I think we need to start with what 'meaning' means. If I say 'cat' I expect an English speaker to know that I'm talking about a furry animal with retractable claws. Cat 'means' the animal. If someone says 'what is the meaning of life' it presupposes that life is a signifier of something else, a symbol of something else. But this gets it backwards: Life is, and it's a deeper mystery than the cheap words we attach to it when we sing or pray. Life isn't a symbol that means something, it is the definition that the symbols seek to explain. Life is the meaning, falling in love with the words is just looking down the big end of the telescope.I think you definitely CAN logically derive ethics, Hume and Lewis notwithstanding. All you need to start with is some very basic assumptions- that some things hurt and other things are nice, and that other people have feelings broadly similar to your own- and you can get the golden rule without any supernatural-ness whatever. The second commandment is this way derivable, and, as Jesus apparently said, from this hangs the law and the prophets.  By contrast, religions tend to ban arbitrary things like wearing wool blends and eating ferrets and define morality on the basis of divine will. This inverts the believers' concept of ethics; rather than a morality driven by consequences and natural repositories of moral value - people , planet, critters, knowledge and art- some supernatural personality's will (as revealed by magical Hebrews or Arab warlords) gets to decide what is good and evil.

Give me Bernie or Give me Trump

I am beginning to think that we need to try some experiments in Basic Income here in the US.

The Federal government spends 1.8 Trillion per year on Welfare and Medicine alone, more than double the total Military spend; Healthcare alone costs the US taxpayer $8000 dollars per person per year, which is a public health spend higher per capita than any other nation on Earth.

I'm fairly sure that giving people 15k per annum and letting them pay for their own services would be dramatically better for the economy and for efficiency of service delivery than the current system; Its more than many Americans earn. With the cost differential of services across borders, it is legitimate to contemplate driving to Mexico and paying cash rather than paying 100,000 bucks for a hip replacement that actually costs more like 10 grand nearly anywhere else in the world.

If the US worker is to be subject to the competitive pressures of free trade, they ought to share in the Upside as well.

It's not OK to use the tax system to create protected private industries that everyone must pay for, while at the same time opening borders to imports and workers that compete directly in areas other than things like Government services, Health and Education. There are complicating factors; the US effectively subsidises much of the drug discovery and surgical research that benefits the whole planet, and US Universities do lots of good research work, but the bottom line is that the US system is not cost effective in the delivery of basic healthcare or education services.

I'm actually quite happy with either system: either have a National Health Service and remove cost of insurance and profit margins and most of the cost of litigation from the US system, which would enable comprehensive, lifelong, free medicine like in Europe on the existing budget, or let's get all Laissez-faire up in here and make the industries compete in a real capitalist system; give people their money and let the chose.

If that means going to China to get their teeth fixed or Germany for University, so be it. When America's medicos and college professors can then see their salaries cutting the same downward curve as Industrial workers, this may change their feelings about how well the current system works.

Give me an FDR or give me a Reagan, but enough of Privatised/corporatised profits and Nationalised/personalised debts. We're basically in a low point between two functional systems.

There is a significant problem that can affect government decision making that I have not heard much about before.

This might be because Conservatives are not looking for it, and the Left are seriously taciturn about anything that critiques decision making processes within political, rather than commercial organisations? I don't know exactly. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough.

I would argue that decisions made for large numbers of people cannot be rationally based without recourse to statistical methods; from here the problems are two-fold.

Firstly, statistical methods work on the basis of best fit. Which is immensely useful in the design process, ergonomics and so forth, for its ability to turn an incomprehensible mass of data into a single number that can be used in a design.  My main objection to it is that the number of outliers can be large or small, and the decision about how many outliers is acceptable comes down to assumptions which may or may not be stated.

In short, a highly anatomical chair design will injure people whom it fits poorly. How badly they are affected is largely a function of how much clearance, or slack, there is in the design. This is essentially the extent to which the ergonomic design is modified to accommodate those who differ from the mean case that was the original basis for the design. The most egalitarian design is a straight backed chair, which could be said to fit everyone equally badly.

