The Berlin Wall wasn't a border between countries

This is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I thought I’d tell a little story.

I studied in Germany as a kid, before the Berlin Wall came down. This one time, I met a girl at a party who had recently escaped from East Germany the month before. She had been hitchhiking in Czechoslovakia when the truck driver said “I’m going across the border, do you want me to smuggle you across?”. She had only minutes to decide the fate of the rest of her life, with nothing but the pack on her back.

She showed me her English textbook. English was nearly as popular a foreign language in East Germany as Russian. Like most language textbooks, it told a fictional story of a traveler as an excuse for dialog. The traveler was an East German in America, experiencing the typical American problems of the massive tuberculosis outbreak, hunger, and suppression of the popular American Communist Party. This overlay of propaganda on normal education was a fascinating insight into the way a totalitarian society works.

I asked the obvious follow up question, “so do you plan on visiting the United States?”.

She started crying. Between her sobs she explained that this had been a life long dream of hers, but until that moment, she didn’t realize she could. After a month in West Germany, she had not yet realized she was truly free.

I point this out because the Wall wasn’t simply a border between two countries, but a wall around people’s minds. Even when people didn’t believe the communist rhetoric, the totalitarian governments still had control over people’s minds.

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This is a really strong memory.

The house was typically German, in the middle of Stuttgart. The lower floors were businesses, with a nondescript door with buzzer for dwellings on the upper floors. This apartment was typical student housing, converted from an attic, with low and angled ceilings, and inconveniently arranged rooms.

The space was heated by a small stove burning coal. Being from America, I had never handled or smelled coal before. I had expected it to be light, like charcoal, but it was heavy, solid rock ("steinkohle" or "stone coal"). It also had a distinctive smell when burned, which hung over the city in winter.

But even then, in Germany, and especially among poor students, heating was a luxury. Even at a party, we'd wear heavy sweaters and scarves, huddling in small rooms for warmth.

This girl had her little backpack with her, the same backpack she'd had from Czechoslovakia. Her parents were able to send her a few additional things, like her textbooks, but not a lot. She was living on a small stipend from the West German government, going to school at the University of Stuttgart.

It was weird. As a foreigner living in Germany, I felt out of place, but for her, I think the culture shock was even worse.

Republicans aren’t that dumb about science

The message of To Kill a Mockingbird is that you won’t understand a person until you walk a mile in their shoes. I’m a non-religious Republican. That means while I agree with things like “evolution”, I’ve walked a mile in shoes of religious people who don’t.

The first thing I’ve found is the “strawman fallacy”. Democrats misrepresent the Republican position, caricaturizing it into something silly. The Republican position isn’t an outright denial of science, but something more subtle.

From talking to the religious, I find their concern is that schools teach students to have “faith” in evolution, setting it up as a state-sponsored religion competing with their Christian “faith”.

They are correct. Schools fail at teaching evolution. Students leave school without really understanding how mutation and natural selection work. They don’t understand the evidence, like radioisotope dating of fossils. Their view of evolution is vaguely Lamarckian. Or, in pop culture terms, the view of most students is like what was portrayed in X-Men, that humans are becoming “more evolved”, a phrase that has no meaning in Darwinism.

In other words, what Republicans are concerned about is not that schools are teaching the science of Darwinism, but that they fail at teaching the science, and teach a religion of Darwinism instead.

Democrats call this a success. Their first priority is to have students believe in evolution, and they pursue this with vigor. Understanding evolution is a secondary priority. Indeed, they rarely understand Darwinism themselves.

These religious Republicans propose the wrong solution, teaching “creationism” or “intelligent design”. But they are right that there is a problem. The solution is to spend more effort teaching the evidence, so that the majority of students can recognize how Lamarck and the X-Men get evolution wrong. We should care less whether students “believe” this evidence, and care more that they “understand” it.

I urge you to try to understand the issue from the Republican perspective, rather than blindly echoing the Democrat strawman version.

RIP Dennis Ritchie

Sublime. There is no better word that can be used to describe the C programming language and the Unix operating system, which were co-created by Dennis M. Ritchie (dmr), who passed away earlier this week. C and Unix are sublime.

The way computers work today is because that is how Dennis Ritchie (and cohorts) decreed they should run. This is known as the Unix operating system, which all modern operating systems are based on, either directly or indirectly. We take for granted things like “files” on our computers, but that’s not how most computers organized data prior to Dennis Ritchie. It’s not just your computer, but your mobile phone, your TV, and even your car, that work the way that Ritchie (et al) designed.

In additional to Unix, Ritchie is also responsible for the C programming language (Unix was written using C). Most modern languages, from JavaScript to to PHP to Lua are based partly on the C programming language.

