The Transparency Party
Nov 14, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
The other day a friend mentioned that he would vote for the first presidential candidate that agrees to wear a GoPro camera on her head and live-stream every working minute of the presidency.
My first reaction to the idea was that it was funny but impractical.
But . . . the idea was coming from one of the smartest people I know. So I listened as he unfolded his thoughts. There's a lot of cleverness baked into this simple idea, and it is more doable than you first think.
Imagine a charismatic, science-loving candidate, under 40, running a presidential campaign while wearing a GoPro on her head and live-streaming every bit of it to the Internet. The media LOVES that candidate because she is interesting news, assuming she is a serious candidate in every other way. How do you ignore her?
The biggest hurdle for a third-party candidate is getting attention. The GoPro camera on the head solves that problem in a big way. And it would force both the incumbent and the established challenger to defend keeping secrets from the public at the same time they strip away privacy from citizens.
Sure, politicians say they have good reasons for taking your privacy, but the public doesn't appreciate complex arguments. The public responds to imaginary notions of "fairness," and to most people it just sounds fair that the government should be more transparent than the citizens it governs.
The GoPro candidate could have an intellectually compelling reason for government transparency too, which I will explain in a moment. But the public needs to quickly understand their candidates with stereotypical labels.
Hilary Clinton: Liberal
Jeb Bush: Conservative
GoPro Candidate: Transparent
The GoPro candidate would have what I call the winning comparison. Half of the country is biased against anything labelled liberal and the other half dislikes anything labelled conservative, but no one is opposed to knowing whether their government is worth the money they pay for it.
Imagine a fit, qualified, 35-year old female presidential candidate with a GoPro on her head, debating Hilary Clinton on stage. The GoPro candidate would make Hilary look like that pile of rags in the garage that you intend to throw away but never do.
And the visual impact of the GoPro on the head would turn the national conversation to government transparency. How would competing old-school candidates sell the idea that the public is better off remaining ignorant while trusting the government?
The GoPro candidate could dominate the news cycle simply by being visually interesting every time. If a news editor has to choose between a cool video clip from the GoPro live feed versus a discussion of a candidate's tax policies that will never be implemented, which one is the top story?
And privacy is always a hot story. The GoPro candidate would put a face on one of the biggest topics of the times.
So the GoPro candidate could easily suck all of the attention out of a presidential campaign. But obviously there has to be some substance or it will play out like Donald Trump on the campaign trail - more of a joke than a real thing.
For the sake of seriousness, let's say the GoPro gimmick is for the campaign trail and not the Oval Office. Once in office, the candidate will have professional crews filming her instead of wearing the camera on her head. This would all be clearly stated during the campaign.
As a helpful citizen, I put together a platform that might make sense for the science-loving Transparency Party candidate. You have seen some of these ideas before.
Transparency Party Platform
Government should be transparent so the citizens can see what they are paying for. This is the only way to keep the influence of lobbyists at bay in a society that values free speech.
National security conversations would be tape-delayed. An independent, bi-partisan group would be formed to decide when to release tape-delayed stuff. The politicians would still feel the heat of public scrutiny because the public will someday see what happened behind closed doors.
The President should be less of a "leader" and more of a communicator-in-chief. During filmed business meetings the GoPro president would sometimes speak directly to the viewers at home to explain the context of the meeting. Then the President would challenge the opinions in the room and demand data, all on camera.
The government would fund private competition to build a website that would allow the best arguments on any issue to bubble to the top, for both pro and con. As communicator-in-chief, the president would refer to the two "best" arguments whenever explaining policy to the public.
A president's opinion should change when the data changes. Don't expect consistency.
States should be test beds for social and economic experiments. When something works at the state level the President would act as communicator-in-chief to persuade other states to adopting methods that are proven to work.
For social issues, the GoPro candidate agrees to side with the majority opinion for lawmaking purposes while reserving the right to try and sway the majority with new data or better arguments. That takes social issues off the President's desk and puts them in the public's hands where they belong. If a new social policy succeeds at a state level, the President would encourage others to look at it.
-------
You might say there are obvious problems with government transparency because sometimes politicians really do need to make deals behind closed doors to get things done, or to save face for some partner country, or to "manage" the voters that are frankly not smart enough to understand the big issues. That was the old thinking, and it probably made sense in the past. But in today's world, government transparency might be the smarter approach.
The powerful idea here is that government secrecy is always a red flag that the government is doing something wrong. Remove the secrecy and the only remaining options are ideas that require effective selling to the public. And the best seller in the world would be the communicator-in-chief. The President would show his thinking process, show his data sources, show the counter-arguments, compare options, and present a reasoned opinion on every issue.
Sometimes the media, pundits, and other experts will make a strong counter-argument to the President's position. In those situations the Transparency president is free to change her opinions. In fact, doing so would bolster her credibility, so long as the reasoning is clearly explained to the public.
In the comments I expect to see lots of examples of things that would not work in a fully-transparent government. But watch how each of the reasons is debunked by your fellow commenters. It takes some effort to think through the reasoning of how transparency is a cure-all for government inefficiency, but I think you will be surprised how robust the idea is.
----------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
My first reaction to the idea was that it was funny but impractical.
But . . . the idea was coming from one of the smartest people I know. So I listened as he unfolded his thoughts. There's a lot of cleverness baked into this simple idea, and it is more doable than you first think.
Imagine a charismatic, science-loving candidate, under 40, running a presidential campaign while wearing a GoPro on her head and live-streaming every bit of it to the Internet. The media LOVES that candidate because she is interesting news, assuming she is a serious candidate in every other way. How do you ignore her?
The biggest hurdle for a third-party candidate is getting attention. The GoPro camera on the head solves that problem in a big way. And it would force both the incumbent and the established challenger to defend keeping secrets from the public at the same time they strip away privacy from citizens.
Sure, politicians say they have good reasons for taking your privacy, but the public doesn't appreciate complex arguments. The public responds to imaginary notions of "fairness," and to most people it just sounds fair that the government should be more transparent than the citizens it governs.
The GoPro candidate could have an intellectually compelling reason for government transparency too, which I will explain in a moment. But the public needs to quickly understand their candidates with stereotypical labels.
Hilary Clinton: Liberal
Jeb Bush: Conservative
GoPro Candidate: Transparent
The GoPro candidate would have what I call the winning comparison. Half of the country is biased against anything labelled liberal and the other half dislikes anything labelled conservative, but no one is opposed to knowing whether their government is worth the money they pay for it.
Imagine a fit, qualified, 35-year old female presidential candidate with a GoPro on her head, debating Hilary Clinton on stage. The GoPro candidate would make Hilary look like that pile of rags in the garage that you intend to throw away but never do.
And the visual impact of the GoPro on the head would turn the national conversation to government transparency. How would competing old-school candidates sell the idea that the public is better off remaining ignorant while trusting the government?
The GoPro candidate could dominate the news cycle simply by being visually interesting every time. If a news editor has to choose between a cool video clip from the GoPro live feed versus a discussion of a candidate's tax policies that will never be implemented, which one is the top story?
And privacy is always a hot story. The GoPro candidate would put a face on one of the biggest topics of the times.
