Opaque Authority

2006-01-04T13:14:00.000-06:00

I've moved.

If you're coming here, you're coming to my old blog site, and I've got good news for you: I've moved. I am now soly hosted on the Intellectual Elite server: jim.intellectualelite.com. Feel free to stop by my new site.

2005-12-31T21:17:00.000-06:00

Cognitive dissonance

With LaTex behind me I now have more time to focus less on publishing papers and more on current events. Unfortunately with it not being an election year, I don't see people violently debating topics as they no doubt will two years from now. Not that I look down on these "seasonal" debtors (quite to the contrary I support any debate periodic or otherwise), but it leaves me without much to talk about. I did, however, stumble across an old article written by a friend of mine. 12 Reasons Same-Sex Marriage Will Ruin Society [1]. In addition to the title, the entire piece is a well written piece of satire. But it does raise the interesting question of: why not? Why not let to men marry (or two women)? We have no laws against their having monogamous sexual relations with one another, why deprive them of marriage?

There could be financial considerations (remember marriage is also a civil union), but what possibly could someone gain financially from marrying a man instead of a woman (or vise versa)? I suppose there might be religious considerations, however marriage ceased to be soly a religious institution back in ancient Rome. As long as the happy couple can find a religion to marry them, who are we to stop them? And not all marriages have any religion associated with them any way. A friend of mine got married in a court house four months ago. No prayers, no blessings, no priests (or rabies or other religious figure). As a community homosexuals seem to want this, so why not give it to them? What do we lose as a society? Isn't America the land open to all practices?

Actually it isn't, or at least, it hasn't been. From slaves to women to Muslims, America has historically been notorious for not being very accepting. This seems to be rather odd for a country who's motto was: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but it certainly isn't unique. In fact, this sort of degradation of minorities and subcultures appears all over the world. From the Chinese response to Falun Gong, to the Islamic wars on Israel, to the oppression of Jew throughout Europe, humanity as a whole has a way of vilianizing those that aren't like them; and while we may like to think that we have risen above such a seemingly barbaric practice, the fact is, it is ingrained in our nature as part of a concept called Cognitive Dissonance.

I do not attempt to explain all racial/ethnic prejudice with this concept (as there are many reasons for both), however, it is important to understand if we want to understand why normally perfectly rational people behave in an irrational manner (such as denying marriage to homosexuals, something which wouldn't even effect them). I also do not attempt to explain those whom have a religious objection to same sex marriage. Although the bible has been used to justify horrible things before, separating marriage from religion is not an easy thing in our culture and as such, opinions of a religious nature may or may not have merit. Instead, I only seek to spread a little understanding as to why people behave the way they do.

"Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. ...if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning[2]." Or in lay men's terms, we avoid things that prove us wrong, worthless, or we just plain dislike. If I believe that all men have green hair, I am much more likely to be taken in by someone with a green dye job and less likely by someone with an orange dye job. This is because the green conforms to my expectations, thus I do not try to find fault with it, where as the orange does not, making me much more likely to try to find fault with it. While this is paradoxical in nature (how can we have learned the initial view points if we think ourselves infallible) it is also necessary so as to reduce anxiety brought on by realizing misconceptions. If I suddenly stop believing that Jews are evil and bent on taking over the world, my entire library of knowledge must also be taken into question which would render me unable to function. To counter this, I stick to my beliefs (regardless of their validity).

Want proof? Here is an experiment you can probably conduct on your own. Get a bunch of kids together and have them do some sort of menial labor (cleaning for example). Pay half of them 10 cents and half of them 10 dollars. Now ask each one to lie to the next one and tell that next one that they enjoyed the task (which is why it is important that the task be dull and menial). Which do you think will lie more readily? If we believe in cognitive dissonance the answer is those paid less, as because they are paid so little they must unconsciously justify their actions to themselves and thus believe the task was more enjoyable than it was. This is because they know 10 cents isn't a lot of money for such a horrible task and thus they must have enjoyed it or risk upsetting their collection of knowledge to date. So what does this have to do with gays getting married?

We vilify homosexuals because if we start considering them one of us, we must then consider the possibility of being one of them. As they are looked down upon to begin with this would mean considering ourselves lesser than the majority of society (which some people actually do do , and thus think themselves homosexual when they are not, but normally they realize this and have to come to terms with their own heterosexuality). As this contradicts the information we have already been fed (that we are part of that majority), we reject this possibility and the homosexual community as a whole. Cognitive dissonance sets in. We may justify actions caused by cognitive dissonance through a verity of manners (which would be cognitive dissonance caused by understanding cognitive dissonance), but this only confirms the theories. Haven't you, while reading this, said to yourself "oh I see how this effects some people, but not me. I never have cognitive dissonance." ? What more proof do you need?

Taken in part from: What World We Live In, by Jim Tzenes.

2005-12-27T00:03:00.000-06:00

"That's not a lie, its bullshit."

Most of us spend our whole lives talking about bullshit without ever really knowing what it is. Well, atleast I didn't untill just last week. I was sitting at the dinner table eating thanks giving leftovers and discussing everyone's favorite topic: the Iraqi War, when I was informed that the supposed weapons of mass distruction were not a lie by the administraition, but rather bullshit. This puzzled me as I had always thought of the two as being intrinsically linked. They aren't.

If you get a chance, I highly recomend you read Harry Frankfurt's book On Bullshit. For the more erudite it will probably do a much better job of explaining the difference than I can. However, Frankfurt can be a hard read, so I will do my best to summerize it here for you.

To understand the difference between bullshit and a lie, it becomes necessary to understand what a lie is first. Without going into too much detail, a lie is a cunning attempt to convince the other person that something which the liar knows to be false, is infact true. The importance here is the deliberate attempt to deviate from the truth. The liar commits two sins here. Firstly, they convince you that something that isn't true is; and secondly, that something which is true isn't. This specific deviation from the truth is the ultimate goal of the liar.

Bullshit on the otherhand is something far more devious. To start, the bullshitter has no concern as to what is infact true. The bullshitter's objective is deception, just as the liar's, however he is unconcerned with the truth. Where the liar must convince you that the lie is true, and the truth is a lie, the bullshitter only convinces you that the bullshit is true. He is unconcerned as to what the actual truth is. He may even be right, but the fact that he does not know whether or not his stance is infact true is the essence of bullshit. But let me give you an example.

Suppose I choose to comment on a subject on these boards that I have a basic understanding of without doing any research into the matter. Let's say for example I advocate "Gun Proliferation for the Reduction of Crime" (something I don't in reality advocate) during a debate on gun control. Without actually doing research to find out if it is an effect method or not, what I've done is made a statement that is essentially bullshit. It may be true, it may not, however, as I've made no attempt to find out, my statement has no regard for the truth and instead exists only to further the cause for which I support (in this hypothetical scenario it would be looser gun control laws). While my argument is a possibility, it is essentially bullshit, because I don't care if its true or not, I'm only trying to further my cause.

If you look at politics in general, it doesn't take long to realize that most of it is bullshit. Lets look at the example of the justification of the war in Iraq. Assume for a second that the real goal was the removal of Saddam from power (I know its a strech for you bleeding heart liberals, but its only a hypothetical, and don't use this as a forum to vent your "blood for oil" campagain) something the current adminastration has said many times (so its not beyond reason that it might have been). The actual justification which was used to enter the war was "weapons of mass distruction." Now, Saddam himself insisted that he had them and even went to the extent of publicly buying missles to deliver them. What emmerged was an atmosphere in which it began to be plausible that Saddam might have had them. Of course there is no way to prove he didn't have them (short of invading the country), so when Bush got up there and said "he quite possibly could have weapons of mass distruction," this wasn't a lie as much as it was bullshit. Everyone assumed he had them (and for we knew did), but there wasn't any hard evidence.

This doesn't mean bullshit is by any means a justifible communication tool for the government to employ, however it means Bush is not a monster, just another sinner like the rest of us. Afterall, who among us hasn't had to "bullshit" an essay or presentation when we were younger for school.

Taken in part from "Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt, Conversations on the Intellectual Elite forum and conversations within the Tzenes family.

2005-11-27T19:18:00.000-06:00

My Op Ed Piece.

If you're flying from New York any time in the foreseeable future, avoid the American Airlines terminal at JFK. The brand new terminal, despite being quite beautiful and the billion dollars American Airlines spent on it, is a modern disaster of management. It is as if American is trying to make life miserable for its customers. To begin with the airline has very few security check points, making getting through security a long an arguous task. To compliment this, the airline has provided nice card tables for you to put your stuff on. But don't worry; you'll probably spend just as much time waiting to get your ticket as waiting through security. Instead of installing the new kiosks that other airlines like United have adopted, American has opted to go with the old style customer interaction which is almost three times as long. It is almost as if American Airlines is single handedly trying to bring back 80s style airlines. I do however recommend United Airlines as they have a very modern outlook. Of course United is in bankruptcy, along with most of the industry.

But how could an airline like American make such a colossal mistake? How come the airline that is doing is right is the one in bankruptcy? Let’s turn back the clock to the mid nineties.

