1. Lewis Carroll's Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter Writing (HT: Mere Comments)
2. Information Insurance: "Imagine that you die with computer passwords in your head, leaving coworkers without access to critical files. Imagine your loved ones cannot find your bank accounts, or that you die with a secret that you longed to reveal during your lifetime.
A deathswitch is an automated system that prompts you for your passwords on a regular schedule to make sure you are still alive. When you do not enter your passwords for some period of time, the computer deduces you are dead or critcally disabled, and your pre-scripted messages are automatically emailed to those named by you." (HT: The Presurfer)
3. Don’t apply the Bible to your life
4. Which is more environmentally friendly, a Hummer or a Prius?
When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.
(HT: View from the Pew)
5. The Best Online Research Apps/Sites You've Never Heard Of
6. Virtual Rome (HT: Justin Taylor)
7. Amish: the most technologically sophisticated people:
The Amish are the most technologically sophisticated people on this continent, the best at picking and choosing among innovations, deciding which ones make sense and which ones don’t….
The larger society at the moment has a primitive and superstitious belief that we must accept new technologies, that they are somehow more powerful than we are. Which makes the Amish in some ways the most modern American subculture—far more modern than some fellow with a cell phone who doesn’t really like how it changes his life, but has one just because it seems “normal.”
From Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (2003) by Bill McKibben
8. Polygamy Today: "Today, about 40,000 "fundamentalist Mormons" in Utah and nearby states live polygamy illegally."
9. Victor Reppert on ethics without God:
One interesting point about many ethical philosophies is that while they make no reference to a theistic God, they do seem to be grounded in metaphysics, and the kind of metaphysics at work is one that a modern naturalist would have trouble accepting.
10. Laurence Thomas on Black American Imperialism:
My experience as a professor is that American blacks actually have little respect for blacks from other countries. Our view of things is that we have a “lock” on what it is to be black; and that anyone who is black who fails to fit that image needs to adjust her or his behavior.
And perhaps the truest indication of imperialism on the part of the black Americans is the term “African-American” has hardly resulted in the acquisition of genuine knowledge about the peoples of Africa.
We seem to think that our wearing a headpiece or a piece of clothing suffices to show that our identification with Africa is profound and strong. Never mind that there are many peoples in Africa; never mind that we have next to no idea of the significance of what we are wearing.
(HT: Parablemania)
11. Rod Dreher on the lesson of Gaza:
I think it's abundantly clear that the Arabs of the Middle East can't govern themselves. Full stop. You wan't proof? Pick up the newspaper. Read a history book. It's not genetic (so please spare me your "racist!" accusations), but cultural. Everybody should get a copy of David Pryce-Jones's "The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs," and read all about the dead-end of shame-honor culture, which renders any compromise with an opponent -- a necessity in democracy -- into an occasion of dishonor and an admission of weakness.
I see no hope of saving Iraq from itself. Today Gaza, tomorrow Iraq. We should get out, and take as many Christians and other religious minorities, as well as Muslim Iraqis who helped us (and who will be murdered for that after we leave), with us as we can.
12. The War on Children with Down's Syndrome continues in Europe:
Non-invasive screening of pregnant women with ultrasound early in pregnancy, combined with maternal blood analysis, has reduced the number of children born in Denmark with Down Syndrome by 50%, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetic.
13. A Brief History of Economic Time: "One hundred years ago the average American workweek was over 60 hours; today it's under 35. One hundred years ago 6% of manufacturing workers took vacations; today it's over 90%. One hundred years ago the average housekeeper spent 12 hours a day on laundry, cooking, cleaning and sewing; today it's about three hours."
14. The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time (HT: TruePravda)
15. Rod Dreher is absolutely right: Scooter Libby got what he deserved
I honestly don't understand why so many conservatives think Scooter Libby is the victim of a great injustice. Whether or not the Plame investigation was justified or not, the indisputable fact is that the man lied under oath. You don't get to lie under oath because you disapprove of the investigation. If Libby had told the truth, as he swore to do, he'd be free today. In what sense was it wrong for Bill Clinton to lie under oath -- which outraged conservatives, as it ought to have -- but acceptable for Scooter Libby to do so?
16. Plants are able to recognize their siblings, according to a study appearing today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings.
17. 17 foods to try before you die
Horse
Sweeter, leaner and redder than beef. Eating horse is traditional in other countries and legal in ours. Don't be squeamish.
(HT: The Presurfer)
18. Ross Douthat on Hillaryphobia:
From the way [Mahoney] and many on the Right talk about the Senator from New York, it often seems that there's some special reason why social conservatives should fear her above any other Democrat. This, in spite of the fact that it's pretty clear that Hillary would be the most rightward nominee to emerge from the Democratic primaries. She'll probably be indistinguishable from an Obama or an Edwards on the social issues, but if there's any daylight between them, the nature of their respective constituencies - and what seem to be Hillary's own political instincts on abortion - will push her toward the middle, not the left. At some point, the Right needs to get over its fears of Hillary the feminist extremist, and recognize her for the DLC liberal that she's become - someone to oppose, certainly, but not the worst the Democratic Party has to offer by any means.
