Similar ethical uncertainty exists with digital priacy. Like the primitive apes of the digital world that we are, most have simply and straightforwardly adopted the moral conventions of the physical world: STEALING IS WRONG. But this sort of simple transfer of code only highlights our penchant for continuity and traditions over logical analysis for establishing appropriate rules in a new arena.

Consider the following case scenario: Alex bought a CD (whether it be music or software is irrelevant, for now). Then, Alex loses the CD. Is it ok for Alex to download an “illegal” pirated copy from the internet (say, from thepiratebay.com), without paying for it again?

Asking this question on most internet forums would yield a broad consensus among typical internet users: “NO, it is not ok. It is stealing.” They would draw the following analogy: Since Alex lost the CD, would it be ok for Alex to walk into a store and walk out with a second copy of the CD without paying for it? NO! Then why should it be ok for Alex to do the same on the internet?

But here in lies the rub. Let’s compare the apparent “analogy” between the physical world and the digital world. In both cases (Alex downloading a priated copy and Alex pick-pocketing a CD from a store), Alex has already paid for the contents of the CD itself. But in the physical case, by stealing a copy from the store, the store loses the CD. There is a victim. In contrast, there is no victim in the digital scenario. Alex has already paid for it, so the company creating the content on the CD does not lose sales. And because digital piracy involves making a bit-by-bit copy of the material, no one is deprived of anything when Alex downloads the pirated copy.

So, if no body loses, why should it be unethical? I hope you see that Alex is perfectly acting within his/her moral boundaries. Piracy seems blacketly wrong only when compared with stealing physical objects. Analyzed within its own terms, piracy is not always unethical.

The conlusion is this: we cannot simply apply the familiar ethics of the phyisical world to a new arena such as the digital world. This only confuses the issue, as demonstrated above. I call for a new system of e-morality, one that is logically constructed through careful analysis of the new domain.

I would have dismissed combinatorics outright as being petty and stupid (perhaps unfairly) if it had not been for my Topology seminar last semester. In studying simplicial homology, I learned that at the heart of space, there is something fundamentally combinatorial about it. You see, simplices (which are in essence n-dimensional generalizations of triangles) are defined and dealt with in a purely combinatorial fashion. And yet, this reveals something deep and fundamental about the nature of space.

The moral of the story is that combinatorics is very fundamental. It seems to crop up in nearly every branch of mathematics. And yet, it seems to be the only area that category theory has not swept under the rug as being a “trivial application” of category theory.

I wonder if there is a way to formalize and abstract counting arguments in a category-theoretic fashion? (I think Yoneda’s lemma is already hinting at this.)

P.S. Sorry about the exceptionally nerdy post. Not every post is like this, I promise.

First, there appear to be a cultural difference of work ethic between Americans(that is, predominantly white academics types) and Koreans (including Korean-Americans). This difference is very subtle on some levels, but also vastly different on other levels. And this difference of work ethic is what leads to the apparent academic success of most Asian Americans in their teenage years. Interestingly enough, this work ethic that drives Asian teenagers to success is also what ultimately leads to their demise later on in life (most likely in college).

Put simply, there is a brutal efficiency and simple-mindedness with which Americans do work. There is an emotional detachment to performing the daily commitments that allows them to apply themselves day-in and day- out with comparatively less stress. The opposite is true for Asian-Americans. They tend to invest a lot of “mental energy” into even the most routine tasks. Every task is an emotional event, for good or for worse. This leads to better outcome at first, but also leads to quick burn-outs. It also results in initial greater physical productivity at the cost of greater mental stress.

This cultural difference permeates every fabric of the two societies. One of the most common conceits in Korean TV Soap operas is the story of the Underdog, who devotes his entire life to a certain craft, like brewing wine or studying law, sacrificing everything along the way, including his family, friends, and whatever else, and ultimately ends up as the CEO of a wine company, or a highly successful international lawyer. Implicit in all this is the exceedingly high mental investment into his goals. What I’m trying to say is, Koreans tend to have a “All-in or not worth doing” mentality. What do Americans say? “Take it easy, man.”