Back in the 90s Northwest Airlines and Continental decided to merge. In 2000 United moved to acquire US Airways. Both deals were blocked. American Airlines however, did manage to buy out TWA in the same year. Had all three deals gone through it would have left three major airlines. Unfortunately Congress decided to block two of them, leaving us with a large spattering of different airline companies. You may ask, what is the advantage to such a consolidation, after all, it is engrained in American youth that competition is what's good for everyone. Consider this though; competition leads to lower prices, so consolidation would lead to higher prices, which is exactly the kind of thing a company in bankruptcy wants. Theoretically the heads of the 6 major airlines (Delta is the only one I didn't mention) could get together and put aside their animosity to raise prices and save the crippled industry. That is if there weren't laws against such a thing. Which hasn't stopped other industries from adopting such a practice, so why not airlines? The answer, is the flaw in capitalism that Jesse first pointed out in his post: Capitalism is not Patriotic. Simply put, the heads of these companies have too much to risk.

We often think of companies as their own autonomous bodies which act in their self interest and perpetuate the capitalist agenda. This just blatantly isn't true. Instead companies are run by men. Greedy men, who are more concerned with looking out what is best for them rather than what is best for the company (or country in Jesse's example). What's best for the individual isn't what is best for the company. These executives make their millions whether they are in bankruptcy or not (sometimes more when they're in), and there is no reason for them to risk these gains for the benefit of the company or the industry at large. What is worse, attempts to regulate both the company and industry are what has gotten us into this mess in the first place. First the regulation that prevented the large buy outs in the late 90s, and then the forcing of competitive behavior.

So the question becomes: If we can't trust laissez faire capitalism, and we do more harm than good by regulating it, what place does capitalism have in the modern world?

taken from an Op Ed piece written by Jim Tzenes to the New Yorker

2005-11-14T12:55:00.000-06:00

A retort. A short.

To break the third wall for a second: If you haven't noticed I've been mixing in serious posts with less serious one. I've designated the two through the symbolic marker Short. If you see that word in the title, try not to take the content too seriously, as I don't. Also lately I've been trying to comment on more ‘blogs both liberal and conservative. I've always seen it as my prerogative to play devil's advocate and argue liberalism to the conservatives and vice versa, but both of you feel free to argue with each other too.

This story takes place two years ago when the college I was in made me take an engineering design course. This course was centered on small groups of engineers (like myself) designing a product. Unfortunately the course was far more concerned with the technical aspects such as, reports and documentation, rather than the actual finished product. So to make up for this lack of emphasis on the designs which we made, the esteemed professors decided to have a competition where our products would be compared and then sold off to the RIC (which is a hospital in Chicago for the disabled). Our assignment had been to design a book holder for quadriplegics. People who couldn't hold the book open themselves.

I had been assigned to a crack team of engineers, who had done a great job on the documentation and left actually building the thing to me. I'm actually fairly proud of how it came out, considering I wrote the blueprints after it was finished (a method I highly suggest), but it wasn't great or anything. In fact, no one’s was. We'd been given ten weeks to do something we had no experience in, so the results were less than stunning. So there I was sitting in front of the odd look book holder that I would be presenting, and a half assed poster which had a single picture, when some members from another group strolled up. It took me a few minutes to realize that they had been going from one group to another "sizing up the competition."

I cannot begin to explain how incredibly stupid I thought this was, but after they demanded a demonstration I decided to tell them. "Are you joking me? Who cares whether it can hold open a textbook or not? Its not like a text book needs to be held open, anything that heavy will hold itself open by weight alone. But more importantly why do you care? This is a stupid project we've all been forced into so the school can pass us off as if we are engineers without actually haven't to go through the bother of training us first. Do you really care whether or not your design is considered the best? Do you think winning this thing is going to get you some prestigious job somewhere? Make your career? You're designing a book holder for people who are stuck in a hospital all day because they can't move around on their own. Is this your way of pretending to care? If you actually gave a shit about them you'd go down there and spend time with them. I'm sure they'd much prefer some actual human interaction to some crappy book holder prototype. Let me ask you this, when you went down there for initial testing, did you ask any of them how they were doing? Did you pretend to care about their lives then? You're the one using greed as a poor substitute for moral fiber, and you have the gall to question me about my commitment? Don't worry though I'm sure no one here will mistake your Hypocrisy for actual Engineering."

Or at least that's what I should have said.

Taken from the life of Jim Tzenes

2005-11-10T15:46:00.000-06:00

Denver Legalizes Marijuana.

I shit you not. Actually, Denver voters approved a citywide ordinance that makes possession of under an ounce of marijuana by people over the age of 21 no longer a punishable offense. A subtle nod to the marijuana smokers of the city. Of course, the law is still trumped by state and federal law, but pot smokers all over the country see it as a step in the right direction. But hold that thought for a second because I'm going to talk to you about abortion.

Abortion supporters often think that anti-abortion supporters see abortion as a religious issue. Actually, most anti-abortion advocates see abortion as a moral issue, and see abortion as killing off young babies. The reason the two sides will never come to a compromise is they both have the same information on when life begins and come to different conclusions. Thus, to argue in favor or against abortion based on when life begins, is worthless. But I'm in favor of abortion, because I think the child isn't the only victim. However, I'm going to change the subject one more time.

It turns out lung cancer is one of the most unsympathized with cancers in America. As Americans we all fear cancer as by wiping out all other diseases, its one of the few left it kills more and more Americans every year. Yet, for some reasons, people can't seem to bring themselves to sympathize with lung cancer patients. And why? Cigarettes. People seem to think that these people got lung cancer through their own fault. They smoked, they deserve it. Which is odd because most people who have smoked long enough to get lung cancer didn't know it was a risk when they started, and by the time they did it was already too late.

I have a few friends who are pot smokers, and are quite excited about Denver's new laws. They assure me that pot is much less harmful than cigarette smoking. Which is odd, considering the Harvard studies showing just the opposite. That show in fact pot is almost four times as harmful. I wonder if anyone will sympathize when pot smokers start coming down with lung cancer. I know they don't when a woman becomes pregnant.

taken from: Hypocrisy, the New Religion by Jim Tzenes

2005-11-05T13:47:00.000-06:00

In Your Eyes.

There is a theoretical limit to how good a camera can be. This is due to the fact that heat is nothing more than the presence of particles vibrating. As a result every image has an intrinsic amount of "noise" in it. Obviously you can play with this limit by cooling down the camera's components, but ignoring that, a camera at room temperature can only be so good. The human eye by comparison is within a factor of ten of this limit. This means your eyes are almost as good as is physically possible at room temperature.

Anyone who thinks their eyes are due to evolution alone is a moron. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe it was molded by the hand of the all mighty on day six or anything. However, the Intelligent Design argument does have merit to it. Unfortunately, the religious fanatics see Intelligent Design and think god, completely missing the much more obvious influence; one much closer to home. You.

The brain of a two year old has about twice as many neurons as the brain of a twenty year old. The eyes of a newborn have one and a half again as many. So who picks which stay and which go? It isn't some complicated process like separating introns and exons in a chromosome, but rather its much simpler. You do. Crazy as that sounds, its true. The way you use your brain in those early years determines what it will look like later on. In short, your thoughts shape your mind. This seems terribly backwards as your thoughts are generally considered to be a subsection of your mind, however it is easy to prove, but either applying or depriving newborns of certain stimulus. This kind of experiment would be terribly barbaric, so lets pick a much more human proof. Everyone knows children learn new languages faster. In fact, after about the age of six to eight, it is next to impossible for someone to develop a new accent. There are of course exceptions (remember people mold their own brains), but as a general rule, that area of the brain becomes set in a given accent.

Gestalt is another proof. People who disagree with Evolution often talk about gestalt, however their arguments often miss the mark. Lets consider for a second three dots equally spaced on a page. Each dot alone doesn't mean anything, and even looking at two of the dots doesn't do anything for you. But look at all three and suddenly you see a triangle. This is the essence of gestalt. None of the individual parts are suggestive of the whole shape, but when considered together a different image appears. But how does this apply to human visual perception (a subject I'm a published author in)? Well lets look at faces for a second.

The way the human brain interprets a human face is unique; and what's more, it is subject to gestalt. Show someone individual features of a face, and they won't be able to tell who's it is. Even giving them multiple features seems to some how foil the recognition process. The whole face is needed. There is a specific neurological condition in which the affected is no longer able to recognize objects (unless of course they are told what it is). People with this disorder cannot for example recognize a pair of glasses shown to them previously. These people are still able to recognize faces. There are also people affected with this disorder who are able to recognize objects readily, but completely fail when it comes to faces. This clearly indicates that these two actions happen in separate parts of the brain. What's more, children who grow up without looking at faces do not have these unique characteristics. There is no gestalt for them when it comes to faces.

Given all this I begin to wonder how people would treat Intelligent Design if it was backed by Neurologists and not Fanatics.
take from a lecture on vision given by Jim Tzenes

2005-11-02T23:53:00.000-06:00

I've taken ill.

This will be updated... please be patient

2005-10-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

About 1.6 (short).

I am insane. It is important that at this juncture you understand that while I can rationalize my insanity and understand its existence, I do not believe myself to be insane (or any less sane than you the reader). I am told this is nothing more than a symptom of my insanity, as one can not both be insane and believe that they are. But I digress.