I completely agree. I'd rather have Hillary in the White House than Obama or Edwards.
19. A cheat sheet of cheat sheets (HT: Lifehacker)
20. 20 Ways to Use LinkedIn Productively
21. Back in the "Good Ol' Days: "In 1900, Americans spent nearly twice as much on funerals as on medicine, and less than 2 percent of Americans took vacations." (HT: Marginal Revolution)
22. The Alphabetizer puts just about any list in alphabetical order.
23. Bible Geocoding: The location of every identifiable place mentioned in the Bible using Google Earth (HT: Wittingshire)
24. A map of the US with the states renamed for countries with similar GDPs (HT: Kottke.org)
25. 101 New Uses for Newspaper
26. Anthropologists investigate the use of communications technology:
[D]espite much talk of “convergence” within the industry, people are in fact using different communications technologies in distinct and divergent ways. The fixed-line phone “is the collective channel, a shared organisational tool, with most calls made 'in public' because they are relevant to the other members of the household,” she says. Mobile calls are for last-minute planning or to co-ordinate travel and meetings. Texting is for “intimacy, emotions and efficiency”. E-mail is for administration and to exchange pictures, documents and music. Instant-messaging (IM) and voice-over-internet calls are “continuous channels”, open in the background while people do other things.
27. Sci-fi author Charlie Stross on the futility of space colonization:
[I] don't want to spend much time talking about the unspoken ideological underpinnings of the urge to space colonization, other than to point out that they're there, that the case for space colonization isn't usually presented as an economic enterprise so much as a quasi-religious one. "We can't afford to keep all our eggs in one basket" isn't so much a justification as an appeal to sentimentality, for in the hypothetical case of a planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future extinction of the human species cannot affect you if you are already dead: strictly speaking, it should be of no personal concern.
(HT: BoingBoing)
28. Too Sleepy to Function #1: Members of the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) experience combined stressors, including physical exertion and the threat of enemy fire. Research finds that sleep deprivation, which can result in fatigue, is another factor that can impair troops' vigilance and decision-making with potentially dangerous consequences. "Fatigue is a serious problem during USMC convoy operations, and with 35-to-50 percent of U.S. casualties in Iraq occurring during attacks on convoys, assessment of fatigue coupled with appropriate interventions could save lives," says Chris Berka, of Advanced Brain Monitoring, Inc. "The data collected in this study indicate that Marines do not self-report issues related to fatigue, thus more objective measures would be highly beneficial."
29. Too Sleepy to Function #2: Teenagers who stay up late on school nights and make up for it by sleeping late on weekends are more likely to perform poorly in the classroom. This is because, on weekends, they are waking up at a time that is later than their internal body clock expects. The fact that their clock must get used to a new routine may affect their ability to be awake early for school at the beginning of the week when they revert back to their old routine, according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
30. Too Sleepy to Function #3: College students who go to bed late are more likely to have poor quality sleep, which may affect their mental health and academic performance, according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
31. How Google Earth Works (HT: The Presurfer)
32. Graph of US Presidential approval ratings since 1946 Bush's ratings are low, but he hasn’t reached the unpopularity level of Truman, Nixon, or Carter. (HT: )
33. How to be the Laziest Person in the Office -- and Get Away With It
Only people who have never owned a horse would consider eating one. They're way to "human" in their maner and intellect for my taste.
There's something fishy with the numbers on the Prius and Hummer.
"$3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000"
That would mean owning a Prius costs $325000 over its lifespan, a ruinous cost for car ownership. I know a one or two people who have Priuses (we're talking middle class) and they don't have that kind of money. Yet, they can afford to own one.
Where did the expected lifetime of 100,000 miles for the Prius and 300,000 for the Hummer come from? New cars these days often go much more than 100K before it comes time to junk them yet it's still a bit unusual to see a 300K car on the road.
When you see a huge difference in initial assumptions like this the first thing that comes to mind is that the numbers were fudged to achieve some type of goal. I'm not unwilling to believe that the Hummer might be more energy efficient in the long run. After all, it is pretty easy to just melt down a hunk of metal and make something else out of it versus trying to dispose of an intricate mix of plastics, metals and wires.
Everybody should get a copy of David Pryce-Jones's "The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs," and read all about the dead-end of shame-honor culture, which renders any compromise with an opponent -- a necessity in democracy -- into an occasion of dishonor and an admission of weakness.
Arabs have a history and reputation of being great bargainers and in a marketplace every transaction is by definition a compromise unless you're a gullible tourist who just asks "how much for that rug?" and pulls out his wallet no matter what. Tribal societies probably have to compromise more than modern democracies. There is no central gov't that is the be all and end all in a tribal society. Each tribe itself is divided into numerous clans and beneath that into families and even families have their own divisions.
Japan too has a 'shame-honor culture' yet they seem to be relatively peaceful and governorable. So given that Arab culture has had a long history and even thrived I'm not sure if the culture itself can be fully blamed.
Cultures get things done. People need to live, eat, breath, and enjoy life. To the degree that a culture facilitates this it will survive. To the degree it doesn't it can and will be changed. 'Shame-honor' cultures, like Japan, develop a series of rituals, taboos and customs in order to ensure that at the end of the day everyone is able to believe they have 'saved face' and no one has to go home feeling shamed or dishonored (within limits of course).