There are definitely times when a less anatomical design may cause less suffering in total, even if the straight-backed chair is less comfortable for someone within half a standard deviation of the mean, depending only on the lack of diversity of the sample. In short, the more diverse the population, the more un-tailored must be the solution to minimise the dis-ergonomic effect on those not close to the designated mean.

This extends to a variety of policy decisions, some of which fit a great many people very badly indeed.

Which brings us to the second problem: most people are intuitively very poor at understanding base-rate statistics even when technically trained, and appallingly bad when untrained. My experience with government in Australia suggests that in the public sector, Arts majors predominate, whereas in business, quantitive skills are far more prevalent.

This leads to policy being informed by officially sanctioned narratives rather than empirical data, and often, by heavily dialectic reasoning, bordering on reasoning by analogy.

There is no way to to quantify fit with a qualitative narrative. If the policy starts that way, it may be subject to numerical analysis only when it is being budgeted for; at this point, it is all about costing, the quantity most measured is monetary.

This excludes a lot of very important variables from consideration, especially those variables significant to the design.

In Praise of the Millennial Hipster

It's no secret that I both admire and envy the younger crew, the cohort that gets tagged Gen Y or 'the millennials'.

They cop a lot of flack but that's frankly just sour grapes.

In fairness, they have a tough gig, but they are a lot less fucked up than my cohort, who were wearing grunge flannel and listening to Nirvana in the early 90's.

The difference, to some extent, is that we were raised by Baby Boomers, and they mostly weren't. This is a significant advantage.

The main beef I have with Boomers as parents was their annoying tendency to try to make the world a better place by means of social change. Making the World Better By Changing the Culture of the Rising Generation. We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones to make a brighter day so let's start giving. For fuck's sake.

Which of course just created the most guilt-ridden and suicidal teenagers in history, and changed absolutely nothing, that being the very job that the hedonists turned moralists turned capitalists turned doomsayers of that generation diligently shirked for the past sixty years, while talking a game that could blister paint.

The main issue was the idea that you could sidestep physics, economics, engineering and even ecology and do something useful by grasping the social levers: "changing ourselves", which really meant telling your kids to be eco-messiahs AND fiscally responsible. At the same fucking time.

Folding paper cranes for World Peace is the best example i can think of to exemplify this insanity. It didn't work.

It was as futile and as weird as the empty promises of an 18-year old Miss America in swimsuit and stilettos; standing, nearly naked in front of a clothed crowd, aping beautiful sentiments in a display of heartbreaking hope and slightly erotic cultural submission.

One with absolutely zero probability of coming to fruition, because there was no mechanism behind the beautiful clock face, that would turn the wheels and bring the ship around.

They taught her to say these things, but never gave her the captain's chair.

And now, Gen Y are rolling their own way. They dress better, travel more, grow beards, watch porn, have fewer abortions and use less drugs than their parents. They ride bicycles, and try to live in whatever fragments remain of the Transit Cities.

The remnants of the Pre-War urban landscape, built by the Great-grandparents that the "Greatest" generation and the Boomers rebelled against; whatever fragments of sound urban planning escaped the Suburban Apocalypse, has Trains, dense urban form, walkable plazas: That kinda space is where Gen Y want to live.

They have to rent, of course, but that's ok.

And yeah, they are a bit flaky at work, and they like their toys,  but they're all right, these kids. I think we need to give them a go, and see how they pull up. I'm betting it will be considerably better than the Boomer cohort or the guilt ridden, preachy Gen X crew.

So Go Kids, lets see how you do. I'm barracking for you, anyway.

May the FSM be with you.

One of the mixed blessings of the human condition is our ability to doubt. Without Doubt, orthodoxies would simply be handed down from one generation to another, and we would be stuck with whatever mental tool kit we were given by our parents. Beliefs tend to be conservative: Someone once catches something nasty from eating mussels and three thousand years later they stay un-Kosher. And that sort of thing.

Our ability to doubt is a dangerous and powerful force for change. It can question anything. It undresses Emperors and it barbecues Holy Cows. Mixed with curiosity, it underpins the scientific disposition.

