Don't kill people

Some things are complicated. This isn't.

There is no reason to kill apart from self-defence. Full stop. Whatever justification you think you have means exactly nothing.

This is a pitifully simple dictum, and yet it proves elusive on even a casual survey of the Google News homepage. Headlines like;

Ivory Coast: UN warns attack could reignite civil war

Teenager shot dead by gang

Two Christians killed in wave of Baghdad bombings

I am in general optimistic for us, as I have said before, but there are times when I feel like disowning my species. Surely, I think, I can't be cut from the same genetic stock as those who maim and slaughter like it's the norm? I know I am not alone in this.

The human mind, as a rule, is fickle and easily manipulated. As much as we would love to believe that our mind is a temple which no other may enter, it really isn't true. Ideology, social pressures and pathology can overcome even the most deep-seated aversions and principles. Perhaps if more people were aware of how easily they can be controlled they would be more equipped to fight against it.

Regardless of what we might like to believe, us humans are quite fragile organisms. A bullet, a stab wound, a particularly nasty fall or a particularly violent infection is all it takes to end us. All the more reason to take extra care.

It isn't naive to cherish life.

2000 vs. 2010

Saw a really interesting graphic on io9 yesterday.

It's quite sobering to realise that over three quarters of the world's population now has access to a mobile phone, and nearly a tenth has broadband internet access. These numbers are pretty good metrics of ease of social connectedness, and can only go up as time goes on, with phones and computers getting cheaper and more disseminated.

The environment section is also quite telling. Global warming skeptics/deniers have never exactly been well-endowed in terms of evidence, but the data is right there in easily digested visual form. Average global temperature has risen nearly a degree in a decade. Not good. The figures for endangered species and impacts of natural disasters aren't exactly endearing either.

Even when the data is right there, people still have difficulty placing facts above their pet ideology. If there's something we need to teach in school, it's deference to the truth. No matter how much you would like us not to be held accountable for our destruction of Earth's environment, it just isn't so.

If only we had politicians who could grasp the concept of long-term only gains, then we would get along much better.

Singing mice

Get a group of mice, tailor their genomes for increased rate of mutation, selectively breed for novel traits and let go. It's evolution writ fast in an artificial environment, and it's what Japanese biologists at the University of Osaka did in a nice bit of open-ended research.

Some of the mice ended up with longer limbs, odd tails, but they've had at least one surprising result. One sub-population of the mice can now sing - video here.

Aside from the core appeal of the idea of a mouse that sings (or chirps, as the case may be), these mice might help further our knowledge of how structured sounds (eg. birdsong), language and even the capacity for speech can evolve, especially in terms of the genes involved.

The researchers are quoted as claiming that the discovery may lead to discoveries on how human speech developed, but this seems just a tad too far-fetched for me. Mice and humans may be just too distant, phylogenetically speaking, for there to be any guarantee of a connection between the genes responsible for human speech and these mice singing.

The mice were genetically modified so that they were prone to DNA replication errors, improving the probability of mutations arising, some of which would then lead to interesting, novel traits. When the researchers identified novel traits, they would selectively breed the mice to carry the traits forward. It is a matter of semantics whether this deserves to be called accelerated evolution, since some would argue that natural selection must be involved for the term 'evolution' to be appropriate, and there is only artificial selection at work here.

In this case however, I'm happy with using the term accelerated evolution to quickly convey what was done, even though many writers have misused the idea of accelerated evolution to refer to something that happens to individuals (i.e. "he's evolving"), rather than populations over generations.

It is also intriguing to think of what applications this technique might have in creating novel traits in future. Who knows what kinds of traits could be imbued in future engineered pets or lifestock animals?

The lead scientist on the project: "I know it's a long shot and people would say it's 'too absurd'... but I'm doing this with hopes of making a Mickey Mouse some day."

Solsticetimes

You may or may not be aware that it was the 25th day of the month of December last week, and Christmas was celebrated by a significant fraction of the humans on this planet.

Believe it or not, I've been asked several times why I, a godless heathen, take the effort to celebrate Christmas. I didn't think I needed to clarify, but here's my carefully crafted reply.

The first reason is simple. My family members are nominally Christian, and they celebrate Christmas. They'd like me to participate, so I do. It's pretty passive, really, but that's not the only reason. The second reason is that Christmas really isn't a Christian festival any more.

Christmas is so relentlessly secularised (by way of commercialisation, unfortunately) that any original religious context is virtually absent. Occasionally I go to church on the 24th or the 25th, but it's just observance of ritual. I don't really think that god is up there to care one way or another. But it's nice to observe ritual once in a while, because we humans are social beings, and ritual keeps us together and makes us feel good.

