For the Children

I generally tune out as soon someone appeals to The Child. Meaning as soon as someone starts talking about how we must do something to protect the children, or otherwise for the children, I stop listening.

It's a bankrupt appeal that relies on raw emotion without any substance. It's an appeal to the abstract idea of people, some not even existing yet (future generations).

I'm not interested. Worse, politicians use these appeals to strip personal liberty. It's as bad as appeals to safety and security in terms of its deceptive power. It appeals to such base feelings that it's nearly impossible to separate those from the actual policy proposals, and people end up giving up rights and freedoms because of it.

And who really wants a childproofed world? Do we want a world where all media, games, events, indeed, entertainment in general is "safe" for children? No more Pride parade. No more violent TV shows. No more Law and Order: SVU. No more Rockstar games. Hell, no more hockey when it comes down to it. No cigarettes, no alcohol, and no swearing. No westerns. No provocative art or poetry. No adult video, nor magazines. Power tools all must be childproofed. No more firearms. Nothing that might endanger The Child.

Here's a modest proposal: The children don't matter. The Child does not matter. It's abstract empty symbolism. People matter.

Watch your own children. It's nobody else's job to keep them safe.

Another trap is trying to look out for future generations. The past and the future are illusions - more abstract concepts. The present is real. Righting the wrongs of the world as it exists pays for itself in the future. Things like peacemaking, fiscal responsibility, investment in community, all these things help the present and the future.

We cannot truly predict the future. At best we can model it statistically using various tools, and we're wrong as often as not. In some cases, like climate and overpopulation predictions, we've virtually always been wrong. On the other hand, things like climate change can be addressed by way of our pollution and consumption problems in the present - things that are causing us problems in the present.

The present is real. The Child is not.

Don't let anyone take your eye off the ball.

Fact Checking Partisan Claims That California Mismanages Its Forests

The current wildfire season in California has received attention and criticism from the president. The AP fact checked the president’s criticisms and finds them false or irrelevant and thus misplaced.

The president: “Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing - and then he (Newsom) comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states.”

The facts: The president's claim is false. Far fewer acres burn in California than Alaska and other areas. Roughly 266,000 acres (108,000 hectares) burned in California, while 2.57 million acres (1.04 million hectares) burned in Alaska this year, more than nine times the California tally so far. That is based on statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center. Also, the Great Basin area and Southern and Southwestern regions have all had fires that covered more than 440,000 acres (180,000 hectares) in 2019.

The president: “The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met he must ‘clean’ his forest floors, regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers.”

The facts: The president's claim is false. California has 33 million acres (13.3 million hectares) of forest land, with 57% owned and managed by the federal government, 40% by private landowners and 3% by the state. That data is according to governor Newsom’s office, Forest Unlimited and the University of California’s Forest Research and Outreach center. In addition, many of the fires are not in forests but are in areas of shrub, agricultural areas and grasslands. In those areas, forest management is not an issue, according to University of Alberta fire expert Mike Flannigan. Clearing debris in those areas would be of little use.

The president: “Also, open up the ridiculously closed water lanes coming down from the North. Don’t pour it out into the Pacific Ocean. Should be done immediately. California desperately needs water, and you can have it now!”

The facts: Trump’s point is irrelevant to battling wildfires. According to LeRoy Westerling, a fire expert at the University of California, Merced, “Fire suppression is not limited in any way by the availability of water.” Westerling mused, “How does President Trump propose that these waters be used to reduce fire risk? Is he proposing to build a statewide sprinkler system with federal money?”

By now, there is no basis to believe that the president has any significant concern about facts and truths. He shows no overt or detectable concern for being accurate in attacking whoever he dislikes. This is yet more evidence of his contempt for facts and truths.

A Personal Perspective on Madness

Madness is a subject that is very personal to me, as it's something I've lived with probably for most of my life, but I was not properly diagnosed until more recently. It has progressed from a bipolar condition to being schizoaffective, following a psychotic break I had about two years ago. I don't believe there's any substitute for lived experience, and so with this essay I endeavor to convey some of that experience and my observations to you, gentle reader. I feel anyone can read clinical accounts of the condition, the sanitized list of symptoms on Web MD or similar, but to actually know what it's like is as elusive as it is interesting, or so it seems to me.

