Provigil

Johann Hari experiments with this drug called Provigil:

A week later, the little white pills arrived in the post. I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water. It didn’t seem odd: for years, I took an anti-depressant. Then I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee. I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

I am torn between two diametrically opposed reactions:

1) Ha ha! Look at you, taking drugs that are doing who knows what to your brain. Don't come crying to me when you go senile at 45.

2) DUDE! Where can I get me some of this Provigil?

I'm not sure which will win out in the end.

Hypotheticals

Gene Weingarten's weekly chat at the Washington Post has brought us another wonderful pre-chat poll:

Which statement by a presidential candidate running in 2012 would MOST assure he could NEVER be elected?
a) "I support religious freedom for everyone, but I do not attend religious services and personally don't believe there is a God."
b) "At the age of 19, I robbed a liquor store at gunpoint. It was the biggest mistake I ever made and I have spent the rest of my life atoning for this terrible thing."
c) "I am a bisexual man, and in the distant past I had romantic relationships with men and women. I have been married to my wife, to whom I have remained completely faithful, for 20 years."
d) "I m a Christian fundamentalist. The world is 10,000 years old, dinosaur skeletons are a trick by God to test our faith, and, as much as this pains me, Jews and Muslims who have heard the word of Christ and rejected it are condemned to burn in hell."

Which person would be LEAST likely to win the 2012 presidential election?
a) A man who is 5'10" and 300 pounds.
b) A man who had an affair with a younger woman and left his wife and teenage children five years prior to the election.
c) A woman widely believed to be a lesbian, but who has never acknowledged or denied it: "My sexuality is a private matter unrelated to my public service."
d) A person who worships as a Muslim, but who has been a war hero for the United States. He is married to a Christian and his children are Christian.
e) A woman who is, by absolutely anyone's assessment, hideously ugly.

Of the same choices, which person would be MOST likely to get elected?
a) A man who is 5'10" and 300 pounds.
b) A man who had an affair with a younger woman and left his wife and teenage children five years prior to the election.
c) A woman widely believed to be a lesbian, but who has never acknowledged or denied it: "My sexuality is a private matter unrelated to my public service."
d) A person who worships as a Muslim, but who has been a war hero for the United States. He is married to a Christian and his children are Christian.
e) A woman who is, by absolutely anyone's assessment, hideously ugly.

And now, for something completely different:

If you had to do without one of these for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
a) Coffee and tea
b) Denim jeans
c) All nonalcoholic carbonated beverages
d) Any form of alcohol

As for the most important question, I voted denim jeans. I never wear jeans. I'd slow down into a stupor without coffee though.

Oh, there are some politics questions too. My hunch is that the atheist, the bisexual, and the Muslim will have an easier time getting elected as a Republican than as a Democrat. Those are the groups that the guys who write attack ads and "Please Forward To All Your Friends" emails have decided are the designated bogeymen for Republicans. So if one of them actually runs as a Republican, many of the GOPers who would have forwarded the nasty emails will decide to support their candidate instead.

The reverse goes for the Christian fundamentalist who thinks Jews are going to hell. He's the kind of monster that lurks under the beds of little Democratic paranoiacs, so if he runs as a Democrat, he'll get the votes of the partisan Dems and crossover vote from the Republican side.

This all pretends, of course, that these guys would stand a chance of making it through primary season. It would be a seriously weird year if the GOP nominate a bisexual or a Muslim and the Democrats nominate a fire-breathing fundie caricature.

Aren't we all just so witty

Over at Making Light, a discussion is going on regarding whether a certain commenter at BoingBoing.net is a troll or not.

Ah, Trollology. It would be the perfect subject for me to study in depth if I were sufficiently brain-damaged that I was unable to study anything else.

I've come to some very unsettling realizations about the bizarre side of human nature by paying attention to trolls. I think I once witnessed a very weird creative impulse at work in the comment section of Kevin Drum's blog.

Kevin Drum is a liberal Democrat. His blog has a lively and vigorous comment section. Most of his commenters are liberal Democrats. Trollery is inevitable in this environment. Post something that purports to be from a conservative point of view, and people are going to read it wondering if it's meant to be some sort of joke.

Now. There seems to be a long-standing tradition on Kevin Drum's blog that there be some designated "troll handles". They have names like "Al" and "egbert" and "American Hawk" and spout a conservative point of view.

Here's what deeply and profoundly disturbs me.

Sometimes, say, American Hawk (I haven't seen the name on KD's comment threads in a while, but he was a typical example while he posted) will obviously be a liberal parodist spouting dumb ol' Republican tomfoolery, the better to make fun of those stupid old Republicans. Sometimes American Hawk will sound like a somewhat unhinged right-winger. Maybe this version of American Hawk is a liberal parodist, but just as likely he really is a somewhat unhinged right-winger. And sometimes he sounds like a relatively reasonable conservative, maybe a right-wing version of Kevin Drum.

