Impatience can be a good thing

My first real job was at a branch office of a large company, in a suburb that was not quite close enough to be in the same city as the head office. We had a regular quarterly meeting where we would be bused up to a hall near head office to listen to the CEO talk about... something. Sales targets, or the latest marketing campaigns; nothing that was relevant to my job. The only thing I learned from it was that I wasn't going to be learning anything else. You couldn't read a book, and the days of smart phones were a long way off; for the day or two beforehand I used to look for a tricky problem to chew on while I waited for it to end.

Some of my fellow employees would decline to go, which I thought was wrong of them. In hindsight, I think I had absorbed the lesson of years of education - that if the Powers That Be tell you to do something, and it is unpleasant or boring and not obviously useful, you should do it for the greater good. What greater good that is may not be immediately discernable (and occasionally there won't be one), but that's the way the odds lie.

As the years went by, I moved on to other companies where the equivalent all hands meeting was a lot closer and less time consuming - a walk downstairs or to another meeting room or even to dial in on phone (or listen to a replay). They still weren't useful to me, because the sort of things talked about at these meetings are almost always rah-rah enthusiasm for people whose jobs require it; it's never a thoughtful description of where the company strategy is going and what will be needed to accomplish it. But because the cost kept dropping, it stayed below my impatience level.

Then a few years ago the company I was working for introduced a new set of corporate principles. One of them was a thing along the lines of "acting in the company's best interests". The next big meeting that was called, I argued to my boss that I shouldn't go. Usually I needed a proper reason to do that - some urgent work, or another meeting that clashed, or a fortuitous vacation day. This time I argued that it would be better if I sat at my desk and worked, because that would be better for me (I would enjoy it more), better for the company (more work would get done) and better for everyone else (because there would be more oxygen in the room). I wasn't really serious and my boss told me to go anyway.

But afterwards I realized that although I had been arguing non-seriously, and using this "company's best interests" line to cover the fact that I personally had no interest in going, I was actually completely correct. That feeling that unpleasant things are there for a reason persisted, but in this case it really was in the company's best interest that I not attend. In the unlikely event that important information was to be imparted, it would be much more efficient for someone to come and tell me that one thing instead of making me sit through the rest.

My boss wanted me to go so it didn't look like his department was skiving off; but this sort of politics is a corporate inefficiency. Much better to design targeted meetings that would be specifically useful for each department. And really that "skiving off" feeling is just a case of everyone else thinking that unpleasant things must be useful.

It ties in with a lot of the literature on meetings - badly structured meetings are a great way to waste time; meetings should be designed to achieve their purpose in minimal time. Not turning up to such a meeting is the most sincere and direct feedback you can give that it is a waste of your time. If somebody notices, that's actually a good thing. If they come and ask you why, be prepared to explain directly and seriously. But the truth is, I can't think of one of those meetings where my absence would have been noticed. If I had my time over again, not attending any of them would not make a huge difference to my life, but it would be a 100% positive move. No tradeoffs whatsoever.

I guess a part of growing up is to realize which of the unpleasant things you are told to do are actually also useless, and act on the information...

Liking cheap stuff

I stumbled across this article a while back, and rather enjoyed it. It's about appreciating the cheap things in life. I'm planning to go read more of The Book Of Life to see if it's as good as that bit, but in the meantime a couple of reactions.

They talk about how the view from a plane window has become "commonplace and even a little boring". I don't know how many plane flights you have to go on to achieve that effect, but surely it is a lot? I have been on planes perhaps twenty or thirty times in my life, often enough that I have lost count but not so often that I couldn't get a precise number if I really cared. I always go for a window seat, and spend a big chunk of the flight staring out of said window. Flights over ocean can pall after a while, but takeoff and landing - and any part of the flight that's over land - always have something to offer.

On the other hand, driving at speeds of 60-100 km/h (38-60 mph for you heathens) is something that people simply couldn't do before the twentieth century. It's something I do routinely, but I don't value it nearly as much as I would have when I was a child. I could not possibly count accurately the number of times I have done it, and perhaps that is the dividing line. I couldn't tell you how many times I've eaten pineapple either.

