NASA has no Engine, and no Purpose

NASA has existed in a kind of directionless, motionless gray zone since the end of the moon missions.

During the Apollo days, NASA’s purpose was clear: send a man to the moon before the goddamn commies get there and turn the place into another freaking North Korea.

NASA kind of doddered along during the Space Shuttle days. Constructing the International Space Station (which is worthless) gave them some busy work to do. In the meantime, they sent robotic probes and took pictures of the stars, which was actually kind of interesting.

But the Space Shuttle days are coming to an end, and Bush 43 proposed sending men back to the Moon, and then flying to Mars. This would be expensive, but the expense would be spread out over decades, and it would give the bored engineers at NASA something to do. (The fact that it would create a lot of lucrative jobs and contracts in Florida and Texas was apparently incidental.) Also it would be really cool and would make China look like shit by comparison. Or something.

It doesn’t really seem clear if NASA will get the funding for a return to the Moon or a Mars-shot. And the fact is, it really shouldn’t. Going to a distant planet is pointless when it takes tens of thousands of barrels of increasingly precious fossil fuels to get there.

If NASA wants a future, they need to make the case for large research budgets for advanced propulsion systems like VASIMR. Combining these advanced, highly efficient, and just really cool electrical engines with a nuclear power source could make human spaceflight meaningful and exciting again. But don’t expect this system to come from the bloated and incompetent national space welfare system. This innovation can only come from the private sector space industry. Unfortunately, they are crippled by government regulations and red tape.

The Essence of Political Groups

In the United States, there are a few major schools of political thought. I’m afraid that their major claims are not well understood, so consider this post an attempt to clarify the school’s true positions and where they ultimately take society.

American Liberalism: American Liberalism emphasizes individual liberty and well-being. Essentially, American Liberals believe in natural rights and want to protect them. They believe in free speech, free press, free assembly, etc. They also support free enterprise and markets, generally speaking. American Liberals support these things not just because it is a good policy or because they are necessary to the proper functioning of democracy, but because people have real rights to these things.

American Liberals want to mitigate badness while maintaining strong levels of autonomy in human action. Regulations and taxes should be instituted at the efficient level, whatever that is. Taxes should not be punitive, or for the purpose of large scale income redistribution. Rather taxes should pay for infrastructure, education, and to provide charitable welfare services for the poor.

Conservatism: Conservatism does not couch its rhetoric in universalizing ideas, like the other main schools of thought. Rather, Conservatism is parochial and loves tradition. Conservatism makes the important observation that entropy is a real force in human life. Sometimes in history, a society reaches a zenith, a peak of goodness, truth, beauty and order.
But because of “social entropy” the center cannot hold, and these peaks cannot last. Conservatives, therefore, want to protect the valuable traditions of  their society from collapse–for the benefit of everyone. This explains why the “right” in various countries have such different social and economic policy prescriptions. Right-wing groups in Europe often endorse mercantilist interventionism and guild-like worker groups, whereas US conservatives endorse the free-market ideology of the idealized US past.

Progressivism: Progressivism is fundamentally the ideology that wants to move society forward. Progressives identify various social, cultural, economic, and political problems and they just want to solve them. The problem is that the masses are mostly not progressive, and neither are the main institutions.

Therefore a relatively small group of enlightened people have to push society forward by whatever means are available. This means taking positions in academia, government, think tanks, NGOs, lobbying groups, and education.

The problems they have identified include income inequality, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and consumerism. These problems can be solved, and however much power the government has to absorb to do it, it will be worth it.

Historically, ahead of the curve people have always pushed society forward in ways that seemed counterintuitive to non-progressives, so we should trust them. While they are a fairly small clique of people who want a broad range of powers, we should trust them because unlike private actors, they obviously have society’s best interests at heart.

Male and Female Teaching Styles

In my undergraduate studies, I’ve noticed there are stark differences between the way men and women teach. The difference is something like this, as far as I can tell.

A male teacher arrives one minute before class starts. He’ll usually spend the first five minutes of class on idle smalltalk/banter. Women on the other hand, tend to get there 15 minutes early, set up the projector, hook up their laptops, review their notes, and then wait in uncomfortable silence for 5 minutes for class to start. Class begins right on time or even a couple minutes early to end the unbearable discomfort of staring out at a bunch of blank-faced adolescents.

Eventually, male professors reluctantly pull out a page of scribbled notes and start a dialogue with the students about the subject matter. Women launch into extensive PowerPoint’s, which are painstakingly made aesthetically pleasing, with animated text that swoops in, graphs and charts, and clip art pictures.

Male teachers will add visual aids when necessary, but if they can get away with it, they’ll just draw a rough sketch on the blackboard.

When you ask a female teacher an off-the-cuff, tangentially related question, she’ll often apologetically admit that she doesn’t know, but promise to look into it for you. Male professors think about it for a second, then hazard a guess. Usually, he’ll then tell you to look it up and tell the class.

Male teachers give a rough outline of the course, with lists of recommended reading. Often, they veer from the syllabus if the class seems interested in a particular topic. Female instructors make a highly detailed syllabus and try their best to stick to it.

For tests, women tend to issue study guides with the majority of the test information on them, while men lean toward pop quizzes with short answers. Women give more assignments and give more detailed notes on the returned graded assignments. Male issued tests are usually shorter (which makes them faster to grade), and encourage creativity and novel responses (which makes them more fun to grade). Women’s tests are often more rigid, and focus on specific data points over overarching themes or reasoning on the given subject.

Students often hang back to talk with male teachers, but male teachers won’t hold them back forcibly. Female teachers sometimes hold the class over as they desperately spew out information needed to keep the class up with the syllabus.