In Aronofsky's 1998 cult classic PI, the protagonist Maximillian Cohen (played by Sean Gullette) suffers from a psychological disorder resulting from a childhood trauma. His disorder manifests itself in two particular ways. First, he has chronic uncontrollable headaches, and second, his obsession with the number 216. Actually he believes he is searching for a two hundred sixteen digit number, but as such a number is beyond actual observation or repetition here, we can substitute the number 216 for it. The movie explore a number of possible explanations for this number, the true name of god, the consciousness of a main frame computer, the controlling intelligence of the stock market, all leading Max to believe that this number is naturally occurring and thus its consistently repetition is itself explained. What's more, rational thought cannot easily dismiss his obsession as the insanity we later realize it is.

But he isn't the first man to be obsessed a number. For years mathematicians have been obsessed with the number pi (3.14159...). A number which represents the ratio between a straight line and the circle that encompasses it. Its infinitely long non-repeating decimal progression defies reason. There must be a pattern there somewhere right? But Pi isn't the only number to exhibit this behavior, it has a sister number labeled e (probably after the economists that desire it so, 2.71828). The mathematical progression of compounding interest over time. Normally because compounding exhibits linear interpolation you have to compute each time step before the next. Often it is done in years, but sometimes quarterly, or even days, and possibly seconds. However these graphs converge asomtotically to a number: e. E there for is the value for compounding continuously.

My own personal obsession revolves around a different number, sometimes called the golden ratio. Often times personified as a spiral or an exceptionally pleasing rectangle, phi is the limit of the ratio of two consecutive terms of a Fibonacci series; best though of in bunnies. Suppose we have two baby bunnies (a guy and a girl) and lets assume they never die (which while impractical, death will only matter so late in the series that it does not bear discussion), and finally assume it takes them a month to grow up. At the end of the first month there is only one pair. At the end of the second month, two. By the third month the new pair from the second month hasn't grown up yet, so only the first pair reproduces, giving us 3. By the fifth month the second pair has grown up enough to reproduce so we have 5. The sixth month brings us 8. The seventh, 13. Then 21, 34, 55, etc. After ten years we're looking at 5358359254990966640871840 rabbits. Which tells you why rabbit populations can be such a bother. For reference 5358359254990966640871840/ its proceding number (3311648143516982017180081) ~= phi. But Fibonacci doesn't happen to just bunnies, it happens to plants, and cells. Its easy to see why this number starts to appear everywhere.

The bigger wings on a butter fly compared to the smaller ones. The bones in your fingers. The facade on most buildings. The seeds in a sun flower. The branches on a tree.

It is very clear I remind you that I don't think I'm insane, that my obsession is based purely on the frequency of the number. I can see it everywhere, in everyone, because it is there. When I'm sitting alone, when I close my eye, in my dreams, on the ceiling and the walls, its wrapping itself around me it is trying to devour me.

cue the techno music

one point six
eighteen nine zerothreethreenine3988749894848204586834365638117720309179805762862135 448622705260462818902449707207204189391137484754088075386891752126633862223536931793 180060766726354433389086595939582905638322661319928290267880675208766892501711696207 032221043216269548626296313614438149758701220340805887954454749246185695364864449241 044320771344947049565846788509874339442212544877066478091588460749988712400765217057 517978834166256249407589069704000281210427621771117778053153171410117046665991466979 873176135600670874807101317952368942752194843530567830022878569978297783478458782289 110976250030269615617002504643382437764861028383126833037242926752631165339247316711 121158818638513316203840052221657912866752946549068113171599343235973494985090409476 213222981017261070596116456299098162905552085247903524060201727997471753427775927786 256194320827505131218156285512224809394712341451702237358057727861600868838295230459 264787801788992199027077690389532196819861514378031499741106926088674296226757560523 172777520353613936210767389376455606060592165894667595519004005559089502295309423124 823552122124154440064703405657347976639723949499465845788730396230903750339938562102 423690251386804145779956981224457471780341731264532204163972321340444494873023154176 768937521030687378803441700939544096279558986787232095124268935573097045095956844017 555198819218020640529055189349475926007348522821010881946445442223188913192946896220 023014437702699230078030852611807545192887705021096842493627135925187607778846658361 502389134933331223105339232136243192637289106705033992822652635562090297986424727597 725655086154875435748264718141451270006023890162077732244994353088999095016803281121 943204819643876758633147985719113978153978074761507722117508269458639320456520989698 555678141069683728840587461033781054443909436835835813811311689938555769754841491445 341509129540700501947754861630754226417293946803673198058618339183285991303960720144 559504497792120761247856459161608370594987860069701894098864007644361709334172709191 433650137157660114803814306262380514321173481510055901345610118007905063814215270930 858809287570345050780814545881990633612982798141174533927312080928972792221329806429 468782427487401745055406778757083237310975915117762978443284747908176518097787268416 117632503861211291436834376702350371116330725869883258710336322238109809012110198991 7684149175

taken from: About One Point Six by Jim Tzenes

2005-10-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

Face your fears.

Smoking is a conditioned behavior. Now I'm not saying that Nicotine isn't addictive (it is), but if that was the only reason people smoked things like "the patch" or Nicorette would help them quit with a much higher success rate. Where as both products show very low success rates.

Before I get more into why these are conditioned behaviors, let’s talk a little about what a conditioned behavior is. Conditioning comes with a couple of attributes: there are classical and operant conditioning, there are positive and negative conditioning, and there are continuous and variable conditioning. Let’s go in order.

Classical conditioning was first written about by Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov trained a number of dogs to associate the sound of a bell, with the coming of dinner. As a result the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell, a behavior normally reserved for the presence of dinner. Pavlov also noticed that if he rang the bell and didn't give them dinner, over time they would salivate less and less till they stopped (a process known as extinction). Operant conditioning is what your mom does when you act bad, or she wants you to do your homework. Personified by reward and punishment. If you want the behavior repeated, you reward, if not you punish. Now as mentioned before you can have positive or negative conditioning. Positive means the stimulus should cause the response; negative means stopping the stimulus should stop the response. These terms are unrelated to reward and punishment (i.e. you have positive punishment and negative reward). Finally, there is continual and variable conditioning. Continual means you condition every time the stimulus happens, variable means sometimes you do some times you don't.

Here is a good example: There are two parents. One who coddles her child every time it cries and one who only occasionally does (but mostly doesn't). Clearly the first is conditioning the child to cry where as the second is trying to condition the child not to. The fact of the matter is both children end up being conditioned to cry (as the one you occasionally does is exhibiting variable conditioning). This goes on for a while till the mothers learn about conditioning and both decide to cut the child off, cold turkey as it were (and actually succeed this time). So which one learns not to cry faster? If you said the one with variable conditioning, you are wrong. Yeah, strangely enough the mother that used to coddle her child EVERY TIME actually gets better results when she stops. This is because the mother who has been variable conditioning her child has taught the child that "sometimes I'll coddle sometimes I won't, but keep trying and eventually I will".

So back to cigarettes. What do you do what you smoke? If you're like me (and I've quit smoking more times than I want to count), you talk to other people, maybe you grab a beer, sometimes you do it after sex or when flirting, or maybe just after a really good meal. Notice anything? All of these are generally enjoyable behaviors. Now, not every time I do these behaviors do I have a cig, and not every time I have a cig do I do one of these things. Beginning to see where I am going with this? That's right, this is an example of variable conditioning. I have conditioning myself to believe the cigarette smoking is related to the good feeling I have with the associated behavior, and what's worse, I have conditioned myself to believe that this doesn't hold true every time but eventually will. Like the gambling junky, I believe that if I keep doing it, eventually I will feel good again.

So what's the best way to quit then? Well obviously conditioning myself by associating smoking with things that make me feel bad, but also by not smoking when I'm doing something enjoyable. The second one is allot like facing your fears, and is a product of extinction. Like Pavlov's dogs, if you face your fears and you don't die (or whatever it is that you fear doesn't happen) the conditioned response will slowly wane over time.

Of course this is assuming that your fears are conditioned responses, and that they won't happen when you face them.

taken from: Gone Fishing, a Look at Modern Culture by Jim Tzenes

2005-10-13T10:38:00.000-05:00

My soap box

As this is the Intellectual Elite I think it is perfectly within our mandate to educate those which do not fall into this category. You may think this is slightly arrogant, but what did you expect from a group with the word elite in the name? So here is my short lecture on the difference between symbols and signs.

I first realized that not everyone understands the difference while browsing through wikipedia. As wikipedia is a collaborative effort (read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, wikipedia is clearly the latter) it is generally a decent sampling of the opinions prevalent in our culture. If you look under the discussion section for symbols you'll notice a lengthy debate on whether or not symbols and signs are synonyms. Obviously here is where I weigh in.
I was first explained the difference by Leslie A White (an anthropologist) in her work "Symbol: The Basic Element of Culture" (part of her '49 book The Science of Culture). At this point I'd like to apologize to clockwork for once again not being original, his thoughts on originality can be found here and here. White, clearly attributes symbols as being a purely Human trait. She goes on to say no "chimpanzee or lab rat can appreciate the difference between Holy water and distilled water, or grasp the meaning of Tuesday, 3, or sin." And to a varying degree this represents some of the arguments made in the recent debate on vegetarianism. Even Darwin tells us "That which distinguishes man from the lower animals is not the understanding of articulate sounds." So what is so special about symbols that make them a human product?