But my other reaction was a sort of antidote to the effect they describe. I realized a long time ago that I could go to the supermarket and buy whatever I wanted to eat without posing any risk to my financial position. It's a kind of wealth that is common in developed countries, but a very long way from ubiquitous. And it has been quite rare for most humans ever since we developed the idea of money.

I do not like alcohol; I've never acquired a taste for it. And I have never developed the kind of sophisticated/snobbish (take your pick) palate that really appreciates the expensive versions of most foods. So when I want to celebrate, I don't really have the option to buy some expensive food or drink that I couldn't normally afford; I'd just be wasting money. This is in many ways a good thing (who can complain about being able to afford everything you want?), but I have had to find some other way.

My approach has been to develop an artificial scarcity, something I hadn't consciously realized until I read this piece. There are foods that I can afford, but which are bad for you in large quantities. Junk foods basically - sugar, salt and fat. Things you need in reasonable quantities and your ancestors couldn't find enough of to overdo, but which we now have almost unlimited access to. I keep these things out of my regular diet, but on special occasions I indulge. The budget limit is how much of these I can eat while staying healthy, rather than how much I can eat while staying solvent (junk food taxes try to merge these two ideas together).

There's a limit to how much we can appreciate things just because someone else once found them hard to obtain. But I have found that even cheap common items like chips and chocolate (both, ironically, New World goods completely unobtainable for my European ancestors prior to the 16th century) can be made into desirable luxury goods simply by not buying them very often.

And anyway, appreciating what you can easily get makes you feel better.

Pigs are not made of kryptonite

Popehat has the story of a free speech case involving a Christian group that was preaching anti-Islamic messages at an Arab festival. I don't have much sympathy for them, but I also don't like the use of violence to silence speech. And the truth is that freedom of speech has to mean freedom of offensive speech, or it doesn't mean anything.

But that's not what I'm hear to talk about - you can read a more thorough analysis of the issues at Popehat than I could give you. What I noticed was this:

They were carrying a severed pigs head "to keep Muslims at bay"...since "unfortunately, they are kind of petrified of that animal."

One of the few positive things I saw in the Koran when I read it was a note of reasonability about the enforcement of some of the laws, and that was one of them. Google was quickly able to direct me to the relevant passage, Sura 5:3:
"Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah , and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin - then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful."

Pork is not some kind of kryptonite for Muslims. It's something they are not supposed to eat, along with meat improperly killed or that wild animals have eaten part of. And if the choice is pork or starvation, then they are allowed to eat it.

The only reason a pig's head on a spike would repel Muslims particularly is if the protesters were planning on force feeding it to passers by. There are laws against that. One of the Popehat commentators suggested that they may have fallen foul of food handling laws; that would have been an amusing prosecution, since their own stated objective would be evidence that they intended it as food. Personally I would not be interested in eating part of a pig's head that some religious nut had been waving around on a stick.

And even if they did force-feed it to a Muslim, that would be their crime against their victim, not some terrible sin on the Muslim's part.

There's plenty to criticize in Islam; adding the pig's head just makes them look aggressive and ignorant. I hope the next time they go to this festival the locals just video them and put it on Youtube; that's a much better response than the heckler's veto.

Next!

Well, Donald Trump doesn't seem to have had the effect I was suggesting. Instead of sucking the oxygen away from the other simplistic blowhards, he's sucking it away from what I will call - for want of a better word - the serious candidates.

I can't say I will mourn if Jeb Bush gets knocked out of the race; what would it say about the US if we cannot find a better candidate in 300 million people than yet another Bush?

But so far it looks like we will see a re-run of 2012; with a parade of temporary front-runners while the Republican party tries to find someone better than the default candidate. Only this time the default candidate is Donald Trump instead of Mitt Romney. Exhibit A: Ben Carson.

Ben Carson is apparently a sincere creationist, as opposed to a Republican candidate throwing some red meat to the base. This suggests a problem assimilating evidence that doesn't fit his preconceived ideas, which is not something I want in a president. But he's firmed that impression up enormously by proposing a flat tax.