A little bit of background: Schizoaffective Disorder (bipolar type) is a condition that exhibits symptoms of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This group of conditions tends to run in families. The experience and symptoms vary greatly person to person - some researchers think it's a spectrum disorder. I don't want anyone to consider my own personal account to be universal, nor my feelings on it.

For all of the issues with it, one upside is it means I have experience with a spectrum of symptoms to write about. I have experienced manic episodes including manic psychosis, schizophrenic psychosis, mixed episodes, and depression.

People without mental illness tend to think of it exclusively as a disability. Some people with these conditions (though I don't know how many, I have anecdotal information) don't see them as strictly disabilities. I happen to be one of them. I will cover the good, the bad and the ugly here.

First, my favorite: Mania with psychosis. Take some speed, some MDMA and some LSD at the same time and that's roughly the feeling of it. It's a ride. The creativity, the visions, the wonder of it all is just incredible. My best writing has come immediately after this state, when I was still manic but the psychosis had receded. This is an artist's phase - a painter's dream. The downsides are numerous including the extreme irritability that comes with it the rest of the time, the lack of inhibition, and the brain damage. This irritability was damaging my personal relationships and the brain damage aspect was particularly sobering. Medication prevents these downsides, but I lose the artist's state. I miss it dearly. The mania itself is exceedingly pleasant, even euphoric. It's so much fun I let it go on for a week before my spouse checked me into the hospital - before I knew about the brain damage. I wasn't really eating or sleeping though either.

I think that week knocked some things loose in my head, some probably important, but some simply things seized from disuse since childhood. Despite my analytical tendencies I've always been more the creative type than anything, and now I'm more creative than I used to be generally but far less perspicuous in my thinking. It's a trade I'll take, as I'd much rather find a new idea or a good question to ask than be able to perfectly deconstruct and analyze details. I'm not afraid to explore even the patently impossible, like magic, to see if I can mine some utility out of it. I've really taken to heart the idea that everything is exactly as useful as you make it.

On to a less pleasant topic, the schizophrenic delusions and psychosis: First of all, it's an inexplicably popular misconception that schizophrenia has something to do with multiple personalities. It does not. It is not some sort of Jekyll and Hyde condition. What it is - or rather feels like, is a bad acid trip. It's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas without the drugs. There is a profound paranoia that just wells up and knots in the gut. At points I thought my husband, and best friend since childhood was trying to starve and poison me. I saw "bad magic" everywhere, and "the night people" who could be anybody and whose goal was to "sanitize" human beings of their essential humanity - creating more "night people", which is a whole lot creepier than it sounds when you're under the thrall of that paranoia, especially when they're out to do the same to you. They were an essentially malicious enemy I would ascribe almost arbitrarily to potentially anyone I encountered - basically anyone I didn't like the look of. It was as terrifying as it was irrational.

Even medicated, I still have the paranoia but it has nothing to "attach" itself to since I no longer have the delusional thinking that goes with it. It's just free floating fear, but it tends to center itself around people. To this day I feel people watching me all the time when they aren't. I tend to think of people as default hostile, and I avoid encounters with people I don't already know. This comes out as agoraphobia apparently - according to my latest psych eval. I guess it makes sense, as I'm holed up most of the time these days. Anti-anxiety meds don't seem to help, but indica strains of pot take the edge off. So do cigarettes.

Finally, this is the crippling part of the condition that comes with the schizophrenia symptoms: The loss of executive function, short term memory, and various other cognitive impairments. These conditions are degenerative which makes them particularly scary - especially when they use terms like "premorbid IQ" in the studies. For all its faults I've always felt blessed for the mind I was born with, and I hate to see it so damaged. Everything from switching tasks to keeping track of mundane things like chores and hygiene are a challenge. I can still write software, in some ways better I think in terms of being more creative, but I cannot manage my time or my tasks so I cannot do so professionally anymore. In fact, my psychs have been surprised I am still working at all. Many if not most people with these conditions do not. It also wreaks havoc on my sleep patterns. I can't get more than 4 hours at a time regardless of what I do. Apparently that's neurological. I find myself in a dark house for much of my day, which makes my mornings challenging. Waking up to the sunshine is something I never thought I'd miss.

