Author: VD

Nexus 10 $399 to $499

Google bags the launch and announces its new hardware anyhow:

Hurricane Sandy can’t hold Google (GOOG) down, as the company has just gone ahead and unveiled the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet even though its press conference was canceled. Nexus 4 specs include a 4.7-inch True HD IPS Plus display with 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution, an 8-megapixel camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. The phone starts at a shockingly affordable $299 without any contract or subsidies, and it will launch in the United States on November 3rd.

The Samsung (005930)-built Nexus 10 tablet sports a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel display with a pixel density of 300 PPI, a dual-core 1.7GHz Samsung Exynos chipset, 2GB of RAM, NFC and a 5-megapixel camera. Pricing starts at $399 with 16GB of storage and tops out at $499 for the 32GB model, and both will launch on November 3rd alongside the Nexus 4.

Not quite as aggressively competitive as I’d thought, but it doesn’t sound bad at all.  I’m just hoping that they got the fragile screen issue from the Nexus 7 resolved.

Mailvox: the logic of God II

In which Passerby attempts to poke holes in the logical argument demonstrating the irrationality of his position concerning the simultaneous existence of evil and the nonexistence of God.

Well! I wasn’t expecting an entire fresh post devoted to my challenge
in that other thread. I’m so honored. Pardon my late arrival.  Okay,
first off, VD, looks like you threw a gutter ball from your second
premise, as Riki-Tiki-Tavi already sensed. Let’s have a look at it:

2.
The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a
material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be
classified.

Incorrect. The existent fact of wrongdoing/evil
does not require a material universal standard of right and wrong. The
existent fact of wrongdoing is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Good luck making a sound argument for
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Think anyone can do it passably? I
don’t and I suspect you don’t either. So we should agree there. That’s
point number one.

Point number one is incorrect.  Notice here that Passerby is not only taking exception to my point, but to entire philosophies such as nihilism, existentialism, and, ironically enough, rational materialism.  His argument is surprisingly weak, based as it is on the self-evidence of wrongdoing.  Is it self-evident that stealing is wrong?  That not voting is wrong? 

Consider how little sense his argument makes if we substitute a non-existent fact for wrongdoing/evil.  The existent fact of unicorns
does not require a material universal standard of unicorns and not-unicorns. The
existent fact of unicorns is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of unicorns.

If we cannot tell the difference between a unicorn and a not-unicorn, then we cannot possibly declare that unicorns do or do not exist.  But if we have established the fact that unicorns do exist, we have necessarily established a material and universal standard for what a unicorn is and what a unicorn is not.  Therefore, point number one fails and the second step in the logical argument remains standing.

Point number two. Another thing wrong
with this “necessary universal standard” claim of yours (I noticed you
used that word “standard” seventeen times in your post, so to continue
the bowling metaphor, it’s like your very bowling ball to bowl with,
without which… well, game over — but I’ll give you a dollar so you can
go play some Ms. PacMan) is that six billion people in the world could
have six billion different standards of wrongdoing, but everyone would
nonetheless agree that wrongdoing does exist in the world.

So
let’s imagine those six billion individuals’ six billion different
standards of wrongdoing can be each given a numerical value. I’m not
saying it can ever actually be done, but just go with me here. After
they’ve all been given a numerical value, they’re arranged in order on a
vertical meter with a red zone on the bottom and a green zone on the
top. Put the meter on the lowest setting of “1”. That setting belongs
to a guy who disagrees with all 5,999,999,999 people above him whom he
considers to be an increasing bunch of prissy Miss Manners types who see
wrongdoing in all kinds of ways he doesn’t. But he at least sees one
instance of wrongdoing in the world and everyone above him agrees that
he at least got one right. So it seems to me (I’m just now coming up
with this, but I’ll try to land this thing in one piece) that this
minimum setting of “1” is the standard, if anything, for the existence
of wrongdoing. Below that is “0” which represents nonexistence of
wrongdoing.

