green growth

Today I came across the news that scientist have used bacteria to produce plastic in the lab. A similar test was run in 2004 using bacteria to convert toxins into usable plastic. This is a fascinating example of Green technology in action.


This sort of high-tech application of ecological principles shows how going Green is potentially the biggest growth industry for the future. The room for advancement, and thus return on investment, is enormous. Even perennial Globalist, Thomas Friedman, is now championing Green technology as "the kind of thing that can drive our technological foundation to a whole new level." It's this kind of innovation that will help rebuild our economy and create solutions to the problems facing us today.

debating fallacies

This morning I was reading a friend's blog and I noticed some interesting comments in a recent post about his reaction to Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin. The person commenting engaged in a classic logical fallacy: the red herring, also known in debating circles as ignoratio elenchi. Since just yesterday I wrote about separating good and bad ideas in a debate, I feel a bit vindicated. Such an ignorance of even the most basic precepts of logic implies a serious deficiency of critical thinking skills.

In an election year, with the presidential debates mere days away, it's a bit alarming that these sorts of mistakes aren't as well known as they might be. So as a public service, I'm posting a list of common logical fallacies used in debates. Credit goes to Michael Wong, who wrote this list for his website debunking creationism. His list has been abridged for length and to trim the less relevant references to religion but can be found in its original form and context on this page.

The "Strawman" Fallacy: this is where you build up a distorted "strawman" version of your opponent's argument in order to knock it down more easily. Virtually all creationist representations of evolutionary mechanisms distort the principle somehow, thus falling into this category.

The "Ad-Hominem" Fallacy: this is also known as "attacking the messenger, not the message". One of the most common forms of the ad-hominem fallacy in online debates is to poke fun at someone's spelling errors and then conclude that the person's points are wrong. In religious debates, the most common form of ad-hominem fallacy by far is to attack the morality of an irreligious opponent.

The "Appeal to Motive" Fallacy: this is where you attack the authors of an idea on a personal level by questioning the "hidden motives" behind their arguments, rather than addressing their arguments directly. For example, "you're just saying that vegetables are good for you because you're a vegetarian."

The "Red-Herring" Fallacy: this is where you introduce an irrelevant tangent to the debate. Most people aren't clumsy enough to completely change the subject, so they will pick something which is somewhat related to the general subject but not to the actual arguments being made. For example, "the capitalist theory of supply and demand is misleading because capitalism has been responsible for the systematic degradation of the working class, which produces all of the demand" (notice how it looks like it's related in some way, but despite its appearance it does not actually address or refute the theory of supply and demand at all).

The "False Dilemma" Fallacy: this is where you try to force your opponent to choose between two options when in fact three or more options are possible. For example, "you should invest that inheritance money in stocks, because the bond market is not healthy right now" (notice how it assumes that there are only two possible choices).

The "False Cause" Fallacy: this is where you assume that A caused B even though this is not necessarily the case. There are many specific forms of the false cause fallacy such as the "post hoc" fallacy where people assume that if A comes before B then A must have caused B, or the "complex cause" fallacy where people assume that something has just one cause when it may have several. For example, "it's too bad Lucy caught Bob watching pornography, because that led to their divorce" (marital failures are often much too complex to pin on a single cause like that) or ""the Nazis reintroduced school prayer when they gained power in pre-war Germany, and the Holocaust followed shortly afterwards, so school prayer caused the Holocaust" (as absurd as that sounds, remember that the removal of school prayer is routinely blamed for everything wrong with society, which is no less absurd).

The "Circular Logic" Fallacy: this is also known as "begging the question", and while few debaters will be clumsy enough to blatantly say something as obvious as "Marxism works because Marxism works", they will generally do so by rewording the same idea in two different ways. For example, "property rights are just as important as human rights because when you examine the human condition and the history of ethical philosophy, you will see that the right to property is one of the fundamentals, which means that it is a self-evident and inalienable right, just as much as the right to life" (notice how it's somewhat pompous but is nevertheless basically circular because its premise is just a reworded version of its conclusion).

recognizing good ideas

I've had a few conversations recently that centered around the idea of debate. We've all had those discussions about politics or religion or something else people are guaranteed to disagree on, where it moves past the basic "I don't agree" and becomes a bit of a debate. Now when I find myself in that kind of discussion, I use the same approach every time. Well, recently, I was told my approach is "bullying" because I expect somebody I'm having a debate with to understand basic logic. Essentially, this person's point was that it's unfair to expect people to have a baseline grasp of concepts like fallacies or valid inference.