But C is more than just a programming language. It is a sublime expression of computing.

In the beginning, C was designed to be a “portable” low-level language. Until C, low-level code was written in machine language. Sure, database applications might be written in high-level languages like COBOL, but such languages were inappropriate for low-level code, like that found in operating systems. C was designed specifically to be a common low-level language that worked on many different machines at the time. This allowed Unix, which was written in C, to become a universal operating system that worked on many types of machines. In the modern world, Unix runs your iPhone and super computers.

But a strange thing happened after C: all new machine processors designed after that point were designed specifically to run C.

Take your iPhone, for example. It runs a processor type called “ARM”. The ARM processor was designed from the ground up to run C code efficiently, specifically in the way it handles the stack and conditional expressions. Or take the x86 processor family from Intel. Over the years, as the processor has grown from 16-bit to 32-bit to 64-bit; the blueprint has always been how it can run C code efficiently. Even though the x86 and ARM cannot run each other’s machine language, they both can be programmed in C, and both run C efficiently.

I’m a long-time C programmer. I learned C as a child, and it took me a decade of programming to appreciate the sublime nature of C. It would be fair to say that it was Dennis Ritchie (and cohorts) that taught me how to program. By studying their decisions in creating the language, I learned how such a language should be used. I still have my original dog-eared copy of K&R’s book on the C programming language. Like any good book, I have read and re-read it multiple times.

In the late 1990s, I started my own company, selling a high-performance network monitoring system for preventing hacker attacks. By weaving C code in just a certain way, I was able to achieve 10 times the network speeds of my nearest competitor. I could achieve the improbable because I could see the sublime nature of C. This caused my competitor to buy out my company, replacing their product with my own. This has made me very rich. And I owe this to Dennis Ritchie (and his codesigners).

Dennis Ritchie wasn’t solely responsible for Unix and C. There were many others involved, notable Brian Kernighan and Ken Thompson. It was these guys who were the heros of my youth, not baseball players or musicians or politicians. It was these guys who inspired me to become the person I am today.

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("Thanks dmr.\n");
}

Guardian’s take on Science vs. Religion

This Guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/sep/28/faster-than-light-science-religion) on the difference between science and religion annoys me. It’s gets the science mostly correct (faster-than-light neutrinos will overturn a lot of theories, but not science itself), but it lies about how science is taught. Specifically, in politicized issues like Evolution and Global Warming, children are taught to “believe”, to have “faith”, and that to disagree is to “sin”. Scientists themselves turn to “belief” when the evidence fails them.

The anti-intellectualism of Paul Krugman

In a NYTimes op-ed, Paul Krugman attacks Republicans (like Rick Perry and Mitt Romney) for being anti-science and anti-intellectual. But the science and critical-thinking errors in his post demonstrate that it is in fact Krugman who is anti-science and anti-intellectual.

A thank you note to Steve Jobs

I was a shy nerd in school, bullied by the other kids. But I could bear it because of one thing: nerd power. I knew that I would follow in the footsteps of other nerds, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, to start my own tech company, get rich, and overcome those people who bullied me in school. And I did just that, selling my company for $200 million in 2001.

Steve gave me more than just the self confidence to start my own company. He taught, by example, how to have "vision", how to do great things that changed the world.


I remember in 1984 during a shopping trip with my dad. While he was in the grocery store, I wandered over to the computer store next door. The new Macintosh was on display. I sat down, played with the mouse, opened windows, and so on. (Remember, before this, computers did not have a mouse.) I had an epiphany: this is the way computers were supposed to work, all other computers were wrong. Adults behind me were debating this new computer, mostly poo-pooing it. I was astonished. What was wrong with these people that they could not see the future? Why could they not see what was so obvious to me?

Steve didn't invent the mouse. Or windows. Or anything, really. None of this was his idea. His skill wasn't invention, but this thing I'm calling "vision": the ability to recognize the right answer when he sees it, the ability to see the future.

Another part of this "vision" is love. When you pick up an Apple product, you can tell that somebody loved it. You can tell that it wasn't designed by committee.

Grab the Apple power cables. Everyone else's cables feel the same, Apple's feel different. Up until last year, they were soft and cuddly – as if they were filled with cotton rather than copper. This year, they've gone the other direction, feeling like they are filled with stiff rubber. They aren't cuddly anymore, but when you mix them up with other cables, they don't get tangled. Nor do they get bent, which causes the copper inside to fracture. Either way, they are better than normal cables.

