The Hidden Ideological Warning Of Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 has been announced to a lot of controversy, some from Christian groups objecting to its portrayal of Christian cult leader Joseph Seed as the antagonist and his attacks on the surrounding populations in the fictional area of Hope County, Montana.  Realistically, Far Cry 5’s setting is an analogue and criticism of the dangers of Islam* rather than Christianity. 

The setting of the game puts the antagonist, Seed, in control of a large para-military force that has control of Hope Country.  His control of the area allows him to force the religious practices and rules of his cult onto the local population.  OK, so far so good.   However, there are no Christian terrorist groups that can claim control over swaths of land where they force religious subjugation.  However, there is the current example of ISIS that claim large parts of the middle east under their cult’s banner (Islam).  They operate a para-military force, follow a cult and they force strict adherence to the traditional Islamic values, persecuting non-believers and other religious sects.  Nice match to Seed’s vision.

What else?  Let us look at the setting synopsis of Far Cry 5 as described by Wikipedia; “…Seed is a radical preacher and Eden's Gate is a militaristic doomsday cult. Under his rule, Eden's Gate has used both coercion and violence to forcibly convert the residents of Hope County…”  Does that sound familiar?  It should do, it’s in line with a cogent interpretation of the Koran which ISIS follow.  It instructs on the conquest of non-believers and their forcible conversion to the values of Islam. 

Examples from the Koran to substantiate this comparison and assertion include;

4:89 “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah…”

3:56 “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony…”

9:29 Fight those who believe not in Allah [..] nor hold forbidden that which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth (Islam) …”

8:39 “And fight with them until there is no more fitna [unbelievers] and religion is all for Allah…”

47:3 “Those who disbelieve follow falsehood […] so when you meet those who disbelieve smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond (enslave them) …”

You get the idea…

We must remember that we live in a post Charlie Hebdo world - with significant Islam apologists on the political left.  Far Cry 5 is a depiction of the explicit militant tenets of Islam, dressed in Christian clothing so to be palatable to a politically correct, western-civilization hating media and population.  

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Edit:  Now that Far Cry 5 is out, it appears to be a cracking good game.  As I expected, everyone is focusing any political discussion on its controversial take on "Trump's America" or "Christian middle-America".  This is still missing the point, as I explained in the post above, and shows just how mentally damaged we are in the west.  People miss that this is not a depiction, even hyper-realized, of Christianity but of Islam.  Or, as Douglas Murray would say, "we have internalized the Fatwa". 

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* Note on the terminology of Islam and Islamic groups

I will not use the term “modern Islam” in this article because it is a misnomer.  Islam is inherently an ancient cult, since it has not had a period of modern reformation and readjustment to modern / secular values (for example, in the way Christianity has).  Islam in its current state consists of only 3 groups (as viewed by those employing violence in the name of Islam itself):

1 “Extremists” who follow or tacitly condone the violence instructed in the Koran explicitly, who despite the label are surprisingly numerous world-wide.  

2 “Apostates” – these people call themselves Muslims, but would be viewed as non-believers by the extremists as they are not of the right sect and don’t follow the Koran’s teachings “properly”.  Ironically to outsiders, this group makes up the majority of victims of Islamic violence. 

3 “Non-believers” – essentially all other religions or secular people. Extremists don’t differentiate between groups 2 & 3 in how they apply violence to them.  

Decline of (the West) Christianity

The decline of religion in the West has come at the expense of community values, certainty over personal morals and a reduction in the harmony our shared ideology.  Worse, this vacuum has allowed a diverse but irrational and unproductive list of values to take hold in society.  This is causing down-stream political problems and confusing in-group / out-group behaviors. 

Religion has always been a tool, used both to accomplish good and bad outcomes.  Built into religion are essentially a pre-formed set of morals and values.  These are inferior to ones derived from intentional derivation from philosophical arguments.   This is most easily shown by their inability, in most religions to be re-assessed over time.  Side note -  this is not to underplay the renaissance and modernization of Western Christianity over the last few hundred years to give this exact, sorely needed evolution of its values.  

The study and product of philosophy (in the academic and Greco-Roman period sense) is precisely to produce morals and values that are logically deduced and able to be adapted to fit the world around you, including changing them over time as required. 

The idea presented by anti-theist philosophers like Nietzsche was to replace religion with intentional, logical philosophy discovery, not to simply discard it.  What has actually happened to most of the atheist community in the West is a reduction in the introspection and intentional creation of moral codes and values.  Instead, narcissism, ego, vapid pop-culture emulation and nihilism stemming from the post-modern school of thought has coalesced to produce new generations that are unable to think critically about philosophy or appreciate the history that has produced the Western world.  

