Thoughts on Michael Moore’s New Movie and Capitalism…

Today, I saw Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story and thought that I, as both a graduate student in Economics who is getting experience in the field during the great financial crisis. As a movie, it was pretty entertaining, as his movies tend to be, full of rhetorical flair, tear-jerking moments of people crying, polemics, and a couple of stunts that looked good for the camera.

It does also make some salient points, particularly about the insanity behind a great deal of modern finance and the greed that must be driving many Chief Executive Officers, and it, predictably but saliently, highlights the people who are left behind by our economic system. Particular attention was paid to people whose homes were foreclosed upon, people who lost their jobs through no misdeed of their own, and the people who gained the most from the hollow economic growth of the Bush Years. He also highlighted the inherent conflicts of interest that arise when corporations contribute to political campaigns and provide preferential treatment to people in power and the despicable lengths to which some will go to make a buck (look up “Dead Peasant” insurance policies if you feel like getting mad).

That being said, I have some issues, most of which are pretty minor, but I take particular umbrage at his erection of a particular man of straw he calls “Capitalism.”

I Planted a Seed Today…

Today, I think that I did one of the most helpful things I have ever done with respect to greater acceptance of atheists in broader society, and it happened on a conservative, Republican blog.  I won’t link or mention the particular blog (I don’t really want to give them the traffic), but this moment was a long time in the making to be sure.

Be Wary of Your Sources

I’ve been busy, so I haven’t written in a while.  I thought that I would switch things up a bit and write a few posts on economics.

I have some issues with how economics are handled by our society, particularly on the separation that exists between academic economic researchers, intelligent, resioned people who do good research and formulate theories based on observed data, and the people who popularize political philosophies, typically political hacks and think tanks.  This is not to say that there are no economists in the public sphere (Paul Krugman is a good example), but, when it comes to who is visible in the media, more people get their economic information (and therefore get the basis for their personal economic philosophies) from political analysists and commentators with little or no formal training in economic theory or experience with data.

What’s the Matter with Atheists?

The semester’s winding down, and Graduation is in 3 days.  Needless to say, I haven’t had much time for writing non-school-related things (like this blog).  I’ll be able to write more over the summer.  Since I don’t want to get out of the habit of writing here, and since I don’t really have the time to research and plan any new posts, I had an idea for something that is relatively quick and engaging:  Why don’t all you theists tell me why you don’t like atheists?

The Problem with Morality

So…  it turns out that I define “Morality” entirely differently than theists, which shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone, now that I think of it, but I got into an interesting conversation about the nature and definition of morality itself.  My opponent (I think of it as a debate) believed that universal, objective morality was handed down by (the JudeoChristian/Islamic) God, while I believe in subjective moral systems that exist largely in the groups in which they developed (as I explained here).  Needless to say, it was a situation analogous to two unstoppable forces running in to each other:  there was some deflection and nothing was really accomplished.

The problem, I feel, arises from the way we derive morality as a concept.  Whether or not we know it, the act of making a moral claim requires that we derive “ought” (subjective prescriptions for action) from “is” (objective statements of fact).  It’s an inherently subjective process, even at its most basic level, because, in order to derive what we should do in any situation, we have to process all of the relevant information, filtering it through our values and experiences, before we establish a basis for and course of action.

The question of where our moral system(s) come(s) from immediately becomes more complicated when we recognize the subjectivity of it all.  I argue for a naturalistic origin story, and, to that end, I will use a little bit of science, a lot of logic, and a few swipes from Occam’s Razor.

Why Life Matters, Even Without God…

I received a comment on my previous post (I love drawn out debates…  ) stating that I didn’t really debunk any of the arguments in the video I was critiquing (I won’t link it again).  Well…  that argument was, essentially, that if you believe that you were the product of natural evolution, the conclusion to which rational examination of the evidence points us, you won’t see a difference between smashing a DVD and walking around smashing people’s heads in with a sledgehammer, because, apparently, neither of them have moral worth.  I merely pointed out the utter ridiculousness of the argument, point out that there are many people who believe in Evolution and do think that there is more inherent worth to a human life than there is to a DVD.  Apparently, the person who was the impetus for my writing the last post didn’t think that that was sufficient and would like me to explain the “why” of why, without being intelligently designed, is human life valuable.  Well, psychology and evolution are not my forte (I do prefer economics, afterall), I do think that have a sufficient answer…

Debunking a Creationist…

Well… I haven’t written in a while (I seem to be writing that alot), but research papers that are required to receive a degree take precedent… sorry.

