Google Trends

After watching a recent Thunderf00t video where he uses Google Trends to chart the popularity of PZ Myers, I decided that I wanted to have a look at few other people with Google Trends

Here is a comparison between Thunderf00t, PZ Myers, The Amazing Atheist, Rebecca Watson, and The Nostalgic Critic as a control.

Here is the results when comparing web search:


As you can see PZ does win out with Rebecca Watson as a close second

Then I compared YouTube search:


And here it is very clear that Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist are well in the lead.

And finally, I compared by image search:


As you can see, there is no contest, it is all Rebecca Watson.

I must admit, that does make me pause for a moment. Other then a tiny blip for The Amazing Atheist (which I think is related to a banana incident) Rebecca Watson is the only person to even have an average higher then zero.

It seems clear that web searchers prefer PZ Myers and Rebecca Watson, YouTube searchers prefer Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist, and by a very large margin, image searchers prefer Rebecca Watson.

I am not sure what conclusion to draw from this

The Pycon Incident

I have seen a lot of blog posts and reddit threads about the Pycon incident, I assume that if you are reading this, you know about the incident and I can avoid the recap.

The more I think about this, the more I am conflicted.

I don't want to think that every spoken word needs to be filtered, especially in a joke between friends. What crazy 1984 world would we be living in if we need to self censor 24 hours a day or risk unemployment or worse.

On the other hand, if I was in her position and I heard a joke that mocked Atheists, I would perhaps take mild offense.

However, I have no idea what the joke even was.

Jokes are on a spectrum, at one end we get knock knock jokes and why did the chicken cross the road. At the other end of the spectrum, we have dead baby jokes and holocaust jokes.

Where on the spectrum did this joke lay?

Was the joke something like "wow that rep is hot, she gets my dongle hard and I would love to fork her"

Or was it closer to "check out that hot ass bitch, hope she likes a dongle up the ass while we rape her and pass her around for a good forking"

I think the distinction matters.

Was this joke that no normally prudent person would think was offensive, or was it the kind of joke you apologize for right after saying?

If the joke was truly offensive, then I can sympathize with her. Jewish people don't need to stand by and hear a holocaust joke and say nothing, black people don't need to hear nigger jokes and stay silent.

If the joke was just juvenile between friends, then I have no sympathy for her. Just because some people want to bubble wrap the world, doesn't mean we need to put up with it.

So in the end, I have no idea what to think.

Either 2 men told a horrible joke that would make george carlin blush and this brave woman stood up to these men, and now she is paying the price for her courage

Or 2 innocent men were telling an innocent joke and someone who sees offense in everything decided that her twitter followers would jump on the band wagon and be offended with her.

I can't tell who is right and who is wrong with this, so I use no names to help avoid slandering someone who does not deserve it.

In the end, all I can take from this is; be careful what you joke about, be careful of the pictures you tweet

So more self censorship... Great, just what the world needs.


- Sent From My Blackberry

Equality and Valentine's day

"You can be equal and still want to be treated like a princess once in a while"

I read the quote above in a Time article named 'Valentine's Day: Why Consumers Aren't Feeling the Love'

The article had many other interesting facts about this holiday:

1) Men will average $108 on gifts for their spouses or significant others, while women will spend $53

2) Guys seem to spend handsomely mainly to avoid being in the dog house with their partner

3) When I asked eight middle-aged married businessmen at a Toronto airport lounge about Valentine's Day gifts for their wives, there were groans and eye rolls all around. Yet all were of the opinion that a gift was obligatory. "Just to make sure" was the most common reason given for buying a gift.

This article does not paint a very good picture of this holiday, especially for the men involved, but what about the women involved?

"It's nice, but it's not a big deal," said Isabel, 23. Still, she admitted the pressure is mostly on guys, and that she likes being pampered. "You can be equal and still want to be treated like a princess once in a while."

So let's break down the reasoning of this thinking. Apparently equality is fine as long as you sometimes get treated as more then equal.

Imagine if the roles were reversed

If women spent twice as much as men, and men said "you can be equal and still want to be treated like a prince once in a while", how would we react to this holiday?