I suspect part of the problem is us operating under the delusion that we can somehow direct Arab culture to make it just like our own. We can't and our efforts to try probably make things worse. Sensible people who support peace and freedom are being made to look like collabotors and traitors giving radicals an argument that their ideas should be given a try. I think there's going to have to be some civil wars in Arab countries and the west should stay out of them and seek only to contain them and help only on the margins.
So here's the question, what the hell are we doing in Iraq then? If Arab culture is deeply flawed to make it incompatatible with democracy then what are we doing try to graft it onto Iraq? We are essentially enabling the worst aspects of their culture like giving foreign aid to a hopelessly corrupt government; it just makes it easier to keep the insanity going.
This hummer v. prius thing is apparently an urban myth.
http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Car_News/Prius_Versus_HUMMER_Exploding_the_Myth.S196.A12220.html?pg=1
Re: Ethics without God (item 9 on Joe's list today).
Victor Reppert discusses the following question:
Does atheistic morality require a metaphysics which is impossible to justify or swallow from a strictly materialistic viewpoint?
My answer is no, it does not require such a metaphysics.
I myself am an atheist and a materialist, and I have a morality which I believe to be properly grounded in both reason and experience.
Here's my metaphysics:
Reality exists.
God doesn't.
People exist.
People have various needs and desires.
One can study the human condition and human psychology to try to determine what appear to be the important empirical prerequisites for the pursuit of happiness. We have obviously learned a lot about these things, but such an enormous field will remain a collaborative work-in-progress for the indefinite future.
Now in order for one to converse with another person about morality, and in order for one to make any moral claims whatsoever on another person, one must be willing to include other people in one's personal system of morality. The only logical way to do that is to suggest or insist upon a reciprocal relationship, a Golden Rule: let's treat each other the way we each would want to be treated.
The simplest way I have found to formulate the basic idea of the Golden Rule is: "help other people, avoid hurting other people". "Love your neighbor as yourself" may be a better formulation from a poetical or inspirational perspective, but my formulation is the bare-bones reduction to essentials. It is equivalent to the more poetical version.
So far, in this metaphysics, the warrant for my morality is strictly conditional: if you want to deal with others morally, then this is how you need to go about it.
However, this is not as big a handicap as a Kantian or a Calvinist might be inclined to judge at first glance, for two reasons.
First, most people have a conscience that is based upon the Golden Rule. For those relatively few people who don't buy into it, they are, in effect, closing themselves off, to one degree or another, from moral, civilized society.
It's a shame, and sometimes a horrible tragedy, that people choose to treat each shabbily, and indeed will often rationalize such immorality as being acceptable or admirable. But under normal circumstances, civilization can deal with these moral rebels or weaklings, and morality itself remains healthy and strong. That is why the project of building and maintaining a civilized, humane society is of such fundamental importance, and makes a strong moral claim on each one of us.
Second, there is no other basis for morality (at least none that I have seen). So if someone cooks up some metaphysics which seems to say otherwise, then he is presumably either making some assumptions that are not strictly reality-based, or he is indulging in syllogisms that are somehow begging the question at hand.
In particular, citing God as the source for our morality usually commits both errors at once. For not only is God severely existentially-challenged (that is to say, non-existent), he can only be good himself by submitting to or expressing some objective standard of morality that makes sense independently of his own will.
One objective standard which we could use to judge the morality of some alleged God would be the one I have put forward: "help, and don't hurt". By this standard, Yahweh's destruction of the world by a biblical flood would be intensely and insanely immoral. And the alleged invocation by Jesus of the eternal torments of hell would likewise be intensely and insanely immoral.
On the other hand, the Christian message of love, forgiveness, respect, and dignity constitutes a fine morality indeed.
[ Please note my standard Evangelical Outpost disclaimer: any and all belittling and/or rejection of perceived biblical immorality on my part is not meant to denigrate Christians in any way whatsoever. Christians are no worse (or no better) in my view and in my experience than atheists -- hate the dogma, love the dogmatist :) ]
So there you have one atheist's metaphysics.
Have at it, gentlemen!
First, most people have a conscience that is based upon the Golden Rule.
This is where you're first problem comes in. If you are materialist then you have no basis for believing in a "conscience." At best a conscience would be an illusion or epiphenomena. It would be absurd to base ethics on something that doesn't exist.
For you to make sense of the "Golden Rule" you have to base it on something a bit more "material." And if matter is all there is then ethics is a matter of chemistry and physics, not metaphysics. You'll need to explain how we derive an "ought" from natural laws.
Ummm...Isn't #2 usually called a "will"?
My ethics are derived from reason. Can atheists believe in reason, Joe, or must we give it up since it is not material? Can you see the fallacy you are committing?
Atheists are not being inconsistent when we accept both metaphysical naturalism and the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is a good ethic because it makes sense.
Hi, Joe.
Consciousness is something that scientists are very close to explaining in purely material terms. They are not quite there yet, at least not as far as teasing out all the important details. But is there any reason to doubt that such explanations are possible in principle?