Imagine Apple's competitors. A committee gets together, looks at marketing studies, and tries to figure out how many more units they can ship with better cables, or how much more they can charge. They come up with the obvious answer: zero. So, they just shove any old cable in the box.

That's why they can't compete against Apple. Hard or soft cables, it doesn't matter. What matters if that if somebody doesn't love it, Apple doesn't put it in the box.

I'm a nerd. When I created my company, I built a product for other nerds. I looked into the future, and created the first "intrusion prevention system" or "IPS", now a common anti-hacker tool on networks. I saw the "right" answer to difficult problems, such as the "fail open bypass unit", still a highly debated feature. But most of all, I loved my product. This love was evident when you put my product next to my competitors. It was so more advanced than the product of my biggest competitor, and worked so well, that their sales fell off a cliff, forcing them to buy out my company.


Steve, everyone else is going to thank you for repeatedly changing the world (Apple ][, Mac, Pixar, NeXTstep, iPod, iPhone, iPad). But wanted to thank you for changing me, giving me the self confidence as a child that I, too, could do great things, and more importantly, showing me how.

All roads lead to "Philosophy"

King of geeks, xkcd, points out in a recent comic that on Wikipedia, if you take any article and click on the first link not in (parentheses) or italics, then repeat, you eventually end up at the page for "Philosophy". For example, the first link on the page for "Star Wars" is "Space operate", which leads to "Speculative fiction", and so on.

Two sites that follow the links for you are http://ryanelmquist.com/cgi-bin/xkcdwiki and http://www.xefer.com/2011/05/wikipedia.

All the terms I've chosen seem to work. I've created a graph of them below, showing how they all converge on "Philosophy":

My question is: what does the "philosophy" page link to? At this moment, it links to "reason", which links to "rationality", which leads back to "philosophy". This means that all pages eventually end in "reason" or "rationality" as well.

It seems like there must be some deep principle behind this, so I'm going to take a stab at what this is: the Enlightenment.

I don't think this graph defines a "natural law", that philosophy is the basis for all things. Instead, I think this is a cultural artifact, that we in modern, Western culture define everything in terms of philosophy and reason.

For example, the American right wing has created their own "Conservapedia" to combat what they see as left-wing bias in Wikipedia. Those articles don't converge. A tested many terms, and each ended in a loop rather than a "philosophy" or "reason".

Did we do that before the Renaissance/Enlightenment? If we gathered up all pre-Renaissance writings in Europe, filtered just the pages that attempted to "define" or "explain" things, and conducted a similar experience, what would happen? Would they lead to loops? Would they converge on something? I suspect that in pre-Enlightenment Europe or modern Islam, they would converge to religion, not reason.

Or what about ancient Chinese thought? Confucianism is a system of though that's dominated China and the far east for 2500 years. If we applied the same sort of trick, what would everything lead to? Would it be some Confucian principle like "governance" or "duty"?

Have the Democrats Lost Their Minds?

One of the more vicious lies by the left-wing is that they are somehow more scientific or intelligent than the right-wing, such as in this Slate article on global warming, birtherism, evolution, and the debt ceiling.

But the left really isn't any better. For every Republican that believes in the "birther" conspiracy, there is a Democrat that believes in the "truther" conspiracy that George Bush was partly responsible for 9/11.

The Republican view on taxes/spending is the mirror image of the Democrat view. As the Slate article points out, spending cannot be reduced to the point where it matches taxes. QED, taxes must be raised, despite Republican's claim the contrary. However, our current spending commitments are so high, that no amount of new taxes can pay for them. QED, spending must be cut, in particular, Medicare and social security must be reformed, despite Democrat's claim to the contrary.

But it is scientific issues where Democrats are most egregiously off-base. Their overestimation of warming is no more scientific than the Republican's underestimation of warming. Those who deny any warming have occurred are no less scientific than Al Gore's doomsday scenario. The basic science shows conclusively that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, that mankind has raised the amount in the atmosphere, and that the planet has warmed – but that the amount contributed by mankind is minor. The evidence of the "scientific consensus" of the United Nations proving that mankind has caused major changes is tenuous at best, relying upon computer models, irreproducible statistical results, and other quackery. Yet, Democrats make no attempt to debate this scientific evidence, they instead focus on the moral debate.

Democrats have completely destroyed the credibility of "science" in the debate over evolution. What makes science better than religion is that when scientists are unsure of something, they admit it, rather than make up stuff. Some of the evidence of evolution is rock solid, such as the fact that the Earth is several billion years old, and that species inhabiting the planet have changed over time. Other parts are just guesses. Scientists haven't a clue as to how life began. Deities or space aliens seeding life on earth is as good a theory as anything scientists have come up with. Yet, rather than admit the areas of doubt, scientists treat Darwin's evolution as a form of religion – you must believe in all of it, even the areas scientists are unsure of. The reason the religious right is concerned is not because science competes with religion, but there is a new state-supported religion competing with their religion. The best way to convince the religious about evolution is to be more scientific, not more religious.