Female instructors are often much more generous with their time and will give students phone numbers and email addresses, and encourage them to contact with any questions. Male teachers will give an email (for emergencies only) and tell them not to expect an immediate response.

The main theme is that female teachers are more conscientious and, in a way, more egalitarian. They seem to believe that the teacher’s job is to articulate course requirements as clearly as possible, and make sure that anyone who makes a strong effort to memorize the course information passes and gets a good grade.

The goal for male teachers seems to be to get through the material as painlessly as possible. They tend to create an informal, conversational atmosphere, and often use anecdotes or banter to diffuse tension and encourage students to engage with the teacher and subject matter. They often test for abstract reasoning about issues instead of info-retention.

(The simplified explanatory model is that women signal conscientiousness, niceness, and fairness, whereas men signal charisma, creativity, and intellectual brilliance.)

I tend to thrive under and enjoy learning more under masculine teaching styles. But I don’t think male style is actually objectively better. I think the optimal teaching style would combine the male tendency toward utilizing tension diffusing banter and camaraderie building with female focus and conscientiousness. Male teachers aren’t generous enough with their time, but females waste their time working on pretty but useless powerpoints features. Female teachers also over-emphasize the information transfer function of education over the critical thinking/abstract reasoning training that is equally important.

Prostitutes vs. Politicians

According to BBC news, Chinese people trust prostitutes more than politicians.

Incidentally, I also trust Chinese prostitutes more than my district’s shifty-eyed CongressCreature.

Robot Ramen

This video shows a pretty awesome robotic chef system.

My reaction is that this is probably the least important step in automating our food production. McDonald’s restaurants have such a highly homogenized, routine system that human workers are really an afterthought. This is my understanding of how it works.

1. Food grown on largely automated factory farms.

2. Food processed and formed into frozen food lumps for transport and storage.

3. Human workers place food into automatic fryers/grills.

4. Fried/reheated food parts assembled by human workers according to precise specifications.

5. Human worker accepts money, cash register tells human precisely what bills and coins to give as change.

Most of the technology to finish automating already exists and is commercially available.

So what will the fast-food restaurant of the near future look like? You just press a number for the meal you want (Fast food restaurants already have numbers for specific meal combos). A menu comes up for any changes you want to make for the order. The frozen patties are reheated, and sandwhiches assembled by a standard factory arm. You insert your cash or swipe your credit card. The ATM then issues your change. The food comes forward on a tray on a conveyer belt. You take your food and leave.

This system will be largely closed and automated, with few humans involved. Perhaps one manager would be all that was required (with some help from repair crews).

As exciting as this idea really is, I can’t help but be concerned about what jobs are going to be available for unskilled workers in this brave new world of perfect, shining burger-flippers.

The New Atheism

In case you haven’t heard, there is a New Atheism. Whereas the Old Atheism was sad that God doesn’t exist, the New Atheists are happy about it. In contrast to the Old Atheism of the Victorian age, they don’t even believe that religion is a positive force in people’s lives.

My own atheism is neither new nor old. I think religion’s effects are often good, but not necessary for goodness. Religions often encourage people to make positive life-choices and encourage people to live ethically. They also often encourage bigotry, fundamentalism and even terrorism, but these are more rare occurences. I’m uncertain whether the net effect of religion is good or bad, but I’m quite certain there are more effective ways of “doing good” than attacking religious belief.

Are Pick-Up Artists Evil?

My instinct is that they are not. I believe the argument against PUAs is that they are manipulative, deceitful, and bad for women. However, we should consider this argument troubling and problematic for a couple reasons.

1. Pick-up artists do not deceive women into believing they are nice guys, and then defect and start acting like cocky, boorish jerks. They start out acting like cocky, boorish jerks. The cocky, boorish jerk is their cover.

This seems to me to be extremely important. The fact that acting like a  cocky jerk is the “skill” which PUAs try to master implies that, at least when it comes to recreational sex, the cocky jerk is what many women want.

2. If these women want to have sex with the cocky PUA, how can we, external to them, say that this desire is wrong? It seems incredibly arrogant to say, “You have chosen incorrectly. I know engaging this man may seem exciting and fun, but its actually bad. I just know better than you.”

3.Evincing shallow traits for the benefits of an enjoyable sensory experience isn’t generally unethical.

Consider this scenario. A woman just wants sex tonight, no relationship. All else equal, she wants sex with the most sexually attractive, exciting available man. In order to get the attention of this man, she knows it is important to look her best. So she puts on a lot of makeup, a push-up bra, high-heeled shoes and various accessories that make her more shallowly appealing. She then goes to a bar, and finds a suitable man. To signal her interest, without driving him away, she laughs at his corny jokes, and acts in a more stereotypically feminine way.

Not because she’s primarily concerned with his best interests. Not because she’s interested in a long-term relationship. Just because she wanted sex.

Did she do anything unethical? She didn’t promise the man a romantic commitment. She didn’t coerce him. She didn’t lie.

I submit that the woman did nothing wrong. She signalled shallow physical and personality traits that men (or at least men primarily looking for recreational sex) often find appealing, just as PUAs signal shallow traits that women who are looking for an enjoyable recreational sex experience find appealing. These minor “deceptions” are a part of the normal human experience of seduction.

Overall, I think that PUAs, at their best, are engaging in mutually enjoyable seduction experiences that are, far from objectifying, actually based on a real concept of their female partners’ human desires.

We can craft truly, mutually rewarding experiences. But to do this, we must see eachother as we are, not as we should be.