"A symbol may be defined as a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it." Obviously thing can refer to any sort of object, gesture, action, or physical form, but what does it all mean. To really understand that, we have to look at signs. I'm sure someone has read this and said, well you can teach a dog to sit. And that is true, but the command sit is not a symbol, it is a sign. Here in lies the crux of the problem. A symbol is given meaning by its user, a sign is a symbol who's meaning was given by some one else. A name, by example, is a sign. The gesture "thumbs up" is a symbol, and changes from country to country.

White also makes reference to Helen Keller. Sullivan describes Helen Keller as acting at first like an animal, and even after she teaches Helen her first word, Sullivan was disturbed by a lack of understanding. To Helen, these first words were signs not symbols. It is not until Sullivan is able to make the connection between the word water, and free flowing water, that Helen reports in her autobiography that she finally understands the mystery of language. The cross over from symbols to signs.

And there it is in a nut shell. White's work was done in the mid 40's and is fairly out of date on the subject of animals (so don't treat it as a first hand source on any animal intelligence debates), but none-the-less, it does pick up some of the fundamentals that make the difference between symbols and signs.

taken from: wikipedia, The Science of Culture by Leslie White, Seeing Ourselves by Macionis and Benokraitis and of course, The Intellectual Elite.

In other exciting news:

Adkenar watches economics in video games and the ability for people to debate. Please prove him wrong on the latter.
Dem0critus deals with infinity.

Dr. Dolphin thinks Intelligent Design is full of crap.

Jessica Rabbit quotes one of my favorite poems. Apparently we aren't the only ones who like it either.

Philosopical Rambler has a number of really good piece on constitutional law and abortion. Give his last five or so posts a good read over, they're worth it.

Soup4Brains laments both public school and home schooling.

And stop by our forum and chat and debate with us. We're always looking for a new perspective.

this was originally published on the intellectual elite webring found at www.intellectualelite.com and was removed when the site crashed. I republished it here to preserve the statements made.

2005-10-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

A short Coke vs Pepsi.

I had a bit of a revelation the other day. It turns out I avoid soda about as much as I avoid beer. Don't take this to mean I'm either an alcoholic or a moron, but rather that I seek to do both in moderation (say one every one or two days, and then once in a while I splurge). This seemed a grave hypocrisy, the more I thought about it the more I seemed to make sense. But let's do a quick comparison.

12 oz of coke has 160 calories (100% carbs) compared to our local beer Busch which only has 140 (only a third of which are carbs). Neither of them have any useful vitamins or minerals. Both are diuretics. Excess beer leads to being drunk and vomiting (as a preventative for alcohol poisoning), where as excess soda can lead to burping. Over the long term, beer can strengthen heart and liver if used in moderation, soda will rot your teeth and give you diabetes.

Now I'm not advocating you switch your coke for a bud, because both of these drinks pale in comparison to a much stronger poison you probably drink every day: DHMO

I highly suggest you check out more about it at DHMO.org. But here are a few facts you should be made aware of.

"DHMO is a colorless and odorless chemical compound. Its basis is the unstable radical Hydroxide, the components of which are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.

Research conducted by award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner concluded that roughly 86 percent of the population supports a ban on DHMO. Although his results are preliminary, Zohner believes people need to pay closer attention to the information presented to them regarding DHMO. He adds that if more people knew the truth about DHMO then studies like the one he conducted would not be necessary.

A similar study conducted by U.S. researchers Patrick K. McCluskey and Matthew Kulick also found that nearly 90 percent of the citizens participating in their study were willing to sign a petition to support an outright ban on the use of DHMO in the United States.

Some of the known perils of DHMO are:

* Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
* Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
* Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
* DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
* Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
* Contributes to soil erosion.
* Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
* Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
* Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
* Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
* Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere.
* Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.

Some of the well-known uses of DHMO are:
* as an industrial solvent and coolant,
* in nuclear power plants,
* by the U.S. Navy in the propulsion systems of some older vessels,
* by elite athletes to improve performance,
* in the production of Styrofoam,
* in biological and chemical weapons manufacture,
* as a spray-on fire suppressant and retardant,
* in abortion clinics,
* as a major ingredient in many home-brewed bombs,
* as a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion in furnaces and air conditioning compressor operation,
* in cult rituals,
* by the Church of Scientology on their members and their members' families (although surprisingly, many members recently have contacted DHMO.org to vehemently deny such use),
* by both the KKK and the NAACP during rallies and marches,
* by pedophiles and pornographers (for uses we'd rather not say here),
* by the clientele at a number of homosexual bath houses in New York City and San Francisco,
* historically, in Hitler's death camps in Nazi Germany, and in prisons in Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Libya, Iraq and Iran,
* in World War II prison camps in Japan, and in prisons in China, for various forms of torture,
* by the Serbian military as authorized by Slobodan Milosevic in their ethnic cleansing campaign,
* by many terrorist organizations,
* in community swimming pools to maintain chemical balance,
* by software engineers, including those producing DICOM software SDKs,
* in animal research laboratories, and
* in pesticide production and distribution.

A recent stunning revelation is that in every single instance of violence in our country's schools, including infamous shootings in high schools in Denver and Arkansas, DHMO was involved. In fact, DHMO is often very available to students of all ages within the assumed safe confines of school buildings. None of the school administrators with which we spoke could say for certain how much of the substance is in use within their very hallways.

What can I do to minimize the risks?
Fortunately, there is much you can do to minimize your dangers due to DHMO exposure. First, use common sense. Whenever you are dealing with any product or food that you feel may be contaminated with DHMO, evaluate the relative danger to you and your family, and act accordingly. Keep in mind that in many instances, low-levels of DHMO contamination are not dangerous, and in fact, are virtually unavoidable. Remember, the responsibility for your safety and the safety of your family lies with you.

Second, exercise caution when there is the potential for accidental inhalation or ingestion of DHMO. If you feel uncomfortable, remove yourself from a dangerous situation. Better safe than sorry.

Third, don't panic. Although the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide are very real, by exercising caution and common sense, you can rest assured knowing that you are doing everything possible to keep you and your family safe."

From: DHMO.org and various DHMO support groups and They Took Gullible out of the Dictionary by Jim Tzenes

2005-09-24T14:13:00.000-05:00

RTFM-6: Social Computing.

Before I begin, I would like to apologize for my brief hiatus, I've been going through some relationship stuff. Even a sentence about myself it too much for this weblog, so onto the meat:

For those of you not taking this class, RTFM stands for Read The Fucking Manual. Although, the class register office seems to be under the illusion that it stands for Research Teams, Fundamentals and Management. I have no idea where they got that from.

So to start things off, I bring you Jim's Postulate of Human Social Systems, which states: given n individuals, as the limit of n approaches the population size, the probability that it contains a member not in a social group approaches H. Statistics show H is approximately equal to 0. In more plain English: Everybody is somebody to someone. It is this fundamental law which governs Social Systems. As people tend to matter to other people they form social groups and interact (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly). Out of these groups, social norms arise (this is the basis for sociology). In the remainder of this article I will attempt illustrate several examples of this.

The first example is Goodwin's Law. The American attorney Mike Goodwin observed that given a long enough internet discussion, eventually someone will make a comparison to Hitler or Nazism in general. As this has generally been accepted as a bad thing, many forums and newsgroups (such as UseNet which can be accessed through Google groups) have responded by recognizing such references as the point at which a discussion has played itself out, and as a result terminated the discussion. Now obviously any intentional reference for the purpose of prematurely ending the discussion will be ignored (called Quirk's exception). The evolution of such a social norm clearly indicates that social computing has reached the point where actual societies are formed by the presence of successful social computing applications (in this case newsgroup).

Often times people will dispute Goodwin's Law on the basis that comparisons to Hitler or Nazism is perfectly acceptable. They will reference cases such as: "Just because he improved the economy doesn't make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy,"(ibid wikipedia). Goodwin's law can be argued as existing specifically for the purpose of stopping just this kind of comparison as the intentional reference to Hitler is a purposeful attempt at biasing the discussion by playing on people's emotional reactions to Hitler and what he has done. Instead, in such cases, Hitler should be substituted with: "Even bad leaders," with possible examples provided as necessary.

So what have we learned? Internet communities are valid communities due to the existence of social norms. But let's look at another social norm.

As most of you probably know I spend allot of time in an IRC chat room on LCIRC.net. This chat room as been affectionately titled #AlbinoBlackSheep (all irc chat rooms start with a #). In my time there I have noticed the emergence of a new social norm. Whenever a user (generally new ones, often referred to as newbies) asks for a person’s age or gender, they are met with either hostility or satire. Apparently over time this community has developed a norm.

The reasons for this norm are overly complex, but suffice to say, a large number of people join the chat room every year for the purposes of either engaging in cybersex, or pretending to and then changing their gender at the last second to make fun of the other person. At first this is either amusing, or ignorable, but over time the number of people entering for this purpose has reached levels where it has become disruptive to the community, resulting in the norm. Now, as it is a social norm and therefore self enforcing, over time the number of users who ask questions (like asl) are immediately attacked reducing the number of occurrences over time. It has embedded itself into the resident culture and making such questions the equivalent of social rape.

This leads me to Jim's Law of Internet Gender: In any sufficiently developed internet community, while acts such as cyber sex continue to be stigmatized, attempts to discern a user’s gender will be met with scorn or satire.

taken from: Wikipedia and Part One of a Three Part Lecture on Social Computing given by Jim Tzenes

2005-09-17T23:03:00.000-05:00

To steal from someone else:

The following story is not mine in anyway, and is most probably some sort of a copy write infringement, so by reading further you agree not to sue me... please?