It's perfectly possible "American Hawk" is a handle shared by several people. But think about it: why would a reasonable conservative post using a handle that has previously been used to make fun of Republicans?

So I came to an unsettling conclusion: many people think that if you want to make fun of a certain subset of humanity, like Republicans or religious fundamentalists or progressives or vegans or whatever, then the thing to do is mimic them so exactly that no one can tell it's a troll.

Well, it was unsettling for me. Maybe this is old news for everyone else. I just think it's weird that I could be reading some apparently sane comment by an Obama supporter about what he should do to ensure victory in the Indiana primary, and for all I know it might actually be written by some snickering Republican wit who wants to see Obama lose badly because he's a Democrat, and who thinks it's the height of cleverness to pretend to be posting some level-headed analysis by an Obama supporter.

Not only is this something of an alien mindset to me, but it means anything I read on these here Intertubes could just be utterly fake, just someone's idea of scintillating wit. Anything.

Philosophical Correctness

I like to think I'm pretty tolerant and libertarian when it comes to social issues. (This has got nothing to do with political libertarianism. I live in a country with universal government healthcare, and I like it!)

This is a libertarianism that states that it's none of the President or Attorney General's business what my neighbor is doing behind closed doors, whether he's making a religious offering to the ancient god Gab'Shokoth, teaching his kids to hate Methodists, or having sex with his brother, assuming they're consenting adults.

Let's say the conservative religious couple down the street want to teach their kid that God created the world 6,000 years ago and modern science is a bunch of lies. Well, I don't approve of that, but ultimately it's none of my business.

Let's say these neighbors of mine want to teach their kids that Jews and Muslims are to be distrusted, gays are evil and people of other races ought to be kept separate. That's much, much worse, and I have every right to be offended, but I can't condone the State butting its head in and telling them to knock it off. You let the State go after racists and anti-Semites today, and you never know who it'll deem ideologically unfit next week.

Now let's say my neighbors down the street are physically beating the stuffing out of their kid every evening. Let's say they're sexually abusing the kid. Now most people would agree that they need to be separated from the poor child before they can inflict further harm.

OK, now does the State have any right to interfere in this, which involves two competent, consenting adults?

An Australian father and daughter who conceived an apparently healthy child are being monitored by police and social services after going public about their incestuous relationship.

John Deaves, 61, and his daughter Jenny, 39, say they want to be treated as an ordinary couple despite being biologically related, but their case has sparked outrage.

Court documents have revealed that a child they had earlier died from a congenital heart defect a few days after birth.

The couple, who have pleaded guilty to incest and been banned by a judge from having sexual contact, appeared on a television news programme in Australia to tell their story. They were shown with their nine-month-old daughter, Celeste, who they said was fit and well.

My reaction to the story of this loving couple was a slightly disbelieving "okaaaaaaaaaaaaay". Even so, I'm a bit uncomfortable with a judge banning two adults from having sexual relations with each other.

I suppose you could say that this kind of incest ought to be illegal because any kids who are born as a result would be at a very high risk of genetic defects. (This is where the history geek in me points out that Cleopatra was the result of several generations of sibling marriages.) There are all sorts of things mothers can do while pregnant, from drinking to smoking to eating certain foods, and I'd feel distinctly uncomfortable if the State decided to legally ban pregnant women from doing these things. I can't see a reason to ban close relatives from having a sexual relationship.

Then there's the recent government action against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Just to make my feelings clear: from what I've heard about this church, it sounds extremely creepy. But the U.S. Government is not my superego, and creepiness is not against the law.

But marrying off kids against their will is.

And yet, there's a bit of social libertarianism in my head that protests that no, the government has no right to come in and break up this little subculture that isn't hurting anyone in the wider world.

I think the government action is the correct thing to do. I think this subculture, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is actively harmful to many of its own members. I just need to convince all sectors of my brain that the government raid is the philosophically correct thing to do.

April Meta-Fools!

The Featured Article blurb on the front page of Wikipedia today, April 1, 2008:

Ima Hogg was an enterprising circus emcee who brought culture and class to Houston, Texas. A storied ostrich jockey, she once rode to Hawaii to visit the Queen. Raised in government housing, young Ima frolicked among a backyard menagerie of raccoons, possums and a bear. Her father, "Big Jim" Hogg, in an onslaught against fun itself, booby-trapped the banisters she loved to slide down, shut down her money-making schemes, and forced her to pry chewing gum from furniture. He was later thrown from his seat on a moving train and perished; the Hogg clan then struck black gold on land Big Jim had forbidden them from selling. Ima had apocryphal sisters named "Ura" and "Hoosa" and real-life brothers sporting conventional names and vast art collections; upon their deaths, she gave away their artwork for nothing and the family home to boot. Tragically, Ms. Hogg (a future doctor) nursed three dying family members. She once sweet-talked a burglar into returning purloined jewelry and told him to get a job. Well into her nineties, she remained feisty and even exchanged geriatric insults with an octogenarian pianist. Hogg claimed to have received thirty proposals of marriage in her lifetime, and to have rejected them all. Hogg was revered as the "First Lady of Texas", and her name and legacy still thrive today—just ask Ima Pigg, Ima Nut, and Ima Pain, who have all appeared in the U.S. Census.

