From Metaphysics to Politics: High horses and the myth of identity.

I'd like to start today's philosophical sojourn with a thought experiment. Cut off your pinky in your mind's eye. Are you still yourself? Of course you are. What about your arm? Without your arm, you're still yourself. Both arms, both legs, even your torso - if you could survive as a Futurama-style head in a jar, you'd still be yourself. You'd have lost your gastroenteric and spinal nervous systems, and those go a long ways farther to influencing your "brainy self" than most people realize, but you'd still more or less be you.

The same goes for your hair color. If I woke up tomorrow with blonde hair, but otherwise the same, I'd still be D. If I woke up tomorrow with green skin, I'd still be me. If I woke up tomorrow in a body of the opposite sex, I'd still be who I am, that one thing about me would have just been changed independently of all other things.

How about your past? Take any day of your life, and delete it from your history. It could be the most important day of your life, but you were still you before it, and you'd still go through the changes you'd go through afterwards (although perhaps a radically different set of particular changes) in a continuously changing flux of "you." The same goes for each and every facet of your personality, every emotional reaction you've ever had, and so on and so forth. Take yourself apart, and where is the "you?" There is no "essence of you," aside from a constantly-changing patchwork mish-mash of atoms and the events those atoms have been through.

There is no such thing as "you."

Lots of people, yourself included, have "an idea of you." And as the philosophers Parker and Stone have reminded us, an idea doesn't need to have a referent in order to have effects in the world. The idea of you is a real idea, but it is not the same thing as you any more than your idea of a duck is an actual duck (for clarity, your idea of a duck is not a duck). Actually, when you get right down to it, there's no such thing as "a duck," either (just "atoms arranged duck-wise," which is practically the same thing but not exactly), because all language is language of convenience. So even though there's "really" no such thing as you on the one hand, of course there's "really" such a thing as you on the other. To remain intellectually honest, however, we have to keep both of these senses in mind when we talk about ourselves so that we can make sure that we're not confusing the two in our own minds, conflating them when speaking to others, or equivocating between them while trying to make a point.

Why do we need to do this? Well, to not do this would be careless and stupid, I think. Do you want to be careless and stupid? I don't know. I sure don't. But there's no law saying that you can't be careless and stupid, so to each his or her own, I guess. Keep that in mind for part two, coming soon! (Guess what? Soon is now!)

Much has been said lately, in the corners of the Universe that I frequent (I'm not just talking about the internet here), about all the wrongs that have been done to this group/person at the hands of that group/person. It's a real shame - I'm not being facetious or sarcastic at all here, it really is a shame. Suffering is a part of life, it's not all flowers and rainbows. But then people go and do something weird: rather than actually try to work together to do something constructive about it, some douchebags seem to want only to whine and whine. They seem, for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to get outside their own heads and stop taking things personally. Yes, these things often affect them personally, and that's rotten, but even though it's very real in one sense, it's all in your head in another important sense. Both senses are valuable, because while the former can help you motivate others to be on your side, the latter will help you make your case without whining.

Now, I want to get one thing very straight at this point: some people talk about their problems because they want sympathy, and some people talk about their problems because they want solutions. Some people only respond to talk of problems with sympathy, and some people only respond to talk of problems with solutions. Doing only one or the other of these is incomplete, and that's the TL;DR version of my beef today. As emotional creatures, we need sympathy - so give it when you can! Really! Be sympathetic to your fellow human beings and their experiences. But problems are for solving, too, so offer solutions as well! And when you tell people about your problems, be grateful for what sympathy you do get, and also be prepared to make progress and move towards solutions, which will involve taking a little advice, because it's probably coming your way anyway. So be a little tough on yourself, swallow your pride, and take whatever comes your way as an opportunity to learn.

Or did you think you had the right to tell other people how they ought to respond to you? Or the ability to control how others think of you? You're not the main character, y'know. Everyone's got problems. Sure, lots of people don't know what it's like to be you, but you don't know what it's like to be anyone else, either, so stay off that high horse. Besides, at the end of the day, the world is under no obligation to take you seriously, and you're not entitled to anything. Every single part of you, every facet of your personality, every choice you've made, every word you utter, every action you take, is subject to question and ridicule. So what?

