All rights reversed

In his book Nothing's Sacred: The Truth About Judaism, media scholar Douglas Rushkoff discusses his concept of "open-source religion," which he contrasts to the more traditional, handed-down-from-on-high types:

An open-source religion would work the same way as open-source software development: it is not kept secret or mysterious at all.  Everyone contributes to the codes we use to comprehend our place in the universe.  We allow our religion to evolve based on the active participation of its people...  An open-source relationship to religion would likewise take advantage of the individual points of view of its many active participants to develop its more resolved picture of the world and our place within it...  [R]eligion is not a pre-existing truth but an ongoing project.  It may be divinely inspired, but it is a creation of human beings working together.  A collaboration.

Which all sounds lovely and democratic and ecumenical, but it brings up the problem of how exactly you can tell if the "codes" contributed by people are correct or not.  In science, there's a standard protocol -- alignment of a model with the known data, and the use of the model to make predictions that then agree with subsequent observations -- but here, I'm not sure how you could apply anything like that.  The fact that religion seems, at its heart, to be an intensely individual experience, varying greatly from one person to another, suggests that reconciling each person's contributions may not be so easy.  Wars have been fought and lives lost over people's notions about the nature of God; saying "let's all collaborate" is a little disingenuous.

This is problematic not only between the world's major religions, but within them.  How, for example, could you bring together my Unitarian Universalist friend, who is more or less a pantheist; another friend who is a devout and very traditional Roman Catholic; and someone who is an evangelical biblical literalist who thinks everyone who doesn't believe that way is headed to the Fiery Furnace for all eternity?  All three call themselves Christian, but they all mean something very different by it.

The Discordians' clever labeling of their own founding doctrine as "All Rights Reversed" -- quote, reprint, or jigger around anything you want, it's all yours to do with as you please -- sounds good, but in practice, it relies on an undeserved trust in the minds of fallible humans of varying backgrounds and educational levels, who sometimes can't even agree on what the evidence itself means.

It's not that I'm certain that my own "there's probably no all-powerful deity in charge" is correct, mind you.  It's more that -- as eminent astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson put it -- "humans are rife with all sorts of ways of getting it wrong," and that assessment very much includes me.  I'm wary of other people's biases, and far more wary of my own.  Physicist Richard Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."  Even C. S. Lewis saw the danger in the "everyone's voice counts" approach.  He wrote, "A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government.  The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true."

George Carlin put it another way.  He said, "Think of a guy you know who has 'average intelligence.'  Then keep in mind that half of humanity is stupider than that guy."

The problem is that just about every religious person in the world (1) believes what they do because they were told about it by someone else, and (2) believes they've got it one hundred percent right and everyone else is wrong.  And, as Richard Dawkins troublingly points out, what people do believe is often a matter of nothing more than geography.  I was raised Roman Catholic because I grew up in a French-speaking part of southern Louisiana.  If I'd been born to Saudi parents in Riyadh I'd have been Muslim; to Thai parents in Bangkok, I'd likely be Buddhist; to Israeli parents in Tel Aviv, I'd be Jewish; and so on.  I'm suspicious of the whole enterprise because, even given the same universe to look at, people all come up with different answers.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Sowlos, Religious symbols-4x4, CC BY-SA 3.0]

And not only are there the ones with lots of adherents, there are countless fringe groups that have spun their own wild takes on how the world works.  Some, like the guy in Tennessee who believed that God told him to build the world's biggest treehouse church, are more amusing than dangerous.  (For what it's worth, the treehouse church was shut down because it was a poorly-constructed safety hazard, and a month later burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances.)  Others, like Jim Jones's People's Temple and the mystical cult that grew up around Carlos Castaneda, are downright deadly.  I have to admit the "open-source religion" idea is good at least from the standpoint of throwing the question back on your own intellect rather than saying, "Just believe what the priest/minister/imam/holy man is telling you," but it does leave the possibility open of getting it very, very wrong. 

As Susan B. Anthony put it, "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

Again, as I said earlier, it's not that I'm sure myself.  Part of my hesitancy is because I'm so aware of my own capacity for error.  Even though I left Catholicism in my twenties and, for the most part, haven't looked back, I have to admit that there's still an attraction there, something about the mystery and ritual of the church of my childhood that keeps me fascinated.

All the baggage that comes with it -- the patriarchalism and sectarianism and misogyny and homophobia -- not so much.

So right now I'll remain a de facto atheist, although in some ways a reluctant one.  The idea that the universe has some deeper meaning, that things happen because there's a Grand Plan (even if it is, in Aziraphale's words, "Ineffable"), has undeniable appeal.  But if there's one thing I've learned in my sixty-four years, it's that the universe is under no compulsion to arrange itself so as to make me happy.

Or, as my beloved grandma used to say, "Wishin' don't make it so."

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Orbit completion

So, today is my 64th birthday, so Happy Birthday To Me, and all that sorta stuff.  I have to say it's hard for me to believe that I'm this old, but at least I make up for it by still being immature.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Dogs-in-party-hats, CC BY-SA 4.0]

Even so, I have learned a few things, and I thought I'd step aside from my usual fare for a day, and present a list of 64 things I've come to understand in the last 64 years.  Despite my grandma's quip that free advice is worth what you paid for it, I hope you'll find some of them worthwhile.

1) Make a habit of being genuine.  Deception, even of yourself, can't be maintained forever.

2) If you want to find out whether someone is actually nice or not, watch how they treat dogs, cats, children, restaurant wait staff, and salespeople.

3) Live life with passion.

4) Don't take everything so damned seriously.  Most of the things that happen are, in the long run, irrelevant.

5) Don't overeat, but eat food you like.  Vegan raw-food enthusiasts who drink only wheat grass juice will still eventually die.

6) It's just as lazy -- and, in the end, just as damaging -- to distrust everyone automatically as it is to trust everyone automatically.

7) Complaining a lot pisses people off and solves essentially nothing.

8) Don't be ashamed of your tastes in art, music, books, and so on.  Anyone who ridicules you because of something that is a simple matter of opinion is an asshole.

9) There is nothing shameful about crying in public.  Yes, that includes men.

10) Relaxing and wasting time are not the same thing.

11) There are some people in this world who will be determined to see you as a different person than who you really are.  Fighting this is probably a waste of time.