The end result is almost exactly the opposite of what one would expect. Where as in the Korean TV shows the “all-in” mentality leads to great success, in reality it leads to burn outs and failure due to too much stress. On the other hand, the American mentality of “Take it easy” actually takes you pretty far. Performing daily tasks with a somewhat emotional detachment allows one to be more productive with less stress.

My lesson from all this is that I’m going to try to “Take it easy.” But the trick is to only “take it easy” mentally and emotionally, while still applying myself physically with emotional detachment. In other words, perform tasks out of habit rather than out of necessity. This seems to be the best approach to maximizing productivity.

While those philosophical questions may seem simply rhetorical and un-answerable anyways, they are actually quite tractable and answerable through rigorous experimentation and logical deduction. Take the question “Is there a God?” for example. This is, in essence, a scientific hypothesis, because a world without God is observably a different universe than one with a God. (This is, of course, assuming that your definition of “God” is sufficient to yield such observable differences. If your definition of God is not as strong, than certainly it is not the belief of mainstream Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, hence of less concern.)

Of course some of these questions have already begun to be answered. The question “Why are we here?” was answered definitely by Darwin – we are here because of evolution. Now, I understand that some people mean more than that when they ask “Why are we here?”. But such pseudo-philosophical waxing is BS. The only meaningful interpretation of the question “Why are we here?” is to literally answer it with brute facts. Of course, another mistake many make is that such a brute fact-based answer is either demeaning or uncomfortable. Well, even if it were, that has no bearing on the veracity of the answer. And I don’t think it’s all that demeaning to begin with. In fact, it’s awe-inspiring that we could be here as a product of such a beautiful and elegant process like evolution. And those who claim otherwise apparently lack the imagination to grasp the austere beauty of the intricate and elegant universe around us.

You see, the biochemical molecules that are responsible for sustaining life, amino acids for example, are chiral molecules. This means they have handed-ness. Chemists refer to them as enantiomers. For example, L-Leucine is different from D-Leucine in that they are mirror images of each other. And if you tried to take L-Leucine and rotate it around in space until it looked like D-Leucine, you couldn’t do it. They are mirror-images. And the difference is profound. Certain pharmaceutical drugs cure diseases in one enatiomeric form. Its mirror image could kill you. Indeed, that was exactly the reason why Thalidomide, which was originally designed to cure morning sickness, led to babies being born with no legs or arms. They used the wrong mirror-image form of the drug.

What does this have to do with the orientabiity of manifolds? Well, the mere fact that mirror images of things exist in nature that are not identical (have different chemical effects, for that matter) means that space is orientable. If space were a non-orientable manifold, this distinction would not exist.

Now, we are not actually certain if space is orientable or not. If it was not orientable, an astronaut could travel far into space and come back to earth to find that he is the mirror image of what he used to be! He would find his Heart on the opposite side of his body, and that mole on his left side of his chin would now be on the right! And if L-Leucine had traveled the same path that the astronaut had, it would have turned into D-Leucine! But not one know if such a thing is possible, hence we do not know if space is orientable or non-orientable. But, at least such a phenomenon does not occur nearby earth. Otherwise, we would have to fear for our lives to accidentally travel an orientation-reversing path somewhere in space!

http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-10-25/opinions/17580

“Hate” Speech?
by Maxx Hyeok Cho

I was greatly disturbed by Abigail Graber’s op-ed piece in The Phoenix last week. In it, she says Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University was hate speech, and that hate speech should not be given a public forum. I disagree with this on both levels. Ahmadinejad’s speech was not hate speech, and even if it were, it was right for Columbia to let him speak.

Graber boldly claims, “The Holocaust was a moral abomination. Holocaust denial is a moral abomination.” I think mostly everyone will agree, including me, that the Holocaust was a moral abomination. But, Holocaust denial is not a moral abomination. Since when has holding a mere idea become a moral abomination? Maybe the inquisitors during the Spanish Inquisition will beg to differ with me, but I can think and believe whatever I want. Denying the Holocaust, while historically unjustifiable, is not hateful. Saying that Hitler was justified in killing Jews may be considered hate speech, but a simple act of denying the Holocaust is not hateful.

