open, and the Nerdlings screamed;

“IT’S THE DUNDLEDEE!”

Sogwa looked at the Dundledee, and she thought, “That’s it? That’s why you’d run a hundred and twenty thousand lightyears?”

The dundledee looked just like a bumblebee, except she had green and purple stripes. She was flying around and around in circles in the middle of the room. She was trapped indoors, and she knew it, and she didn’t like it. She flexed her stinger and buzzed as loud as she could.

“Oh we’re scared, we’re so so scared,” the Nerdlings moaned. “What’ll we do?”

Sogwa saw that the dundledee was just as angry and confused and frightened as the Nerdlings. Sogwa’s kitty-cat heart melted with sweet sadness, for she understood both dundledee and Nerdlings, and she felt sorry for both of them, and she knew what to do for both of them.

The Nerdlings were sky-blue with terror. “Kill it, kill it, kill it,” they cried.

But Sogwa said, “Nonsense. I’ll evict her instead. Bring me a Bug-Catcher.” But the Nerdlings didn’t have one, so she said, “Then bring me a clear plastic bowl, and a cardboard board just big enough to cover the bowl. And watch, and learn.”

The Nerdlings brought her a bowl and a board. Armed with her bug-catcher, Sogwa entered the dundledee’s room. The dundledee was still buzzing loudly in a circle. Sogwa sidled around to the curtains, which she opened all the way; then she shuffled to the opposite side of the room. The dundledee landed on the window; Sogwa crept up on cat-quiet feet.

She quietly plopped the clear bowl over the dundledee; then she slid the board under the bowl; and she lifted away the bowl and the board and the dundledee caught between. “Look here,” she told the Nerdlings, and she showed them the bug caught in the bug-catcher. “Would one of you please open the window? Thank you.” Sogwa leaned way out the window, and whipped the bug-catcher open. The dundledee flew out and up and away.

“There you go,” said Sogwa, “problem solved.” She gave the two parts of the bug-catcher to the astonished Nerdlings. She said, “These are the tools; and you saw how to use them. Now you have the technology. Now you need never fear a trapped dundledee, no, never ever again; nor need a trapped dundledee ever fear you, no, never ever again.”

The Nerdlings cheered. They called Sogwa a hero, they called her a mighty hunter, they called her a genius inventor, and they even called her a teacher.

But Sogwa said, “Really it is you who have taught me. By your example, dear Nerdlings, I have learned that the real Scary Menace is not an exploding sun, nor an energy vampire, nor an imperial death moon, nor even a trapped dundledee; for your fear vanished when you knew what to do. You have taught me that the only Scary Menace is not knowing what to do.”

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 6

2012-02-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

Chapter Six. Welcome to Nerdle.

Sogwa looked out from the Crystal Cuddle Ship, and saw in the black of the sky a beautiful cloud. It shone by its own light, in every color of the rainbow. She said, “How pretty!”

The Nerdlings said, “That’s the Smoff Nebula. It’s what’s left of Smoff, our former sun. We were born and we evolved under its light. Smoff was big and blue and brilliant, but doomed to go boom. We learned its fate almost too late; a measly million years were left until its core’s collapse to a supernova blast.”

Sogwa said, “Weren’t you scared?”

“Not at all!” said the Nerdlings, and then said, “Well, yes we were, a little, until we figured out what to do. We launched big tug ships into space; and we lowered cables from the tug ships down to Nerdle; and we fastened the cables good and tight; and the tug ships tugged and tugged and tugged; and after only ten thousand years of tugging our world flew away from Smoff and hurtled into the dark between the stars.”

Sogwa said, “Didn’t it get cold, in the dark between the stars?”