12) Changing things from the top down seldom works.  The only real way to change things is from the bottom up.

13) People are always in love with their own delusions, and we all have them.

14) Spending more time outside is usually a good thing.

15) A lot of unhappiness can be averted by speaking what is truly in your heart, and then living by it.

16) Don't be afraid to get undressed in a gym locker room.  We're all naked under our clothes.

17) Take more chances.  Regrets about what we should have done and didn't are just as painful as regrets about what we did and wish we hadn't. 

18) Find some way to be creative.  Everyone is creative if they allow themselves to be.

19) You can't be unhappy for long if you have a snoring dog at your feet or a purring cat in your lap.

20) If you can, travel.  It is the most mind-expanding thing you can do.

21) Most of us could do with having fewer opinions and asking more questions.

22) If you put only half of yourself into an endeavor, it will be a waste of time for everyone involved.

23) There is very little that you will not be able to deal with better after a good night's sleep.

24) No matter how good you are at something, there will always be people who are better and worse than you are.  Be inspired by the ones who are better and be courteous and helpful to the ones who are worse.

25) Don't be afraid to say no to people.

26) Don't be afraid to say yes to people.

27) Get out on the dance floor.  You're more conspicuous just standing there than you would be if you were out dancing with the rest of us.

28) If life hands you lemons, fuck lemonade.  Make lemon meringue pie.

29) If you go to another country, eat what they eat.  You can get Big Macs at home.

30) Cultivate tolerance.

31) Be willing to laugh at your own quirks.

32) Stay hydrated.

33) Always keep in mind that much of what is on the internet is complete bullshit.

34) Cruelty is never justified.

35) Be unpredictable sometimes.

36) Don't talk once the movie has started.

37) The universe is endlessly interesting.  Cultivate curiosity about how it all works.

38) Pay attention when children talk to you.  It may not be interesting to listen to, but it's still important.

39) If you're still alive, you're not too old to pursue your dreams.  (If you're not still alive, and are nevertheless reading this, we should talk.)

40) You are not in competition with everyone.  All conversations aren't battles for superiority.

41) Sarcasm can be funny, but use it with caution.  Real ridicule can leave permanent scars.

42) Life is too short to drink bad beer.

43) Fundamentally, gullibility and cynicism come from the same place; an unwillingness to commit oneself to the hard work of thinking.

44) Every once in a while, go out at night and spend some time looking up at the stars.  It’s worthwhile being reminded how small we are.

45) Listen to your friends as much as you talk.

46) Take care of the planet we live on.  It's the only one we've got.

47) Be suspicious of any stranger who comes to your door trying to sell you a political ideology or a religious belief system.

48) Remember my friend Alex's motto: Semper alia via.  There's always another way.

49) Exercise more.

50) Understand that most people really are trying their best. 

51) Never take the last cookie unless you've been given explicit permission, and even then offer to split it.

52) Never let yourself be the one who caused another person to give up on reaching for their dreams or doing what they love.

53) A sincere apology goes a long, long way.

54) Stop at least once a day and be grateful for what you have.  There are many people in the world who would be thrilled to be where you are.

55) Find ways to give back to your community.

56) Some causes are worth fighting -- even dying -- for.

57) Make a point of learning new stuff.  Minds are like muscles -- if you don't work them, they atrophy.  And it's a healthy experience to be an absolute beginner at something every so often.

58) Be willing to lose an argument once in a while.

59) Play more.

60) Waste less.

61) Remember that most of the things we worry about won't come to pass.

62) There are times when things look hopeless, and the world seems bleak.  Hope anyway.

63) You will sometimes fail at things you desperately want to succeed at.  Try anyway.

64) You will sometimes get your heart broken.  Love anyway.

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The problem with cynics

A man I know is one of the most cynical people I've ever met.

He said to me on more than one occasion, "I hate people."  Despite the fact that the designation "people" includes his wife, children, the person he was talking to at the time (me)... and himself.  He distrusts just about everyone, badmouths them incessantly behind their backs, and in his business micromanages everything to a fare-thee-well.  As a result, he's lost customers, his staff might as well be processed through a revolving door, and has developed a well-deserved reputation in the industry as someone to be avoided both by potential clients and by employees.

His cynicism has, in fact, become his reality.

[Image credit: Andy Lendzion]

It's an awfully common phenomenon.  My own mom was a fearful, suspicious person who thought the world was a deeply dangerous place, full of people waiting to take advantage of you, or even hurt you or kill you.  While watching television she gravitated toward "true crime" shows -- Cops and CSI, that sort of thing -- which of course show you the seediest, most violent slices of humanity.  This further reinforced her opinion about the horrible risks of stepping outside your own front door.  I'll never forget the last phone call between us before I left on a month-long walking tour of the north of England, my first-ever trip overseas, when I was about thirty years old.  I was ridiculously excited about it, but she was full of cautions about all the terrible things that could, and probably would, happen to me.

Her final words to me before we hung up were, "Remember, don't trust anyone."

In England.  I mean, for cryin' in the sink, it wasn't like I was going to Turkmenistan or North Korea or something.

And, of course, I had a perfectly lovely time, met some wonderful people (several of whom are still friends, three decades later), and told her so when I got back.  Didn't change her outlook; her attitude seems to have been that I'd simply gotten lucky, and don't count on it happening ever again.

It's not that I'm immune to this sort of thinking myself.  I've written Skeptophilia for over twelve years, and the focus is frequently on pseudoscience.  I've had to be on guard to stop my attitude going from "this person believes this particular piece of pseudoscientific rubbish" to "wow, everyone is really dumb."  It's why I try to split my posts between pseudoscience and actual science; to say "look at the amazing things the human mind can achieve" at least as often as I say "look at where we've stumbled."

I used to tell my Critical Thinking students something that I still believe to this day is an essential truth: cynicism is as inaccurate as, and as lazy as, gullibility.  We laugh at gullible people, call them fools, stooges, suckers, chumps, and a variety of other unflattering names.  But there's nothing inherently smarter about disbelieving everything.  Both gullibility and cynicism are excuses to stop thinking, to avoid doing the hard work of evaluating the facts and evidence and coming to a justified conclusion.

