Privacy In the Age of Data Mining

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNU

From the book: “1984″ by George Orwell (June, 1949).  A book of science fantasy whose time has come only 60 years after publication.  We thought, long ago, that the world of Winston Smith was a vision of a world that we would never see.  It was too extreme and beyond the pale of all societies save those behind the Iron Curtain where whole populations could be exiled to the Siberian steppe.  A world where threats to the state could be eliminated quietly with no judicial review in “black” sites around the world.

We didn’t commonly have computers in 1949.  We didn’t have cell phones or “handys” to keep our secrets, phone numbers, itineraries, and “apps.”  Yes, we have outsourced our innermost thoughts to multi-capable smart phones that can locate us anywhere on earth to within a few yards or within a communications cell execute a wide variety of sophisticated programs.  We were warned of the future, and it is now.

There is no going back to an earlier time, our Rubicon has been crossed and we are fighting a defensive game to limit the control that the data miners wish to have over our lives.  The following Ted Talk describes the extent to which a simple cell phone function, making a call, intrudes into our lives as data from our lives are stored.  It shows how a cumulative record of phone calls can create a network of relationships that we may not even be aware of.   This may not seem very important since most of us lead uninteresting lives.  In the wrong hands, however, it creates a nightmare scenario from which we might not want to awake.n

Indian Mound Used as Backfill for Alabama Sam’s Club

Uxmal (note rounded corners)

Again and again the patrimony of the world falls beneath the advance of human civilization.  Despite the University of Alabama’s Office of Archaeological Research (http://museums.ua.edu/oas/ ) and the The Center for Archaeological Studies at the University of South Alabama ( it remains unclear whether or not the state patrimony of Alabama (http://tinyurl.com/cd7pmfy)  has any protection at all. 

Not that this is a rare occurrence. As I navigate the web in search of articles of anthropological interest it seems that the days of the wild west are still here.  In the Yucatán, Belize, and Brazil, private and public agents await the dark of night or bureaucratic indifference to destroy a heritage that cannot be replaced, but this is only a part of the story.

Private and commercial interests have long conducted a scorched earth policy for oil, mineral, and industrial purposes.  Some, like the Belo Monte dam in Brazil may have some argument along the line of an overbearing national interest while others, like mining the Andes for gold at 17,000 ft and letting the cyanide, mercury, and tailings flow down into the watershed to pollute the water of downstream indigenous villages before flowing into the Atlantic or Pacific.

The most efficient way to mine coal in West Virginia and other areas is to just cut off the top of the mountain containing the coal and dump it into the adjoining valley: everything goes downhill.  The unconscionable thing is that the miners move on.  They move on to the Great Boreal Forest and scrape the land when it the freeze ends.  They will move on again to take short-term at the expense of our grandchildren’s toxic land remediation.  The land begs for moderation. 

Our cultural heritage is what remains of our past and what the past can teach us.  George Santayana ha observed that: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Some people have never heard of Santayana – or the sentiment.  He also wrote: “My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”  – Carlos

Oxford taxpayers fund demolition of Indian mound

Hill’s dirt to be used as fill for new Sam’s Club

  The Associated Press, By Dan Whisenhunt, The Anniston Star, Published: Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 3:30 a.m., Last Modified: Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 10:49 p.m.

OXFORD | A stone mound on a hill behind the Oxford Exchange created by American Indians 1,500 years ago will soon disappear. And whether Oxford’s taxpayers wanted it or not, they paid for its destruction.

Workers hired by the city’s Commercial Development Authority are using the dirt from the hill as fill for a new Sam’s Club. The project has angered American Indians who, along with a Jacksonville State University archaeology professor, say the site could contain human remains.  Oxford Mayor Leon Smith and City Project Manager Fred Denney say it was used to send smoke signals.

The city’s CDA uses taxpayer money and assets to lure commercial businesses. The $2.6 million no-bid CDA contract for preparing the Sam’s site went to Oxford-based Taylor Corp. That money came from the sale of city property to Georgia-based developers Abernathy and Timberlake and from additional money provided by the city.  In Alabama, CDAs are exempt from bid laws, meaning contracts can go to whichever company the board chooses. Oxford’s CDA board and its actions have multiple connections to Smith’s political fundraising:

• At least three board members or their employers have contributed to his political campaigns.
• Taylor Corp., under the ownership of Tommy Taylor, has received thousands of dollars in city contracts for non-CDA work. Taylor donated $1,000 to Smith in 2004 and $1,000 in 2008.
• Abernathy and Timberlake donated $1,000 to Smith’s re-election campaign in 2004.