A flat tax is one of those superficially appealing ideas that get thrown up by well-meaning amateurs with no access to decent economic advice. The problem with it is that you need to get the rate right - too high and you tax low-income earners into bankruptcy, too low and you don't have enough money to run a government. In a modern democracy like the US, there's a pretty broad sweet spot where you can do both.

So Carson will need to convince a lot of low income earners to vote themselves into the poorhouse; or he will need to convince at least half the country that the devastating cuts he will need to inflict will only hurt other people who deserve it. Or he will need to convince enough people that two plus two is at least seventeen, and a bit more once the economy takes off as a result.

The good news is that none of the populist politicians who has come up with this wonderful idea has yet managed to sell it. I don't know whether Carson is dumb enough to think it's a good idea or dumb enough to think he can sell it; but he will not be the nominee.

If we end up with Trump or someone crazier than him, then the Republican party is in real trouble.

Divide and conquer

Of course the Russians in Syria are bombing groups other than ISIL. Whatever their objectives are, one of them will be to preserve the Assad regime, because it is an ally. This has a twin effect - it retains the ally, and makes being a Russian ally a more attractive idea to other nations ("look, we saved someone as disliked as Assad - think how much better we can do with you!").

ISIL is about the best thing that has happened to the Assad regime in years. Before it turned up, the Syrian civil war was "Oppressive autocratic regime" on one side, and "oppressed rebels" on the other. The US and the UK considered bombing the Assad forces, but couldn't quite get a decent excuse together. Now, there's a worse option than Assad. So instead of bombing Assad's forces, the West is bombing his enemies. And his enemies are fighting each other. And the West is reluctant to arm other rebels because ISIL might get hold of the weapons.

Assad and his military are not stupid, or they would be long gone. Military circumstances will force some decisions on them, but wherever they have the chance they will act to ensure that the non-ISIL forces stay weaker than ISIL. As long as that's true, everyone else will be queuing up to do some of their fighting for them. And Russian air strikes will be against ISIL some of the time, but they'll also be against anyone they can plausibly claim is ISIL. And judging by their claims about MH17, that will be anyone they like.

The only way to combat this is to stop pretending that ISIL is the greatest threat to civilization since WWII. And too many people have an interest in claiming that for it to go away.

I don't pretend to have a solution to the Syrian civil war, but it's looking more and more like the Assad regime is going to survive this. Few will want that (certainly I don't), but nobody will be able to see a way to stop it without other consequences they consider worse.

Putting options on the table

A long time ago now, I said that invading Iraq was a bad idea for reasons that had nothing to do with the chaos that actually resulted. Basically if the US accused a country of developing nuclear weapons, it presented them with two ways to avoid being invaded: bow down and remove their own government, or speed up their program and get the weapons first. Iraq had tried getting rid of the program and letting in the inspectors, and demonstrated that this was not sufficient. In other words, a government accused of developing nuclear weapons, which was not actually doing so, immediately had a strong incentive to start.

For basically the same reasons, the Iran deal recently announced is a good idea. It shows that a country can do a deal which does not involve a change of government and provides no incentive to speed up weapons development.

Iran may yet renege on the deal. It may secretly continue its program. I don't have anything like the expertise required to assess all the details and say that it is airtight. I must say that the only people I've heard criticize it are people who have previously attacked the very idea of a deal, or who have a vested interest in saying that anything Obama does is wrong. But the benefit of the deal goes beyond how well it works on Iran; it advertises to other countries that negotiation is possible, and developing weapons is a risky strategy rather than the only one.

This to me is the contrast between the insanity of the Bush years and US administrations before and after it. The Bush administration seemed to think that it was all powerful and could demand anything it liked. Other administrations have recognized their limitations and negotiated deals that improve situations, even if they don't fix everything. Iran is still a repressive theocracy that backs terrorist groups throughout the region; but now it's less likely to be a nuclear armed theocracy.

Back in 2006, I hoped that history would prove me wrong. This time, I hope it proves me right.