Politics is inherently stupid. Politicians don't get the opportunity to discuss these nuances and have to stick to a "message". In the last presidential election, the Republican candidates were asked in a debate whether they believed in evolution. Some (e.g. McCain) said yes, some (e.g. Huckabee) said no. Regardless of their simple answer, though, they all turned out to believe the same thing: that both Darwin's natural selection and God played a roll. Thus, the short answer might be "no new taxes", "no evolution", "no global warming", but you have to look further to find out the long answer.

I'm a typical Republican. I believe we have to raise taxes, that Obama was born an American in Hawaii, that the earth is warming, that manmade carbon dioxide has something to do with that warming, and that natural selection is primarily responsible for the diversity of species we see, including man. My beliefs are normal – it's the Democrat's beliefs that are crazy.

Please oppose JP Barlow's attacks on free speech

I follow some people on Twitter because I have respect for them, such as @declanm. I follow others because they are idiots -- but iconic idiots. That's why I follow @JPBarlow: he keeps me up to date with the idiocy in the world. A good example is a recent retweet of his:

Empirical Issues

Two fascinating posts from the Volokh Conspiracy:

What if Liberals and Libertarians Agreed on Empirical Questions?

What if Libertarians and Conservatives Agreed on Empirical Issues?

Review: Decision Points, by George Bush

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

So here's the thing about Bush's memoirs: it's not a debate. He's not trying to justify, but simply explain, his decisions. It's a dry book. Much of it is boring play-by-play commentary, but occasionally it's a fascinating description of what really happened.

Bush is not introspective. He does not believe in second guessing decisions with the benefit of hindsight. It's not important what we know now; what's important is what he knew then. The purpose of his book was to explain what he knew then.

What I remember on 9/11

Twitter this weekend is full of messages like "never forget" referring to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but I think people have already forgotten. 9/11 wasn't just a tragedy, like an earthquake or tsunami; it was an attack. It was part of a conflict that is still unresolved.

Review: The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

This is the first book to sell a million copies on the Kindle. That's a good hint about the kind of book this is: if you like gadgets like the Kindle, there is a good chance you'll like this book.

This book is the first of a series. It's a prequel for the real story that takes place in the next two books. By the way, the protagonist is a journalist (modeled on Stieg Larsson himself), the "girl" in question is the subject of the stories.

Review: Infidel, by Ayan Hirsi Ali

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

Infidel is the book I’ve most recommended to family/friends in recent times. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and raised a devout Muslim. She fled an arranged marriage (and probable honor killing) to the West, and denounced Islam. She became a member of the Dutch parliament, but had to flee the country after the producer of her film criticizing Islam was murdered, with a note attached to his chest addressed to Ayaan. She is now the leading critic of Islam. Her writing is compelling, and the most original thing you’ll read on the subject.

I love watching her on video. She’s quiet and humble – right up to moment where she savages the interviewer with her superior intellect and arguments.

Her book has two points. The first is that it describes her early life and what it’s really like to grow up under Islam. Frankly, all sides of the argument are bigoted in America. There is no difference between the left-wing who claims that Islam is a religion of peace, and the right wing who claims all Muslims are violent. Both are totally ignorant of what Islam really is. What Ayaan teaches us in her book is that Muslims are more nuanced than that. Her book is awesome in the way that it teaches us to see that Muslims are people, and that they share the same good and bad traits as any other people.

We see, for example, that her grandmother is stern, but in her own way, a loving caregiver that wants what’s best for her granddaughter. Which is why she pins the young 9 year old Ayaan to ground and cuts of her clitoris, according to the age-old practice to make sure women are kept pure until marriage.

Which leads to the second point of her book: there is something wrong with Islam. She describes her journey settling in a Western country, seeing that everything she was taught about the West was wrong. In particular, she is forced to confront the fact that the West is peaceful, prosperous, and happy, unlike Islamic country. Her tail in the second half of the book is finding the reason why.

Her answer is simply this: the West went through the Enlightenment.

We in the West grew up with the Enlightenment, but we have lost our way. We no longer know precisely what it is. We don’t stand up for the principles of the Enlightenment. While Ayaan is known as a fierce critic of Islam and a champion of women’s rights, I think she is also the most interesting champion for the ideals of the Enlightenment.