 It is also, ironically, able to leave us stranded at a crossroads, paralysed with indecision.

 Our ability to doubt is most powerful when we are in the belly of a highly organised system; in a train on a track, it is perfectly suitable to ask "is this the right way? Is this the best way?"

But when the scope of what is possible opens up into a plain before us, "are we going the right way?" is almost meaningless. Because there are nearly infinite choices, and no Rails, no roads, no gods or kings, just the vastness of the Possible.

Among the doubtful, there are those whose Doubt is really Fear, and they respond to this situation with a kind of Possibility Agoraphobia. In company, they will form a pile with their heads in the middle, like a mob of sleeping turkeys, and recite comforting platitudes at one another to block out the awful silence of the open plain. They don't reason too vigorously, because for them the instinct to flock is stronger than the instinct to navigate. I have never been able to stand that way of thinking; let me be clear: In the Environmental movement, this is a Fucking Bad Habit.

Its time to look at the vast space of the possible and just pick some things that are worth doing. And then sodding get on with them already.

This necessitates the realism of accepting that every course of action in the real world will have some negative consequences. Doubt and fear are not going to help lead to good decisions if someone has a inability to risk, and an inability to assess and accept the reality of the Downside. Every course of action has one.

For example: Wind Turbines.

Wind turbines will kill some birds. Fewer than cars, fewer than cats, fewer than plate glass windows, fewer than power lines, but some birds are gonna die.

And its OK.

Because if we let Climate Change turn their habitat into a dust bowl, they are ALL fucked. They can learn to avoid flying into turbines and most will, but they cannot learn to avoid habitat loss.  We are gonna need a lot of wind to make decarbonising the economy work. So fucking deal with it, hippies, or stop pretending that you are environmentalists.

Ditto Solar. I read some Ass who seriously suggested that the solid waste from solar was a "dirty little secret" but when you run the numbers, the waste was about the size of a Wall Mart parking lot to the depth of 10 feet. That's it. Big fucking deal. The Fly Ash mountains of radioactive crap heaping up from Coal are vastly more of an issue, as well as being far larger in volume. As in, by orders of magnitude. Some cardboard boxes are not going to make me think the Status Quo is the best we can do. For Fucks Sake.

And electric transport: Jesus the crap I have heard surrounding this. Yeah, they use Lithium. There's a lot of it. And when the battery is dead...we recycle it. Its an element, not a compound like the Hydrocarbons in Oil that we burn and that float non-renewably into the Atmosphere. Its a battery. All the stuff stays inside. For Fuck's wee pious sake.

If we link these three technologies together and run the numbers, something amazing happens: we have a different kind of economy with  chance of actually working. 4 kWh of electricity can propel a Tesla nearly as far as an SUV can go on a Gallon of gasoline. And here is the kicker: the refining of Oil into Gasoline requires nearly 4kWh/Gallon.

Displacing the Gasoline not only allows you to do something better with the Oil (like international air travel, yeeeehaaaa!) but the downside for the energy budget is minimal.

1KW of solar panels is now about 5-600 bucks on the word market. This will propel a car some 15 miles on a summer day. The numbers work.

I suspect sometimes that the relative straightforwardness of a solution is what upsets those that have a longstanding emotional commitment to Doom. A future in which Mad Max just plugs his road warrior-mobile into a charge point and drinks a few coffees as his batteries top off is not as compelling somehow as him battling leather-clad fetish enthusiasts for the petroleum lifeblood of the Post Apocalypse.

Selling Sane Max to the masses is not going particularly well, either.

For some reason, you tell people, guys, we have made some cool things that allow us to drive around and run air conditioning and have electronic gadgets AND we can have clean air too....whaddaya say? And you hear crickets.

Don't get me wrong, there is an immense amount of work to do. To give everyone enough power to have lights and computing and a bit of air con means we need about 20 billion solar panels installed and probably 10 million wind turbines. That there is a shitload of work.