It would seem to me that it's exactly that kind of thinking that gives carte blanche to the kind of irrational, instinct-driven discourse prevalent in our society. People are not, by nature, particularly reasonable. A psychological study in 1999 showed that "people who lack the knowledge or wisdom to perform well are often unaware of this fact. That is, the same incompetence that leads them to make wrong choices also deprives them of the savvy necessary to recognize competence, be it their own or anyone else's." This would seem like common sense, but the study also found that competent people overestimated the intelligence of their peers.

Basically, stupid people think they're smarter than most people and smart people think most people are as smart as them. This kind of environment has a built in advantage for incompetent people as they inflate the importance and validity of their ideas relative to others while competent people give them the benefit of the doubt. That kind of dynamic requires the application of logic and rational thinking to separate good ideas from bad; effective from ineffective. Only then can progress be made.

Good thoughts to keep in mind as the presidential debates loom.

no frog for this lilypad

Thanks to StumbleUpon, which semi-randomly jumps you around the web showing you pages it thinks you'll like, I've been seeing some very interesting ideas in Green architecture. I discussed one of these finds recently, but today this one really caught my eye:

It's called LilyPad. The concept is described as "a floating offshore ecopolis for climate refugees" by the designers, Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Each LilyPad is designed to be a self-sufficient mini-city using energy provided by a combination of solar power, wind turbines, and hydropower. What makes it especially interesting to me is the idea that these could provide housing for the millions that will be displaced by rising ocean levels over the next century. That's a problem that hasn't really been addressed and it shows a suprising and gratifying degree of forward-thinking by the architects that they've done so. The LilyPad exemplifies the kind of innovation that comes from thinking Green.

economies and possibilities

Like everyone else these days, I've been hearing a lot about our economic crisis. Living in New York, I've watched up-close as Wall Street turned into a shooting gallery and familiar names like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Bros. went up against the wall. The nationalization of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the federal bail-out of AIG are particularly striking after 20 years of frantic deregulation and privatization. Watching the slow-motion collapse, it makes one wonder if this is really the best we can do.



The basic assumption of laissez-faire capitalism is that human beings are rational agents acting in their own self-interest. This 18th century concept fails to consider subsequent discoveries in psychology and neuroscience. The truth is, human beings are not always rational and often the best we can manage is to act in our perceived self-interest. Besides, the concept of a completely free market is a myth. Markets concentrate wealth and wealth will always act to ensure its own growth, even if that means influencing government to act on its behalf within the market.

In the United States, discussions of this sort invariably bring up the specter of communism. People act as if there is only one alternative to free-market capitalism and that it was tried in the Soviet Union and failed spectacularly. The truth is, a centralized command economy as practiced by the USSR is only one alternative. Other alternatives include participatory economics, cooperative economics, workplace democracy, worker-ownership, and technocracy. The false choice between capitalism and communism obscures the true extent of possible economic systems and assumes a one-size-fits-all approach instead of far more effective mixed economic models.

The growing economic troubles in the United States should give us all pause about the system we take for granted. Instead of cynically accepting the status quo, we might take a more innovative approach and view our society as something perpetually improvable.

humanity, revised and edited

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about the idea of democracy; how the limits of a democracy are the limits of its people. This got me thinking about how mutable those limits can become in an increasingly technological society. We're living in a time where the idea of human enhancement is beginning to become feasible.


In a sense, human beings have been able to enhance their memory and knowledge base indirectly ever since the creation of writing. Using technology to extend human capabilities is hardly a new idea; indeed it's not even limited to humans.