So what, ideed. This is not a rhetorical question, I really mean this: take anything that's happened to you, any injustice you've suffered, whatever storm you've weathered. Ask yourself, "So what?" And keep asking it. So it's wrong - so what? So, it hurts! So what? So this is bad for the whole world! So what? Keep asking so what, and you'll see that dwelling on the negatives is pointless - it's the wrong attitude to take. Yes, it hurts and is bad and is unfair, and yes, that sucks, and yes, that's awful. But so what?

So, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and do something. "I shouldn't have to!" Wrong attitude, asshole. "I already am!" Really? Awesome! Again: so what? We'll go a better way this time: so I'm fixing problems. So what? So I'm making the world a better place! So what? So, things are going to be a little less awful now. So what?

So, hopefully, you're happy with what you're doing and you've found some meaning in your life. So what? Well, isn't that the point? Hasn't that been the point all along? How we survive is what makes us who we are, so how are you surviving? Are you throwing a tantrum, literal or metaphorical, petulantly tapping your foot as you wait for the world to conform to whatever idea of fairness or justice you think it ought to automatically respect? Or are you getting over your bad self, taking care of your own damn needs, and dealing with people by giving them what they need to get on your team and work with you? One of those approaches works. The other is stupid.

This is politics: dealing with people, giving others what they want in order to get them to give you what you want. It's not always fair, it often sucks, but it's how things work. And if you get enough people on your team, you can get things headed towards your way in the long run. Doing this in the best way possible requires an uncommon level of honesty and self-awareness that can only come from refusing to let your wounds define you. If you choose to forge your identity (and imaginary as it is, we all have an identity) from all the wrong that's been done to you, if you insist upon emphasizing your victim status, then you cannot reasonably expect anything other than continuous failure and misery.

But even if you do everything right, then you will still suffer failures and setbacks from time to time. That's just how things go sometimes. It sucks. And things aren't always this simple, I know. What I'm saying is, simplify things for yourself. Are you missing some advantages enjoyed by others in society? That sucks! So take them. If you got a sub-par education, go to the library and give yourself a better one. Shitty social circle? Make new friends. Low self-esteem? Start taking steps to improve your life and build your self-esteem on that. Heal your own wounds. Take control of your own life. You can't ever do it all the way, and you might not win, but you can start, and you can keep at it, and you can refuse to let the bastards keep you down. And then you can put yourself in a position to help others like you, because you'll have something to offer, even if it's only the wisdom of your years or the experience of what doesn't work. I mean, you can't fix everything right away; but you can't even start to fix the world until and unless you've started fixing yourself. And complaints never fixed anything.

This post was featured in the 47^th Humanist Symposium.

Call Ripley! A little bit of Holiday Honesty, for a change.

I totally stole this from the Atheiskeptihumanist forums (so extra-special thanks to UberPest!). My "penance" is to tell you all to go register there! It's a pretty simple portmanteau, you can bookmark it if you can't spell it, and the community needs more members - which means that the earlier you get there, the more relevant you'll be! And while you're at it, you should also check out Atheist Nexus, too. It's like the Facebook of atheism. On to the news!

Boss Creations is dedicated to putting Christ back into Christmas. Don't laugh, this is Serious Business. OK, laugh because it's stupid and nobody with half a brain gives a shit. Also, laugh because they're literally jamming their symbol of medieval torture into a pagan symbol of a pagan holiday in a desperate bid for cultural relevance, just like the church did in metaphor when they tried to co-opt the holiday all those years ago. You see, the church can't torture people into believing any longer, so now they just bludgeon us all with symbolism - as Boss' front page says, "It's not just a tree - it's a movement!"

What. The. Fuck.

So I'm kind of alarmed by this whole thing, but I find their misguided attempt at cultural dominance to be cutely honest. I'd like to see Jesus up there, myself, beaten bloody with a little INRI above his head, maybe a banner wrapped around his naughty bits saying something like, "Blood Sacrifice is Just Awesome! Fuck Yeah!" Oh, for a fun time, ask any Christian away from the internet what INRI stands for - ten bucks says they won't know, but we need a statistically relevant sample, and I guarantee I'll come out on top across, say, a couple hundred randomized trials.

I also wish these nutters were somehow forced to accept the historical fact that Christmas was co-opted from pagan solstice celebrations. Seriously, the evergreen decked out with shiny baubles and fairy lights, the gift-giving, mistletoe, all that crap - pagan, pagan, pagan! The real killer, though? Christmas trees are against the Bible, for serious! Someone needs to inform Marsha Boggs, Boss Creations' owner-slash-crazy-ho-bag-in-residence, who apparently hates inclusion because it doesn't show her particular sect the special deference it does not deserve at all. I'd love to see the look on her face when Jeremiah 10:2-4 is read to her.

