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Opinions

A place for random opinions, thoughts and beliefs, in alphabetical order. These are brief summaries.

Abortion

I am firmly pro-choice. For me, the argument is simple: NO woman should be forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy. Pregnancy and childbirth are the most dangerous ordeals a woman can endure. A fetus should NOT have priority over the woman carrying it. In the womb it is a potential human only, a collection of cells with no consciousness, and should not be regarded in the same light as a fully-grown and self-aware human.

Men should not get a say in whether a woman should have an abortion, as the man gets the easy part of the reproduction process, and could father hundreds of children in his lifetime (from different women) if he were so inclined! (As some men who kept harems did!) Therefore abortion is not men’s business (except for the doctors who perform it).

Abortion is, however, a last resort should contraception fail; not a substitute for it! It is an unpleasant and traumatic procedure. The government should subsidize contraceptive products so that abortion should, in the words of President Bill Clinton, become “safe, legal and rare.”

Crime & punishment

In contrast to many with leftist views, I have come to strongly believe in law and order and discipline; my views on these have hardened because of the increasingly evident social problems that stem from a lack of these (e.g. many teenagers and youths running amuck and virtually being able to get away with murder because society has become so soft on them; they do not respect authority and their parents seem unable to control them – vandalism and graffiti are endemic in my suburb, and many others). I believe this breakdown stems from the 1960s era – the rebellion of that time has gone too far (and I am so sick of hearing about that era anyway! And the blasted Baby Boomers, who have wrecked the world for my generation and those following! But that’s another rant).

A lot of humans can’t be trusted to behave responsibly, so appropriate punishments should be applied to discourage misbehavior (e.g. vandals be made to clean up or pay for damages they caused).

I am somewhat undecided on the death penalty (execution is obviously not a deterrent), but I think it is appropriate in some cases, such as for serial rapists and serial killers, as it does eliminate such particularly dangerous humans, who are incurable (i.e. incapable of reform) and a danger to society for as long as they are alive (if they are imprisoned there is always a chance they could escape). I also believe those who are extremely and deliberately cruel to animals, those who assault the elderly and/or vulnerable should also be executed, as well as drug lords and conmen. I thus disagree with Amnesty International’s stance on the issue (see quote below) in that some people should be executed by the state to keep society safe from them.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

Death

We do not exist before we are conceived, and death is a return to that state of non-existence – the Void. Everything else is speculation. That’s about as much as I can figure out. Try to think back far enough to your earliest memory, then what happens if you try to go before that? Nothing – there is a void or blankness. A description I saw somewhere about the process of death is that it is like a droplet of water returning to the ocean, and merging with it.

You could die tomorrow, or in 50 years – you don’t know when your time will come. I am not particularly worried about the prospect of my own death. For me, death will be a relief, to get away from my own sometimes-tormenting thoughts; not to have to think and worry about things (though the thought of death is still unreal – it’s something that happens to other people). I have been mildly depressed for years and life is grey and rather meaningless (but I am too apathetic/cowardly to try to take my own life, so I guess I will wait around until I die). I do find upsetting the prospect of people I know dying.

Extinction

Humans, despite our thinking ourselves the center of the universe, could easily go the way of the dinosaurs. Perhaps if an intelligent species were to evolve several million years after our extinction, their archaeologists might dig up our bones and all our artefacts (not to mention our mountains of garbage) and wonder at the fate of this previous species. An extract from an article I read in The Age in 1996 (can’t remember its title):

Even humans are not immune from extinction. Using the standard assumptions about the statistics of populations, J. Richard Gott, an American scientist, has calculated that there is a 95% chance that humanity will become extinct somewhere between 5100 and 7.8 million years from now.

And the sun will also die in about 5 billion years, swallowing up the Earth as the sun expands into a red giant, and the Universe itself will eventually expand into nothingness in billions or trillions of years and the stars burn out. So, from that perspective, everything seems kind of pointless.

Feminism

I believe in the “old-fashioned” definition of feminism: Women should be able to do whatever they wish, without being told they can’t do something because they are a woman. Women should have the same equal rights to education as do men. Sadly, in many cultures, women are still regarded as lesser humans.