All in all I have been fortunate as I have very understanding and supportive family around me, which is great, because these days I need those close to me to have lot of patience. Sometimes I feel like a burden and that's difficult, but therapy helps, and so does the love I'm surrounded with. I wish more people in my position had that. It keeps me saner than I otherwise would be, I think.

I wrote this piece in hopes to give some personal insight on madness that one can't readily find in the sterile pages of the DSM. I don't need condolences pity or even sadness on your part. It's wasted emotion. I am honey the monster and I'm mad as hatter, and I'm okay with that. It's a challenge but nothing I can't handle. Instead, I simply hope you have found some value or curiousity in my account of all this.

Christian Not Sure Why He Should Look Forward To Heaven When He Already Lives In America

FRISCO, CO—Local Christian man Dave Hearth recently came across an interesting verse in the Bible: Philippians 3:20, which says that our citizenship is in heaven.

Confused, Hearth checked the cross-references and read that we are supposed to set out hearts on things above, not on earthly things in Colossians 3. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul even had the "gall" to write that he "longs" to be clothed with his heavenly dwelling instead of his earthly tent.

"I just don't get it," Hearth told reporters. "I already live in the United States of America---what could the eternal state possibly hold for me?"

"I guess I can understand the Bible writer guys saying they long for heaven," he said. "They just lived in Israel, which is pretty nice, but it's not like it's God's chosen country or anything. I just don't feel these verses really apply to me."

Hearth pointed out that he already has baseball, Chevrolet, and guns, concluding that there's just nothing that eternal life with God could possibly provide him that he doesn't already have. He's now rescinded his eternal citizenship in the new heaven and new earth, saying "thanks but no thanks" to the offer to reside anywhere but the present-day US of A.

"For my citizenship is in America," he said. "I'm just passing through the Kingdom of God."

https://babylonbee.com/news/christian-not-sure-why-he-should-look-forward-to-heaven-when-he-already-lives-in-america

Climate change: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering'

Climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected, signatories say.

More than 11,000 scientists have "clearly and unequivocally" declared a climate emergency that could bring "untold suffering" unless there are significant transformations in the way humans live.

"Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any great existential threat," the signatories, who hail from 153 countries, said in a paper published in BioScience magazine on Tuesday.

"To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live ... [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems."

The signatories suggest six steps that would lessen the worst effects of climate change: replacing fossil fuels with low-carbon renewables; reducing the emissions of pollutants such as methane; protecting the Earth's ecosystems; eating mostly plant-based foods and fewer animal products; creating a carbon-free economy and stabilising the human population.

In their statement, the alliance of scientists, led by William Ripple and Christopher Wolf of Oregon State University in the United States, said the climate crisis is "accelerating faster" than most researchers expected.

"Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and have largely failed to address this predicament," they wrote.

"Especially worrisome are potential irreversible climate tipping points and nature's reinforcing feedbacks (atmospheric, marine, and terrestrial) that could lead to a catastrophic 'hothouse Earth', well beyond the control of humans," they said.

The scientists say they are "encouraged by a recent surge of concern" over the climate crisis, demonstrated by the student-led Fridays for Future movement and other grassroots campaigns.

"As the Alliance of World Scientists, we stand ready to assist decision-makers in a just transition to a sustainable and equitable future," the paper concludes, adding that humanity should "act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home".

'Change the trajectory'

Thomas Newsome, one of the authors of the report, said that even though some of the effects of climate change are already evident, the scientists still believe there is time to reduce greenhouse gase emissions "and hopefully change the trajectory of the graphical indicators that we presented in the paper".

Small individual changes that people make in their day-to-day lives, such as reducing meat consumption,  reducing air travel and using renewable enerfy sources are going to make "larger scale impacts," Newsome told Al Jazeera from Sydney.

"It's also going to influence policy makers, business communities and governments to really start taking the much bigger steps that are needed at a global scale to tackle this problem of climate change.  