Montgomery-based Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood donated $500 to Smith in 2004. The CDA gave the company engineering contracts for the exchange. Denney said the CDA paid the company $45,000 for engineering work, part of which paid for a University of Alabama study on the American Indian site.

The Star has so far been unable to obtain a copy of the UA study, but a letter from the Alabama Historical Commission’s deputy state historic preservation officer indicated the university did not think the site was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The state Historic Preservation Commission did think the site was eligible for the National Register.  Denney said the report’s authors found little at the site.

Smith has said there is nothing wrong with the connections between himself and the CDA. He has described Taylor as a ‘good friend.’Attempts to reach representatives for Taylor Corp. and Abernathy and Timberlake on June 29 were unsuccessful.  The Birmingham office of Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood declined comment.

CDA members contacted by The Star declined comment, referring questions to board chairman Dwight Rice. Attempts to reach Rice on June 29 also were unsuccessful.  Chervis Isom, a Birmingham attorney representing Abernathy and Timberlake, said the company isn’t involved with the hill or the fill dirt.

‘If the dirt were contaminated in some way we’d certainly have an interest in that,’ Isom said. ‘Where the CDA got the dirt I’m not sure. We don’t have any control over that.’  He said he does not think there is any problem with the dirt.  Denney said workers will remove about one-third of the hill and cover it with grass. The city eventually will develop commercial business on what remains of the hill, he said.

A September 2008 proposal by Taylor Corp. describes the demolition in vague terms.  ‘This item includes undercutting two building pad footprints …’ the report reads. ‘The City has agreed to let us spoil the undercut material on their property across the new bridge.’ Denney said the line in the proposal refers to the hill.

‘The agreement was we’d furnish the soil,’ Denney said. ‘The city would furnish them a place to get it.  ‘The City Council transferred the property containing the hill to the CDA in February. Councilwoman June Land Reaves, who voted against the transfer, said she did not understand the hill property was a part of it.  ‘I never heard any discussion about dirt being taken from the hillside or a reason why that was being done, but it seems to me like a lot of cities capitalize on the history they have … but [we do not seem] to do that,’ she said.  Council President Chris Spurlin said it’s too late for the City Council to intervene at the site.  He said he hated the bad publicity, but said there is no proof the site holds human remains.

‘The CDA has the authority,’ Spurlin said. ‘They’re trying to do what’s best for the city. I don’t see no reason in buying fill dirt from someone when we have that hill available.’

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090705/NEWS/907049972?p=1&tc=pg

Carlos Drummond de Andrade – José

And now, José?

the party’s over,

the light is out,

the people have gone,

the night has chilled,

and now, José?

and now, you?

you who are nameless,

who scoffs at others

you who versifies,

who loves, protests?

and now, José?

 

You have no woman,

you have no discourse,

you have no affection,

you can’t drink,

you can’t smoke,

you can’t even spit,

the night has chilled,

the day hasn’t come,

the tram hasn’t come

the smile hasn’t come

utopia hasn’t come

all has ended

all has fled

all has decayed,

and now, José?

 

And now José?

your sweet word,

your moment of passion,

feasting and fasting,

your library,

your golden garden,

your glass suit,

your incoherence,

your hate – and now?

 

With a key in hand that

wants to open the door,

the door doesn’t exist;

who wants to die in the sea,

but the sea has dried up;

who wants to go to Minas,

Minas doesn’t exist anymore.

José, and now?

 

If you should scream,

if you should groan,

if you should play

the Viennese waltz

if you should sleep,

if you should tire,

if you should die…

but you don’t die,

you are tough, José!

 

Alone in the dark,

the recluse,

without Hesiod’s Theogony,

without a bare wall

to lean upon,

without a black horse

to escape upon,

march, José!

José, where to?

 

(tr J Carlos Deegan)

 

Portugal 1972

The first song I learned in Portugal was at the motel Continental in Oeiras.  I had met a group of high school seniors who called themselves “Os bandidos da praia.”  They called themselves this because there was a cottage industry among those ready for university or battle in the colonies of Angola and Moçambique. 