Of course, she'd probably do the Christian thing and ignore reason. She knows what she believes, don't confuse her with the facts. Christianity is whatever she says it is, godammit, and there's no way the Bible could be against her because... wait, there is no because, that's just a fact. Right, guys?

Outrages Are Outrageous!

Thanks to Rhodopsin for tipping me off to this tidbit: last Tuesday (12/8), the Canadian sci-fi writer Peter Watts got a little out of line with border patrol, and was brutalized out of all proportion for it. (other sources)

Now, I don't know if anyone told this guy, but the police run on authoritarian dick-waving. That goes double for border patrol, who imagine themselves the defenders of Our Glorious Nation against foreign threats. Sci-fi writers aren't exactly high up on the list, as foreign threats go, but creative types in general tend to have a problem with bowing to authority for its own sake, especially of the dick-waving variety. But the people who pursue power tend to be the people who want it, and provoking such types is usually risky business as they are wont to exercise said power at the slightest provocation - such as a foreign writer asking police why they're searching his vehicle.

What we have here, you see, is a misunderstanding: Watts, reasonably enough, didn't seem to understand that when an officer of the law wants to search your vehicle, the officer gets what the officer wants whether you like it or not. This makes no sense, but it's how things work. Watts also didn't seem to understand that disobeying a direct order from a police officer, such as "return to your vehicle immediately," is a crime. Could he have been justifiably cuffed and hauled in to station, at great embarrassment and perhaps some minor financial expense? Sure.

Should he have been beaten, maced, and then dumped over the border after posting bail with no coat or vehicle during the first major storm of the season, only to be charged with felony assault by his assailants? Hell fuck no!

OK, so now the tables have turned and it's border patrol who's out of line. In order to do things like not lose all of his everything and send the message that This Shit Won't Fly, Watts needs about three metric boat-loads of cash. He has maybe a quarter of a metric boat-load of cash at present, being the critically acclaimed but not really all that popular author that he is. So if you have some extra scratch lying around, you can make a PayPal payment to donate@rifters.com, or send a check in the mail to Peter Watts. He's made his books free on the internet, so you could download them and donate the money you'd save.

Actually, I remember being intrigued by his Rifters books ever since I read Anatomy of a Rifter some years ago... I think I'll toss a twenty his way with a Christmas download and finally take a look at what he's got to say. Rhodopsin, remind me if I forget, because this is important to me.

Bus Crazies Gone Wild!

So I was riding the bus to work this morning when I overheard a man talking to another man about teh innernet. These were Serious Men, who do things like Talk Shop, so I can understand the instinct to appear knowledgeable. For my part, well, I don't know - I'm not a doctor. But I have friends in high places - people who occasionally take the time to explain things to me, like how a computer works at the transistor level (it's a physical logic gate - so cool!) and stuff like that. Computers are still magic to me, at some ambiguous level - it's along the way from "transistor be logic gate" to "game go on screen" - but it's magic that I can at least listen to intelligently. And now I'm hyphenating too much - back to the story about making fun of posturing idiots.

So this guy says he couldn't do the research he needs to do because "they blocked all the social networking" and now he can't even "get on IM." He tried to Google what he needed, apparently, but it "brought up something else all on its own," and so he was all like, "delete delete delete!" Because it was, you see, "an adult, umm, it was a porn site." Well, fuckin' surprise. Apparently nobody ever told him that that's what the internet is for. I thought to myself, briefly, "Who does this yahoo think he's trying to fool?" But then I looked around on the bus and answered my own question. And now I think my elitism is showing. Oops!

So I started talking to Typhinius about this, because it was hilarious, and he courteously explained to me that if spam clogs all the tubes, then that will slow down my pixels. I countered that the law of supply and demand has created a preponderance of lesbian porn, and that if nobody watches it, then it's just going to pile up and start spilling out to all the other sites. We'd better get cracking! Keeping on top of internet porn is Serious Business!

Fast forward to work, and I'm talking video games with one of the tech guys, when one of the people who does actual work walks in and starts asking him for help with her home computer. She was using terms like "computer box" and "the button by the volume knob" (I'm not making this up, I swears it!), so I knew what I had to do. I practiced at poker face for a while, then when there was a lull in the conversation, I asked her, "Are you sure your spam filter is working properly? If too much spam clogs your tubes, then that could cause your pixels to slow down."

