Rabid Hippies Attack!

Ok... I've been avoiding this one for a long time, mostly, to be honest, out of laziness.


"Foreword"


1. This post is about morals and ethics and stuff, particularly about vegetarianism. I give you this warning such that if you are not in the mood or not prepared to give proper thought to such things you can leave now and have not wasted too much of your time.

2. Veganism may or may not have some merits, but let's not go there. One step at a time.

3. I will try my darndest to be as brief as it is possible to be with such unresolvable topics.

4. If I quote anything that appears as fact, including statistics, I am not going to include a reference (I'm pretty sure we both can't be bothered). I promise I am not making it up or lying to you (i.e. not misquoting anything) and the idea is that if I kindle any spark of interest you will research things and see for yourself.

5. I have a theory (untested, but particularly fascinating in the context of a coffee shop or Douglas Adams bistro, as the theories of all laypeople are wont to be) about why people hate hippies. The "hippie type" is smelly, hopelessly left-wing, irrational and preachy, or so their popular image seems to declare. The norms (as I have decided I shall call them) hate the hippies for it. While they are getting on with their jobs, being clean, driving cars and eating whatever and not being at all radical, the hippies, according to the norms, try to undermine their entire lifestyle by being irresponsible, jobless, bridge-dwelling arseholes who have the temerity to preach to the norms why everything they do in their lives is wrong. And some of them are arseholes. Some of them decide to nag people into the ground in the most fruitless ways. They thrust vivisection leaflets at your face as you try to enjoy a pleasant day in town. They vandalise company buildings and sometimes even threaten or kill scientists if they have reason to believe that company was involved in animal testing. Whatever, the list goes on. And these people are the nutters. They are crazed people who besmirch whatever banner they choose to stand beneath, so don't judge the majority by what they do.

Putting that select group aside, I think people who are very ethically driven ("hippies") are hated, or at least regarded with disdain by most, more apathetically minded people("norms") because: a) They whine, try to convince too hard or try to take the moral high ground not because it is right, but because they get to be holier-than-thou. b) They're actually right, and the norms are busy stewing in repressed guilt, unwilling to hear the argument fairly, unwilling to think for themselves, because to do so just a little would be to realise they have built their houses on shifting sands. They are not evil people, but they are lazy, and they would rather ignore the truth than have to suffer a revelation at the hands of a "hippie".

The reason this last point ignores my pledge of brevity (and I haven't even gotten to the thing yet) is because I'm scared. What I'm about to say makes me feel like I am a whiny hippie with little grip on reality because I think that is what you will think of me. If you read past the first point that means at least some small part of you is not already decided. I will make a deal with you: I will try my very, very hardest not to be one of the nutters or hippies who fall into category a, if you try not to be one of the norms who falls into category b. You can hear me out, and if you agree, I invite you to change, to learn more or simply to think. If you do not agree with me, you can say, fairly, "what garbage!" and then get on with something else.


"The Thing, a.k.a, Go Veg!"


My problem with vegetarianism is that I believe it is in the natural order of things to destroy other living things for substenance. Vegetarians who have chosen their diet on the moral grounds of "oh, you are killing the poor animals" are naive. Life feeds on death. If they do not feast on animals they feast on plants, most of which have to die in the process, or at least suffer. There is evidence that plants respond to "painful" stimuli such as breaking or burning: galvanometers (sensitive voltmeters, "lie detector machnes") show wild fluctuations when a plant is injured. There is even evidence that plants are psychic, and galvanometers respond in the same way when somebody in the vicinity of a plant merely thinks about injuring it (see Lyall Watson's books, for example, and if you know of contrary evidence I'd appreciate being enlightened). Short of becoming a windfall fruitarian (one who eats only plant food which falls naturally from the plant in question, thus not inflicting any harm) or invoking the extremest form of Jainism (which I belive on a practical level involves vowing to cause no suffering through pledges to eat less food every day, take fewer steps and breaths each day, etc, until death), which I think are unhealthy, unproductive and stagnant ways of life, you just have to accept that your life depends on the death and suffering of other lives. I'll respect the plants and animals of which I eat, but eat nonetheless. If a situation called for it, as long as the animal in question was not "unhappy" (I'll clarify what I mean later) and I needed to kill it to eat it I would do so without complaint.