The industry was entertaining the alabaster secretaries (as bifas) from England, Germany, or Sweden who spent their winters in the dark, cold North.  The bifas were not very popular among the local girls.  Make no mistake, os bandidos were the children of the middle and upper middle classes who populated the Costa do Sol from Oeiras to Parede to Cascais.  It is called the “line” or linea because of the highway and light rail that ran the distance from Lisbon to Cascais.

I was preliterate in Portuguese, but this was no problem because, I was a language resource while at the motel Continental, but maintained a close friendship with most of them for the five years I spent on  the Costa do Sol.  By the way, if Carlos, Gi, Clara, or any others from the mid-1970s read this, please write!

Video:

Canta, canta amigo canta

     Letra e música: António Macedo

Canta canta amigo canta                                Sing, sing my friend, sing
vem cantar a nossa canção                             come and sing our song
tu sozinho não és nada                                    you alone are nothing
juntos temos o mundo na mão                       together we hold the world in hand.

Erguer a voz e cantar                                         Raise your voice and sing
é força de quem é novo                                      it is the strength of the young
viver sempre a esperar                                       to live always hoping that
fraqueza de quem é povo                                   the weakness of the people
Viver em casa de tábuas                                     To live in houses of sticks
à espera dum novo dia                                        in hope of a new day
enquanto a terra engole                                      while the earth swallows
a tua antiga alegria                                               old dreams of happiness

Canta canta amigo canta                                     Sing, sing my friend, sing
vem cantar a nossa canção                                  come and sing our song
tu sozinho não és nada                                         you alone are nothing
juntos temos o mundo na mão                           together we have the world in hand

O teu corpo é um barco                                        Your body is but a boat
que não tem leme nem velas                               with neither helm nor sail
a tua vida é uma casa                                            your life is but a house
sem portas e sem janelas                                      with neither doors nor windows
Não vás ao sabor do vento                                    Do not tumble like a leaf in the wind
aprende a canção da esperança                            learn the song of hope
vem semear tempestades                                      come spread the seeds of change
se queres colher a bonança                                   if you want to reap the harvest

Canta canta amigo canta                                       Sing, sing my friend, sing

vem cantar a nossa canção                                    come and sing our song
tu sozinho não és nada                                           you alone are nothing
juntos temos o mundo na mão                             together we have the world in hand.

Já que me chamas amigo                                      Now that you call me friend

prova-me lá que o és                                               show me that you are.

vem para a ceifa comigo                                         come to the reaping with me

na terra sujar os pés                                               and soil your feet in the earth

Eu vou contigo pró campo                                    I will go with you to the battlefield

eu vou comer do teu pão                                       I will eat your bread

Tu dás-me a força da vida                                     You give me inspiration,

eu dou-te a minha canção                                      I give you my song.

Protolanguage Pronunciation Re-creation

Interesting notion, recapturing the sound of a proto-language.  I’m familiar with a few romance languages and a couple of norse/germanic languages and am always surprised how languages change.  There are languages, dialects, patois, and pidgins sometimes barely intelligible from village to village. It’s sometimes hard to tell where one ends and another begins.  To reach back from a modern language to an Indo-European aural equivalent is an ambitious undertaking.  In the link to “memes” below property deeds from 1,000 to 1,400 were analyzed to correlate phrases of the time to dated property deeds, which can provide useful information but sound?  I occasionally have difficulty understanding accents in my native English (American).  Carlos

Ancient Language Computer Program Recreates Sound Of Dead Tongues

Posted: 02/12/2013 12:36 pm EST

 By: Rachel Kaufman, TechNewsDaily Contributor

Published: 02/12/2013 09:13 AM EST on TechNewsDaily

A computer algorithm works almost as well as a trained linguist in reconstructing how dead “protolanguages” would have sounded, says a new study.

“Our [computer] system is doing a basic job right now,” says Alex Bouchard-Côté, an assistant professor in the department of statistics at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the paper describing the algorithm. But the program does a good enough job that it may be able to give linguists a head start, the statistician added.

For centuries, scholars have reconstructed languages by hand: looking at the same word in two or more languages and making educated guesses about what that word’s “ancestor” may have sounded like. For example, the Spanish word for man (“hombre”) and the French word for man (“homme”) descended from the Latin word “homo.” The way linguists compare words from descendant languages to reconstruct the parent language is called, appropriately, the comparative method.

