While tragic, accidents are to be expected as the software and hardware for autonomous vehicles is developed. Even at this stage they seem safer than those guided by a human. Personally, I look forward to a time when I can plug in a destination and let the car take care of getting me there.
Consider how far aircraft have come.
Man Killed In First-Recorded Fatal Tesla Autopilot CrashI rarely delve into electoral politics but a recent essay I read on Facebook (of all places) started me thinking about the current election cycle.
In his book entitled Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes two modes of thinking in the human mind. He gives these modes the the innocuous names of "System 1" and System 2". System 1 is the fast, intuitive, and emotional side whereas System 2 is more deliberative, logical and slower.
The two systems as Kahneman describe them, make perfect sense in an evolutionary context. I recall reading that a human neuron has a clock speed of about 15 Hz to 20 Hz. That means human reaction times are, at best, measured in tenths of a second. In a world where threats and opportunities happen unexpectedly, a system for selecting quickly from the available alternatives was necessary for survival. The System 1 we inherited from our ancestors was refined by millennia of a brutally efficient system of natural selection and it works very well for what it evolved for. By contrast, the more deliberative System 2 was patched on top of the older intuitive System 1 and is heavily influenced by it.
So, what does this a have do with Trump? Well, first politics is the real mind-killer. It may be an important aspect of life and we should certainly apply our individual rationality to it. However, it is an awful place to learn to be rational. To have a rational political discussion, all sides must first be rational. Trump, I think, represents the triumph of our atavistic evolutionary nature over the much more recent and less well proven rationality. He is in effect a super politician when seen through the filter of intuition and emotion. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing only time can tell
Which brings me to the essay. Like Mr. Yudkowsky I do not agree with everything Mr. Monroe wrote but the following does have a good exposition as to how a man like Trump can rise toward political power in a manner that appears nearly inevitable. The fault is not in our stars but in our genes.
Read it here. This is a Facebook post so it may not be visible to everyone.
A recent Op-ed in the LA Times entitled California needs a Gun Violence Restraining Order makes some extraordinary and misleading claims.
Between 1999 and 2010, California reduced its gun death rate 56%, making the state a model for policymakers elsewhere seeking to reduce gun violence. California now has the ninth-lowest rate of gun death among the 50 states, but that isn't something to celebrate in the aftermath of the Isla Vista tragedy.
If California is really the "ninth-lowest" state for "gun death[s]" that statistic is not reflected in the overall murder rate for the state. According to the Uniform Crime Report statistics compiled at The Disaster Center , California has a murder rate of 5.0 per 100,000 population making it the the nineteenth worst state for murder (eighteenth if I exclude the District of Columbia with its 13.9/100K murder rate). The ten best states for murder rates are:
| State | Murder Rate |
| NH | 1.1 |
| VT | 1.3 |
| IA | 1.5 |
| ID | 1.8 |
| MA | 1.8 |
| MN | 1.8 |
| UT | 1.8 |
| ME | 1.9 |
| HI | 2.1 |
| OR | 2.4 |
| WY | 2.4 |
If Ms. Binder was interested in reducing murders and negligent homicides then she would logically be looking at those states with low rates. However, I suspect the author is not at all interested in reducing overall murder but only in the shibboleth of "gun violence". After all, seven or eight of the best states listed above have liberal gun laws meaning they will not fit into the boundaries of her superstitious nonsense.
State Senator Rod Wright (D-Inglewood) introduced a bill (SB363) which will expand the so-called "safe-storage" law "to those who know or should know they are living with someone who is not allowed to possess a firearm.
Bill would expand state's gun-storage requirementThis is another of those proposals that sound reasonable on the surface. However, there is a catch:
The state's list of people who cannot legally own weapons includes those who have a felony or violent misdemeanor conviction; a determination that they are mentally unstable; or a domestic violence restraining order. The list is confidential and used for law-enforcement purposes.
So, in practice, a gun owner can be prosecuted for living with a prohibited person but the database with the information on who is prohibited is confidential. Sounds more like a blatant attempt at entrapment.
In a way this is a good thing. Not the law itself -- it's stupid squared -- but what such a desperate, underhanded attempt means. The antis are losing and they know it. I look for more laws trying to entrap peaceable gun owners using pathetic strategies like storage requirements and ammunition restrictions. Heller and MacDonald decisions took gun bans off the table. Now the wannabe fascists with their "guns for me but not for thee" fantasies ware trying get as many licks in as they can before the courts finally slap them down. They are hoping that if they throw enough shit against the wall and some of the stink will soak in and stay there.