And yet, cynics have acquired an undeserved air of erudition and wisdom, as if they're the only ones smart enough to have "seen through" everyone.  People are stupid and/or evil, the world sucks, everyone is dishonest, the government is hopelessly and thoroughly corrupt.  End of story.  No need to think about it any further than that.

The problem is, the actual facts and evidence don't support that conclusion at all.

The topic comes up because I'm currently reading Jamil Zaki's wonderful book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, which I heard about through the amazing podcast Hidden Brain a few weeks ago, and which should be required reading.  Zaki's point, which he supports with tons of data from his own studies and those of other psychologists, is that not only is the default condition of humanity to be cooperative, kind, and compassionate, but that trusting others usually generates trust in return.  Companies where the bosses trust their employees to work hard, be creative, and collaborate are not only happier places, they're far more productive than autocratic, micromanaged, competitive, factory-model sweatshops.  Just like the examples I started with, of the nasty-tempered cynical business owner and my own frightened, suspicious mom, you create the reality you live in.  If you look for ugliness, you're sure to find it.

What we often ignore, though, is the deeper truth that if you look for goodness, you'll find that, too.  What we choose to cultivate in ourselves is what we ultimately find ourselves surrounded with.

Understand that I'm not recommending adopting a Panglossian attitude of "everything's for the best in the best of all possible worlds."  There is injustice, dishonesty, exploitation, bigotry, and true evil out there.  It's just that defaulting to "everything sucks" is not only incorrect, it's lazy -- and it gives us a convenient excuse not to work toward fixing what is wrong about our society.  Part of the problem, of course, is media; we're fed a continuous diet of bad news because it keeps our attention.  (There's a reason it's called "doomscrolling.")  As just one of many examples in Zaki's book, how many of you have accepted without question that violent crime in the United States is escalating?  It's a major talking point, especially by one particular political party, and we accept it because it fits our mental model that everything is going to hell.

In fact, violent crime in the United States has fallen drastically in the last five years, with overall totals declining in 54 of the 69 largest cities, and rates for certain categories of crime going down between twelve and twenty percent.

But that fits neither with the political agenda -- "you're in danger" drives people to the polls, so they can vote for the person who says they can fix what they just now made you scared of -- nor with our self-congratulatory sense that maybe some people are stupid enough to get fooled by pollyanna-ish optimists, but at least we are smart and well-informed and admit the harsh reality.

Zaki points out, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the best approach is to split the difference between cynicism and gullibility.  Neither trust everyone immediately nor reject everyone out of hand; base your opinions, and your actions, on facts.  (And, it must be said, don't determine your "facts" with a three-minute Google search to locate a couple of websites that agree with what you already believed.)  It's better to default to trust than to suspicion -- and, significantly, you're no more likely to be wrong if you do so.  One of the more surprising studies in Zaki's book is about whether cynical people are better at recognizing when they're being lied to.  Since they're inherently suspicious, you'd think so, wouldn't you?  It turns out that both cynical and gullible people are bad at discerning liars from truth-tellers.  It's the skeptics -- the ones who base their answers on careful consideration of what the person actually said -- who score the best.

All in all, cynicism not only poisons your own joy, it feeds you an inaccurate view of the world.  And, like the people I started with, it creates a small, mean, toxic world in reality, which reinforces the cynic that they were right all along.  It's like the quote by Ken Keyes: "A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror."

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Tell me lies

In Jean-Paul Sartre's short story "The Wall," three men are captured during the Spanish Civil War, and all three are sentenced to die if they won't reveal the whereabouts of the rebellion's ringleader, Ramón Gris.

The main character, Pablo Ibbieta, and the other two men sit in their jail cell, discussing what they should do.  All three are terrified of dying (of course), but is it morally and ethically required for them to give up their lives for the cause they believe in?  When is a cause worth a human life?  Three human lives?  What if it cost hundreds of lives?

Pablo's two companions are each offered one more chance to rat out Ramón, and each refuses.  Pablo hears the noises as they're dragged out into the prison courtyard, stood up against the wall, and shot to death.

Now it's just Pablo, alone in the cell.

Thoughts race through his head.  Now that it's just him, if he sells out Ramón, there won't be any witnesses (or at least any on the side of the rebellion).  Who'll know it was him that betrayed the cause?

After much soul-searching, Pablo decides he can't do it.  He has to remain loyal, even at the cost of his own life.  But he figures there's nothing wrong with making his captors look like idiots in the process.  So he tells them that Ramón Gris is hiding in a cemetery on the other end of town.  He laughs to himself picturing the people holding him, the ones who have just killed his two friends, rushing off and dashing around the cemetery for no good reason, making fools of themselves.

His captors tell him they're going to go check out his story, and if he's lying, he's a dead man (which Pablo knows is what will happen).  But after a couple of hours, they come back... and let him go.

He's wandering around the town, dazed, when he runs into a friend, another secret member of the rebellion.  The friend says, "Did you hear?  They got Ramón."

Pablo asks how it happened.

The guy says, "Yeah... Ramón was in a friend's house, as you know, perfectly safe, but he became convinced he was going to be betrayed.  So he went and hid out at the cemetery.  They found him and shot him."

The last line of the story is, "I sat down on a bench, and laughed until I cried."

It's a sucker punch of an ending, and raises a number of interesting ethical issues.  I used to assign "The Wall" to my Critical Thinking classes, and the discussion afterward revolved around two questions:

Did Pablo Ibbieta lie?  And was he morally responsible for Ramón Gris's death?

There's no doubt that Pablo intended to lie.  It was accidentally the truth, something he only found out after it was too late.  As far as his responsibility... there's no doubt that if he hadn't spoken up, if he had just let the guards execute them as his two friends did, Ramón wouldn't have been killed.  So in the technical sense, it was Pablo who caused Ramón's death.  But again, there's his intent, which was exactly the opposite.

The questions don't admit easy answers -- as Sartre no doubt intended.

All lies are clearly not morally equivalent, even barring complex situations like the one described in "The Wall."  Lies to flatter someone or protect their feelings ("That is a lovely sweater") are thought by most people to be less culpable than ones where the intent was to defraud someone for one's own gain.  And as common as harmful lies seem to be, some recent research came up with the heartening results that we lie far more often for altruistic reasons than for selfish or vindictive ones.