[Computer Program Spots Medieval Memes]

The early 19th-century linguist Franz Bopp was the first to compare Greek, Latin and Sanskrit using this method. Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame, used the comparative method to show how Germanic languages developed from a common ancestor.  The difference between that and Bouchard-Côté’s program, the statistician says, “is we do it on a larger scale.”

As a proof of concept, Bouchard-Côté fed words from 637 Austronesian languages (spoken in Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and more) into the new algorithm, and the system came up with a list of what the ancestor words of all those languages would have sounded like. In more than 85 percent of cases, the automated reconstruction came within one character of the ancestor word commonly accepted as true by linguists.  The algorithm won’t replace trained, human linguists, but could speed up language analysis.

Using a computer to do large-scale reconstruction offers another advantage, Bouchard-Côté says: with big data sets, “you can really start finding regularities … You might find that certain sounds are more likely to change than others.”  So Bouchard-Côté’s team tested the “functional load hypothesis,” which says that sounds that are more important for distinguishing two words are less likely to change over time. A formal test of this hypothesis in 1967 looked at four languages; Bouchard-Côté’s algorithm looked at 637.

“The revealed pattern would not be apparent had we not been able to reconstruct large numbers of protolanguages,” Bouchard-Côté and his coauthors write in the new study.  In addition to simply helping linguists understand how people spoke in the past, studying ancient languages can perhaps answer historical questions.  For example, Bouchard-Côté says, “Say people are interested in finding out when Europe was settled. If you can figure out if the language of the settling population had a word for wheel, then you can get some idea of the order in which things occurred, because you would have some records that show you when the wheel was invented.

Love: Real or Better Living Through Chemistry?

From the first time I was on an amusement park roller coaster I could sense that the sensation in my levi’s was out of the ordinary.  As I grew older the scent of jasmine and femininity intertwined in my mind to marvelous effect.  I won’t bore you with the entire catalog of the galaxy of emotions and physicality I felt growing up.  You may have an even more glorious repertoire than I, but who’s competing? 

In the years between roller coasters and the present we may have become jaded or the novelty of passion surrendered to passing time.  Fortunately, emotion is more than just magic, it is chemistry.  What may have been (to some) an overabundance of chemicals in youth may have become a dry season over time.  Time is an erosive force that can level mountains or suck the life from a relationship.  We expect that our relationships  are multidimensional enough to survive what time will take but should we settle for that if chemistry can restore, if only for a while, what time has taken?

The following essay raises some interesting issues/ – Carlos

The Case for Using Drugs to Enhance Our Relationships (and Our Break-Ups)

By Ross Andersen, Jan 31 2013, 1:43 PM ET

A philosopher argues that taking love-altering substances might not just be a good idea, but a moral obligation.

George Bernard Shaw once satirized marriage as “two people under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, who are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.”

Yikes. And yet, nearly all human cultures value some version of marriage, as a nurturing emotional foundation for children, but also because marriage can give life an extra dimension of meaning. But marriage is hard, for biochemical reasons that may be beyond our control.  What if we could take drugs to get better at love?

Perhaps we could design “love drugs,” pharmaceutical cocktails that could boost affection between partners, whisking them back to the exquisite set of pleasures that colored their first years together. The ability to do this kind of fine-tuned emotional engineering is beyond the power of current science, but there is a growing field of research devoted to it. Some have even suggested developing “anti-love drugs” that could dissolve abusive relationships, or reduce someone’s attachment to a charismatic cult leader. Others just want a pill to ease the pain of a wrenching breakup.

Evolutionary biologists tell us that we owe the singular bundle of feelings we call “love” to natural selection. As human brains grew larger and larger, the story goes, children needed more and more time to develop into adults that could fend for themselves. A child with two parents around was privy to extra resources and protection, and thus stood a better chance of reaching maturity. The longer parents’ chemical reward systems kept them in love, the more children they could shepherd to reproductive age. That’s why the neural structures that form love bonds between couples were so strongly selected for. It’s also why our relationships seem to come equipped with a set of invisible biochemical handrails: they’re meant to support us through the inevitable trials that attend the creation of viable offspring.

