Practical politics consists in ignoring facts

The title is a quote from Henry Adams.

I despair for modern politics when David Cameron tries to ally himself with “the common man” while at the same time engaging in petty point-scoring about Titian’s age. Thanks Dave. Really constructive politics we’re doing here. And it is faintly worrying in a 1984 kind of sense when someone then tries to edit wikipedia to make almighty Dave look better. And worrying in a kind of Mr. Bean sense when they get it wrong. And worrying in a more serious sense that time was wasted on this exchange when the country is in dire financial straits. Not to mention issues of climate change that only grow more urgent.

That’s not to say I would never vote Conservative (although instinctively I’m probably closer to something like what Labour used to stand for.) I’d never vote for the current Labour government either. I’ve nothing against Mr. Brown. I think he’s serious and possibly even boring, but experienced and probably fairly good at politicky stuff. And I’m in no position to make any stronger judgements of his ability etc. What I object to is Jacqui Smith. (a) she spells her name in a really stupid way. (b) her voice grates on me whenever I hear her interviewed. She looks permanently put-upon and harrassed and sounds it too. (c) she seems to be forging ahead with all sorts of surveillance type policies despite widespread disapproval. This point is particularly galling for me because in theory I would be open to some sort of national ID card scheme if it could be made useful and worthwhile. The current (unpopular) scheme is hamstrung not only by the anti-ID card lobby, but also by worries over security of the data and the cost involved. And the fact that the card as it is wouldn’t be useful. My suggestion is make the card such that people will find it a convenience to have it, rather than force them to carry it. (d) she has twice ignored the advice of groups set up to explore the reclassification of drugs. Why this is annoying is because it speaks of a basic disregard for the scientific facts which, I feel, should be at the basis of policy decisions. The argument given for ignoring the advice is that it “would send the wrong message”. But if the decision was effectively made before the advice was given, why spend money on having these people produce the advice in the first place? Commissioning a report seems to carry with it an implicit duty to pay attention to the recommendations put forward and to make any decision at least partly on the basis of the report.

None of these are particularly well thought out arguments, nor are they based on any careful collating of all the relevant information. But that’s exactly the problem. I would in general be predisposed to go out and vote, but the impression I get of the current crop of candidates is fairly negative. Politicians should be trying to convince me they deserve to be in power. And I am going to be convinced only by a cogent set of principled policies. And I am not going to go out and read party political manifestoes. It is the duty of the politicians to get their message across to me. My impression is that manifesto promises are often reneged. And politics seems to be all about criticising the other guy. (That could be because in terms of ideology or policies, there is no real difference between the two main parties any more.)

This is all a bit of rant really. I’ve probably done nothing more than show how ill informed I am. Never mind, eh?

Prize for the best title for a conference ever: Tickle your catastrophe.

Wah wah. The internet knows my dog is called “Leeroy”

So that last post about words was not at all ranty. Here’s a proper old moan.

There’s something strange about people complaining that facebook has access to all this private data and is cynically selling it on to other evil internet type outfits. Even if you delete your profile all your information stays on their servers and can still be sold on to evil types. There are two things that are so very wrong with all this uproar. The first is that what do you care if someone knows that your favourite film is “Titanic (saw it 6 tiems n tha cinema. im obsessed lol!!!!11″ or that your favourite music is “erm, dont no really.”? So what if the ads you see are tailored to you by your web browsing habits? You’ll just ignore the ads anyway.

The second thing that bothers me about people complaining about privacy on facebook is this: IF YOU DON’T WANT FACEBOOK TO HAVE YOUR DETAILS, DON’T BLOODY WELL PUBLISH THEM ON THE FUCKING INTERNET. I mean, really. You can’t publish your phone number and home address on the internet and then hope the information remains a secret. That’s just stupid. My phone number and email address are not on my facebook profile precisely because I want to have some control over who is privy to that information. I’m happy to advertise that I liked blazing saddles and gladiator and I listen to Weezer and U2. I have put that sort of information up there because I don’t care who knows. Have some bloody common sense.

