(no subject)

Today, I heard something that resonated deeply with me... because it spoke to how I feel about the direction my country is in.

Moving under forces so large that I have no control over them, and knowing that things are going horribly wrong, and knowing you can't leave, because someone has to keep trying, but knowing, deep down, that you're only holding on because there really isn't another choice.

No one is sure how many people are dead and gone in Iraq, but one thing is certain.

We did not have to invade.

We didn't *have* to, there was never a compelling reason, and there was never a situation in which, if we'd waited just a little bit longer - a few months, even a year - that things might have gone horribly wrong.

The common 'dove' wisdom was that we could wait, and it was scorned.

The common 'hawk' wisdom was that we could not wait, we'd waited too long.

Every single piece of the hawk's arguments has been found to be wanting, and still they screech their battle cry and say it was necessary.

It was okay... because it was. The doves were wrong, despite the facts.

We fight honorably in the overwhelming majority of cases. Our soldiers don't want to hurt innocent folks. We use precision guided munitions, and all that, don't we?

But a bomb so precise that it can't hurt innocents is too weak to have an effect. A bomb can't kill an insurgent in a row house with any certainty, if it's not a grave danger to the next house over.

And even the foot soldiers with naught but a very accurate rifle will no doubt, sooner or later, recognize that the danger to the civilians is not the bullet with an innocent person's name on it... it's all those sent "to whom it may concern".

I've said it before, and I'll say it one last time before this election:

War is the penultimate evil, and only justified when you've found a worse evil that requires war to prevent.

As long as we think of war as something useful, as a tool, we're stuck in this train, on this grade.

Read on, and see if you can't just picture a train named "America".

Tons Of Steel
Lyrics: Brent Mydland
Music: Brent Mydland


I know these rails we're on like I know my lady's smile
Re-see a dozen dreams in every passing mile
Can't begin to count the trips
That she and I have made
But I wish I had a dollar
For each time we both been down this grade

Chorus
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's so steep
Her engine's sure to blow
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Out of control
She's more a roller-coaster than the train I used to know

It's one hell of an understatement to say she can get mean
She's temperamental, more a bitch than a machine
She wasn't built to travel at
The speed a rumour flies
These wheels are bound to jump the tracks
Before they burn the ties

[chorus]

Murphy's sure outdone himself to pick this stretch of track
I can only hope my luck is riding in the back
Well I have prayed to God
This ain't the day we meet
I've done about everything
But try dragging my feet

[chorus]

Oo, oo, I wanna go down slow
Oo, oo, oo, oo, oo
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the train I used to know

(no subject)

Today, I heard something that resonated deeply with me... because it spoke to how I feel about the direction my country is in.

Moving under forces so large that I have no control over them, and knowing that things are going horribly wrong, and knowing you can't leave, because someone has to keep trying, but knowing, deep down, that you're only holding on because there really isn't another choice.

No one is sure how many people are dead and gone in Iraq, but one thing is certain.

We did not have to invade.

We didn't *have* to, there was never a compelling reason, and there was never a situation in which, if we'd waited just a little bit longer - a few months, even a year - that things might have gone horribly wrong.

The common 'dove' wisdom was that we could wait, and it was scorned.

The common 'hawk' wisdom was that we could not wait, we'd waited too long.

Every single piece of the hawk's arguments has been found to be wanting, and still they screech their battle cry and say it was necessary.

It was okay... because it was. The doves were wrong, despite the facts.

We fight honorably in the overwhelming majority of cases. Our soldiers don't want to hurt innocent folks. We use precision guided munitions, and all that, don't we?

But a bomb so precise that it can't hurt innocents is too weak to have an effect. A bomb can't kill an insurgent in a row house with any certainty, if it's not a grave danger to the next house over.

And even the foot soldiers with naught but a very accurate rifle will no doubt, sooner or later, recognize that the danger to the civilians is not the bullet with an innocent person's name on it... it's all those sent "to whom it may concern".

I've said it before, and I'll say it one last time before this election:

War is the penultimate evil, and only justified when you've found a worse evil that requires war to prevent.

As long as we think of war as something useful, as a tool, we're stuck in this train, on this grade.

Read on, and see if you can't just picture a train named "America".

Tons Of Steel
Lyrics: Brent Mydland
Music: Brent Mydland


I know these rails we're on like I know my lady's smile
Re-see a dozen dreams in every passing mile
Can't begin to count the trips
That she and I have made
But I wish I had a dollar
For each time we both been down this grade

Chorus
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's so steep
Her engine's sure to blow
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Out of control
She's more a roller-coaster than the train I used to know

It's one hell of an understatement to say she can get mean
She's temperamental, more a bitch than a machine
She wasn't built to travel at
The speed a rumour flies
These wheels are bound to jump the tracks
Before they burn the ties

[chorus]

Murphy's sure outdone himself to pick this stretch of track
I can only hope my luck is riding in the back
Well I have prayed to God
This ain't the day we meet
I've done about everything
But try dragging my feet

[chorus]

Oo, oo, I wanna go down slow
Oo, oo, oo, oo, oo
Nine hundred thousand tons of steel
Out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the train I used to know

(no subject)

As kightp mentioned, I saw the play she directed, Copenhagen, and it stirred up a lot of thoughts.

Like what?

Well...

Models are imperfect, and that's okay, and, in fact, necessary.

Even if the Copenhagen interpretation isn't "real", it's the best model that's currently *possible*. If you look at what we *can* know, and stop thinking wishfully about what you'd like to be able to know, the Copenhagen interpretation is the best we've got.

Building a model based upon what you *know*, what you *can* know, is a good thing, and the flaws should be understood, but accepted.

