Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: IQ vs genius

MB inquires about my relative dearth of creative accomplishment:

Would you care to expound on the idea that simply possessing a genius IQ in no way presupposes that the owner will produce genius art work or scientific discovery? For example, I perused your novel Summa Elvetica and within the the first few pages could discern that your prose was workman-like and ordinary (as opposed to Shakespeare or my own fiction).

Whereas your discursive prose and arguments are a cut above the general punditry. I would surmise that focus has much to do with it. You have focused little on what makes for profound and beautiful in the creative, I would guess, and more on other things.

So, do you feel disappointed that your creative work is weak while your opinion work is excellent, or simply practice the art for the pleasure and not the result as so many guitarists enjoy strumming a few tunes while incapable of demonstrating the instrument’s potential and scope?

First, I reject the idea of genius-level intelligence. Intelligence is real and IQ is a reasonable measure of it, but it is not synonymous with genius. Intelligence is nothing more than raw intellectual capacity while genius is a proven form of intellectual achievement. There are geniuses who do not have an unusually high level of intelligence while the vast majority high-IQ level individuals are not geniuses. That latter category, I regretfully have to admit at this point, would appear to include me… although should my most recent technological innovation achieve a sufficient level of success, people will eventually reach an entirely different conclusion. Suddenly the dilettante vanishes and is replaced by the Renaissance Man. Such are the vagaries of reputation.

I must also take exception to MB’s description of Summa Elvetica as a weak creative work based on what appears to have been more of a perusal than an actual reading. While its prose is admittedly no more than functional, when viewed from a structural perspective, SE is arguably among the most creative works of fantasy fiction to be published in recent years. I think it would be a travesty to ignore those aspects and simply lump the novel in with all of the stagnant vampire and zombie fluff that has been published of late. Consider, for example that the Black Gate reviewer actually confused the fictional Question of Aelven anima with a real one composed by Thomas Aquinas. I may not be playing the guitar as well as the more notable soloists, but I am indubitably playing it in a different and innovative manner. In any case, I like playing it regardless of the result.

Now, as to the notion of whether my creative works have been hampered by my lack of focus, that is almost surely the case. But not to any great extent. Due to diminishing marginal returns, I don’t think that focusing more on fiction would significantly improve my prose style. Based on my extensive reading, I believe you either have it or you don’t, and I simply don’t. Compared to the writers I admire, I am wholly mediocre when it comes to writing prose and it is only my intelligence that permits me to surmount that on occasion by adding other elements that readers of a more intellectual inclination may find interesting. I don’t think my commentary is actually any better in that regard, it’s just that the bar is set so low by the professional journalists that practically anything looks good by comparison. It’s much harder to come out well in a comparison with Tanith Lee and Guy de Maupassant than with Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd.

Also, in the case of commentary, those aforementioned other elements are much more important than the prose. No one cares how beautifully you might happen to write about bond yield spreads, but they care a great deal about knowing if you have correctly ascertained the next area of debt contagion.

Mailvox: libertarian success

JY asks about the prospects for an applied libertarian society:

Do you believe that the success of applied Libertarianism is at all related to a society’s “collective morality”? The question I’m dealing with is whether a form of limited government, which some Libertarian’s advocate, is sustainable apart from a moral society (in this case, by “moral society” I mean one that closely aligns with the general Judeo-Christian ethic).

Not in the slightest. Libertarianism is a secular defense mechanism against evil; a moral Christian society can tolerate and survive big government much better than a purely secular one due to the limits built into Christian morality. Those limits will be violated from time to time, Man being fallen, but the centuries-long history of hundreds of Christian near-absolute rulers who never once engaged in the sort of routine butchery of their people that secular irreligious rulers regularly do shows that it is secular and immoral societies that are the most in need of libertarian government.

The problem is not that people are not Christian enough to pursue libertarian government, it is that they are not intelligent enough. Anyone who seeks special favors from a government empowered to grant them is a self-interested, shortsighted, gambling fool, because the government that can give can also take away and will do so whenever its own interest comes into conflict with the individuals.

Non-libertarians want cheap government health care, but they don’t want the government to deny them care or euthanize them when their health care threatens to become expensive. The problem is that most people are insufficiently intelligent to recognize that the former necessarily dictates the latter.

UPDATE – TZ points out an omission: I don’t think you answered the question that was asked: “whether a form of limited government, which some Libertarian’s advocate, is sustainable apart from a moral society”

Fair enough. Okay, my answer is this: no form of limited government is sustainable in the long term because no form of government is permanently sustainable. The most that can be said is that a moral society can be sustained longer than an immoral one, regardless of whether the form of government is limited or unlimited.