You're arresting me for what??

The New York Times magazine has a great story about how the bail system discriminates against poor people. You should go read it if you are under the illusion that the justice system gives a fair deal to people who don't have money. There are many ways that it is expensive to be poor, but in this case we see people offered the choice between having their life fall apart while they sit helpless in jail, or having their life messed up by the black mark of a criminal record - all for the want of the temporary pledge of an asset.

But that's not what caught my eye. At the end they mention that a potential problem with bail reform is that it would clog up the courts, because people would actually be able to fight the charges. One of their interviewees thinks that would be a good thing, because:

You want pressure on the system. You want everyone involved to be reconsidering. Because of how much it could clog the system, you might have people on high telling cops to stop picking people up for an open-container violation, because ‘I don’t want to deal with it in my courtroom.’

The main character in the story demonstrates how badly needed that pressure is. Before he runs into problems raising bail, he has already been arrested and taken away to spend a night in the cells. It's not for jaywalking, or littering, or offensive language, or any of a host of minor infractions that might at least make sense under a "broken windows" regime.

I said, ‘Officer, what am I getting locked up for?’ He says, ‘Drug paraphernalia.’ I says, ‘Drug paraphernalia?’ He opens up his hand and shows me the straw.

...

The documentation submitted by the arresting officer explained that his training and experience told him that plastic straws are ‘‘a commonly used method of packaging heroin residue.’’

That's right. He got arrested because he had a soda in one hand, and a straw in the other. Outside the store where he had bought them both. Why? Drugs. I am reasonably well off, and I would be able to post bail on such a stupid charge. But I would already have been livid at that point - how can you arrest someone for holding a drinking straw?  Is there anyone in New York who could not be arrested at least a few times a year for that? You could stand outside practically any fast-food restaurant and coffee shop in the city and put people away as they came out.

All the way up the chain, everyone involved in this case needs to sit down, take a deep breath, and realize just how bizarre a world they have created. The arresting officer, his supervisors, the police chief, the district attorney and his staff, the judge; and then all the politicians who write the laws that make this possible. At each step, somebody looked at that case and failed to throw it out as a ridiculous travesty.

Tyrone Tomlin got locked up for a few weeks with violent criminals, and beaten up in the process. He lost wages for that time, and could easily have lost his job. That's a terrible failing of the system and it needs reform. But he should never have been arrested in the first place, and that's a failing of a war on drugs - an ever-increasing excuse to wreck people's lives for no good reason.

Stories like this make me angry, because it is so easy to imagine my own frustration at the rank stupidity of a system that suddenly has such awful power over me and such little sense of proportion or fairness. Whenever you hear a politician blithering about being "tough on crime" and trying to do away with due process because a guilty person has slipped through the net, remember that these measures are there to stop innocent people having their lives ruined.

Can Trump save the Republicans by being unelectable?

Donald Trump could end up hurting the Republicans or helping them; it depends on how smart the other candidates are. It's pretty obvious how he can hurt them:

• He could get the nomination. The Democrats would just rebroadcast all his campaign ads and win. This is pretty unlikely.
• He could fail to get the nomination, and run as an independent. He probably wouldn't take away too many votes - most Republicans would be annoyed with him for breaking ranks - but it doesn't take much to turn a close election into a landslide.
• He could stay in the race for a long time, dragging the Overton window not just to the right but towards simplistic bloviation. The Democrats could run clips from the nomination campaign of whoever did win.

I don't think he'll get the nomination, because not even Republicans like him. And it's this that could help the eventual nominee a lot, if they have the brains and the guts to go for it.

Last election, a series of simplistic blowhards jumped ahead of Romney in the polls. Republicans didn't want to run Romney. They tried a lot of alternatives and found each one hilariously unelectable. But in the meantime, each one forced Romney to tack right to cover them, and that hurt him in the main campaign. Trump could do that this time as well, but the important thing about Trump is that he's not going to win - and his polling figures are sucking the oxygen away from all the other simplistic blowhards in the race.

