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Saturday, May 30, 2009
Conquistadors
BLDG BLOG has (yet another) great post with an interview with Richard Mosse, who ran around taking photos of U.S. troops in Saddam's old palaces. The photographer makes what to me is a very interesting point:
The most interesting thing about the whole endeavor for me was the very fact that the U.S. had chosen to occupy Saddam's palaces in the first place. If you're trying to convince a population that you have liberated them from a terrible dictator, why would you then sit in his throne? A savvier place to station the garrison would have been a place free from associations with Saddam, and the terror and injustices that the occupying forces were convinced they'd done away with.
Perhaps instead we should have taken his advice, but I have to admit it was a thoroughly satisfying feeling to see Saddam's shoddy, ridiculous palaces turned into U.S. garrisons. Then again, they are going through the process of giving them back to Iraq (finally), and that does threaten the possibility that the photographer will ever get a chance to photograph all of the palaces (he visited six out of the eighty one palaces).

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posted by Steve @ 6:24 PM   1 comments
Friday, April 11, 2008
Police and Shepherds
People on both sides have decried the United States' role as the "world police" - endlessly stomping out trouble in other people's back yards for fear it will spread into ours. Such difficulties are to be expected in the new, connected world, but the financial burden as well as the lives lost are difficult to justify. The Republicans, in their recent stint in office, have taken the "world police" notion to a whole new level of ridiculousness: the preemptive war. This sort of thing was once a funny joke in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"The phases [of the history of warfare] are retribution, anticipation, and diplomacy. Thus, retribution: "I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother." Anticipation: "I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother." And diplomacy: "I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it."

It takes a conspiracy theorist to believe we are at the "diplomacy" level, although there are plenty of them, and they probably could make convincing arguments that we have killed people in our "brother" nations and that we've framed others for it, or otherwise mixed up the politics enough to make the situation similar. Remember: we gave Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan most of their guns. Same goes for the warring factions in Somalia, too. It's pretty clear that this method of giving lots of guns to people who hate each other, and then going in and fighting with everyone in the name of security isn't working.

I am a political Independent, because above all, I'm a pragmatist. With apologies to SNL, bitches don't get things done. Hard-thinking, level-headed, smart people get things done. And the only way to get meaningful change like universal health care, an end to abortion, worldwide green power, and especially relative world peace is to make it profitable and in every single person's best interest to make sure it happens. The very powerful have to be given a reason to care, and the weak have to be given a way and the hope to act.

So how can the powerful be given reason to care about world peace, given the military-industrial complex, and how can the weak be given hope and means when they are at its mercy?

This, above all, is the role of government. The government is able to change the rules for normal people. For example, right now you get a tax break for donating a lot of money to charities. It's also in the best interest of rich owners to treat their workers well, because of laws and unions. That wouldn't exist without government. The execution of this responsibility has made great strides in the U.S. and elsewhere, although the U.S. took several leaps backwards in the last 20-30 years or so.

But it's time for it to get back on the horse. Because the world is more connected, turning a blind eye to corporate greed abroad is as harmful in the long run to us as arming the Middle East to the teeth, because irresponsible greed breeds hate. On the other hand, we already have rules that encourage green technology, programs like the Peace Corps, and other worldwide charity - and we need more of those rules.

The ways and means have been defined well, and they've been shown to work. We just need to see them implemented.

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posted by Steve @ 10:18 AM   0 comments
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Hive Mind vs. Groupthink
In general, I like Microsoft Vista. They made a lot of changes that obviously needed to happen, added a bit of chrome, and generally it works for me. Now, I realize this is because my computer kicks ass: two dual-core 3GHz 64-bit processors, 4GB RAM, two RAID arrays totaling 1TB, and a pair of 512MB video cards connected to a pair of flat monitors.

Yeah, I know.

The trouble with Vista, though, is often that it's new: compatibility and configuration are a bit harder. I had this problem when I couldn't figure out why my video card wouldn't display higher than 1024x768 (I prefer 1280x1024). Thankfully, there was this little article on softpedia, describing the symptoms exactly and how to get around it.


Apart from the incredible convenience of the article, it's remarkable how specific the article is. This is an example of how the Internet allows for group thinking that isn't hampered by "groupthink." The first time I saw this potential was way back in 2001 when the movie A.I. had the first really successful alternate reality game (later named by its participants The Beast). The game was impossibly difficult for any one person - it required people to work together. Unfortunately for the developers, their own puzzles (which required knowledge of dozens of languages, expertise in chemistry, physics, philosophy, programming, and other sciences) would be solved within minutes by the thousands of people who worked on the solutions. Inevitably, someone in the Cloudmakers (as the participants named themselves; the website is down but the link goes to the Wayback Machine cache from 2002) knew how to solve the problem.

I love this concept: the Internet allows communication between people. People are generally inherently capable. MIT created "Fab Labs" that were able to create most anything (3-d printer, circuitboard printers, etc.). 3 students at MIT are doing their theses on the work of six year old villagers in Africa, who had better basic designs than the engineers in the U.S. Harnessing the total knowledge of a huge group of people is something that, if it can be done efficiently (i.e., with a minimum of groupthink), would be as massive a step forward as the Industrial Revolution.

I'm pretty glad to be alive sometimes.

This dissemination of information isn't limited to merely solving technical problems or riddles. It has also been suggested by Scott Adams (who writes Dilbert) that if a massive e-mail pen pal initiative among all nations would make it vastly more difficult to go to war:
"You might support your government in a war against a country full of people you don’t know. But would you support a war that has a good chance of killing your e-mail friend Phlubanakawahaha and his entire family?"
Also, if that family helped design your super-cool phone/lamp/radiator, you might think twice if you wanted to upgrade anytime soon.