What books would you recommend for a young person (teen) just forming political ideas, leaning libertarian?

A lot of Robert Heinlein. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Tunnel in the Sky are probably the two best. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is the conventional work that has probably has the most influence on current libertarians. Orwell’s 1984 isn’t libertarian per se, but is well worth reading. And Hayek’s Road to Serfdom is a must. Unfortunately, I haven’t read much in the way of explicitly libertarian philosophy or ideology that I find worth recommending.

Mailvox: the thin, blue, and not very bright line

A police officer responds to today’s column on public pensions:

Some public pension systems are over the top. Here in Oregon, most public employees contribute nothing to their pension funds. When I was a police officer in SoCal, my pension fund was a contract. I contributed so much per paycheck and it was matched by the public entity I worked for. Periodic raises and benefits were negotiated without threat of strike or public demonstration.

I chose police work because I liked it. No one held a gun at my back and said be a cop. Just as no one held a gun at another man’s back and told him to be a carpenter. You accept the good and bad as with any profession. As far as my pension is concerned, it is subject to the same cutbacks as any pension system would be given the current economic downturn. Plus, I pay for any increase in medical premiums for me and my spouse, just as millions of other retirees do.

Lastly, to make the statement about police officers not risking their lives like a Marine in Afganistan shows your ignorance. A police officer is under the gun every single day he or she is on the job. Every time you knock on a door, you do not know who or what is on the other side. Statistics show it. People can do four years in the Marines and never hear a shot fired in anger. I suspect that you, Mr. Day were never in the military and have never worked a shift in a patrol car. How pathetic.

To which I responded thusly: “It would appear that police work doesn’t require much in the way of mathematics or logic. If you believe being a policeman is more dangerous than being a combat soldier in a war zone, you clearly don’t know the first thing about statistics. In any case, no amount of potential danger justifies being paid over $100k per year for not working. Especially when there is no money to pay for the non-delivery of services.”

Our police friend makes a massive error of basic logic by comparing all HYPOTHETICAL police danger to ACTUAL Marine Corps combat zone danger. It’s true that some Marines can serve four years and never hear a shot fired in anger, but most police serve their entire career and never hear one either. I would have thought this was obvious, but since it might benefit our enbadged protectors to have it spelled out slowly for them, I shall herewith do so.

800,000: Total number of US police officers
126: Number of US police officers “killed” in the line of duty in 2009.

70,000: Total number of US troops in Afghanistan
318: Number of US troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009

Obviously, a police officer is 28.8 times less likely to be “killed” in the line of duty than a soldier is to be killed while stationed in a combat zone. Furthermore, the reason that I put quotes around the term “killed” is that barely half the police “killed” were, in fact, purposefully killed by anyone. The 126 number includes heart attacks, car accidents, and even one entitled “accidental” which could be anything from slipping in the shower to autoerotica gone awry. The comparable number is actually 58, which means that the average soldier currently faces 62.7X more risk of death than does the average policeman.

I don’t think the “danger” argument is one that police would be wise to utilize in order to justify why they are paid so much more in salary and pension plans than America’s soldiers.

Mailvox: where is the love?

KC is concerned about my willingness to express my opinion about others’ capacity for applied intelligence:

Vox, I enjoy reading your blog a lot of the time: you provide interesting stories and insight into them, and I appreciate your faith. However, might I suggest that you refrain from labeling “most people regardless of what they believe” inane/idiots? It seems very judgmental of you and makes me question your fundamental attitude towards humanity or what God is capable of doing in/through the least of us. It often seems as though you place more worth in the intelligence of your fellow man than their fundamental worth in God.

An impoverished farmer in Korea that has received no education and is, by all secular account, worthless intellectually could have MUCH more to teach me about the Kingdom of God due to his close relationship with God than the most highly acclaimed theological intellectuals.

Acts 13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.

All I am saying is that Jesus “cherished” the unlovely and unintelligent because they were human. You might not have MEANT that uneducated/unintelligent believers are to be “cherished” less in an absolute sense, as I know you are speaking to an intellectual wanting to learn intelligent Christian arguments. However the basis of faith and love of God is not primarily supposed to come from our ability to grasp high falutin arguments but a fundamental heart change and love of God and neighbor. Valuing intellectualism above this makes it an idol as abhorrant as the golden calf. 1st and 2nd commandments, man.