So the GoPro candidate could easily suck all of the attention out of a presidential campaign. But obviously there has to be some substance or it will play out like Donald Trump on the campaign trail - more of a joke than a real thing.
For the sake of seriousness, let's say the GoPro gimmick is for the campaign trail and not the Oval Office. Once in office, the candidate will have professional crews filming her instead of wearing the camera on her head. This would all be clearly stated during the campaign.
As a helpful citizen, I put together a platform that might make sense for the science-loving Transparency Party candidate. You have seen some of these ideas before.
Transparency Party Platform
Government should be transparent so the citizens can see what they are paying for. This is the only way to keep the influence of lobbyists at bay in a society that values free speech.
National security conversations would be tape-delayed. An independent, bi-partisan group would be formed to decide when to release tape-delayed stuff. The politicians would still feel the heat of public scrutiny because the public will someday see what happened behind closed doors.
The President should be less of a "leader" and more of a communicator-in-chief. During filmed business meetings the GoPro president would sometimes speak directly to the viewers at home to explain the context of the meeting. Then the President would challenge the opinions in the room and demand data, all on camera.
The government would fund private competition to build a website that would allow the best arguments on any issue to bubble to the top, for both pro and con. As communicator-in-chief, the president would refer to the two "best" arguments whenever explaining policy to the public.
A president's opinion should change when the data changes. Don't expect consistency.
States should be test beds for social and economic experiments. When something works at the state level the President would act as communicator-in-chief to persuade other states to adopting methods that are proven to work.
For social issues, the GoPro candidate agrees to side with the majority opinion for lawmaking purposes while reserving the right to try and sway the majority with new data or better arguments. That takes social issues off the President's desk and puts them in the public's hands where they belong. If a new social policy succeeds at a state level, the President would encourage others to look at it.
-------
You might say there are obvious problems with government transparency because sometimes politicians really do need to make deals behind closed doors to get things done, or to save face for some partner country, or to "manage" the voters that are frankly not smart enough to understand the big issues. That was the old thinking, and it probably made sense in the past. But in today's world, government transparency might be the smarter approach.
The powerful idea here is that government secrecy is always a red flag that the government is doing something wrong. Remove the secrecy and the only remaining options are ideas that require effective selling to the public. And the best seller in the world would be the communicator-in-chief. The President would show his thinking process, show his data sources, show the counter-arguments, compare options, and present a reasoned opinion on every issue.
Sometimes the media, pundits, and other experts will make a strong counter-argument to the President's position. In those situations the Transparency president is free to change her opinions. In fact, doing so would bolster her credibility, so long as the reasoning is clearly explained to the public.
In the comments I expect to see lots of examples of things that would not work in a fully-transparent government. But watch how each of the reasons is debunked by your fellow commenters. It takes some effort to think through the reasoning of how transparency is a cure-all for government inefficiency, but I think you will be surprised how robust the idea is.
----------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
A Ride on the Creative Process
Nov 12, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
I know from the comments on this blog that many of you are interested in the creative process. Let me take you for ride in my head. I took this journey yesterday. It is still fresh in my mind so I can explain it.
Most new ideas are combinations of existing ideas. I'll start by describing the random thoughts that inspired one of the most powerful ideas I have ever had. We'll get to the idea itself at the end. I think this idea could cut the unemployment rate in half and turbo-charge the entire economy for generations. And the plan could be fully implemented by the people reading this blog.
No government needed. I know you like that part.
The other day I saw a Kickstarter fund for a sincere-looking fellow that wanted to fix his truck and move to a place with better job prospects. I liked his style. I prefer helping people that have a concrete plan. But a Kickstarter fund? It seemed sketchy. I don't know anything about this guy.
That made me think of Uber. They had the same problem of credibility because the drivers are independent contractors. But it didn't stop them.
Then I was thinking about eBay. I wasn't sure why. My subconscious sniffed some eBay connection in all of this. Maybe that would become clear later.
Then I was thinking of unemployment in general, and how the real problem is that people and jobs are in the wrong locations. We don't have a shortage of good jobs; we have a location problem.
Then I was thinking about an idea I had last year for allowing anyone to create online education courses. Each online teacher might specialize in just one small lesson within a larger curriculum that could be pieced together by the user for the ultimate teaching experience. And over time the best lessons would get voted to the top until the best teachers with the best lesson segments emerged in a sped-up evolution way. I didn't know at the time what that thought had to do with the guy and his broken truck.
Then I was thinking about new app ideas. I do that often, sometimes for my side job and sometimes just with friends. Whenever I see a problem I automatically wonder if an app can fix it.
Then it was Veterans Day. I was thinking how shitty it would be to return home from the service and try to find work.
All of those thoughts swirled around in my head for half a day and then went off wherever ideas go when you are not actively thinking about them.
Later that day, the ideas returned. But this time they were not individuals. They had somehow combined into a new idea - a hybrid of several ideas. And the idea presented itself to me in the form of an app, probably because my mind is organized that way at the moment.
If might be the most important idea of my life. If not, I'm sure you will set me straight in the comments.
Suppose we build an app that allows anyone to sponsor specific part of people's plans for moving to where the good jobs are.
Let's take the example of the individual that wanted to fix his truck and move where the jobs are plentiful. If the app existed, he would open it and start piecing together his plan.
He might start by specifying his existing skill set. That would bring up a map of the country with glowing hot spots showing where his skills are most in demand. Once he selects a target location, he specifies in the app what he needs to make it happen.
If the individual needs job training, the cost of training could be in his plan. That sort of plan has a longer horizon but it is still appealing because training works.
Each of us has different resources to offer this imagined job-seeker. I might have a spare room he could use for a month in return for mowing my lawn. You might be good at editing and improving resumes. Maybe someone in his town can fix his truck for the price of parts. Maybe someone has the truck parts he needs. For people that don't have any form of transportation, maybe someone is driving in the direction you are headed and wants to share gas expenses. Maybe I can't afford to fund all of the expenses for this particular job-seeker but I am happy to kick in $10 if other people do.
And let's say multiple people can bid on any part of a plan in which they want to help. I might offer a couch to sleep on for a month but you outbid me with a full guest room for two months. The plan can continue improving as it fills in its holes.
Once the journey begins, the app updates contributors on the physical location of the job-seeker and how the plan is going. The job-seeker could post photos of the journey to keep sponsors in the loop. If the plan falls apart at any point, such as not having a promised place to stay at the destination end, an alert goes out to everyone in the target area that a priority job-seeker is nearby, so someone can jump in to help.
Are you not yet convinced that this is a great idea? That's okay because I saved the best part for last.
The risk in this plan is not so much in the execution of the app, because we know how to make software of this type. The risk is in awareness of the app and in getting enough people excited about being sponsors. If we don't solve the awareness problem, the quality of the app is irrelevant.
So let's solve that.
Let's make the app for veterans only, at least to start. Later, if it works as hoped, it would be available for the general public.
A veterans-only job-finding app would be instantly popular. If I tell you that a random guy needs money for his truck, you shrug. If I tell you that a returning vet needs help with a concrete plan to get a good job, your wallet flies out of your pocket before your hand even touches it.
So we launch the service for vets first, and get all the goodwill and energy that the effort deserves. Later, when you release the app for the general public, you keep vets on some sort of priority plan within the app so they continue getting preferential attention.
