The Problem With The Deomcrats

Martin Peretz of The New Republic has written a wonderful thought piece that should be read in its entirety dealing with the intellectual disarray of the modern liberal meme (damn you Richard Dawkins---I swore I'd never use your stupid word). Money quote:

This leaves us with the issue of U.S. power, the other leftover from the '60s. It is true: American liberals no longer believe in the axiomatic virtue of revolutions and revolutionaries. But let's face it: It's hard to get a candid conversation going about Cuba with one. The heavily documented evidence of Fidel Castro's tyranny notwithstanding, he still has a vestigial cachet among us. After all, he has survived Uncle Sam's hostility for more than 45 years. And, no, the Viet Cong didn't really exist. It was at once Ho Chi Minh's pickax and bludgeon in the south. Pose this question at an Upper West Side dinner party: What was worse, Nazism or Communism? Surely, the answer will be Nazism ... because Communism had an ideal of the good. This, despite the fact that communist revolutions and communist regimes murdered ever so many more millions of innocents and transformed the yearning of many idealists for equality into the brutal assertion of evil, a boot stamping on the human face forever.

Writing a Paper

So I have a presentation to give tomorrow (a joyous slide-show on Wangiella and melanin) and this weekend I am writing a review of infectious adrenalitis for publication. So, (as is often the case lately) I am bogged down with work that is reducing my blogging time. But I promise some quality updates after I get this paper completed (hopefully without too many editorial suggestions). Thankfully though, we now have Zwei on board posting away along with me.

Nano-Immortality and Possibility-Spaces

I was checking out STMB and noticed that he linked a CNN story about an inventor who is exercising and dieting to keep himself healthy for what he sees as man’s ability to achieve immortality in 20 years through the use of nanotechnology. Now, while his claims are dubious at best and his regimen of supplements and 10 glasses of “alkaline water” per day are sure to make GNC happy without any true evidence in their favor, it got me thinking about whether corporeal immortality is an ideal that the human species should even work towards.

From a limited individual existentialist standpoint personal bodily immortality is an enticing possibility, certainly one without the superficial appearance of a discernable detriment. However, when one views the grand narrative of the human experience through the lens of an evolutionary perspective, taking into account not particularized events but the meta-narrative of the whole of humanity as a collective process taking into account time, the story becomes more complex.

Sexual reproduction and meiosis are ingenious developments of the evolutionary process that allow blind genes to actively search for the proper combination of environmental fitness and species specific enhancements through chance pairings and chaotic recombinations. The end result of the process is a metaphorically majestic genetic algorithm that actively searches the environment (while responding to it) and itself for increased adaptability to the morphing external world. However, increasing evidence from the sociobiology camp suggests that the genetic compliment that comprises an individual strongly influences (if not controls—separate debate) the personality/adherence to universal human morality (another long debate)/likes/dislikes/talents etc. of an individual. Therefore, within the very act of procreation (understood this way) is the genesis of individual human diversity.

Throughout human and cultural evolution the influx of unique ideas and birth of revolutionary philosophical advancements have created the ideological milieu within which societies have driven further the intellectual development of the human animal. Whereas the majority of individuals exist comfortably beneath the bell-curve of human achievement, the outliers, those rare statistical anomalies that are allowed for by the genetic algorithm, exist, and their accomplishments, their unique perspectives, drive humanity up the ladder of evolutionary possibilities. Their names are familiar; Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, James Joyce, Mark Twain, Socrates etc., there are many more, some named and studied, others exist without the laudation of entering into the common vernacular.

If we achieve corporeal immortality sometime in the near future, the possibility space of humanity will dramatically shrink. A finite world with limited resources is a saturable system within which a restricted amount of individuals can be realistically sustained. When the system reaches it saturation point the continual propagation of the species would need to be halted reducing the possibility space to zero (lest we indulge the fantasy of cultivating an as yet undiscovered world). Ideas and cultural evolution would effectively stagnate as the ebb and flow of generational diversity is limited to a continuous plateau of limited potentialities.

Death is a creative event in nature. The demise of an individual (be it a flower/bumble bee/or human) creates room for the newest cohort of the species with its unique genetic compliment to seek out new ways of adapting to the environment creating the possibility of newly discovered adaptations that enhance the species as a whole and further the trip along the genetic algorithm. Death creates possibility spaces (the demise of the dinosaurs lead to the rise of the mammals). Analogously, during the human experience the death of the individual creates the possibility space within which subsequent individuals (that house unique compliments of genes spawning the unique patterns of thought that give rise to the further evolution of ideas) take their chance within the environment of ideas, searching for the outliers that change the course of human intellectual evolution. Immortality is inversely related to absolute possibility in a saturable biological system. When the final compliment of humans are left with which to subsist within the world, the genetic algorithm ceases, as does the tireless drive up the ladder of cultural/ideological evolution, as novel ways of approaching problems/viewing the world/unique thought constructs will have ceased. Humanity will be left with a group of individuals whose ideas and thought patterns will exist unchallenged in an unchanging world of closed possibility.

Back

Finally! My network is back up and running, my boards are over and I shall begin posting again tonight. A new blogger has teamed up with me and will be posting on this blog as well. Look for his 1st post soon!