We all celebrate Halloween, even though none of us (well, few of us anyway) actually believe in ghosts and ghouls. The ritual itself breeds camaraderie and togetherness, even though no one actually believes in the things that led to the festival and its rituals. I even endorse burning effigies Guy Fawkes in November, even though he certainly doesn't deserve the hatred that such a ritual implies. It's just ritual - the original meaning, legitimate or not, gone regardless.

And it's not as though the Christians are the only ones who celebrate in midwinter anyway. The date was set because of pre-existing pagan festivals like the Roman festival of the Rising of the Unconquered Sun. The solstice seems like a fitting time to get together and celebrate.

When I celebrate on the 25th of December, I am not really celebrating the birth of J.C. I'm celebrating because why the hell not? An annual time to give and receive gifts and spread goodwill sounds good whatever the justification.

Even in spite of the commercialised nature of modern Christmas and its promotion of consumer culture, I still think it is important. If the feeling is behind the gifts you give and receive, then who is to say that they are illegitimate?

The origins of the festival, and what other people think of it, are secondary to what it represents now, to us as individuals.

Christmas Eve Sunset by subadei

The destructive impulse?

"We see something beautiful, untouched and pure and have the overwhelming desire to taint it."

Reading this blog post, I was enticed to consider something about us. Are we destructive?

You may be aware that most places in the UK presently look somewhat like this:

Fresh snow seems to trigger something inside all our heads. Seemingly regardless of age, the urge to put your footprints through it is universal*. What does this say about us? That when we see something untouched and serene, we instinctively try to spoil it by introducing defects? Maybe.

Another way to look at this situation is from an artist's point of view. The snow is a canvas - a blank substrate, and we feel the need to put ourselves in it. Snow angels, snowmen, messages in the snow...even the imprint of our footwear is somehow personal and profound to us.

We're all artists deep down, and the world is our canvas.

I don't think it is symbolically destructive to put your feet in virgin snow. I think that it is just an unconventional kind of self-expression. Not only a way to put your thoughts and emotions in the world, but to leave marks that say I was here. That at a specified time, at a denoted place, a given person once existed.

*Or at least close to universal. Research would be needed to isolate out cultural variations, and try getting university funding for the study of that urge people get when they see fresh snow. A part of it is undoubtedly just inattention - many people walk through snow without a thought for the marks they leave behind. Nonetheless, this urge obviously exists in some form.

Assange on bail

Julian Assange gave an interview to Newsnight after his release on bail last night. I give him kudos for giving the interview in the snow.

"There were some five million web pages including my name...four million of those also mentioned the word 'rape'. There are thirty-three million web pages altogether on the internet that mention the word 'rape' in any context...so this has been a very successful smear campaign."

So 12% of all web pages mentioning rape also mention Julian Assange. Damn.

Personally, the sexual assault allegations seem highly dubious. All the back-and-forth by the Swedes and the withdrawal of one of the supposed victims makes me extremely doubtful that there is substance behind them. I don't know if Assange will be extradited or not, but I would be incredibly surprised if he was convicted on the basis of these allegations.

When a person is accused of a serious crime, but is not convicted, I normally wonder how their reputation could possibly recover. However, the allegations in Assanges' case have been so badly handled that I suspect his reputation was damaged only a fraction as much as it could have been.

His bail was delayed because of an appeal by the British prosecutors (not the Swedes - fishy that) on the grounds that he had a high risk of absconding. This strikes me as the prosecutors desperately doing everything possible to keep him in jail. Assange wants to clear his name, not live underground for the rest of his life.

At least that's my idle analysis. In any case, I'm very interested to see how this plays out, far more interested than I am in the brouhaha over student fees.

Here's the interview:

Secrecy and government

"We open governments." - WikiLeaks slogan

Authoritarian regimes must necessarily operate in secrecy. This is because such regimes are in opposition to the public's interests, and catalyse forces among the people that oppose them. Successful regimes prevent this by concealing their activities from the people.

Hence, before authoritarian rule can creep in, government transparency and accountability would first need to be disposed of. Leaks force transparency and accountability, even when the government in question may not like it.

This is why WikiLeaks and its kin are so important - the make leaking easy by offering anonymity to sources, and doing the publishing themselves. They help prevent the kind of concealment that is necessary for an authoritarian regime to be viable, acting as safeguards to prevent democracies from turning into autocracies.

Julian Assange explains WikiLeaks' intentions in his own words here (pdf). It's worth reading.