Women should have unimpeded access to contraception/family planning and abortion – have control over their bodies. Contraception should be made affordable (government-subsidized if necessary). Countries that neglect women’s rights should be invaded and their governments forced to remedy this! (Such as those where stoning a 13-year-old rape victim to death is considered acceptable.)

Many women in Western culture take feminism for granted, and dismiss it as irrelevant and somehow embarrassing. This is dangerous: women’s rights were hard-won by women early in the 20th century, but these rights are precarious and vigilance must be maintained against an eroding of them. (See The List: The Worst Places to Be a Woman for examples of how women are still regarded as lower lifeforms in some cultures.)

A perversion of feminism is the rise of so-called “raunch culture”, where women dressing and acting like prostitutes has somehow become accepted in mainstream culture and fashion. Pornography is not liberating but enslaving. (A relevant book is Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Arial Levy.)

There is nothing wrong with dressing modestly (despite the derision modern society gives this concept). Like it or not, a woman will be stared at and harassed by men if she dresses like a prostitute, and she will not gain respect. (Prostitutes dress the way they do for a reason.)

I have divided feelings about radical feminism. I agree with some views such as abortion rights and opposing pornography, but I feel the radicals can be a little too extreme, in that some actively hate men. I don’t hate men as a rule, but I do detest those who regard women as lesser creatures.

“Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like – like that smoke. We’ll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You’ll see.”

– James Tiptree, Jr., The Women Men Don’t See

(That story makes a point that women might be safer with aliens :-))

Genetic engineering

I believe that genetic engineering – the technology of manipulating and altering human (and other species’) genetic codes – holds wonderful possibilities and governments should start seriously funding it (and not leaving it to private companies). GE is currently only in the very early stages, though, so how it might develop is unknown. Humans could use GE to improve themselves, such as eliminating genetic disorders and enhancing themselves physically and mentally (and perhaps creating new species of humans). The opposition to GE comes mainly from religious groups who, with the mindset of their primitive beliefs, fear that GE is “playing God”. GE would thus need to be done in secret to avoid terrorism from such groups.

Genetically-modified crops are, however, a different issue, as there is no predicting how such altered plants could alter (or harm) the environment, so it is best to proceed cautiously with this.

Immortality

To be immortal – to live forever – is a popular theme in science fiction and fantasy. But what does immortality really mean? Does it entail living on and on until the sun dies in 5 billion years (and perhaps the rest of humanity becomes extinct in the meantime), then still being around when the Universe expands into black nothingness after billions or trillions more years? Then what does an Immortal do with themselves? From that perspective, I think immortality, were it attainable, would be a curse. In fact, the worst punishment a person could receive would to be made immortal.

There are wealthy people who put themselves into cryonic storage after death (their whole bodies, or just their heads – yuck!), in the hopes that some future technology might revive them once again. Whether this is attainable is doubtful, given that freezing expands the fluid in body cells and destroys them. But medical issues aside, if such revival were attainable, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being woken up again trapped in your body, in an unfamiliar world where everything and everyone you knew had gone, lost in the past.

An alternative to the above concept of immortality would be to have yourself cloned and your memories and self transferred to the new body (similar to the gholas from the Dune novels). Repeat as many times as wanted/necessary over the centuries until you got tired of living. Obviously this technology is a long way off, if it is even feasible.

Opportunists

There is a type of human whom I especially despise who can be described as Opportunists. They are a particular personality type who are primarily interested in acquiring wealth and status for themselves, no matter how negatively this might affect other people, or society as a whole. They are basically selfish and greedy, and can be found in every type of society. Opportunism is a somewhat regrettable part of human nature, but most people can override this inherent selfishness if required. Dedicated Opportunists will not. Humans have an inherent sense of fairness, and Opportunists are an insult to this. (Fairness is not only limited to humans – other species such as chimpanzees and ants possess it too, as it helps social cohesion.)

One reason political systems such as Communism failed was the actions of Opportunists who exploited the system to their own advantage, and undermined the actions of people who tried to do the right thing. In Communist Russia, the system eventually collapsed in part because of Opportunists, who came out into the open as rapacious oligarches.