I also thing there’s a delicious irony in Facebook groups dedicated to complaining about Facebook’s privacy issues. If you’re so outraged, just delete your profile. (And email Facebook asking them to remove all your private data. You can ask them to do that, apparently)

I am a frog-pasta-tube

I have been reading some craaa-aaazy stuff today. So this one paper suggested that the fundamental metaphysical nature of the world is that of a graph. An unlabelled asymmetric graph-theoretic entity. OK. It kind of fits in with a lot of stuff about ontic structural realism. Kind of.

Now I’m reading something about the bird-eye view versus the frog-eye view of space and time. The “bird” sees the whole spacetime structure from the outside. What looks like a particle moving with constant speed to the frog looks like a strand of spaghetti to the bird. Two particles orbiting each other, to the bird, looks like two strands of pasta entwined like a double helix. Like the weird blob thing in Donnie Darko. So the bird sees the frog as an ensemble of worldlines for the frogs particles. The frog looks like a tube of pasta strands to the bird. I did not make up any of this up. (Except the Donnie Darko reference). It’s all there in Max Tegmark’s The Mathematical Universe. The weak point in his argument is that he claims that any “theory of everything” will be entirely mathematical. This simply cannot be the case. We have plenty of theories that are entirely mathematical; go ask your local maths professor. If it is to be a theory of the physical world, the theory is going to have to involve some kind of pointers as to how to apply its results to the world. So we had a theory of Riemannian manifolds before Einstein came along, but that didn’t make the (mathematical) theory a scientific theory. Not until Einstein started showing how the manifold could relate to our conception of space. Tegmark pretty much agrees with this point, but then says that that isn’t fundamental to the theory. He says we have a mathematical theory and then the interpretation is done afterwards and isn’t necessarily part of that theory. This is both methodologically backwards and I think just plain wrong. The interpretation is central to that mathematical theory qua scientific theory.

I am sympathetic to the (ontic) structural realist flavour of what Tegmark is getting at, but I don’t think his “derivation” of his “MUH: Mathematical Universe Hypothesis” really works. I have to say I gave up after the first 10 or so pages because it was getting near to dinner time and the two column layout is a pain in the arse to read on the computer.

Tegmark also has that annoying scientist’s habit of not putting the names of the articles in his bibliography. So in the text he will cite “[14]” which isn’t helpful. Then if I scroll to the bibliography I will see that [14] is “J. Ladyman Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 409-424 (1998)” God dammit. If he just wrote Ladyman (1998) in the text instead of [14] I’d know immediately that he meant What is structural realism? It would mean much less hopping back and forth. And what about if the author and name wasn’t enough for me to identify the paper? I’d have to bloody well look it up on the internet. I appreciate the practice makes sense in science where knowing the actual paper under discussion isn’t important to the argumentation, and that titles of scientific papers are long and would lead to bloated bibliographies, but come on! It isn’t even as if it would be a lot of work to change it. How hard is it to add the line “\usepackage{natbib209}” to the preamble of your LaTeX document and change your bibliography style to chicago, or similar? I bet the names of the articles are already in the bibtex file…

I did promise to post something that wasn’t a rant. And this started out as a light-hearted look at some of the dangerously bonkers stuff I take seriously every day. But it turned into a rant about bibliography formatting, of all things. I appear to be incapable of not ending up complaining about something. I guess that means I am just a mean spirited cynical rantophile.

Why can’t I buy yoghurts that are bad for me?