Great to be back finally.

Network Outage

I have been unable to blog for quite some time thanks to a network outage in my apartment. It is actually quite annoying. As soon as this gets fixed the blog will once again be updated regularly-----perhaps with a new addition.

2 More Days

That's it. That is all I have to contend with before I am finally done with these damn boards (well not forever---medicine is an endless cycle of recurrent exams)---so I will at least be done for a good while and be able to better keep up with my blogging.

In a completely unrelated story, the man who inspired me to start my own blog, Andrew Sullivan, is putting his blog on a protracted hiatus to give him more time to write outside of the blogsphere. I must say that I will miss him greatly and have truly enjoyed reading his prolific blog (checking at midnight for the newest updates) daily.

We hope you return soon.

A Response to a Reader About the "AIDS Tax"

Today, in a response to my comments about Chirac’s proposed AIDS tax a reader wrote--

I think Mr Chirac's policy to be a good start. I was surprised by your comments. It may be hoped to establish a precedent whereby citizens of the wealthy nations pay somewhat towards the healthcare costs of the developing nations. The logical extension would be to also tackle the paediatric bacterial infections, TB and malaria (additional to WHO projects like Roll Back Malaria). Indeed, I suggest you watch for further announcements on these matters. As such, we are conducting a significant review of the international public health policy in collaboration with a committee headed by Dr Jules Lajaunie of the Pasteur Institute, also jointly with the European Union Directorate XII team, headed by Dr Luc Coreff, and observer status of the USA Department of Health and Human Services. It shall be reporting in April to our minister, Mr. Philippe Douste-Blazy, and I believe also the USA Health Secretary Mr. Leavitt.
Mrs. Dr. Laure-Elisabeth Flohic

Assistant Undersecretary for International Programmes, Ministry of Health and of the Family, Paris, France

I think we need to understand why I object to something so seemingly altruistic and superficially generous. Mr. Chirac’s taxation scheme specifically calls for either a “levy that could be imposed on international financial transactions without hampering markets” or as an alternative “raising the funds by taxing fuel for air and sea transport, or levying $1 on every airline ticket sold in the world.” Herein lies Mr. Chirac’s discernable myopia on this particular issue.

To begin with it is impossible to add a centralized international taxation upon global markets without negatively affecting the free interaction of said markets. A levy upon any transaction will cause a chilling effect upon exchanges leading to an obvious slow down of the market systems that are needed to keep alive the global profits that produce the opportunity to invest in health-care to begin with. Mr. Chirac’s assurance that financial transactions will not be hampered is pure conjectural fantasy, loaded with delusional misperceptions that permit him to make such an obviously flawed and ignorant assertion. Another oversight, in this particular aspect of the plan, as Japan's vice finance minister for international affairs, Hiroshi Watanabe, has astutely pointed out is that a prerequisite for the tax to have a chance at success is an assurance of 100% global cooperation. If there are countries that do not participate (as there surely will be) business will simply move to their tax-free havens in order to avoid the tariff and maximize profits, thereby reducing the efficacy of the overall scheme. Mr. Chirac will, in essence, create a fiscal selective pressure whereby countries that do not participate are selected as niduses of burgeoning business growth. Lastly, the concept of taxing the already devastated airline industry (which somehow in Chirac’s plan subsists separately from global markets and local economies) is a misguided and poor one sure to have the same effects on global markets listed above.

Seeing as how Chirac’s plan dealing strictly with HIV/AIDS would have such negative repercussions on the global economy as a whole, how then are we to lump on to said taxation rate the large burdens of “the paediatric bacterial infections, TB and malaria” that we wish to solve by levying an international tax that, through an as yet undefined leap of logic, exists without a measurable effect upon the global market? By any account, tackling a single one of the aforementioned issues would amount to an exponential increase in the rate of taxation necessary to adequately meet the public health needs demanded by a global tax. Though the concept sounds altruistically feasible and even necessary, it is impossible to implement the idea without destroying/stagnating global markets and thereby undermining the production of capital that forms the fiduciary basis of the global public health infrastructure. It is a self-defeating ideology (as most socialist ideals tend to be and have repeatedly been proven to be).

The way in which countries can deal with the problem of disease in the developing world is not (as I have attempted to demonstrate) the levying of an international tax, rather it is through discretionary spending on developmental aid. Allowing for individual governments to allocate portions of their particular budget for distribution to areas of need (i.e. Bush’s South African AIDS pledge) is the fiscal manner in which global health needs can be efficiently addressed while unfettered markets are left to continue to produce the profits that permit the investments. Governmental oversight of semi-free markets (as within the US system) will allow the corporative competition necessary in order to drive the production of novel drugs, vaccines, and potential cures (as it has done time and again), while orphan drug laws provide the key government investment in less profitable arenas. The key is to allow an unhindered local and global market to produce the profits that drive the competition, the capital that funds the investments, and the economy that allows for discretionary spending upon charitable developmental aid.

AIDS tax?