I wonder...


- Sent From My Blackberry

How can a working theory be wrong?

I have been giving it some thought to what it means to have a theory.

For lack of a better description, a theory is a working set of assumptions which produces useful predictions about future events.

The best example I can come up with is how I learned to play chess.

The chess teaching set I got came with 2 sets of rules. The idea is that once you master the easier rules, it should be less difficult to move to more advanced rules.

The only major difference between the 2 sets of rules had to deal with end game.

Under the easy set of rules, you just need to capture the enemy king and you win. None of that check or checkmate, just simply take the king and you win.

We can call this the "Capture the King" theory of chess.

I can play chess using the capture the king theory, and up until the end of the game, you would have no way of telling I had a different theory of play then you.

I would still move pawns, still take your pieces and go after your king while trying to protect my king.

The capture the king theory of chess works quite well in almost every way, it just breaks down in end game.

Now realize that all theories are like this.

The theory of gravity breaks down at the subatomic and becomes unreliable. Does this mean the theory has no use?

Far from it. The theory of gravity makes many useful predictions about the natural world which prove true time and time again.

Just like with the capture the king theory, I can predict you will go after my king and protect yours. Even thought I am missing the point about why you go after my king, I can still predict that you will.

That is what makes the capture the king theory useful, I can base my play on that theory and be a competent chess player.

So just because a theory does not hold true 100% of the time, it does not mean it has no use or value.

We need to realize that a theory is only a useful set of assumptions for any given problem, and not the be all and end all of reality.

So when I hear people rally against the theory of evolution because it fails to explain the origin of life, I could only liken it to a beginner chess player throwing out the whole training course because it uses the Capture the King theory.

God is my Security Blanket

I have a 2 year old son, and he has a special blanket that he sleeps with. Whenever he is in his bed, the first thing he does is reach for his blanket.

We tried getting him a blanket that was almost the same as a backup, but he can tell the difference and will only sleep with the original, no matter how dirty or puked on the blanket is.

He has a heart felt belief that he needs this blanket to sleep, and the evidence is on his side. He does not sleep without it, he simply cries.

So what is it about this blanket that makes it so special? Is the blanket soaked in a chemical that triggers him to sleep? Does the blanket emit sleep-educing radiation?

I have a feeling I could run any number of test on this blanket and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the blanket does not cause my son to sleep, yet he won't sleep without it.

Then it dawned on me, my son has a "belief" that this blanket lets him sleep. Perhaps he feels the blanket offers security, or perhaps just comfort. In either case, it is his belief that allows him to sleep and the blanket is just the object of his beliefs in the real world.

My son has put his beliefs into this blanket in the same was a religious person puts their beliefs in god.

That daily prayer, that fish bumper sticker, that bible, it is all a security blanket to a religious person.

It is your belief in god that gives god power over your life, not the other way around.

Just like how my son believes his blanket is special, a religious believer thinks their faith in god is special.

The analogy doesn't end there either. I could rip that blanket away from my son and try to explain to him how he doesn't really need the blanket, the power to sleep was always inside him, but he would cry and not understand and want his blanket back so desperately.

I now feel the same way about a religious person's beliefs. I could rip that bible from there hand and explain to them how it's just a book of stories and all the power you feel coming from god is and always was inside you all along and you don't need god for it, but I think from past experience we would all see how that would end up.

You can's just rip the security blanket away from someone and have them take it well. They need to realize themselves that the blanket is no longer needed.

I am sure that as my son gets older, he will turn to his blanket less and less until one day he forgets about it in a closet and it will sit there for weeks or even months unnoticed.

It's not so easy for a religious person. They are reminded nearly daily to never abandon their security blanket without something horrible happening.

Imagine how my son would grow up if I shared his belief in his blanket. If every time he forgot it I scared him with stories of doom and gloom, if he always saw me with my blanket every night, if he saw me fight tooth and nail against anyone who ever said "it's just a blanket"

I guess the moral of the story is don't be so quick to snatch someone else's security blanket away from them for there own good, just live your life blanket-free and be an example that living without that blanket isn't so bad after all.