But let’s suppose for a moment that Holocaust denial is indeed hateful. I don’t concede for a moment that it is, but let’s follow this chain of logic. I still claim that Ahmadinejad’s speech should have been given the public venue. Graber is perfectly correct in pointing out that there was absolutely no legal obligation to let him speak. But I would like to argue from a higher stance of our moral obligation to protect free speech, even if it is hateful. Could she be afraid that people might be offended? How dare she be as insulting as to make an assumption about the public’s ability to discern. This is not about Ahmadinejad’s right to speak, it is about our right to listen. As the author Christopher Hitchens points out, every time you censor speech, you take away the right of the public to hear something.

Indeed, it is helpful to grant people like Ahmadinejad a public forum, because it helps us reevaluate what we know. What would you say to someone from the Flat Earth Society? How do we know what we know? It is our duty as rational, skeptical beings that we constantly question the evidence. Therefore, it is imperative and necessary to give minority opinions a public forum, no matter how hurtful, incorrect or appalling. When Graber said, “There is no debate to be had on these subjects,” I hope she meant that Holocaust denial is an irrational position to hold. I hope she did not mean that any point of view that is unpopular or hurtful should be silenced.

Let me also argue from a more practical standpoint. If we were to ban hate speech, to whom would we grant the power to decide what is hateful? For example, one remembers well the incident in 2005 where a Danish newspaper printed a cartoon with the prophet Muhammad, and a violent uprising around the world caused many deaths. Should we leave it to Muslims to decide what we can or cannot draw, simply because they find certain things offensive? Should we leave it to the Christians to decide what we can or can’t say? Meanwhile, the religious often get away with hurtful speech with the excuse that it is part of their religious belief. If we are going to continue letting ministers preach homophobia in public settings and let the Bible stay in print for that matter, then we better be consistent and allow freedom of all expression, no matter how incorrect or hurtful.

By Alan B. Krueger
Tuesday, September 11, 2007; 12:00 AM

Six years after 9/11, all too many Americans still have only a vague idea of what does — and doesn’t — motivate terrorists. It doesn’t help that many politicians exploit the anxiety that terrorism evokes to promote their own agendas. Here are five key urban legends:

1. Terrorism is a random act carried out by irrational people who hate our way of life.

If only it were that simple. In fact, terrorists are typically motivated by geopolitical grievances, not blind hatred. The agendas of individual terrorist groups vary, but their tactical goal is always more or less the same: to sow fear and confusion by deliberately targeting civilians in order to intimidate a country into changing its policies and ways.

So political calculations are key here. Citizens of countries that occupy other countries, for example, are more likely to be targeted by terrorists. In addition, wealthy democracies are more likely to be the targets of terrorist strikes than are totalitarian regimes, which suggests that terrorists deliberately strike countries that are susceptible to public pressure.

Another reason not to see terrorist attacks as random: They’re often timed to occur when they can have maximum impact, such as the eve of pivotal elections. In Israel, for example, attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups bent on sabotaging peace talks are more frequent before elections when left-wing governments hold power, in hopes of pushing Israeli voters in a more hawkish direction, according to research by Claude Berrebi of the Rand Corporation and Esteban F. Klor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

There’s even a cold logic to the time of day that terrorists pick for their attacks, which also suggests a rhythm that’s far from random. My analysis of U.S. government data from the National Counterterrorism Center reveals that terrorists are most likely to strike in the morning — in time to enter the day’s news cycle.

2. Terrorists are no different than ordinary criminals.

Wrong. Criminals tend to be poor and uneducated. But terrorists tend to come from families with above-average means and are often well-educated. For example, Jitka Maleckova of the Russell Sage Foundation and I found that members of the military wing of the radical Shiite group Hezbollah who were killed in action in the 1980s and early 1990s were better educated and less likely to be poor than their Lebanese countrymen. Other researchers have found similar results for other terrorist groups. People who join terrorist organizations often have legitimate, well-paying jobs, unlike common criminals.

