Misleading Graphics or The Context is the Content

Context matters as much as content.  After all, what does the content mean in isolation?  Frequently, nothing.  The context of a message can make it a lie just as much as inaccurate content.

I like maps.  Some maps are neutral, such as maps that show where in the US people say pop, soda, soda pop, and coke.

What about a map of hateful tweets?  Let's set aside the issues of defining hateful as well as false positives and negatives.  The map itself, even with fully accurate information, can be misleading.  How?  Population, density, and access.  A hateful tweet in an area of low population and/or low connectivity is a larger proportion of the overall population, and may therefore be considered more representative, than a single hateful tweet in an area of high population.  Frequency maps tend to look like population maps.

This can be corrected a few ways.  One would be to give a ratio, such as hateful to neutral or positive tweets.  Another would be to divide by the population of an area, so that it becomes tweets per person, though that will give lower weight to tweets in areas of lowered connectivity.

I also like graphs.  They can say so much.  They can give levels, trends, and context to what is happening.  But that Y-axis is a trouble-maker.  Maybe you're dealing with numbers in the millions, where the differences are significant, but if you have to stretch all the way down to zero, they'll get shrunk to visible insignificance.  Rescaling can help, but if the differences are small relative to the overall size, then they'll still vanish.  Starting somewhere other than zero, or using a broken axis can fix this.  Yet it creates its own problems.  Anything can appear big, or small, if you pick the right axis.  Going from $1,000,000 to $1,000,001 is surely insignificant, but if you start the axis at $999,999 then it will look huge; visually the one dollar change looks like it is double.

Even the numbers themselves can be tricky.  Keeping the million to million and one dollar scenario, what can we call that?  Maybe last year the relevant number was nine-hundred ninety-nine dollars and it had been so for decades before.  In that case, hasn't the gap between last year's number and the historical trend been doubled?  Alternatively, it's a 000.1% increase from the year before (I hope I counted my zeros correctly).  And look, over there is two million, so we're at half that!  Whatever that is.

These are not all cut and dry.  Maybe the change does matter despite the seemingly small magnitude and needs to be magnified.  Sometimes space is an issue.  Yet the question should always remain: Does the narrative exist outside of this graphic or is it created entirely from the display?

How arming the rebels may win the war for Assad

It's a common refrain, to hear how we should arm the right rebels in Syria.  These are apparently the rebels who do not commit war crimes, are not Islamic terrorists, are not criminals, are not going to set up their own dictatorship, and are not sectarian extremists.  They're not only well-intentioned, but also capable of implementing their good intentions.  So we're down to about ten people that we can safely give weapons.

See the problem yet?

There is already in-fighting among the rebels.  Some groups are just trying to seize territory for themselves rather than actually free their country from Assad.  They'll attack others, even other opponents of the regime.  As with any civil war or resistance movement, there is the war against the regime and the war to be the faction that wins.  Look at China where even the Japanese invasion and occupation caused the civil war to be given ever so slightly lower priority.

What happens when we give arms to particular groups?  They may be stolen or sold off, since even if the group overall or its leaders are good people, they are not filled with perfect people.  The groups that we arm may be attacked more heavily by the regime, thereby making the less savory groups relatively safer and more powerful.  They may be attacked by other factions that seek to steal their weapons.  They may be more desirable for infiltration by extremists.

The overall result is that giving arms to the right rebels is not a guarantee that the Assad regime will fall or that its replacement will be significantly better.  If the new government isn't going to be any better than the old, then what's the point?  Assad may as well have been allowed to win if that's the case.  We shouldn't be so quick to forget what happened in Afghanistan.

The Problem with Stress

The problem with stress is that it tends to compound itself.  A bad situation wouldn't be so bad if it was just itself.  Yet it never is.  It creates stress and that sticks around.  I worry more and that makes me think worse, which does not help.  I worry more and that makes it harder to sleep, which does not help.