Now, the average human being is going to read that, look at the date, and think, "Oh, I get it. It's an April Fool's Day featured article. Ima Hogg isn't real."

But Wikipedia is actually practicing a subtler - and more sophisticated - form of humor. Ima Hogg was a real person.

And every individual fact in that featured article summary is true. They're just edited together in a way to make for some really loopy reading.

April Fool's articles aren't generally known for their subtlety. But I thought Wikipedia's was really well-done.

Selective Quoting

Nicholas Kristof wrote up a big long New York Times column on the alleged decline of American intellectualism, and I agree with parts of it. But not where he channels Susan Jacoby committing what I think is a major sin: cherry-picking.

“America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism,” Susan Jacoby argues in a new book, “The Age of American Unreason.” She blames a culture of “infotainment,” sound bites, fundamentalist religion and ideological rigidity for impairing thoughtful debate about national policies.

Even insults have degenerated along with other discourse, Ms. Jacoby laments. She contrasts Dick Cheney’s obscene instruction to Senator Patrick Leahy with a more elegant evisceration by House Speaker Thomas Reed in the 1890s: “With a few more brains he could be a half-wit.”

Susan Jacoby is trying to illustrate a point about the decline of American eloquence by choosing two quotes to contrast. But you could illustrate practically any proposition this way. There have been political insults in this decade that have been far more eloquent than Cheney's "go fuck yourself". There were undoubtedly political insults in the 1890s far coarser than Thomas Reed's cutting words.

Crude four-letter Anglo-Saxon words did not suddenly come into being from nowhere in the late 20th Century, as a little historical investigation shows.

You might think coarse insults may have been common among the Great Unwashed in the 19th century, but political discourse was characterized by high-minded, thoughtful, educated speech. Well then, I have the perfect counter-example all cherry-picked for you.

-- The Saga of Sumner and Brooks --

In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner (D-MA) denounced Senators Stephen Douglas (D-IL) and Andrew Butler (D-SC) for their support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Most notably, he accused Butler of taking a mistress (slavery) and mocked Butler's speech impediment (Butler had suffered a stroke some time earlier).

But there were even loftier heights of discourse to come. Congressman Preston Brooks (D-SC), Senator Butler's nephew, decided to confront Sumner personally on the Senate floor. What sort of political discussion ensued?

Did Brooks and Sumner talk through their differences amicably, in a highly literate discussion with frequent references to the Greek philosophers and the writings of Locke and Kant? Not really.

Did Brooks tell Sumner to go fuck himself, in a foreshadowing of Dick Cheney's verbal attack on Patrick Leahy? No, but you're getting warmer.

Did Brooks beat the bejeezus out of Sumner with his cane until Sumner was lying bleeding and unconscious on the floor?

Well, um, yes, that's precisely what happened.

Sumner did not return to the Senate for three years; he soon transmogrified from a D-MA into an R-MA. Southern newspapers opined that perhaps Sumner ought to be savagely beaten every day; that might knock some sense into him. Brooks, his self-preservation instincts operating at full blast, weaseled his way out of a duel with one of Sumner's political allies, but died of croup within the year (a hazard of living in the 19th century).

-- Thus Ends the Saga of Sumner and Brooks --

Obviously not every political argument in 19th century America ended with someone lying beaten and bloody on the floor, just as not every sharp exchange of words in 21st century America consists of "Go fuck yourself".

But by cherry-picking your quotes, you can make 19th century America seem like a land of glittering repartee and lofty erudition. Or you can make it seem like a country of cavemen thwapping each other with clubs. You can make the first decade of the 21st century seem like a digital wonderland of articulate wits exchanging eloquently phrased opinions on the Internet. Or you can paint it as a world where Eric Cartman clones trade barbs with like-minded imbeciles on political forums.

Anything is possible, if you cherry-pick your quotes.

An Idea I Had

If I had more creative energy:

I'd have a blog. All about politics and the 2008 Presidential election.

And it would be set in a world where John Kerry won the 2004 race, and is in the fight of his life running for reelection in 2008. It would be a world where Kerry has had a lackluster first term, and the GOP still control both houses of Congress. A world where US troops are still in Iraq, and the GOP is practically calling for Kerry's impeachment over how badly he's perceived to have screwed up the war. (Of course, the situation in Iraq would be no worse, maybe slightly better, than the Iraq situation in the "real" universe.)