"There is a deaf boy who is walking home on train tracks... in china. On second thought, maybe he's retarded, I mean why else would he be walking on train tracks when he can't hear anything, doesn't make allot of sense. Any way, he's walking along the train tracks and sure enough a train is coming up behind him. Now there is an old wise Chinese man who lives up in a tower doing calculations. He's so old and he's been up there so long that no one knows if he's even alive. Well, obviously he is alive, or this wouldn't be much of a story. So any way he's up in this ivory tower doing his calculations and he's got papers everywhere from all his inventions and such. This old man of course sees the little boy coming along and sees the train baring down on him. Maybe the boy's a hundred yards away; maybe the train's four miles. For some reason he knows the boy's deaf, I'm not sure why, I didn't make this story up. So any way, he sees the kid and the train and he starts doing calculations. He starts working out all the numbers on a sheet of paper, train velocity and whatever. About thirty meters from the tower the old man finishes his calculations, and realizes that the boy will die ten meters from the tower. He then folds up the paper into an airplane and tosses it out the windows without any regards and goes back to work. Eleven meters from the tower the boy sees the paper airplane (he's deaf not blind) and jumps off the tracks to catch it, thus avoiding certain doom."

There is a moral in that story somewhere. Look through it a couple times before reading onwards, I'll wait.

…Probably something to do with inadvertently saving lives and things about the nicer things in life. Very wise stuff. Maybe it would have helped if I had told you that it was the old man's intention to save the boy's life with the paper airplane. Of course I didn't. In fact, I went so far as to suggest otherwise, because I wanted you to see a moral in that story. It isn't a wise story, and neither am I.

The title of this entry is "To steal from someone else," but if you think its the story I'm stealing you're wrong again. What I am stealing is Socrates theory "true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." I wanted to plainly illustrate how a story can give the appearance of wisdom without actually having any. How people are willing to read the wisdom into the story. Maybe what I am saying is: it isn't the intellectual that is sharing their wisdom with you; it is your own wisdom coming out.

Someone once said "Good artist copy, great artists steal." Apparently the same holds true for philosophers.

From: The Second Coming of Jim by Jim Tzenes

2005-09-12T16:22:00.000-05:00

The half baked drivel that pours from my mind.

When the world ends, and by the world I mean our society, and gives way to one of a million utopias, I like to think it will be the darker emotions that go last. It won't be love, happiness and satisfaction which hold out against the progressivism of society from brutal emotional content to rational intellectualism. No, those will be the first ones to go. Instead it will be the more savage human emotions which have withstood the test of time. Those that have fought against what is "proper" and "right" for years will have built themselves tough outer shells. They will weather the storm as the more pleasant emotions are swept away in the tide.

I am convinced Love will go first. And why not? It is merely a fledgling among the emotions, invented by Jane Austin only two hundred two years ago. And it has already begun to remove itself from society. Divorce rates on the rise (fifty percent in America), younger and more rash people getting together and experiencing it far too early to understand what it is, even the understanding and dissection of the human brain by MRI's and CatScans. It won't be long before we can quantify it, bottle it up, and sell it with a shiny logo. Bye your love potions, only a dollar ninety five at Osco. Of course they'll be intended for personal use but it is obvious what they'll really be used for.

Next will be happiness. Unlike love which shrivels up and dies, happiness will go out with a bang. With work getting easier and free time getting longer, people will devote more and more of the latter to happiness. There in lies the problem. You can have too much of a good thing, and happiness is something that is easy to over do. Too much one way, or too much another and it becomes repetitive, boring. Oh sure it will stick around for a while as there are a plethora of things to entertain ourselves with, but once the amount of time we spend trying to entertain overcomes the amount of resources left, only boredom will be left.

At some point righteousness will follow. I do not mean the sort of righteousness that you find in a southern baptist or papal bull, but rather the kind you get where people defend right from wrong. Its own death can already be seen in the jail houses of America. No it won't be intolerance or some bizarre system which brings it down, but rather moral relativism. Seeing both sides of the equation. When the criminals become just as much victims as those they hurt. It starts with rehabilitation. We stopped killing our criminals so we try to reeducated them, bring them back into the fold. Instead of the rapist we blame the incestuous father. Instead of the murderer we blame the neglectent mother. And when black and white finally fade from our site, the grey that surrounds us will be absolute. Like a picture that has been blurred too much.

And what will be left?

Wrath, Lust, Greed, Pride, and the sort. People will probably think its the end of the world. And it will be, but not because these emotions are dominating our lives. No, it will be because they will be our last bastions of hope against the coming utopian ideals. The last rallying point for the malcontents and nonconformists. When society is the pressure point, angst becomes a form of rebellion. Those who fight will be the teenagers to societies parental advice.

People like to criticize these emotions, but I think of them as our last chance at salvation, before the eternal hell of the utopian idealists. To me, every utopia is a dystopia, and every emotion precious.

taken from: The Colorful Imagery of the Apocalypse, by Jim Tzenes

2005-09-11T17:30:00.000-05:00

For kicks:

Normally I hate online quizzes, and absolutely refuse to participate. However, as today is a day of introspection, I bring you this particular quiz:

You scored as Satanism. Your beliefs most closely resemble those of Satanism! Before you scream, do a bit of research on it. To be a Satanist, you don't actually have to believe in Satan. Satanism generally focuses upon the spiritual advancement of the self, rather than upon submission to a deity or a set of moral codes. Do some research if you immediately think of the satanic cult stereotype. Your beliefs may also resemble those of earth-based religions such as paganism.

Satanism

88%

Agnosticism

79%

Atheism

54%

Buddhism

54%

Islam

50%

Paganism

38%

Judaism

38%

Hinduism

17%

Christianity

Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
created with QuizFarm.com

2005-09-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

One Hundred Words or Less.

I was talking to one of my friends today and for some reason I used the phrase "whatever happened to that?" Its the kind of thing I expect to hear from my grandfather. Like "whatever happened to those old fashion record players?"
And then it hit me. We are dinosaurs in our own time. Society has just gotten ahead of itself. One of these days you are going to be walking down the street and go up to an atm and then BAM rectal thermometer up the ass. You Won't even know what happened.

2005-09-05T11:33:00.000-05:00

The Fourteen Year Old's Enlightened Perspective.

I do not normally include such short and commentary things, so do not think of this as a sign of things to come. While this was written in response to what an anonymous other had said, I would ask you not to view it as an attack (though, it probably comes on stronger than I intended) on him. It is merely my opinions on religion which I find hard, at best, to express.

I don't think you do know why it exists (or I believe you wouldn't be lamenting its need). I think you believe it exists to fulfill other people's meaningless lives, but not your own. Combining narcissism and arrogance into a truly astounding package of sociopathism.

For reference it is called the 14 year olds perspective because that is around the age when young children grow up and realize that Santa isn't real (not that they don't figure this out before, but rather this is the age they accept it), and as a result push all of religion away and declare it an evil on society. They reference things like the crusades and inquisition without stopping to think how modern religion is no where close to what it was at those times and is no more to blame for it than I am for slavery, because I quote Tomas Jefferson.

Religion, since you ask, is the amorphous social structure which fills in the needs of our society. It brings hope because there are no social structures in place to bring hope. It takes care of the poor because the current charitable social structures are inadequate given the size of our poor community. It preaches against vice, because besides legal enforcement there is little in the way of social taboo against such things (at least where I am from). When Rome fell it took the role as government. Religion is the social structure of community organization allowing it to fit itself into society in any way society demands of it. When houses need to be built church drives rise to the occasion. When crime is intolerable it is Synagogues which organizes neighborhood watches. When racism came to height it was the mosques which protected their followers.

Religion is the ideal social structure, able to support society in any way needed. The philosophies and faith which you look down upon are nothing short of the glue that holds religion together, that make it such a powerful social structure. Any occasional determent it causes to modern society (and note once again today's religion is not the religion of the crusades) must be dealt with the understanding of how important religion truly is. I no more blame Islam for the suicide bombers than I blame trees for eco-terrorists. Anyone can claim to do things in the name of one god or another, it doesn't mean its religion that is to blame.

taken from comments on: "What Early Genesis Reveals" by Christopher Gorton. Comments by Jim Tzenes

2005-09-04T01:09:00.000-05:00

Fear.

I got my first fake ID when I was thirteen. Back then it was just for cigarettes (only nineteen), but every time I walked into the store I was scared out of my wits. For those of you who don't know I was about six feet when I was twelve. I don't think my height was the convincing factor for the men behind the local bodega, I think he just wanted to make money off me. I tried to compensate for my fear. I'd talk to the guy behind the counter; try to strike up a repertoire... or something. Still, every time I could feel the heat on my face of his scrutinizing look. By then it was already too late, I had crossed the Rubicon.

From the second I approached the door I'd feel a sudden pain in my chest, right around where I figured my heart might be. The kind of feeling you get right before a test you know you haven't studied enough for. My strategy was always right in right out. No fooling around; no pretending to look at things I wasn't going to buy. No suspicious behavior. I think I failed every time. There was always something. A new guy behind the desk. A white man chatting with the clerk. Is he a cop? Maybe just the owner. Just as bad either way. Wait, pretend you're interested in skittles? or charge right in and give your spiel. What year was I born in again? '79? Chirst, what if he notices the expiration date is wrong? Or swipes it. By the time I was done worrying I had already made my purchase and was blocks away.