I know, and you know, you’re a lot more intelligent than many people in a lot of ways however that really means nothing in God’s eyes, as he has given us all everything we have. What we will be judged on is our hearts, and our hearts are only changed when we willingly submit ourselves to his desire for us, greatest of which is for us to LOVE. I don’t know you and don’t want to presume to have more insight into your attitude than I do. However, you – I think you know this – very often do not present yourself as loving and hurting for humanity (actually I seem to recall you boasting about your arrogance!), but as an annoyed and in some instances even amused observer at the shortcomings, failings, and sin of your fellow man. For instance, you more quickly laugh at the deeply delusional feminist who is in confusion about how her former choices have led to her current pain than show compassion. Obviously her choices were/are bad and she is not accurately perceiving reality but should we LAUGH AT her? Is that would Jesus would do? Is that the attitude God wants you to cultivate in yourself and share with others? Or should you feel deep compassion for the pain her sins have caused her and the state of the secular world that is so deeply influencing people to make decisions that will lead them to eternal condemnation?

Anyway, I hope that you will receive this with an open heart and not attack me if you do respond to me. I don’t know if anyone else has shared this with you but it from what I have observed, it is area in your life that is not congruent with the way Christ would have you think and behave. We are not to cultivate an attitude of mocking, dismissing, and writing off those immersed in this fallen world, but to continually beseech God for a heart of compassion and desire to see them brought to the Light. Have you meditated at all on 1Corinthians 13?

I think KC is operating under a severe misapprehension with regards to my opinion of intelligence. In my opinion, it is no more judgmental to declare that someone is “an idiot” or “inane” than to declare that he is “short” or “brown-eyed” or “Asian”. It’s just an observable fact, based on the individual’s behavior which indicates either a lack of cognitive capacity or a disinclination to use one’s cognitive capacity in a rational manner. While one can argue over the legitimacy of the application of the observation, once the matter has been demonstrated to a reasonable degree, there is no reason beyond the vagaries of etiquette to shy away from applying the correct label to an individual. And Internet etiquette is a very different thing than RL etiquette.

I would be the very last one to argue that God cherishes the unintelligent. Compared to Him, we are all complete idiots and yet He loves some of us anyhow. [Idiots and the Scripturally ignorant will please submit their erroneous arguments about God loving everyone equally here.] And given that I believe an impoverished, uneducated North Korean farmer is more useful and possesses more intrinsic human value than a Goldman Sachs investment banker with an Ivy League diploma, I don’t find it hard to imagine that God might find genuine value in him as well. But love and an accurate summation of cognitive use and capacity are simply two different things. I think it would correct to chastise me if I was walking around and attempting to hurt people by telling them how idiotic they are without any provocation, but that’s simply not the case here.

The statistical fact of the matter is that most people, the overwhelming majority, are functionally sub-normal. Since 50% of the population possesses IQs below 100 and a majority of the population with IQs above 100 observably spend absolutely no time thinking about anything, one can only conclude that most people are idiots regardless of one’s individual vantage point. And we’re all functional idiots from time to time; I could certainly fill weeks of blog posts about my own lapses into functional idiocy.

But getting back to KC’s primary point, I see no love in indulging the idiocy of others and none in enabling idiotic behavior either. I believe the Biblical model is to speak the truth, to provide a clear warning of consequences, and then to let those who willfully choose or are for one reason or another doomed to idiocy experience the full and unmitigated consequences of their actions.

As for any subsequent pointing and laughing, well, KC has probably got a relevant point there. Mea maxima culpa. I shall in the future endeavor to focus solely upon the surgical dissections and leave any amused appreciation of the artistry to others.

Mailvox: a humble request

PC has found the Common Sense dialogue to be of no little interest and has a few questions:

Love the blog and hope that you can answer a few questions for me. Your correspondence with Common Sense Atheism made me reconsider many of my thoughts on Christianity and God. Like him, I felt in command of the fundamentals of Christian theology when all I know are Bible stories and sermons from my youth. And it bothers me that I have neglected a large field of intellectual inquiry. However, many of the Christians I meet and evangelical literature I come across are just as inane as the childish arguments for atheism that are too common on the internet. I am glad to have found in you an intelligent advocate who can discuss these topics without nonsense.

How do I begin to erase this deficit? What are some books that I can read this summer to learn the doctrine of Christianity? Where can I find intelligent arguments for the existence of God? Are local priests and ministers generally good discussion partners?

I’m a mathematician, so I like my theory raw. Don’t be afraid to lay the good stuff on me.