The promotion of philosophy and logic are foremost in the fight back to re-energise and re-empower the collective consciousness of the West.  This can take place in academia, where social studies should not take primacy over formal, classical philosophy; and in everyday life, by people taking more time to critically evaluate their morals and values and pick up a philosophy book once in a while.  

In the meantime, we must remember that while often outdated, the values that underpin Christianity are indeed what has guided the Western world (which is the best society we have ever created, by the way, despite its flaws).  We should consider these values' relevance today, even if we personally are agnostic / atheist - and realize that we are more philosophically alike our Christian fellows, than not. 

Starship Trooper's Style and Approach

People analyse this film very 1-dimensionally.  ST plays both the action scifi blockbuster trope straight and embraces the satire.  It does a similar thing with its theme, both accepting and indeed romanticizing the virtues of a regimented, individually accountable society (fascist is an overused term these days) while being fully critical of the destructive aspects of that ideology, and lamenting that you have to trade some virtues for expediency - a character of humanity and reality itself that we struggle with every day.  

Paul V could have made the film a gritty sci fi and less people would have watched it, or made it an on-the-nose philosophical diatribe (or far more subtle a satire) and more people would have been put off or missed the point respectively.  As it turns out, he did the best that he could do with the situation.  It is indicative of his other work and how he approaches themes in his films.  He finds a way to keep his films relevant.  He does this by avoiding making them a one sided, polemic or blunt statement of his views while retaining forceful punch.  They are multilayered - or if you prefer, they have an almost ambivalent quality, showing the internal struggle a person has in figuring out what is right and wrong.  This struggle is indicative of difficult and broad-reaching concepts that don't fit neatly into black and white, right and wrong categories. 

Its funny because ST follows the exact same tune as his other masterpiece Robocop, and that film is in most cases exulted.  Robocop is a grittier film but not completely so, with some campy moments, and it has an underlying serious message on top of its subversive satire.  Its also has a schizophrenic attitude to its subject matter and themes just as ST has.  Robocop is both the hero of the film, and a product of the antagonist (OCP rather than any one individual).  He is also portrayed as being more capable than his fellow officers, yet at the cost of his individualism (hint hint, just like the population & gov't in ST).  And Robocop both cleans up the streets of crime yet is the product of corporate corruption (ie crime) and OCP engineered a situation where officers like Murphy are likely to get killed for the experiment to be possible.  It can be inferred in the story that one reason for the crime and decay in Detroit, is because of the actions of corporations like OCP.  This is in line with the film's anti-capitalist/consumerist message, while at the same time the protagonist is the zenith of the technological output of that world!

ST is very much a case of both admiring the strengths of a group and group behavior and lamenting its shortcomings.  Its not a black and white satirical message.  We see the virtues of individualism, while being shown that some potency is lost in that exchange.  Indeed the arch (pun) enemy of the humans is precisely a society that is even more hive-mind that the portrayed human gov't.  This is not a coincidence.  And Sky Marshall Tehat Maru states "we must understand the bug." - this is an enemy that must be respected, even if simply on the grounds of their great capacity to wage war.  This, of course, goes back to the classroom scene where Michael Ironside tells us of the capability of violence to "end" a debate on whom is more virtuous.  

The school teacher/scientist in the first act even says this herself - she gleefully carves up the bugs while at the same time respecting them as enemies and their accomplishments.  This is very much a feeling borne out of the military ethos - the more that you have to fight a difficult enemy the more you hate AND respect them.  This works both ways - for the bug's civilization and the human gov't.  Feel free to "blah, blah" about how bad fascism/collectivism is at this point, while missing the point that both societies are made stronger in their will to fight and survive due to their structure/ideology.  (And that the gov't portrayed in ST is in fact, a democracy!)  Michael Ironside stated that violence, while disgusting (he should know, he is missing a damn arm), is an absolute arbitrator.  Like the people in Nagasaki, the dead in a war are unequivocally the losers.  They are not the ones left standing afterwards, with the luxury of being able to ponder whether or not their actions were morally "correct".  

So; is ST (or Robocop) supporting or satirizing fascism / collectivism and warfare?  Neither.  Just like the uniforms of the human military, the film's morals and story is an intriguing yet opaque grey canvass.  