A recent paper in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, by Jennifer McArthur, Rayanda Jarvis, Catherine Bourgeois, and Marguerite Ternes, found that while lying in general is inversely correlated with measures of honesty and conscientiousness -- unsurprising -- the most common motivations for lying were altruistic reasons, such as protecting someone's feelings or reputation, and secrecy (claiming not to know something when you actually do).

So maybe human dishonesty isn't quite as ugly and self-serving as it might appear at first.

Note, however, that I'm not saying even the altruistically-motivated lies McArthur et al. describe are necessarily a good thing.  Telling Aunt Bertha that her tuna noodle olive loaf was delicious will just encourage her to inflict it on someone else, and giving people false feedback to avoid hurting their feelings -- especially when asked for -- can lead someone astray.  But like the far more serious situation in "The Wall," these aren't simple questions with easy answers; ethicists have been wrestling with the morality of truth-telling for centuries, and there's never been a particularly good, hard-and-fast rule.

But it's good to know that, at least when it comes to breaking "Thou shalt not lie," that for the most part we're motivated by good intentions.

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An act of faith

Over the last couple of months I've been dealing with a health problem that is one of those collections of symptoms that falls somewhere on the spectrum between "mild inconvenience" and "I'm going to be dead in three months."  Fortunately, at the moment the doctor is leaning strongly toward the former.  (I won't go into further details because I hate it when People Of A Certain Age begin every conversation with what my dad called "the organ recital" -- telling everyone they talk to intimate details of their various health-related issues.)

In any case, this kind of thing absolutely plays hell with someone who has chronic anxiety.  Frankly, over the last two months the anxiety has been far worse than the symptoms themselves, and I have no doubt that it's actually made the symptoms more severe.  But it's put making any firm summer plans on hold, given that my brain keeps shouting at me that I might not be able to follow through on them on account of being incapacitated, hospitalized, or dead.

But it started me down a line of thought that, for once, was productive instead of irrational and paralyzing.  It brought to mind the word faith.  I realize this is not one you'd expect to hear from a skeptical atheist type.  But it struck me that faith is what's invoked any time we make plans -- faith that we and the ones involved will still be around when the plans come to fruition.

That seems pretty dark and pessimistic, but actually it's the opposite.  None of us are guaranteed another day, another hour, another minute, so the only option is to act as if we do, to be right here in the moment and let the future take care of itself.  It's like what Jean-Luc Picard -- then in the mind of the character Kamin -- said to his daughter in the beautiful episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "The Inner Light:" "Seize the time, Meribor – live now.  Make now always the most precious time.  Now will never come again."

Being ill has made this thought come back to me again and again.  It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago when I bought a couple of tropical plants to replace some of the ones I lost this past winter when my greenhouse heater malfunctioned on one of the coldest nights in January, and I heard a sepulchral voice in my mind say, "Maybe I won't be around to see them flower."  When I saw the daffodils blooming in April and it occurred to me that this might be the last time I ever would.  When I was outside playing with my dogs and wondered how many more opportunities I'd have.

I know these thoughts are coming from my mental illness; I do trust the doctor that I'm probably going to be okay.  But really, isn't that the situation we're all in?  It's all an act of faith.  Getting out of bed in the morning is an act of faith.  We maneuver our way through this dangerous, unpredictable, endlessly weird world and plan for meeting some friends at the pub day after tomorrow, for a vacation this summer, for visiting with family during the winter holidays, simultaneously knowing that none of it might happen.  But that's what we have to do.  The only other option is to descend into panic now because of what might or might not occur later, to willfully destroy our present because our future isn't guaranteed.

My grandma used to tell me, "Worry is like a rocking chair; it keeps you busy but it doesn't get you anywhere."  I'd make it even stronger, though.  Worry wastes what we've got right here in our hands.  I'm not going to say it's easy to conquer; I've had anxiety disorder my entire life, and I'm not expecting it to go away magically.  But I have -- and so does everyone -- control over deliberately choosing to live life the best I can regardless of how much of it I have left.  It's all a risk; every action we take, or decide not to take.  As J. R. R. Tolkien wrote, in The Fellowship of the Ring, "It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door.  You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

The question is not whether you want to take a risk; the question is which risk you want to take.  For me, I'd rather risk the possibility of my plans and aspirations not coming to fruition than risk giving in to my anxiety, then getting to the end of the path and realizing what I missed.

So my advice: carpe the absolute fuck out of every diem you've got left, whether it's one or ten thousand.  I'm completely agnostic about whether there's an afterlife; maybe there is, maybe there isn't.  But as far as what I know for sure, this right here, right now, is all I've got.  And right now the sun is shining and the weather is warm and pleasant and there are people who love me.  There's music to listen to and stories to write and dogs to play with and books to read.  Okay, it won't last forever.  But I'll hang on to the sweetness I've got right now for all I'm worth, and have faith that whatever happens tomorrow, I'll have made the most of today.

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Unexpected depths

A writer friend of mine on social media asked what I thought was a very interesting question, and one that would be a good topic for this week's Fiction Friday: what is the most memorable line you've ever read?  I've read a good many profound books, but the first thing that came to mind was a line not from a book but from a television show.  In the Doctor Who episode "The Face of Evil," the Fourth Doctor remarks, "The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common; they do not alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views."

The aptness of that quote these days hardly needs to be pointed out.

But there are many others, in books, television, and movies, quotes that somehow stand out for their unexpected depth (sometimes even in otherwise silly settings; the episode "The Face of Evil" was unremarkable in other respects).  Some only gain their punch from the context -- I'm reminded of Eowyn's defiant "I am no man" in Return of the King, immediately before she stabs the King of the Nazgûl right between the eyeballs, and the heartbreaking line at the end of Vanilla Sky when Sofia Serrano says, "I'll see you in the next life, when we both are cats."  Neither has much significance unless you know the story.

