Education

The basic format for modern education is in many places attributable to Plato. More academic disciplines have arisen over time and as more and more youths are educated the system has become further institutionalised. I wish to muse over how aligned the education system is with the current social climate. Having only really experienced the English school system I will be exclusively talking about it, however I am sure most countries education systems will share many attributes with it and so hopefully the essay will still make some valid points for readers anywhere in the world.

Education is a wonderful thing but we seem to now view it as something which must be applied to you by an institution and not something that just happens as people live their lives. Schools may teach most of us to read and write however we learn to speak just by interaction with other people who can already speak. The suggestion that education is wasted on the young has some truth to it but perhaps this may not be inherently due to their age and rather because of how society treats the young. We deem youths less capable of making their own choices and have made education compulsory for them. Forced learning is not as effective as passive learning or when an individual chooses to learn something themselves. The difficulty is creating an environment where passive learning is maximised and the desire to learn things is greatest. Education is most beneficial to the young as they have most time to make use of it and so regardless of how “wasted” it may be there is no suggestion of leaving it until it can be fully appreciated by more mature people. It simply makes it clear that the aim of an education system should be to offer as many useful life skills to youths that can be effectively and willingly learnt.

I doubt any would argue that the aim of any education system would be to create a skilled and productive work force that are well rounded and contented people who can easily get along with the rest of society. I am concerned that in order to regulate a vast nationwide system it has become too quantitative which has resulted in it deviating from the ideal aims. All subjects are graded on the same linear scale to represent some level of aptitude from the student. Employers use these gradings to assess potential employees and society scrutinises schools based on them too. My first criticism of this way of quantitatively comparing schools and people by a single grade in the subject they have taken is that is it a very ambiguous measure. Success in a subject is based on the basic aptitude of the student, the effort they then put into the exam/coursework and the relationship they have with the teacher. It also will be affected by things like how well the student takes exams and their state of mind around the time of the assessments. The information a grade offers might mean the student is very bright or it might mean they went to a good school or that they worked very hard. There are levels of qualification that are sufficiently demanding to prove that the student had good teachers, good aptitude and worked hard such as a PhD from a prestigious university but prior to this stage you still don't get very complete picture of a person from their grades.

The second issue I have with the grade system is that it creates false incentives within the education system. Exams were initially intended as a way of measuring someone's abilities in a subject however the failings of exams in their ability to really provide an accurate measure of all that much means that people prepare for the exam rather than learning or educating. Exam techniques are taught, the common questions are repeatedly covered, unsubtle clues are given as to what will be on the papers so those taking the exams may commit a few pieces of key information to memory rather than having to understand a concept. Exams are to the stage now where you will get marked down for using an alternate method to the syllabus standard for reaching an answer even if it is the correct one and your workings are clearly shown. Exams are very much a man made thing that are only really self serving. They do not prepare you for anything in the real world nor offer any useful skills to contribute to society. By using exams as the primary way to measure the effectiveness of education and students then we turn the who system into something that prepares you to do well in exams rather than educate you. Certainly there is overlap between the two but it will distort the efficiency much like trade barriers distort the efficiency of the global economy.

The next point for concern is the subjects themselves which seem to be aimed at providing skills for the highest earning jobs rather than offering skills more in proportion to the kinds of job available and required throughout society. Practical skills are taught less in schools than purely academic ones and the scope to vary what one studies is small for younger age groups. It seems to be the accepted view that those who don't get on well at school go off somewhere and learn a practical trade. It is almost as if the school system is weeding out the less academic people from the very start and not even bothering to cater for their needs, leaving it to independent bodies to offer certification for various tasks that are much more integral to the operation of society than most of the top jobs down the academic path. Token subjects like design and technology and home economics or whatever more politically correct name they have been given these days can be taken by those still in compulsory education but they take much the same format as the other more academic subjects with coursework and written exams.