3. Terrorists are likely to cross into the United States from Mexico.

This is a favorite chestnut of some activists and politicians keen to tighten immigration and build a fence on the Mexican border. But the historical record doesn’t bear it out. Of course, the past may not be a good predictor of the future, but terrorists have rarely crossed into the United States from Mexico. In a recent Nixon Center study of 373 Islamist terrorists, Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke concluded: “Despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and no terrorists who entered the U.S. from Mexico.” By contrast, the authors found “a sizeable terrorist presence in Canada and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the U.S.” For example, Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian terrorist who tried to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999, was caught trying to cross the border from Canada into Washington state.

4. Terrorism is mainly perpetrated by Muslims.

Wrong. No religion has a monopoly on terrorism. Every major religious faith has had followers involved in terrorism. (Sri Lanka, for instance, has grappled for decades with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that pioneered suicide bombing as a terrorist tactic and hopes to create a homeland for the country’s mostly Tamil minority, who are largely Hindu.) Although radical Islamic terrorists are the worry du jour because of 9/11 and Iraq, the data show pretty clearly that the predominant religion of a country is not a good predictor of whether its people will become involved in terrorism.

After all, it was not long ago that homegrown villains such as Timothy McVeigh and the so-called Unabomber were the most notorious terrorists. That makes sense; the vast majority of terrorist incidents are local, motivated by local concerns and carried out by natives. Even international terrorist events tend to be local affairs, most frequently carried out by local militants who target foreigners who happen to be in their country. (Just think of last week’s foiled plot to attack U.S. targets in Germany.) This suggests that the likelihood of attack by homegrown terrorists is far greater than the threat of another 9/11-style attack by foreigners.

5. Terrorism never succeeds.

If terrorism didn’t work, it would be far more rare than it now is. Sometimes terrorists do achieve their goals, which is why others continue to try the tactic.

Of course, it’s not always easy to determine what the terrorists’ objectives are, but sometimes their goals are pretty clear. Consider the devastating commuter-rail bombings in Madrid in March 2005, three days before Spain held congressional elections. The Islamic radicals who set off the bombs reportedly hoped to change the Spanish government. It worked. A new study by Jose Garcia Matalvo, an economist at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, compared absentee ballots cast before the bombings with votes cast after them on a province-by-province level. His work convincingly shows that the shock of the bombings led the Socialist Party to defeat the incumbent conservative government. Upon assuming power, the Socialist Party immediately withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.

akrueger@princeton.edu

Alan B. Krueger is the Bendheim professor of economics and public policy at Princeton University and the author of “What Makes a Terrorist.”

It’s one thing to believe in something for which there is no evidence one way or the other, like God. Call it faith, if you will. But it is quite another to actively ignore evidence and believe in something which the evidence has clearly ruled out, like creationism. This is just pure stupidity.

It is sad that, despite the back-breaking efforts of so many scientists, faith and religion is putting people back in the 16th century.

Be Proud.

But seriously, who are we kidding here? What sort of bad influence? Are mormons so weak and impressonable that listening to curse words leads one to use them more often? PLEASE. If anything, the resolve to be “virtuous” or whatever should make them less likely to be affected by bad movies. And they ought to give more credit to human resolve. And who cares if you use some taboo words? It is only an artificial social construction. If anything, the religious should transcend past such bullshit.

Last week, everyone our research group was getting together to watch Borat, which of course is a rated R movie. And my roommate, who is a mormon, declined to participating. I was disappointed.

Why do I care if Mormons want to censor themselves? Because it leads to ignorance. There is something to be said for being open-minded and experiencing as many things as you can. If you grow up never having scene someone serious go on a cursing rampage, and if you have never seen some nasty sex on film, what is going to happen to you? You’re being unrealistic. We live in a society that’s nasty, obscene, and absurd (by the religious view anyways. I happen to think these “obscene” things are part of human nature and we should celebrate them.) So lets get realistic and see the world for what it is.

It just gets me mad that religious people spend so much energy on something so unimportant. Let’s be more concerned about the REAL issues, like ignorance and the pain and suffering that results from it.