On to the content of this post… I was tagged in a note on facebook by Christian I talked to whilst participating in an “Ask an Atheist” table in the Tate Student Center at UGA. The note outlined why he is a Young-Earth Creationist (believing that the Earth is ~6000 years old) and linking me to a series of creationist YouTube videos by a kid named “VenomFangX” called “Evolution Wants to Make a Monkey Out of You” (it’s worth noting that all of these videos have ratings disabled and necessitates approval of comments) Finding almost all of the assertions that he made in the first video to be completely dishonest, deranged, or simply irrational, I decided to summarize my responses to it in a blog post, instead of through several comments on the note on facebook. So, I have decided to write as many of these posts as I can (at one per video) without getting too annoyed to continue (partially because my religion posts get a bit of traffic). So… here is the first video in the series…

And Now We’re Back…

Well… I haven’t written in a while (school and such), so this is my “big” comeback/synopsis of the last 5 months.

Well… The economy sucks. Unemployment has gone up to around 8.1% (not good news for those of us applying to grad school), and the stock market is in an irrational downward spiral punctuated by irrational swings upward. Happily(ish), the descent to perdition seems to be slowing, as the government scrambles to throw everything possible at the situation, which leads me to…

Politics and Politicians are just as irrational as ever. Obama and the Democrats have largely reneged on their promise to reach out to Republicans because the latter has abandoned anything resembling an ideology (not even offering an alternative budget) in order to posture themselves for some pipe dream of a comeback in 2010 (not going to happen unless Obama screws up really big). Meanwhile, Obama’s approval numbers have stayed relatively high, Congress’s approval numbers are rising yet are being weighed down by disapproval of Congressional Republicans. Gallup still shows Democrats as being more trusted to deal with the economy, but nobody in Washington really knows what they’re doing.

Expectations of Obama, probably because of all of the Messianic Rhetoric, have been unreasonably high. I could count myself as vaguely approving of what he is doing, but I do think that some of his picks (such has his treasury secretary and jacking up the sin tax on cigarettes during a recession) have been… unfortunate to say the least. However, he has done a good job of attempting to be bipartisan (though it turned out to be a fool’s errand).

Political commentators are just as annoying as ever, the far right ones even more so… While there was (once upon a time) talk of unity and all that happy crap, the rhetoric from commentators has gotten more and more divisive and nasty. From Limbaugh’s “I want Obama to fail” gaffe to Laura I (I don’t care enough to look up the spelling of her last name) calling Meghan McCain a fat ditz (in not so many words) because she had the gall to say that Republicans were losing young people. Olbermann has also been harping more and more on the Bush Administration…

Pretty much, all we have to do is give Obama’s policies time to work. and if they don’t work by his benchmark, then we can bitch at him. It’s the best way to avoid eating crow later.

Our Corporatist Economy… (part 1)

It’s been a while since I’ve written here, but with, on top of normal college stresses, the GRE, LSAT and Grad School considerations, certain other things have taken priority.  So, why not start with a nice philisophical piece about the economy.

Our current economic crisis is seen by some as a failure of Capitalism, but this claim has no merit.  Frankly, we haven’t been properly capitalistic for a while now–I would actually venture to say that we haven’t been truly capitalistic (not even in the crazy anarchist sense) ever, but I am going to focus on the present and our recent past for now.

It helps to define Capitalism before saying whether or not a system fits that description, but it is relatively hard to create a really neat and simple definition for what is a pretty complex system.  That being the case, I’m going to set forth some criteria that I think would fit any Capitalist system, and then I’m going to say how well the US Economy fits using the standard school-style grades.  This will be the first in a series of posts on this topic.

A Good Atheism Resource…

So, my room mate directed me to a great website run by Cambridge University entitled “Investigating Atheism.”  It is a great source for unbiased information about Atheism and its history, just thought I’d let you know.

Just so you know, I’m preparing for both the LSAT and the GRE, so my writing will continue to be sparse for the time being…