I think you would need to build this app as a commercial enterprise just to attract the talent you need. And it should have a big name attached to it to scare away any smaller players that would muddy the waters. (My name isn't big enough for that space.)
I'm willing to put up $25K seed money for this app. But I would need to see a serious team in place to execute.
One of my systems for happiness involves always working on at least one project that can change the world for the better. This is my contribution for today.
Would it work?
--------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Most new ideas are combinations of existing ideas. I'll start by describing the random thoughts that inspired one of the most powerful ideas I have ever had. We'll get to the idea itself at the end. I think this idea could cut the unemployment rate in half and turbo-charge the entire economy for generations. And the plan could be fully implemented by the people reading this blog.
No government needed. I know you like that part.
The other day I saw a Kickstarter fund for a sincere-looking fellow that wanted to fix his truck and move to a place with better job prospects. I liked his style. I prefer helping people that have a concrete plan. But a Kickstarter fund? It seemed sketchy. I don't know anything about this guy.
That made me think of Uber. They had the same problem of credibility because the drivers are independent contractors. But it didn't stop them.
Then I was thinking about eBay. I wasn't sure why. My subconscious sniffed some eBay connection in all of this. Maybe that would become clear later.
Then I was thinking of unemployment in general, and how the real problem is that people and jobs are in the wrong locations. We don't have a shortage of good jobs; we have a location problem.
Then I was thinking about an idea I had last year for allowing anyone to create online education courses. Each online teacher might specialize in just one small lesson within a larger curriculum that could be pieced together by the user for the ultimate teaching experience. And over time the best lessons would get voted to the top until the best teachers with the best lesson segments emerged in a sped-up evolution way. I didn't know at the time what that thought had to do with the guy and his broken truck.
Then I was thinking about new app ideas. I do that often, sometimes for my side job and sometimes just with friends. Whenever I see a problem I automatically wonder if an app can fix it.
Then it was Veterans Day. I was thinking how shitty it would be to return home from the service and try to find work.
All of those thoughts swirled around in my head for half a day and then went off wherever ideas go when you are not actively thinking about them.
Later that day, the ideas returned. But this time they were not individuals. They had somehow combined into a new idea - a hybrid of several ideas. And the idea presented itself to me in the form of an app, probably because my mind is organized that way at the moment.
If might be the most important idea of my life. If not, I'm sure you will set me straight in the comments.
Suppose we build an app that allows anyone to sponsor specific part of people's plans for moving to where the good jobs are.
Let's take the example of the individual that wanted to fix his truck and move where the jobs are plentiful. If the app existed, he would open it and start piecing together his plan.
He might start by specifying his existing skill set. That would bring up a map of the country with glowing hot spots showing where his skills are most in demand. Once he selects a target location, he specifies in the app what he needs to make it happen.
- $5,000 for truck repair
- A place to stay at the destination end for one month (est.)
- Help putting together a good resume.
- $1,000 for travel and living expenses
If the individual needs job training, the cost of training could be in his plan. That sort of plan has a longer horizon but it is still appealing because training works.
Each of us has different resources to offer this imagined job-seeker. I might have a spare room he could use for a month in return for mowing my lawn. You might be good at editing and improving resumes. Maybe someone in his town can fix his truck for the price of parts. Maybe someone has the truck parts he needs. For people that don't have any form of transportation, maybe someone is driving in the direction you are headed and wants to share gas expenses. Maybe I can't afford to fund all of the expenses for this particular job-seeker but I am happy to kick in $10 if other people do.
And let's say multiple people can bid on any part of a plan in which they want to help. I might offer a couch to sleep on for a month but you outbid me with a full guest room for two months. The plan can continue improving as it fills in its holes.
Once the journey begins, the app updates contributors on the physical location of the job-seeker and how the plan is going. The job-seeker could post photos of the journey to keep sponsors in the loop. If the plan falls apart at any point, such as not having a promised place to stay at the destination end, an alert goes out to everyone in the target area that a priority job-seeker is nearby, so someone can jump in to help.
Are you not yet convinced that this is a great idea? That's okay because I saved the best part for last.
The risk in this plan is not so much in the execution of the app, because we know how to make software of this type. The risk is in awareness of the app and in getting enough people excited about being sponsors. If we don't solve the awareness problem, the quality of the app is irrelevant.
So let's solve that.
Let's make the app for veterans only, at least to start. Later, if it works as hoped, it would be available for the general public.
A veterans-only job-finding app would be instantly popular. If I tell you that a random guy needs money for his truck, you shrug. If I tell you that a returning vet needs help with a concrete plan to get a good job, your wallet flies out of your pocket before your hand even touches it.
So we launch the service for vets first, and get all the goodwill and energy that the effort deserves. Later, when you release the app for the general public, you keep vets on some sort of priority plan within the app so they continue getting preferential attention.
I think you would need to build this app as a commercial enterprise just to attract the talent you need. And it should have a big name attached to it to scare away any smaller players that would muddy the waters. (My name isn't big enough for that space.)
I'm willing to put up $25K seed money for this app. But I would need to see a serious team in place to execute.
One of my systems for happiness involves always working on at least one project that can change the world for the better. This is my contribution for today.
Would it work?
--------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Phantom Logic
Nov 11, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
This is a post about my own cognitive dissonance. There is a strange little hole in my knowledge and I believe it is caused by some sort of psychological malfunction. I'll tell you where the hole is, and perhaps you can fill it in for me.
In my experience, which I fully understand to be selective memory, discussions about the existence of God generally go this way...
Atheist: blah, blah, blah
Believer: You can't explain how everything got here without God.
Atheist: You can't explain how God got here.
Believer: God has always existed.
Atheist: Why can't the universe always exist the same way as God?
Believer: I'm double-parked. Gotta run. Great talking to you.
That is literally my memory of perhaps a hundred conversations on this topic over a lifetime. When it gets to that last part, in which an atheist asks why the universe can't always exist the same way we imagine God to always exist, the believer usually realizes there was something he needed to do and excuses himself.
On the Internet, this can take the form of pointing to a link that doesn't answer the question, or changing the topic, or mentioning a book that explains it better, or failing to respond.
But I have no memory in which anyone stayed in the conversation and answered the question. Interestingly, I know that my memory of these situations could be false. Perhaps someone answered the question so convincingly that it rocked my worldview then cognitive dissonance set in and I literally imagined the conversation not happening. Science would say that could have happened.
So let's do an experiment. My hypothesis is that no one will make a serious attempt to answer the question "Why can't the universe always exist the same way as God?"
You may now prove me wrong.
[Update Minutes Later: Mystery solved. The problem IS on my side, in a sense. And by my side, I mean science. I hate it when my side does a shitty job of explaining something and in so doing spreads more ignorance than it resolves. For example, I think science-loving people are guilty of allowing this interpretation of the Big Bang Theory to become popularized:
Big Bang Poorly Explained: Once there was nothing. Then the universe appeared. We don't know why.
That sounds like a causeless explanation. Nature hates a vacuum, so religion fills in the gaps.
But a more accurate description of the Big Bang Theory (the cartoonist version) is more like this.