She looked at me and nodded - knowingly. Part of me died a little.

But then tech guy came to her rescue, and said with perfect sincerity, "Don't listen to D," as if I weren't even there! Whatever, he did the right thing, and I cracked up because I could no longer keep a straight face.

Speaking of non sequiturs, this reminds me rather of Our Lord Jebus. You see, the tubes are our brains, and the pixels are our thoughts, and Jebus is the spam. When spam clogs the tubes, your pixels slow down, they get all fuzzy, and it's hard to see what's going on. But this is OK, really, because thinking is hard. You don't want to bother with all that tough work, do you? So let Jebus clog your brain tubes with his blood or spam or whatever, and blur out all those sharp-edged pixels. It's the stupid man's anti-aliasing.

Or you could install Skepticism brand spam filters, and keep your tubes clear and flowing properly. Sure, you might not like some of the things that pop up on your screen now, but those things were there anyway - you just couldn't see them before because of all the Jebus spam! And then you'll know that when other people talk about lesbian porn overflowing onto other sites, they're talking out their asses, so you don't need to worry about that stupid apocalyptic crap. And then you can start worrying about things that actually need to be worried about, like misogyny and homophobia and hunger and poverty and disease. You know, real problems, not the made-up problems that the Jebusites are constantly fretting about.

My Photoshop skills are not what they used to be...

But I guess that's what happens when you only do MS Paint diagrams for... uhh... years. Yeah, years. Jeez.

Anyway, I'm upset with a few elements of the cover. OK, four. Mainly the metal face bits, because I can't even follow a polykarbon tutorial right any more. But it's not total crap, and it will work as a cover for the proof copy so I can at least make sure I did the magic right on submitting things. Here, have a look-see:

I also decided, oh, about forty-five minutes ago that I wanted to do something besides plain black for the background - but I had accidentally made the background part of the layer I was working in, so I totally fucked myself. After that, it was mainly just saying, "Fuck it," and wrapping up so I could just get my damn proof copy already. So if anyone has awesome Photoshop skills - or any kind of awesome art skills, really - and feels like whipping up a 5x8" cover at 300dpi, it will probably be better than mine. And you'll get credit in the book, too! It's win-win, I promise!

Anyway, I guess that's what I get for trying to rush everything at the last minute and not sleeping since... umm... shit. I woke up on Wednesday morning and have been going ever since. Is it Friday already? I have shopping to do! Good thing I'm off work today.

EDIT: I also added a handy page for browsing the Un-Deleted Scenes.

What is this "sleep" of which you speak?

Everything is in order, continuity is established, and like three typos were fixed. Seriously, I scoured the whole thing in the last like twelve hours and it's all good. Now I just have to register at Create Space and upload! Oh, and the cover, too. And dedication, acknowledgments, about the author, etc.

Friday, for serious.

Update!

So I didn't hear anything from the NaNoWriMo people about what I got for winning this year. But then Rhodopsin picked up Borderlands (which is a sweet game, despite the fact that it's side-by-side split screen and Modern Warfare 2 controls - and you can't fucking change either of those things! Dammit!), and Silver Garou & I have been working on getting the achievements to unlock the ODST armor for our internet avatars (because unlocking sweet gear for your internet persona by playing games is like the best marketing gimmick EVAR). What does this mean? It means that D becomes very lazy. I managed to write enough to cover the Riley Williams segment just in case I wound up wanting to remove it, but other than that, I haven't worked on The Quantum Mechanic since the 30^th.

But then I got an e-mail at like 9 pm last night stating that we winners do get a free proof copy, and since I want to get this ready in time for Christmas shipping, everything else is on hold until I've got that all ready. Just so y'all know.

By the way, "in time for Christmas shipping" means Friday. Like, this Friday. So I'ma get crackin'!

101 Interesting Things, part thirty-six: Cordyceps, scourge of the jungle!

Cordyceps is one of my favorite kinds of parasite: a zombie parasite! That is, a biological zombie parasite, not a memetic zombie parasite (religion, nationalism, etc.). What do I mean by "zombie parasite?" I mean a parasite that overwhelmingly alters the behavior of the host, like rabies (which makes its host restless, vicious, and thirsty), in a way that makes it dramatically more likely to cause the parasite to spread. The common cold, influenza, ebola, these just straight up kill you (or get killed) and it's a pretty boring fight. But zombie parasites make you do things that you could imagine the parasite straight up asking you to do, and you say "Yes." Just like religion!