Speech vs Force

Speech is the way that humans exchange thoughts.  This is fundamental to the western worlds stability and peaceful (mostly) democratic process.  In the arena of discourse, force is the opposite of speech.  Force is deployed for one purpose in this arena, to silence, and the ultimate version of this is to take someone's life.  Once a person is dead, they are no longer able to form or share thoughts.  Force is the opposite of speech. 

In the west we enjoy the right to free speech.  We do not have the right to free application of force - you are welcome to read the libertarian philosopher John Stuart Mill to explain why this is.  The recent outpouring of violence by the "tolerant left" in the US, and subgroups within it, are disgusting.  There can be no excuse for this violent behavior.  In some circumstances it can be defined as terrorism.  Those who engage in it need to be brought to justice. 

Trump, TPP and Freedom

There is one thing that everyone can agree on about Trump, whether you like him or not; he is one of the few Presidents in history to actively and decisively enact his manifesto.  What most people are reacting to with shock about Trump deploying his programs and orders with rapidity, is nothing more than a habit, a conditioned response to expect government to be lethargic, obfuscating and to renege on its promises immediately on entering power.

Two weeks out from Trump's inauguration, he has already hit milestones.  It doesn't matter if you like or hate them, the fact is he is getting things done.  He didn't lie, he didn't back off, he didn't prevaricate; he delivered - and we should hope that he continues to do so.  He is listening and reacting to the feedback of the public and his colleagues, as can be seen in his change of his views on the use of torture techniques, in particular stemming from the comments from General Mattis.  

Trump has already killed off the TPP, a wealth concentration and sovereignty erosion mechanism intended to bolster NAFTA.  The mother-lode of these mechanisms are the publicly owned "central" banks that are at the heart of the economic and social destabilization of the world.  Using fiat currency, debt-backed money and fractional reserve banking, the Federal Reserve is the biggest and most dangerous of these corrupt private entities masquerading as public services.  Who knows, with some more support and backing from the population - the population he wants to help - Trump may even be able to take on a redesign of the Fed.  

This would make him the most courageous president since JFK - and we all know how that ended.  If anyone is wondering what the reference to Kennedy is, and how that is relevant, Kennedy was aiming at destroying these mechanisms that operate in the background to control all societies, including the US.  

Skepticism is healthy, so listen to Kennedy's own words, in his chilling, prescient and foreshadowing speech he made about these secret powers - just 10 days before he was assassinated. 

We must not be afraid of being free; we only need to oppose those that would lie to control us. 

Equality

Equality of outcome isn't equality at all. 

You would think that seeing the decline of the Soviet Union would be enough to make people realize this.  Clearly the lessons of history are being forgotten to the detriment of the west.  Forced equality by use of quotas, biased selection and excessive wealth redistribution only creates inefficiency.  It demotivates people and creates hatred for the government.  People need to beware such policies and be prepared to push back against social justice and its authoritarian methods. 

The test is simple.  If you let class, race, gender or any other arbitrary characteristic that doesn't influence someone's capability influence your decision, be it hiring or some other decision, you are doing it wrong.  The only factor that should influence your decision is merit.  How capable is the person and are they the right fit to be able to complete the task or job successfully.  Meritocracy (free from class bias or crony capitalism) is the most desirable state for our society to have. 

NASA should steal the Pentagon's budget

The $600 billion per year budget of the US military could be better spent by NASA.  They could use it to both create new space hardware (which would incidentally still require significant aerospace manufacturing, so not detracting too much from the industrial part of the military-industrial complex) and fund new R&D projects that would eventually give rise to new technology and economic opportunities.  Look at how many of the modern technologies that we take for granted come from science related spending; that NASA is so comparatively underfunded is terrible. 

The military is itself a good source of new R&D and it has its own use in defence of the nation.  It would not be necessary to cut out the military budget – that would be equally stupid – but gradually phase it into balance with NASA’s.  For comparison NASA’s budget is around $20 billion per year.  A program could start that aims to make the budgets balance to $310 billion per year for each – still plenty for the military!  NASA would then have a budget of over 15x the amount it currently has.

 Think of all the advancements and achievements that NASA has had a part to play in: the moon landing, satellite construction, the International Space Station and exploring the solar system.   Now imagine that with 15x the funding they could complete projects 15 x faster, or at least complete 15x as many projects at once (a little optimistic but logical).  NASA was created in 1958.  Think about squeezing all of their scientific progress over the last just under 60 years, and doing it all in just 4.

Always under-promise!