Big Bang Explained Slightly Better: Our universe appears to be expanding. We don't know why.
The better understanding of the Big Bang is that as far back as we can go, it appears that it was always smaller. At some degree of compactness and smallness we lose the ability to continue measuring or comparing. So what science knows is that shit seems to be getting bigger lately, as in the past 15 billion years or so. That doesn't speak to the question of a beginning.
Correct me if I am wrong on any of that, but it seems to me that we science-loving peeps have sucked at explaining stuff to . . . let's say . . . the tourists. Isn't some of the ignorance our fault? If your ideas have holes, you have to expect people to fill them in.
Or to put it another way, perhaps scientists should use the science of psychology and persuasion to get their message across instead of gluing together some facts and spraying them in the general direction of the ignorant. I think this is one of those situations in which it isn't anyone's job to explain science in ways that are scientifically crafted to be convincing. To my ear, half of all the scientific theories that I regard as probably true sound like practical jokes when a non-scientist explains them over a cocktail. Science has a problem in the message department.
----------------------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
In my experience, which I fully understand to be selective memory, discussions about the existence of God generally go this way...
Atheist: blah, blah, blah
Believer: You can't explain how everything got here without God.
Atheist: You can't explain how God got here.
Believer: God has always existed.
Atheist: Why can't the universe always exist the same way as God?
Believer: I'm double-parked. Gotta run. Great talking to you.
That is literally my memory of perhaps a hundred conversations on this topic over a lifetime. When it gets to that last part, in which an atheist asks why the universe can't always exist the same way we imagine God to always exist, the believer usually realizes there was something he needed to do and excuses himself.
On the Internet, this can take the form of pointing to a link that doesn't answer the question, or changing the topic, or mentioning a book that explains it better, or failing to respond.
But I have no memory in which anyone stayed in the conversation and answered the question. Interestingly, I know that my memory of these situations could be false. Perhaps someone answered the question so convincingly that it rocked my worldview then cognitive dissonance set in and I literally imagined the conversation not happening. Science would say that could have happened.
So let's do an experiment. My hypothesis is that no one will make a serious attempt to answer the question "Why can't the universe always exist the same way as God?"
You may now prove me wrong.
[Update Minutes Later: Mystery solved. The problem IS on my side, in a sense. And by my side, I mean science. I hate it when my side does a shitty job of explaining something and in so doing spreads more ignorance than it resolves. For example, I think science-loving people are guilty of allowing this interpretation of the Big Bang Theory to become popularized:
Big Bang Poorly Explained: Once there was nothing. Then the universe appeared. We don't know why.
That sounds like a causeless explanation. Nature hates a vacuum, so religion fills in the gaps.
But a more accurate description of the Big Bang Theory (the cartoonist version) is more like this.
Big Bang Explained Slightly Better: Our universe appears to be expanding. We don't know why.
The better understanding of the Big Bang is that as far back as we can go, it appears that it was always smaller. At some degree of compactness and smallness we lose the ability to continue measuring or comparing. So what science knows is that shit seems to be getting bigger lately, as in the past 15 billion years or so. That doesn't speak to the question of a beginning.
Correct me if I am wrong on any of that, but it seems to me that we science-loving peeps have sucked at explaining stuff to . . . let's say . . . the tourists. Isn't some of the ignorance our fault? If your ideas have holes, you have to expect people to fill them in.
Or to put it another way, perhaps scientists should use the science of psychology and persuasion to get their message across instead of gluing together some facts and spraying them in the general direction of the ignorant. I think this is one of those situations in which it isn't anyone's job to explain science in ways that are scientifically crafted to be convincing. To my ear, half of all the scientific theories that I regard as probably true sound like practical jokes when a non-scientist explains them over a cocktail. Science has a problem in the message department.
----------------------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Researchers Accidentally Discover God
Nov 10, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
Some research-dudes in Denmark have expressed doubts about whether the so-called "God particle" (Higgs Boson) has really been discovered. The doubters say the experiments that allegedly found the God particle are not precise enough to know for sure.
Although the "God particle" is just a clever name, and has nothing to do with anyone's actual God, I have recently learned that the real, actual, literal God was discovered some time ago. The discovery doesn't get much mention in the article so you have to read between the lines.
To understand why I say the real God has been discovered, first you must know that something called techni-quarks are thought to be the fundamental bits of the universe. Humans, for example, are comprised of lots of different particles, but a techni-quark is just made of more techni-quark stuff. It has no parts that are different from the whole except in quantity.
Here's the quote from the article about techni-quarks that tells you God has already been discovered: "If techni-quarks exist, there must be a force to bind them together so that they can form particles," Frandsen said. "None of the four known forces of nature are any good at binding techni-quarks together. There must therefore be a yet undiscovered force of nature."
In my 2001 fiction book, God's Debris, I talk about a hypothetical fundamental particle and how someday we will understand that at the bottom of reality is nothing but one material (perhaps techni-quarks) plus the laws of probability. If that accurately describes reality, and I think it someday will, then here's the interesting part:
For all practical purposes, probability and God are the same thing. Both are cause-free forces that define the universe without over-specifying the details. Probability is the root cause behind motion, evolution, and eventually the writing of holy books.
In God's Debris I hypothesize in fiction form that probability is the only force that can never be understood or explained by science. And probability is the engine that drives every particle in the universe. Interestingly, probability looks just like intelligence if you back up far enough. Probability gave us natural selection and in effect "designed" every living creature through its rules. That's the same way humans create things: We try something and see how it works. If it doesn't work we discard it and try something new. That's evolution in a nutshell. And if it doesn't look like intelligence to you, I would say you have an overly romantic notion of what human minds are capable of. To me, human minds are just moist computers operating according to the laws of probability. Free will and intelligence are just illusion. You might argue that evolution is not an "intelligent" process, but I would argue that neither is anything else you do. Everything in the universe including our thoughts is nothing but techni-quarks bouncing around according to the laws of probability. Intelligence is an illusion, so we should not expect God to possess any of this illusion.
When I wrote God's Debris I imagined that science would someday discover that at the bottom of all reality is one fundamental piece of matter that conforms to the laws of probability to create every other piece of matter in the universe. That would be science's dead-end. Probability will never be understood. It is causeless and infinite. And because it is so consistent across time and space, one could say that fundamental force is the author of all we see.
I don't believe in a supreme being with a human-like personality because humans are, for the most part, fucked-up basket-cases, and it wouldn't make sense for an omnipotent being to have any of our flaws. But I do think science will someday hit a dead end and find that something - perhaps probability - just "is" and cannot be explained or changed. If you don't want to call that "God," I understand, but I also think we would be discussing semantics at that point, not concepts.
I'm overstating my case here, for fun. But I do think that someday science will hit a brick wall and realize that reality is nothing but one particle and a handful of simple rules of probability that cannot be further understood. If that isn't God, what is?
-----------------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book and also this one and this one
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Although the "God particle" is just a clever name, and has nothing to do with anyone's actual God, I have recently learned that the real, actual, literal God was discovered some time ago. The discovery doesn't get much mention in the article so you have to read between the lines.
To understand why I say the real God has been discovered, first you must know that something called techni-quarks are thought to be the fundamental bits of the universe. Humans, for example, are comprised of lots of different particles, but a techni-quark is just made of more techni-quark stuff. It has no parts that are different from the whole except in quantity.