But there are a handful of true gems that carry their weight even independent of where they're from.  Here are a few of my choices:

• "Deserves it! I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
• "You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." -- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
• "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.  There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall." -- Mohandas Gandhi in Gandhi
• "There is no greater agony than having an untold story inside you." -- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -- Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
• "Oh, yes, the past can hurt.  But you can either run from it, or learn from it." -- Rafiki in The Lion King
• "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
• "Get busy living, or get busy dying." -- Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption
• "Not important?  Blimey.  That's amazing.  You know, in nine hundred years in time and space, I have never met anyone who wasn't important." -- The Eleventh Doctor, Doctor Who, "A Christmas Carol"
• "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back what you have stolen.  For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great...  You have no power over me." -- Sarah in Labyrinth
• "Live now; make now always the most precious time.  Now will never come again." -- Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Inner Light"

Nota bene: If you can watch "The Inner Light" and not ugly cry at the end of it, you're made of sterner stuff than I am.  That episode has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on television.

So... there are a few of my favorite profound quotes from fiction.  What are yours?

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I've loved Neil de Grasse Tyson's brilliant podcast StarTalk for some time.  Tyson's ability to take complex and abstruse theories from astrophysics and make them accessible to the layperson is legendary, as is his animation and sense of humor.

If you've enjoyed it as well, this week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is a must-read.  In Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going, Tyson teams up with science writer James Trefil to consider some of the deepest questions there are -- how life on Earth originated, whether it's likely there's life on other planets, whether any life that's out there might be expected to be intelligent, and what the study of physics tells us about the nature of matter, time, and energy.

Just released three months ago, Cosmic Queries will give you the absolute cutting edge of science -- where the questions stand right now.  In a fast-moving scientific world, where books that are five years old are often out-of-date, this fascinating analysis will catch you up to where the scientists stand today, and give you a vision into where we might be headed.  If you're a science aficionado, you need to read this book.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Cracking the infinity codes

Okay, I know I'm no genius, but I think I can place myself with confidence in the "above average intelligence" category.

A few things, however, defeat me.  A lot of physics rests on mathematics that I frankly do not comprehend, despite my B.S. in physics and minor in math.  When I look at academic papers from physics journals, and am confronted with such arcane beasts as tensors and cross products and weak isospin, I become tense, my eyes cross, and I become all weak and spinn-y.  (I usually require at least one glass of scotch to recover completely.)

Likewise, the deeper waters of philosophy drown me entirely.  I read the first paragraph of a friend's Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy, and said, in a rather thin voice, "That's... nice," and decided forthwith that I should henceforth confine myself to the epistemological and metaphysical questions raised by The Cat in the Hat.

With the exception of the aforementioned, however, I can usually hold my own fairly well in most intellectual pursuits.  So it is seldom that I look at a sample of writing, study it from various angles, think about it, and then still come up completely empty-handed.  Which is what I did when I looked at a website called Infinity Codes that a friend sent me, along with the message, "Curious to see what you'll think of this" followed by an ominous winky-face emoji.

What I thought, after forty-five minutes' increasingly perplexed study, was (to borrow a line from the screamingly funny Latin-language sketch by the inimitable Eddie Izzard), "Quod... the fuck?"  And lest you think that I'm just being lazy -- or, perhaps, that my brain isn't as all-that-and-a-bag-of-potato-chips as I claim it is -- here's a sample, so you can make your own assessment:

PURPOSE and INTENT

-- Finding the spiral thread --

Split into 4 sets of templates the Infinity Codes have been designed to assist re-establishing our connection to the cycles of the cosmos and the earth (macrocosm and microcosm).  The codes are arranged in a fractal sequence in order to reveal the spiral thread of interconnected-ness between us, nature and the universe...

Their purpose is to liberate and inform us with the knowledge of geometric patterns, fractal harmonics and organic ratios of the 13D reality in which we live.  Each graphic has ancient wisdom encoded within it that our ancestors knew and based their systems of time and space measurement upon. 

Living in a non-linear matrix of time and space, which they understood primarily through observing the movements of the 7 visible ‘spheres’ (5 planets + sun + moon), our ancestors were far beyond us in their development.  This enabled them to perceive the fractal design of the tree of life, and our place in it - via the 28 = (4x7), the 365 = (13x28) +1, and 365.242 (1 year).  This created a fractal matrix of the alchemy of the organic + geometric, that could then be aligned to zodiacal + celestial, in an eternal map of the cosmos.

And that's just from the freakin' introduction.

If you go to "What is the context?" -- a question I was certainly asking by this point -- you read the following:

Living in the end times (Solstice Sun aligned with the Galactic Center), beginning of the 21st century (7:7:7), Age of Aquarius geometrically speaking, yet in reality (organically speaking) the Age of Aquarius starts circa 2600ad, information Age, cyber era… calculated from the peak moment of 2012, Dec 21st, Winter solstice!

Well, what strikes me about this is the part about the Sun being lined up with the Galactic Center at the beginning of the 21st century.  Which is true, but can someone explain to me how two points could not be lined up?  I mean, didn't Euclid have something to say about this?  If somehow the Sun and the Galactic Center didn't fall on a straight line, that would be a little odder, don't you think?

And then, we have mystifying illustrations like the following:

Which are pretty, I suppose, but what the hell do they mean?

But if you really want to make your head spin, though, go to the page called "Cosmic Formulas," wherein we get to see the mathematical basis for all of it.  I think.  I mean, as far as I can tell, and applying my reasonably decent background in mathematics, it looks like he's just multiplying random numbers together, adding them to other random numbers, and saying, "So cosmic, right?  Of course right."

I finally gave up after about an hour of messing about on the site.  What finally induced me to quit was when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the monitor screen, and I realized that my expression looked like that on the face of my dog when I try to explain complex and difficult concepts to him, like why he shouldn't dump the garbage and eat the plastic wrapper that the cheese came in.  He tips his head to one side, his brow furrows, and he gets this really... intent look in his eyes.  You can tell that he wants to understand, he's trying his hardest, but it's just not going to happen.

That's the way I looked after an hour of trying to decipher the Infinity Codes.

Maybe you'll be able to make more of it. If so, please enlighten me. I'm perfectly willing to admit when I'm out of my depth, as I was with my friend's dissertation, and acknowledge the better understanding that someone else might bring to bear on a subject.  On the other hand, I strongly suspect that here, there's nothing actually there to understand, and that we all might be left (like Eddie Izzard) saying, "Quod the fuck?"

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This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is brand new -- science journalist Lydia Denworth's brilliant and insightful book Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond.