Point being, our subjectivity is flawed, but it’s far
from useless! There is, after all, communication and agreement. It’s
precisely because of our limitation as trapped individuals of
subjectivity that science is the best idea we’ve ever come up with (or
happened upon) to make gains on objectivity. To paraphrase Steven
Pinker, science is our highest, purest expression of reason.
Objectivity is perhaps an unattainable goal, but we’ve seemingly made
lots of progress toward it given our technological conquests, our
steadily decreasing rate of violence in ever larger, more complex
populations, etc. I say seemingly because a cosmic rug pulling could be
in store for us a la The Matrix at any time, but that caveat aside,
it’s our processes of communication, cooperation, record keeping,
rhetorical persuasion, experimentation, reason, science, etc. that we
arrive at standards of right and wrong be they amoral (e.g., math,
chemistry, physics) or moral. And we arrive at them, to the extent we
do, through our own shared reasoning, thank you very much. No divinity
needed or even evident. 

Point number two is not so much incorrect as irrelevant, bordering on a category error. In this section, Passerby fails to grasp that an objective standard is more than the sum of six billion subjective opinions, and in fact, no number of subjective opinions can produce an objective standard, by definition.  The more the standard is “influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice”, the less objective it can be, regardless of whether those competing feelings, interpretations, and prejudices are harmonious or not.  Existent evil/wrongdoing requires a material and universal standard, even if our subjective experience of the objective reality is different in six billion different ways.

If the readers don’t mind indulging me in following Passerby on one of his tangents, I will add that Stephen Pinker is wrong about science as he is wrong about so many things.  Science is most certainly not the highest and purest expression of reason.  Not only is it not reason at all, it was specifically conceived, developed, and utilized to replace pure reason.  This is why Science is so often at odds with Philosophy as well as Religion; Science is nothing more than the systematic codification of experience.

So evacuate already

Yes, all the storm warnings about ex-Hurricane Sandy are probably overhyped.  Overhype is one of the chief attributes of our increasingly idiocratic society.  But, even so, what’s the point in taking the risk?  Spacebunny and I used to live in a coastal area, and we figured that if a hurricane ever came our way, we’d just take advantage of it to have a week’s vacation somewhere inland.  So, if you’re in the storm’s path, get out of Dodge and take it easy.

That being said, this warning from the National Weather Service is weirdly sentimental:

1. IF YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO EVACUATE A COASTAL LOCATION BY STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS, PLEASE DO SO.
2. IF YOU ARE RELUCTANT TO EVACUATE, AND YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO RODE
OUT THE ’62 STORM ON THE BARRIER ISLANDS, ASK THEM IF THEY COULD DO IT
AGAIN.
3. IF YOU ARE RELUCTANT, THINK ABOUT YOUR LOVED ONES, THINK ABOUT THE
EMERGENCY RESPONDERS WHO WILL BE UNABLE TO REACH YOU WHEN YOU MAKE THE
PANICKED PHONE CALL TO BE RESCUED, THINK ABOUT THE RESCUE/RECOVERY TEAMS
WHO WILL RESCUE YOU IF YOU ARE INJURED OR RECOVER YOUR REMAINS IF YOU
DO NOT SURVIVE.
4. SANDY IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS STORM. THERE WILL BE MAJOR
PROPERTY DAMAGE, INJURIES ARE PROBABLY UNAVOIDABLE, BUT THE GOAL IS ZERO
FATALITIES.
5. IF YOU THINK THE STORM IS OVER-HYPED AND EXAGGERATED, PLEASE ERR
ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION. WE WISH EVERYONE IN HARMS WAY ALL THE BEST. STAY
SAFE!

Think of the poor children!  Think of the poor banks!  Wait, never mind, that’s the Obama and Romney campaigns, not the Weather Service.  The point is, you’re not going to score any points for hunkering down when you could be at a cheerful bed and breakfast waiting out the storm while enjoying the guilty pleasures of eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and watching the Obama campaign continue to immolate itself.

I do find it interesting, however, that we haven’t heard much about the storm being caused by global warming.  That meme is really dying out fast, because even three years ago, there is no way the media would have missed the chance to bang that drum.  I’m a bit bitter about the storm myself, as it seems to have delayed Google’s announcement of the Nexus 10.  I understand they had to cancel the event, but I would still like to know when it will be available and what it will cost.

Anyhow, if you’re one of the Dread Ilk in the path of the storm, stay safe out there and let us know you’re all right.

WND column

Is Obama unfit for command?