Here's the quote from the article about techni-quarks that tells you God has already been discovered: "If techni-quarks exist, there must be a force to bind them together so that they can form particles," Frandsen said. "None of the four known forces of nature are any good at binding techni-quarks together. There must therefore be a yet undiscovered force of nature."
In my 2001 fiction book, God's Debris, I talk about a hypothetical fundamental particle and how someday we will understand that at the bottom of reality is nothing but one material (perhaps techni-quarks) plus the laws of probability. If that accurately describes reality, and I think it someday will, then here's the interesting part:
For all practical purposes, probability and God are the same thing. Both are cause-free forces that define the universe without over-specifying the details. Probability is the root cause behind motion, evolution, and eventually the writing of holy books.
In God's Debris I hypothesize in fiction form that probability is the only force that can never be understood or explained by science. And probability is the engine that drives every particle in the universe. Interestingly, probability looks just like intelligence if you back up far enough. Probability gave us natural selection and in effect "designed" every living creature through its rules. That's the same way humans create things: We try something and see how it works. If it doesn't work we discard it and try something new. That's evolution in a nutshell. And if it doesn't look like intelligence to you, I would say you have an overly romantic notion of what human minds are capable of. To me, human minds are just moist computers operating according to the laws of probability. Free will and intelligence are just illusion. You might argue that evolution is not an "intelligent" process, but I would argue that neither is anything else you do. Everything in the universe including our thoughts is nothing but techni-quarks bouncing around according to the laws of probability. Intelligence is an illusion, so we should not expect God to possess any of this illusion.
When I wrote God's Debris I imagined that science would someday discover that at the bottom of all reality is one fundamental piece of matter that conforms to the laws of probability to create every other piece of matter in the universe. That would be science's dead-end. Probability will never be understood. It is causeless and infinite. And because it is so consistent across time and space, one could say that fundamental force is the author of all we see.
I don't believe in a supreme being with a human-like personality because humans are, for the most part, fucked-up basket-cases, and it wouldn't make sense for an omnipotent being to have any of our flaws. But I do think science will someday hit a dead end and find that something - perhaps probability - just "is" and cannot be explained or changed. If you don't want to call that "God," I understand, but I also think we would be discussing semantics at that point, not concepts.
I'm overstating my case here, for fun. But I do think that someday science will hit a brick wall and realize that reality is nothing but one particle and a handful of simple rules of probability that cannot be further understood. If that isn't God, what is?
-----------------------------------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book and also this one and this one
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
My Stalker Returns
Nov 8, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
My stalker is back.
Regular readers know that a Canadian woman named Christina Lane goes off her meds every few years and fills the Internet with stories of how I secretly travel to Canada to ransack her apartment and sexually abuse everyone I meet along the way. She also believes everything I write in any forum is actually an intended insult to her personally.
Ever wonder what it's like to be a little famous?
Imagine a woman calling all of your professional associates (publishers, syndication company, my restaurant employees) to tell them you have been sexually abusing her for years. That's what my stalker did.
Anyway, she's back, and on Twitter now. Look out for @faeralane.
And if anyone up in Canada can help get Christina Lane back on her meds, that would be a big help.
Regular readers know that a Canadian woman named Christina Lane goes off her meds every few years and fills the Internet with stories of how I secretly travel to Canada to ransack her apartment and sexually abuse everyone I meet along the way. She also believes everything I write in any forum is actually an intended insult to her personally.
Ever wonder what it's like to be a little famous?
Imagine a woman calling all of your professional associates (publishers, syndication company, my restaurant employees) to tell them you have been sexually abusing her for years. That's what my stalker did.
Anyway, she's back, and on Twitter now. Look out for @faeralane.
And if anyone up in Canada can help get Christina Lane back on her meds, that would be a big help.
Ten Minutes Ago...
Nov 7, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
I'm in my home office, working, a few minutes ago.
Caller ID says the incoming call is probably a telemarketer.
Yeah, I'm in the mood for this.
I answer and put it on speaker, knowing there is usually a wait before a human appears. I wait a full half-minute.
Operator comes on and says hello.
I say nothing. She calls out again. I say nothing. This cycle repeats about seven times.
Then I yell, "HOW'S IT FEEL TO BE KEPT WAITING ON THE PHONE FOR NOTHING?!!! DO YOU LIKE IT??? HOW'S IT FEEL?!!"
Telemarketer: Um, hello. . .
Me: (Shouting like a maniac) TAKE ME OFF YOUR FUCKING LIST! STOP CALLING MY HOUSE! NOW! DO IT NOW! ...and so on, for about a minute.
Telemarketer: I. . . will . . . take you off the list now...
Line goes quiet for about a minute. I wait patiently while drawing my morning comic.
Supervisor dude comes on the line. Evidently the first caller turned me over to someone more experienced at handling the criminally insane.
Supervisor: "How can I help you?"
Me: "YOU called MEEEEE!!!!! HOW ABOUT TAKING ME OFF YOUR LIST AND NEVER CALLING AGAIN? HOW ABOUT THAT FOR A FUCKING START?"
I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation. It sort of went downhill after that.
Caller ID says the incoming call is probably a telemarketer.
Yeah, I'm in the mood for this.
I answer and put it on speaker, knowing there is usually a wait before a human appears. I wait a full half-minute.
Operator comes on and says hello.
I say nothing. She calls out again. I say nothing. This cycle repeats about seven times.
Then I yell, "HOW'S IT FEEL TO BE KEPT WAITING ON THE PHONE FOR NOTHING?!!! DO YOU LIKE IT??? HOW'S IT FEEL?!!"
Telemarketer: Um, hello. . .
Me: (Shouting like a maniac) TAKE ME OFF YOUR FUCKING LIST! STOP CALLING MY HOUSE! NOW! DO IT NOW! ...and so on, for about a minute.
Telemarketer: I. . . will . . . take you off the list now...
Line goes quiet for about a minute. I wait patiently while drawing my morning comic.
Supervisor dude comes on the line. Evidently the first caller turned me over to someone more experienced at handling the criminally insane.
Supervisor: "How can I help you?"
Me: "YOU called MEEEEE!!!!! HOW ABOUT TAKING ME OFF YOUR LIST AND NEVER CALLING AGAIN? HOW ABOUT THAT FOR A FUCKING START?"
I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation. It sort of went downhill after that.
Death by Chance
Nov 6, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
I wonder if a legal doctor-assisted suicide machine could be designed using a random number generator. That would make the laws against doctor-assisted suicide irrelevant because the deaths would always be an accident in the sense that no human could reliably predict the specific outcome in advance.
Let's say the random part of the device is attached by electronics to another part of the device that delivers a fatal dose of sedatives and poison to whoever is attached to it. You push the button and one of two things can randomly happen:
Optionally, perhaps the "go" button is published on the Internet with the offer that folks in other countries can press it as often as they like. Perhaps the chance of a lethal outcome is designed into the system to be one in ten-thousand - which is similar to the risk in some sports - but thanks to the large number of people pushing the button you get a lethal outcome for an individual in less than a second.