“It got so cold that Nerdle’s oceans froze over and the air snowed out of the sky. We huddled underground, and whiled away the millennia by reading comic books and playing video games. It took nine hundred thousand years of towing to pull Nerdle to a safe distance. Finally we reached this star, the red dwarf star Fanac, and we docked here and warmed up. Our air blew back into the sky and our oceans melted and we went out to do some gardening. Our old sun Smoff exploded a hundred thousand years after we got here; there are its dusty remains. Sometimes we miss the old sun, but you’re right, it does make a pretty nebula. Fanac is small and red and dim, but it will shine a thousand times longer than Smoff ever did.”

Sogwa looked away from the beautiful rainbow cloud that used to be Nerdle’s old sun. She looked in the opposite direction, and saw a Thing so strange and hideous that she yowled with fright. “What is that eldritch horror?” she cried.

The Nerdlings said, “Oh, that’s just our shoggoth.”

Sogwa said, “What’s a shoggoth?”

“It’s a mind-bending soul-sucking energy vampire from another dimension. This one strayed into this universe through a rift in space; then he menaced our world.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“Not at all!” said the Nerdlings, and then said, “Well, yes we were, a little, until we figured out what to do. We built a laser cage and baited it with a music CD full of improv jazz. When the shoggoth snuck in to suck all the soul out of the CD, we turned the lasers on.”

Sogwa said, “That’s how you trapped him, but why is he loose now?”

“Don’t worry, he’s quite tame. Watch this.” The Nerdlings shouted by radio, “Here Kthooly! Here boy! Fetch the flying saucer! Yes! Now sit! Good boy! Roll over! That’s right! Play dead! Goooood shoggoth! Have a treat!” They tossed the shoggoth a pellet of plutonium, which the monster snapped up.

The Nerdlings said, “We reward Kthooly with treats when he is nice, and punish him with lightning when he is naughty. We feed him radium, thorium, and CDs full of reggae, gospel choir, and the blues. Once a century we empty his litterbox and walk him seven orbits backwards around Fanac. We scrub his scales, polish his fangs, and sharpen his stinger. We constantly check him for parasites, and we keep him vaccinated against glitches and the hex.”

Sogwa said, “That sounds like a lot of work.”

The Nerdlings said, “It’s a big responsibility to keep a pet.”

Just then the super-ship passed an immense wreck. Sogwa said, “What’s that?”

The Nerdlings said, “That is the wreckage of a planet-smashing Death Moon from the Evil Empire. The imperial overlords parked their Death Moon in orbit around Nerdle, and they said, ‘Pay us taxes or be destroyed!’ ”

Sogwa said, “Weren’t you scared?”

“Not at all!” said the Nerdlings, and then said, “Well, yes we were, a little, until we figured out what to do. We sicced our shoggoth on them.”

Sogwa inspected the Death Moon’s wreckage. “It looks kinda chewed up.”

The Nerdlings said, “After Kthooly was done with the Death Moon, we radioed the Evil Empire. We said that Fanac is small, red, dim, and ours. They haven’t bothered us since.”

And Sogwa asked herself, “What Scary Menace could possibly frighten these Nerdlings, who fear neither black hole nor supernova nor shoggoth nor imperial death moon?”

Finally they reached Nerdle. They parked the Crystal Cuddle Ship in orbit, and the crew of the super-ship called by radio down to the planet, “We are the Nerdlings, on board the Crystal Cuddle Ship, on a mission to rescue Nerdle.”

The Nerdlings on the planet radioed back, “We are the Nerdlings, on board planet Nerdle, requesting rescue from the Scary Menace.”

The Nerdlings on the ship said, “We bear the Sogwa, the hero, inventor and teacher who will free us forever from the fear of the Scary Menace.”

Sogwa squirmed a bit. She thought; all this praise is fun, but really I’m just an ordinary supercat. The Nerdlings on the planet below overheard her thought and radioed, “She’s modest, too. May we have your ship so we can flee this planet?”

“Yes, and may we have your planet so we can get off this ship?”

“Yes, and may we run away right away?”

“No. Wait until the Sogwa defeats the Scary Menace, then you can flee the Scary Menace by taking the Sogwa to Earth. Drop her off there, pick her up there, and get back when you left.”

