Gleaned from the comments on the Dilbert blog:

“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”

I haven’t received my copy yet but no doubt when I will do, I will experience a reaction similar to Bob’s to the intemperance of Dawkins’ language; and similar to the reaction I experienced when I read the Sam Harris book. But when I do, I will try to remember Douglas Adams’ words on the subject.

“Book critics or theatre critics can be derisively negative and earn delighted praise for the trenchant wit of their review. A politician may attack an opponent scathingly across the floor of the House and earn plaudits for his robust pugnacity. But let a critic of religion employ a fraction of the same direct forthrightness, and polite society will purse its lips and shake its head: even secular polite society, and especially that part of secular society that loves to announce, ‘I’m an atheist, BUT . . .’”

[lifted from Dawkins' thoughts on his book tour]

Actually, the time for a diplomatic solution was four years ago when it was more likely to succeed but there is still a chance for it to work. The New Republic says so too.

More importantly, the elections may terrify the Bush administration into a new course. While the administration’s defenders claim that it has exhausted diplomatic possibilities, this is true only in the sense that it has conducted grudging and occasional conversations with important regional players. But diplomacy is not just a cozy exercise in endless speech acts. It, too, must be brutal: It must include threats and promises, alliances and coalitions–with the threat of being left out. A new campaign should lay the groundwork for agreements prior to the calling of a peace conference that would include Iraq’s parties and its neighbors, as well as the United States, the European Union, and Russia.

I heard John McCain, on Meet the Press on Sunday, making a tricksy rhetorical point which seem to boil down to [paraphrasing]:

Of the three alternatives,

1. Stay the course
2. Send more troops
3. Start withdrawing troops

#1 is completely stupid.

The only one I support - the only one that will avoid tragedy, the only one that will be successful - is #2. #2 is never gonna happen because its completely impractical, but I support it anyway.

And if we can’t do #2, we should do #3. But don’t blame me because I supported #2.

I can’t decide whether he is bravely standing up for an unpopular course of action that he believes is right or whether he is hiding behind a brave-sounding course of action because he knows there is no chance of it happening. The old John McCain would have done the former. I am not nearly so confident in the new John McCain.

I prefer the New Republic’s honesty:

All the study groups, all the Council on Foreign Relations white papers, and all the magazine symposia in the world won’t change the equation: There is no policy for Iraq that will provide moral and strategic satisfaction and no reason to believe that we might achieve something that could be plausibly described as victory. The coming debate over timetables and troop levels will likely generate much anger, shattering postelection illusions of bipartisanship and provoking intra-party squabbles. But, in the end, this struggle will be over the difference between a largely intolerable outcome and a completely intolerable one.

This magazine has long advocated deploying U.S. power to halt the mass slaughter of innocents. Saddam Hussein distinguished himself at the mass slaughter of innocents: About this, there can be no dispute. Yet, in this case, we supported an invasion that has led to the same savage result. Without an occupying power–and, perhaps, with one–Iraq could soon witness refugee crises, the sectarian mêlée spilling into neighboring countries, Al Qaeda bases sprouting across the Sunni Triangle, and massacres still greater than those that have already transpired.

I agree that we have a moral obligation to make things better. If there is a chance that we can bring some kind of solution by combining the promise that we will be outta there soon with a no-holds-barred diplomatic blitz involving the UN, the EU, Iran, Syria, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Archbishop of Canterbury, I say go for it.

One of my biggest regrets about Iraq is that has spoiled the pitch for liberal interventions in places such as Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur. Neo-cons and realists have been historically opposed to them on principle but by using ideas of spreading freedom as cover for their attempted power grab, they have discredited the whole idea. Realists would never have supported a future Kosovo intervention anyway, but now they can point to the failures in Iraq and say “See! Those things never work!”. Apparently the New Republic takes a more pragmatic line…

At this point, it seems almost beside the point to say this: The New Republic deeply regrets its early support for this war. The past three years have complicated our idealism and reminded us of the limits of American power and our own wisdom. But, as we pore over the lessons of this misadventure, we do not conclude that our past misjudgments warrant a rush into the cold arms of “realism.” Realism, yes; but not “realism.” American power may not be capable of transforming ancient cultures or deep hatreds, but that fact does not absolve us of the duty to conduct a foreign policy that takes its moral obligations seriously. As we attempt to undo the damage from a war that we never should have started, our moral obligations will not vanish, and neither will our strategic needs.