A smart, determined candidate could afford to ignore Trump's supporters in favor of appealing to sane voters. The rest of the simplistic blowhard vote might go to a succession of candidates, looking for the magic - but without that core of support that Trump has already captured, each one would peak small and fade away with no buzz and no donations. Meantime, the smart candidate would lock up the moderates - without any competition if he's lucky (it's almost certainly going to be a he). When Trump finally dropped out, there would be one final contest for his delegates - but it would be short, and there would have been plenty of time to think through the least offensive pander. If the smart candidate had locked up enough of the sane vote, they might not even need any of Trump's supporters. Best case, Trump is the second-last man standing (if he keeps his current support, that's quite plausible) and the sane candidate only has to outlast a string of minor opponents.

If Trump starves all the lunar right candidates of coverage and forces somebody to go for sanity as a point of difference, he could win an election for the Republicans. But if there's no smart candidate, Hotelling's Law could force the successful one to be Trump-lite.

Will he be the candidate they need, or the one they deserve?

Society is a little more free

I don't actually know that many gay people, and the ones I know well don't live in the US. So the legalization of gay marriage by the Supreme Court doesn't really affect me directly. Still, I'm very pleased to see it. The main reason I support gay marriage is simple human decency; gay people, no less than every one else, want long term sexual relationships. Denying them serves no useful purpose and allowing them costs the rest of us nothing. To the extent that there is an effect on society more broadly, I'd expect it to be positive: a stabilizing force.

But beyond that there's another good reason, which is best seen from all the hysterical carrying on from some sections of the religious right. A society where one religion can impose its will on everyone else for no better reason than "God says so", is a dangerous society to live in. It's a long time since western countries had the death penalty for atheism, but there are countries today that still do. Legalizing something that is anathema to a major religion is a stake in the ground that says "we have freedom here".

I would much rather help the gays fight for their freedoms, than fight for mine on my own. So I'm delighted when they win, for their sake and for mine.

Technology as a substitute for evidence

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Unfortunately, I don't think the right is anti-science, despite the enormous concentration of global warming denialists in their ranks and their consistent rejection of actual science in this area. I think the problem is that people are not very good at science and will cheerfully reject it in favor of whatever they already think.

It so happens that climate change is a major issue of the day, and that the obvious solutions to climate change involve a lot of government intervention in the market - worse, intervention across the entire world. This is just made for conspiracy nuts. But imagine if the solution to climate change was to eliminate the minimum wage. The right would be falling over itself to talk up the problem, and the left would be the ones talking about conspiracies and picking holes in the data.

This is bad, because it means a lot more evidence will be needed to overcome the entrenched resistance. Human nature is a persistent and stubborn force. I've thought for many years that the collapse of a major ice shelf would be required - a sea level rise measured in feet, or a country-sized catastrophe. But it's also good, because it means there's another way. Best of all it's something we are already doing, and we can keep doing it without any cooperation from the denialists.

The reason so much government intervention would be needed is because alternative energy sources are so much more expensive. You wouldn't use them unless you had some other motive like "concern for the future" (also in short supply with humans) or "government mandate". But as the cost of alternative energy sources comes down, the extra motivation required starts to drop. And other non-financial advantages start to become important. For example:

• sustainable power mostly doesn't come from geopolitically unstable regions of the world, and paying for it doesn't fund terrorists or people who look different to you.
• sustainable power is less polluting than coal or oil
• Extracting sustainable power usually doesn't leave a wasteland behind

As the price of alternative power starts to drop, these advantages start to counterweight the remaining price difference. They also start to localize the motivation. If the US decides the price difference is worth it to avoid having to worry about middle east politics, it can go on its own without any coercion from the UN. Similarly, Europe might decide that power sources that don't depend on Russia are worth it. If Canada decides that tar sand extraction is not worth the environmental destruction and puts a tax on the resulting oil, that might push its price over the sustainable alternative. And if Los Angeles decides that the purely local pollution reduction caused by electric cars is worth the extra money, it might mandate them.