You should always under-promise when discussing a commitment or project.  Being ambitious starts with wanting to achieve a new state.  How to get to that state and the path and time needed to get there will always be more complicated than you initially expect.  You move from being optimistic and venture into the land of the naive to expect it to be easier than you anticipate.  I have always found that you manage expectations better this way.   The negativity that you get from missing on delivering something in line with expectations is large.  It is also equal to the gain you get when you can over-deliver with the same outcome but when the initial expectation was lower than the final result.  

This is not a challenge to be lazy or ignore work; the effort put into the task should always be the same: 100%.  But more realistic planning and promises will lead to more of your hard work looking like a success rather than a near miss, and more of your colleagues and friends seeing you as capable rather than unreliable.  Of course you will find those people that are never satisfied and have unrealistic expectations no matter how much you try to show them what is actually possible.  Not sure how to help those people.  But definitely don't be brow beaten into committing to something that you can't complete; that is only going to end up bad for you. 

So it's real, huh?

Yes it's real.  It'f funny, isn't it, that even knowing something intellectually it still takes direct proof, such as seeing it, to make it really stick - to resonate in the brain and really believe it.  Maybe it is a throwback to our lizard brain and the seat of emotion and consciousness in the limbic system.  Abstractly understating something just isn't really enough.  For something new to really penetrate us as beings we must grapple with it on an emotional and sensual level, below the cerebral.  For a new idea, fact or event to sink in it takes real-life proof, whatever form appropriate to the subject this proof takes.  

That is why examples used in learning are powerful; I find them particularly useful to help understand new ideas and to internalize what that idea means - it's repercussions, boundaries and how I will ultimately react to it, practically or emotionally.  While we are busy using our intellect for good, we should look for real world examples and use our emotional intelligence as well.

Democracy and the Asylum

There is more information available to us than ever before.  We moved from oral story traditions to the printed word, then to widely available media and education and now to the internet being in everyone's pocket.  The access and volume of information available to us is increasing exponentially.  At the same time, people's capacity to interpret information is not increasing.  We are as smart as we have ever been (perhaps even a little less so).  With busier lives we have less time to analyse that information; overall our capacity is probably diminishing. 

Depending on your point of view, we may be drowning in information.  There must have been a knowledge inflection point in history, perhaps sometime in the 19th or 20th century, when the available information matched our ability to absorb and analyse it.  Before that people were ignorant, knowledge blocked to them.  During this inflection point, people were not perfect, but they were able to understand the world around them and attempt to act on it in an informed way.  The gap between their knowledge level and reality closed.  After this point, we are not necessarily worse off, but we are at risk of being overwhelmed.  We have to consume and analyse so much to stay informed of our environment and we may not be able to keep up.  As a crutch, we may rely on authorities, experts or snap decisions.  They can all lead us astray - intentionally if they are another person, or from ignorance if its a decision based on missing information. 

Democracy is decisions.  Specifically, who makes them; the deimos or the government.  We always face a risk that we may make bad decisions.  But now, because we may not have the time to properly analyse the choices available to us the risk may be higher than expected.  If we do decide to trust voices of authority, we are back at square one, since we have to analyse them and decide if they are trustworthy.  They may be biased or have hidden agendas.  Finally, making snap decisions, often based on prejudices, while expedient, can also lead to errors. 

The cynic might say that; life is a farce, and that democracy is little more than the lunatics running the asylum.  How true that statement is depends on a few things.  When in history are you looking? What is the governing system?  How well informed were the people; was it around the time of the knowledge inflection point?  Most western countries are representative republics, not full democracies.  For a full democracy you would need proportional representation, ideally with a referendum on every decision and law proposed by the government.  Is it a problem that we don't have full democracies?  No.  At the same time, we should not take for granted the voting process in electing representatives that align to our values (for example MPs in the UK).

We need to keep one thing in mind.  There is a gap between the knowledge of the overall population and the reality of any situation (as best as we can understand it).  That knowledge gap can be on anything; for which party to vote for, climate change or how to balance the economy.  And this gap is a variable.  If the gap is getting wider, people will find it harder to figure out what the right choices are.  How close we become to the metaphorical lunatics becomes uncomfortably relevant.  I don't have an easy answer - AI perhaps but that isn't an answer.  Be mindful, critical, take the time to analyse things and don't be suckered in by any person or group.  The last place we want to end up living in, is the asylum.  