A slightly more benign form of Opportunist are entrepreneurs who create a product and business in order to exploit a percieved need. To live in a society where people are constantly trying to sell you one product or another gets tiresome, though. (An example that lingers in memory is from a documentary I watched on the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Just before the eruption, some tourists were being evacuated along a road from the volcano, and some Opportunist-types were lined up there trying to sell them souvenir T-shirts. A volcano is about to explode catastrophically and they were selling T-shirts!! *Shakes head in disgust* If they got caught in the volcanic ash, I don’t feel much sympathy!)

Confidence tricksters (con “artists”) are a particularly loathesome form of Opportunist as they exploit people’s good will in order to defraud them for the Opportunist’s own gain (usually profit-related). Victims of con artists will be much less trusting in future, which is a loss to a society as a whole. In my view, con artists deserve the death penalty as their selfish actions cause much psychological distress and social damage.

Politics

I don’t adhere to any one political belief system as most have some elements I agree with or dislike. I tend to take ideas from various ideologies that appeal to me.

I belive that a government should look after its citizens and provide essential services such as social welfare, public transport, public schools and health care. Essential utilities (gas, water, electricity) should not be privatized (as has been the regrettable trend in many countries) but remain under government control. In this I am generally more Left/liberal/socialist.

I find conservative views on these issues repellent; if they had their way the poor would be left to fend for themselves and/or starve to death, and big business and corporations would run amuck. In Australia I would thus vote Labor/Greens/Democrats (Labor are the equivalent of the U.S. Democrats party). I don’t agree with all their policies but still find them preferable to the “survival of the fittest” ideologies of conservative/Right politics and the equally loathesome Libertarians (whose philosophy seems to be based on privatizing everything).

My views on law and order, however, differ somewhat to many with Left-leaning politics (see Crime, above). I also feel the Left tend to pander too much to various interest groups (identity politics), which I find extremely irritating. Excessive immigration and the subsequent pressure on infrastructure and services is also a concern; I believe immigration should be restricted – kept at a manageable level.

See my New World Order page for some ideas of what I would do if I were able to rule the world!

Race versus culture

Racism is defined as discriminating against or disliking a person purely because of their skin color and/or ethnicity. As all humans share the same biological makeup and heritage, such a distinction is superficial; skin color and other physical characteristics evolved to adapt to different locations and climates, and are not reflective of a person’s intelligence (or lack of it!). Therefore, on biological terms, such racism is illogical. It comes from a basic suspicion of people who “look different” from those one grew up with; such aversion can be overcome through education and familiarization.

Culture, however, is a different matter; it is not related to human biology. Some cultures are considered more desirable than others to live in, which is why there tends to be high rates of immigration to the former. Some cultures are just odious (e.g. those which regard women as chattels) and deserve to become extinct. Culture is thus not relevant to a person’s race; people of different skin colors who grow up in a particular culture will share the characteristics of that culture.

[…] in making the difference between races, it is not race that we think about, but culture: “…a common history, common laws and religion, similar habits of thought and a conscious striving together for certain ideals of life”.

– Wikipedia: Racism

Religion

I don’t really have any religious beliefs; I am indifferent, so I am weary of the debate. I did all that “meaning of life” questioning in my teens and early 20s, and came to the conclusion that there isn’t any. I have always preferred the characters I create in my imagination, whom I find more satisfactory than any imaginary god. So I don’t want anyone preaching at me in hopes of converting me – I will get very irate!

All deities are invented constructs to try to explain the world and give it some meaning, but in reality there is nothing, just a void. Fighting over which belief system is “correct” is pointless as the only truth is that there is no meaning and nothing out there watching over humanity.

There is no difference between ancient mythologies and modern religions; mythologies are merely religions that have gone out of fashion.

Thinking too much

Thinking too much about philosophical questions such as the meaning of life is dangerous. Essentially, there is no meaning or purpose to our existence – it is a series of random events – so dwelling upon this will lead one to despair and depression. That’s why I avoid reading any philosophy books (though I get depressed over this topic anyway). Sometimes I believe consciousness or self-awareness can be a curse – other animals live in the moment and have no concept of such questions.