If enough of these sorts of motivations appear across enough of the population, significant numbers of people might well pay the extra money - of their own accord, or because of social pressure. And of course if sustainable energy prices drop below fossil fuels (which is inevitable in the long run because fossil fuels will run out), then no government intervention will be required. At that point, we will be left with a tiny minority of screaming fanatics and a vast sea of right wingers who simply have no reason to care about it any more.

Where this point is depends on a host of factors that probably differ across populations and countries. But every reduction in alternative energy prices will take with it a chunk of people who no longer have the motivation to "get busy on the proof".

So if you are working on alternative energy research, take heart that you are also working to convince denialists that the problem is real.

Free speech is also for people you don't like.

I have not heard anything good about Pam Geller. She appears to be trying to whip up fear of Muslims in general, and was one of the twits complaining about a mosque being built anywhere near the World Trade Center site. The "Draw the Prophet" contest she helped organize was almost certainly intended to spark a riot somewhere.

All of which makes the attack on the event doubly reprehensible: firstly as an attack on free speech, and secondly for playing right into her hands. Thanks to these idiots, Muslims everywhere are tarred once again with the extremist brush and Geller gets a media platform. Thankfully only the attackers were killed.

Geller has been criticized for being provocative with the contest, but frankly it is this that makes it most worth defending. When she tries to whip up hysteria about "creeping sharia", she does nothing useful. The best way to defend against "creeping sharia" is to ensure that your society is resolutely secular; keep all religions out of government, and they all have a stake in maintaining vigilance against the rest. But if she can provoke an attack like this merely by holding a cartoon contest, that's something worth knowing about.

I would likely never have heard of the contest if it had not been for the attack. So there's another reason the attackers have done themselves a disservice. But it's to my benefit, since the poster advertising it was rather cool:

Back in 2004, Osama Bin Ladin had this to say about his fight with the US:
"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. "

In 2015, Pam Geller might say the same about extremists and pictures of Muhammad.  To shut her up, all we need do is ignore her; let her hold her contests in peace, attended by a few like-minded people, and her efforts to stir up trouble will vanish without trace. But if there are still people willing to kill for pictures of Muhammad - when nobody actually knows what he looks like - then let them be identified so that everyone else can get on with their lives.

I would rather live in a country that tolerates Pam Geller than one that does not.

There is no perfect safety

The recent Germanwings crash and apparent suicide neatly illustrates a perennial problem with security: you can't have perfect security where humans are involved. One of the immediate reactions in the wake of 9/11 was to demand lockable cockpit doors to prevent hijackers from gaining access to the controls. This was a good idea, and it made it much harder for anyone else to repeat the attack. But it made it much easier for someone who was a pilot to do it, because it greatly enhanced their ability to prevent others from stopping them.

Even rules that require two people in the cockpit at all times only increase the number of co-conspirators required.  A future set of terrorists would need to get pilot training - or possibly just flight attendant training - but once in control of the plane would be unstoppable. Even a single terrorist would only need to disable one other person, in a surprise attack.

Security is a set of tradeoffs. You can make particular attacks harder, but it will be at the cost of making others easier, or making everything harder. Even security measures that simply cost money will eventually squeeze out other safety features, or reduce our ability to save lives in other mundane ways that also require money.

The analogy of the rogue pilot is particularly apt when you consider the powers that governments around the world are demanding in the name of fighting terrorism. They may work well at that (although this is often debatable), but they also make the "pilot" more powerful, and harder to stop when he decides to do the wrong thing.

We need to have conversations about security that recognize the tradeoffs that are being made in every case, not just of "money" or "freedom", but of security itself. We need to stop pretending they don't exist, and start focusing on the genuine threats. Things that kill real people every day, rather than one-off events like 9/11.

Religious intolerance is always a bad idea

Via Jerry Coyne, I learn of this ridiculous decision in Myanmar: three people have been sentenced to jail time for "insulting religion". Their crime? This advertising poster for a bar:

This has two effects. Firstly, it makes a lot of people (including me) aware of the poster that otherwise would not have been. Secondly, it makes Myanmar and its Buddhist community look oppressive and insecure. I am less likely to visit the country, and I lose a little bit of respect for the religion.