“So this is a time loop.”

“We knew you’d say that.”

“Then let us say no more.”

So the Crystal Cuddle Ship landed, and opened its front and back doors. All the Nerdlings on the ship ran out the back door onto the planet; and all the Nerdlings on the planet ran in the front door into the ship; and they did this in the blink of an eye because they are faster than a speeding bullet.

And Sogwa strolled out, marvelling at the ways of the Nerdlings.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 5

2012-02-13T07:39:00.001-08:00

Chapter Five. Dream Flight.

Sogwa slept, and as she slept she had a strange dream. She dreamed that she herself was the Crystal Cuddle Ship, that she saw with the ship’s cameras, and heard with its antennas, and smelled with its spectrometers. She dreamed that she boosted with her rockets, faster and faster, until she sped through space at ninety nine point nine nine nine six percent of the speed of light. She dreamed that on ships that fast, the clocks tick-tock so slow that one second on the ship lasts six minutes on Earth, and one day shipboard is worth a year Earthboard. And all of this made perfect sense to Sogwa, for she was dreaming, and dreams have strange logic.

Sogwa dreamed that she hurtled thirty thousand lightyears straight towards the giant spinning black hole at the center of the galaxy. The trip took eighty-five years, shipboard. She dreamed that the center of the galaxy was so spangled with stars that midnight there was as bright as noon. Dead ahead lay the giant spinning black hole. It was blacker than night, as oval as a frisbee, and so heavy that you could hardly even look away from it.

Sogwa dreamed that she flew right up to the giant spinning black hole, way too close to the inner edge; and she zoomed once around, against the direction of the spin, and she dumped ballast just before the black hole swallowed her up. She whipped around the black hole again, and again, and again, twelve times in all, each time against the direction of the spin, each time dumping ballast at the last second. And each time she whipped around, the Nerdlings aboard her screamed WHEEEE!

And because of General Relativity, and Gravito-Magnetism, and Arglebargle Blah Blah Blah, this made the giant spinning black hole act like a Time Machine; which is why she left the black hole a hundred and twenty thousand years before she arrived.

And all of this made perfect sense to Sogwa, in dream logic.

She dreamed that she flew to Fanac, a trip that took forty thousand years, Earthboard time, but only a hundred and fifteen years, shipboard time. She dreamed that she entered Fanac approach orbit; and that was when she woke up.

Sogwa told the Nerdlings her dream, and they said, “That was no dream, but our radio transmissions, which you must have tuned into. Everything you dreamed actually happened to us, just like that. What you call dream logic, we call everyday life.”

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 4

2012-02-10T07:55:00.001-08:00

Chapter Four. The Lecture Effect.

The Crystal Cuddle Ship boosted into space, and Sogwa watched as Earth dwindled to a bright blue dot in the black of the sky.

Then the Nerdlings said, “We promised to get you home before you left. To do this we must take a little detour. We must fly thirty thousand lightyears to the giant spinning black hole at the center of the galaxy, which we know how to use as a Time Machine.”

Sogwa said, “How long will this detour take?”

“Shipboard, only two hundred years. Don’t worry, we can help you nap that long.”

“What could possibly make somebody nap for two hundred years?”

The Nerdlings said, “Three things. We could give you a Yucky Potion. Or there’s Cold-sleep. Or the Lecture Effect.”

“How yucky is the potion?”

“Don’t worry, we cover up the worst of it with yummy mint flavoring.”

But Sogwa said, “I hate mint. What’s cold-sleep?”

“We pop you into the freezer, we freeze you solid, and we thaw you out later.”

“And how do people feel after being frozen solid and thawed out?”

“Oh, about as well as you’d expect.”

“Then no thank you,” said Sogwa.

The Nerdlings said, “Then we must use the Lecture Effect. Let us explain.”