HOWEVER

Life is not a wonderful place where everyone is healthy and thoughtful about the Earth and about animals and about the animals they eat. If this was the case, I would have no problems at all. If suffering is caused to an animal at the moment of slaughter, but up until that point it was living a healthy, comfortable life, that must be accepted. If deliberate, prolonged suffering or neglect prior to slaughter is caused to an animal I believe that is never acceptable. (This is what I mean by "unhappy".) In an industrialised, Western world, sadly, most animals fall into the second category. For example, "broiler" chickens are kept in dark, crowded conditions where they often have their beaks sliced off, with no anaesthetic, to prevent them attacking other chickens out of frustration. They also scratch and cause injury and infection to each other, which is left untreated. Even if you care not a jot about their welfare, do these diseased animals sound like something you'd want to put inside yourself? The slaughter method for nearly all chickens is to shackle them upside down by their legs, often done incorrectly, which crushes bones. Next, an electric shock is intended to incapacitate them, but is often incorrectly administered, hurting the bird and leaving it concious anyway. This means they are conscious for the scalding tanks, intended to remove feathers, which instead boil the chickens alive. This probably doesn't always happen, but be wary of "free-range" claims, as that tends to mean dark, unhealthy, crammed barns with just a few "peepholes" to the outside, often guarded by the more aggressive chickens so that most never get to go outside anyway. And that's just the chickens! I could give examples of similar instances of cruelty (frustrated, crowded pigs have their tails sliced off, again without anaesthetic, because otherwise other frustrated pigs would bite them) or disease (foot and mouth in England caused by bad agricultrual practice, millions of animals culled and burned, just in case), but I shall move on (I am growing ever more concerned about my brevity, but at least, the main point has now been stated).

So, if animals were magically ethically treated from now on, would I eat them? Certainly, but probably not very often:

> Wealth
It's cheaper! It is!
> Health
If animals are diseased, unhappy and badly fed (an extreme case, but plausible) meat is poor quality. Full of antibiotics, chemicals to keep it fresh in the supermarket, beef packaging in particular is often lined with carcinogens for preservatives. Old supermarket meat is probably also just not as tasty as fresh and from as happy an animal as local butcher meat. Fruit and veg eaten instead of meat provide much more nutrients, and it's actually pretty easy to find protein in a non-meat diet. Even broccoli has protein in it. Fact: on average, vegetarian people are taller, leaner, less diseased and more energetic than meat-eaters.
> Environment
Global warming is a reality and needs to be addressed. Much beef comes from South America, where cows not only fart their way to a warmer world, but rainforest is cut down (preventing carbon dioxide reduction) and then burned (increasing carbon dioxide emission). Slurry causes eutrophication, a process in which water systems over-fertilised by run-offs of slurry from farms grow algae, which smothers all other life. Things become stagnant and die and rot. Slurry also contributes to acid rain. Meat also uses up much more (precious) water to produce than an equivalent amount of
plant produce, (50,000-100,000 litres of water for 1kg beef, about 900 for 1kg wheat, just 70 for 1kg soya).
> Poverty
Consider the water point above and also that meat takes similarly larger areas of land to cultivate compared to plants, meat just uses up too many resources (you have to grow all that wheat to raise the chickens when you could just eat it straight away). In total, 70% of the world's plant produce goes to livestock. It's been calculated that if everyone ate as vegetarians there would comfortably be enough food in the world to feed EVERYBODY.

I wonder what it is like to pray for rain?

Yesterday it was You Tube for lunch. First I watched a video of people walking for a day in the desert to get water. I watched people crying because they have no homes, they have no food, and their parents are dead. I watched them being persecuted by their own leaders. Then I watched a video of a Japanese robot that pours beer and talks.

It was a very eye-opening experience.

Paranoia

Did you hear about that guy who was certain the FBI was after him?

They got him last week.

Last FM

Last FM. Do you know it? Do you use it? I am aware of its concept, though I doubt I shall ever install it for myself. For those who are unfamiliar: Last FM is a music website/”radio station”. You install it as a plug-in to your regular music player and it collects data about what you have been listening to. It uses this to assimilate a profile on your music tastes. It recommends you more artists that you might like and makes you a personal “radio station” to listen to. “Radio station”, however, is a mere technicality to overcome illegality, and it is really just streaming you music from the web.

Recently I have become quite interested in the thought that Last FM might be able to build a profile of IQ based on a listener’s choices in music. Ever since I saw a “Nation’s IQ” type Saturday night programme on TV in which it was asserted that listeners of classical or rock music were the most intelligent while listeners of dance were the least, I have been fascinated about the real or imagined correlation between certain music genres and intelligence of listeners.