Rotten Core

Quick!   Get all the puns in!  Rotten to the core or just a few bad apples?  The employee didn't get the fruits of his labor?  Something about the other apples not liking the one green apple in the fruit bowl?  No, that is too far.  Bobbing for discrimination payouts?  What happens when you bite into Apple; you see the worm inside?  I will stop. 

Sharing a post that was forwarded to my account by the excellent employment site HR Grapevine.  If you have not been there, I recommend you check them out, as they have fantastic stories, such as the one below, that definitely fall outside of the stuffy or boring image that HR has with non-HR professionals.  They offer insights into studies, companies and employment practices that can be funny, commendable, deplorable, or simply unique and interesting to anyone that is in employment!

The story is pretty shocking, and obviously you cannot judge a multinational company on one action alone.  At least that is what a multinational company would hope you don't do.  My personal opinion is that if this story is true, and a CEO did ignore this type of behavior in his company, then its as damning as it gets.  

The "leader" responsibility of a CEO is to act as an example to everyone below them, work to remove any such bad behavior first and foremost, rather than ignore it to pursue other projects (i.e. anything revenue related).  Anything else and you then send a clear message; the day-to-day running / making more money for the business is more important than having good company culture, and not having blatant racism towards hard working employees. 

Just to be ultra clear, this story is a non-confirmed single case of racism, where the outcome and all the facts my not have come to light yet.  And yes, businesses really are only obliged to make money; anything else is a "moral obligation" (or legal obligation), not a "business obligation"....

Thanks for reading. 

Heinali (Oleg Shpudeiko) - Fade

Had to share this artist and his track Fade.  This is one of the most amazing sounds I have ever heard.  If you like this, check YouTube for some of Oleg's other work.  Genuinely left me speechless the first time I heard it.  

This media is all property of Heinali / Oleg and I am sharing it so that he can get more publicity for his work.  As long as you are also only doing it for non-commercial use, consider sharing as the artist is happy for it to be shared.  

Comedy, Logic, Fields, What?

I have heard the opinion that comedy is rooted in the examination of the illogical by the logical, or vice versa.  

Then isn't comedy just observations of spontaneous symmetry breaking of the logic field (a scalar field)?  That is why, anything in the universe has the potential to be funny, when observed using this mechanism...

No, I don't know what I am talking about, by the way.
  

What can we do? What can we avoid?

A link to an article in the Stylist. The style is informal and light while the message is very relevant to the current time we find ourselves in. The article is a riot to read and starkly open minded.

It speaks directly of the possibilities for progression available to our species' civilisation, the choices we can make to improve our world,  and the horror of blindly accepting the status quo if we are too timid to challenge the conventional. See my earlier article on 'How bad is history? ' for a discussion point on this in more depth. 

King Leonidas asked, 'What can you do? '.  He was talking about his personal decision to meet a mortal threat head on, to defeat it; but in a socially unusual and unacceptable method, which others were too corrupt, cretinous and cowardly to understand. 

His rhetorical question underscores the bold choice he made to forgo quiet tradition in place of loud actions to safeguard his people.

Can we do the same today?

Thanks for reading.  

Stylist: Lucy Mangan: "We can cap house prices? WTF?" http://google.com/producer/s/CBIwtq33uAQ

Thinking too much about work?

How do you know that you might be taking your work mentality home with you? 

A clue might be when you describe something that is really simple; such as towels not drying quickly on the rack in winter; as 'not being able to maintain a 12 hour turnaround cycle on towels'. 

It's even worse if you add 'I am concerned at this operational problem'...

My housemate must think I am strange. He would be correct.  

E Cigarettes and Latest Research Studies

I am a prime advocate of e cigarettes as a great relaxing tool and lifestyle accessory.

New Scientist has some excellent new research data on the positive health effects; and possible help that e cigarettes can give to users who are wanting to discontinue using flammable tobacco based cigarettes.

New Scientist: E-cigarettes help you quit as well as nicotine patches.

12 years a slave - Toronto film festival

The Guardian: Steve McQueen on 12 Years a Slave: 'It's not about sugarcoating history' 

The Guardian: Steve McQueen on 12 years a slave

A follow up to my post on history and how to recount it accurately.  Its good to see that some people are not afraid of the truth.

If a historical film such as this makes you walk out of the cinema that is fine, as long as you don't ignore its message, because it is important.

What is science?

Have you ever heard an argument, between somebody speaking about religion and the other person speaking about science? Arguments like this are pointless, but not for the reason you might expect.