Another idea is to use anonymity on the Internet to transform suicide into an unsolved murder case. Suppose I connect myself to the lethal dose machine and publish a kill button on the Internet. Technology conceals the identity of whoever pushes the kill button and erases the digital trail. Even the killer is unaware of whether his tap of the button was a placebo or the one that mattered. Perhaps thousands of people tap the button all over the Internet but only one of them randomly matters. Now you have either an accidental death or an unsolved murder.
By analogy, the device I am describing is a lot like smoking. We know that smoking kills people but it is legal precisely because we can't predict which people will die from it. If we could, it would be illegal for sure.
Alcohol is legal for adults and yet we know with complete certainty that it will kill tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. Again, if we could predict with certainty which individuals would die from drinking, it would be illegal. Predictability matters.
Consider legal medications that have known side effects. In some cases we know with certainty that a drug will help the vast majority of people while accidentally killing a few. That drug is legal only because we can't identify in advance who will get killed. You can't imagine the FDA saying, "This drug is approved. It will save millions of lives but . . . and here's the awkward part . . . it will definitely kill these specific twenty people."
The uncertainty is what allows inherently dangerous things to be legal. If we can't predict the outcome of an action, we generally allow individuals the freedom to accept whatever risk levels they want. That's why football is legal. You can't imagine your high school football coach saying, "We are all going to have a great season. Except for Timmy, who will die from brain damage before half-time." If that prediction were possible, football would be illegal. Timmy only gets to play football because we can't predict his death.
Now suppose we collectively invent a legal suicide machine. I'm sure you will have your own engineering tweaks on my idea and I'm equally confident that at least one of our ideas would in fact be technically legal. Once that invention exists, the laws will have to scramble to catch up because the government will want to put some safeguards in place. Once the government knows it can't stop the activity, the best you can do is regulate it at the margins, as we do with alcohol and cigarettes.
You might be tempted to argue that football, booze, pharmaceuticals, and cigarettes are actually low risk compared to the suicide machine that kills you with near (but not technically absolute) certainty. The level of risk has to matter, right?
I'm not sure. I don't believe there is a legal standard for how much individual risk is too much. Each situation seems to be judged on individual merit. We want workplace injuries to approach zero but when it comes to waging war we accept perhaps a 5% death rate, and that assumes you are the winner.
But here is the clever part of my idea: The hypothetical random suicide machine is not yet SPECIFICALLY ILLEGAL. That means that like any new street drug it is totally legal until a law is passed saying it isn't. And how long would it take to pass that law?
Well, a functional government could pass such a law in a week. But we don't have one of those. Our government would be just as slow and incompetent in their efforts to make the new device illegal as they have been in making doctor-assisted suicide legal. I call this situation bureaucratic judo because you use the weight and inertia of your opponent against him. If the government can't make doctor-assisted suicide legal, how long would it take them to fight the random suicide device all the way to the Supreme Court?
I am going to stop just short of recommending that someone invent a technically-legal doctor-assisted suicide device because I suspect I might be swayed by your counterarguments in the comments. But in the absence of a functional government that satisfies the will of the people, one must consider all options.
Is it logically and technically possible to build a random suicide machine that is technically legal?
--------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Note: Yes, I am sure there are seven-hundred science fiction books on this topic. I haven't read any of them.
Bonus thought: If government keeps getting worse (which seems likely) at the same time that technology keeps improving, someday technology will replace the need for traditional government. It might not be a wholesale replacement so much as a stream of specific cases, such as assisted-suicide, in which technology can do what governments cannot. Someday I can imagine technology allowing the populations of warring countries to make peace directly with each other while bypassing their own governments. That's a Facebook app waiting to happen.
Let's say the random part of the device is attached by electronics to another part of the device that delivers a fatal dose of sedatives and poison to whoever is attached to it. You push the button and one of two things can randomly happen:
- Nothing
- Lethal drugs are released
Optionally, perhaps the "go" button is published on the Internet with the offer that folks in other countries can press it as often as they like. Perhaps the chance of a lethal outcome is designed into the system to be one in ten-thousand - which is similar to the risk in some sports - but thanks to the large number of people pushing the button you get a lethal outcome for an individual in less than a second.
Another idea is to use anonymity on the Internet to transform suicide into an unsolved murder case. Suppose I connect myself to the lethal dose machine and publish a kill button on the Internet. Technology conceals the identity of whoever pushes the kill button and erases the digital trail. Even the killer is unaware of whether his tap of the button was a placebo or the one that mattered. Perhaps thousands of people tap the button all over the Internet but only one of them randomly matters. Now you have either an accidental death or an unsolved murder.
By analogy, the device I am describing is a lot like smoking. We know that smoking kills people but it is legal precisely because we can't predict which people will die from it. If we could, it would be illegal for sure.
Alcohol is legal for adults and yet we know with complete certainty that it will kill tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. Again, if we could predict with certainty which individuals would die from drinking, it would be illegal. Predictability matters.
Consider legal medications that have known side effects. In some cases we know with certainty that a drug will help the vast majority of people while accidentally killing a few. That drug is legal only because we can't identify in advance who will get killed. You can't imagine the FDA saying, "This drug is approved. It will save millions of lives but . . . and here's the awkward part . . . it will definitely kill these specific twenty people."
The uncertainty is what allows inherently dangerous things to be legal. If we can't predict the outcome of an action, we generally allow individuals the freedom to accept whatever risk levels they want. That's why football is legal. You can't imagine your high school football coach saying, "We are all going to have a great season. Except for Timmy, who will die from brain damage before half-time." If that prediction were possible, football would be illegal. Timmy only gets to play football because we can't predict his death.
Now suppose we collectively invent a legal suicide machine. I'm sure you will have your own engineering tweaks on my idea and I'm equally confident that at least one of our ideas would in fact be technically legal. Once that invention exists, the laws will have to scramble to catch up because the government will want to put some safeguards in place. Once the government knows it can't stop the activity, the best you can do is regulate it at the margins, as we do with alcohol and cigarettes.
You might be tempted to argue that football, booze, pharmaceuticals, and cigarettes are actually low risk compared to the suicide machine that kills you with near (but not technically absolute) certainty. The level of risk has to matter, right?
I'm not sure. I don't believe there is a legal standard for how much individual risk is too much. Each situation seems to be judged on individual merit. We want workplace injuries to approach zero but when it comes to waging war we accept perhaps a 5% death rate, and that assumes you are the winner.
But here is the clever part of my idea: The hypothetical random suicide machine is not yet SPECIFICALLY ILLEGAL. That means that like any new street drug it is totally legal until a law is passed saying it isn't. And how long would it take to pass that law?
Well, a functional government could pass such a law in a week. But we don't have one of those. Our government would be just as slow and incompetent in their efforts to make the new device illegal as they have been in making doctor-assisted suicide legal. I call this situation bureaucratic judo because you use the weight and inertia of your opponent against him. If the government can't make doctor-assisted suicide legal, how long would it take them to fight the random suicide device all the way to the Supreme Court?
I am going to stop just short of recommending that someone invent a technically-legal doctor-assisted suicide device because I suspect I might be swayed by your counterarguments in the comments. But in the absence of a functional government that satisfies the will of the people, one must consider all options.