Check this out:

Footage from Planet Earth.

Cordyceps is a real monster, albeit a beautiful one. It can make floor-dwelling ants, which would normally spend their entire lives on or beneath the ground, climb. And it looks cool, too! Check out some of these sweet photos:

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Seriously: so awesome. But don't ever mutate! You can click on any of those "source" links for bigger (and more!) images, and you can also go here for even more shots. Great stuff!

Cross-Post: The Man with the Bag

My mom was fretting about there not being enough money this year for all the Christmas miracles she'd like to have happen. I tried to comfort her, so I asked what made Christmas magical in her youth, expecting that she'd reflect on things like family togetherness, a few nice surprises, and the hoopla of celebration; instead, she looked me in the eye and sadly said, "Santa," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. My first thought was, "You child," but then I realized that calling her out on this would do no good, so I tried to constructively point out what really made Christmases good for her: the actual good things.

Anyway, the Santa Claus lie (and misinformation with intent to deceive is lying, no matter what your intentions are) is still being perpetrated upon my youngest siblings, so here's this.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in my family who doesn't think it's OK to believe something false because it makes you happy. There are only two situations where we do this: the "Bunny, Tooth and Claus" trinity, and religion. My parents have asked me to keep mum once again about Santa Claus, insisting on perpetuating the myth in young E’s mind. I assured them that I would maintain my position of evasive neutrality – really, it would only do more harm than good at this point, and he’ll soon figure it out for himself, anyway. Plus, he’s not even my kid. After that, C’s practically in the bag. Next on the hit list: the Easter Bunny, and then the Tooth Fairy!

I want to take a minute to clarify something, though, lest it go misunderstood: I love winter festivities. Sure, a few people turn into raging dick-bags when discussing the proper etiquette of how to greet someone, and fuck the haters (I say “Happy Holidays” a lot because I don’t really identify with the religious reasons behind any of them and therefore don’t really wish well for any holy day in particular, but if someone wishes me Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukkah, I’m content to interpret that as a wish that I have a good time throughout the season), but by and large, most people get a whole lot nicer. Also, winter is awesome and gift-giving is one of my favorite traditions. On the one hand, yay free stuff; on the other, it helps you get to know someone and keep them in mind when you’re shopping for something you think they’ll enjoy. I also think that the history of the Santa Claus myth is a fascinating case study in memetic evolution; however, as with any other work of fiction, I think the myth is valuable as a myth and only as such.

A lot of people are willing to get on one’s case about such things (like my parents), and I find it puzzling that they treat this with such idiosyncratic uniqueness. One of the more idiotic attacks that I hear is that if I don’t endorse the systematic teaching of the Santa Claus myth to young children as fact, then I must hate fun. It should be obvious that one can enjoy an end without approving of every single means available to achieve it (disapproving of rape doesn’t mean that someone hates sex). Similarly, I don’t have to hate Christmas to harbor qualms about one or two aspects of certain groups’ celebration of it – for example, the over-commercialization of the season, of which many people of varying creeds disapprove.

A more subtle approach is to say that I’m simply being no fun on this one subject, in this one respect – I take it too seriously and am making a mountain out of a molehill. I can actually respect that position, so long as I’m afforded the opportunity to defend my own, which is my goal in this entry (and this isn’t really directed at anyone who’s likely to read it, it’s mainly shit I would tell my parents if I thought it would do any good). First and foremost, Santa Claus is a symbol, and symbols are important: they shape the way we think, teach us lessons, and often serve as paradigm cases upon which we may base more pragmatic beliefs or courses of action. As a symbol, I think Santa Claus is actually a good thing; it’s the treatment of this symbol – the teaching of it as literal fact to young children, the reasons for doing so, and the attitudes with which this practice is commonly regarded – to which I take exception.

I also want to take a moment to head off any accusations that this is a thinly-veiled rant against religion. I don’t want there to be any veil at all, really, but this isn’t about religion specifically - it’s about the perpetuation of a tradition which I think is both totally unnecessary and harmful to a certain degree, yet paradoxically enjoys what I think is an undue amount of respect in mainstream culture. It just so happens that this is the same kind of problem I have with religion. These two issues share a huge amount of overlap, I make no bones about this. However, I wish to confine the discussion here strictly to Santa Claus. Once again, this is a beef I have with parents in general, and mine in particular.