They took Sogwa to a lecture hall, with blackboards and chalk and dust and stale air and square chairs and flickery lighting. Sogwa sat politely in her square chair as the Nerdlings gave her a lecture about the Application of the Lecture Effect to Galactic Space-Time Navigation. The lecture was very, very scientific. They spoke of Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. The Nerdlings explained Lorentz Contraction, Wave-Particle Duality and Curved Space-Time. Sogwa paid close attention; and although she didn’t quite get every single detail, she was sure it would all clear up, later.

But after awhile her eyelids grew heavy. Sogwa tried hard to keep them open, but finally she had to close them, just for a moment, just to rest them awhile. After resting her eyelids awhile, she opened them up with a jolt. Time had passed, and now the lecture was about String Theory and Supersymmetry and Gauge Invariance. The Nerdlings explained Gravito-Magnetism, Electro-Weak Unification and Chromodynamics. Again Sogwa’s eyelids grew heavy, and again she rested them, just for awhile.

And again she opened her eyes with a jolt, and again the lecture had moved on. Now it was about Non-Locality and Retroactivity and Quantum Computation. The Nerdlings explained Self-Determinism, Adeledicnander and Arglebargle Blah Blah Blah.

Sogwa closed her eyes once more, and she fell into a deep, deep sleep. She tumbled out of her square chair and she would have hit the floor, but the Nerdlings caught her, for they are faster than a speeding bullet.

The Nerdlings laid Sogwa on a mat, and plunked her and the mat into a bin, and trundled her bin down to the luggage compartment. And there Sogwa slept for two hundred years.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 3

2012-02-09T07:54:00.001-08:00

Chapter Three. A Year of World Peace and Quiet.

Sogwa asked all her friends if they knew the twenty-three trillionaires who think they run the world. None of her friends knew, but they promised to ask their friends. None of them knew either; but a friend of a friend of a friend of Sogwa’s knew all sorts of people; and he knew a millionaire, who knew a billionaire, who knew the twenty-three trillionaires who think they run the world. Sogwa sent the trillionaires a message down that chain of friends. She invited the trillionaires to a power lunch with the Nerdlings.

For their power lunch the trillionaires had pickled lizard gizzards, the Nerdlings had crottled greeps, and Sogwa had a fish. First they ate, for you mustn’t make deals on an empty stomach. Then the Nerdlings gave their pitch. “We need twenty-three trillion dollars to fix our ship, and one whole year of world peace and quiet.”

The twenty-three trillionaires said, “We can arrange a year of world peace and quiet; but why should we spend twenty-three trillion dollars?”

“For two reasons,” said the Nerdlings. “If you spend twenty-three trillion dollars to fix our ship, then we will teach you the trick of turning tin into gold.”

“That’s a good reason,” said the trillionaires. “And the other?”

“If you do not spend twenty-three trillion dollars to fix our ship, then we will just have to stay here on Earth and live with you.”

“That’s an even better reason,” said the trillionaires. “It’s a deal!”

The twenty-three trillionaires pulled strings, and paid bribes, and twisted arms, and tattled tales, and before you knew it, everybody on Earth decided, as if on their own, to have a year of world peace and quiet. “For one whole year,” the Earthlings told each other, “let us set aside our stupid quarrels and instead help the Nerdlings fix their worn-out Crystal Cuddle Ship and send them on their way.”

And the twenty-three trillionaires said, “The sheeple have spoken.”

So for one whole year there was world peace and quiet, and every Earthling did nothing but replace gems and rockets and reactors and reagents and beams and seams and wires and tires and struts and nuts and fuel, air, water, dirt, ballast and everything else on board the Crystal Cuddle Ship. They replaced everything except the crew; and for doing all that work, the twenty-three trillionaires paid the people of Earth twenty-three trillion dollars.