... but the hardline Republicans in Congress will be intervention shy for many years to come.

But if that fails, I am inclined to agree with Galbraith’s conclusion in last week’s debate: if we stay, we are only making it worse. Better to get out and let the civil war take its course. Galbraith says they last about 14 years

In part One of his criticism of The God Delusion at huffingtonpost.com, Deepak Chopra makes the case that science can’t explain subjective experience.

For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed by beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it’s a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. God stands for the perfection of both, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are fantasies makes no sense.

I am not sure if he is suggesting that God is just a subjective experience or if beauty and love exist, God must exist. No doubt, in part two, he’ll explain how all this relates to whether or not God is a delusion.

After the world cup, I said:

I hope beyond hope that Ferguson is able to work his magic and keep Ronaldo at ManU but, even if he does, this year will be extremely difficult for him.

Well, Fergie did work his magic and Ronaldo is still there and just gets better and better every week. He is easily the best player on the team right now. It’s nice to see that other people think so too:

Shirt number all but obliterated with mud, Cristiano Ronaldo’s early departure from the latest instalment of Manchester United’s thrilling renaissance was accompanied by the fans behind Brad Friedel’s goal hissing expletives and flashing V-signs, all presumably in the cause of In-ger-land. There was nothing new there except that on this occasion it was balanced by a scene of near-mutinous proportions. High in the adjacent Jack Walker stand there were Blackburn Rovers supporters applauding, rising to their feet in a show of old-fashioned politeness for a footballer who is wholly unaccustomed to being afforded such manners.

World poverty might be wiped out before some football fans will bring themselves to acknowledge Ronaldo’s more endearing traits but the applause was sustained and perhaps also unprecedented. Supporters the length and breadth of the country have tried to break his soul but, having failed so miserably, this was the first public recognition (outside Manchester) for the strength of character Ronaldo has shown since his World Cup ended with the Sun newspaper superimposing his face on a dartboard and a publicly stated desire to leave behind this country of rain and recrimination.

Sunday’s report in the Guardian

What a pleasant change to read something positive about football fans!

“Somehow it seeped in their conscious that my attitude was just simply stay the course. Stay the course means let’s get the job done, but it doesn’t mean staying stuck on a strategy or tactics that may not be working. So perhaps I need to do a better job of explaining that we’re constantly adjusting.” — George W. Bush

He was against the flip-flopping before he was for it?

[I wrote this months ago. Posting it now (unfinished) to clear out my backlog - ed]

A little while ago, a bunch of us went to see Nick Yee give a presentation about Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) at PARC. Over a beer afterwards, we discussed one of my favourite MMO topics and were neatly divided down the middle on the subject.

The topic concerns bad behaviour by other players in the game and what the developers should do about it. The bad behaviour in question might be stealing or killing or scamming or any number of other things that would annoy other players. But not cheating. We are all agreed that cheating - causing lag to gain an advantage in the fight, using a bug or exploit to create gold or any number of other ways of gaming the system - sucks.

One side, who happen to play rather a lot of MMOs, said that it is the developer’s responsibility to prevent such bad behaviour. The other side, who don’t play so much any more and includes me, claim that the developers should enable the other players to prevent such behaviour.

Broadly speaking, the first group want to narrow the rules of the game to make bad behaviour impossible. The second group want to expand the rules of the game so the players can create their own systems of justice - their own rules, ther own morality - within the game. Martin Fowler calls these attitudes enabling attitudes and directing attitudes.

The ones who play might claim (and do claim) that they have won the argument by the very fact that they play the games in question - but there is a self-fullfilling prophesy at work. The games are targetted at a particular market and those outside the market simply stop playing.

The Constructionists tell us that children learn best when we let them form their own theories about the world by making things. In contrast, the Instructionists tell us that children learn better when we-who-know tell them what the theories are.

I was always attracted by the idea of constructionism, but have not done a great job of implementing it in my parenting. Enter Jazz’s piano teacher.

Teacher : OK, Jazz, I wanted you play this song

Jazz (playing everything except that song) : tinkle tinkle. bong bong bong

Teacher : Oh that’s pretty, Jazz. How would it sound if you tinkle-bonged like this…

Jazz : tinkle bong bong bong. tinkle bong bong bong

Teacher : Very nice Jazz. Let’s write down your song. This is a stave, and you played a G, then an A and…

I was horrified at first. I found myself glancing at the clock and wondering how much I was paying to hear Jazz tinkle-bong around the keyboard with seemingly no structure to the lessons at all. Georgina couldn’t take it at all - she had to leave the room.