The conclusions of this programme were based on doing an IQ test of the audience (and available for viewers, although they were obviously not included in the results) and then asking them what kind of music they listened to. There are several problems with this, for example, how do you take into account the bias in allowing people just one answer? I’m sure most people listen to more than one genre. For example, I am currently simultaneously experiencing an irreversible obsession with two diametrically opposed bands: Tally Hall (pleasant, melodic and light, very Beatles-esque) and Lightning Bolt (genre: noise. And when they say that they mean it. The aural equivalent of one of those scary optical illusions). Another problem with the programme’s results was that Anne Robinson was the host. (*Stop reading here for a mildly derogatory comedic effect*) At the beginning of every question she would read the whole thing out, very slowly, subtracting from the time people had to concentrate on the actual question instead of her. I am sure this made everyone seem more stupid than they actually were, but some people, depending on what kind of brain they have, would be distracted more than others, and should this factor itself have a correlation with taste in music, this too would introduce a bias. I could probably worm out more reasons why the programme was biased, but I am not a psychologist, so I will not try. They might be lies.

But what better way to work out IQ vs. taste in music than to use Last FM data along with the results of a clinically conducted IQ test? I am sure this must be the least biased method imaginable.

I would be extremely interested in these results based on my own thoughts and experience on the matter. For example, who is to say that a classical fan is more advanced than a rap fan? Generally speaking, classical music is the champion of the upper classes while rap is favoured by working class CHAVS. However, while it seems evident that classical music is almost infinitely more complex in melody and structure, it puts next to no emphasis on vocals and lyrics. Rap, on the other hand, is pretty much retarded musically, but (assuming you choose the right artist; some rap music is just retarded, full stop.) is so much more lyrics-orientated, knotted with poetic sensibilities, and far too rich to take in with just one listen. However, having said all of this I am most likely the wrong person to ask anyway – I generally hate rap. Perhaps it is because I listen for musical artistry long before good lyrics.

For a second example, take dance music and its variants (trance, trip, electro, house, drum and base, industrial). I have recently grown very bored of it, whereas a year ago I was to be found increasingly fascinated with a genre I assumed to be moronic, presumably because of watching that programme. Again, I think the “intelligence” of this genre varies heavily depending on artist. For example, I cannot tell where I am in a Tiga or Goose song because it is so severely lacking in development that were I to skip to any random point in a song it would sound just the same as any other. On the other hand, take Nine Inch Nails (industrial vanishing into metal vanishing into beautiful. And yes, I am so sorry for bringing them into this AGAIN). Often I find with their songs that there are so many layers of sound caught between the catchy beats that every time you listen to it a new face presents itself. There is development and forethought in all of Trent’s composition, and the richness of sound relies not on distortion of a single tone, but the weaving of many minutely fine musical ideas (please listen to “La Mer”, and you will understand what I mean).

Also, context influences preference in music. I adore Chopin and may listen to it, for example, quietly as I try to study. However, it’s rubbish for trying to join in with singing and dancing. When I want to bounce off the walls I listen to Soulwax, and I am quite sure it would make horrendous bedtime music.

To conclude my ramblings I might add that as interesting as these Last FM results would be to see, I am not even sure what IQ is. It is no measure of worth: some of the people I respect least on this planet are also some of the most intelligent. What does an IQ test measure, other than aptitude at IQ tests? Perhaps a human being can be more intelligent but appear less so than another because they are rash and easily distracted, while the other, through diligence, achieves far more. What of the ambiguous “emotional intelligence”? Attitude to life? Moral and religious views? If there were a way to measure these, I wonder what these too would reveal in comparison with Last FM profiles.

Ampersand©

French mathematician, physicist, historian, poet and philosopher André-Marie Ampère was born in 1775, in an age of English smallpox and German loss of interest in burning witches.

His life as a polymath may be celebrated as one of the most influential not only in physics, but in many lesser appreciated fields. He is of course best known for his formulation of Ampère's law, which forms one of Maxwell's four equations, the cornerstones on which all of electromagnetism rests. May I remind you, electromagnetism is not just sparks and magnets, it's practically every force you ever experience (except gravity and power metal). It is all of biology, it is all of chemistry. It is all of so many things.

His second greatest achievement however, of which many people are unaware, was that of the invention of the Ampersand©, &©. The Ampersand© is a symbol strictly limited to use by physicists &© historians. Its function is remarkably similar to common addition, and indeed was originally coined by Ampère as a shorthand for mathematics involving summation, especially over indices, until a more concise notation was developed by Albert Einstein in the early twentieth century. It was only until the mid-nineteenth century after Ampère's death, that British snobbery against the French and "The Institute" led the Royal Institution of Great Britian, an influencial scientific establishment, to call for the replacement of the Ampersand© in scientific notation with the capital sigma, Σ, through a cleverly executed campaign of ridicule and bullying of many prominent scientists of the day. Although unverified, it is commonly believed that the term Ampersand© is derived from a corruption of the term "Ampère's And".

The Ampersand© would probably not have come to be so widely recognised had it not been for Ampère's admittance to "The Institute" in 1814. Originally reccommended by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, it is believed that "The Institute" was reluctant to grant Ampère membership until to sweeten the deal, Ampère sold them the copyright to the Ampersand©.