Intellect is a very difficult thing to describe and even harder to measure, it is comprised of many different elements including coordination, logic, linguistic, social, memory, creativity, speed, spacial awareness and visualisation, reasoning, experience and many more. Academic achievements only measure a couple of these properties of intelligence, which is already only a portion of what a grade represents. All the aspects of intellects are of great use to society and in performing jobs and enriching peoples lives but the education system chooses to focus on a few. This is certainly problematic in that it will be wasting good potential but it is also damaging to those who are not suited to the education system but are still by all accounts bright, skilled and capable people. I personally know some good examples of these people who have a chip on their shoulder because they think society views them as stupid resulting from their lack of academic achievement. These people have become blacksmiths at the very top of the trade, skilled plumbers at a young age or professional gamers, none of which are the trades of someone without intellect and ability. My feeling is that these people would be much happier had the school system nurtured their kinds of skill alongside nurturing academic skills in those others with more aptitude and interest in those subjects. Had they achieved the same level of grade as other students in school but in different areas that reward different things then they would have not been disenfranchised with the system and felt outcast by society. I suspect they would have had direction earlier in their lives and so wasted less time post school to find their feet and would be happier as a result.

Education increases knowledge and understanding which in turn increases the freedom of an individual. Compulsory education is somewhat ironic in that you remove a freedom in order to increase freedom. In an ideal world I think there is no need of compulsory education, people would appreciate the benefit of being educated, education would be of better quality and enjoyability (this is not anything against the teachers I have had in my life many of whom did remarkably well given the confines of the system they worked within and are, by all accounts, great teachers, this essay is about the problems inherent with the way society operates its education system and not those within it), and not being forced to go would make students appreciate it much more. I am not sure how viable it would be to make education non-compulsory in a country like the UK. I fear those who were disenfranchised, in bad schools, have disinterested guardians or who were not very academic

would suffer and end up with lower grades, higher conviction rates, lower employment rates and other such statistics. In effect non compulsory education would likely widen the wealth gap in the UK and similar countries. Before a society could make education optional it would need to boast an excellent school system and more importantly it would need to have all members of society above a certain level of poverty. This level of poverty I have discussed before in other essays and may be defined as the lowest income above where criminal activities are not a more economically viable alternative. This is easy to describe but very hard to measure or calculate as it not only depends on the financial returns of minimum wage employment verses crime but all of the externalities as well such as the risks, the time investments, the social status and so forth would need to be factored in. Assuming 99.99% of your society is above that theoretical level of poverty then you are in great position and could make it better still by making education non-compulsory.

Other improvements that could be made to the education system are much harder to clearly describe and are somewhat more ambiguous. I would like to see more choice of subjects and specialization at a younger age with the ability to completely drop all conventional academic studies after they have basic maths and the ability to read and write. I would like to see better measures of performance in subjects that are as close as possible to the students aptitude in that subject. I would like to see more things taught in schools that have no bearing on any subject and are purely for the benefit of living within a society such as how the political system works, how the economy works, some psychology so as to foster a greater understanding of self in people, how to gut a fish, change a tire and wire a plug. If I were to write a curriculum it would have only basic science, maths and English and then lots of more useful life skills such as those previously mentioned. It would then have a selection of options including all the present academic studies such as Biology and History as well as many more that are much more removed from writing and facts such as gardening. Things like music, art, drama, D&T and home economics would have very little in the way of examinations or academic portions and would rely on the performances and produce of the students to succeed. I would like to see teachers rated by ex student review and life achievements and I would like to see students rated most by their teachers who have had the most chance to observe their skills and potential. Certainly this brings with it new problems such as favouritism but it does align the incentives and information most closely.

Education is a great thing for society as a whole and for individuals as well. It increases the freedom of people and allows society to carry on with the skills, experience and understandings of our ancestors. There is no doubt that it is a useful and worthy endeavour nor that it is of most benefit to the young. Much of what is done in the aim of providing education is based on tradition and the kinds of education that were required historically. Not so long ago education was only available to the privileged few who would never need any trades or practical skills and so it is easier to see why the academic subjects formed as they did. Society has changed faster than the education system has evolved to suit it and now everyone goes to school yet we all still focus learnings on what only a few can end up making use of. The growth of population and the increase in school attendance on top of that has caused the need to standardize and institutionalise which has lead to the focus on examinations rather than education. History offers us a great explanation as to why there are problems in the system and is an extra confirmation that there is no important reason for it to be as it now is.