First of all, science and religion are not the opposite of each other. If they were opposites then many of history's greatest scientists would not have been religious. To name just a few of them: Copernicus, Galileo, Cantor, William of Ockham, al Khwazari, Newton, Mendel and so on. 

Today, scientists are more likely to be atheist than the general population. In the US for example the general population is 60 percent religious while scientists and university professors are only 15 percent religious. That there are any scientists that are religious is proof that you can be both! The fact that both are possible shows that there is a logical operation in play and a relationship of superposition similar to a Venn diagram.

Fig. 1: If I was a 4 year old,  and I wanted to draw a Venn diagram displaying all knowledge,  and by extension,  all scientific evidence for or against any theory, and all evidence yet to be discovered,  I am POSITIVE it would look like this, and be this messy.... 

Science is a process as well as an 'entity' or a set of facts and theories. Because of this, it is possible to follow a scientific process while having certain religious beliefs.

That process is called the scientific method. Look it up. It's actually a very intuitive process you follow most of your life. Science merely makes it mandatory - a kind of accreditation or standard that has to be adhered to if you expect your theories to be viewed with the same trust and credibility as anyone else's who follows the same method. The scientific method is really relevant to every day life as well as LHC experiments:

Theory > experiment > evidence > proof OR create new theory

The scientific method in more detail. Dig it. 

Think about something simple: how you find your keys - possibly if they are in a bag - seriously:

1 - Theory: my keys are in that bag.
2 - Experiment: check in the bag. 
3 - Evidence: you either see them in the bag or you don't*.
*Let's pretend its a small bag and it is brightly lit!
4a - Proof: you see the keys.  Hooray! You found them. 
4b - New theory: you don't see the keys; try the kitchen drawer next (1 again)...

The process repeats - eventually you find the keys but now you have to find your wallet, so you use the same process again!

Second, its important to realise that both studies (religious and scientific) are the same in how they are structured - notwithstanding science using the scientific method. Science is a set of  theories and facts contributed by many scientists, just the same as religious texts are compilations of religious theories by religious authors. The differences are in the relative sizes of their respective sets (see Venn diagram in fig.1).

To help us understand what's the relationship between then and the difference in their scale, let's define the words.

Religion; is a set of beliefs about the nature of the universe. A belief can also be a theory or an idea or an axiom.

These beliefs are usually codified into a book; for example, see the Bible, the Koran or the Veydas. This codification is very similar to the way science collects the evidence it gathers. The main difference is that scientific literature is constantly evolving, rather than fixed in its dogma but let's pass this for this discussion.

Science; is the systematic collection of knowledge gained by the testing of theories by verifying them using observed evidence.

Science is fundamentally a recorded theory system, the same as religion except in the crucial difference that it requires each proposed theory be proven or refuted, using evidence. Further, science is therefore the collection of all theories, true or false, with the distinction being that the false theories are marked as such, and not followed directly.

So as Aristotle said; all Greeks are men, but not all men are Greeks, so there is a difference between the scale of religion theory and scientific theory. Science, by its holistic nature encompasses all religious theories. Religious theory is a subset of theories within the wider scientific literature of all proposed and yet to be proposed theories about the universe. 

Where the scientific method finds a religious theory to be true the two will coexist happily without any problem. If a theory is found to be refutable then it will not be followed. This is where scientists may be pushed to become atheists, as they find religious theories and beliefs that they one had to be refuted and they are forced to turn away from them.

The small portion of scientists that are religious are those that have not found their religious beliefs refuted by their knowledge of science in the area that they are familiar in. Equally, a religion that can be proven true, by using the scientific method (evidence), would be completely comfortable existing alongside science and be followed by scientists.

If there is a point in this, its that any religion can be followed by anybody, barring harm to others (J S Mill), as people are free to choose a system of life that they like. 

What people with religious beliefs must do, if they want to introduce their beliefs to others as being true, is engage others on the same intellectual level - using the scientific method - to show that their beliefs are true, on the basis of facts and evidence.  

To fail to do this is to go from faith, to fantasy and fanaticism. If this happens then a debate is pointless and likely to only annoy,  go nowhere and cause more alienation between the parties.

Hubble Deep Field View

More important is a personal point. For me, science is a spiritual experience. I have a stronger affinity for and a feeling wonder when I study and discover new ideas in science. My spirit is strongest when I'm learning.

My mind is boggled by the fact that this is happening a million times, simultaneously, every day, all day, in my body and in everyone else's.