There were no American helicopters shot down at the CIA annex in
Benghazi. But those who have seen the movie, “Blackhawk Down,” will
surely recall the scene where the two Delta snipers, Randy Shugart and
Gary Gordon, are desperately fighting off the Somali attackers, who are
attempting to capture the crew of the downed Black Hawk. Shugart and
Gordon, valiant men who were both posthumously awarded the congressional
Medal of Honor, killed 25 Somalis while defending the crew before being
killed by the enemy militia.

As the details of the large-scale attacks on the American diplomatic
compound and the CIA annex gradually leak out into the press, it appears
that two of the four fallen Americans, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods
and Glen Doherty, died fighting in a manner no less valorous than Sgt.
1st Class Shugart and Master Sgt. Gordon.

John Scalzi squicked me out too

Sometimes, the world is a vastly amusing place.  It’s at times like these that I think perhaps Dr. Pangloss was right and this is the best of all possible worlds.  John appears to be having some belated regrets about google-bombing himself, but you know, that’s the risk you take when you write “satire”.  If our revered SFWA President doesn’t like to see “John Scalzi is a rapist” floating around the Internet, then perhaps Mr. Scalzi should refrain from writing articles on the Internet in which he rhapsodizes about the pleasure he takes in raping women.  It’s a difficult concept, I know, but I’m confident that our fearless leader will one day figure it out.

I find it particularly funny that he claims I’m flailing about and providing unintentional comedy gold:

Blogger Joé McKen catches one of my regular detractors making a spectacularly dumb move, and then watches him flail about, trying to rationalize his unintentional comedy gold. No, I’m not going to link to the detractor’s site directly, because among other things the site is full of racism, sexism and general ick; McKen’s got the links if you want them, and all the relevant details if you don’t.

Over on McKen’s site, one of the commenters there, who is also a frequent commenter here, wonders about whether my detractor could be on the hook for libel. Certainly the detractor’s headline for the particular blog entry in question (“John Scalzi is a rapist”) is factually inaccurate; the detractor is (now, at least) aware it’s so; presuming McKen’s account of event is accurate, which I have no reason to doubt, it wasn’t published with the intent to be satire or hyperbole nor has much chance of being considered so now; and obviously, being branded a rapist, and having it believed, would be detrimental to my public and private life. So if I had a mind to sue my detractor for libel, he might have to hope I am enough of a public figure that it would obviate all those other factors and he wouldn’t be squashed like a bug.

But why sue? I’m happy to have him leave it up as a testament to his both his credulity while he thought it was true, and his mendacity now that he knows that it’s not. It’s a cogent reminder of what both his opinion and credibility is worth.

Credulous, mendacious, and libelous.  There’s a combination one doesn’t often see.  I’m pleased to know that he’s happy I’m leaving it up, though, because the thought of taking it down had never even occurred to me.  The fact of the matter is that John Scalzi announced to the world that he is a rapist.  He is on record at his site declaring as much.  He can claim that his admission is “satire” until he turns blue if he likes, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot come out and say the sorts of things that he does and subsequently complain that your statements have been quoted at length and taken at face value.  It would certainly be interesting to see him attempt to see me “squashed like a bug”:

“He libeled me, your honor!”

“How so?”

“Well, um, he kind of quoted me….”

“He QUOTED you?”

“Yeah, but he KNEW what I was saying wasn’t true!”

“And how do you know he knew that?”

I most certainly do not know that John Scalzi is not a rapist.  I didn’t know it then and I don’t know it now.  He said he is, now he says his previous statement was factually inaccurate… for all I know, John spends his evenings raping his cats in between making calls on behalf of the Obama campaign in Ohio.

His argument becomes even more confusing since he’s also claiming a) I didn’t understand his satire, and, b) there is no reason to doubt my own post was not published with the intent to be satire or hyperbole.  So, apparently we’re to believe that I knowingly libeled him by quoting him about something I believed to be true.  At this point, I’m left to conclude that John’s best defense against having it generally believed that he is a rapist is that anyone reading his increasingly convoluted thoughts on the matter will assume he is a teenage girl.