As I said, I like the Santa Claus symbol, because it appeals to the naïve intellect of children but also bears out on a more mature reading. He’s a magical man who lives beyond the reach of human civilization and gives gifts to people in accordance with their conduct by means impossible to us mere mortals. To the child, this translates as, “Behave well and get stuff you want.” And, really, I think that characterizes the experience of children in most decent households: good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior is reprimanded. Good symbol. Us adults know, however, that sometimes a severely unethical course of action, when rigorously pursued, can still net a positive result for the agent (for example, the Enron fiasco, wherein corporate pirates robbed a lot of innocent people of money they deserved and – injustice of injustices! – were only lightly reprimanded for it - the punishment in no way fit the crime).

Good behavior, on the other hand, often goes unrewarded for a very long time, and sometimes is never rewarded at all. Obviously, the karmic reciprocity embodied by Santa Claus holds little sway over real life, but I think that the symbol here serves not as a lesson, but as an example: should we not strive to make our society such that the good are recognized and rewarded, and the wicked are chastised? This is not a mechanism by which the world works, but rather an embodiment of values which I think many of us share. Reap what you sow, and all of that.

Additionally, I think there actually is a much deeper lesson that is instructive (as in the children’s example), rather than exemplary (for the grown-ups): you can cheat other people, but there’s no cheating reality. If you do a good job at something, then that will be reflected in the product of your labor; if not, then it’s garbage in, garbage out. There are exceptions to this, of course, but this is the general rule. OK, maybe this last one’s a stretch, but still.

The problems arise when we consider the teaching of this myth not as a symbol, but as a literal fact. In the first place, it’s a lie: misinformation with intent to deceive, plain and simple. This, on its own, is not much – it’s the context and the consequences of actions that determine their moral content, not their mere descriptions, but I think this should serve as a warning sign. Lies generally turn out bad. And let’s not forget the enormous, conspiratorial scale on which the Santa Claus myth is foisted upon young children.

When taken as literal fact rather than fable, the “be good, get stuff” ethic can be disheartening to children when compared to how things actually play out: if Santa Claus is really magical, and satisfies the wishes of children based on their behavior, shouldn’t you be able to get anything you want if you’re just good enough? And if you don’t get what you want, then doesn’t that mean you’ve been a bad child (or not good enough)? And how come Tommy, that spoiled brat next door, got what he wanted from Santa, but you didn’t? What’s this guy up to, anyway?

Of course, this isn’t the way it always goes down, but my point is simply that Santa isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There’s also the fact that a lot of kids, upon learning that Santa isn’t real, are heartbroken: obviously, this is a cherished belief, since they’re not saying, “Huh, I thought there was something strange about that whole story, I’m kind of relieved to learn it was all hooey.” This effect has a double-edge, I believe – on the one hand, it provides evidence that belief in Santa is a good thing while that belief is maintained (and that’s the killer); on the other hand, the more cherished the belief, the harder it is to let go of it.

So yeah, Santa’s got his up-side, sure, but there’s also a down-side which I think a lot of people underrepresent. It’s kind of a wash, though, as most of this business goes down at an age that many don’t very clearly remember, so who cares? Let’s look at the ostensive reasons behind Santa, then; or, just what this myth is used for. “Be good, or Santa’s gonna give you a lump of coal in your stocking.” That’s a threat, right there. A fairly innocuous one, to be sure, and almost always empty. However, what strikes me as sleazy is that the source of the threat is externalized from the threatener: Mommy or Daddy is threatening to do something you don’t like, but under the guise that it’s a threat from someone else, an all-seeing and implacable judge of right and wrong who – wait, I said I wasn’t going to talk about religion.

The other side of that coin is that when the kid gets stuff they really like, who gets the praise? Not the people who did the actual work to make the Christmas Miracle happen, but the unseen benefactor in the sky – err, I mean, at the North Pole. Dunno what I was thinking there, innocent grin is me! (Look, I find it tremendously ironic that Santa’s like training wheels for a monotheistic deity, but so few outgrow the latter as they outgrow the former. No further comment on that, I promise.) In all seriousness, though, I do honestly think that the substitution of a false and magical justification for good behavior, in lieu of a rational and Earthly one, is a bad thing – both for the fact that it’s empty and wrong, and for the precedent it sets at such an impressionable age.