Pope Francis suggests that it is possible.
But the pope, in a morning Mass on Wednesday, suggested that belief and faith weren’t the biggest factors. He said, CNN reported: "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ — all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone. 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist.' But do good: We will meet one another there."
This is sure to spark a wildfire of outrage. The idea that good works can earn salvation really pisses off some Christians. Grace is presented as necessary and sufficient for salvation. In less extreme sects that grace comes as the result of a choice the individual makes to be saved. In its more extreme forms -- Calvinism for example -- the saved were selected at the creation of the world and how each lives his life doesn't matter. At neither extreme, nor in the middle can grace be earned by action. It is a gift from the Christian God and character or conduct have nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation of the soul.
From The Fleecing of California's Gun Purchasers
This week, the California State Assembly Appropriations Committee will be considering a measure that demonstrates the absolute worst in government incompetence and thievery. SB 140 (Leno) outright steals money from a fund entirely paid for (and supposedly dedicated to) law-abiding gun owners to fund the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) failed firearms enforcement program.
When originally imposed on California citizens, the DROS fee was mandated to "...be no more than is necessary..." for the California DOJ to perform the specific duties of background checks and registration. However,
For years, the Department has unlawfully over-collected DROS fees from law-abiding gun owners -- gun owners who spent money and time to comply with the law and submit to the background check process. Where the DROS fees should have been lowered years ago to account for the massive surplus (basically, unconstitutionally assessed taxed), the DOJ has stubbornly refused to lower the fees in spite of substantial evidence of their bad faith accounting.
The man who steal with a gun risks being injured by his victim and is usually branded a criminal and outlaw. The man who steals with a pen risks little: He has the power of the state on his side and is often rewarded with public office. The latter is clearly the case here. When the government starts raiding funds it collected in contravention of the law, it becomes an example of exactly why we Americans have guns in the first place.
In the following video you can see that Sen. Hudek clearly deserves a nomination for Most Egregiously Stupid Comment in a Committee Hearing. Ms. Collins, OTOH, deserve a award for telling the idiot masquerading as a Senator that the right to effective self defense trumps any touchy-feely horseshit about teachers feeling comfortable.
Frankly, if a teacher is uncomfortable with any of his students carrying a gun -- openly or concealed -- he needs to find a different line of work. Fast food service would be appropriate.
Flash Mob Mayhem: Violent Groups Of Teens Leave NYC Businesses In Ruins.
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Violent, thieving mobs have been making headlines across the country for the past few years, and now they have hit New York City.And Maurice Dubois reported in this CBS 2 investigation, the teen mobs have left neighborhoods worried as businesses take matters into their own hands.
Read the rest here.
At the end, the author ask the question, "What do you think needs to be done to stop the teenage mobs?"
I suggest shotguns and buckshot
The police bomb squad was called to 2 World Financial Center in lower Manhattan at midday when a security guard reported a package that seemed suspicious. Brookfield Properties, which runs the property, ordered an evacuation as a precaution.
I'm sure you've seen one. In fact, you can buy them on Amazon
Even if the grenade had been real what could it have realistically destroyed? It makes no sense to evacuate an entire building for a threat that encompasses the mail room at most. Everyone in a forty-four floor building was evacuated for 90 minutes in response to a room sized threat.
Or more accurately, the futility of debating a determinist.
Jerry A. Coyne has an article in USA Today entitled "Why you don't really have free will"
The above article is not an exhaustive defense of hard determinism but it covers some of the high points. In essence, the determinist denies that you can actually make a choice between alternatives. The basic argument usually goes something like this:
If no action is free then every thought I have and every conclusion I reach was determined when the first hydrogen atom bumped into the second. There is no reasoning required. In fact no reasoning or thought is even involved. It is simply computation. One plus one equals two. Determinism means that the ability to reason is nothing more than an illusion. This leaves me with the curious problem of how to reason with someone who effectively denies the possibility of reason.
Imagine I conduct an experiment demonstrating that determinism is probably false. Because determinism requires that both the determinist and the non-determinist have no choice in what they do, the determinist can simply claim that my evidence is the result of a long chain of causal events and was itself determined. Within the constraints imposed by determinism, no rational argument can be made that determinism is false because reason cannot happen in a determined universe. Only computation is possible. In short, determinism cannot be falsified making it more akin to a religious belief -- or a conspiracy -- than anything else.