The mechanism by which tight DNA spirals uncurl and unzip, ready for  replication; watching a flower opening, preparing for pollination; and images of the early galaxies in our young universe, the most distant objects we could ever observe, all make me feel connected to the grand structure of the cosmos and our fragile existence in it.

REALLY ancient history... 

The colossal Carl Sagan put it profoundly and perfectly in these two quotes;

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

Go on. Exercise your brain.

Look up the scientific method. See if you already use it every day without even realising it, and thank you for reading.

How bad is history?

So this all started with a book; Napoleon's Crimes: A Blueprint for Hitler.  It asserts that the person to invent gas chambers as a method of cheap and efficient mass execution was Napoleon, in response to rebellions by slaves in the Caribbean.  Particularly, the economically important islands of Haiti and Guadeloupe.  The method described in the book, was to section off the holds in the French warships and burn sulphur containing rocks, to produce poisonous sulphur dioxide gas to kill the slaves.  Using this, the author claims that thousands, possibly tens of thousands of slaves were slaughtered in these "choker" ships.  The book was not very well received politically - that is about as surprising as a baseball bat hit to the head hurting a lot; what government would want to be linked to the holocaust's gas chambers, Hitler and have its country credited with the invention of the gas chamber modern genocide set up, also used by the Nazis?  Well the answer is probably North Korea, but that is not relevant right here.  It was also not very well received by the history community as the evidence is mainly sporadic memoirs and diaries of revolutionary leaders and French naval officers that performed the acts, often with remorse.  Great, so Napoleon = Hitler, and some feathers were ruffled.  So, is it true, or not?

Immediately it was conceivable to me that these atrocities happened.  Maybe its because I am not a very good scientist - I will explain that in a bit.   Or am I such a pessimist that human depravity does not surprise me (the realist in me would say this was a great example of operational excellence and 19th century six-sigma in operation...)?  This goes on to my point - a curious observation, that is a symptom of a society that can't sit easy with the horrors that exist in its history.  Though maybe that is a good thing - perhaps it shows we are getting conditioned to be squeamish - sadly not all at once since mostly, atrocities continue across the world (more on that later).  I have, of course  named the problem; archeoeuscopophilia - the love or tendency to view ancient things with a positive perspective.

Gas Chambers:
Bad

Let me begin by explaining what I have observed when it comes to how we approach historical study when faced with incomplete facts.  Incomplete facts are common, particularly with ancient history, where we have little written evidence; and most of that tends to be biased towards the rich and victorious, not the oppressed and slaughtered.  What I have noticed is that people seem to assume that past was generally better, less disgusting and less bloodthirsty as it actually was.  We end up changing our opinion once we find more facts about the events.  The problem is, that by then society has often made a consensus opinion that ends up being pervasive; and it becomes a common misconception.  This is strongest when the events are horrific - you know, massacres, genocides, wars, racial oppression, gender oppression, systematic state endorsed slavery - all the good stuff that makes people want to study history in the first place, rather than find a more amusing way of passing the time such as catching spit or falling asleep at your desk out of boredom and accidentally stabbing yourself in the eye with your pen.

Now, let me be clear; I am not a trans-temporal time lord; I have hot had the fortune of being able to magically visit events in the past and compare them to the present day historical consensus of the event and say, "wow guys, you really have got that ass-backwards".  Instead what I have generally looked at is our understanding as it stood at point A in time, about an event in history and compared it to our understanding at point B later in time, about the same historical event.  Point A might be long before point B, or it might be temporally close but intersected by a significant new discovery that radically changes the perception of the historical event.  What is the transition from A } to } B, with respect to how we have to alter our perception and understanding?  

When we gain more information and evidence about historical events, we reassess and tend to have to conclude that they were worse and more horrific than we initially thought.  Therefore, the opinions that we generally form when we first start building up a picture of the past, seem to be of the proverbial "rose tinted spectacles" version; rather than the shockingly despicable, "glad we don't live like that, anymore" version that more often that not ends up being the case, as we find more bones, artifacts, crushed babies, murals, pottery or whatever else we use as evidence to further our understanding.  Or if you prefer to be an optimist about it, we tend to reassess that they were more profound or different than we imagined, compared to today's analogues - so this can also apply to good "things" in history.  But there is so little that is "good" in history that this is a particularly sunny and inane form of optimism, if you espouse optimism here.  