Look, one may say, all of this is small potatoes. The whole point of Saint Nick is that it’s an entertaining fantasy that’s fun for kids to believe while the magic of childhood lasts. Right? Still bad, says I. The fact that it makes you feel good to think something is true does not mean you actually ought to think it’s true. Take romance, for instance. Say one of your coworkers fancies another: do you think it would be good to make that person believe the feeling was mutual, knowing that that’s false? Of course not, you’re simply setting them up for disappointment – either quickly, when they start to act on those affections and get embarrassed, or gradually, as they wait for the other person to act on affections which are simply not there.

The same principle applies, and the same thing happens, with jolly old Kris Kringle. Perpetuating the illusion just adds to the let-down. And the whole “magic of childhood” tack kind of rubs me the wrong way, too. The message, as best I can tell, is that “magic is fun, reality is boring” (or “childhood is fun, adulthood is boring”). I find that false, and frustratingly so. If magic were real, then it would be like any other part of reality: discoverable, usable, investigable. There would be nothing special about it, just like there’s nothing special about computers (which, to my mind, are a kind of magic). As far as I can tell, what’s exciting about magic is not that it’s magic, but that it’s different. Kids who know there’s no such thing as Batman can still have fun playing Batman with their friends, or Hell, playing Cowboys and Indians when they know that they are not in fact cowboys or Indians. I did. Shit, I still do this stuff whenever I roleplay.

“Something Different,” every now and again, is exciting. It breaks up the routine. And you don’t need to think it’s true to have fun, you just have to pretend and have a functional imagination. Plus, reality is fucking exciting, too – you just have to know where to look. Boredom sets into the boring mind, and all that good stuff. Plus, the “magic” of childhood never really has to die, anyway. I find that, as an adult, I have more access to the stuff I liked doing as a kid, and now that the responsibilities are my own (which, to be sure, carries its own price – a price I pay gladly, by the way), I can determine when and how I do those things to a much greater extent than I could as a child. Being a grown-up fucking rules (and screw you, Mom, cake is a breakfast food!).

The point with all this is that I don’t have a problem with Santa decorations, or Santa floats in parades, or any of that nonsense. Go nuts. Really. Please, just, do whatever you like – I like the Santa myth, and adults know what’s up, so it’s all in good fun (for real). But when it comes to treating it like fact in a misguided attempt to "magic up" your kid’s childhood, I mean, nothing good comes of that which can’t be had by more wholesome means, and the bad stuff could all be rather neatly avoided by treating it like a superhero comic and telling your kid that it’s not true, it’s just a fun story. That’s really the source of my confusion: why the Hell isn’t Santa Claus treated just like Batman or Spider-Man?

101 Interesting Things, part thirty-five: Ye Olde Science Repository

I saw on Pharyngula today that the Royal Society is putting up a bunch of their oldest stuff online!

One of the world's oldest scientific institutions is marking the start of its 350th year by putting 60 of its most memorable research papers online.

They've got this super sweet timeline browser that takes you through the history with pretty pictures, and the papers touch on everything: meteorology, optics, medicine, anatomy, geometry, astronomy, everything! It's awesome!

OK, so this is really like sixty interesting things in one, but still: looking at the world to figure things out about it? Best. Idea. Evar! But enough out of me, go and learn!

The Quantum Mechanic: Un-Deleted Scenes!

I've got all these handy navigation links in the chapters, but none for the Un-Deleted Scenes, so I've added that here (as well as a link from the Epilogue that points to this page). Here you go:

1: Douglas Wins a Prize.

2: Douglas Reads Too Much.

3: Douglas and Alvina Fall in Love All Over Again.

4: The Entropic Engineer Loses Himself.

5: Science Happens!

6: Victor Playtests the Device.

Rock most hard. Have a great one, everybody!

Dear The Internet: I Win!

Look, see? I also donated some money and have a halo because of it. Oh, and I have a winner's badge thinger over on the right, too. Hopefully I can get that back in sales, if the CreateSpace deal is still going.

So yeah, I'm still not done writing, I just crossed the finish line. But I will post what I have when I finish this last un-deleted scene, and then it's time to arrange all the parts together for publishing. I want my hardcopy before Christmas!

More later, as I finish this last vignette.

EDIT: Finished! Final wordcount is 50,475. Moved this bit so it's "after" the last un-deleted scene (which should appear right below this, if I've done my math right). Hooray! Enjoy!