“If the Universe is just a puzzle box, it doesn’t mean a damn thing, does it? It’s not enough. Not any more; maybe it never was.” Rosenberg had reached a kind of ultimate logic, she thought. He must be spending his walking time addressing the final question science couldn’t answer, in this godless age: Why bother to live at all?

– Stephen Baxter, Titan

Time travel

Would time-travel be possible? One thought I had that is if the positions of every atom in the Universe could be mapped over the entire span of time from the past to the present, then one could travel back in time, assuming you had a machine that could perform this task by choosing the co-ordinates wanted. As such a feat would involve an unimaginably huge amount of computing power, perhaps it might only be necessary to map the atom positions in your local region (e.g. in the Solar System). Time travel into the future would not be possible due to the peculiarity of quantum mechanics: that the future positions of atoms can’t be determined with any accuracy (see Objective collapse theory). The past, however, is fixed and certain; the future does not yet exist with any certainty. There is thus only the past and now.

A type of time travel into the future is attainable if you are able to travel in space at or near light speed: local time slows down while the rest of the Universe continues at a normal pace (Time dilation). This is not a type of time travel that would be desirable for me; to emerge and find that everyone I had known was old or dead would be depressing.

For myself, I would like to time travel back to the past: my own past (in my lifetime) and to other eras, that of the dinosaurs being a favorite. I would like to revisit and take photos of places from my past that no longer exist, such as my grandmother’s house, and to see family members when they were much younger – this is one of my favorite fantasies as I am so unhappy in the present. I don’t know if I would be able to meet family members – a person claiming to be from the future would be thought to be delusional at the least! And how would meeting one’s younger self affect each version? As I have no memories of such an event it obviously hasn’t happened. That’s where time travel gets complicated (see the Grandfather paradox) – unless time travel into the past puts the traveler into a parallel universe that doesn’t affect the original timeline. Physicist Michio Kaku believes this last to be the most plausible of the various theories, as it avoids violating causality, and explains why there are no hordes of time travelers observing major historical events:

My favorite solution is the many-worlds theory: when you go backwards in time and you save Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated, you’ve actually saved someone else’s Abraham Lincoln. Your past cannot be changed, and you’ve gone to a parallel universe. If the river of time forks into two rivers, you hop across rivers after the fork.

– “Things We’ll Probably Never See”, NYT, 27/3/2008

However if there is more than one timeline in the universe, as described in the Many-Worlds Hypothesis, then time travel can be consistent – going back in time simply creates a new, consistent timeline, one of countless others created by quantum events. These timelines are each self-consistent, but as every act of time-travel changes the timeline and creates a new history, it is effectively impossible to travel to one’s own past; only to the past of a different timeline, created by your own presence and potentially very different to the one you started in.

– Orion’s Arm, Why No Time Travel in OA

You would presumably have no means of returning to the timeline you came from, which is rather depressing.

Another problem of time travel in either direction is that your body continues to age normally. Thus if you time travel and spend a year in the past or future, your body will be a year older when you return to where you left (i.e. in the present, from where you departed). Thus you would not be able to spend too much time in the past or future, in order not to age too much in the present!

A proposed hypothetical effect of the operation of the Large Hadron Collider (June 2008) was that it could enable time-travelers from the future to come back here! (“Time travelers from the future ‘could be here in weeks’ ”, Telegraph, 6/2/2008.) The high energies involved could result in the inadvertent creation of a wormhole (though it would be microscopic in size). Future travelers would, however, only be able to go back as far as the date of the first operation of the LHC (which is another way of explaining why there are no records of time travelers in our past).

Warrior culture

Since my teenage years I have had a fascination with warrior culture (male warrior culture) and war. This is something of a contrast to the usual “left-wing” views on such matters, and I make no apologies for it. The aspects that fascinate me are the armor and weapons, and the male camaraderie (which, as a female, I am excluded from). All of the imaginary characters I create have been solitary male warrior types.

In 2007 there was news of the death of a Marines Major called Douglas Zembiec. Of interest are his views and attitude towards war and killing, which are unapologetically (and somewhat refreshingly) honest: he enjoyed it. Not a “politically-correct” view these days!

In an age when many prefer military personnel to be diffident and reluctant to engage in violence, Zembiec was proudly a throwback. “One of the most noble things you can do is kill the enemy,” he once said.