I've developed the habit of doing dishes before bed.  It's boring, which can sometimes mean peaceful.  I can play some music, not too loud, but with headphones it's enough to hear over the water.  The water is nice.  The little sense of accomplishment is nice.  It's a slow, unrushed process.  In the morning I can wake up to a sink full of clean dishes.

Being out working creates a problem.  I won't fill a sink of water for just a few dishes.  So I spend my day out, being stressed, and then my end of the day stress reliever is gone.  I could still do it, but I'd feel as if it were terribly wasteful, and that would be of no use at all.

Then just to make it worse, when I'm done with something and can legitimately relax for a while, I can't.  I'm still anxious, wondering when something is going to go wrong.  Surely I made a mistake somewhere.  Surely I wrote something poorly and someone is going to catch it.  Some problem will emerge.  This means that any relaxation is at best a temporary state, an anomaly.  At worst, I forgot to do something and that's going to catch up to me.  Then I can think back on that next time I have a rest and wonder if I'm just wasting my time that I don't have.

Soon my semester will be over.  Then I can focus on worrying about being unemployed.  If I get a job, I can worry about my career and personal life.  I wonder what I could worry about after those.  Maybe I should know already, and that worries me.

Gay marriage is a a slippery slope, yet not so steep

I see two broad arguments in favor of allowing gay marriage.  One is equality.  The other is individual choice and freedom to enter contracts.

The first is tied up in all manner of moral and ethical issues.  I don't see what I can contribute to the discussion, as I see it as a personal matter.  Someone either sees gay people as people who are gay and therefore people with the accompanying rights, or they do not.  A few might be in transition, asking questions and thinking about it, but only their own thoughts and experiences can change them.

The second one, the manner of liberty, is the slippery slope.  At its heart is the notion that individuals may enter into a contract without restriction, as long as it does not harm others.  I see two potential sources of harm to others.  One would be children raised by gay couples turning out worse than those raised by straight couples.  There is no evidence to support this and there is no similar standard in straight marriages, nor is marriage even based on child-rearing.  The second potential source of harm stems from employers and taxpayers shouldering the burden of extended marriage benefits, such as pensions, healthcare, and government entitlements.  However this 'harm' stems not from gay marriage but from marriage in general and how our laws treat it.  The same harm exists in straight marriage.  There is a third category, of moral outrage or decay or decency, but those are all of little legal weight and amount to little more than imposing one's perspective on others.

Getting back to the contract, the inevitable question arises: Why only two people?  The contract perspective seems to allow polygamy as well.  That's the slippery slope: from gay marriage to polygamy.  Then what?  Given that we've gotten here on a slope of contract rights, nothing else.  Animals cannot sign contracts.  Children cannot either.  The contract perspective on gay marriage is not a slippery slope to bestiality and pedophilia, only to polygamy.

That leads to the question: What's wrong with polygamy?  In the abstract, perhaps not much (I have raised one issue in the past), though particular cases can turn out badly.  I suspect that legal and social rejection of polygamy means that the few people who engage in it are inevitably going to be unusual in some way, for better or worse.  If people think that gay marriage is the slippery slope to polygamy, fine.  If that's the case, then figure out what's wrong with polygamy.  Defeat it in society and the courts.  If polygamy is the actual problem, then fight it, not committed monogamous couples.

You're stereotyping too, hippie

I have long hair and I am male.

While waiting for a ride after getting back to Chicago I was approached by someone with long hair.  He apologized for interrupting me, apparently noticing that I was very busy staring off into space.  He said that he was looking for some money for a ride or something and I looked like I was cool.  This was followed with a brief, yet not brief enough, complaint about all these yuppies with their suits and rushing off who can't give a person a second and who judge him just because of how he looks.

In his defense, he didn't look particularly dangerous or dirty.  On the other hand, he was complaining about people stereotyping him based on appearance in the same breath that he complained about the people in their suits who are in a rush.