"All of the indicators in our paper are heading in the wrong direction and we are clear in advocating for global action against - what we are calling - a climate emergency."

The letter's publication comes one day after US President Donald Trump begun the process to quit Washington's participation in the landmark Paris climate accord, which seeks to fight climate change by mutual reductions in climate emissions."It's also going to influence policy makers, business communities and governments to really start taking the much bigger steps that are needed at a global scale to tackle this problem of climate change.  

Washington presented its withdrawal letter to the United Nations on Monday, the first possible date under the accord negotiated by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, making the world's largest economy the sole outlier from the agreement.

But Chinese President Xi Jinping and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, declared on Wednesday that the Paris climate pact is "irreversible".

Key powers expressed regret and concern after Trump went ahead with the pullout despite mounting evidence of the reality and effect of climate change.

In a joint statement released after Xi and Macron held talks in Beijing, the two leaders reaffirmed "their firm support for the Paris accord which they consider as an irreversible process and a compass for strong action on climate".

Without directly naming the US, Macron said he "deplores the choices made by others" as he sat next to Xi following the talks.

Sound Skepticism vs. Motivated Reasoning

Science skeptic Steven Novella writing at Neurologica blog comments on a common thinking flaw that self-professed skeptics apply when they reject mainstream science. Novella uses Bill Maher as his example of skeptical thinking gone sour. Maher isn't the only one, but he is a very well-known example.

Novella writes:

I see Maher as a cautionary tale – clearly there is something wrong with his process, and since he is trying to be skeptical but also clearly failing, we should perhaps try to figure out what that is.

So what is Maher’s major malfunction? Again – based on the evidence in the public domain – what I have observed is that Maher does not really follow a process of logic, science, and critical thinking. He apparently takes positions for other reasons, based on ideology with a huge helping of arrogance. He then defends his positions with logic and critical thinking as much as he can. So when his positions happen to be reasonable, he sounds like a champion of critical thinking. When he defends the scientific consensus, like on global warming, or when he takes on religion-based anti-science, he champions skepticism. But then he pivots to positions that are not based on the scientific consensus, and he engages in willful motivated reasoning, untempered by humility. 

That, I think, is the cautionary tale. Just because you are right, in line with science, and can defend yourself with good principles of skepticism on some issues, that does not make you right on every issue. You have to approach each issue with humility and the acknowledgement that you may be wrong. You should be very concerned when your views do not conform to legitimate experts. The chances are overwhelming that the reason for the disconnect is because you are not an expert, and not because you are smarter than all the experts. (emphasis added)

The context is Maher’s commentary on anti-vaccine quackery. Novella characterizes Maher as trying to portray himself as reasonable, but spouts nonsense. Novella argues that Maher is wrong to argue that a doctor who relies on their own experience and subjective feelings trump expert-reviewed evidence and the standard of care. That kind of thinking makes a doctor a bad doctor because the doctor is always wrong with very few or no exceptions in modern times.

Novella also points out a straw-man fallacy that Maher bases on that “he is smarter and has a more thoughtful approach to medicine than the world’s medical experts who have dedicated their lives to thinking carefully about medicine.” In essence, the non-expert Maher insults real experts. Novella points out “further evidence of Maher’s guru-like medical insight, [when he counters] the mountain of scientific evidence he admits to with, ‘It seems more realistic to me…’ Sure, there may be many scientific studies showing no correlation between vaccines and autism – there is simply no signal in the data – but on the other hands we have these anecdotal reports.”

No signal in the data, but there are anecdotal reports.

Anecdotal reports are not scientific evidence. They are just anecdotal reports, nothing more. That is the same thinking that climate science deniers assert to support their beliefs while rejecting nearly all real experts and the overwhelming evidence they base their conclusions on.

Other commentary on Maher’s mental implosion:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/shame-on-hbo-bill-maher-interviews-dr-jay-gordon-and-the-antivaccine-misinformation-flows/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-mahers-show-has-gone-completely-off-the-rails
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2019/11/03/bill-maher-supports-vaccine-autism-connection/#7177154a723d