“Our relationships come equipped with a set of invisible biochemical handrails”

The problem for us modern, long-lived humans is that natural selection is only interested in reproductive fitness. Once your kids can make their own kids, natural selection’s work is finished. It doesn’t care whether your marriage remains emotionally satisfying into your golden years. But if the magic of love resides in the brain, an organ whose mysterious workings we are slowly starting to unravel, there might be a workaround.

At first blush, love may seem like a poor prospect for pharmacological intervention. The reflexive dualist in us wants to say that romantic relationships are matters of the soul, and that souls ought to be free of medical tinkering. Oxford ethicist Brian Earp argues that we should resist these intuitions, and be open to the upswing in human well-being that successful love drugs could bring about. Over a series of several papers, Earp and his colleagues, Anders Sandberg and Julian Savulescu, make a convincing case that couples should be free to use “love drugs,” and that in some cases, they may be morally obligated to do so. I recently caught up with Earp and his colleagues by email to ask them about this fascinating ethical frontier. What follows is a condensed version of our exchange.

What is the current thinking among evolutionary biologists as to how love—or adult pair bonding—evolved?

From the perspective of evolutionary biology, love is a complex neurobiological phenomenon that has been wired into us by the forces of evolution. It makes heavy use of the brain’s reward systems, and its ability to bring together (and keep together) human beings–from prehistoric times until the present day–has played a major role in the survival of our species.

In terms of natural selection, the working consensus among evolutionary biologists is that the human adult pair bond probably developed out of earlier structures involved in creating and sustaining feelings of attachment between mothers and their infants. Evolution likes to make use of existing systems for new purposes. In this case, the shift might have been driven by the heightened importance of paternal care for offspring with bigger and bigger brains over generations of human evolution. These burgeoning baby brains took longer to reach maturity than their more ancestral counterparts, leaving the infant vulnerable and underdeveloped for extended periods of time. The idea is that if parents fell in love and remained together during this fragile period for their offspring, their own genetic fitness would be enhanced.

The anthropologist Helen Fisher has famously argued that “love” is not a single straightforward emotion, but an emergent suite of motivational states that stem from underlying systems for lust, attraction, and attachment. In her theory–one of a number of “biological” theories of love with quite a bit of overlap between them–the lust system promotes mating with a range of promising partners; the attraction system guides us to choose and prefer a particular partner; and the attachment system fosters long-term bonding, encouraging couples to cooperate and stay together until their parental duties have been discharged. These universal systems are then hypothesized to form a biological foundation on which the cultural and individual variants of sexual, romantic, and longer-term love are built.

What scientific evidence do we have that the difficulties people face in modern relationships can be successfully addressed with pharmaceuticals?

Modern relationships are challenging for a whole range of reasons, and these reasons might be very different from one couple to the next. Drug-based treatments aren’t always going to be the best approach, and sometimes they should even be avoided. Putting a chemical band-aid on a violent or abusive relationship, for example, would be an extremely bad idea. But we do know that in at least some cases, states of the brain that are susceptible to being pharmacologically altered may have something to do with the interpersonal difficulties couples face.

To give an obvious example, just think of a marriage in which one partner suffers from severe depression. As anyone who’s been in that situation can tell you, chronic depression in one or both members of a committed partnership can drag the whole relationship down. Addressing the root of the problem, in this case through the use of anti-depressant pharmaceuticals if necessary, could make a big difference for some couples.

For another example, consider the widespread use of Viagra to treat male impotence, a problem that prevents some couples, especially older couples, from having sex. Lack of sex reduces oxytocin levels, and reduced oxytocin levels can degrade a couple’s romantic bond. If a drug-based treatment could help the couple restore a healthy sex life, this could improve their chances of sustaining a well-functioning relationship.

Beate Ditzen and her colleagues at the University of Zurich have shown that oxytocin nasal spray can facilitate positive communication–and reduce stress levels–in romantic couples engaged in an argument. Oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone” for its role in sustaining mother-infant and romantic attachment bonds, increased the ratio of positive to negative communication behaviors and facilitated a drop in cortisol levels after the conflict. These factors have been shown to play a major role in predicting long-term relationship survival. While commentators like Ed Yong have recently emphasized that oxytocin can have a “dark side” as well–for example, by promoting in-group favoritism–the key is to figure out which people, which situations, and which ways of administering the hormone will maximize its effectiveness and minimize any troubling side-effects. We’re working on some research right now to sort these conditions out.