Chirac wants to create a global AIDS tax. What a fascinatingly inept and ill-conceived concept. If we are going to start a world tax to combat world health issues then certainly we should start with bacterial pneumonia (which is still the # 1 leading cause of infectious death the world over). What about cholera? Hepatitis? Malaria?! TB?!

Why not a global cancer tax? How about a global sewage tax?!?

It just goes to show how a seemingly altruistic governmentally sponsored program does not necessarily meet any rational criteria for universal scientific applicability (though it does appear to be a well intentioned idea).

Not much press on TB nowadays and it’s probably why no one is calling for a Global tax to combat it.

You know what's horrible?

Studying for standardized medical licensure examinations........it truly takes away from any meaningful blogging time.

1 more week!

Oscar Nominations and Predictions

The Nation's new pastime--

Best Picture
· THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· FINDING NEVERLAND (Miramax)

· MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· RAY (Universal Pictures)

· SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)

My Pick—Million Dollar Baby. Hands down.

Who Will Win—The Aviator

Achievement in Directing
· Martin Scorsese for THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· Clint Eastwood for MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· Taylor Hackford for RAY (Universal Pictures)

· Alexander Payne for SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)

· Mike Leigh for VERA DRAKE (Fine Line Features)

My Pick—Clint Eastwood

Who Will Win—Martin Scorsese

Best Actor in a Leading Role
· Don Cheadle for HOTEL RWANDA (United Artists)

· Johnny Depp for FINDING NEVERLAND (Miramax)

· Leonardo DiCaprio for THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· Clint Eastwood for MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· Jamie Foxx for RAY (Universal Pictures)

My Pick—Tie Don Cheadle/Clint Eastwood
Who Will Win—Jamie Foxx

Best Actress in a Leading Role
· Annette Bening - BEING JULIA (Sony Pictures Classics)

· Catalina Sandino Moreno - MARIA FULL OF GRACE (Fine Line Features)

· Imelda Staunton - VERA DRAKE (Fine Line Features)

· Hilary Swank for MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· Kate Winslet for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Focus Features)

My Pick—Catalina Sandino Moreno

Who Will Win—Hilary Swank

Best Supporting Actor
· Alan Alda for THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· Thomas Haden Church for SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)

· Jamie Foxx for COLLATERAL (Dreamworks SKG)

· Morgan Freeman for MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· Clive Owen for CLOSER (Columbia Pictures)

My Pick—Clive Owen

Who Will Win—Clive Owen

Best Supporting Actress
· Cate Blanchett for THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· Laura Linney - KINSEY (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

· Virginia Madsen for SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)

· Sophie Okonedo - HOTEL RWANDA (United Artists)

· Natalie Portman for CLOSER (Columbia Pictures)

My Pick—Natalie Portman

Who Will Win—Virginia Madsen

Best Original Screenplay
· THE AVIATOR (Miramax)

· ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Focus Features)

· HOTEL RWANDA (United Artists)

· THE INCREDIBLES (Disney/Pixar)

· VERA DRAKE (Fine Line Features)

My Pick—Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Who Will Win—The Aviator

Best Adapted Screenplay
· BEFORE SUNSET (Warner Independent Pictures)

· FINDING NEVERLAND (Miramax)

· MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Bros.)

· THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (Focus Features)

· SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)

My Pick—Million Dollar Baby

Who Will Win—Sideways

Up In Smoke

Politics makes strange bedfellows, particularly here in New York City. As the 2005 New York mayoral election draws near, the 2 year old indoor smoking ban pressed for by Mayor Michael Bloomberg has drawn the ire (and attention) of many whose livelihood is dependant upon the peddling of the carcinogenic crop. Democratic candidate Fernando Ferrer as well as other potential Democratic contenders have begun taking tobacco money in campaign contributions:

The publisher of Cigar Aficionado magazine, Marvin Shanken, arranged more than $27,000 in campaign donations for Democrat Fernando Ferrer, a former Bronx borough president, Ferrer's office said.

The money came from such donors as Edgar Cullman Jr., chief executive of General Cigar in New York, executives from Altadis USA, the U.S. division of Altadis, S.A., in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Holt's Cigar Co. in Philadelphia, the office said.

Now am I the only individual with a mind that stores such trivial information as the Democratic stance on tobacco control amidst the lawsuit craze of the mid-90’s? Well in case I am here is something to jolt your memory:

But the panel was already converted. The purpose of the informal hearing was to contrast the Democrats' activist approach to regulating tobacco with their Republican counterparts'. Said Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey: "They publicly pushed their contract with America. Privately, they pursued another contract, the contract of silence with tobacco companies."

And:

Senate Democrats know what they want -- Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco products -- but they're not yet sure how to get it.

Now that the House, acting a week and a half ago, has passed an international corporate-tax bill that included a federal buyout for tobacco growers, Senate Democrats find themselves in a tricky spot. They're trying to figure out how to marry FDA regulation of tobacco with the farmer-buyout provision either before, during or after House-Senate negotiations on the tax measure.

Now I am not generalizing all Democrats based upon the actions of very specific New York politicians (though parties seem to form drone like monolithic entities there are, in actuality, great differences based upon geographical representation) but am merely pointing out the wonton disposal of ideologies at the bequest of fiduciary remuneration.