What is changing, though, is our ability to internalize our technology and use it to transform ourselves. Genetic engineering and cybernetic modification have already become a reality. We're fast approaching a future of designer babies and brain-computer interface. Imagine being able to take a drug that will introduce an artificial retrovirus capable of reprogramming your DNA to remove inherited diseases or even add new abilities. Imagine getting 24-hour wireless internet access directly through an implanted modem connected to a network of artificial neurons overlaying your brain tissue.

How would this change the way we operate as a society? Could we vote directly through brain implants on every issue that affects us? What happens to the idea that "all men are created equal" when some of them have enhanced mental faculties and strength? Will these things only be the purview of the rich, allowing income disparity to become internalized in our own biology? Right now there are more questions than answers, but it's fascinating to speculate what these nascent technologies will bring in their maturity.

chinatown in the sky

Today I stumbled on this amazing design by the Chinese firm MAD Architects over at Inhabitat:

It's a floating building! Both Inhabitat and MAD are unclear on exactly how the thing works but I imagine it's filled with helium like a giant Zeppelin. The habitable part would be a small percentage of the total volume. The firm's website describes it as "a mobile Chinatown" and claims it would be completely self-sustaining and a model of Green architecture. It reminds me a bit of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. The architects envision these things traveling the world as a sort of ambassador of Chinese culture. Sure would be interesting to see it made.

heaven and earth

Everybody has had a lot to say about Sarah Palin since John McCain plucked her from obscurity to be his running mate. Much of the discussion has centered on her religion and her views on the environment. What's not being discussed, however, is the idea that the two are intimately connected. Religion has always played a major role in people's actions, including their behavior toward the environment. A belief system can influence how people view their relationship to nonhumans; seeing themselves as either a part of a larger community of all living beings or as masters of the living and nonliving world.



Christianity, as the world's largest belief system and therefore most influential religion, illustrates the latter. The Christian emphasis on abstract deity over the material world and personal salvation over societal well-being has a strong tendency toward encouraging ecologically irresponsible behavior and and unsustainable societies.

The concept of a supreme god separate from the material universe devalues that universe in favor of a divinity that is necessarily abstract because of his nonphysical nature. The concept of a soul also devalues the corporeal as it creates an artificial bifurcation between a human being's identity and his or her physical body; a fallacious concept as cognition is an activity of the body, not a separate thing unto itself. Indeed, humanity is seen as hardly related to this world except insofar as we are commanded to rule over it. The Bible says:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." …God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Genesis 1: 26, 28

Christianity has disassociated itself from humanity's family--the community of living creatures on this planet. Rather than walk among the low and contemptible "beasts" of the earth, they raise their heads haughtily--proclaiming humans higher life forms. They seek kinship with angels; strive for salvation from the inferior world of flesh and deliverance unto heaven.

Perceiving the Earth to be barely more than a stopping place on the way to Heaven, Christians have little reason to feel any concern for the well-being of its ecosystems. Viewing themselves as separate from the biosphere, Christians also do not easily see a chain of causation between their own actions and the loss of biodiversity or any possible repercussions for humanity. Their disconnectedness from the corporeal world encourages them to dismantle vital ecosystems for their own uses and it is literally to Hell with the consequences.

looking forward

This week, the Washington Post reported on the intelligence brief being prepared for the next occupant of the White House, whoever he may be. Its most salient point was that American power and influence is declining and will likely continue to do so in the face of an increasingly multipolar world. Like the British Empire after WWI, the United States is facing an existential crisis as it loses the identity it's held for generations.

America has been a superpower since the end of World War II and with the collapse of the USSR in 1991, ascended to the status of world hegemon. We maintain around 700 military bases in around 160 out of the 190 nations in the world, insuring the prevalence of our military forces in any relevant theater of operations and our ability to act unilaterally without much fear of conventional reprisal. Our military expenses far exceed the next most prolific spender (Russia) and no currently identified “Rogue State” can hope to afford more than a fraction of our defense budget. Additionally, our economic power has significant impact on the rest of the planet. The United States is the world’s largest importer and is home to dozens of major corporations that employ thousands of individuals internationally. Unlike the colonial empires of Europe, America projects its power not by territorial expansion but by economic expansion backed by overwhelming military strength.