Denworth looks at the evolutionary basis of our ability to form bonds of friendship -- comparing our capacity to that of other social primates, such as a group of monkeys in a sanctuary in Puerto Rico and a tribe of baboons in Kenya.  Our need for social bonds other than those of mating and pair-bonding is deep in our brains and in our genes, and the evidence is compelling that the strongest correlate to depression is social isolation.

Friendship examines social bonding not only from the standpoint of observational psychology, but from the perspective of neuroscience.  We have neurochemical systems in place -- mediated predominantly by oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphin -- that are specifically devoted to strengthening those bonds.

Denworth's book is both scientifically fascinating and also reassuringly optimistic -- stressing to the reader that we're built to be cooperative.  Something that we could all do with a reminder of during these fractious times.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

From the mailbag

Being a blogger means I get some interesting emails.

A lot of them, as you undoubtedly know if you read Skeptophilia frequently, are recommendations for future posts.  I appreciate these tremendously, even the ones of the "I think you're wrong and here's a link proving it" type.  Hey, if I wasn't willing to reconsider topics, and admit when I was wrong, I'd be a poor excuse for a skeptic.  So don't stop sending suggestions, and don't stop reading carefully so someone's keeping me honest.

Then there are the emails telling me what readers think of me.  Laudatory ones are lovely, of course, but I find the hate mail rather interesting.  Most of it seems to be generated because of my general disdain for pseudoscience -- by which I mean practices like astrology, homeopathy, auras, and (most) psychic/paranormal investigation.  (I emphasize the word most because there are groups that approach it the right way.  A good example is the UK-based Society for Psychical Research, which looks at such claims with a skeptical eye, and is perfectly willing to call out hoaxers when it's merited.)

Then there are the religious ones.  I got an interesting one in this category day before yesterday, and that's what spurred me to write this post.  I call it "interesting" not because I think the writer was right -- about pretty much anything (s)he said -- but because it brings up a few stereotypes that are all too common.  So here's the email in its entirety, with some interjected responses from me.

Dear Mr. Skeptic Atheist, 

I'm going to identify myself right away as a Christian.  I always have been and I always will be.  I know you'd like to talk me out of it, but it wouldn't succeed.

Well, you started off on the wrong foot.  I have no interest whatsoever in "talking you out of" Christianity or any other viewpoint you might have on which we disagree.  I'm a firm believer in something my mom taught me when I was little -- "my rights end where your nose begins."  So you can believe in God, you can believe in Allah, you can believe in Zeus.  Hell, you can believe that the universe is controlled by a Giant Green Bunny from the Andromeda Galaxy if you want.

I do, however, object when religion (or any other framework for belief) starts impinging on the rights of non-adherents.  An example is the virulently anti-LGBTQ stance of a lot of evangelicals.  You have every right to refrain from same-sex encounters yourself if you think they're sinful or repugnant.  What I won't stand by silently for is when you say, "I belong to the Church of XYZ, so you should be punished for being gay," or "I have a right to discriminate against you because my religion says I should."

Beyond that, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of, or into, anything.  I state my opinions -- rather strongly at times, I'll admit -- but I have the same right to do that as you do, and I have no more right to compel you than you do me.

I don't know why you feel like you have to trumpet your hate for Christians the way you do.  It isn't right. 

Asking me "why I hate Christians" is a little like asking "when did you stop beating your wife?"  In point of fact, I don't hate Christians.  I may disagree with them, but that's not the same thing.  And I'm happy to say that I am friends with people of a great many religions, and every gradation of faith, questioning, doubt, and disbelief, and honestly, we all get along pretty well.

Because I went to high school in rural southern Louisiana, you might imagine that I know a good many devout people -- and you'd be right.  Because of the wonders of Facebook, a lot of my classmates have kept in touch, and (surprise!) I can't remember any of us saying to another, "I don't like you any more because your religious views are different from mine."  Mostly what we do is argue about stuff like whose grandma had the best gumbo recipe.

And what made you hate God?  God shows nothing but love for his people, he wants the best for all of us, and you return nothing but spite.  Try looking at His creations without the fire in your eyes and you might be surprised.

Once again, I don't hate God, I just don't think he exists.  Which is hardly the same thing.  At the same point, being a skeptic (as I mentioned before), I'm perfectly open to being convinced, if anyone has credible evidence that I'm wrong.  (You may recall Bill Nye's comment during the infamous Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution/creation debate that Bill was asked what would it take to convince him he was wrong, and he said, "One piece of evidence that couldn't be explained another way."  That's how I feel about pretty much everything.)

So if you have some evidence, let's hear it.  I promise I won't burn you up with the fire in my eyes.

The worst part is you're a teacher.  So you're influencing a whole generation of children who look up to you, inducing them to abandon God and putting them in danger of hell.  I can't think of anything worse.

This part made me think of how the author of this email must picture my classes.  What, do you believe that I run into my classroom every day, yelling maniacally, "THERE IS NO GOD!  WORSHIP SATAN!  BOW DOWN TO EVIL!  HA HA!" or something?  Let me tell you, with all of the actual science I have to cover, I simply don't have time to indoctrinate my students in Satan worship.

In fact, every once in a while -- this comes up most often in my Critical Thinking classes, although the question is sometimes raised when we're studying evolution in my biology classes -- some student will ask me if I'm religious.  My usual response is, "My own religious beliefs aren't relevant here."  I mean, given that my background is in evolutionary genetics, it's a pretty shrewd guess that I'm not a fundamentalist.  But other than that, I suspect the majority of my students don't have a clue about my own beliefs or lack thereof.

And that's exactly how it should be.

It's not too late for you.  You can still dedicate your life to Jesus.  The lost lamb can be found.  But not if you persist in your hateful, God-denying ways.  I'm asking you to repent and beg forgiveness, for your own sake. 

I will be praying for you daily that you will come back to your Creator rather than having to face him at the End of Days and be cast away in despair.

Well, I suppose that's all nice enough.  I'm not a big believer in prayer, myself, but I'll never turn away well-wishes in whatever form they may take.  And it's nice to know you don't want me to burn for eternity.  (And I have actually gotten emails of the "When you die I'm going to laugh because I'll know you're being tortured in hell" variety.  But they're not very common, which is rather heartening.)

The email wasn't signed.  It just sort of ended there, without a "have a nice day" or anything.  Although I can see that given what went before, that'd be a little ironic.