In earlier decades, MDMA (ecstasy) was sometimes used in couple’s therapy to boost empathy and improve emotional communication skills. While this sort of use would be illegal today, there has been a recent resurgence of scientific interest in possible therapeutic uses of MDMA, for example to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More research is needed, of course, but there is no reason why it should not be carried out, carefully and ethically, with proper social, procedural, and legal safeguards in place.

You argue that “love drugs” can help us address the tension between our moral values and our evolved psychobiological natures. Where does that tension manifest itself most obviously in relationships today? How have things changed since our basic sexual and relational drives evolved?

If you look at this in the context of evolutionary biology, you realize that in order to maximize the survival of their genes, parents need to have emotional systems that keep them together until their children are sufficiently grown–but, what happens after that is of no concern to natural selection. As Donald Symons has written, “in analyzing the psychological underpinnings of marriage [we should] keep in mind that Homo sapiens is the product of evolution … we are designed to promote gene [survival], not individual survival, and reproductive [success], not marital success.” Since we now outlive our ancestors by decades, the evolved pair-bonding instincts upon which modern relationships are built often break down or dissolve long before “death do us part.”

“Since we now outlive our ancestors by decades, the evolved pair-bonding instincts upon which modern relationships are built often break down or dissolve long before ‘death do us part.’”

We see this in the high divorce rates and long term relationship break up rates in countries where both partners enjoy freedom–especially economic freedom. We are simply not built to pull off decades-long relationships in the modern world. Nature designed us to be together for a while, but not forever–and once we push beyond the natural childrearing boundary, we are, in a sense, living on borrowed time.

Another major tension comes from our non-monogamous impulses. Humans are rare among mammals in that we practice at least some form of social monogamy. But there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that sex outside of the primary parenting bond was common throughout our evolutionary history, and would have been to the reproductive advantage of both males and females of our species. Jealousy seems to have deep roots as well, so there is nothing particularly new about feelings of sexual possessiveness–but the conscious, socially enshrined value-expectation that both husbands and wives should remain 100% sexually exclusive to one another for decades in a row, and that failure to meet this goal should entail the end of the relationship, is certainly a more recent invention. Adultery is one of the leading causes of marriage failure.

You point out that married couples should have the freedom to use love-enhancing drugs if they so wish, but you also go a step further, arguing that there are circumstances where married couples ought to take them. What are the most compelling of those circumstances?

Imagine a couple that is thinking about breaking up or getting a divorce, but they have young children who would likely be harmed by their parents’ separation. In this situation, there are vulnerable third parties involved, and we have argued that parents have a responsibility–all else being equal–to preserve and enhance their relationships for the sake of their children, at least until the children have matured and can take care of themselves. One way to do this, of course, would be to attend couple’s therapy and see if the relationship problems could be meaningfully resolved through “traditional” methods. But what if this strategy isn’t working? If love drugs ever become safely and cheaply available; if they could be shown to improve love, commitment, and marital well-being–and thereby lessen the chance (or the need) for divorce; if other interventions had been tried and failed; and if side-effects or other complications could be minimized, then we think that some couples might have an obligation to give them a try. Of course, we aren’t suggesting that anyone should be forced to take love drugs–or any drugs–against their will. But we do think that when children are involved, the stakes become higher for finding a workable solution to relationship difficulties between the parents.

What if “love drugs” only serve to prop up fading cultural institutions? Some might argue that monogamy is outdated, or a bad fit with human nature, and that rather than pharmacologically altering ourselves to accommodate it, we should jettison the whole thing instead. What would you say to them?

Whenever individuals–or societies–experience a mismatch between their values and human nature, they face a choice. They can give up or amend their values, accept a contradiction between their values and their impulses or behaviors, or they can try to modify or manage human nature.

This “management” can happen in different ways. It might involve shaping the physical, social, and legal environment to incentivize value-consistent behavior and disincentivize value-inconsistent behavior.  Or it might involve the use of biotechnology (such as love drugs in the case of monogamy) to modify the source of the behavior directly–or some combination of the above. Which course to take for any given mismatch depends upon a huge range of factors, and there are often good arguments for different approaches depending on the details of the given case.