Is it logically and technically possible to build a random suicide machine that is technically legal?
--------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
Twitter for Scott: @ScottAdamsSays
Note: Yes, I am sure there are seven-hundred science fiction books on this topic. I haven't read any of them.
Bonus thought: If government keeps getting worse (which seems likely) at the same time that technology keeps improving, someday technology will replace the need for traditional government. It might not be a wholesale replacement so much as a stream of specific cases, such as assisted-suicide, in which technology can do what governments cannot. Someday I can imagine technology allowing the populations of warring countries to make peace directly with each other while bypassing their own governments. That's a Facebook app waiting to happen.
Death with Dignity
Nov 4, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
On this fine autumn day in the United States, millions of Americans are heading to the polls for mid-term election voting. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the good work that our elected representatives have done recently. Here's a complete list of their excellent accomplishments:
-
-
-
Okay, we're done with that part.
So, today I learn that there is very little pending legislation on the issue of doctor-assisted suicide.
What?
Let me paint a picture.
Millions of people in this country, mostly seniors, will be tortured until their deaths by a government bureaucracy that refuses to allow individuals, families, and their doctors to make end-of-life treatment decisions.
The government recently tortured both of my parents to death that way.
They probably got one of your relatives too.
You might be next. Or maybe your spouse is next. Medical science has gotten good at keeping old people alive until they wish they were not.
Meanwhile, nearly 100% of the public opposes having the government make the end-of-life care decision over their own wishes. The only way you get a different poll response is by asking the question like an idiot: "Duh! Hey, dude, do you think the government should be able to kill sick people?" Likely answer: "NO!!!!! I HAVE A COLD BUT I WANT TO LIVE!!!!"
In the two states in which doctor-assisted suicide is already legal, it is working as planned and without problems or reported abuses worthy of note. (No system is perfect though.)
In the "smart" world, after you test something and it works great, you do more of it.
We live in a Republic, not a democracy, so politicians have a legal right to ignore the will of the people.
The alleged opposition to doctor-assisted suicide is mostly a handful of nutbags that have cleverly leveraged the poorly-worded polls on the topic to pretend half of the country is on their side. The media totally buys into this story. The reality has been reported in this blog alone, as far as I can tell. And the reality is that there is no serious opposition in this country to doctor-assisted suicide if you ask the question right.
So, while your elected officials were voting on the state bird, or trying to totally fuck up something that is working fine, millions of innocent seniors are being tortured to death.
Those are the facts.
I am tempted to assign a failing grade to our elected officials for having such a bad grasp on priorities. But somehow that doesn't seem enough in this situation. You'll probably agree with me after your parents are tortured to death by the government, or it happens to you, or someone you know.
So let me say this in a stronger fashion, and I direct this to our elected state officials on this special day.
GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND FIX THIS SITUATION, YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLES! I WANT EVERY ONE OF YOU LAZY FUCKERS TO DIE A PAINFUL DEATH!
This is the part where people say, "He doesn't mean that. He just wants clicks."
No, I mean it. Seriously, you guys are fucking millions of senior citizens right into their graves and you know it. You are lower than terrorists in my view because terrorists are at least operating out of principle. And I want those guys dead too.
Emotions are important in this issue. This isn't about economics or building roads. This is about human beings that are tortured to death in front of their families. And the families' lives are often ruined at the same time. So if you are an elected official, you need to know the emotional state of your constituents. I am a constituent. You just heard my emotional state. If it wasn't clear, I can repeat it.
DIE PAINFULLY, YOU FUCKING USELESS LOSERS!
Technically, that is only Plan B. Plan A is still "Dear Elected Representatives: Please do the job we pay you to do. Thank you."
I'm not advocating violence against anyone. I'm just saying how I feel. My goal is to end government violence (essentially) against senior citizens.
----
Scott Adams
Personal Twitter Account: @ScottAdamsSays
-
-
-
Okay, we're done with that part.
So, today I learn that there is very little pending legislation on the issue of doctor-assisted suicide.
What?
Let me paint a picture.
Millions of people in this country, mostly seniors, will be tortured until their deaths by a government bureaucracy that refuses to allow individuals, families, and their doctors to make end-of-life treatment decisions.
The government recently tortured both of my parents to death that way.
They probably got one of your relatives too.
You might be next. Or maybe your spouse is next. Medical science has gotten good at keeping old people alive until they wish they were not.
Meanwhile, nearly 100% of the public opposes having the government make the end-of-life care decision over their own wishes. The only way you get a different poll response is by asking the question like an idiot: "Duh! Hey, dude, do you think the government should be able to kill sick people?" Likely answer: "NO!!!!! I HAVE A COLD BUT I WANT TO LIVE!!!!"
In the two states in which doctor-assisted suicide is already legal, it is working as planned and without problems or reported abuses worthy of note. (No system is perfect though.)
In the "smart" world, after you test something and it works great, you do more of it.
We live in a Republic, not a democracy, so politicians have a legal right to ignore the will of the people.
The alleged opposition to doctor-assisted suicide is mostly a handful of nutbags that have cleverly leveraged the poorly-worded polls on the topic to pretend half of the country is on their side. The media totally buys into this story. The reality has been reported in this blog alone, as far as I can tell. And the reality is that there is no serious opposition in this country to doctor-assisted suicide if you ask the question right.
So, while your elected officials were voting on the state bird, or trying to totally fuck up something that is working fine, millions of innocent seniors are being tortured to death.
Those are the facts.
I am tempted to assign a failing grade to our elected officials for having such a bad grasp on priorities. But somehow that doesn't seem enough in this situation. You'll probably agree with me after your parents are tortured to death by the government, or it happens to you, or someone you know.
So let me say this in a stronger fashion, and I direct this to our elected state officials on this special day.
GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND FIX THIS SITUATION, YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLES! I WANT EVERY ONE OF YOU LAZY FUCKERS TO DIE A PAINFUL DEATH!
This is the part where people say, "He doesn't mean that. He just wants clicks."
No, I mean it. Seriously, you guys are fucking millions of senior citizens right into their graves and you know it. You are lower than terrorists in my view because terrorists are at least operating out of principle. And I want those guys dead too.
Emotions are important in this issue. This isn't about economics or building roads. This is about human beings that are tortured to death in front of their families. And the families' lives are often ruined at the same time. So if you are an elected official, you need to know the emotional state of your constituents. I am a constituent. You just heard my emotional state. If it wasn't clear, I can repeat it.
DIE PAINFULLY, YOU FUCKING USELESS LOSERS!
Technically, that is only Plan B. Plan A is still "Dear Elected Representatives: Please do the job we pay you to do. Thank you."
I'm not advocating violence against anyone. I'm just saying how I feel. My goal is to end government violence (essentially) against senior citizens.
----
Scott Adams
Personal Twitter Account: @ScottAdamsSays
Right to Die - Question
Nov 4, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
[Update: Answered. Thank you. http://www.deathwithdignity.org/advocates/national]
And now I am seriously pissed off that there are so few pending bills. Where is California?
Let me bang out a few comics this morning and circle back to this. You won't want to miss it because I just chewed through my leash.
--- old stuff below ---
Is any U.S. state voting today on doctor-assisted suicide?