Finally the big launch day came, and Sogwa got on board, and the whole world watched the Crystal Cuddle Ship lift off. The Earthlings were glad to send the Nerdlings on their way, so they could spend their twenty-three trillion dollars, and then get back to their stupid quarrels. As the super-ship lifted into space, Sogwa looked out its diamond window and saw a cat who looked just like her watching from her house.

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 2

2012-02-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

Chapter Two. Sogwa’s Quest

Sogwa went to the Crystal Cuddle Ship. It was ten miles wide, forty miles long, ninety miles high, and covered with gems every color of the rainbow. As she approached, a door opened, and from within the Nerdlings shouted, “Sogwa has returned! Come in, come in!” so in she went.

They said, “Teach us again, O Sogwa! Save us from the Scary Menace!”

“Teach?” said Sogwa. “Again?” said Sogwa. “I just want you to go home.”

The Nerdlings said, “And so do we, but the Scary Menace frightened us off our world, all seventeen billion of us, and we all ran fifty thousand light years to this planet Earth, so we could meet you, Sogwa the supercat, who will forever banish our fear of the Menace.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“You were here last time,” said the Nerdlings, “and you saved us last time, too.”

“What do you mean, last time?”

“Time runs in a circle on board the Crystal Cuddle Ship,” the Nerdlings explained. “So come with us again. Come with us to Nerdle, our home world orbiting the red dwarf star Fanac. Show us how to save us from the Scary Menace. Teach us, and we promise to take you home, and we will pay you well besides. That’s what we did last time.”

“You’ll take me straight there and back? In time for dinner?”

“Neither. We’ll take a detour, and get you back before you left.”

“Curious,” thought Sogwa, and “why not?” for she was a curious cat; and of course the Nerdlings heard this, and they cheered.

“When do we go?” she asked them, and they said, “Not yet; for our Crystal Cuddle Ship is all worn out. We need new gems, new rockets, new reactors and reagents, new beams and seams, new wires and tires, new struts and nuts, new fuel, air, water, dirt, ballast and everything else. Everything on board must be replaced, except the crew.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,”said Sogwa.

The Nerdlings said, “We need the help of your whole world working together for one whole year to get our super-ship all super-ship-shape. So the sooner you Earthlings put aside your stupid quarrels, just for a year, then the sooner we Nerdlings can be on our way.”

Sogwa said, “Shall I take you to our leaders?”

“Phooey on your leaders,” said the Nerdlings. “Take us to your rich people!”

So Sogwa left the Crystal Cuddle Ship on a quest to meet the twenty-three trillionaires who think they run the world. But as she was walking away from the Crystal Cuddle Ship, something weird and icky happened. Sogwa felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, so she turned around, and there in the doorway of the ship was another cat who looked just like her. Sogwa waved, and the other cat waved back, then looked at her paw, yowled, and ran back into the ship. Sogwa thought, “What a strange kitty!”

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa: 1

2012-02-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa

           Chapter One. Invaders from Space.

           Once upon a time planet Earth was invaded by little green men from outer space. They called themselves the Nerdlings, and they called their super-spaceship the Crystal Cuddle Ship. The Nerdlings stood two feet tall, and were as green as leaves. Each Nerdling had four eyes, two pointy ears, and a radio antenna sprouting from the tip of a pointy head. Because they had radio, they could hear with each other’s ears, and see through each other’s eyes, and think about each other’s thoughts. They could also hear Earthlings’ thoughts, so it was useless to lie to them.
            They weren’t evil, just obnoxious. They were super-intelligent, but super-clueless, so they kept on asking everybody Why.

They would say, “Mr. Leader, why are you wearing that funny suit?”

And he’d answer, “To inspire the troops.”

“Why?”

“So they’ll keep fighting the war.”

“Why?”

“To make people forget my other mistakes.”

“Why?”

“So I can win the next election.”

“Why?”

“To stay in power.”

“Why?”

“To pay off my twenty-three richest friends.”

“Why?”

“To make them even richer.”

“Why?”

“Will you please stop asking why!”

“Why?”