A world where Kerry was eviscerated by GOP punditry for screwing up the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, with some commentators hinting darkly that it was all a plan to reduce the population and influence of Red State Louisiana. Meanwhile, Vice President Edwards' highly publicized involvement in rebuilding New Orleans has boosted his popularity, which led to months of speculation that he would actually replace Kerry at the top of the 2008 Democratic ticket.

A world where Kerry has acquired a Prince Philip-like reputation for saying unfortunate or vaguely insulting things on live camera, and Kerryisms have become as popular as Bushisms ever were.

Not that my parallel-universe blogger would explicitly explain all this, of course - the reader would be trusted to infer it. I would never break character on the blog.

My parallel-universe blogger might have a bit of a sarcastic streak, but I wouldn't allow his personality to take over the blog. No comments would be allowed - they would break the illusion. And all links to news stories and blog posts would be subtly fictional, so that they look authentic but, when clicked on, would lead to "Page Not Found" messages.

Ideally I would have started this blog before the GOP primaries had really gotten underway. I think I would have gone with a Mitt Romney nomination. Not sure if I would have given Kerry a primary challenger.

Written Science Fiction

I've finished a 1950s-era collection of science fiction novellas called Strange Tomorrows.

In John D. MacDonald's Shadow on the Sand, the planet Strada is home to an ancient civilization which encompasses hundreds of inhabited planets. In their millenia of recorded history, Stradans have developed impressive telepathic abilities. Their society is divided into two factions which despise each other. But because the two factions occupy the same space, and each relies on the other for materials and logistics, any armed conflict would quickly bring about the Mutual Assured Destruction of civilization. One last, crucial detail: Strada is a parallel-universe Earth. And one Stradan faction figures out how to open a dimensional gateway, giving it a decisive edge over the other faction once and for all...

In Theodore Sturgeon's The Comedian's Children, a popular television comedian is beloved by millions for setting up a foundation to treat children afflicted with a terrible, disfiguring disease. So one can imagine that he's mighty pissed off when a scientist comes close to finding a cure...

In William Tenn's Firewater!, enigmatic aliens came to Earth years ago, and since then have done... basically nothing. Humans who manage to communicate with the aliens gain psychic powers, but also go batshit crazy. As an anti-alien "Humanity First!" movement gains power, one CEO makes millions by figuring out bits of alien science from the crazy ones and turning it to marketable goods...

In Jack Williamson's The Greatest Invention, the Galaxy contains a highly rational, scientific human civilization, but many planets are gripped by intense religous fundamentalism. One academic type is convinced that all humans are originally descended from a culture on ancient Earth (really ancient Earth - the novella takes place in the 20th Century and Earth people are considered by other humans to be uncivilized savages not even worth contacting), but he has trouble winning over the dogmatic, conservative bureaucrats whom he must deal with...

In Hal Clement's Planetfall, an alien made of some kind of rock or crystal lands his starship on Earth and tries to deal with the curious locals, but is severely handicapped by his inability to conceive of organic life. He can't shake the idea that human beings are just robots remote-controlled by a real life form somewhere else. And his senses are not really attuned to dealing with events on a planet's surface... This story ought to be required reading for anyone who can't conceive of an extraterrestrial character more alien than Chewbacca or Lieutenant Worf. (I wonder if Planetfall inspired Terry Bisson's famous short story They're Made Out of Meat.)

Each of these novellas bears a copyright date between 1950 and 1958. And yet, as a whole these stories are far more inventive than most science fiction you see on TV or at the movies nowadays. I'm not here to bash all SF film and TV - there's a lot of it I like, and my brain is a repository for more useless Star Trek trivia than I'd care to admit - but it seems there's an inventiveness, a vitality, in written SF that you don't see as much in TV and movies.

Of course, a huge amount - maybe a majority - of SF on TV and in the movies is really just fantasy or action in a science-fictiony setting. That's not necessarily bad - I've liked Star Wars since I was a kid, and Star Wars is obviously a fantasy/action film series with starships.

But it seems that when interesting ideas do pop up on televised SF, very often the screenwriters don't follow them to an interesting payoff, or present them in such a way that the audience loses its suspension of disbelief. Or both.

One of Star Trek: Voyager's best episodes (it's up to you to decide whether or not that's exceedingly faint praise) dealt with an alien race descended from dinosaurs that developed space flight and left Earth way back in the distant past. That's a potentially interesting setup. But I flat-out don't accept the idea that, even though these guys have obviously been living among the stars for millions upon millions of years, they have a technological level and society comparable to our 24th-century human protagonists.

I realize that a TV series is a different medium, and is going to have a different goal than a short story or a novel. But it seems like SF movies and TV shows could probably muster a bit more of the inventiveness of written SF.