This situation, however, seems to be at an end. The threats of the 21st century come from loose networks of groups operating below the nation-state level. As the Cold War taught us, even conflicts between nation-states are likely to be carried out via proxy wars instead of direct confrontation. The continuing rise of China and India as world powers, the resurgence of Russia, and the growing diplomatic and economic power of the European Union is changing the face of the geopolitical landscape. As the value of the US Dollar continues to fall, and the American economic slump worsens, even our economic clout has shrunk in the face of "energy powers" like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Looking forward into this new world, one thing is clear. The problems of the 21st century are global problems: the challenges of international terrorism, climate crisis, hunger, and overpopulation can only be solved by cooperation between the growing number of world powers. In this light, perhaps America should be glad for strong partners on the world stage.

big bang and the brain drain

This morning I was reading about the Big Bang experiment that marked the activation of the Large Hadron Collider over at CERN and I noticed something interesting by comparing articles from both American news and coverage by the BBC. Whereas the BBC focused on the sort of experiments that would be run and the potential discoveries to be made, a CNN article felt the need to explain "Why should the layperson care" and the AP report via Yahoo made extensive reference to the absurd fears by some that the LHC could destroy the Earth.

The disparity, though subtle and small, symbolizes the vast difference between Europe's and America's relationships to science. It's been known for years that the majority of American jobs requiring a PhD in science are filled by foreign-born scientists. But increasingly, those scientists are taking their degrees back to their home countries--leaving the United States with a declining number of qualified experts in fields critical to the challenges of the 21st century.

I can't help but feel there are cultural factors at play here. The love of the American for the "common man" has always had its dark side in a distrust of the intellectual. People would rather hear that their elected official bases decisions on his "gut" instead of the advice of experts. Meanwhile the brain drain continues and America slips further and further behind the vanguard of scientific achievement.

sex and gay america

Recently I had a brief bout of strep throat which caused an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. I'm uninsured, so it was a roundabout process to get antibiotics and I was complaining about the poor state of health coverage in this country. At this point, it was still unclear exactly what was causing my sore throat and my friend brought up the possibility of STDs. Now that was an alarming thought all by itself, though thankfully not the case. But what really caught my attention was the context in which the possibility was raised. He mentioned it when I brought up national health care. The implication was clear: taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill to treat STDs because they're your own fault.

This gave me pause. Why are sexually-transmitted diseases put in a separate category and loaded with moralistic judgement? Really, how is catching strep throat from a friend any different from catching something else from a sexual encounter? Nobody wants to catch either, that's for sure.

Gay men in the United States have a reputation for being promiscuous. It's perhaps for that reason that public adherence to a retrograde, prudish sexual morality has become nearly universal among gay males in my generation. It's truly astonishing to realize that the sexual revolution has become so hamstrung in a group that used to be on the very edge of society. It's tempting to assume that the shadow of AIDS still hangs over us but that's belied by the fact that gay men aged 18-30 are engaging in more risky behavior, not less. While the public facade resembles the Fussy Fifties, the behind-the-scenes activity is more like the Swinging Seventies.

I suspect the adoption of a more prudish face by the gay community has more to do with earning acceptance in the larger society. Our attempt to show America an alternative to all those prime-time shots of half-naked leather boys in the parades has become internalized and presents itself as a prim denial of what goes on behind closed doors.

small-town america

Every election cycle we hear a lot of talk about "small-town America" and it's real values; because apparently those of us who live in major cities are foreign parasites preying upon these wholesome folk. Really, what this means is that Republicans are real Americans and anyone who disagrees is an effete poseur. The electoral maps often show America with a big red heartland and a thin film of blue on the margins. But when adjusted for population, those maps tend to look more like this:



Suddenly the situation is a lot more balanced. Why is it perfectly acceptable in American public discourse to constantly deride fully half the American electorate? Why is it taken for granted that these people aren't "true" Americans?