Chances are that this is the local regime trying to cling to power by sucking up to religious extremists. You could say that this is better than killing and torturing their opponents, and you'd be right - but it's worse than running a proper democracy. It also means that there is a Buddhist extremist constituency to suck up to, which is sad.

I say to the Myanmar government: cancel this sentence. Defend your culture by promoting it, not by silencing people who adapt it.

Chapel Hill

I don't really know what happened at Chapel Hill, but every time there's an outrage committed by a Muslim, Muslims get criticized for not speaking out. I'm an atheist, so here goes.

It's not clear what this guy actually did and why, but I have heard no suggestion of any motive that would be remotely reasonable. If he killed three people for being Muslim, that is entirely wrong.

I have heard of nothing in his writings before the killing that suggests he thought it would be right to kill people for being Muslim, or religious generally.

I would much prefer to think of him as just one more violent nutter in gun-happy America. I have no idea if that will turn out to be a tenable position, and there's nothing I can do to affect the reality of that in any way; he is whatever he is.

If you could all refrain from killing people for stupid or hateful reasons, that would be grand.

The work never ends

After the murder of Charlie Hebdo journalists, their next edition expanded from a normal run of about 60,000 to a run of 5 million. They planned for 3 million, but that sold out in a ridiculously short period of time. Trying to suppress information and ideas by force (even legal force) is very difficult to do, and this is good and right.

Some news outlets seem to have had trouble deciding whether they should show their readers the latest front cover, which looks like this (caption: "All is forgiven"):

They are reluctant to cite fear of violence, and instead talk nonsense about not offending readers. I could sympathize with fear of violence; I'm just some random blogger, and no-one will track me down for publishing an image that's all over the web. Big news organizations are easier to find and damage. But demonstrating fear would offend other readers. So let me say that anyone who is offended by the above cover is hypersensitive and needs to stare at it until they have calmed down a bit and gotten used to it.
Let's by all means have a discussion about violence, and risks, and what expectations we have of the press. But let's not pretend that this is some horrifically insulting image that people must be shielded from.

In the meantime it was entertaining to see all the world leaders gather to condemn the violence while keeping quiet about their own. As David Pope put it:

Special mention to an Israeli newspaper for editing women out of the march photos; and to the French for arresting a comedian because they didn't like what he said.

The defense of freedom of speech is hard work. It never ends; all you win is the right to keep defending it. It requires you to defend people you don't like. But it's worth it.

This post is necessary

Extremist nutters, meet the Streisand effect. Until a few days ago, I was only vaguely aware of Charlie Hebdo; ironically enough that was because they were firebombed by a different lot of extremist nutters, and they produced this magazine cover in response:

("Love is stronger than hate").

But I wouldn't have been able to name them, and I couldn't have told you anything about their other work. But now I have seen a heap of their front covers, including this particularly apt one:

(The captions say "Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists" and "It's hard to be loved by jerks")

And all of this and more is easily available online. I encourage you to look, just to make the work of nutters that little bit more futile and self-defeating.

I was pleased to see a Paris Imam come out with a full-blooded response: 

"I am extremely angry. These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam and I hope the French will come out united at the end of this," said Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in Paris' Seine-Saint-Denis northern suburb.

So often we hear mealy-mouthed rubbish like "It's wrong to kill but the cartoonists shouldn't have said that". Bill Donohue has managed to lower my opinion of him, which is no easy feat. Ross Douthat pretty much nailed it: even if you don't like the cartoons, violence makes them worth defending.

These nutters want to start a war. Even if I had never opened a history book, a lifetime of newspapers tells me that no sane person wants a war. But if there is to be a war, we must make sure that it is not Islam vs the West, or religion vs secularism, or anything as utterly disastrous as that. It must be extremists vs the rest of us. As long as everyone keeps that in mind, the extremists cannot win.

So the correct response to outrages like this is not to attack mosques and kebab shops. It is to hunt down the actual people responsible, put them on trial, and let everyone else get on with their lives.