As a baseline, we have argued for something called the “principle of default natural ethics.” This just means that, given the choice, we should try to adopt values that are as consistent as possible with human nature, so that we can avoid troubling side-effects that come from unnatural suppression and heavy-handed regulation of basic instincts: just think of the recent sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and consider some obvious reasons why that tragedy might have come about. Sometimes, following the principle of default natural ethics means that we should jettison our social institutions–especially when they are so far out of synch with our human dispositions as to be totally unworkable, or when they end up creating bigger problems than they were designed to solve in the first place. This is probably part of the reason why we’ve moved past communism as a model for social and political organization: it seemed, at least to many people, to make a lot of sense on paper, but in the real world it ran up against too many deep facts about the way that people actually work.

But communism was an experiment, both radical and recent. Monogamy, on the other hand, or at least some form of it, has been a part of human societies for a much longer time, so we have to be more careful about how we deal with its problematic features–most notably the gap it creates between the ideal of sexual exclusivity and the reality of human promiscuity.

Some people think that we should give up on monogamy, and there are plausible arguments for this view. In fact, one possibility is that love drugs could be used to eliminate jealousy rather than the impulse to stray–and for individual couples, this might indeed be a worthwhile strategy. For couples who are committed to polyamory, for example, jealousy would seem to be the odd man out: it conflicts with the polyamorists’ higher-order goals for sexual openness.

We obviously cannot set the moral priorities for any given relationship. But in making a more general argument, we note that most couples as a matter of fact value sexual fidelity and make an explicit promise to hold to it.  And at least when children are involved, we think that this promise may be morally justified, since extramarital sex can lead to extramarital love that would divert time and energy directly away from existing offspring. On the other hand, when children are not an issue, when there are good arguments for non-monogamy for a particular couple, or when non-monogamous social institutions have a good chance of contributing to human welfare in a given culture or community, then we don’t see any reason why people should go out of their way to “prop up” problematic social norms through the u

Ross Andersen – Ross Andersen is an Atlantic correspondent based in Washington, D.C. He is also the Science Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and a contributor to The Economist.

For the complete article see:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-case-for-using-drugs-to-enhance-our-relationships-and-our-break-ups/272615/

 

 

 

The Thinking Behind the Second Ammendment

Recently, many of us may have seen a video of a straight-faced man in a small video suggesting that the whole institution of slavery might have been avoided had slaves had guns to protect themselves.  This was a silly spot by a silly man easily dismissed.  However, on  reflection, I realized that many people were swallowing the argument as truth.  I was happy to find this excellent article by Thom Hartman to dispel the fog surrounding our early days.

Politics in the emerging union of the United States was no less vicious than it is today.  The Enlightenment had been stirring the intellectual cauldron of Europe and the French Revolution would soon follow our declaration of independence.  Enjoy! Carlos

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Tuesday, 15 January 2013 09:35By Thom Hartmann, Truthout | News Analysis

(Photo: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote.  Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the “slave patrols,” and they were regulated by the states.

In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state.  The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.

As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, “The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search ‘all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition’ and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds.”

It’s the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, “Why don’t they just rise up and kill the whites?”  If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains.

Sally E. Haden, in her book Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, “Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller.” There were exemptions so “men in critical professions” like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work.  Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45 – including physicians and ministers – had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.

And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy.

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South.  Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings.  As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband – or even move out of the state – those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse.  And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.

These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves).

Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia, could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free the slaves.

This was not an imagined threat.  Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces.  “Liberty to Slaves” was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps.  During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779.  And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington’s army.

Thus, southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves rebelling, but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through military service.

At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:

“Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . . .

“By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither . . . this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory.”

George Mason expressed a similar fear:

“The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them [under this proposed Constitution] . . . “

Henry then bluntly laid it out:

“If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress . . . . Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia.”

And why was that such a concern for Patrick Henry?

“In this state,” he said, “there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free.”

Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias.  He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they’d use the Constitution to free the South’s slaves (a process then called “Manumission”).

The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):

“[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission,” said Henry.  ”And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?

“This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.”

He added: “This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress.”

James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.

“I was struck with surprise,” Madison said, “when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not.”

But the southern fears wouldn’t go away.

Patrick Henry even argued that southerner’s “property” (slaves) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:

“In this situation,” Henry said to Madison, “I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone.”

So Madison, who had (at Jefferson’s insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.

His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country [emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government.  So Madison changed the word “country” to the word “state,” and redrafted the Second Amendment into today’s form:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State[emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as “persons” by a Supreme Court some have calleddysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their “right” to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren.