In Our Time: Opium Wars and the 2008 Olympics, Spinoza's radical determinism and the new feed page

Melvyn Bragg's BBC show, In Our Time, has begun a new season. I'm a fan.

The bad news is that the BBC is sticking with its execrable latest-episode-only download policy. So if you want to listen to the superb Opium War episode on your MP3 player you need to either use Audio Hijack Pro to capture the RealAudio stream or (if you know me) ask me for a DVD with the entire series [1]. Incidentally, this is a good time to write a quick email to set IOT free.

The good news is there's a new page that makes it easy to subscribe to a feed. I used to subscribe via iTunes, but if I went a week without using iTunes I missed the show. Now I subscribe via iTunes and Bloglines; I use Bloglines at least daily so it's easy for me to save the MP3 and email it to myself.

On to Opium War. Alas, it's from last season, so you're stuck with theft or RealAudio hijacking [2]. Wonderful episode that cleverly features 2 UK professors with Chinese names [4]:

Yangwen Zheng, Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at the University of Manchester
Lars Laamann, Research Fellow in Chinese History at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Xun Zhou, Research Fellow in History at SOAS, University of London

That was a politically astute decision as well as didactically informed. These 3 are willing to say things that people with non-Chinese surnames are going to pussy-foot about. Even the one contributor who's voice trembles slightly when describing her parents outrage at the "unequal treaty" more or less concedes that her feelings reflect modern sentiments rather than the historic record.

In brief (sorry, you need to listen, these are my interpretations):

• To understand this as a 19th century person might, think 1920s prohibition or 2010 cigarette management. Opium was an over the counter remedy into 20th century America; Opium was the now-lost secret to well-behaved children around the world. [3]
• Tobacco smoking, introduced to China by the Portugese, was the technical innovation that built the opium trade. Smoking opium is much more entertaining than eating eat, so, as is forever true, tobacco was the gateway drug.
• Lin Tse-Hsu, the Chinese intellectual, modernist, and bureaucrat who triggered the smoldering conflict, might have been pleased with the long term impact of the enforced opium trade. Lin Tse-Hu wanted China to modernize and be able to stand independently. These scholars agreed that China's defeat in the Opium Wars, and the resulting trade agreements including later trade in industrial goods, was a major contributor to the rise of modern China. So Lin Tse-Hsu lost his battle, but in losing he did achieve his true desire. I wonder if he ever realized that. History has strange lessons indeed.
• For 19th century China the Opium War was something of a sideshow and trading Hong Kong was a trivial cost to placate the transiently powerful foreigners. The Dynasty had much bigger internal problems to worry about.
• Opium was a currency in the China before the war, especially after the introduction of smoking (which must have increased the value of the currency ten fold), an alternative to copper. From an economic perspective the war resulted from a balance of trade problem. England was industrializing, and like all industrial nations they were switching from alcohol (locally grown) to caffeine (tea, imported from China -- coffee was not yet widely available). Alcohol was handy for dulling the pain of pre-industrial life, but industry required shorter sleep periods. England was hooked on uppers, but pre-industrial China was hooked on anesthesia. Prior to the Opium War England sent new world silver to China to buy tea, but Chinese trade restrictions meant England had nothing to sell in return. China was the "silver drain" of the world. The cost of tea was rising fast, and something had to be done.
• Britain's attack was a mixture of governmental and private sector action. In those days the boundaries between industry and state were even thinner than in modern America -- and they're pretty darned thin here.
• After the 1920s the Opium War, previously an annoyance primarily to Chinese intelligentsia, was transformed into a populist causes to further nationalist movements. So the Opium War not only transformed China economically, it did double duty in creating the modern Chinese nation. So it remains today, there is no doubt that many Chinese leaders, and most of the Chinese nation, bitterly resent what they know of the conflict. This is very human of course. Americans who say "Remember the Alamo" typically know very little about it, and no Chinese leader can possibly be as ignorant of history as George Bush Jr.