The point of her book is this: Islam is also a political ideology. While Bush and Obama claim we are not at war with Islam, Ayaan says we are. While we aren’t at war with the religion, we are at war with the un-enlightened political ideology side of Islam. While we might not think we are at war with Islam, Muslims certainly think they are at war with us.

Conclusion

You should read this book because it will help you see Muslims as people, not just things.

You should read this book as one of the most interesting descriptions of Enlightenment.

You should read this book because the conflict between the Enlightened West and Islam has become the new Cold War, and this is the most important guide to that Cold War.

Review: Shards of Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold (sci-fi)

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

This is the first in a series of award-winning sci-fi books. Three other books in the series have won the Hugo Award, the highest honor in sci-fi. That means, if you are into sci-fi, the series is a "must read". This book is also a "trashy romance", so even if you don't like sci-fi, you might find something to like in it.

But neither is the reason I recommend this book. Instead, I recommend it because it's "crafted". Most fiction is written quickly, without little thought about the art and craft of writing. Most fiction is easy, and stupid; I think this book is a bit smarter.

Review: Economics(2e), by Krugman and Wells

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

The reason I got this book is because Krugman is a well-known liberal. He writes a blog for the New York Times called "Conscience of a Liberal". He is a mainstay on news and talk shows, refuting the evil right-wing economists. Having learned economics from evil right-wingers such as Greg Mankiw, I wondered how Krugman's textbook might be different.

Review: What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America, by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf

This one of many books I'm reading on my Kindle

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf is the guy building the "Ground Zero Mosque". His book What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America tells us what he really thinks of America, in his own words. Is he a radical that hates America? Or a truly moderate Muslim? His book tells us the answer.

Visualizing the Laffer Curve

From Greg Mankiw's blog, this article asks economists "Where does the Laffer Curve peak?". I thought I'd graph some of the answers.

A Test of Honor: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Today is "Everyone Draw Muhammad" day, so here is my cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. It's banal, poorly drawn, and not very funny. The content isn't important -- what's important is that the cartoon exists.

The "Everyone Draw Muhammad" day is the result of a controversy surrounding South Park's depiction of the prophet Muhammed. South Park is a TV show on cable network Comedy Central, and is some of the most interesting social commentary of our times. The creators got death threats for criticizing Islam and depicting Muhammad. The show was heavily censored by the television network, because the network was afraid of violent retribution.

When I told my friends I was going support South Park, and draw a picture of the prophet Muhammed, they all reacted the same way. They were afraid for my safety. They couldn't understand why I would stick my neck out for a principle. After all, we are safely in America. There is no personal benefit to angering Muslims; nothing could be gained from this, there are only negative consequences.

But it's a question of honor.

When I was in college, I studied German history, especially the pre-war era and the rise of Nazism. I asked myself whether I would be one of the meek who would quietly submit to the mania of Nazism, or whether I would be one of the courageous and honorable people who vocally stood up against it saying "this is wrong!". The political issue is different today, but the question of honor is the same. Do you avoid confrontation with the bullies, the Nazi Brown Shirts and the Islamic extremists? Or do you risk confrontation to stand up for what you believe in?

I can't respect myself unless I stand up for honor. I don't see a choice here.

Neither did the creators of South Park. In this interview Trey Parker and Matt Stone point out that it would be hypocritical to make fun of Catholics because "they won't hurt us", but not similarly rip on Islam. They point out that the cartoonists now live in hiding, precisely because the western media back off and censored themselves. If instead western media treated Islam like everything else, if all political cartoonists supported their peers, then it wouldn't have become such a big issue, and the cartoonists would be safe.



Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a well-known critic of Islam. She escaped oppression in her own country (Somalia) and got asylum in the Netherlands. She rose to become a member of Dutch parliament. She made a film about the subjugation of women in Islamic culture. Her partner in the project, film director Theo Van Gogh, was murdered in retaliation. She has lived under government protection ever since. In a recent interview related to the South Park controversy, she pointed out that she would no longer need protection if everyone freely criticized Islam. She would be safe because there would be too many of us critics to kill.



The conflict here isn't between Islam and Christianity, it's between a totalitarian ideology and modern civilization. In the secular west, nothing is above criticism, insult, or ridicule. In Islam, everything is subject to ideology. In the west, we teach our kids that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me". In Islam, even moderates are quick to take offense, such as in the Danish cartoons controversy. (There, of course, exist a large number of civilized non-totalitarian Muslims, I just don't see them being in the majority or setting the national tone, such as in Pakistan's banning of Facebook over this controversy).

The proper response to such totalitarianism isn't appeasement, as is now common in our press. The proper response is vocal opposition and solidarity, so that the bravest of us do not have to stand alone.