But frankly, work doesn't scare me. We CAN do this. Big Business has pulled its head out of its backside and has joined the party, and they are doing some pretty cool things. There are a bazillion startups trying to be the grease in the gears of the new energy economy, including mine.

We got this. This is something that humanity is going to be proud of in 50 years.

So lets put Mad Max to rest already. He's a pain in the arse.

I have come suddenly to realize why I love science, even though the maths is heavy going for me and the subjects often dry as hell: what sets my soul free is that words and symbols have agreed-upon meanings and the logical relationships between them are respected in discourse. This Rigidity upsets some people but it is this very thing that allows scientists to build diverse equations, with lots of complex parts, with enough accuracy and precision that the relationships will hold even when there are many subunits of argument joined together.
Trying to have a rational conversation with a postmodernist, by contrast, is like trying to knit a clock: without the ability to define component parts, there is zero chance of making the mechanism function.
And every ideologue I have ever met has been guilty of the same thing; deliberately degrading the ability of language to hold meaning. Refusing to agree on the definition of significant terms even for the purposes of one conversation. The left create wiggle room with the mechanistic/dialectic furphy, deconstructionism denies that correlation between word and meaning can exist and religious types just employ spectacularly floppy definitions that lead to defiensible logical dead-ends. Charity is the Pure Love of Christ.....mmmKay?
So hear/here is a (post)'modern koan for y'all: What is the sound of one hand slapping its own forhead in a perfect journalistic vacuum?

Commandments for Atheists: I had a bash at some on Quora.

1.Thou shalt not write any commandments unto thee in pseudo-Elizabethan save it be thou hast an understanding of the ways in which thou must alter also the endy-thingys on thy Verbs. Don't mess with this, for I am a grammar Nazi, and did write these commandments with mine own finger (not a touch typist).  
2. Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you, but only after      a) Being quite sure they want you to do anything unto them, and 
 b) making sure that you are both into the same kinda stuff, since tastes vary. A LOT. And look out for:
 c) Assuming that everyone has the same interests and likes as you is a sign that you are on the Spectrum
3. The world is real. If you are into solipsism, grow up. Assuming that you are the only sentient being in a giant simulation/dream/matrix thingy assumes the existence of an intelligence so colossal that you/the matrix thingy wrote every line of code, every strand of DNA,  invented every gadget, wrote Shakespeare and Defoe, as well as every mathematical theorem ever devised.  HINT: No you didn't. The second law of thermodynamics works with information too. Therefore: Be modest, believe that the world is real and therefore people, nature and living creatures exist and can suffer, just like you. 
4. Observation is the way to learn about the universe. The scientific method helps condense that into actionable principles. It pretty much rocks. 
5. Intent is only "a thing" to social animals like primates and dogs. Your dog will forgive you if you step on it accidentally and then make it clear you didn't mean it. The atmosphere is not a pack animal, and does not give a toss about how you feel about it. Nor do endangered species. For non-human, non-canine entities, primate morality is irrelevant. Talk to the biosphere in the language it understands, by not polluting the shit out of it/their habitat. They won't thank you. cos they're not that smart, but you are.   
6. If you have an opportunity to do good at little cost to yourself, DO IT. The line of real morality starts at the 0-sum. If an action takes more from the world than it gives the Taker, we call that Evil. Like stealing a tradesman's tools to buy a reefer. EVIL. Like raping someone: 5 minutes of creepy fun that leaves the victim with a lot of emotional shit to deal with, that may take years. EVIL. If you really want to give on a zero sum basis, that's your call, but what we need to look for is ways to make things better that return more than they cost. Small investments in people can change the world. 
7. Work. Real self esteem is not given by others, it happens when you feel like you are on your own journey and succeeding. If you've had a tough start, set modest goals and keep trying. 
8. Try not to think in terms of sunk costs or lost opportunities. Neither count for shit. Future focused decision making is the only way to go. 
9. We are creatures that evolved to live in small groups, and this is still our defining vice. Try not to be tribal and exclude people for silly reasons. 
10. Use reason and kindness together as a kind of 2-part putty. It works for me