Soon everybody had quite enough of this, but you couldn’t hit the Nerdlings because they were faster than a speeding bullet. Nobody knew how to get rid of them, not even Hannah. This was annoying, so Sogwa the supercat decided to do something about it.

The Moral Martingale

2012-02-06T12:29:00.001-08:00

Starting tomorrow, I shall blog the story “Where the Nerdlings took Sogwa”, a children’s science-fiction fairy tale, written for my daughter, starring her favorite cat-doll. I’ll blog it at a chapter per day, for nine days.

Until then, here is a speculation about a puzzling political phenomenon, which I call the “Moral Martingale”.

For some time now I have suspected that certain persons and parties choose their beliefs not despite those beliefs being false, but because they are false. I've discounted that theory as over-the-top, for what would be the point of such perversity? I realize that pathological lying is a real phenomenon, but its adaptive quality escaped me.

Then I re-encountered, for the umpteenth time, the phrase "doubling down". In this case it was Huckabee doubling down on death panels. The phrase seemed familiar somehow; I worried at it, then suddenly recognized it as a Martingale.

The Martingale is a betting system, supposedly a sure win, in reality a wash with a small chance of catastrophe. The system is simple. Merely bet on a coin-flip; if you lose the first time, then double your bet and repeat. If that bet loses, then double down again. Continue until you finally win; at that point you will have won, net, the amount of your original bet.

The trouble with a martingale is that your eventual win might be somewhat delayed; by which time your exponentially-growing bets will exceed your ability to pay; so you'd be forced to withdraw with an enormous loss. Most of the time (with probability 1 - 2^-n) you win the original bet, but with probability 2^-n you lose the original bet times 2^n. Therefore the expected value is zero, and the variance is big enough to occasionally bankrupt you utterly. (Or, if you are even more stubborn than that, deliver your descendants into servitude unto the seventh generation. 2^n grows awfully fast.)

So martingales are a deadly gambler-trap; an ethical gambling establishment (if any exist) would ban the practice. "Step away from the table, Mister Loser, NOW.”

Doubling-down is a fatally flawed gambling system, and the Republican party has made that its signature move; the Moral Martingale. Just bet on a morally-dubious proposition; if you lose then bet twice as much of your moral authority on another dubious proposition; and so on until you eventually win back all of your moral authority, plus the original bet. It's a sure thing!

But it isn't. The Moral Martingale leaves its practitioner vulnerable to losing streaks that leave the practitioner morally bankrupt. (Or enslaved unto the seventh generation.) Does that sound familiar?

The same dynamic exists in any stock bubble, such as high-tech and subprime mortgages. You might get away with a martingale once, but repeat it often enough and that losing streak will come. Martingales are a very bad habit indeed.

The Moral Martingale implies the "True Because False" principle; for it is impossible to double down on truth. If you are right, then your payoff is now, a game-ender, and disappointingly finite; but if you are wrong, then the moral martingale continues the game, and promises an exponentially greater payoff later. Therefore, in the moral martingale, truth is a letdown and falsehood is an opportunity; hence false is better than true, and the preferred outcome.

So now I can assert, with good reason, that certain persons and parties believe a falsehood, not despite its being false, but because it is false.

Both Sides Now: 4

2012-02-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

Noon:

The People of Earth and Sky

He dreamed of Heaven, the land of owners and masters. He dreamed in circular time, from Heaven to Kingdom to Hell to Republic and back to Heaven; a wheel turning in place, causation linked into a loop. He dreamed of a Time-Loop, finite but endless, and within it Heaven, the zenith of order.

Heaven is happy and self-confident. Heaven is happy because it’s rich, and everything’s paid for. Heaven is truth known in time. It’s all about the joy of faith.