This was not to be the last of André-Marie Ampère's achievements, however. In later years, after the death of Ampère's wife Julie Carron in 1804, the man was said to become increasingly lonely. He adopted two cats, and, distressed at their lack of mobility and freedom, invented the cat flap.

The Man and the Thorn

Once there was a man with a thorn in his brain. It was nestled in a part of his head where it did not move, so he could only barely feel it, but nevertheless it was there.

The man lived in a horrible city which was full of dirt and poor people. The man was lucky, because he had a nice house, but he didn't really like the surroundings. Every day he used to drive down to the seaside, where he would park his car and get out and take a walk. There he could walk along looking at the beautiful sparkling sea and picking up tiny, pink shells. Sometimes fish would swim near him, in the shallow parts of the water.

As the seasons changed the weather got windier at the beach. The man tried to enjoy himself, but whenever he was there the wind would blow against his head and the thorn would be driven deeper into his brain. He hadn't noticed it much at first, but every day as he walked next to the sea the thorn began to hurt him more and more.

One day as he was walking, the fish who swam near him in the shallows saw how much pain he was in, and so they said "Why don't you pull the thorn out? Pull it out, and then you will feel better!"

The man replied "I don't want to. Pulling the thorn out will hurt a lot, and I don't want to hurt a lot. If I leave it in then it will only hurt a little bit."

The next day as the man was walking the fish saw that he was in more pain than the previous day.

"Pull the thorn out," they said, "it may hurt a lot, but after that it will get better and you will be well again. If you leave it in it will continue to hurt you more and more each day."

But the man refused, because he was scared of the pain it would cause him. He kept walking at the beach each day until finally the wind blew so hard that it drove the thorn into a vital part of the man's brain. He died and fell into the sea, where the fish nibbled at his body until his flesh was all gone.

The Summer Holiday is a Fruit Tree

In the spirit of anticipation of the end of term I have been trying to use up the food that has been lying around in my cupboard. This consists mainly of two-year-old cans of beans. I was most pleased with myself today when I was able to liberate no fewer than two cans and four bottles of spice. As the food depletes and the kitchen counters get reclaimed by the Crumbmaker and her entourage of mess, and as the sun shines and the calendar ticks down to Q-day*, I feel my involvement in this spit-encrusted hovel begin to lessen. I phoned the water company today to cancel the account.

I might even miss the Crumbmaker a bit. I'd miss her more, but I already started missing her when we moved in together - when she who was once one of my favourite people in the world began, inexplicably, withdrawing from me. Plus, she makes so much bloody mess! Perhaps the least considerant person in the kitchen I have ever met. Severus I am going to enjoy leaving behind. I have had to put up with a year of listening to him finishing everyone else's sentences and belittling everyone (including the Crumbmaker, when they are supposed to be the best of friends), shouting (as a standard vocal volume) and snorting back phlegm on the landing.

And another gorgeous holiday is approaching. A holiday that has not yet started is one of the best things about life. It is far better than a great holiday finished or a holiday in progress. It exists at the edge of time, waiting, calling with boundless promise. A holiday that has not yet started is an opportunity to do anything and everything, all at once. There can be no plan or there can be a thousand, and because it has not yet started, all plans are still valid. You are still at the trunk of a magnificently beautiful tree with fractally branching possibilities. You have not yet crawled along a single branch to the very end of a twig only to realise that you cannot reach for the piece of fruit on the other side. At the trunk you can eat every single piece in with your eyes and imagine savouring the taste of each one. I have so many plans for when the holiday arrives, and as much as I will delight in executing them, I delight most now as I shape and reshape them effortlessly in my head. Right now is when I enjoy the summer the most.

It's just as well, because in the mean time I have to contend with stoopid revision and exams. I feel like I will never fit it all in my head in time, and I'm in the air watching the rocks as they come rushing towards me. Right now I am treating science with the greatest amount of grace-saving contempt I can summon. Let's see:

Quantum mechanics - A theory of not knowing stuff, and pretending not to mind. Responsible for some of the worst in-jokes known to man.

Statistical mechanics - Science is a science, they tell us. It is based on careful observation and formulation of rules derived from hard fact. Why then is statistical mechanics' most crucial tenet, S=klnW, based on a guess? And then there's Gibbs' Paradox. After being guaranteed this was a genuine paradox and being lectured through the maths, we are told it is not a paradox.

Electromagnetic theory - Maxwell decides to fudge, adding a term called "displacement current" to Ampere's Law in order to force an incorrect theory into validity. He fails, but inadvertantly fixes a different problem he wasn't even aware of. Oh, and the displacement current is not a current.



* - The day of my demise, the quantum mechanics exam.