On a different note, I am interested in your conversion to Christianity, how a self-proclaimed internet superintelligence discovered and accepted belief. Also, you mention occasionally that one of your reasons for faith is because you saw evil in the world. Could you elaborate on this? What do you mean by evil? What are some examples?

First, always remember that most people are inane. Most people are idiots no matter what they do or do not believe. If you find an honest and intelligent interlocutor in any area, then cherish him regardless of how similar or divergent your views happen to be. Synchronicity of perspective is not an intrinsic hallmark of intelligence.

Second, I must freely admit that I am overdue in writing my response to Luke’s last post. I’m not the least bit apologetic about my tardiness, mind you, as we just went gold on a year-long software project yesterday and I’m still in the process of gradually reanimating from development zombie mode. As will soon become clear, Luke and I are so far apart in philosophical areas that have absolutely nothing to do with religion that our differences of opinion with regards to Christianity almost pale in comparison. But it should take the discourse in an interesting and perhaps unexpected direction.

Third, I think it is absolutely refreshing whenever someone steps back to reconsider what they actually do and do not know, contra their previous assumptions. As much as I might brutally tear into Luke, or anyone else, for mistaking their half-remembered fragments of childhood knowledge for a comprehensive grasp of a subject, it’s actually an entirely normal failure to revisit the past. I remember being astounded when SB dryly asked me why I thought the crust was the healthiest part of the bread… the real reason was that someone had once told me that as a young child and I had never once bothered to actually stop and think about the matter. And the observable fact is that most people never stop and think about anything they have been told by their parents, their teachers, and their professors. So, it should come as no surprise at all that most atheists raised in a Christian tradition should belatedly discover that they really don’t know that much about the simple theological facts of the faith they are rejecting… in the unlikely event they ever stop long enough to seriously consider the matter.

This is why I tend to take an atheist who abandons a religious faith after the age of 30 much more seriously than the normal teenage deconvert. Think about this for a second: How many of your decisions made in your teen years do you still think were particularly wise or intelligent today? And every childhood deconvert I have ever questioned has simply had Daddy issues of one sort or another. You can usually identify the latter sort by their emotional reactions to religion.

As for learning about the Christian faith and theology, the two best books with which to begin are Letters From a Skeptic by Greg Boyd and Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. I would follow that with Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton, and Cynic, Sage, or Son of God, also by Boyd. Then re-read the four Gospels. As for priests and ministers, well, I wouldn’t expect too much out of them other than a reasonably accurate summation of the theology. Remember, they are called to be shepherds of the flock, not providers of intellectual discourse to the highly intelligent. This isn’t to say that no priest or minister is capable of it, but it’s really somewhat of a category error to seek it from them.

Regarding evil, I simply mean behavior that is described as evil or wickedness in the Bible as well as the influences, autonomous or otherwise, that encourage that behavior. I see it in the world and I see it in myself. I have seen it in the transparent lies of an almost-innocent child, in the irrational fury of a hysterical woman, in the maddened glee of a violent man, and throughout the blood-soaked pages of history. I have seen it in the rich and the poor, in the brilliant and the dim, and in the beautiful and the ugly. Once, like many an arrogant non-believer before me, I thought I could construct my own valid moral code and live by it. And, like everyone but the nihilists, I failed. Not spectacularly, but worse, ludicrously and unneccessarily.

As for evil, you know what it is. It is everything from the first lie you tell your parents and that senseless momentary impulse to smash your fist into an unsuspecting person’s face as they walk by to the Ten Persecutions of Imperial Rome and the Killing Fields. I have no doubt that you have heard the little whispers in the back of your mind from time to time just like everyone else. There are two parts to evil, the temptation and the submission. When the submission finally comes, when the resistance finally fails, it feels absolutely liberating at first and it is only after a period of repeated acts of submission that one gradually discovers apparent how enslaving evil truly is. Hence the apparent theological dichotomy of finding freedom through bending the knee before the Lord Jesus Christ.

I think that unless one understands that evil is in some senses desirable to every man and woman, one cannot even begin to make sense of the Christian faith. Unfortunately, many if not most Christians take the admonition to hate evil and twist it into an erroneous dogma that insists evil is not and cannot be enjoyable. And yet, no matter how terrible the act, it always feels either good or necessary at the moment of action. This is just one of the many ways in which I find the Christian perspective to be more observably accurate than the current scientific ones.