Or to put it another way, will you be willing to give up your theism and your supernaturalism on the day some scientific team announces their discovery of the proof that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon? If your answer is no, then your objection does have not any force.
You'll need to explain how we derive an "ought" from natural laws.
That is exactly what I did in my first comment. The "ought" is a logical consequence of the widely-held desire of people to engage in morally reciprocal relationships with other people.
Simply said, I can't make demands upon you unless I allow you to make demands upon me.
And if matter is all there is then ethics is a matter of chemistry and physics, not metaphysics.
You are making a distinction between the physical sciences and metaphysics which doesn't actually exist. If someone holds that such an distinction should exist, then the burden of proof is on him or her. Physics, chemistry, and metaphysics all inform and shape each other.
ex-preacher My ethics are derived from reason.
Materialism posits that everything that exists is physical/material.
So, you either believe:
(a) Materialism is true, reason doesn't exist (consistent, but hard to square with ethics)
(b) Materialism is true, reason exists and is comprised of matter (consistent, but absurd)
(c) Materialism is true, reason exists and is not comprised of matter (completely inconsistent)
Which one do you believe?
This is where you're first problem comes in. If you are materialist then you have no basis for believing in a "conscience." At best a conscience would be an illusion or epiphenomena. It would be absurd to base ethics on something that doesn't exist.
Or a conscience is based in material reality. You may recall the textbook psychology case of the railroad worker who had a spike driven through his head in an accidental explosion. While he was able to physically recover from the injury his personality entirely changed. Where he used to be a nice, polite and responsible person he became arrogant, rude and just an all round bad person after the accident.
For you to make sense of the "Golden Rule" you have to base it on something a bit more "material." And if matter is all there is then ethics is a matter of chemistry and physics, not metaphysics. You'll need to explain how we derive an "ought" from natural laws.
Ahhh but there is no need for an 'ought'. It's simple cause and effect to borrow from Buddhist doctrine. Violate the Golden Rule and the primary person who pays for it is you, follow it and the primary benefit is to you. You may not recognize it immediately. Sometimes it seems like people 'get away' with things but if you look closely I wouldn't be so sure.
I've used this example before, maybe it will be helpful. There are only 5 types of taste that we experience (like salty, sweet, etc.) All the different dishes you can possibly eat are just combinations of those 5 tastes. Morality, IMO is both subjective and universal as taste is. The taste of saltiness, for example, cannot be described outside of you experiencing it. If you never had salt in your life you couldn't learn what it tastes like from any description. But salty taste is also universal, put salt in anyone's mouth and they will taste it whether they like it or not.
I would say we have an innate sense of morality that is likewise both subjective and universal. Most of the time we agree on the right thing to do (believe it or not we really do). However the problem I notice with lots of 'univseral objective morality' schemes is that they smack of various forms of deciding the case first and then figuring out how to make the morality system come to that decision. A true system of morality would be used to decide the question, not derive a ex post facto reasoning for it. Either that or morality systems appear so convoluted that they could never be used by actual human beigns making real world decisions rather than human beigns writing philosophy papers (I'm looking at Kant here especially hard, although I'd be open to the charge that I just haven't read him in the right way).
Joe
(c) Materialism is true, reason exists and is not comprised of matter (completely inconsistent)
Hmmm, I see one car to my left and another car to my right. Assume this is all that exists in the universe.
This is a materialistic assumption (I assume a universe of just three things made of matter). But what of the fact that these three things are ordered in a particular way? Where exactly does 'left' and 'right' exist as matter? They don't but they do seem to exist as a relationship between matter and other matter.
Reason is the ability of humans and various other animals to think and reach conclusions.
People use their minds, which are located in their brains. A mind is material in the same sense that a chair or sunshine is: it is composed of matter and energy. Take away either the matter or the energy, and the mind ceases to exist.
You can't hold sunshine in the palm of your hand, but that doesn't mean it is immaterial or supernatural.
So my answer to your quiz is choice (b), minus the tendentious parenthetical remark.
Consciousness is something that scientists are very close to explaining in purely material terms.
You're kidding, right? Not only are scientists not close, they have no way of even beginning to explain the mind in purely material terms. Any "scientist" who would make such a nonsensical claim would get laughed out of the room by philosophers of the mind.The closest they've come is eliminativism, which says that the mind doesn't exist at all.
But is there any reason to doubt that such explanations are possible in principle?
Um, yeah. Reason doesn’t appear to be like anything that is determined by the laws of nature, as is required by materialism. Also, if materialism is true then the Golden Rule goes out the window since it is a universal and metaphysical naturalism denies the possibility of universals.
Or to put it another way, will you be willing to give up your theism and your supernaturalism on the day some scientific team announces their discovery of the proof that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon?
There is no possible way to overwhelmingly "prove" that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon. Again, if any philosopher or scientist were to make such a claim they'd get laughed at by their colleagues.
That is exactly what I did in my first comment. The "ought" is a logical consequence of the widely-held desire of people to engage in morally reciprocal relationships with other people.
Let's test that logic:
If (a) people have a widely-held desire to engage in morally reciprocal relationships, then (b) people "ought" to engage in morally reciprocal relationships
People have a widely-held desire to engage in morally reciprocal relationships
Therefore, people "ought" to engage in morally reciprocal relationships
This logical consequence is a circular argument. It makes no sense at all.
Simply said, I can't make demands upon you unless I allow you to make
demands upon me.
You are implying that this is a universal principle that is derived from reason. It is not, and has never been viewed as such. It is simply a statement of wishful thinking.
You also seem to be trying to derive an "ought"--implying that one should do it regardless of whether they want to or not--from an agreement. Saying that you and I should agree to act in a certain way is not an "ought."
You are making a distinction between the physical sciences and metaphysics
which doesn't actually exist. If someone holds that such an distinction
should exist, then the burden of proof is on him or her. Physics,
chemistry, and metaphysics all inform and shape each other.
You are missing the point. If materialism is true, then there is no metaphysics. Metaphysics is the philosophical enquiry into subjects beyond the physical world. Materialism denies that there is anything beyond the physical world. That's one of the basic problems of materialism. People want to have their metaphysical cake and deny it too. ; )
Matthew A mind is material in the same sense that a chair or sunshine is: it is composed of matter and energy.
If mind (and reason) is material then it is subject the deterministic laws of chemistry and physics. Are you saying that logic is a matter of physics? If so, where does the "matter/energy" of logic reside? Is it empirically detectable?
By the way, this view is incompatible with the "Golden Rule." The GR requires that a person have enough free will that he can choose to "do unto others." Under your view, though, our minds are completely subject to deterministic physical laws. Any appearance of choice in ethics is therefore illusionary.
Hi again, Joe.
I don't have the time right this minute to respond point-by-point.
So I will repeat my question to you:
Assuming that it is something that could possibly happen, are you ready, willing, or able to abandon your theism and supernaturalism on the day some team of scientists announces the breakthrough in our physical understanding of human consciousness which settles, once and for all, the material mechanisms of the mind?
If you can't even hypothetically answer this question, then we will probably just have to agree to disagree about materialism vs. supernaturalism.
I think you must know, Joe, that there are different types of materialists. You are using a simplistic definition that fits your argument. Under your definition of "materialist," someone can't even believe that 2 + 2 =4. If you insist on holding on to this caricature, then you can start referring to me as a "metaphysical naturalist." I don't think I can state my view better than the following quote from wikipedia's entry on "metaphysical naturalism."
"All mental contents (such as ideas, theories, emotions, moral and personal values, or beauty and ugliness) exist solely as the computational constructions of our brain, and not as things that exist independently of us."
and
"Reason is the refinement and improvement of naturally evolved faculties, through discovering, then learning, and then employing methods and procedures that are found to increase the frequency with which we arrive at true conclusions and correct information about ourselves and the world. Naturalists thus believe that reason is superior to all the other tools available to us in ascertaining the truth, so anyone who wishes to have more beliefs that are true than are false should seek to perfect and consistently employ their reason in testing and forming beliefs. One outcome of this principle has been the discovery that empirical methods (especially those of proven use in the sciences) are unsurpassed for discovering the facts of reality, while methods of pure reason alone can securely discover only truths inherent in concepts and systems of ideas."
I will grant that the question of free will is a difficult one, but I would argue that it remains difficult regardless of one's view on the existence of god(s). Some Christians deny free will, some atheists affirm it. If you can produce a satisfactory proof of the existence or non-existence of free will, I'd love to see it.
The absurd Prius-Hummer comparison has certainly struck a chord with right-wing bloggers. The argument suffers from a large number of flaws. As Boonton pointed out above, the most apparent error is assuming that the Prius will only go 100K miles while the Hummer lasts for 300K. This assumption seems to come from the 100K warranty on the battery. Reality has shown that the Prius (and even the battery) lasts longer than 100K miles.
Thanks Ex, now where did they get the idea that a Hummer goes for 300K? I'm still willing to give the idea a go. It very well might be true that a simple metal vehicle will use less energy over its whole lifetime than a really complicated hybred...
Onto the other stuff:
Joe
You're kidding, right? Not only are scientists not close, they have no way of even beginning to explain the mind in purely material terms. Any "scientist" who would make such a nonsensical claim would get laughed out of the room by philosophers of the mind.The closest they've come is eliminativism, which says that the mind doesn't exist at all.
Actually they probably are close. If you are saying the mind is thought and the mind controls the body then yes matter has a lot to do with it. If it didn't then brain damage wouldn't be a problem and drugs for depression and other mental illnesses wouldn't work. If you are saying the mind is something other than what controls human behavior then what do you mean by that?
If mind (and reason) is material then it is subject the deterministic laws of chemistry and physics. Are you saying that logic is a matter of physics? If so, where does the "matter/energy" of logic reside? Is it empirically detectable?
Logic mechanisms sit inside all computer chips. Show me how logic is something that does not exist in this material world, I think if you really try you'll see it's a lot more difficult than you think.
By the way, this view is incompatible with the "Golden Rule." The GR requires that a person have enough free will that he can choose to "do unto others." Under your view, though, our minds are completely subject to deterministic physical laws. Any appearance of choice in ethics is therefore illusionary.
This sounds good until you stop to think about what you're saying. To have free will means to be able to violate physical laws? This sounds like something some New Age swami mystic type would say. Why would free will require one to be able to violate physical laws? Also if that was the case then it would seem like it would be quite easy to empirically demonstrate it. Just look for violations of the laws of physics/chemistry, right?
I'm going to have to disagree with this Joe.
"In what sense was it wrong for Bill Clinton to lie under oath -- which outraged conservatives, as it ought to have -- but acceptable for Scooter Libby to do so?"
The question is a joke. Bill Clinton lied under oath and did not A: Lose his job or B: Go to jail.
Scooter Libby lied under oath and he A: Lost his job and B: Will go to jail.
In what sort of world would right thinking people not be outraged over this?
And conservatives weren't even clamoring for Bill Clinton to go to jail for lying under oath. They were mostly clamoring for Bill Clinton to lose his job.
This is what has so many people upset over what happened to Scooter Libby. One standard is applied to Republicans and a seperate standard is applied to Democrats.
Libby was convicted and Clinton was not even charged. That's how the system works. At the end of the day, despite all the huffing and puffing, there was not much of a viable legal case against Clinton.
According to Edmunds [dot] com, the 5 year "True Cost to Own" of a 2007 Prius is $34,634. That's based on 15K miles per year. That works out to $0.46 per mile.
They don't have figures for the Hummer, so I plugged in a Land Rover instead. The five year cost is $107,138, or $1.43 per mile.
The Honda Civic does come out a little better than the Prius at $0.43 per mile.
And where did you factor back in the energy it takes to fabricate it? I know, it's easier to beat up on Joe when you ignore that cost, ain't it?
I'm not beating up on Joe. He didn't come up with these figures - he's just giving a link. I have no idea what the amount of energy is that goes into making either the Prius or the Hummer. Do you? Based on the prices of the vehicles, I'm willing to bet that the Prius takes a lot less energy to make. If the claim that the Prius is less green than the Hummer is to be accepted, I'd like to see more of the calculations. As the math teachers say, please show your work. I do know that the Hummer's gas mileage is four times worse than the Prius'. Driving 75,000 miles in a Hummer at current gas prices will cost about $17,000 while the Prius would set you back only $4,000. In terms of the environment, the Hummer is pouring four times as much CO2 into the air.
Well, to begin with (materially speaking, of course) the cost of the Hummer versus the cost of the Prius is roughly equivalent when considering the amount of material used to make the car. Unfortunately that overlooks the fact that the Prius costs about 7500 more than any car with a similar amount of material, or about 8-9 years worth of gas cost savings.
According to the EPA though, the Prius CO2 output is under .45 pounds per mile, whereas the Hummer output is around 1.05 to 1.14. Hey, it looks like your numbers aren't adding up right fella. 4 times .45 would be up to 1.8 pounds per mile. In order for the Prius to put out only 1/4 the amount of the Hummer, it would have to cut emissions down to between .2625 and .285 pounds per mile. In order to get even close to that, your Prius had better be getting anywhere from 66 to 72 miles per gallon.
Care to restate your position?
And where did you factor back in the energy it takes to fabricate it? I know, it's easier to beat up on Joe when you ignore that cost, ain't it?
The dealer should charge you enough to cover the energy cost of getting the car to you and the manufacturer should charge the dealer enough to cover their energy costs to make the car. If they didn't then they wouldn't be in business very long.
Well, to begin with (materially speaking, of course) the cost of the Hummer versus the cost of the Prius is roughly equivalent when considering the amount of material used to make the car. Unfortunately that overlooks the fact that the Prius costs about 7500 more than any car with a similar amount of material, or about 8-9 years worth of gas cost savings.
Errr, no Hummers are larger than Priuses therefore they require more material to make. There's numerous ways to fudge this calculation. For example, why don't you look at cost to move a person a mile. Because a Hummer can easily sit a lot of people it would probably do very well on that metric. This is why if you need to move say 8-10 people around all the time you're probably better off getting a small bus or very large Hummer-like vehicle. They are more efficient than buying 4 Priuses. But for a single person or two or three people it's absurd to buy a bus.
According to the EPA though, the Prius CO2 output is under .45 pounds per mile, whereas the Hummer output is around 1.05 to 1.14. Hey, it looks like your numbers aren't adding up right fella. 4 times .45 would be up to 1.8 pounds per mile. In order for the Prius to put out only 1/4 the amount of the Hummer, it would have to cut emissions down to between .2625 and .285 pounds per mile. In order to get even close to that, your Prius had better be getting anywhere from 66 to 72 miles per gallon.
Well at the end of the day if you burn ten pounds of gas you are going to get so many pounds of water vapor, so many pounds of CO2 and so many pounds of other stuff. So it comes down to what's the mileage of a Prius versus a Hummer. Using your figures above a Prius puts out about 40% of a Hummer's CO2 (.45 divided by 1.14) so you're saying a Prius should get about 2.5 times the mileage of a Hummer.
According to http://www.slate.com/id/2096191/, a Hummer gets about 13 mpg so a Prius should be 32.5 mpg (2.5*13). http://www.toyota.com/prius/specs.html, though says Prius's MPG are 60/51/55 (city/highway/combined). So not quite 66-72MPG but pretty close.
I'm not sure where you get your figures, smmtheory, but there are variations from different sources. What everyone does agree on, including you apparently, is that the Hummer pours far more CO2 into the atmosphere.
According to fueleconomy[dot]gov, the Prius emits 4 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year and the Hummer emits 12.2 tons. The figures I cited above that said the Prius gets 4 times better gas mileage were from edmunds[dot]com. On this particular issue, I would trust the edmunds figures more. Regardless, we can at least agree that the Hummer pollutes at 2.3 to 4.25 times the rate of a Prius on a mile per mile basis.
Apparently I wasn't as clear on this as I should have been. At a curb weight of approximately 2900 lbs, and a base model cost of 22,000, that's about 7.5 dollars per pound. At a curb weight of about 4700 lbs, and a base model cost of 29,500, the H3 comes in at about 6.2 dollars per pound, which means the difference is a little more than my guesstimate, but the Prius is a whopper compared the the H3. A base model Honda Civic only runs about 5.4 dollars per pound. But any way you look at it, even if the Prius does actually get 4 times the mileage as the H3, that still doesn't equal 4 times as much CO2 going into the air.
More than what, the figures from fueleconomy[dot]gov, or the numbers that I got from the EPA?
All of you oh so smug Prius apologists aren't even intelligent to take into account the energy required to make the batteries for the vehicle. To determine combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius you have to look at the manufaturing process for the batteries, as well as for the rest of the vehicle.
Apparently I wasn't as clear on this as I should have been. At a curb weight of approximately 2900 lbs, and a base model cost of 22,000, that's about 7.5 dollars per pound. At a curb weight of about 4700 lbs, and a base model cost of 29,500, the H3 comes in at about 6.2 dollars per pound, which means the difference is a little more than my guesstimate, but the Prius is a whopper compared the the H3. A base model Honda Civic only runs about 5.4 dollars per pound. But any way you look at it, even if the Prius does actually get 4 times the mileage as the H3, that still doesn't equal 4 times as much CO2 going into the air.
What does this have to do with anything? A pound of diamond rings would probably cost over a million dollars. So what? All you're telling me is that because the Hummer is a heavier car you have more pounds to divide its cost over.
To see how silly this is, notice that all the dealer has to do to lower your 'cost per pound' price is toss some lead bars for free in the trunk of the car!
More than what, the figures from fueleconomy[dot]gov, or the numbers that I got from the EPA?
Unless the cars somehow sequestor CO2 you can figure out quite easily how they compare in terms of putting out CO2 by simply comparing gas mileage. A pound of gas has only so much carbon in it no matter if you put it in a Hummer or a Prius and that carbon creates the same amount of CO2 when burned no matter what engine it gets burned in. Your site holds that the Prius only gets 2.5 times more mileage than the Hummer. The official MPG's, though, are 13 versus 60 which is about 4.6 times more.
The crux of the problem here is that this study assumes Prius's are lemons that die after 100K miles and Hummers last forever at 300K. This smacks to me of somebody rigging the study to produce a desired outcome (I imagine with gas prices up Hummer sales aren't doing so well).
All of you oh so smug Prius apologists aren't even intelligent to take into account the energy required to make the batteries for the vehicle. To determine combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius you have to look at the manufaturing process for the batteries, as well as for the rest of the vehicle.
True but wouldn't that be captured in the initial price of the vehicle?
I don't think the energy cost to build the battery is the Prius's problem. A battery is, after all, little more than a metal compartment with chemicals inside of it. Is that really much more energy intensive to make than an engine block?
I think the question about the Prius is does the battery system help all the time? The Prius has one engine that has to lug a huge battery around with it. This might make sense with certain types of driving but maybe the better long run strategy is to go 100% with either an advanced battery (charged at home) or build a highly efficient engine. I wonder if the Prius is just a transitional car between those two worlds?
$7.50 per pound compared to $5.40 per pound of material... are you just ignoring this tidbit? Oh, and if the intention is to incentivize buying the cars, they can easily forego the profit margin for a time.
As I said smmtheory, a dealer can easily lower the 'cost per pound' of the Prius by simply tossing some free lead bars into the trunk.
Is that the best you can come up with Boonton?
You don't see the fault in your metric do you? It's trivially easy to lower the 'cost per pound' by just increasing pounds. Why is that relevant? If a car cost $9,000 but was made of some magical material that weighed just one pound it would look pretty horrible by your metric ($9,000 per pound!) but to the rest of us in reality land it would be a near miracle.
Yeah, and look at what the metric is actually used for (it should be trivially easy in other words). Not to sell cars, but to prove that the extra cost of the energy to make the cars is recovered in the sticker price. All things being pretty much equal between manufacturing techniques of raw materials, the average cost of raw material per pound would be approximately the same between to similar cars. All things being pretty much equal between manufacturing techniques of automobile assembly, the average cost of assembling similar cars should be approximately equal.
I see, so a pound of Prius costs 37% more than a pound of Hummer. That's not surprising since the Prius is probably more complicated per pound than a Hummer (steel is very simple).
Your making a pretty big assumption that all of the increased cost per pound is due simply to increased energy consumption. I wouldn't be so sure of this. I suspect there's plenty reasons not directly related to energy for the cost per pound to be greater including economies of scale, skilled labor, technology etc. In fact, the Prius might even be able to beat the Hummer when it comes to energy to manufacture a pound of it but it looses when you add those other factors.
Even if it is, though, the fact remains that the Prius's energy use is much better than the Hummer's. If the Hummer was just a little bit worse than the Prius on mileage then maybe you have an argument that a 1/3 improvement in manufacturing energy efficiency equalled the two out but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Like I said, I'm sure a truck or bus would also be less per pound than either vehicle. That has little to do with energy efficiency, though.
A more useful metric might be something like 'energy per passenger'. In that case a Hummer (or bus) might beat a Prius if it is always driven with a full load of people.
So explain the difference between a Toyota Corolla (at 5.65/lb), or the Toyota Camry (at 5.75/lb), or the Toyota Matrix (at 5.80/lb) when compared to the Toyota Prius (7.50/lb). Are you saying Toyota would pay laborers more per hour for the Prius than the other three? Are you saying Toyota would pay for way more expensive materials for the Prius than the other three cars, and more along the lines of their luxury car, the Avalon?
More likely the Prius might need more hours 'per pound' than the other models. Other things you might have neglected to include are profit (there's high demand for the Prius), higher R&D costs that have to be covered, and possibly higher capital costs. It's a big leap to assume the 33% increase in 'per pound' costs is entirely due to energy requirements.
It is just as big a leap to assume that none of the extra cost is due to energy requirements to make all or part of the car (specifically the battery as is pointed out in the article linked). Another point of the article that nobody here has addressed is the cost in damage to the environment to procure as well as produce the materials for the battery. It is as if everybody here who has extolled the virtues of the Prius over the Hummer assumes that the extra CO2 from the Hummer is more damaging to the environment that the poisonous by-products of mining and manufacturing the elements of the battery.
A car engine puts out a lot of heat which means quite a bit of energy. The entire radiator system is needed to keep the engine from melting. This implies to me that energy used to create the car is probably very small when compared with the entire energy used during the whole life of the car.
For the record I didn't make any leap to assume that none of the additional cost per pound is due to energy. Perhaps the Prius uses special metals and such that require higher melting points than the simple steel of the Hummer. More likely, though, I think you're seeing a little bit of cost for exotic materials, a little bit of cost for higher skilled labor/design/robots etc. to make a pound of Prius and a check of extra cost simply due to extra demand. People are quite simply willing to pay more for a 'pound of Prius' than a 'pound of Hummer'.
Sushi cost more 'per pound' than a Big Mac but that's not necessarily because it takes more energy to make sushi. If tomorrow some rich person said he would pay the electric and gas bills for every sushi place I doubt a dinner will cost less than a #5 at McDonalds.
Another point of the article that nobody here has addressed is the cost in damage to the environment to procure as well as produce the materials for the battery. It is as if everybody here who has extolled the virtues of the Prius over the Hummer assumes that the extra CO2 from the Hummer is more damaging to the environment than the poisonous by-products of mining and manufacturing the elements of the battery. You are still skirting the rests of the environmental issue specifically addressed in the article. Why is that? Do you assume that the CO2 is more damaging to the environment than the poisonous by-products of mining and manufacturing the elements of the battery?
I'm not sure about mining but I would imagine that Prius batteries can be disposed of relatively safely. Considering their size it would be easy to ensure junk yards strip out the batteries and the chemicals are disposed of in a controlled manner. Today most batteries end up in landfills.
Even there, though, the environmental problem is limited. I can tell you because I have family in the garbage business, landfills are quite well contained. Even if batteries ended up there (the worse case scenero) the environmental problem would be local at worst. I don't know about the mining implications.
Property rights, though, are quite useful here. A landfill has to own land and in order to own land it must either not contanimate other people's land or compensate them if they do. Likewise for a mining company. While nothing is perfect it is, IMO, a reasonably safe assumption that if Toyota can legally purchase the materials to make the Prius and owners pay to have the cars properly junked at the end of their lives the environmental concerns are probably being addressed.
There are no property rights to the atmosphere, though. If you dump 100 tons of CO2 into the air I can't send you a bill for it even though it will impact me as much as you. If 100 tons of mercury or lead leached off of your property onto mine, though, I'd have ample recourse to recover from you. It's quite a leap of faith to assume that the costs of such an action just happen to be $0.
So where are we:
1. I think energy use during the life of a vehicle dwarfs energy use in producing the vehicle....so mileage & lifespan are the deciding factors. Assuming 300K for a Hummer and only 100K for a Prius seems to be a questionable way to manufacture desired results rather than a reasonable assumption.
2. The 'per pound' differential in price is, in the big scheme of things, minor & probably has very little to do with energy when you consider all the other possibilities (more labor, more skills, more capital, exotic materials, more profit, etc.)
3. There are non-atmospheric environmental concerns but there's good reason to think they do not trump the CO2 concern...unless you have assumed global warming will not be a problem.
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