It never got easier either. By the time I was fifteen my ID hit twenty one and I moved up to beer and liquor. I've had a sordid relationship with harder drugs, but liquor was always the preferred alternative.

I hope my mother doesn't read that last sentence. Too late now. No point worrying, just have to push on. Get it out and go.

In retrospect it seems as if those first three years really prepared my for the later trials of grubby liquor stores and sleazy men behind their counters. I'm willing to bet that more than one of them pegged my for underage right off the bat and charged my extra. I would have gladly paid the price to reduce the fear. In all fairness it wasn't entirely unwarranted. In the seven or so years I used a fake I only got caught once, but that was more than enough. It was like the avalanche that had been chasing me my whole life finally catching up with me. For someone who will risk life and limb in a bar brawl, my friends find this characterization of my fears very amusing.

Two hundred and seventeen more days before I will finally reach twenty one. With the end in sight, ever trip to the liquor store brings forth the question: When its all over and done, will I still feel this pain? this fear? or will it finally be laid to rest?

Taken from: The fears of Jim Tzenes

2005-09-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

Freakonomics: Uncommon sense at four dollars a gallon.

Everyone has been griping about oil prices (I don't own a car, but I know people who do), and the recent tragedy down in the Gulf of Mexico people are worried its going to rise higher. I've heard numbers as high as $4 a gallon. This recent crisis has caused President Bush to release oil from the strategic reserve. Don't sound too relieved. It will still probably get that high. One of the constant lessons I harp on is how common sense is little more than a lie we tell to placate ourselves.

For a second, lets talk about cell phones. My father always said that people had accidents while talking on a cell phone are just people who can't do two things at once. Of course when New York banned handheld phones he just picked up a headset. A $5 investment and now he's inside of the law. A law that makes no sense. Lets ignore for a second that studies show that less than 6% of distracted driving is due to cell phones [1], and concentrate on why hands free cell phones are ok.

The logic would seem that if you're using one hand to use a cell phone then the other hand is busy and that's your distraction. Which is why we ban people from driving with only one hand. Well maybe the act of holding the cell phone is a distraction. Which is why we don't let people driving hold anything in their other hand. Or maybe, just maybe now, the number of accidents relating to cell phones is equally likely between hand-held and those with an ear piece (taken from Fatal Analysis Reporting System). Which would mean the real distraction is talking on the phone. With cell service spotty and conversations grabbled by poor communication, its not a reach. Freakonomics 1, Common Sense 0.

But back to gas prices. Not many people realize that gas price is only about 50% dependent on petroleum (crude oil). So common sense says that one petroleum doubles gas prices should go up by 50%, and if you look at prices for both from July 2003 - July 2005, it would look like you were right [2] [3]. Numbers lie, its a plain fact, they disguise their content, and prices are no different. Direct your attention to October of 2003. Gas prices were on the rise, and crude oil for some reason was falling. Weird. But that's not the only inconsistency. From May 2004 to September 2004 crude oil went from $40 to $55, a 37% increase, and gas prices... stayed the same? It looks like there is some other force at work here. In fact the difference is the refineries of great America, in their capitalist endeavors are making money off of you. The same refineries that were hit in the recent hurricane. See, crude oil needs to be refined, and refineries need to make money, the refineries that are shut down because of the hurricane. So don't count on the strategic reserve to bail you out.

take from: a study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, NYMEX Light Sweet Crude prices, the U.S. Department of Energy, and The Statistics of Common Sense by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-26T23:41:00.000-05:00

.eraflew

In case you couldn't read the first line it says "welfare" backwards. Alot of people think this is how dyslexic people write words, and I suppose some do. Personally, I'm lucky if I can even remember what letters are in welfare, forwards or backwards. Back in 1990 I was diagnosed as being stupid. If you dislike me you're probably saying "well that figures," and you aren't exactly wrong. In time they diagnosed me with the dreaded disorder Dyslexia (along with ADHD and some other disorders who I didn't pay enough attention to to remember). Personally I think those are just more sophisticated ways of calling me stupid. Yes, dyslexia is a neurological disorder, and yes I didn't do anything to deserve it (neither did my parents, actually there is a long history of dyslexia in my mother's family). However, my having dyslexia doesn't prevent me from acting like a moron from time to time.

A couple of weeks ago my misspellings came up in conversation, and I admitted to my dyslexia (a fact I am not ashamed of) and was admonished for it. Rightfully so I might add. While I had accepted my disability as a fact of life I had forgotten that like all disabilities I have to compensate for it. Instead of being the problem it was in my life, I had made it into the crutch I wanted it to be. Thankfully I was reminded of my mistakes and my transgression was caught before too late.

Now most of you will read these last two paragraphs and think they are an attack on Panther (actually they were written a while ago and had been sitting around in my drafts section), but they're not. In fact, they aren't about me or dyslexia in general. Instead, they are about welfare. Welfare, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is money given by the government to the less fortunate in society. Obviously this redistribution of wealth by the government is socialistic in nature. In fact, the main problem people have with welfare is the same problem I had with my dyslexia. They believe that welfare is a crutch which the less fortunate come to depend on and thus never rise to a point in their lives where they can be free of it.

In March of '03 there were 4,986,914 people on welfare, 4,955,479 in June of the same year. This represents a -.6% shift from the previous year (ie. no shift). The yearly totals from month to month for the year of '02 only change by a margin of 406,193 during the course of the year (less than 10%). It seems fairly obvious to the quick thinker that this means people on welfare tend to stay on welfare. It becomes a crutch to them, and what they really should do is buckle down and get a job. After all, its my tax dollars supporting them.

What the mathematicians say isn't true. Numbers lie, and quick thinkers aren't always the smartest thinkers. It might come as a surprise to anyone reading those last two paragraphs that in a ten year period less than 2% of people on welfare were on welfare were on it again in that ten year period. This means 98% of people on welfare are only on it for a year at most. Not much of a crutch is it now? In fact, the more you scrutinize the welfare system the more you realize that very few people are reliant on it. These people are out there looking for jobs and are unable to either find them or find ones that support them and their families. The welfare system instead begins to look more and more like a net if one is falling.

This brings us back to my dyslexia (full circle if you will). About 90 some odd percent of the time I correct my dyslexia, and find my mistakes, and so when a few slip through people should take that into account. However, that doesn't make my bringing it up any less self indulgent. Instead, it is like Godwin's law, effective unless mentioned.

taken from: Statistics, the Book of Lies by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-22T13:35:00.000-05:00

Colors and Liars, but not Colored Liars.

The human eye is a vastly complex thing, and while those proponents of Intelligent Design will tell you there is no use for half an eye, the human brain shows otherwise. Apparently, when your eye first started developing the only light waves that were provided were the blues. As a result blue makes up the smallest portion of what your brain determines the luminance of an object to be. Later on your brain developed red and finally green to give you what you see today. As a result of this order, luminance can be broken down into ratios as follows: Y' = 0.299 R' + 0.587 G' + 0.114 B'(the modern HDTVs use a slightly different algorithm). Given that green makes up the largest portion it should come as no surprise that traditional fighter jets used Red for the HUD display and Green for targets. Less than a decade ago the air force did a study to find out what the best combination is and to their surprise just the opposite has a better reaction time (Green for HUD and Red for targets). Perplexing at best.

When we are young we believe everything we hear, but somewhere in our early childhood we learn to lie, or at least that people do lie. At some point, most of us try to lie ourselves, and if we're smart get away with it. The standard for lying appears to go like so: I did/know/am x, but I don't want so-and-so to know that so I will pretend y. At first this is sufficient, but eventually people ask questions about y (whether they accept it or not), so y becomes Universe y (denoted as Y and Universe x denoted as X). If we are clever we choose a Y such that so-and-so does not have the means at their disposal to disprove Y (things like saying Y is an opinion, or based on opinions, or make Y a very small devation from X). Without the means to disprove Y any attempt to call Y a lie is unsubstantiatible. However, time and again people who have no means to disprove Y end up disbelieving Y. We assume this is foolish and become very adamant about Y being true, because for all they know it is true, and fail to relies why they disbelieve Y.

So now you must be asking yourself "what do these two things, colors for a HUD display on a fighter jet and algebraically analyzing lies, have to do with one another?" And the truth probably is nothing, but I found the answer to one in the other. Why do people respond more quickly to red than the brighter green? It wasn't until I was outside crossing a street that I figured it out. Social conditioning. Red means stop, Green means go. If you mistake Green for Red you've made a type I statistical error (false negative) and the worse that happens is you get honked at, but god forbid you make the opposite error. In fact, the presence of red in streetlights and other stop signs combined with our desire to avoid these type II statistical errors (false positive) as caused a social norm to be attacked to the color red. We are conditioned by interaction with it to see it as a warning sign and thus it finds our attention quicker than any other color, and in fact we'll find the same can be said about liars. Liars, while clever enough to create universes we cannot disprove, are after all human, and thus have tell tail signs. Some stutter, some take too long thinking, others elaborate too much. All of these signs, while having little to do with the lies themselves, are picked up by the so-and-so characters over time, as the lies they have told are revealed to them. These "tricks" allow us to pick out liars based solely on social conditioning.