For a light-hearted look at the situation, let's turn to the Daily Show:

words, widgets, and webs

As you may have noticed, there's now a new widget on the right side of my blog page. For those of you who don't know what widgets are (as I didn't, until quite recently), it's basically an interactive graphic linked to HTML code. The purpose of this particular widget is to make my blog more subscription-friendly.

The process of creating and growing this blog has already taught me a great deal about the internet; including the fact that there really is a lot more to know. Specifically, though, it's really opened my eyes to just how thoroughly the internet has pervaded our lives and changed our world. Many have already put ink to paper (or pixel to screen) describing the growing phenomenon of total connectivity. The buzzword of choice when discussing the fast-growing world of online social-networks and interactive, customizable, and user-generated internet content is Web 2.0. This is the web of YouTube, Facebook, and blogs; as opposed to the old Web 1.0 with dusty relics like AltaVista, America Online, and GeoCities.

Of course, some people have mixed feelings about our increasingly interconnected world. But I feel they're missing the point: we've always been interconnected. All the internet has done is make it impossible to ignore.

religious exceptionalism

The question of religion is always a sensitive subject among polite company.

In our society, religion is accorded a certain breathing room. A controversial statement, when religiously inspired, is generally excepted from normal criticism because it is a "personal" matter of faith. I wonder whether this religious exceptionalism is healthy for public discourse. Especially when certain groups, motivated by these purportedly "personal" views, attempt to usurp the role of rational inquiry in our society and replace an honest search for answers with static dogma. It's entirely acceptable for Creationists to denounce the wisdom of a century and a half of rational inquiry and replace it with the fossilized, unreasoning dogma of ancient barbarians but considered intolerant to call these ideas out for the blatant nonsense they are. Far from balanced, this "hands-off" attitude toward religion gives believers an unfair advantage as they are never required to justify their beliefs on the same level as any other worldview.

hanging gardens of the upper east side

I saw this building on East 86th Street recently and was struck by the brilliance of creating vertical gardens on otherwise plain walls. What an innovative way to incorporate green space into the urban landscape!
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states' rights

One of the most salient observations in American political circles is the truism that state sovereignty has eroded significantly in the two and a half centuries since the founding of the nation, generally leaving the states autonomous in name only. The killing blow to practicable "states' rights" is usually considered the Civil War. It also didn't help that states' rights were often used to defend numerous racist policies afterward.

However, the idea that we have too much power centralized in a distant and abstract federal government still isn't dead and is worth examining.

The boundaries of the states themselves were political creations; either reflecting the settlement patterns of British colonists or purely arbitrary lines on the map. In many ways, the states fail to take into account the cultural, social, and ecological reality of present-day America.

The State of New Jersey, for example, is one of the country’s smaller states but consists of several vastly different regions. The northeastern portion of the state is dominated by the huge conurbanized sprawl surrounding the city of New York while the northwestern area is largely rural and suburban with high-income residents predominating in some areas. South Jersey is defined by the Pine Barrens ecoregion and the Jersey Shore is a coastal tourist area with a boardwalk economy of casinos, arcades, hotels, and restaurants. To vest New Jersey with authority is to ignore the fact that the state suffers from the same drawbacks as the federal government. In what few areas the culturally and geographically distant federal government leaves to the states, policies must somehow take into account all these different regions.

These difficulties don't change the fact that the nation needs a system which recognizes the autonomy of local regions to make decisions in those areas where it is practicable. This would move the locus of control from remote decision-makers with little or no connection to the area affected directly to the people who best know their situation.

Perhaps the solution is to give the states more authenticity by revising their borders to reflect the composition and distribution the nation's population and the character of the local ecology rather than conform to an area established for political reasons. This will emphasize what some social scientists call “the experience of place” and reinforce the tendency for people to identify with their local area; a development with positive results for ecologically sustainable behavior as individuals who feel a logical connection with their region are more likely to extend their mental boundaries to encompass that region as a home and thus treat it with more care