In Heaven, the police are English, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and the managers are Swiss. Heaven has Australian camaraderie, North American liberty, South American honor, Asian mysticism, European culture, African vitality and Antarctic splendor. Heaven’s religion is as ethical as Confucianism, as mystical as Taoism, as colorful as Hinduism, as compassionate as Buddhism, as passionate as Islam, as deep as Judaism, and as tender as Christianity. Its favorite sports are soccer and football.

Heaven is easy to endure, but hard to sustain. O ruinous rise, O wicked laxity, that turns a republic into a kingdom! Heaven has good neighbors, but they make bad fences. By excess of ease Heaven seduces the mind from blessed faith to accursed pride. Thus Heaven betrays itself, in the end.

That’s Heaven’s only vice; it ends.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Two people met by chance

at an unexpected time and place;

two people dropped their guard;

without plan

without path

without intention

they became friends.

The worker spoke first;

He said:

“I am Earth;

I ground, I support, I carry, I abide;

I am the power within myself.

See this world? I built it.

I created it out of faith.

I did not do it alone; others like me assisted.

I look on this homely world's homely inhabitants

their fond and familiar forms and customs

and I think; these too are me.

Through us, I am I.

Thank God I am like the others!

Through us, I raised the mountains;

I gave the sea its salt and the air its oxygen.

I fashioned the swallow's feather, tendril by tendril,

each cell in place, gene by gene.

I framed the tiger's fearsome symmetry

and I made the lamb too.

Whenever time is now, I am.

Creation creates itself through me.

I am the heart of immediate world.”

The student replied warmly;

she said;

“I am Sky;

I rise, I expand, I fly, I escape;

I am the power beyond myself.

See this world? I imagined it.

I created it out of doubt.

Did I do it alone? Are there others?

I look on this strange world's strange inhabitants

their weird and wonderful forms and customs

and I ask: am I also these?

I wonder; who am I?

What God for me, a doubter?

I wonder; what made this land, this sea, this air?

Once I flitted through a sleeping reptile's dreams

and its great-grandchildren grew wings.

I see the world in a grain of sand

and Heaven in a wild flower.

Whenever time is not, I am.

Perception perceives itself through me.

I am the soul of infinite space.”

The Earth Man laughed.

He had brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin,

brown work-grime ground under his fingernails

and deep into the creases of his callused hands.

He said, “Last night I had the strangest dream;

I dreamed of another kind of world

whose utmost joy is being free.

It was a land of good chaos

with incredible miracles of mysterious wonder.

The people's minds were open.

Science was art there, and answers were questions.

Students studied and poets dreamed.

The old were honored for their wisdom

and the young for their wit.

I saw people marvel at an ordinary bird

as though they never expected it to fly.

I saw heroes defy popular folly.

I saw fantastic menageries.

I dreamed of wild loves which last for a thought.

I dreamed of wild thoughts which amaze the world.

I dreamed of a wild world where life is a song.

A good world, yes! But not my own.

And so I sadly awoke to myself

And awaking, forgot the dream;

Only now do I remember it to tell you

for I see in your eyes

that I dreamed the very life you live!”

The Sky Woman sighed.

She had blue eyes, blue hair, blue skin and feathers;

a beautiful extraterrestrial.

She said, “Last night I had the strangest dream;

I dreamed of another kind of world

whose utmost joy is being true.

It was a land in good order

with credible reasons for its commonplace routines.

The people's bellies were full.

Technology was art there, and work was play.

Workers worked and teachers taught.

The old were honored for their experience

and the young for their energy.

I saw ordinary people board an airplane,

expecting it to fly, and it flew!

I saw saints assist the people, undetected.

I saw verdant gardens.

I dreamed of strong loves which last a life.

I dreamed of strong lives which restore the world.

I dreamed of a strong world where life makes sense.

A good world, yes! But not my own.

And so I sadly awoke to myself

And awaking, forgot the dream;

Only now do I remember it to tell you

for I see in your eyes

that I dreamed the very life you live!”

Somewhere at random

two people became friends;

A believer and a doubter

they saw in each other

a greater good,

another dimension of yes.