I was a little bored, so I figured I'd entertain myself.  I pointed out the hypocrisy of his complaint.  I joked that I had no money because I couldn't afford my suit yet.  He suggested a store that sells cheap suits.  This guy didn't seem too swift.  He said how I seemed to think through what I was saying rather than just whatever comes to mind.  I refrained from pointing out the contrast between us.

Before he went away I lectured him more on psychology. I explained how many of those supposed yuppies are people looking for jobs, putting on the clothes and playing the part, because they need money like anyone else.  In other circumstances they'd be dressed down drinking with their buddies with all the time in the world.  People in a rush are less likely to help; they are, after all, in a rush.  It's not a measure of their kindness but of their situation.

It's a shame when people cannot see themselves mirrored in others.  Maybe the mirror is colored slightly or a little distorted, but the general reflection is still there.  I can see myself as one of those yuppies, rushing to an interview or meeting, my mind occupied by other problems, and I know that in those circumstances I'd be less likely to stop.  I try to give others that benefit as well, to recognize that not everyone who ignores me is a jerk.  Similarly, when I need to be the guy asking for a favor or directions, I try to consider how they'll see me.  How am I dressed?  How am I approaching them and talking to them?

It's like Gandhi said: "Be the guy asking for change that you want to see in the world.  And also, quit stereotyping people; just because you got stereotyped doesn't mean you're innocent."

Barack Obama is a person

The White House recently released a photo of Obama skeet shooting.  Along with it was a strange-sounding bit that it could only be used for news and not manipulated.  Clearly a blatant attack on free speech!  Or is it?

I don't see what legal weight the caption has.  Perhaps copywrite, in which case, the problem is the limits of copywrite and fair use, not that a tyrannical president is running a cult of personality.

On the other hand, he is a person.  I think people have rights on how their images are used.  Of course if he put, and enforced, that limit on every image of him then that would be a problem.  But surely a person is due some amount of deference, not as president, but as a person.  It is not merely his photo in terms of intellectual property, but his image.

Of course such an appeal to human decency and respect is nowhere in the Constitution.  Were we to follow the Constitution and nothing else we'd be left with little more than the lowest of human vulgarity and anarchy.  Murder isn't even banned and surely there is a precedent in that second amendment.  My point is that the Constitution is a floor.  Maybe a foundation as well.  We should stand on it and build up from there, not sit on the floor screaming at anyone who builds anything.  I don't think the Founding Fathers intended for us to sit on the floor.

We could all get up in arms, literally or figuratively.  We could make a fuss.  Or we could ask questions.  What does that caption actually mean?  Do they plan to enforce it?  Is it even there at Obama's request?  Is it boilerplate phrasing stamped on everything?  Who cares?

My theory is that it is there, that Obama put it there personally.  On his last day in office he will repost that image, edited, with the big letters "YOU GOT TROLLED" typed over it.  The mouseover text will be "wtf is wrong with you?"

The Church cannot lose

Canon City, Colorado (CNN) -- Life begins at conception, according to the Catholic Church, but in a wrongful death suit in Colorado, a Catholic health care company has argued just the opposite. A fetus is not legally a person until it is born, the hospital's lawyers have claimed in its defense. -CNN

 At first glance this may appear hypocritical.  However we should note that this is a lawsuit and therefore dictated by law.  By law, the fetus was not a person.  Once you catch the distinction between legal and moral definitions, then the hypocrisy vanished.

In fact, I think that's what makes this so clever for the organization.  This case highlights the difference between the moral and legal definitions of a person and gives them a platform; it calls attention to the gap.

Overall, I believe it will be a propaganda victory for the Catholic Church.  If they win, then they save a lot of money.  Then they get to go out and preach about the saddening immorality of the laws and judges that try to define life, though they'd want to leave out that they were the ones arguing for the more restrictive definition.  The real win is if they lose.  They'd be out a bit of money, but that's a small price to pay for a legal precedent that puts life at 7 months, or more importantly, in the general realm of before birth.

Or they could settle, let the whole thing blow over, and everything ends up terribly uninteresting.