I do not speak about my personal experience with anyone. This is for several reasons, but primarily because I understand that personal experiences are not an objective basis for rational argument. In addition, I know that atheists reject personal experience as a basis for belief even in the case of their own experiences, or at least they claim to do so. So, there is clearly no point in it. The atheist who queries, even sincerely and in good faith, about someone else’s experience is attempting to put himself in the position of prosecutor and judge and I have no interest in playing star witness and public defender.

I tend to doubt this response answered all of your questions, but at least it should suffice to give you a starting point on your investigation. And before you begin reading anything, I highly recommend contemplating the significance of John 20:24-31. I think many atheists who are conditioned to believe in the idea of a blind Christian faith and its supposed arrogance, would do well to become familiar with what is indubitably the genuine Christian attitude towards doubts and doubters.

Mailvox: In which we point and laugh

Keller demonstrates to all and sundry that he doesn’t have to worry about demonstrating his insecurity by joining Mensa:

There is nothing, nothing, more insecure than belonging to Mensa. I don’t think Molotov Mitchell or his wife are very smart…. Yes, there is nothing insecure about wasting money to have a meaningless membership in a “smarty” club. Ha, I mean what a lame, pathetic, girly thing. It’s like paying money to belong to a “Big Penis Club.” God forbid we verify your intelligence or penis size, we just have to see the membership card and you’ve won the argument!

It is eminently clear that Keller isn’t smart enough to figure out how Mensa works. If Mensa were, in fact, a “Big Penis Club”, it would most certainly require the third-party verification of your penis size. Hence the requirement to take an intelligence test in order to qualify for membership in Mensa. In fact, according to a 2003 survey of 5,000 men, Mensa is roughly the IQ equivalent of having an 8.15-inch penis.

Now, as to whether one considers Mr. Mitchell or his wife to be very smart or not, that completely depends upon one’s perspective. The Mensa requirement is not terribly high; there are approximately 120 million individuals on the planet capable of qualifying. However, if someone is a Mensa member, then he possesses incontrovertible evidence that he is more intelligent than 5.88 billion of the people on the planet. And that’s assuming that the individual barely squeaked past the Mensa bar, it’s entirely possible that he is oen of the few Mensans who are as far beyond the Mensa requirements as the requirements themselves are beyond the average 100 IQ individual.

As for insecurities, I can honestly say that I have never met an insecure Mensan. Of course, I’ve never been to a meeting or anything, and as is probably abundantly clear to most of the regulars by now, my membership is little more than one of the many tools in the AWCA arsenal. But since the subject of personal insecurity was raised, I would be remiss if I failed to note that getting one’s panties in a bunch over someone else’s membership card is hardly a reliable indicator of a confident and self-contained personality. A reaction to Mensa membership always tends to remind me of those poor independents who spent four years walking around a Greek-dominated campus complaining about fraternities and wearing a GDI sweatshirt.

Mailvox: prayer request

Regular reader LP sends this one out to the Ilk:

My mom was hit by 2 cars Tuesday evening. She is not ok, we are not sure about the extent of her injuries. She broke around 6 to 9 ribs, to top it all off, today is her 60th b-day. Her car was totaled as were the other cars. The two cars sandwiched my mother’s car. She may have cardio thoracic surgery, not sure on that, but her hip and pelvis are fractured. She was sent to Allegheny ICU in Pittsburgh. Dad and I have been there and so far she is looking so-so. Keep her in your prayers. Do pray for the other 2 to 3 people in the wreck as well as they were sent to UPMC ICU that night.

Here is hoping she will make a full recovery.

A failure to communicate

I believe that’s what we have here:

I believe that when you say that Catholics are not Christian you are wrong.

I am not in the business of deciding who is and who is not a Christian. What I was referring to when I wrote “although many Catholics are Christians, many are not by any reasonable Bible-based definition of the latter term” is Catholics who themselves abjure Christianity. There are no shortage of confirmed Catholics who reject the label “Christian” but nevertheless describe themselves as Catholics. Indeed, in Italy, they probably make up the majority of Catholics. While they are cultural Catholics, one cannot reasonably describe them as Christians because they themselves will tell you they are not.

But speaking of Catholics, it is good to see that the Vatican is finally beginning to lay the greater part of the blame for their priestly sexual abuse scandal where it properly belongs, on homosexual priests who should never have been admitted to the priesthood in the first place. The Catholic hierarchy is still responsible, of course, as it was their decision to accept those priests and their failure to deal appropriately with the predictable consequences of that decision when they eventually surfaced.