[epilogue]

It’s about three months since I started this post and Jazz is doing really well. She is probably at about the same point in her study as she would have been if she had taken a more direct - instructionist - route except that she still loves playing the piano and she loves to compose.

It’s so easy, as a parent or a teacher, to fall into instructionist ways. It takes real discipline to stick with the less-disciplined constructionist approach. I hope I can do it and, if I do, I will be forever grateful to Jazz’s piano teacher for showing me the way.

In my profession, software engineering, only about 10% of the professionals ever read books or practice or attend conferences or keep track of what the gurus are saying or aspire to gurudom themselves. For many, the highest aspiration is that one day they will stop being a software professional so they can manage other software professionals.

Since software first broke out of the academy and started to be used commercially, the main concern of the software establishment has been to prevent the majority - the 90% who have no desire to improve themselves - from doing the wrong thing.

I haven’t seen everything yet but, from what I have seen of it so far, Sturgeon’s Law holds.

90% of everything is crap

That’s certainly true in my profession and that makes me wonder about the others. In particular it makes me wonder about the teaching profession.

When I look back on my schooldays, one thing I remember clearly is that most of my teachers were crap. The ones who stood out all had their own style. They had something that couldn’t be learned from a book. They oozed good-teacher-ness. I think I had maybe three like that in my whole time at school. Dylan had already had four before he left elementary school. I hope he has more but the odds are against it.

The National Review has hosted an excellent debate about the future of Iraq - excellent, because it is one of the few forums where the debaters do not descend into infantile name-calling. I wonder if there really are people who believe the choices are between Cut and Run or Stay the Course … and whether those people should have been allowed to vote.

From their opening statements, first from Peter W. Galbraith:

Reuel, I fully agree that the break up of Iraq is messy and has already cost thousands of lives in Baghdad and other areas where Sunnis and Shia have lived together. But the break up has happened.

Do you believe that the United States should now try to put the country back together? If so, how would you do it? Would you use force to disarm the Shia militias, or do you imagine, as the administration does, that Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki’s government will suddenly have the will and the power to accomplish this? Would you use U.S. troops as police and peacekeepers in Baghdad? How do you get Sunnis and Shia to see the police and army as national institutions as opposed to sectarian ones?

If our goal is, as President Bush has proclaimed, a unified and democratic Iraq, we will be in the country for a long time. And that means that other national security threats will go unaddressed. Remember, Reuel, that in the nearly four years we have been engaged in a war undertaken to rid Iraq of nonexistent WMD, North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon and Iran made substantial strides toward its own nuclear bomb. Because it is so committed to Iraq, the Bush administration has responded to these developments with a lot of tough talk and no action. Is the unity of Iraq worth this?

and then a response from Reuel Marc Gerecht:

If the Americans start to withdraw from Iraq–if they just announce that they are leaving and give a timetable–we are probably going to see the violence in Iraq explode. Take the killing rate of today and triple it–that would be a reasonable guess of where the Iraqis will be within six months of any “redeployment” of U.S. troops. A Shia conquest of the Arab parts of Iraq is only a matter of time.

In just about every way conceivable, we will be a defeated nation if we leave Iraq as you recommend. All of our enemies will know it. So will our friends. It is hard for me to fathom how this will improve our strategic and moral position in the world.

The full debate:

Wednesday: Peter W. Galbraith
Thursday: Reuel Marc Gerecht
Friday: Peter W. Galbraith
Saturday: Reuel Marc Gerecht

It surprised me how much they agree over the particulars. Reuel’s bottom line is that, if we leave, the country will descend into chaos and America’s standing in the world will be damaged. Peter’s is that the country is descending into chaos anyway whether we stay or go - and the quicker we get out, the quicker the chaos can work itself out.

It was not clear what Reuel thought the outcome would be if we stay - just that we are morally and strategically obligated to do so.

For myself, I am not sure what our moral obligations are. If you start an immoral war that is causing untold misery, is it more moral to stay or to leave? I am not even sure that morals have a role in the decision any more.

The decision should be based on whether staying would prevent disaster or prolong it. Peter W. Galbraith makes a persuasive case that civil war and partition are inevitable either way.