Now here is the punchline.  John is amazed how deeply he got into the head of a rapist in writing the piece:

“I wrote it from the point of view of a rapist, I think obviously in
retrospect, because it would have a stronger impact if I did. A couple
of people have asked me (not entirely unwarily) how I could get into the
head of someone like that. The short answer is, folks, fiction is what I
do. I try to put myself in the heads of a lot of different people. I will note that in this case, I was very happy to get out of that particular head as quickly as possible. I don’t often squick myself out writing a piece, but this is one time I definitely did.”

He definitely squicked me out too!  I mean, John is such a good and talented writer that I truly believed he was an actual rapist when I read his piece.  It was a shockingly powerful piece.  It was one of the most hauntingly powerful pieces of writing on the subject I have ever seen.  It touched me in places I have never been touched before, without my consent.  He raped us all with his words and I feel hurt, violated, and confused.  I am still convinced that John Scalzi is a rapist, despite his unconvincing ex post facto denials, because obviously no fiction writer, even a best-selling, talented writer like John, could possibly have made up anything THAT convincing. 

VPFL 2012 week 7

81 Fromundah Cheezheads (7-0)
60 Luna City Gamma Rays (2-5)

80 Moundsview Meerkats (5-2)
44 ’63Mercury Marauders (4-3)

71 Bailout Banksters (5-2)
54 Bane Sidhe (3-4)

67 Greenfield Grizzlies (4-3)
62 Suburban Churchians (0-7)

65 RR Redbeards (3-4)
47  D.C. Hangmen (2-5)

The Meerkats scored their fourth blowout of the week, but remain two games behind the Cheezheads.  Can they gain back a game this week?  This is your weekly NFL open thread.

Mailvox: the logic of God

Passerby’s challenge somehow tends to remind me of this series of photographs.  But who knows, perhaps the stag will surprise us:

Definition of evil:  the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing

I’m an atheist and going by Merriam-Webster’s def. of evil above, I say evil exists.  According to VD, my stance is irrational. Prove it. Anyone. Show your work. Lay out the steps proving my logic is flawed. You’ll fail. I will crush you.

Well, let us see about that.  He has made his claim that his stance is rational, (which is to say that evil exists but God does not), so I’ll take up the burden of attempting to falsify it.

  1. Passerby asserts that “the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing” exists.
  2. The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be classified.
  3. A material universal standard of right and wrong must be objective.
  4. Man’s standards of right and wrong are inherently subjective and non-universal.
  5. Therefore the objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong cannot be produced by Man.
  6. The most likely source of an inhuman, objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong is an intelligence of grand scope possessing a direct connection to the area in which that standard applies.
  7. The scope required for that inhuman intelligence to provide the universal standard implies, though it does not necessarily require, extra-universality.
  8. The most reasonable connection between the presumably extra-universal intelligence providing the standard and the area in which that standard applies is that of creator to creation.
  9. The presumably extra-universal intelligent creator that provides the objective, material, universal standard to its presumed creation is quite reasonably described as God.

This logic provides for a small degree of wiggle room here.  A being need not necessarily be either extra-universal nor the creator to successfully impose an objective standard on the universe.  However, since any act of creation that results in an observed objective standard necessarily requires the creation of a standard of some kind, the most rational conclusion is to assume that the standard observed was provided by the creator rather than by some other intelligent, inhuman entity that successfully replaced the original standard.

But I think even if the logic-dictated provider of the universal standard of right and wrong is neither the creator nor extra-universal, its observed ability to impose such a standard upon the universe suffices to justify its recognition as an existent god, at the very least, if not necessarily the Creator God or the Creator God of the Christian Bible.

John Scalzi is a rapist

Now, I was aware that the man had a twisted side to him, but it is really rather remarkable to see John Scalzi so openly admit on his blog that he has raped women:

“I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually. The details of how I do this are not particularly important at the moment — although I love when you try to make distinctions about “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” because that gives me all sorts of wiggle room — but I will tell you one of the details about why I do it: I like to control women and, also and independently, I like to remind them how little control they have.” – John Scalzi, 25 October 2012

I wonder if the SFWA will be concerned that their current president is an admitted rapist or if they’ll take the approach towards him that NOW and the other feminist groups did towards Bill Clinton.  Of course, unlike Scalzi, Clinton never admitted to being a rapist.