It's a great show and really, required listening for anyone living in the Decade of China to come. The 2008 Olympics are near, and, assuming the news is not entirely about athletic asphyxiation, you'll hear more about the two Opium Wars.

On the other hand, last season's Spinoza episode, while better than the immensely dull "William of Occam", was still disappointing. Spinoza was a radical determinist, but none of the speakers put this into a 17th century context of Calvin and Newton (billiard-ball determinism), or in the 20th century context of Einstein (non-quantum General Relativity implies rigid determinism), post-modern physics, transactional interpretations of quantum physics or even the Tralfamadorians. Melvyn was asleep at the switch on that one.

Oh, Occam? Don't bother. It reminded me too much of my work.

[1] Note to BBC. I'm just joking of course.

[2] Do any of the file sharing sites do IOT? If they do I might just try out an OS X client.

[3] One of the most memorable drug seeking patients I've encountered asked me, incidentally as our routine visit was ending, for an opium containing remedy that I think was a prescription med for children in the mid-20th century. I had no idea what it was, but of course I looked it up before prescribing. I recall she was very professional about it, she didn't get too upset when I pointed out that it wasn't really a good idea.

[4] I originally wrote "3" because I swear Laars sounded like he had a slight Chinese accent. I wonder which was his first language. The other profs pronounced his name something like "Lau".

Romney for torture

Romney's New National Security Adviser Said He'd Torture "In A Heartbeat"t.

If Romney were Christian, he might have theological issues with his pro-torture stace. On the other hand, I suppose the Inquisition is a relevant precedent.

I'm sure glad I'm not Republican. I can't imagine the horror of choosing the least bad bozo in this field.

British Telecom's futurist predicts end of the world in about 10 years

Ian Pearson tries to predict the future for British Telecom. I think I've previously written about his 2006 Technology Timeline.

Now he's being interviewed by Computerworld about the develop of sentient machines.

Computerworld - BT Futurist: AI entities will win Nobel prizes by 2020

...We will probably make conscious machines sometime between 2015 and 2020...

... I think that we still should expect a conscious computer smarter than people by 2020. I still see no reason why that it is not going to happen in that time frame....

... they will get very, very clever. It's kind of like a hamster trying to understand a human being. They can't simply understand the problem. How could they possibly think in the same way? It's like as if a human being is compared with an alien intelligence, which is hundreds of millions of times smarter. We don't have the right capabilities to start thinking in the same way. So, we put machines winning Nobel Prizes in our technology timeline, because we got good reasons to do that...

The scenario is very familiar to anyone who's done their essential reading. Certainly I've written about it enough. Once machines get to hamster level, much less consciousness, it's basically game over. I'm not entirely confident humanity will vanish immediately; that might depend on the AI's sense of humor.

What's novel is the date -- that's the earliest prediction I've read from anyone gainfully employed. Most of predictions are out around 2040, where I have a decent chance of being safely oblivious (whether dead or alive). In ten years I might be still standing.

I think he's wrong. Actually, if I were the praying type, I'd pray he's wrong. I'm more inclined to 2050 myself, which makes it my kids' problem. Once you move it out to 2050 there's a decent chance of prior civilizational collapse anyway, which could give Homo sapiens a bit of a longer run.

BTW, wouldn't a TV show about a top secret spy organization that goes around the world messing up AI projects be a lot of fun?

Collateral damage - Microsoft destroys an ISO standards committee

Microsoft probably didn't mean to destroy an international standards group that works with file format specifications. They simply wanted their "standard", OOXML, to be approved. There was only one problem, the committee wasn't going to play ball. So Microsoft bought the committee, bribing a large number of nations to join up.

To everyone's surprise, the initiative failed anyway.

There was, however, some collateral damage ...

Slashdot | Format Standards Committee "Grinds To a Halt"

Andy Updegrove writes:

"Microsoft's OOXML did not get enough votes to be approved the first time around in ISO/IEC — notwithstanding the fact that many countries joined the Document Format and Languages committee in the months before voting closed, almost all of them voting to approve OOXML. Unfortunately, many of these countries also traded up to 'P' level membership at the last minute to gain more influence. Now the collateral damage is setting in. At least 50% of P members must vote (up, down, or abstain) on every standard at each ballot — and none of the new members are bothering to vote, despite repeated pleas from the committee chair. Not a single ballot has passed since the OOXML vote closed. In the chairman's words, the committee has 'ground to a halt.'..."

The honorable thing for Microsoft to do now would be to pay their shills to resign from the committee. Nobody is holding their breath.

Way to go Ballmer.

Miscegenation in America

Progress happens, even when we don't see it.

Paul Krugman, "Conscience of a Liberal" | Salon Books

...In 1978, as the ascent of movement conservatism to power was just beginning, only 36 percent of Americans polled by Gallup approved of marriages between whites and blacks, while 54 percent disapproved. As late as 1991 only a plurality of 48 percent approved. By 2002, however, 65 percent of Americans approved of interracial marriages; by June 2007, that was up to 77 percent...

What my dishwasher taught me about 21st century life

If I'd googled on "dishwasher won't fill" I'd have saved $60.

How to Diagnose Dishwasher Problems | eHow.com:

...Dishwasher won't fill Inlet valve or float switch is malfunctioning

Clean or replace valve or float switch...

A child's cup top had jammed the water-level float full open. The dishwasher wouldn't fill because its sensor said it was already full.

Easiest $60 a repair guy ever makes. They have to make a living, so I don't feel too bad that they didn't suggest we check the float when we phoned.

The real lesson though is always google first. I always remember that when my computer hiccups. I don't always remember it when the dishwasher is dry.

Don't forget.

Ouch.

The sled dogs and polar bear: not a fake

Emily forwarded one of those chain emails to me -- this one was about a polar bear, presumably a young polar bear, appearing to play with sled dogs.

Naturally, I figured this was a brilliant fake.

No, it's real: Urban Legends Reference Pages: Polar Bear Plays with Sled Dogs. There's even a public radio show on the images.

Clearly there's a lot of variation in the psychology of the juvenile polar bear; long after they're extinct we'll probably be wondering how complex their minds really were.

I find the dog's behavior more mysterious. They are not puppies, they're adult sled dogs.

Clearly there are worse strategies than cooperating with a playful polar bear -- but how did the dogs figure that out? Was it simply that they've never seen a polar bear and had no idea what they were dealing with?

I suppose that's possible, after all, most dogs meeting a polar bear wouldn't live to tell the tale.

The bear and the dogs are said to have played nightly for a week. Maybe the dogs thought their visitor was a weird smelling human in a fur suit ...

Are oil futures nonsensical? What happened to arbitrage?

I was wondering today what the futures market says about the price of oil. I was surprised by the result. NYMEX is the traditional place to trade ail futures; the price is roughly $74.60 for the next 8 years (I thought 84 months is the trading limit, so I don't know how they get 96 months)

NYMEX.com: Light Sweet Crude Oil: "Dec 2015 74.81"

I would personally be quite surprised if oil were selling for less than US $100 a barrel in 2015. That would require either a stunning rise in the relative value of the US dollar, the economic collapse of China and India or Europe, or a technology or social breakthrough capable of reducing world oil demand by about 30% prior to 2025. Either that, or we make amazing oil discoveries that push "peak oil" day beyond my personal life expectancy [1].

Or maybe the futures market is predicting we'll really take global warming seriously, and create one hell of a carbon tax.

So maybe it's possible, but it sure seems unlikely. It seems even more unlikely that we'll remain at $75 US a barrel in five years; all of the "radical impacts" I've listed are particularly unlikely in that time frame.

Whatever happened to arbitrage?

So, how do I take $25K or so from the family kitty and make a derivatives bet that crude oil is over $100 a barrel on or after 11/1/2012?

[1] Which, by the way, would imply civilizational collapse from extreme global warming scenarios.

PS. I suspect this may be relevant.

Update: I fixed some arithmetic errors.

The Good Americans and the meaning of silence - Frank Rich

Emily tells me Frank Rich is not reading Gordon's Notes. After all, I wrote "Torture and the end of the American Exception" only 10 days ago, and Rich was probably working on today's column before that.

Actually, I really don't think he's reading GN. It's simply synchronicity; the meme is in play. It's past time to stop blaming only Cheney and Bush, though they deserve historic shame (Thank you Mr. Carter).

The truth is, America's worst enemy is not Dick Cheney, Iran, what's left of al Qaeda, or Islamic fundamentalism -- it's the our own worst selves. We've failed the American Idea.

Here's Frank Rich. Emphases mine. The "Good Germans", it's important to know, were those who looked away, who chose to remain silent even before it was dangerous to speak.

The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us - New York Times - Frank Rich Oct 14, 2007

“BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.

Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: “This government does not torture people.” Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of “torture” is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung”, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.”...

... We can continue to blame the Bush administration for the horrors of Iraq — and should. Paul Bremer, our post-invasion viceroy and the recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts, issued the order that allows contractors to elude Iraqi law, a folly second only to his disbanding of the Iraqi Army. But we must also examine our own responsibility for the hideous acts committed in our name in a war where we have now fought longer than we did in the one that put Verschärfte Vernehmung on the map.

I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin...

.. the administration also invited our passive complicity by requiring no shared sacrifice. A country that knows there’s no such thing as a free lunch was all too easily persuaded there could be a free war.

Instead of taxing us for Iraq, the White House bought us off with tax cuts. Instead of mobilizing the needed troops, it kept a draft off the table by quietly purchasing its auxiliary army of contractors to finesse the overstretched military’s holes. With the war’s entire weight falling on a small voluntary force, amounting to less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of us were free to look the other way at whatever went down in Iraq...

... Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Verschärfte Vernehmung is pronounced something like "VERR-SHAREFF-TA VARE-NA-MOONG. With practice it rolls off the tongue.

There's a rule of thumb in net culture that any reference to Naziism indicates poor thinking. It's not a bad heuristic, but it has its limits. The unique feature of Naziism was not its brutality, its cruelty, its racism, its rhetoric, or its genocides -- those are common in human history. The unique feature of Naziism was that it emerged in a democratic society with a free press and universal literacy.

Germany of the 1930s was an incredibly stressed society. Modern America is taking the Verschärfte Vernehmung road amidst unprecedented wealth, freedom, and communication. We're fat (really fat) and happy -- yet we've become "Good Americans" anyway.

I think the religious right should be very careful about asking God for justice. Mercy might be wiser.

What if Clinton had been elected to a third term?

Amidst a Nobel-inspired burst of Bush-mourning, comes some speculation about what would have happened if the 22nd amendment hadn't applied to Clinton I. He'd have defeated Bush of course...

Daring Fireball

... Nice little video celebrating the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but I don’t get their “it’s a good thing because Bush can’t be elected to another term” angle. If it weren’t for the 22nd Amendment, Bush never would have been elected in the first place, because Bill Clinton would have cruised to a third term...

But then, in this alternate reality, what would have happened next? I think there's at least an even chance that the Clinton team would have prevented 9/11. On the other hand, by the end of the Clinton administration the American right was reaching levels of rage not seen since the 1930s -- or perhaps the American Civil War. It's forgotten now, but we had a burgeoning right wing indigenous terrorist movement in the late 1990s. It continued for a while after Bush won, but it had lost its focus. It was returning to a baseline state when 9/11 diverted wingnut rage overseas.

If Clinton had returned for a third term, or even if the Supreme Court had done its constitutional duty and "elected" Gore, there's a good chance we'd now be dealing with a local terrorist movement as well as an international one.

The irony is excessive.

High altitude exertion will damage your brain

John Hawks quotes R. Douglas Fields:

John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : 2007 09

.... The body is remarkably resilient--does the brain recover from these mountaineering wounds? To answer this important question, the researchers re-examined the same climbers three years after the expedition, with no other high-altitude climbing intervening. In all cases, the brain damage was still evident on the second brain scan.

Still, Aconcagua is one of the world's highest mountains -- in the top 100. Mont Blanc, in the Alps, is less extreme. With a summit at 4810 meters, it is climbed each year by thousands of mountaineers who probably do not expect injury to their 'second favorite organ,' to use Woody Allen's nomenclature for the brain. Yet the researchers found that of seven climbers reaching the summit of Mount Blanc, two returned with enlarged VR spaces.

Hawks notes: "the altitude of Mont Blanc is substantially lower than the Everest base camp at 5500 meters."

Better imaging technologies now show that high altitude exertion will cause significant irreversible brain damage in many people, very high altitude extertion will damage all brains.

Damn.

Something nice about Apple - better repair service

I wrote recently about Apple's longterm but worsening quality problems. In a similar vein Business Week notes increasing service issues, including worsening ratings from Consumer Reports. So I was pleased to hear something encouraging about their service ...

So how will Apple maintain that golden rep for customer service?:

....Another improvement: while Apple used to send broken Macs to repair depots, they know do more than 70% of repairs in in-store repair shops. Even more impressive, 50% of them are fixed and returned to the customer on the same day, and 75% are back home on the second day....

About a year ago I mentioned I didn't go to Apple for repairs because of the rotten reputation of their centralized and outsourced repair services. Instead I used a local Apple dealer (not an Apple store, though we have two of those). It's great to hear they've moved repairs back to the local stores.

Carter on Cheney ... and Bush

I'm surprised I missed this. It didn't seem to get much attention. It's worth remembering that Jimmy Carter made "human rights" a primary theme of his presidency. I suspect the human rights agreements he signed with the USSR, which were much mocked at the time, had a greater impact than most remember now. (emphases mine)

Jimmy Carter: U.S. tortures prisoners | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle Oct 10, 2007

WASHINGTON — The U.S. tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday, adding that President Bush makes up his own definition of torture.

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said on CNN. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime."...

... In an interview that aired Wednesday on BBC, Carter ripped Vice President Dick Cheney as "a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military."

Carter went on to say Cheney has been "a disaster for our country. I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush."...

In the CNN interview, the Democratic former president disparaged the field of Republican presidential candidates.

"They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran, who wants to keep Guantanamo open longer and expand its capacity — things of that kind," Carter said...

Thank you Jimmy Carter, you are a great American.

Carter, by the way, won the Nobel in 2002. I expect he'll be in the audience when Gore speaks, I hope he takes that opportunity to speak again.

How bad can a Business Week article be?

Daring Fireball rips apart a Business Week article on Universal's music distribution plan. It's a good dissection, but it begs the question -- what kind of a deal did BW get for playing the fool? They can't be this stupid by accident -- can they?

Google's storage model: fixed price, more service

I was a paying Google/Picasa Web Album customer [1] when Google introduced its integrated Gmail + Web Album storage model. That meant I started off with 10GB combined, based on the $20 or so I was paying for my photo store. I've used 4.5 GB, or what was almost 50% a day or two ago.

Today I'm back at 34%: "4.5 GB (34%) of 13 GB". Google has increased the storage pool by 33% for the same price. I've read that this will be their model going forward -- keep the price the same, but increase the store.

I like that model.

Curiously, back when I just used Gmail, I'd typically run at 30-35% of capacity. I was using storage up at the same rate that Google was adding it. Now, in the combined model, I'm back in the same range.

Things will change if Google ever introduces an S3 type online data store, or an online backup service. Then I'll need to buy a lot more storage. Given their current problems [1] I don't expect to see that before the middle of 2008.

[1] This was back when their Web Album iPhoto plug-in actually worked. Apple's iLife 2008 broke it two months ago, and Google has been unable or unwilling to fix it -- or even to let users know it doesn't work any more. This fits with my recent Google Apps experience. I don't need the recent 'Google to Facebook exodus' meme to tell me Google is struggling.