[…]

Zembiec seemed to revel in the experience of combat. In the magazine article, he was quoted as calling a firefight in Fallouja “the greatest day of my life.”

“I never felt so alive, so exhilarated, so purposeful,” he said the day after a battle in which two of his troops were killed and 18 wounded. “There is nothing equal to combat and there is no greater honor than to lead men into combat.”

Zembiec was widely admired among Marines. “We can dispute the politics of any war – Iraq, Afghanistan or any others,” said Bing West, author of two books about combat Marines in Iraq, “but we cannot dispute our need for warriors. Doug was our guardian.”

Sgt. Maj. William Skiles, who fought beside Zembiec at Fallouja, said he inspired great loyalty among his troops. “An entire company of Marines would trade places with him right now,” Skiles said from Camp Pendleton. “They would put down their lives for him.”

From an LA Times 2004 profile:

It was the time of his life, he acknowledged later, for by his own definition Zembiec is a warrior, and a joyful one. He is neither bellicose nor apologetic: War means killing, and killing means winning. War and killing are not only necessary on occasion, they’re also noble. “From day one, I’ve told [my troops] that killing is not wrong if it’s for a purpose, if it’s to keep your nation free or to protect your buddy,” he said. “One of the most noble things you can do is kill the enemy.”

For his Marines, Zembiec asks for respect, not sympathy, even as one-third of his 150-man company became casualties. “Marines are violent by nature – that’s what makes us different,” he said. “These young Marines didn’t enlist to get money to go to college. They joined the Marines to be part of a legacy.”

He knows talk like that puts him outside mainstream America and scares the bejabbers out of some people. Modern America is uncomfortable with celebrating those who have gone to war and killed their nation’s enemy. Maybe it’s because American military hardware is thought to be so superior that any fight with an adversary is a mismatch. Then again, people who feel that way probably have not stared at the business end of a rocket-propelled grenade launched by an insurgent hopped up on hatred for America.

[…]

“He’s everything you want in a leader: He’ll listen to you, take care of you and back you up, but when you need it, he’ll put a boot” up your behind, said Sgt. Casey Olson. “But even when he’s getting at you, he doesn’t do it so you feel belittled.”

The image of Zembiec leading the April 6 charge had a lasting impact on his troops. Leading by example is a powerful tool. “He gets down there with his men,” said Lance Cpl. Jacob Atkinson. “He’s not like some of these other officers: He leads from the front, not the rear.”

[…]

My own generation of baby boomers went to college in order to express their individuality. Zembiec was searching for something else at the Naval Academy. “It was a culture of hardness and mental toughness and challenge. You’re there to be part of a team. It’s not about you.”

[…]

Would you want Douglas Zembiec in charge of U.S. foreign policy? Maybe, maybe not. Would you want him on your side if you – or your nation – got involved in a street brawl? Without a doubt. He is, as his fellow officers say, a military hybrid of modern tactics and ancient attitudes. “Doug is the prototypical modern infantry officer,” Clearfield said. “He’s also not that much different than the officers who led the Spartans into combat 4000 years ago.”

One trend that disgusts me is for corporate executives and business types to equate themselves with warriors in a metaphorical sense. Business executives read books like Management and Genghis Khan: Lessons for Multinational Business Enterprises (wonder what Genghis would think of that?!); there is even a website called CorporateWarriors.com (found after some random Googling), which “offers the nation’s finest career services to corporate warriors… If you are a courageous corporate warrior, we invite you to select from our extraordinary battle weapons and join us in the arena for the corporate challenge.” If businessmen think they are in any sense emulating the profession of warrior, they are sadly deluded; there is nothing honorable about the grubby process of making money, and a real warrior would regard them in disgust.

“Today we think of war as carnage. But war then was the primary profession; there was no such thing as business, the title of ‘tradesman’ or ‘merchant’ was despised, only war had any honor for a man, especially for a prince or king, allowing him to acquire wealth, advance his station, make a name for himself.”

– Stephen Pressfield

Men have become almost emasculated in modern Western society, and the business world is a pallid substitute for what was once regarded as an honorable profession.

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