War sucks ass. (Fill in additional scatalogical references as desired.)

We are limited because we see ourselves as the center of the universe - not because of selfishness or self centeredness... we *LITERALLY CAN NOT HELP* but see ourselves as the center of the universe... we're at the center of the universe our brain creates for us.

Our brain's model of the universe is flawed, just as all models are flawed. Our ability to express that model is also flawed, because all language is flawed... even mathematics. (Mathematics is flawed because the real world doesn't constrain itself to the assumptions we make in mathematics. I don't know if there's anything that's actually spherical in the universe, but we work with spheres in mathematics, for example.) It's what we've got, so we might as well use it, but we should never forget that these flaws are there.

It takes work to move outside of this "I'm at the center" view, and anything that takes work is going to be left undone much of the time. (i.e.: People will be indifferent if they don't expend effort. Indifference is the root of (much, probably most, maybe all) evil. A lack of effort leads to evil... and thus, good, or even 'non-evil' takes effort, though a person can reduce the amount of effort it takes, through practice.)

Even if your home is engaged in evil acts, it's still your home... and soldiers don't get to pick their battles. A soldier who wants to defend his homeland must be in the military to do so, and might be sent to fight for an evil cause because of this.

The advent of bigger, easier-to-use weapons has probably accelerated the ability to detach one's empathy. It's simply not possible to think "I push this button and a hundred thousand people die", it's too *huge*, yet, there are people who might be in exactly that position.

We are all stars, shining in a black fabric, detached, and in the center of our own universe.

But we're not... there's a spirit that pervades us, one that must be awakened. People must hear the screaming of the spirit that is tortured when wrongs are done, when innocent people suffer.

Those of us who hear those screams must teach others to hear them, too.

Language is just a model, and inherently flawed, just like all models.

Too much information multiplies the chance for error; too little is an inadequate descriptor; there *is* no "just right", though, because we don't know what, precisely, is important. We can only construct a model, and hope we make the right one.

The only model that is perfect is the thing being modeled.

The usefulness of a model is what it allows you to do.

Morality is inherently uncertain; there's never enough information. Again, a model must be chosen, it will be imperfect, but you can't get a perfect model.

Models formed of memory are exceptionally flawed, because memory is flawed.

Self-observation is limited - "if you're thinking, you're not doing, and if you're doing, you're not thinking" is one of the themes of the play; it's not always true, but we operate on conditioned responses much of the time, without thinking of what we're doing or why. We *can* think about what we're doing, but we only have so much processing power, so we run on automatic, much of the time.

And there's more... whether I'll be posting it here or not, I don't know.

(no subject)

As kightp mentioned, I saw the play she directed, Copenhagen, and it stirred up a lot of thoughts.

Like what?

Well...

Models are imperfect, and that's okay, and, in fact, necessary.

Even if the Copenhagen interpretation isn't "real", it's the best model that's currently *possible*. If you look at what we *can* know, and stop thinking wishfully about what you'd like to be able to know, the Copenhagen interpretation is the best we've got.

Building a model based upon what you *know*, what you *can* know, is a good thing, and the flaws should be understood, but accepted.

War sucks ass. (Fill in additional scatalogical references as desired.)

We are limited because we see ourselves as the center of the universe - not because of selfishness or self centeredness... we *LITERALLY CAN NOT HELP* but see ourselves as the center of the universe... we're at the center of the universe our brain creates for us.

Our brain's model of the universe is flawed, just as all models are flawed. Our ability to express that model is also flawed, because all language is flawed... even mathematics. (Mathematics is flawed because the real world doesn't constrain itself to the assumptions we make in mathematics. I don't know if there's anything that's actually spherical in the universe, but we work with spheres in mathematics, for example.) It's what we've got, so we might as well use it, but we should never forget that these flaws are there.

It takes work to move outside of this "I'm at the center" view, and anything that takes work is going to be left undone much of the time. (i.e.: People will be indifferent if they don't expend effort. Indifference is the root of (much, probably most, maybe all) evil. A lack of effort leads to evil... and thus, good, or even 'non-evil' takes effort, though a person can reduce the amount of effort it takes, through practice.)

Even if your home is engaged in evil acts, it's still your home... and soldiers don't get to pick their battles. A soldier who wants to defend his homeland must be in the military to do so, and might be sent to fight for an evil cause because of this.

The advent of bigger, easier-to-use weapons has probably accelerated the ability to detach one's empathy. It's simply not possible to think "I push this button and a hundred thousand people die", it's too *huge*, yet, there are people who might be in exactly that position.

We are all stars, shining in a black fabric, detached, and in the center of our own universe.

But we're not... there's a spirit that pervades us, one that must be awakened. People must hear the screaming of the spirit that is tortured when wrongs are done, when innocent people suffer.

Those of us who hear those screams must teach others to hear them, too.

Language is just a model, and inherently flawed, just like all models.

Too much information multiplies the chance for error; too little is an inadequate descriptor; there *is* no "just right", though, because we don't know what, precisely, is important. We can only construct a model, and hope we make the right one.

The only model that is perfect is the thing being modeled.

The usefulness of a model is what it allows you to do.

Morality is inherently uncertain; there's never enough information. Again, a model must be chosen, it will be imperfect, but you can't get a perfect model.

Models formed of memory are exceptionally flawed, because memory is flawed.

Self-observation is limited - "if you're thinking, you're not doing, and if you're doing, you're not thinking" is one of the themes of the play; it's not always true, but we operate on conditioned responses much of the time, without thinking of what we're doing or why. We *can* think about what we're doing, but we only have so much processing power, so we run on automatic, much of the time.

And there's more... whether I'll be posting it here or not, I don't know.