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posted by Steve @ 5:46 AM   0 comments
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Throw all the Women into Guantanamo
I really try not to get riled up by things that are clearly meant to rile me.

I'm not very good at this, apparently, because when I read this, well, I felt compelled to respond:
"You know, liberalism is a greater threat to freedom, democracy and human rights than these detainees. Maybe we should consider a swap."

- Amy Proctor
This is in response to a report on CNN, in which the reporter notes that in addition to the restrictions that the detainees had "no contact with the Red Cross or a chaplain, no books or mail, a Koran, but no prayer beads or cap," they also were occasionally rewarded with TP but prevented from handing it out to others.
"I think what's really notable about this is just the incredible petty cruelty and dehumanizing aspect of all of this. Detainees are punished for tearing a sheet or for very, very minor infractions."

-Jennifer Daskal, Human Rights Watch
Amy's response to the was, "Oh, ye gads, the inhumanity."OK, that's the setup. Make up your own mind for a minute.

~~

Now here's what I have to say to Ms. Proctor:

1. Can you explain how people who are trying to be sure that the U.S. protects human rights are a threat to human rights?

2. As for swapping terrorists and liberals, Conservatism and Liberalism is a balance. Without the former, you have bloated government that can't balance a budget*; without the latter, we'd still have segregation and no women's suffrage - your opinion, as a woman's, wouldn't be valued if not for Loony Liberals. I couldn't even refer to you as "Ms." Proctor. So if throwing all the liberals into Guantanamo Bay Detention facility is feasible, well, why not throw in all the women, too, since they benefited so much from liberalism? We'd jail half the country either way.

In other words, your smearing brush is too wide; your rhetoric is absurdist.

3. I agree that, when caught, tried, and proven guilty, terrorists need to be tossed into a cell. But since those detainees in Guantanamo are rarely actually tried in a court, it's hard to say whether or not they're actually guilty. I personally think it would be AWESOME to see these people tried on public TV. I would watch with rapt attention. I would cheer when we proved, conclusively and transparently before the world, the guilt of those who are guilty and I would cheer just as much when someone who is innocent is proved innocent.

4. It's been known since the 1500's the torture isn't an effective means of interrogation. It's great for false confessions, because tortured people will tell you anything you want, especially if you threaten family. But when you're getting false confessions, and basing your entire nation's intelligence activities on false information, you are in much worse shape than if you hadn't tortured. I didn't come to this conclusion - people who interrogated for a living came to that conclusion:
That said, the sum total of my experience suggests the most effective means of conducting interrogations—and by effective, I mean achieving consistent success in obtaining accurate, comprehensive, and timely information—is through what has been frequently described as a “relationship-based” model. Let me emphasize that this is far more than just establishing rapport; it involves the pursuit of operational accord. Employing non-threatening principles of persuasion and enlightened cultural finesse, the interrogator seeks to establish a productive, nonadversarial relationship wherein the source perceives his interests to be best served by engaging cooperatively with the interrogator.

Since issues relating to coercion and torture continue to occupy centerstage in the public debate over this country’s interrogation policy, I feel compelled to briefly address this issue, especially as it relates to the question of effectiveness. I find it curious that in the debate involving the so-called “ticking bomb” scenario, there has been a pre-supposition that physical, psychological, and/or emotional coercion will compel a source to provide actionable intelligence, the only issues in contention being those legal and moral arguments in favor or in opposition. To the best of my knowledge, there is no definitive data to support that supposition and considerable historical evidence to suggest the contrary."

- Former USAF interrogator Steven M. Kleinman's Statement before the Senate 9/25/07; Emphasis mine
Feel free to discuss in a way that doesn't insult either one of our intellects.


*Of course, the only presidents in the last 50(!) years to balance the budget were Democrats: Johnson and Clinton.

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posted by Steve @ 1:47 PM   0 comments
Monday, August 20, 2007
A simple test on the Iraq war
I don't think many people disagree with me that the Iraq war could be going better.

But I was thinking about whether or not I was against the war, in of itself: was it right to oust the crazy old dictator, Saddam Hussein?

In light of the fact that Al Qaeda and Iraq had no significant ties, and that they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, I think the best way for each person to answer that is this:

Would you have gone to war with Iraq before 2001?

That is, would you have been in favor of militarily ousting the guy? I don't think I'd have been in favor of it, but I can understand why someone who enjoys torturing people for no good reason (there is no good reason) shouldn't be a head of state.

But at that time and now, I'm quite sure we can do more good for more people through political means both friendly and coercive. Sometimes, it's just not possible to win a war, no matter your military might. You've got to recognize that as a country; it's what Eisenhower did when he got the heck out of Korea and, very importantly, this brilliant general used political means that drew lines and kept a cold peace for more than fifty years.

Our track record of regime changing is uniformly bad: it didn't work in Vietnam, it didn't work with Pinoche or anywhere in South America, and it didn't work in Iraq.

The only time that we went into that kind of situation and had it not totally blow up in our face was when, in the first Iraqi war, we stopped short of Baghdad.

So while I'm not opposed to a strong military, or even military action, if this is how it's going to be carried out, we may as well not bother! Moreover, we should have taken the world's unity with the United States - and we had it after 2001, before we attacked Iraq - to levy economic, political and social reform through economics, politics and social means.

~~~

I suppose what bothers me more than anything about the whole debacle after 2001 is that we had the whole world on our side. The changing of the guard in Birmingham had 2 minutes' silence and - at this old English ceremony - our national anthem was played.

So much good will is impossible to recover, and difficult to gain without these tragedies.

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posted by Steve @ 6:17 PM   0 comments
 
About Me


Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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