So, next time someone doubts your lie, remember, it may not have anything to do with the lie itself.

taken from: And then there was Society by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-18T21:15:00.000-05:00

Back by Popular Demand.

Ok, give this a try. You have the following three lines:

(X) ------
(A) -------
(B) ----
(C) ------

Now, which line is closest to X?

Chances are you said C, and you're right. A couple years back some psychological researchers gave this same question to a bunch of college students, although instead of just asking them like I asked you, they asked about 16 actors before them. Now the college students didn't know these were actors and when each of the 16 actors before them said A, about two thirds of the time the college student said A as well. Now why would a bunch of reasonable intelligent college students give an answer that is obviously wrong? Have colleges been lowing there standards too far? The researchers in question thought that it was a result of peer pressure, but I'm going to go down a different path. Image for a second that you have tons of data indicating one thing, and only one piece of data indicating another. Which are you more likely to go with? Even if you were the one to personally observer the dissenting piece of data? In fact, those college students were showing a rare trait, humility. They each realized (consciously or subconsciously) that the odds that everyone before them was right, and they instead were wrong (a type 1 statistical error), are very small.

To a certain degree I am writing this in response to a entry by Mercutio ( Be good citizens and stop voting), and he's not alone in his stance. The argument, which he relays to us from Hannah Arendt, goes something like this: If I vote and know little about the people or changes I am voting for, I am better off not voting and leaving such activity to people who know a lot about what they are voting for. He and Arendt may not be wrong. In fact, I have been hard pressed to find a single person who disagrees with this logic. Well, no one besides James Surowiecki, who's work The Wisdom of Crowds shows "The many are smarter than the few." Surowiecki's case example is Francis Galton's description of a busy marketplace where passersby lend their opinion to the probably weight of a cow. While the guesses themselves are very far off of the real value, the average is remarkable close. Closer in fact, than several experts opinions. Surprisingly enough, the crowd as a whole is smarter than the experts who's lively hoods depend on such estimates.

So now, you weigh in. Do we favor popular opinion? or do we leave intellect to the intellectuals?

taken from a verity of sources including: Mercutio's personal weblog "A Precarious Mindset," Wikipedia's entry "The Wisdom of Crowds," and "Rhuminations of a Starving Man" by Jim Tzenes.

2005-08-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Pride and the Down Fall of Jim Tzenes.

I began starving myself this morning. Normally I would describe it as fasting, and probably follow that with a quip about how I had unfortunately not reached enlightenment. However, this abstinence is unrelated to any attempts at transcendence, but rather solely concerned with another intangible, pride. Suffice to say, I am broke, and for various reasons my job has failed to pay me for going on 2 months now. Being the amiable person I am, I have mad every attempt to politely obtain my rightful dues, to no avail. In the mean time I have run out of food and cash to buy food with. This is not why I am starving. I am instead starving because I have refused any charity on the matter. Which brings me back to the subject at hand: pride.

When I was younger I was taught, as you no doubt were, by after school programs that pride is the downfall of humanity. The proud characters always get what's coming to them, and by the end of the 30 minute episode they have to surrender their pride and abase themselves. I have no intention of doing so. These shows always portrayed pride in a poor light; never did they show the positive benefits of pride. The kind of pride that makes you get up at 6am for a work out. The kind of pride that makes you bite back insults when no one will listen to you. The kind of pride that picks you up after falling down. Pride, in short, is the great motivator in my life. Without it, I would be unwilling to dedicate myself to my tasks and instead would procrastinate and do a poor job if any. Given all this, it is not hard to see why I so feverishly hold onto my pride.

But too proud to eat? Perhaps that is taking things just a little too far. Lets look into them deeper. I haven't received my just due, but I believe that I have finally found the people necessary so that I might. So in truth this isn't as large a deal as I make it out to be. What's more I don't want to upset the people who making up the bureaucratic staff as my future may rest in their hands, and they can make things worse off for me. And there are other sources who might lend me money, my father, my girlfriend, my roommate, but each has as reason for being rejected. My roommate I am already indebted to. My girlfriend has little of her own. And finally, I am trying to break the few remaining bond that tie me to my father. In short, I am unwilling to accept there help for a verity of reasons.

Where does leave my pride I wonder. As pride is the reason I claim to be starving myself. If we look over my reasons for starving we begin to see that there are certain conveniences in my life to which I desire. To achieve these desires I need to hold off and fast and wait. And slowly as I battle with my hunger I relies that it is not pride which holds me from my meals, but rather desire for other things. Pride, good or evil, is nothing more than a scape-goat on which to hang my hat. In truth, it maybe nothing more than another farce to get myself to do what is necessary to achieve what I want. But isn't that what I said pride did for me in the first place?

taken from letters between Jim Tzenes and an unknown author

2005-08-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

A rose by any other name...

There exist certain words in our society, whom by there very names do effect how people precieve them. I am ofcourse referring to the words: fuck, shit, cock, bitch, damn, and asshole. There is a longer list, but let us pretend those words stand in for all of them. Countless comedians have pointed out how these words, in the sense of what they refer to, aren't to be offensive in and of themselves. However, society at large has deamed them offensive by convention. Obviously there are certain characteristic among these word that make them more likely canidates (such as ending in hard k and t sounds or referring to sinful and blasphemous acts) but these characteristics also exist in other words which are not considered too heinous. So then without any characteristic shared amongst them that could be used to determine them without previous knowledge it becomes elementary that convention alone denotes these words. This has all be said before, my thesis by comparison is that this behavior is not unique and can be found in specific class of society: Children (thus making the behavior childish in nature).

As my argument does not address these words directly it is not limited to these words, or any words of the group they belong, but rather to the nature of society in denoting groups by mear convention, and thus my argument is not really about words, but about human nature in society. This is important to note for anyone who wishes to disagree with me on the basis that these words have a special categorical algorithm which defines them (in which case the first paragraph is mostly moot, however my argument remains untouched).

If you spend any large amount of time around children below the preteen age, you're realize that the vast majority of activities they undertake are for the sole purpose of gaining themselves attention. Now, since the group of words exist only through the basis of convention, we can then assume that their proliferation is a result of flaunting the social norms of the society in question. Or in other words they only reason they are used is due to the conventions which consider them inappropriate. If we then return to the children, we notice this identical behavior. Children will oft times recite phrases that invoke a response for the purposes of gaining attention. And now we've come full circle. The use of these words in society is solely for the purpose of drawing attention (which will be later backed up when the words are demonstrated to have emphatic use ie. drawing attention).

However, at this point we run into another interesting phenomena. The obvious solution to removing these words from the language (as the current social norms suggest we do), is to remove the conventions which make them important. Without these no one would feel the need to use these words, and thus the goal of removing them from everyday speak would be upheld. If you haven't figured it out already the convention is in and of itself circular logic. Now, should these words be de-emphasized from our language the desire to use words that accomplish their purpose will designate new word to take their place, thus proving the hypothesis that these words serve a vital purpose in our language: emphasis. Thus bringing us back to my thesis, that this is a terribly childish thing to do.
QED.

Because undoubtedly after all that you are wondering, well then what should we do now? Let me provide an answer for that as well. Because the need for these words is based entirely in circular logic, but it has already been demonstrated that there is a sociological desire for the functionality it provides. As such the obvious solution becomes clear, we must do what I often advise and uphold the status quo.

taken from: How to Speak Like an Intellectual and Other Useless Things, by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

Dr. Hypocrisy, or How I Learned to Love the Weblog.

It is a well known fact that I hate 'blogs; I absolutely abhor them. I think that they are meaningless wastes of time that only exist to further the rampant sociopathic behavior already running wild in our society. God I hate 'blogs. Now before you start yelling Hypocrite, let me tell you why I hate them. The majority of blogs, and when I say majority I mean the vast majority, are used as a sort of online diary. It is not hard to see why I might have a problem with this, given my expressed opinions in the past. The Weblog itself (commonly referred to as the 'blog) is in fact a powerful tool to help communicate information across the Internet. Its purpose is to either provided a chronicled basis for in formation or a simplistic method for communication. Now, both of these are valid uses which I have no qualm with, however its is the perverse combination which truly infuriates me. Given the simplicity of the tools at hand, the weblog is available for use in even the most inexperience of web viewers; this is the root of my problems. Instead of being available solely to those who might put it to proper use, the weblog is available to those who have neither the experience, nor the capacity to do so.

And thus the modern 'blog is born. Instead of leveraging the impressive tools at hand for some sort of beneficial communication, the average 'blog user uses it to chronicle the most mundane of all features, his or her own life. This doesn't seem like such a problem until you realize that the vast majority of activities which take up your life are relatively uninteresting. On average a person spends 8 hours of his or her day sleeping. There are numerous studies that indicate the most uninteresting thing to hear about is another person's dream. As such a full third of a person's day is not worth recording in a public venue. Of the remaining 16 hours of your day, the average person spends 2 hours in commute too and from work 8 hours in work, and 2 hour eating. All of which turn out to be rather uninteresting activities (unless something interesting happens at work which it rarely does). This leaves us with a sole 2 hours of the day with which your life may yet interest me. But don't worry the average American watches 4 hours of TV per day, so I can assure you, it won't. I don't care that you ate peanut butter and jeally for lunch. I don't care you sat through a 3 hour meeting listening to someone who has noise hair. I don't care if you think bush is the worst president ever because he "is a stupid man who didn't even win an election lol." I really just don't care; and do you know what? No one else does either.