Privilege, from my perspective

I like to follow the goings on of the atheist movement and, with the addition of atheism+,  some new terms began to pop up in blog posts and YouTube videos

 

One term I have heard used over and over is privilege.

 

It seems that most people who find themselves in the minority will complain about the privilege of the majority. Women complain of the glass ceiling, blacks complain about police harassment, homosexuals complain about being denied marriage rights, poor people complain about being marginalized by rich people, the list goes on and on.

 

However, privilege does have another side.  Ask any first born child how it feels when baby number 2 comes home, and you can see how privilege cuts back.

 

Privilege is being an only child and not having to worry about sharing the spoils. To be privileged is to be free to use your resources to the fullest extent you wish without regards to anyone else

 

I feel privileged to have a high functioning mind, to have the ability to contemplate everything from the vastness of the universe down to the subatomic. I use my mental resources to the fullest extent I can and I avoid dumbing myself down for the sake of others. So anyone who automatically says all privilege is bad must also live below the poverty line and use only single syllable words or they would be using their privilege of financial resources and intelligence (something not everyone has), unless they have no problem with being a hypocrite

 

However, I can understand privilege from the other side as well.

 

When a Christian gets angry with me with not keeping “the Christ in Christmas”, that is an example of Christian privilege. Christianity had the majority in North America for so long, that the Christian way and the American way have almost combined.

 

The Christian’s of North America were an only child for decades, but now with the rise of atheism,  They suddenly need to learn to share and play nice where they never had to before.

 

So now I find myself in conflict. On one hand, I agree that it is good for my country and humanity as a whole for religious privilege to be reduced, especially where religion and government are tightly linked. However, I’m not so convinced that forcing all the rich people in the world to give away money until we are all equal is a good idea. It seems like every time that has been tried in the past, it never ends well.

 

So how do we square this circle? Perhaps not all privilege is created equal, but who has the right to decide?

 

Does the privileged class get to declare their privilege good and proper, or should the majority always bend to the will of the minority?

 

Perhaps someday I will have the answer, but not today.

 

 

The UN, Israel, and Palestine

I must admit, I don’t know much about the Israel/Palestine conflict. From what I hear my leaders in Canada say, we want a peace deal and a two-state solution.

 

So why is the UN giving Palestine recognition as a state a bad thing?  Call this arm-chair foreign policy, but this is how it seems to me.

 

Israel has no intention of allowing Palestine to be a separate state, but since the majority of the world seems to be in favour of a Palestinian state, Israel must pay lip service to the rest of the world by saying that are working towards peace and a two-state solution.

 

However, during this time of negation between Israel and Palestine, the Israelis kept building settlements in land that was disputed.

 

This would be like if my neighbour and I  had an argument over who owned some shared land between our houses, and every day that we meet to talk about it, my neighbour would move his fence a little closer to my house. So after years of talking and negotiating, even if we can come to an agreement, all the land is already behind my neighbour fence and I have a feeling he won’t give it back easily.

 

Are the peace talks that Israel and Canada and the USA all want just nothing more than a stall tactic to give Israel enough time to build enough settlements that there is no land left for a two-state solution?

 

And all this talk from Canada and the USA at the UN about how bad giving Palestine statehood seems very hollow to me. Peace talks have been broke off for years now, so Palestine decided to force the issue with the UN and now Canada and the USA among a few others started to threaten the UN with loss of funding and other various threats if they voted for Palestine.

 

What is so bad about giving Palestine statehood at the UN? It seems like the only major change would be that Palestine can now access the International Criminal Court, but why would the USA and Canada and Israel want to block Palestine from the ICC?

 

If my neighbour is stealing my land, why is so bad for me to get a lawyer on my side?

 

Is the Israeli end game to back Palestine in a corner so they have no choice but to sign a peace agreement that favours Israel, and now that Palestine has the UN and ICC in there corner, Israel might have to actually capitulate and negotiate on a level playing field?

 

Maybe I am way off the mark here, but it seems like the US, Canada, and Israel would be very happy to have Palestine just go away  and under the cover of unending peace talks, Israel is taking away Palestine one settlement at a time.