End Of Philosophical Historiography - Hanno Sauer

One of the best papers I have ever read in my life, period. Sauer's piece now has a special place in my heart.

Ironically, serendipitously over time in my adulthood I have followed this paper at this point in my life. When Max came into my life, he shook my world and brought an eternal pleasant breeze to me. I got into serious reading to get answers for this wonderful change in my life. Inevitably, I read old philosophy but thankfully, I read new philosophy too. 

Hanno Sauer unpacks a moral argument for reading contemporary philosophy for one simple reason - they rectify all the errors in old philosophy by sheer acclamation of knowledge from the past centuries.  

This is the purpose of philosophy - the quest for understanding and knowledge and not just dwelling on thoughts of a person who lived a few millenniums ago. 

I highly recommend to read the whole paper, its enlightening: 

Physics is not taught or practiced by reading and interpreting Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, Geometry is not done by studying Euclid’s Elements, and so on. There may be some sort of fundamental difference between philosophy and physics or chemistry that accounts for this fact. The point is that historicists of philosophy owe us an explanation of what that difference is and why, in philosophy, things should stand so differently

To be perfectly clear: my claim is not that we should not be doing history of philosophy. There are all kinds of reasons why reading and talking about the Critique of Pure Reason or the Republic are worthwhile: studying these seminal texts is an inherently interesting intellectual pursuit; reading them is often tremendously enjoyable; and familiarity with these texts can be very valuable to intellectual historians for the insights into culture, knowledge and morality they may contain. There are thus many excellent reasons to engage with the history of philosophy. Gaining traction on the aforementioned philosophical problems, however, is not one of them. This means that I am not arguing against historians of philosophy and what they do, but against what could be called philosophical historicists, that is, those who seem to think that at least one good method of thinking about knowledge or justice is to study what historical authors have written about knowledge and justice a long time ago.

This, I argue, is a mistake.

[---]

Suppose, first, that philosophical competence is innate. In that case, we would assume that it is distributed more or less randomly, perhaps according to a natural lottery. If this were so, then the overwhelming majority of competent philosophers should be alive today. Statistically speaking, there should be ten individuals in present day Kaliningrad that are equally competent philosophers as Kant was. Let me emphasize that this is indeed what my argument entails. Likewise, Princeton or Zürich University now employ numerous physicists that are as good or better than Einstein was. This is not to say, of course, that Kant and Einstein weren’t philosophical or scientific geniuses of the highest rank that are only found very rarely in a generation, but merely that the state of the art of their disciplines, in no small part thanks to their own work, has undergone drastic improvements since their respective times. 

Now suppose that philosophical ability is acquired through training. If philosophical competence is learned, then the historically biased distribution is even more mysterious. Nowadays there are many, many more philosophers than 200 or 2000 years ago, and those philosophers encounter much, much better environments in which to hone their philosophical abilities.

What philosophical historicists are ultimately committed to is the idea that extremely small and underdeveloped societies with highly exclusive privileges of access to the relevant resources have produced much better philosophers than extremely large, globally interconnected and much more inclusive societies. This seems highly improbable. 

But if I am right, and the distribution of philosophical quality should, statistically speaking, be much more even-handed, then where are all the philosophical geniuses hiding? Where are the present day Ibn Rushds, the current Plotins and Feuerbachs, the contemporary Anselms, Brentanos and Schellings, the living, breathing Moores and Montaignes? There aren’t any, and this is probably a good thing. The existence of towering geniuses is almost always a sign that a discipline is still in the early stages of development and hasn’t reached a stage of maturity yet. Mature disciplines are characterized by a state of the art in their debates that simply cannot be overseen or dominated by any single mind. The absence of philosophical prodigies, rather than being evidence of decline, actually means that we’ve made it. 

A discipline that frequently produces singular geniuses hasn’t left its earlier phase of relative inchoateness yet. Serendipity may occasionally wrestle another Gauss or Einstein from the claws of nonexistence. But in general, modern scientific disciplines are so far developed to be beyond individual mastery. The list containing the most influential philosophers could be a simple statement of fact: Plato was de facto much more influential than any living person ever had the chance of becoming, since he had much more ample time to acquire such influence. This is indisputably true, but it doesn’t amount to a defense of philosophical historiography. If anything, it shows the opposite, namely that the attention historical authors receive today is unlikely to be due to epistemically relevant considerations, and rather due to the grace of an earlier birth. Perhaps the above list need not reflect unwarranted historicist prejudices as much as survivorship bias. 

[---]

The claim that historical philosophers have little of value to contribute to contemporary philosophy may seem disrespectful or even ungrateful to some. But I think the opposite is the case. That the historiography of philosophy – its historia rerum gestarum – is especially philosophically significant amounts to the thesis that the history of philosophy – its res gestae – was philosophically insignificant. To say that the great philosophers of the past remain relevant today is tantamount to saying that they have accomplished nothing of lasting value; that, in effect, there are no giants on whose shoulders we can stand. Physicists do not keep studying Newton’s Principia precisely because of what he has accomplished. The best way of respecting Newton is to ignore him – or, more precisely, to ignore his own writings in favor of the lasting results he produced, the substance of which can be paraphrased and taught – because the progress engendered by his work allows us to. The cure I am recommending is a healthy dose of historical amnesia to counterbalance the burden imposed by the weight of history. 

This cure was famously prescribed a long time ago by Nietzsche, one of history’s greatest philosophers, in his 1874 Untimely Meditations – which is ironic.

To be clear, Hanno Sauer is not recommending the current fad and stupidity of “cancel culture''.  This paper reminds us that we have finite time and we need to be prudent and wise not to spend too much time on outdated materials. 

There are a number of ways old books can still help us and future generations. For example:

• Even a rudimentary analysis of older texts could improve our "scale of gratitude" by proportions - how much knowledge we gained.
• It could help teach how time exposes the ludicrousness of "know-it-all" arrogance (Aristotle)
• It could help teach how time will vindicate humility and curiosity of "what do I know?" (Montaigne)

I came up with just a few of them in less than 2 mins. If we think hard, there could be a lot of good messages these old texts can bring. That would beneficial for society as a whole instead of passive nationalistic and cultural reading of old philosophers just because one's roots are from the West or Indian or Chinese.

My favorite lines from the paper have now become a great heuristic to gauge a discipline.

The existence of towering geniuses is almost always a sign that a discipline is still in the early stages of development and hasn’t reached a stage of maturity yet. Mature disciplines are characterized by a state of the art in their debates that simply cannot be overseen or dominated by any single mind. 

Reptilian Love, Loss & Mourning

Ned and Sunny stretch out together on the warm sand. He rests his head on her back, and every so often he might give her an affectionate nudge with his nose. The pair is quiet and, like many long-term couples, they seem perfectly content just to be in each other’s presence.

The couple are monogamous, which is quite rare in the animal kingdom. But Sunny and Ned are a bit scalier that your typical lifelong mates — they are shingleback lizards that live at Melbourne Museum in Australia.

In the wild, shinglebacks regularly form long-term bonds, returning to the same partner during mating season year after year. One lizard couple in a long-term study had been pairing up for 27 years and were still going strong when the study ended. In this way, the reptiles are more like some of the animal kingdom’s most famous long-term couplers, such as albatrosses, prairie voles and owl monkeys, and they confound expectations many people have about the personalities of lizards.

“There’s more socially going on with reptiles than we give them credit for,” said Sean Doody, a conservation biologist at the University of South Florida.

[---]

One of the most fascinating discoveries of reptile social behavior — long-term monogamy in shingleback lizards like Ned and Sunny — happened entirely by accident.

Michael Bull, the Australian biologist who made the discovery, was initially less focused on lizards and more interested in studying the different species of ticks that lived on them. Beginning in 1982, he would capture shinglebacks, mark them, take various measurements, then release them. After several years (and thousands of lizards), he noticed that each spring, after months apart, the same males and females would somehow manage to find each other.

Shingleback courtship is perhaps not the most romantic by human standards.

“The male will trail the female around for a number of weeks, often a few months, and defend that female from any other male that tries to encroach,” said Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute in Australia. Males have also been seen allowing their mates to eat first, she said.

Actually, this last behavior is a good move for males of a number of species. Another lizard species, the Central American whiptail, has been observed offering a potential partner a lovely dead frog to eat before mating.

But shingleback love stories don’t always have happy endings. “It’s very tragic,” said Martin Whiting, a behavioral ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. “Occasionally, they get squashed on the road and the other one will be nudging it. And then it’s very difficult for them to pair up again.”

Dr. Whiting said the lizards can remain with their dead partners for quite some time, continuing to nudge their lifeless bodies. Could this be similar to the quasi-mourning behaviors observed in primates and cetaceans?

While we can’t definitively say that these lizards grieve, Dr. Whiting said, “I would certainly say we can’t discount that certain species that have that strong pair bond might.”

- More Here

We should stop using the detrimental phrase -  "reptilian brain" (Amygdala). 

This is 101 science; life long hard work of one scientist, Michael Bull, can teach us so much and change our understanding of entire branch of species. 

Thank you, sir. 

Montagine On Leisure and Play

In Montaigne’s final essay of experience about his lifelong curiosity of how to live his life, he talks about these types of concerns. After spending some time listing the qualities of great minds that are guided him, Montaigne writes: 

The truly wise must be as intelligent and expert in the use of natural pleasures, as in all the other functions of life. So the sages live gently yielding to the laws of our human lot, relaxation and versatility, it seems, go best with a strong and noble mind and do it singular honor. There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time when he was an old man to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

Socrates endured unfathomable hardships throughout his life. Hunger, poverty, the indocility of his children, the nails of his wife, calumny, tyranny, imprisonment, fetters in poison. And yet, he never refused to play, nor to ride the hobbyhorse with children. And it became him well, for all actions, says philosophy, equally become an equally honor a wise man.

- via Daily Stoic

Max taught me the importance of play; those lessons still continues from Fluffy, Garph and Neo. 

One of my all time favorite essay is Do Animals Have Fun?

We know at the present time that all animals, beginning with the ants, going on to the birds, and ending with the highest mammals, are fond of plays, wrestling, running after each other, trying to capture each other, teasing each other, and so on. And while many plays are, so to speak, a school for the proper behavior of the young in mature life, there are others which, apart from their utilitarian purposes, are, together with dancing and singing, mere manifestations of an excess of forces—“the joy of life,” and a desire to communicate in some way or another with other individuals of the same or of other species—in short, a manifestation of sociability proper, which is a distinctive feature of all the animal world.

To exercise one’s capacities to their fullest extent is to take pleasure in one’s own existence, and with sociable creatures, such pleasures are proportionally magnified when performed in company. From the Russian perspective, this does not need to be explained. It is simply what life is. We don’t have to explain why creatures desire to be alive. Life is an end in itself. And if what being alive actually consists of is having powers—to run, jump, fight, fly through the air—then surely the exercise of such powers as an end in itself does not have to be explained either. It’s just an extension of the same principle.

Friedrich Schiller had already argued in 1795 that it was precisely in play that we find the origins of self-consciousness, and hence freedom, and hence morality. 

“Man plays only when he is in the full sense of the word a man,” Schiller wrote in his On the Aesthetic Education of Man, “and he is only wholly a Man when he is playing.” If so, and if Kropotkin was right, then glimmers of freedom, or even of moral life, begin to appear everywhere around us.

How Mud Boosts Your Immune System

Today, many parents may secretly wish their children had the chance to pick up a bit of grime. With the rise of urbanism, and the allure of video games and social media, contact with nature is much rarer than in the past. For many, there is simply no opportunity to get muddy.

What is gained in laundry bills may be lost in the child's wellbeing. According to recent research, the dirt outside is teaming with friendly microorganisms that can train the immune system and build resilience to a range of illnesses, including allergies, asthma and even depression and anxiety.

These findings show that outdoor exercise is not only beneficial because of the chance to roam free – but that certain natural materials, such as soil and mud, also contain surprisingly powerful microorganisms whose positive impact on children's health we are only beginning to fully understand.

[---]

The new research offers a fresh take on the "hygiene hypothesis", first postulated in the late 1980s. According to this idea, the great reduction in childhood infections over the 20th Century had an undesirable side effect on people's immune systems, leading them to become overreactive to the slightest stimulation. The result was thought to be the rise in asthma, hay fever and food allergies.

Many scientists now dislike the term hygiene hypothesis, however, since it seemed to discourage important behaviours like hand-washing. And they balk at the idea that infections, per se, are beneficial for children. "It was quite problematic from a public health perspective," says Christopher Lowry, a professor of integrative physiology and the director of the behavioural neuroendocrinology laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder, US.

Instead, it is the non-infectious organisms that are now thought to be key – rather than the ones that actually make our children sick. These "old friends" have been around for much of our evolutionary history. They are mostly harmless, and train the immune system to moderate its activity, rather than overreacting to any potential invader.

Importantly, our bodies meet these old friends whenever we spend time in nature. With increased urbanisation, and reduced outdoor play, many children now lack that exposure – meaning that their immune systems are more sensitive to any threat, and more likely to go into overdrive.

- More Here

Little Rules About Big Things

Brilliant list by Morgan Housel - read the whole thing and practice it everyday. 

Personally, I struggle to make people understand the following little rules which could ruin their lives. Starting with the very first item on Housel's list (I learned that from Taleb) 

• You should obsess over risks that do permanent damage and care little about risks that do temporary harm, but the opposite is more common. 

• It’s important to know the difference between rosy optimism and periods of chaos that trend upward. 

• Few things are as valuable in the modern world as a good bullshit detector. 

• Most of what people call “conviction” is a willful disregard for new information that might make you change your mind. That’s when beliefs turn dangerous. 

• There’s a sweet spot where you grasp the important stuff but you’re not smart enough to be bored with it. 

• A comforting delusion is thinking that other people’s bad circumstances couldn’t also happen to you.

• People learn when they’re surprised. Not when they read the right answer, or are told they’re doing it wrong, but when they experience a gap between expectations and reality. 

• People tend to know what makes them angry with more certainty than what might make them happy. Happiness is complicated because you keep moving the goalposts. Misery is more predictable. 

• Getting rich and staying rich are different things that require different skills. 

• Money’s greatest intrinsic value is its ability to give you control over your time. 

• “Learn enough from history to respect one another’s delusions.” -Will Durant 

• There’s more to learn from people who endured risk than those who seemingly conquered it, because the kind of skills you need to endure risk are more likely repeatable and relevant to future risks. 

• Nothing too good or too bad stays that way forever, because great times plant the seeds of their own destruction through complacency and leverage, and bad times plant the seeds of their own turnaround through opportunity and panic-driven problem-solving. 

• Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate. 

• Napoleon’s definition of a military genius was “The man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.” It’s the same in business and investing. 

• It’s hard to tell the difference between boldness and recklessness, greed and ambition, contrarian and wrong. 

• Risk has two stages: First, when it actually hits. Then, when its scars influence our subsequent decisions. The recession, and the lingering pessimism that does as much damage. 

• Tell people what they want to hear and you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty. 

• There are two types of information: stuff you’ll still care about in the future, and stuff that matters less and less over time. Long-term vs. expiring knowledge. It’s critical to identify which is which when you come across something new. 

• There is an optimal amount of bullshit in life. Having no tolerance for hassle, nonsense and inefficiency is not an admirable trait; it’s denying reality. Once you accept a certain level of BS, you stop denying its existence and have a clearer view of how the world works. 

• Risk’s greatest fuels are leverage, overconfidence, ego, and impatience. Its greatest antidote is having options, humility, and other people’s trust.

"Phase Transition" in Complex Ecosystem

A few months ago, I was trying to explain the limitations of modeling because of lack of data on something rudimentary as "Phase Transition" (simplest example - ice becomes gas without becoming water). 

We as a civilization never got educated on complex systems and hence, we are facing so many problems masqueraded as "political" polarization. I hope future generations will look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of our current state. 

Insights from a great interdisciplinary research:

Your gut is home to microbial madness. Hundreds of trillions of bacteria belonging to countless species interact with one another in complex ways that can both keep you healthy and cause disease. Teasing out these interactions would seem an impossible task.

Now, microbiologists have found help from an unlikely source: physics. A new experiment suggests a powerful concept known as a phase transition can predict how complex ecosystems—like those composed of the bacteria in your belly—behave. The finding could help us keep our guts healthy and even protect other complex ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs.

“It’s a beautiful piece of work,” says Fernanda Pinheiro, a physicist who studies bacterial ecology and physiology at the Human Technopole, who was not involved with the work.

[---]

To get at the problem, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicist Jeff Gore and his colleagues created bespoke ecosystems in the lab. They scooped up 24 bacterial species from the soil of a Boston-area nature preserve and swiped another 24 from nematode guts. They grew the microbes together in plastic wells and increased and decreased the concentration of nutrients to manipulate how strongly the different species interacted with each other. The more nutrients, the more the different species competed.

The experimental ecosystems went through three distinct phases as the number of species in the mix or the intensity of interactions between species increased. At first, every species’ population remained stable. Then, when the number of species or the interactions between species crossed a certain threshold, the system abruptly entered a new phase in which some species started to die out. As the experimenters kept adding species and ratcheting up nutrient levels, the system crossed into a third phase: The remaining species’ populations began to fluctuate wildly, indicating the ecosystem as a whole had lost stability.

The upshot: Just two variables—the number of species and the average interaction strength—determined whether a mishmash of different microbes would be stable or chaotic, says study author Jiliang Hu, a mechanical engineering graduate student at MIT.

The paper, published today in Science, is the first to report replicable phase transitions based on species interactions and diversity in communities with more than a tiny handful of species, Kuehn says.

Epistemic Stubbornness & The Problem Of Akrasia

I am not sure how good this book When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves by Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro is but this beautiful review Ryan M. Brown is full of insights. 

This is a one of those standard books which got written post anti-vaccine movement and other right wing lunacy. Similar books had been published during Iraq war. These books signals the brilliance of left wing thinking and stupidity of right wing. 

Daniel Kahneman's famous lines of "we are blind to our own blindness" goes unheeded by the left. I am sure the book doesn't cover the idiocy of the left when it comes to socialism , woke-ism, or virtue signaling. 

Bottom-line, this epistemic stubbornness is neither right or left wing trait but many sapiens have this trait outside of politics. 

I can bet that Ryan M. Brown's review is better than the book because he stresses on the importance of Consilience - Unity of Knowledge (thank you E.O.Wilson) to see reality better.

This kind of bad thinking is instead a kind of “epistemic stubbornness,” a refusal to give up one’s beliefs in the face of countervailing evidence. The epistemically stubborn are guilty of confirmation bias: they ignore any evidence that doesn’t help their case and glom on to any information that does—or seems to. Epistemically stubborn people may be intellectually gifted. They may understand the “canons of good reason” but refuse to abide by them. The key words in this analysis are “stubborn,” “ignore,” and “refuse.” While epistemically stubborn people are making intellectual mistakes when they uphold beliefs contrary to readily accessible evidence—beliefs that are often based on nothing more than hearsay and that conflict with other truths the stubborn thinker holds—they are also making moral mistakes. And not only because epistemic stubbornness can lead to morally bankrupt action. According to Nadler and Shapiro, epistemic stubbornness is morally fraught even when it doesn’t produce harmful consequences. Whatever its practical effect, it is a “character flaw deserving of blame.” Luckily, they tell us, “bad thinking is always avoidable.”

The cure for the “virus” of bad thinking lies in a humanistic education, especially one that teaches us the “canons of good reasoning” as made available through philosophy. More broadly, the “antidote” is the examination of life promoted by Socrates, which seeks to cultivate a deep intellectual humility: I must come to recognize what I do and do not know, and I must never act as if I know when I do not know. If the conspiratorial, epistemically stubborn person can come to recognize what counts as good reasoning (valid deduction, statistically sound induction) and then begin asking herself, “Why do I believe this? Do I really have good and compelling evidence to support this claim?” then she can set forth on the road to recovery. When she learns to approach each of her beliefs with the same humility and demand for sound reasoning and evidence, then she will become wise.

[---]

The real problem is that they think of philosophy too restrictively. As a result, their description of the epidemic doesn’t go deep enough and their solution to it isn’t expansive enough. What’s missing is something else we can learn from Socrates.

In Book VII of Plato’s Republic (the “Allegory of the Cave”), Socrates tells his conversation partners that “education is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be. They presumably assert that they put into the soul knowledge that isn’t in it, as though they were putting sight into blind eyes.” Socrates’s account of education, by contrast,

indicates that this power [reason] is in the soul of each, and that the instrument with which each learns—just as an eye is not able to turn toward the light from the dark without the whole body—must be turned around from that which is coming into being together with the whole soul until it is able to endure looking at that which is and the brightest part of that which is. And we affirm that this is the good, don’t we?

Shortly before making this claim, Socrates tries to direct his interlocutors’ attention to what he calls the “good beyond being,” which is the transcendent, lovable cause of all existence and knowledge. (Early Christian intellectuals reading this text would say “this is what we mean by ‘God.’”) According to Socrates, education is not about fixing a broken faculty or pouring information into an empty mind. Instead, it is about redirecting an already functioning capacity for thinking so that it’s looking at what really matters. Reason, however, can’t be turned toward the True, the Good, and the Beautiful until everything else in the soul, including our desires and emotions, has been redirected—just as your eyes can’t be directed toward what’s behind you until you move the rest of your body to face the same direction.

If Socrates is right, then the “cure” for bad thinking must be much more radical and holistic than Nadler and Shapiro think it is. They believe the problem lies mostly in the form of one’s thinking (does one abide by the “canons of good reasoning”?) rather than the content (what one thinks about). They want us to hold opinions based on evidence and believe that merely developing the logical tools of reasoning will suffice. This makes it hard for them to answer an important question: Why do even professional philosophers—those most conversant with the rules of logic and the standards of evidence—fall into bad thinking? Of course, many who are susceptible to conspiracy theories and junk science would benefit from the kind of education in logic and scientific reasoning that Nadler and Shapiro promote, but such an education is clearly insufficient. As Socrates argues, the epistemically stubborn need to be redirected from their deficient orientation to reality. One can’t correct wishful thinking without correcting the non-rational part of us that does the wishing. Reason can’t be properly directed until the sub-rational aspects of the human soul are likewise directed toward what’s genuinely true and good. To their credit, the authors do discuss the problem of akrasia—when we know what’s right and yet can’t get ourselves to do it because of the force of some opposed emotion or desire—and they do briefly acknowledge extra-rational motivations in the last few pages of their book. Still, they remain placidly confident that the epistemically stubborn person just needs to start asking herself the right questions.

[---]

Consider, by contrast, Terry Eagleton’s account in Reason, Faith, and Revolution of radical Islamic terrorism in terms of Western imperial aggression and the political and economic conditions that result from that aggression. These conditions prompt the would-be terrorist into precisely the kind of bad thinking Nadler and Shapiro are talking about. Or consider Michael Sandel’s recent evaluation in The Tyranny of Merit of Trumpist populism in terms of the failures of Reaganite political economy to afford economic security and social esteem to working-class white voters. Eagleton and Sandel both recognize that we don’t think in a vacuum; if we want to understand why people fall for crazy, debunked ideas, we have to understand the material conditions from which their reasoning emerges. And if we want to combat those ideas, we have to address those conditions. That means our approach to the problem must be informed by history, politics, and economics, not just logic and epistemology—important as these are. If there is indeed an epidemic of bad thinking in twenty-first-century America, it may be evidence not only of untrained minds, but a defective society.

For starters, I would also add biology, geology, and a healthy lifestyle to the list which will help us all to see reality better. 

Problem of akrasia—when we know what’s right and yet can’t get ourselves to do it because of the force of some opposed emotion or desire. Most people understand they cause immense animal sufferings by choosing to eat dead bodies of animals for their gastrointestinal pleasures. But yet, most people don't stop eating meat. Doesn't that sound like the problem of akrasia?

Steve Job's Epistemic Humility

One of Steve Job's final letters to himself illustrates his oozing epistemic humility. 

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow

I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive

of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless

to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor,

object oriented programming, or most of the technology

I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am

totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

- via Steve Jobs Archive

Steve Jobs being a technologist forgot its not just "my species" but "all species" that help us survive. If a person like Jobs got it incorrect there not much hope from Silicon valley. 

Nevertheless, I loved his humility and those lines reminds me of Oliver Sacks Gratitude his last book: 

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved, I have given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and though and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

And Christopher Hitchens last book Mortality:

“Until you have done something for humanity,” wrote the great American educator Horace Mann, “you should be ashamed to die.” I would have happily offered myself as an experimental subject for new drugs or new surgeries, partly of course in the hope that they might salvage me, but also on the Mann principle.

Finally, my thoughts on preparing for my death I wrote in 2021. 

When My Wants & Needs Synchronized = Happiest Day Of My Life

Oct 4th, 2019. 

Sometimes I wonder if I was born to experience just that day. Sometimes I wonder, if any day in the future would be better than that day?

And those wonders subside. I as an entity has nothing but gratitude for that day. I am glad to have lived to experience that day. I cannot and will not ask for more. 

The twinkle in Max's eyes which I thought I would see again - came back that day. 

I never felt peace, happiness, joy, grief, sadness all synchronized in a single moment in time. 

I am eternally grateful for that day three years ago. 

Life gave me so much that day and I don't want to spend my life talking about that day but do whatever little I can to make that day happen for all life forms. 

FDA Modernization Act - Better News For Future Animals

Good news came via an email from NAVS landed in my inbox: 

Yesterday, September 29, the U.S. Senate unanimously gave its consent to an updated version of the FDA Modernization Act. An earlier version of this legislation has already passed the House of Representatives.

The House and Senate versions of the bill still need to be reconciled; however, once signed into law, the FDA Modernization Act will end an archaic mandate by the Food and Drug Administration that all new drugs be tested on animals. It would instead give drug developers the option to use modern, non-animal methods.

While this bill does not mean a wholesale cessation of animal tests in drug development, it finally provides drug manufacturers with the option to use safe, humane, non-animal tests. It brings us one huge step closer to the day when animal tests are relegated to the dustbin of history.

NAVS advocates like you have been working hard for more than a year to ensure the passage of this bill. This is a time to be proud—your voice truly has made all the difference!

Thank you for all you do on behalf of animals.

From CATO:

Today the U.S. Senate passed, by unanimous consent, the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, co‐​sponsored by Senators Rand Paul (R‑KY) and Cory Booker (D‑NJ). The bill removes the mandate, included in the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), that requires all drugs to be tested on animals to exclude toxicity. The bill does not end animal testing, but it now permits drug developers to use alternative methods to test for toxicity when feasible. Similar provisions are in a bill passed earlier in the U.S. House of Representatives, making this reform likely to become law.

Since the FDCA was passed 83 years ago, research has shown animal testing to be an inconsistent indicator of drug toxicity and, in many cases, alternative methods are equally or more reliable. Yet, because of the 1938 mandate, hundreds of animals must be killed for a pharmaceutical company to bring a single drug to market. Last year, Senator Paul held a “Puppy Press Conference,” making the case for the reform.

This bipartisan legislation is certainly commendable. But, to be fair, it’s low‐​hanging fruit. The FDCA needs much more comprehensive reform and must be made consistent with its authors’ pledge to respect the people’s right to self‐​medicate.

Thank you Senator Cory Booker for making this happen. You are the only person in the senate since well for ever who works tirelessly to help animals in need. 

Thank you Senator Rand Paul for crossing party lines and standing up for the moral cause. 

For decades animal testing was done for one reason - because they can do it and no one cared. 

This is not a right or left wing issue. This is a moral obligation. Thank you for doing what you do. 

A little history tour to explain why this is not a political issue but a madness of humanity issue. 

During cold car, Soviet Union killed 180,000 whales for no reason since:

the Soviet Union had little real demand for whale products. Once the blubber was cut away for conversion into oil, the rest of the animal, as often as not, was left in the sea to rot or was thrown into a furnace and reduced to bone meal—a low-value material used for agricultural fertilizer, made from the few animal byproducts that slaughterhouses and fish canneries can’t put to more profitable use….Why did a country with so little use for whales kill so many of them?

The reason they killed so many whales was because... well "they can" and no one questioned. 

The Soviet whalers, Berzin wrote, had been sent forth to kill whales for little reason other than to say they had killed them. They were motivated by an obligation to satisfy obscure line items in the five-year plans that drove the Soviet economy, which had been set with little regard for the Soviet Union’s actual demand for whale products. “Whalers knew that no matter what, the plan must be met!” Berzin wrote. The Sovetskaya Rossiya seemed to contain in microcosm everything Berzin believed to be wrong about the Soviet system: its irrationality, its brutality, its inclination toward crime. 

Along the similar craziness of Soviet Union, USA is still doing animal testing using dogs, cats, monkeys, bunnies and other mammals for the same reason - because "they can" and no one questions them. 

Since the FDCA was passed 83 years ago, research has shown animal testing to be an inconsistent indicator of drug toxicity and, in many cases, alternative methods are equally or more reliable. Yet, because of the 1938 mandate, hundreds of animals must be killed for a pharmaceutical company to bring a single drug to market. Last year, Senator Paul held a “Puppy Press Conference,” making the case for the reform.

Moral degradation happens agnostic to politics and geography unleashing immense pain and suffering on animals. 

We have an obligation to change this. 

Learn, Act, Update Learnings From Action. Repeat - Saul Griffith's Book Electrify & Other Sustainable Practices

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

What Margaret Mead missed in the above fact is that even simple changes by a small group of people has the power to change the status quo for good. Nassim Taleb calls it "Minority Rule".

Let us conjecture that the formation of moral values in society doesn’t come from the evolution of the consensus. No, it is the most intolerant person who imposes virtue on others precisely because of that intolerance. The same can apply to civil rights.

Do simple changes to your life everyday instead of signaling, arguing and making language based noise which roughly translates to "I am a good human",  "I am pro market",  "I care for the planet, poor people animals, and nature" and other similar bullshit phrases.

Saul Griffith's Book Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future is meant educate us fast.

 “Here, I will try to offer you dinner party-ready talking points for the main questions that people will inevitably have for the main argument of the book. Each topic is worthy of a book in itself. If I dispose of a favorite baby of yours too quickly here, or you think I have it all ass-backward, then we should grab a beer sometime.”

Read the excerpts here and some actionable items: 

Stop the insanity of spreading "I love to travel" bullshit: 

Flying is energy-intensive per minute, but not per mile. Per passenger-mile traveled, it requires approximately the same energy as driving in a car with a passenger. That said, reducing the number of flights taken is one of the most effective ways for individuals to reduce their energy footprints.

Embrace nuclear energy and vote for candidates who will help innovate in nuclear waste management:

America has led the world in nuclear power. The U.S. Navy operates the largest fleet of small reactors in the world, and it boasts an impeccable safety record. Nuclear is a form of electrification, and it fits squarely with the plan to fight global heating. Nuclear power currently delivers around 100 gigawatts of very reliable electricity to America’s grid. Maintaining or even ambitiously increasing this amount would no doubt make the climate solution easier. Today’s best estimates have nuclear energy at approximately double the cost of wind and solar. Without a doubt, those costs could be trimmed enormously given advances in engineering, since most of these plants were designed 50 years ago.

The health effects of nuclear power have been well studied. It is established that nuclear is not as dangerous as we tend to think. But like shark attacks, it’s the prospect of a low-probability event that could release radiation that drives our fears. We can lower that probability further by building dedicated infrastructure like the facility at Yucca Mountain, but the fact remains that for 40 years, policymakers haven’t been sufficiently able to convince people to invest in this kind of infrastructure. Nuclear power will remain a very difficult political topic unless we have a breakthrough in waste management.

Pick a shovel today and plant trees:

Yes, we should — at least a trillion. Grab a shovel!

The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The second-best time to plant a tree is today.

Go plant a tree for your grandkids to climb on. Even better, go plant 30,000.

Remember - Electrify book is meant to enlightened you on how to help yourself not nature. Nature will do just fine with or without humans. 

Gia Mora has small-little-beautiful changes you can make at home to help yourself and your health. 

• Trade Beef for Beans - I eat lots of lentils and beans. Plus no meat in Max's house. 

• Buy Local Instead of Commercial - I haven't been to the grocery store in years and buy everything in small farms.

• Turn Your Food Waste Into More Food - I cook beet leaves like spinach to all parts of cauliflower and broccoli. Start composting for other things. Read the book The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for Whole Plant Cooking by Linda Ly.

• Trade Disposables for a Zero-Waste Kit - Since Max passed away, I have almost replaced all plastic items with bamboo or eco friendly products. Cancer and our health is a complex system, its easy to eliminate bad health triggers from micro-plastic.

• Select Experiences Over Things - This doesn't mean travel (I cannot get over this mindless act from most humans) but go for simple walk, workout, listen to music and zillion other simple pleasures. Read E. F. Schumacher's classic book Small is Beautiful - cross domains and apply to daily life. 

• Get Your Shopping Fix Secondhand - I don't follow this when it comes to clothes. I retain my clothes for decades and donate every year. Quite a few kitchen items I still own are over 2 decades old bought from thrift stores when I had little money. 

• Invest in Quality Instead of Buying Cheap - Prius, Dyson and Apple are expensive but they are worthy long term investments.

• Make Your Own Cleaning Supplies - I don't and opt to buy not tested on animals for 2 decades. 

• Trade Plastic Cleaning Tools for Natural Alternatives - Covered in fourth point above. 

• Choose Reusable Cloths Over Paper Towels - Been doing this for years. Unfortunately when Max got cancer, I had to buy lots of paper towels. Went back to minimal use of paper towels now. 

• Store Food in Glass or Beeswax In Lieu of Plastic - Covered in fourth point above. 

• Reuse (Don’t Toss) Your Old Water - I don't capture rain water. I should start doing it. Watch the classic national award winning Tamil movie Thaneer Thaneer (Water, Water). K.Balachander's insight of increasing awareness of preserving water will make you cry. And stop playing golf and eliminate your lawns. 

• Wash Your Clothes in Cold Water Instead of Hot - Been doing this for 2 decades. Understand - there has been great innovation in the science of laundry detergents to clean effectively using cold water. Most people are unaware of (or under-rate) the innovations in home and body cleaning products. 

• Flush Less - Pee-flush happens once or twice a day. 

• Switch to a Sustainable Toilet Paper - I tried this a few times in the past years but it didn't work. I should try again since there are new products on the market. 

• Unscrew Your Incandescents for LEDs - Done that over a decade ago.

• Control the Temperature Outside of the Thermostat - One of the first adopter of Nest thermostat and it works great. 

• Don’t Just Turn Off—Unplug - I tried this decade ago and it worked. I took an alternate path - plug only lights, computers and coffee maker. I can be more conscientious.

• Switch to Renewable Energy - I am trying. Most solar companies are rejecting me stating I have too many trees - go figure the insanity.

• Trade Your Daily Drive for a Different Commute - I did car pooling to work for over a decade and now it doesn't apply to me. 

• Trade Travel Emissions for Staycations - Read the book Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life by Gretchen Rubin to cure yourself of the cancer called travel. 

I posted a couple of days ago about a meaningless book called What We Owe The Future full of useless philosophy and bullshit thought experiments. 

Stop reading such books and focus on what you can act on in everyday life and act on it continuously. Learn from mistakes and act empowered by new knowledge. Continue this Bayesian cycle untiring until the end of life. 

I am following a lot of things in the above list but the beauty of the Bayesian cycle will help me change soon by showing how much wrong I am doing by sheer blindness and lack of knowledge. Since Max died in 2019, I have made many simple changes in daily life from painful learnings of losing Max. 

This bayesian cycle will not only help your health long term but most importantly it will be your daily ally to your mind see reality as it is.