Wait, he claims his confession is satire?  Well, that might fool anyone unfamiliar with the concept of blown cover as cover.  But even if we were to take him at his word to not take him at his word, where is the satire?  Satire is supposed to be ironic, but where is the irony? What is being exaggerated?  Given that a) one-third of all forcible rapists are black, and, b) blacks heavily support the Democratic party while whites are fairly evenly split, the statistics indicate that it is very nearly twice as likely a rapist would be inclined to write a fan letter to a Democratic politician rather than to a conservative Republican politician.  This isn’t irony, this is pseudo-ironic left-liberal fantasy.

Perhaps the satire is to be found in Scalzi’s implication that living human beings created without consent of the mother do not merit any of the legal protections and rights afforded all other human beings.  That must be it!  After all, the assertion that certain classes of homo sapiens sapiens are defined as not human isn’t merely a scientifically absurd proposition, but one historically known to be lethally dangerous.

Mailvox: the existence of evil

JB has a question:

I have never heard this question answered before.  If there is no God (or Devil) why is there evil?

The reason you haven’t heard it answered before is because most atheists shy away from explicitly revealing the true extent of their beliefs.  I’ve pinned a few atheists down on this, and to a man, they have admitted that they don’t actually believe in the existence of evil.  Of course, this doesn’t prevent them from making rhetorical use of the concept and insisting that it is the Christian concept of God that is truly evil and so forth.  In doing so, they are either being deceptive or inconsistent.

But the only position on evil that is consistent with rational materialism is that there is no such thing as essential evil or essential good, these are merely subjective labels that are inconsistently applied to various human behaviors and natural events.  Of course, this is not an aspect of atheism that most atheists are eager to advertise, since so many people already tend to consider them amoral or even immoral by definition.

This is one of the reasons I entitled my book on the subject “The Irrational Atheist”.  Most atheism is irrational, as the atheist attempts to reconcile his continued belief in the existence of some sort of objective good or evil while simultaneously denying the existence of its only possible source.  Of course, it’s not the irrational atheist one has to worry about, it is the rational atheist who realizes that in the absence of a lawmaker, there is no law except that which he wills.

That is the reality, though.  If there is no God, there is no good or evil.  This is also the core of my argument for the existence of God; because we materially experience evil, we must logically conclude that God exists.

Hair of the dog

Another green shoot sighting!

For the first time since the Great Recession hit, American households
are taking on more debt than they are shedding, an epochal shift that
might augur a more resilient recovery.

For two of the last three quarters, American households’ total outstanding borrowing on things like credit cards, mortgages and auto loans has increased after falling for 14 consecutive quarters before then. Some economists even see an end to the long, hard process of deleveraging — as they refer to the cutting of debt relative to income or the nation’s economic output. That process, they say, has been a central reason for the extraordinary sluggishness of the recovery.

This increase in household debt is a sign of desperation, not recovery.  There are two times when households increase debt, when things are going well and when things are going very bad.  It defies credibility to think that household finances have improved when unemployment remains historically high and food stamp usage is at all-time highs.

To me, the key indicator of the next stage of the economic collapse may be college loan debt.  It is the only debt sector that has remained strong and grown since 2008.  Graduates who can’t find work have returned to school with the objective of improving their employment prospects and they are going more deeply into debt in order to do so.  This is the last gasp of the education bubble which Instapundit and others have been warning for the last three years.  Once awareness of the fact that more academic credentials do not ensure employment, only a deeper debt hole, begins to sink in with parents and students, we can expect to see a dramatic decline in education-related borrowing.

Note this section in particular: “Americans have also improved their personal balance sheets by slashing their outstanding credit card debt to $855 billion today from more than $1 trillion in 2008, according to Federal Reserve data. But student debt has continued its inexorable march higher, a “worrisome” trend that economists say could stop young workers from starting new households or could eat into their spending on other goods and services.”

It is interesting to see that the idea there is a relationship between debt growth and economic growth is finally percolating into the mainstream economic coverage.  Back in 2002, when I first publicly warned about the potential effects of the housing bubble on the financial system, almost no one understood what I was talking about.  Perhaps in another 10 years, it will finally be acknowledged that there hasn’t been any economic growth since 2001 as all of it has been nothing more than an artifact of expanding debt.