I don't follow state politics and Google is worthless today.
I might have some things to say on the topic.
Have I mentioned I'm in a bad mood this week?
Please tell me it is on the ballot somewhere.
Today I Tried to Do a Simple Thing
Nov 3, 2014 |
General Nonsense |
Permalink
Note: F-bombs aren't for everyone. Skip this post if the word offends you. I would have used a different word but for some topics there is just no substitute.
----
I have a credit card account that I need to close, and today I discover that Wells Fargo offers plenty of paths for opening new accounts but no obvious way to close one on a Sunday (when I wrote this). What a surprise.
"Fuck you, bank" I mutter to myself. I'll just call the phone number for opening a new account and then you can transfer me to the people who close accounts. HA! I am so clever! I have done this trick with other companies and they only "accidentally" disconnect me during the transfer about half the time. So I like my odds.
The recorded voice says there is a six minute hold. Shit. My phone battery can't handle that.
Where is that piece of paper on which I wrote the name of an app that calls you back when the other side is ready? I need that. Searching desk for note. No luck. Searching Google for it. No luck. Searching App store for it. No luck. Wait, an email is coming in. Ignore, ignore, focus! Stay out of that rabbit hole!
Shit, I better write down that thing I just remembered I need to do. If I don't write it down right now I will forget again. Where's my pen? Why do all the pens in my house end up on my bedroom dresser! I angrily trudge to the other end of the house for a pen.
I would have made a note on my phone but I can't decide which of the ninety possible ways to save a note I want to use. I really need to spend a day looking at apps for that sort of thing. I have little notes to myself spread across seven apps that I forget to look at. Sometimes I email myself. Sometimes I put things on my calendar or my reminder app. Sometimes I just create a note document on my phone. And then I don't look at any of it.
Wait, what the fuck is this pen for? I think I was going to write something down. Damn it.
I can't remember the last time I completed a simple task on the Internet without searching my house for some obscure piece of paper with a note or account number on it. Sometimes I have to dig through past years' taxes just to click "submit" on some fucking piece of administrative trivia. And I almost always have to search my email archive for some tip or clue about what to click or what account or PIN to use. And for some reason my keyword search only produces results about half the time even when I know the keyword is somewhere in my email. I think the problem is iCloud or climate change or something. I don't have time to look into it.
I have six-thousand passwords, a computer operating system that was designed by sadists, and seventy-five items on my to-do list before lunch. And I can't get one thing done because everything is connected via a web of complexity and missing information to every other thing on the fucking planet.
And if one more person helpfully tells me to get a password organizer, my head is going to explode. Organizing my passwords is on my list with about seventy other things I won't get to.
I'm almost certain there was a time in my youth when I could just identify a task and go do it. Those days are over. Now in order to do the simplest things in life I have to recover a lost password, get disconnected from several 800 calls, dig through old email, delete old accounts and start new ones, upgrade software, and change the ink in my printer.
My new worldview is that day-one of any Internet-related task is just discovering what information you don't have, or discovering that the software doesn't do what you hoped. Realistically, I rarely finish a task that involves the Internet on the same day I start, no matter how trivial the task.
Is it just me or has the Internet evolved from a tool to a disease?
--------------------
Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
My personal Twitter account: @ScottAdamsSays
True story: The batteries on my wireless keyboard died before I could post this. I didn't have any new batteries so I had to search my home for a device with non-dead AA batteries that I could steal before I could finish the simple task of posting.
Second True Story: Immediately after writing this post I went to my car and the "low tire pressure" warning told me I should not drive it anywhere. I have an air compressor but no longer know which combination of poorly-labeled levers and valves controls what. And I needed an air pressure gauge, which I couldn't find after an hour-long search of car, garage, and house. I would go to the store and buy a new gauge . . . if I had a car that worked.
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I have a credit card account that I need to close, and today I discover that Wells Fargo offers plenty of paths for opening new accounts but no obvious way to close one on a Sunday (when I wrote this). What a surprise.
"Fuck you, bank" I mutter to myself. I'll just call the phone number for opening a new account and then you can transfer me to the people who close accounts. HA! I am so clever! I have done this trick with other companies and they only "accidentally" disconnect me during the transfer about half the time. So I like my odds.
The recorded voice says there is a six minute hold. Shit. My phone battery can't handle that.
Where is that piece of paper on which I wrote the name of an app that calls you back when the other side is ready? I need that. Searching desk for note. No luck. Searching Google for it. No luck. Searching App store for it. No luck. Wait, an email is coming in. Ignore, ignore, focus! Stay out of that rabbit hole!
Shit, I better write down that thing I just remembered I need to do. If I don't write it down right now I will forget again. Where's my pen? Why do all the pens in my house end up on my bedroom dresser! I angrily trudge to the other end of the house for a pen.
I would have made a note on my phone but I can't decide which of the ninety possible ways to save a note I want to use. I really need to spend a day looking at apps for that sort of thing. I have little notes to myself spread across seven apps that I forget to look at. Sometimes I email myself. Sometimes I put things on my calendar or my reminder app. Sometimes I just create a note document on my phone. And then I don't look at any of it.
Wait, what the fuck is this pen for? I think I was going to write something down. Damn it.
I can't remember the last time I completed a simple task on the Internet without searching my house for some obscure piece of paper with a note or account number on it. Sometimes I have to dig through past years' taxes just to click "submit" on some fucking piece of administrative trivia. And I almost always have to search my email archive for some tip or clue about what to click or what account or PIN to use. And for some reason my keyword search only produces results about half the time even when I know the keyword is somewhere in my email. I think the problem is iCloud or climate change or something. I don't have time to look into it.
I have six-thousand passwords, a computer operating system that was designed by sadists, and seventy-five items on my to-do list before lunch. And I can't get one thing done because everything is connected via a web of complexity and missing information to every other thing on the fucking planet.
And if one more person helpfully tells me to get a password organizer, my head is going to explode. Organizing my passwords is on my list with about seventy other things I won't get to.
I'm almost certain there was a time in my youth when I could just identify a task and go do it. Those days are over. Now in order to do the simplest things in life I have to recover a lost password, get disconnected from several 800 calls, dig through old email, delete old accounts and start new ones, upgrade software, and change the ink in my printer.
My new worldview is that day-one of any Internet-related task is just discovering what information you don't have, or discovering that the software doesn't do what you hoped. Realistically, I rarely finish a task that involves the Internet on the same day I start, no matter how trivial the task.
Is it just me or has the Internet evolved from a tool to a disease?
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Scott Adams
Co-founder of CalendarTree.com
Author of this book
Twitter Dilbert: @Dilbert_Daily
My personal Twitter account: @ScottAdamsSays
True story: The batteries on my wireless keyboard died before I could post this. I didn't have any new batteries so I had to search my home for a device with non-dead AA batteries that I could steal before I could finish the simple task of posting.
Second True Story: Immediately after writing this post I went to my car and the "low tire pressure" warning told me I should not drive it anywhere. I have an air compressor but no longer know which combination of poorly-labeled levers and valves controls what. And I needed an air pressure gauge, which I couldn't find after an hour-long search of car, garage, and house. I would go to the store and buy a new gauge . . . if I had a car that worked.