Anyhow, I suppose it could be worse.  At least there were no death threats.  And like I said, the writer seemed to be coming from a generally compassionate point of view, even if his/her interpretation of my beliefs was a few degrees off of due north.  So keep those cards and letters comin', although I'd prefer it if the "burn in hell unbeliever" and "I'm going to track you down and kill you" people would find another hobby.

Oh, and it was my grandma.  My grandma clearly had the best gumbo recipe.  Thanks for asking.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is from one of my favorite thinkers -- Irish science historian James Burke.  Burke has made several documentaries, including Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, and After the Warming -- the last-mentioned an absolutely prescient investigation into climate change that came out in 1991 and predicted damn near everything that would happen, climate-wise, in the twenty-seven years since then.

I'm going to go back to Burke's first really popular book, the one that was the genesis of the TV series of the same name -- Connections.  In this book, he looks at how one invention, one happenstance occurrence, one accidental discovery, leads to another, and finally results in something earthshattering.  (One of my favorites is how the technology of hand-weaving led to the invention of the computer.)  It's simply great fun to watch how Burke's mind works -- each of his little filigrees is only a few pages long, but you'll learn some fascinating ins and outs of history as he takes you on these journeys.  It's an absolutely delightful read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Quantum fuzziness

I'm of two minds when laypeople write about science.

On the one hand, I applaud anyone who is willing to delve into the often deep waters of scientific research.  To put it bluntly, science ain't easy.  After all, by comparison to actual researchers, I'm a layperson myself, despite a degree in physics and the fact that I've taught biology for 31 years.  So to any non-specialist who puts in the time and effort to truly understand something from actual scientific research, I have nothing but admiration.

Also in the positive column is the incalculable benefit that has come from popularizers, people like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  While they themselves are scientists, they've made abstruse topics accessible to the masses -- something for which they are sometimes criticized, a stance about which I've written before and which I truly cannot understand.

However.  The problem with laypeople leaping into science writing is their potential for getting things wrong, for interjecting fuzzy-headed ideas, and thus misrepresenting the science itself.  It's usually done with the best of intentions; unlike some of the people I write about here, it's seldom about self-aggrandizement or making a profit.  But it does create the difficulty that a person can read an article and actually understand less about the science involved when they're done than they did before they read it.

I ran into a particularly good example of this in the online magazine Medium a couple of days ago.  The article was "Quantum Mechanics and Existentialism: Removing my Fear of Death" by Alex Vervloet.  It starts off promisingly enough; a description of Vervloet's curiosity about subatomic physics and quantum mechanics, which spurred him to do some research and reading on the subject.  (The book he chose to read, Reality is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli, is one I'm unfamiliar with, but Rovelli himself is a theoretical physicist and one of the founders of the theory of loop quantum gravity, so he certainly has sterling credentials.)

In any case, Vervloet starts out right, both in his search for information and in his article.  But about halfway through, he had passages like this:

You and I are both made up of a seemingly countless number of particles, and those need energy.  Now, when I say energy, I’m not just talking about one thing — there are many different types of energy.  As early as Elementary School we learn about Kinetic and Potential Energy.  Later on we learn about Gravitational, Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Chemical, and other types of Energy.  Calories, sleep, sunlight and water are all converted into Chemical Energy for our bodies.  This in turn gets converted into Electromagnetic Energy for our nervous system, Heat Energy for our blood and skin, Kinetic Energy for our organs, and Potential Energy for our muscles.  Some of it remains chemical as well.

And my expression changed to something like this:

Amongst the many things wrong with this passage is the idea that we convert "calories, sleep, sunlight, and water... into chemical energy."  This is either some metabolic pathway I've never heard of, or else he's just making shit up.

My vote is for the latter.

He also throws in a mention of the Oscillating-Universe Model -- put simply, that the outward motion of the galaxies will eventually be reversed, and we'll have a "Big Crunch" followed by another Big Bang -- and treats it as if it were accepted science, when in fact it is at the moment a mere speculation.  (I could write a whole post on the subject of the mass of the universe, and the possibility of our expanding outward forever or eventually collapsing, which brings in some of the least-understood parts of physics -- dark matter and dark energy.)

Then he takes these pieces and runs right off the cliff with them, with his "theory" -- which I will quote rather than trying to describe, so you can get the full effect:

We know that when certain particles of mass combine, they create elements, and those elements make up the universe.  But what about energy?  What happens when certain energies combine?  Explosions. 

I believe this is the secret to our consciousness.  Just like the universe began with The Big Bang (or bounce), so did we.  Every human being is the product of a Big Bang.  The right combination of entangled energy particles combined into a sperm cell and ovum to create us.  Our body and consciousness explodes into existence and expands to adulthood, then shrinks until it reaches its inevitable death (every mass is eventually converted back to energy and visa versa).  It’s then either buried in the ground to be converted into energy for plants, cremated into heat energy, or donated to science, where the energy leaves the body, and another body can use its energy to power the part(s).

Oookay.  Where do I start?

"Combining energies" does not create explosions.  In fact, I'm not even sure what he means by "combining energies," given that he seems to be using the woo-woo definition of "energy" to mean "the cosmic interconnectedness of all beings" rather than the rigorous scientific definition of "what is introduced to a system either to heat it or to give it the potential to do physical work."  But then he goes even further off the beam with quantum entanglement causing consciousness, there being entangled particles in sperm and eggs, and that the energy in our bodies can be "converted into energy for plants" (which is wildly wrong; plants are solar powered, so while the materials of a dead body might be recycled into a plant, the energy in the body would be devolved as heat during decomposition).

He then goes off into cycles and reincarnation and various other odd tangents, but at that point I kind of stopped paying attention.

Okay, I'm not trying to be mean, here.  Vervloet sounds like his heart is definitely in the right place, and a lot of his muddled ideas could be fixed (and hopefully will be fixed) if he continues researching what the physicists are actually saying.  But what bothers me here is that the publishers of Medium chose to post his article, which is really just the meanderings of someone with a rudimentary grasp of the topic.  (As evidenced by his use of the word "theory" to mean "something I just pulled out of my ass and which could be wrong as easily as right.")