The Holy See’s second-highest prelate after the Pope has blamed homosexuals for the paedophile crisis. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, said that the child rape scandal that is threatening the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide is linked to homosexuality and not celibacy among priests.

I can’t help but find it funny that the example cited by the Times in an obvious attempt to surreptitiously rebut Bertone’s statement refers to a “paedophile” priest having sex with a young girl from the time she was 16 until she was 20. By this standard, pretty much every single college man in the country is a pedophile. The man was clearly not fit for the priesthood and should have been stripped of his office long ago, but on the basis of the example cited, he was just as clearly not a pedophile.

Mailvox: Catkiller’s crusade

I have no idea what Catkiller is going on about here, but if you are one of those freaks who keep sending me things like “I bet 100,000 people like cheetohs better than Dalia Grybauskaitė” on Facebook, this may appeal to you:

Go to http://www.amaze.fm/ and fill out the short form to become a fan. You’ll have to confirm your free account on your email. Then go to our list of songs under “Mindclear”. You can do this by searching or just click on the “charts” link. Our songs are “This Song”, “Nock”, “Killing Your Dream” and “The First Star”. Rate them out of five stars and make a comment if you like. The important thing is the rating. We’re already in the top ten with two songs at the time I’m writing this. If we’re at #1 at the end of the week, Hugh Hewitt will play us on the radio. Maegan will be thrilled. Just one vote is huge, so your vote might be the one that puts us over the top.

Employment application advice

Karl Denninger points out how it is possible to take advantage of the legal maze that surrounds the modern corporate employment:

So here’s the deal folks: While I can’t ask you about your health status nor if you have dependents, nothing prohibits you from putting that information on your resume if it is to your advantage – and it is, if you are in excellent health and have no dependents.

Will this matter?

In this economy you better believe it. This has been true forever, but it has become even more true with the passage of Obama’s “Health Care” law. So if you’re unemployed and have these cost-impacting facts in your favor, make damn sure you list them.

An employer cannot ask about this, nor can you realistically discuss this in an interview, but absolutely nothing prohibits you from listing this as a “personal attribute” on your resume. If nothing else, in a tie-breaking circumstance it will get you the interview you need to have a shot at the job.

Never forget that no matter what bizarre obstacles are placed in your way by the bureaucrats of the world, you can usually figure out a way of bypassing them. But this usually requires first taking the time to understand the nature of the obstacle and what it was originally designed to prevent.

On a related note, CS, who is in the military and has an engineering degree, wishes to poll the hivemind.

I decided that the prudent course of action would be to learn some marketable skill and start working on independent income sources before separating from the military (which I can’t do as yet because of contractual obligations). My ambition is to be self employed and make a good income that depends on the quality of product I create (versus, for instance, the current situation: a salary that depends upon the number of hours I physically exist in a particular space per week).

The trouble is that I need a skill I considered writing, which I enjoy, but there doesn’t seem to be good money in it. Investment sounds attractive, but far too risky. These are things that I would like to do in addition to a primary occupation. Upon reflection, I remembered that I had a ball in my high school and college “intro to computer programming” classes years ago. I realized that expertise in programming could have many advantages:

1) It results in products of genuine value.
2) In our inreasingly computerized world, good programs and programmers should remain in demand.
3) The product is information, possibly meaning greater versatility in creation, marketting, and distribution above physical products. In theory, this could allow the smart programmer to have a very high degree of control over his own time and effort.
4) If it’s at all like my high school and college experiences, it’s challenging and rewarding.
5) One knowledgeable about computers is at a distinct advantage in the modern world.

6) I’m guessing it ingraines a habit of thinking things through thoroughly and logically. Whch brings me to my request. I would very much appreciate answers to these questions:

1) Is it worth it to try? (please note that I don’t want to be a dabbler; if this i to be a source of income, then I want to be an expert)
2) What practical advice can you offer on gaining expertise as quickly as possible? For instance, what books and programs should I have? What type of computer do I need? Should I take a college course? Are there any people or organizations I ought to contact? Remember that I am at present almost completely ignorant about computers, so I have to start at the most basic level.
3) What are the best ways to make money as a programmer? I’m especially interested in those that would allow me to be self-employed.
4) What blogs, websites, publications, and other sources should I be familiar with?
5) What are the pitfalls to be avoided?

Have at them. Note that he’s smart enough to avoid wasting his time with writing and investment, although I’m not sure about assumptions 2 and 5. It seems to me that trades such as plumbing and electricity are probably a safer bet in the present circumstances, but I don’t know much about the present demand for those services.