The reason we generally start off with "pleasant" assumptions about the past is twofold.  This is expected as humans tend to be self involved, narcissistic and selfish, so it is blindingly obvious that they would add greater weight to their own experiences, relative suffering and context; over that of peoples' that are long dead and lived on a different continent.  More positively, we can say that because things are so much better today - in the western world - that it is hard for people to understand the horrors of the past; without rigorous study and immersion into our species' tendency for violence and oppression.  The other bit is actually very understandable and "benign"; good history scholars are essentially scientists, and good scientists use observations of facts to make their conclusions.  That is why unless there is the credible evidence, that an event occurred and occurred in a specific way (good / grisly / whatever), a scientist would not want to leap to wild conclusions; right?  Mostly.  

While I would not condone wild conclusions, science uses postulates as a way to picture a problem before it is solved.  Postulates must be proven with evidence, but the postulate itself can be as bland or fanciful as the author wants it to be.  As Santayana, Lincoln and Sagan all said; you are better prepared for the future by knowing the past (I'm heavily paraphrasing here).  Stay with me here; the past is not the future, but it can be what is "unknown"; equally the known past can be though of as "knowledge".  Going back to the saying; if you substitute "unknown" for the "future" (since the future is generally unknown), and "past" for "knowledge", then you can say; to be better prepared for the unknown, understand the trends in the knowledge that you already have.  

The past is really quite awful, new theories about civilizations or events that are just being discovered  should comfortably assume the worst about our ancestors' actions.  This does not detract from having a range of interpretations, nor does it detract from the necessity of using facts and evidence to prove the correct interpretation of a theory of the past.  This only states that the most likely interpretation tend to be (one of) the worst!  You can call it negative or pessimistic.  But there is a trend towards awful...  On a tangent - that's kind of where business discovery and artificial intelligence is heading - more on that in a much later post though (or just read New Scientist).  

The species really has to clean up our act, and with a glimmer of hopefulness for my ability to be optimistic, I will say that we have come a long way, baby; there must really be some diligent and courageous people throughout history, trying to scrub the world of the evil that festers in it.  I have no idea why people don't realise just how terrible our society used to be, still is and some very horrible things that happened only very recently!  How much do people have to be reminded of wars, plagues, ignorance causing pointless suffering, slavery, legal sexual inequality in he west as recently as 100 years ago and active racial segregation 30 years ago?? 

As a summary: what is going on in Sudan, bad; what is going on in Syria, bad; what was going on during the cold war; worse; what was going on during the world wars, worse still; what was going on during the crusades, ancient Rome or the Mongol invasions, also very, very bad.  We tend to forget that the British army used concentration camps in South Africa and the US used them against the Native Americans; we conveniently ignore that Ancient Greece was built upon institutional slavery yet we ironically call it the birthplace of democracy, instead choosing to admire only the romantic and the frankly sane parts of its culture and philosophy (big fan of Ancient Greece by the way...).  Then we wonder why western powers became so keen on slavery 1500 years later - surely they learned what a great labour saving device it was from their very ancestors!  We still turn a blind eye to the 3rd world's wars and problems when we get bored, or more local news happens (like a royal wedding dammit!!) or we ignore barbaric practices such as female (or male...) circumcision that still go on in Africa.  The list is long, only to shame us for not caring and, hopefully, to spur us into action!

Keep the past in mind - it will let you see in panorama and broaden your critical ability.  You are encouraged to criticize the status quo; to push for further progress.  Lets remember the capacity of man's inhumanity to man.  That knowledge is our shield against it.

Oh - so, is it true?    Yeah, it is.  

¦-(

Truth or Consequences?

A publication for which I have massive admiration, recently published an editorial article about a new commercial spaceport being built in the US, named (ta-da!) Spaceport America.  They commented that it is near the town Truth or Consequences, which is named after a radio show quiz (right... stay with me) from the 1950s, and that this name might be "undignified".

I could not disagree more.  Providing that the spaceport does advance science and discovery as much as its vision intends to, the name is serendipitously right on the mark.  We are an evolving species that is finding it difficult to strike a balance and stay at peace with each other and the environment.  Science offers the solutions to avoid catastrophe as we develop our society, improve our quality of life and take responsible stewardship of the planet.  

Are we there yet!?

The reason for science over ignorance and discovery over stagnation, can be aptly encapsulated by the phrase "truth or consequences".  How a society chooses to behave; either valuing science and discovery; or treating it with suspicion, derision and cool detachment (what has modern technology ever given us, right?); will have a profound effect on the end of that society.  It is the choice between prosperity, or degeneration.  Growth, or decay.

Truth or Consequences.  Do we want to seek out the truth?  If we don't, we will face the consequences...