It is easy to see why I hate 'blogs so much. However, there are a few, and they are very few, who's weblogs actually contain interesting arguments or chronicles of useful information (like building and instillation). You'll notice I refer to their content as weblogs, where as the journalistic filth that other people produce as 'blogs. In my mind there is a difference. But, I was not always convinced as much. It wasn't until I actually found a group of weblogs that tended to produce reasonable content an a consistent basis that I was won over. For those of you who are interested, my weblog reading list consists of:

ClockWorkZen (http://clockworkzen.intellectualelite.com/)
A contrary fellow, who's weblog is temporarily down. While he can be abrasive at times, he generally has interesting insight into a verity of topics, and is worth a read every now and then. Just don't piss him off.

Dem0critus (http://dem0critus.intellectualelite.com/blog.html)
A normally mundane fellow, who is none the less full of interesting information. In addition to being an excellent debtor, Dem0critus' weblog tends to be both helpful and eclectic, and worth a read.

Dr. Dolphin (http://drdolphin.intellectualelite.com/)
In addition to being clever, Dr. Dolphin is well read and able to discuss some of the more interesting aspects of modern society. If you get a chance read his "When Physics and Metaphysics meet..." post.

Jebus (http://family.ncambium.com/jt/)
A journalism major who's posts are on par with my own. Jebus is both whitty and insightful. He will make you laugh and then realize how stupid you look.

Mercutio (http://mercutio.intellectualelite.com/)
Perhaps one of the best weblogs you will ever read, most of the time. While he does occasionally lapse into the bad habits of talking about his own life, Mercutio's more thoughtful posts are unparalleled in both quality and content. A definite must for those of you transitioning over from 'blogs to weblogs.

Muse (http://muse.intellectualelite.com/)
The only 'blog to make my reading list, Muse's life is one of the very few that is interesting enough to hold my attention. Unlike the vast majority of 'bloggers, the idiosyncrasies and frantic self deprecative humor that makes up Muse's 'blog are more than amusing. What's more she is a fun person to get to know.

Last but not least: JCStrider (http://jcstrider.intellectualelite.com/)
Given the gravity and intellectualism of many quality weblogs, it is fun from time to time to read a weblog which can be appreciated for its pure aesthetic qualities. JCStrider's is such a weblog. But for those who like to read between the lines JCStrider can be an excellent read.

And of course there is always my weblog, but if you're reading this, chances are you read that too. You'll notice however I've increased the line length on my weblog so as to allow better viewing, and I suggest you do the same.

taken from the weblog of Jim Tzenes (ie. this)

2005-08-08T00:11:00.000-05:00

Social Responcibility.

I believe the right to declare ones own guilt at the beginning of a trial is both very powerful and relatively unused.

Time and again our legal system comes under criticism for letting the guilty go free. I wouldn't want to be part of the problem and neither should you. People are more than willing to vote for harsher penalties and support their local police, but when its their butt on the line, god forbid they accept responsibility for their actions. Everyone wants the guilty to be punished, except themselves. This sort of narcissistic behavior has helped to created the criticism our legal system faces. The good old problem everyone complains about but won't fix.

Lets take a simple example. Someone I know was pulled over for speeding. They appeared at the court date perscribed by their ticket on the off chance the police officer wouldn't show up and they'd get off scott free. They did. Now speeding is a minor infraction and most people dismiss this case as unimportant. It is not. It is anemic of the flaws in the system.

Instead of griping, I propose the members of society hold themselves to a higher standard than society holds them. That or stop griping. You pick.

taken from the trial of Jim Tzenes August 8th, 2005

2005-08-05T11:25:00.000-05:00

Nemesis.

Recently I came to blows with someone over an issue. Of course not actual blows, but verbal ones at the very least. Its been a long time since I've ever really felt insulted by someone. However, this is not due to my sociopathic tendencies (which I hope to keep few), but rather because I rarely put myself out there.

I have always found debating to be one of the most enlightening experiences. Its purpose has always been, in my mind, to help both sides better understand the issue. As a result, I never feel the need to argue my own opinion, merely the opposing opinion to someone else. Because of this, I rarely put myself out there to feel insulted. However sometimes even I get caught up in the debate. Mistakes happen. Life goes on.

The Ideal debater has not attachments to their argument. They are merely and advocate of their side of the debate, as lawyers are advocates of their clients cases. It does not matter which side of the debate they argue on as Justice can be served from either side. Take the case where a murderer gets off because the police found the murder weapon through unlawful means. While this is normally a far cry from justice, a greater justice has been served. Once again a person's property has been protected from unlawful government intrusion. Once again the freedom of the innocent has been prioritized over the enchainment of the guilty. We live in a society which is imperfect, and thus vaulnerable to abuse. Thus it is more important for us to protect the members of the society than the society at large. A governing body exists to facilitate cohabitation between its members, but it also must not step over the bounds where the members must be protected from it. Thus by arguing an opposing side the ideal debater lives up to a higher purpose. Preventing the governing body from over stepping itself. I guess you could say they guard us from the guards and each other. Lementible but necessary.

Still, when the day is done and the higher calling has been served, it would be nice to have a Nemesis to compete against.

Excerpt from "For I have seen the Devil and His face was Man" by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-04T13:41:00.000-05:00

Service in the Food Service Industry.

I went to the Home Depot the other day. Nothing but giant metal shelves full of supplies, with not a customer service representative in sight. Ahh, the joys of modern shopping. It wasn't always like this though. My father tells me that when he was little hardware stores used to have people around to help you find what you need and answer questions. And if you came in often enough they would even know your name. The guy at the local fast food store doesn't even know my name, even though its always the same guy, and i always come at the same time every day, and order the same thing. In fact, I don't think we've exchanged five words not relating to food. Of course my grandfather tells me that gas stations used to pump gas for you, but when he says such obviously untrue things I can't help but shake my head and smile. The idea that someone might preform such a menial task for me, is beyond me.

But then again, things weren't always this way. Once upon a time people served you food in the food service industry, not just sat there and took your money. A few of these anachronistic testaments to monolithic food service still do exist, we call them restaurants. They used to be the standard, right up until a pair of brothers name: Dick and Mac McDonald opened up a hamburger stand in California. Now, while McDonalds success is attributed to Ray Kroc (the man that franchised the business), its the brothers McDonald who are to blame for the fast food industry it spawned. It was they who had the idea to have people take their food to their own table, and to cook up food ahead of time in anticipation of sale. However, its McDonalds success that spread these principles across America. What's more these businesses could sell food cheaper as they didn't have to pay for the same overhead as a full restaurant. All of a sudden this bargain price idea caught on with Americans. In the 70s Walmart expanded this idea to other industries.

Now people are buying stuff off of giant shelving cases that look like they belong in the storage room, not the front room. All in the pursuit of lower prices. Now there are a number of issues that this raises, from substandard pay, to immigrant jobs, to driving out local businesses and the American dream, but the one that pisses me off the most is there is no one around to help me find my quarter inch ply wood. What have we surrendered in the pursuit of lower prices? Are we really so miserly we've given up self respect in exchange for money?

So, my advice to you all is, every now and then (you don't have to all the time) you go to a real restaurant and pay the little extra for a little service. Trust me, its worth it.

excerpt taken from a speech "Economics, the Modern Philosophy" by Jim Tzenes

2005-08-02T10:20:00.000-05:00

People are sociopaths.

There are alot of conflicting definitions of what a sociopath is, however almost all of them share a common theme. Sociopaths are self absorbed and hold themselves above the rules of society. Current estimates place 1-3% of the population as suffering from this disorder, and all I can say to the people doing those studies is "have you ever talked to anyone?"

1-3% is far too low of a statistic, in my opinion the number is better than a third. One in three people are self absorbed and consider them selves to be above the rules of society. These people also suffer from a verity of conditions arising from their pathology, including:

1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Sound familiar? In fact, on the Internet these people turn up all the time. Of course we merely pass off their "fuckwad" behavior as arising out of the anonymity provided by the Internet, but the truth of the matter is, these people are sociopaths.

It gets worse.

How many times has someone yelled at you while you were driving or crossing the street and had done nothing wrong? How many times have you called someone you didn't know bad names?

These are all sociopathic behaviors, they arise not out of the general apathy we are lead to believe infests our society. Instead they arise from an undo sense of self importance. We believe we are special, that some how the rules don't apply to us. That we are above the rest of society. This is what causes sociopathism, and right now we are raising an entire generation of sociopaths. Kids who grow up on Harry Potter and learn lessons such as, special people can flaunt the rules, and, some groups of people are superior to others. These are terrible morals that we instill in our children without a second thought, and then wonder why they shoot up their schools. Do not mistake me and believe that Harry Potter is the source of evil in the world, far from it, it is merely another symptom of the problem.

I want you to all repeat the following mantra "I am not special. I am not my own perfect unique little butterfly." And if you find yourself relapsing and thinking of yourself as better than other people I want you to stop and take a deep breath, and if you still need help you can talk to me, or any of the other recovering sociopaths, we all know what you've been through.

taken from: Diary of a Sociopath by Jim Tzenes