All of which makes me sound like a humorless know-it-all.  And I acknowledge readily that there are tons of topics about which I am mostly ignorant -- but I refrain from writing about them, because whatever I wrote would be irrelevant.  The problem is that a publication, even an online one, becomes a conduit of information, and this is giving a completely wrong impression of what the science actually says.

In any case, I hope Vervloet keeps reading and keeps learning.  It's certainly a fascinating, if difficult, topic.  Ignorance, after all, is a universal condition, but it's completely curable.  You just have to be willing to admit where your understanding falls apart, and find someone who knows more than you do to remedy the situation.

A self-portrait drawn by others

As you might imagine, I get hate mail pretty frequently.

Most of it has to do with my targeting somebody's sacred cow, be it homeopathy, fundamentalist religion, astrology, climate change denial, or actual sacred cows.  And it seems to fall into three general categories:

• Insults, some of which never get beyond the "you stupid poopyhead fuckface" level.  These usually have the worst grammar and spelling.
• Arguments that are meant to be stinging rebuttals.  They seldom are, at least not from the standpoint of adding anything of scientific merit to the conversation, although their authors inevitably think they've skewered me with the sharp rapier of their superior knowledge.  (Sometimes I get honest, thoughtful comments or criticisms on what I've written; I have always, and will always, welcome those.)
• Diatribes that tell me what I actually believe, as if I'm somehow unaware of it.

I've gotten several of the latter in the last few weeks, and it's these that I want to address in this post, because they're the ones I find the most curious.  I've got a bit of a temper myself, so I can certainly understand the desire to strike back with an insult at someone who's angered you; and it's unsurprising that a person who is convinced of something will want to rebut anyone who says different.  But the idea that I'd tell someone I was arguing with what they believed, as if I knew it better than they did, is just plain weird.

Here are a handful of examples, from recent fan mail, to illustrate what I'm talking about:

• In response to a post I did on the vitriolic nonsense spouted by televangelist Jim Bakker: "Atheists make me want to puke.  You have the nerve to attack a holy man like Jim Bakker.  You want to tear down the foundation of this country, which is it's [sic] churches and pastors, and tell Christian Americans they have no right to be here."
• In response to my post on a group of alt-med wingnuts who are proposing drinking turpentine to cure damn near everything: "You like to make fun of people who believe nature knows best for curing us and promoting good health.  You pro-Monsanto, pro-chemical types think that the more processed something is, the better it is for you.  I bet you put weed killer on your cereal in the morning."
• In response to the post in which I described a push by EPA chief Scott Pruitt to remove scientists from the EPA advisory board and replace them with corporate representatives: "Keep reading us your fairy tales about 'climate change' and 'rising sea levels.'  Your motives are clear, to destroy America's economy and hand over the reigns [sic] to the wacko vegetarian enviro nuts.  Now that we've got people in government who are actually looking out for AMERICAN interests, people like you are crapping your pants because you know your [sic] not in control any more."
• And finally, in response to a post I did on the fact that the concept of race has little biological meaning: "You really don't get it, do you?  From your picture you're as white as I am, and you're gonna stand there and tell me that you have no problem being overrun by people who have different customs and don't speak English?  Let's see how you feel when your kid's teacher requires them to learn Arabic."

So, let's see.  That makes me a white English-only wacko vegetarian enviro nut (with crap in my pants) who eats weed killer for breakfast while writing checks to Monsanto and plotting how to tear down churches so I can destroy the United States.

Man, I've got a lot on my to-do list today.

I know it's a common tendency to want to attribute some set of horrible characteristics to the people we disagree with.  It engages all that tribal mentality stuff that's pretty deeply ingrained in our brains -- us = good, them = bad.  The problem is, reality is a hell of a lot more complex that that, and it's only seldom that you can find someone who is so bad that they have no admixture whatsoever of good, no justification for what they're doing, no explanation at all for how they got to be the way they are.  We're all mixed-up cauldrons of conflicting emotions.  It's hard to understand ourselves half the time; harder still to parse the motives of others.

So let me disabuse my detractors of a few notions.

While I'm not religious myself, I really have a live-and-let-live attitude toward religious folks, as long as they're not trying to impose their religion on others or using it as an excuse to deny others their rights as humans.  I have religious friends and non-religious friends and friends who don't care much about the topic one way or the other, and mostly we get along pretty well.

I have to admit, though, that being a card-carrying atheist, I do have to indulge every so often in the dietary requirements as set forth in the official Atheist Code of Conduct.

Speaking of diet, I'm pretty far from a vegetarian, even when I'm not dining on babies. In fact, I think that a medium-rare t-bone steak with a glass of good red wine is one of the most delicious things ever conceived by the human species.  But neither am I a chemical-lovin' pro-Monsanto corporate shill who drinks a nice steaming mug of RoundUp in the morning.  I'll stick with coffee, thanks.

Yes, I do accept climate change, because I am capable of reading and understanding a scientific paper and also do not think that because something is inconvenient to American economic expediency, it must not be true.  I'd rather that the US economy doesn't collapse, mainly because I live here, but I'd also like my grandchildren to be born on a planet that is habitable in the long term.

And finally: yes, I am white. You got me there.  If I had any thought of denying it, it was put to rest when I did a 23 & Me test and found out that I'm... white.  My ancestry is nearly all from western Europe, unsurprising given that three of my grandparents were of French descent and one of Scottish descent.  But my being white doesn't mean that I always have to place the concerns of other white people first, or fear people who aren't white, or pass laws making sure that America stays white.  For one thing, it'd be a little hypocritical if I demanded that everyone in the US speak English, given that my mother and three of my grandparents spoke French as their first language; and trust me when I say that I would have loved my kids to learn Arabic in school.  The more other cultures you learn about in school, the better, largely because it's hard to hate people when you realize that they're human, just like you are.

So anyway.  Nice try telling me who I am, but you got a good many of the details wrong.  Inevitable, I suppose, when it's a self-portrait drawn by someone else.  Next time, maybe you should try engaging the people you disagree with in dialogue, rather than ridiculing, demeaning, dismissing, or condescending to them.  It's in general a nicer way to live, and who knows?  Maybe you'll learn something.

And if you want to know anything about me, just ask rather than making assumptions.  It's not like I'm shy about telling people what I think.  Kind of hiding in plain sight, here.