I like fruit yoghurts. But I object to buying “healthy option” type foods, because they are preying on this culture of health as lifestyle and it’s all wrapped up with fad-diets and trendy ways to exercise. But I can’t find yoghurts that aren’t promoting themselves as “low fat” or as being packed with “good bacteria” or some such nonsense. It’s all Ski and Activia… Whether or not those claims are true, I object to buying them on principle. I don’t care about low fat, good bacteria or anything like that. I want my yoghurt to taste of fruit and be a yoghurty consistency. Or maybe they should have little bits of cherry or peach or whatever in. I don’t like to think I am paying more for someone to remove fat from my snack, or pump my summer fruits dessert full of “good” bacteria. My only option is to go for the organic fairtrade tree-hugging smiley faces on the packet ones. And they are significantly more expensive. I don’t actually have anything against organic food or the fairtrade movement, it’s just that those labels come at a premium I don’t want to pay. I actually went for some Activia strawberry ones today, because I was feeling cheap and my principles were at low ebb. Also, I bought “be good to yourself” tuna mayonaise sandwish filler because I couldn’t find Sainsbury’s “look out it’s bad for you” range of products anywhere.

I have been ranting a lot recently. I promise I shall post something goodnatured and happy-go-lucky in the next few days…

Miscellaneous things that annoy me

I thought I’d complain some more, because I’m annoyed by more than just shoes and grammar.

• Hands-free phone headsets (unless you’re in a car, in which case it’s annoying if you’re not using one, not to mention illegal). It just bothers me seeing people walking round talking to themselves. I am particularly annoyed by those bluetooth ones that you stick over your ear. They’re like a little futuristic sign saying “I’m a cock.” Also, if you are wearing one of them and not on the phone, you are doubly cock-ish.
• Top Gear using DJ Shadow and the Fight Club soundtrack as background music. Stop comandeering good if fairly obscure music snippets for your televisual midlife crisis!
• George Lamb. Go away silly man. I have to actually get out of bed to turn off my radio when Shaun Keaveny’s show finishes at 10. So I suppose that’s a good thing. I don’t even know where to begin with Monsieur Lamb. Everything about his show irritates me.
• If I can see your boxers, you are a twat.
• The longer it takes to you to order a coffee the more of a twat you are. “Double Espresso” fine. (Incidentally, if you say “expresso” I don’t like you.) “Large Filter Coffee” no problem. “Latte” Alright. “Decaf Semi-Skimmed Goat’s Milk Mocha-choco-frappe-twatto-soya-latte” You are a twat.
• Those wheely suitcases. But only small ones. I have a big wheely-bag and it is great for carrying lots of stuff around (unless stairs are involved). My issue is with the really small ones, like laptop case sized. PICK THE DAMN THING UP YOU LAZY MAGGOT. If the handle you hold the bag by when wheeling it is longer than the bag is tall, you are a lazy bastard. Also, when you change direction, the people directly behind you to the side are likely to be tripped up by your cretin-bag. And of course, because you’re wheeling a bag around, you are likely to be moving slower than I am. Which is also annoying. Those wheely bags are designed to make it easier to carry around large heavy bags. The little ones can’t possibly be carrying enough that you couldn’t pick it up and carry it, or at least get a shoulder strap. Trailing your laptop or whatever behind you like that is just obnoxious. I hope someone steals your computer and uses your credit cards and sends rude emails to your family with it.

And in other news, I was made aware of another stupid holiday. I like this one. Pretend to be a Time Traveller day.

Shoes that annoy me

Happy Pi approximation day! It’s 22/7, geddit? Here is some history of pi.

On an unrelated note, here are some types of footwear that annoy me more than footwear should.

• Crocs. Who cares if they’ve been designed to be 62.6% better than standing barefoot? They look really really silly.
  

  Crocs annoy me

• Sandals with socks. Why would you do this? What goes through your mind? “Hmm, it’s warm enough for sandals today… But I’ll put some socks on in case my feet get cold.”
  

  Sad sad sad.

• Converse. I don’t really know why this one annoys me so much. But it does.
  

  Who'd have thought shoes could annoy me so much

• Goth boots.  I suppose this just kind of follows from the fact I just don’t really “get” the whole goth thing. But I especially don’t understand how wearing huge boots with comically big heels fits with the whole look. What’s next? Punks on stilts?
  

  Platform shoes for the terminally moody

Right, that’s about it as far as varieties of footwear I dislike goes.