I listed many of the changes I would make to improve the system yet gave no real justifications for those changes or how they could be sensibly implemented. Some may be more obvious than others but I shall take this opportunity to expand on a few so as to pain a more colourful picture. I discussed a lack of choice of subject matter that increases as age decreases in students. The only purely academic skills that seem important to operate within society are basic maths, literacy and a grasp of some of the fundamental aspects of the physical sciences. Even these are not essential for all lines of work although would still likely be helpful. Most of these skills could be covered by quite an early age and then dropped all together should the student wish. Other subjects would make use of the skills and reinforce them from different perspectives and English, maths and the sciences would still be subject options for those that take interest in them. Education is about engaging minds and the best way to do that is by being interesting. Students are forced to take subjects they find dull and teachers are forced to teach within strict guidelines (largely to get uniformity for examinations). This makes the experience less fun for both groups of people but is a problem that can be approached at two ends. By giving students a wide choice of subjects to choose from that could include plenty of seemingly non-educational, non-useful or low demand topics such as game strategy, soap opera study or costume design, then you increase the chances of having interested students. By relaxing curriculum guidelines the teachers themselves can cherry pick the bits they find most interesting, the enthusiastic teacher is far easier to learn from and engage with. At younger ages attention spans are shorter but there is much more scope to learn ancillary skills alongside the intended ones. Simply by having a group of youths engaged and involved in a new task they will be learning a great deal of different things. You learn through experience and so schools should offer a wealth of experience, sadly much of my memories of school involve being bored sat in a selection of repetitive classrooms.

Roughly speaking I would group those within compulsory school age into three categories based on age. The first would be very much as it is now and ideally would end when the basic maths and literacy was achieved. In this period I would not offer any optional subjects nor aptitude testing or grading. The middle group would suddenly have lots of options as to their studies and these would be the most relaxed and fun seeming ones although a mild form of performance/aptitude grading would start to be given for subjects that the students have chosen. The only subjects I would presently think wise to maintain as compulsory are those which encourage physical activity such as PE. I would however like to offer a much wider range of ways in which students could be physically active and so those people who were no good at things like football could do horse riding or hiking or military style training. A light restriction on choice could be something like a minimum of two physical subjects to be included within a students selection. The third and final group would also have only their chosen subjects however these would be a little more restricted than the middle group. Likely there would be less subjects as the detail to which they were taught would be increased and thus require more time. A requirement to maintain some physical studies seems sensible but an additional requirement to do a minimum number of “useful” subjects would also be included. These useful subjects would be aimed specifically at providing the skills required by specific industries or groups of industry. An example could be a course on electrics that would obviously lead to the role of electrician, or chemistry which could lead to a selection of roles in the chemical, oil (sadly arms) and pharmaceutical industries. This group would be from around thirteen years to around sixteen.

After this point education would still be offered and would continue to narrow down subjects allowing people to specialise. Some might have all they need by this point and enter the working world instead of further education however external qualifications would be brought in house as much as possible. This is very similar to present non compulsory education however I would focus more on trying to keep the institutions highly linked. An example of this would be those doing practical intern-ships and those doing an academic degree would share the university experience and have the option to move to a different place from the family home and live in student accommodation cheaply together. This would help to stop alienating portions of society and break down the English class system a little further as well as some of the other suggestions.

Even these few changes I have suggested and described in slightly more detail would be very hard to implement in one sweeping change and as with everything in society would offer the best results if it were gradually moved towards with incremental adjustments. The relaxing of the curriculum could be quite easily accomplished without too much upset. More subjects could be offered slowly and compulsory ones could be made optional. A number of subjects are slowly changing how they are examined with increasing weight given to coursework. There are plenty of drawbacks to coursework as the only real alternative to exams however it is a step in the right direction giving options to how people can have themselves assessed and play to their strengths. These changes are all practical with our current system in place and would pave the way for the more complex changes suggested. One of the biggest requirements to improve the education system is funding. Ideally teachers would be paid a comparable wage to doctors and have a lower burden of bureaucracy to attract the best candidates and allow them to focus on the purpose of their job. Offering loads of subjects that are interesting to youths is also going to be both expensive and logistically more challenging. It may be the case that teachers of the more fringe subjects are based at more than one school. Society needs to alter its economy in order to channel enough funds at the education system to make most of these suggestions sensible in state schools. The perfect education system requires the perfect society so as to have sufficient funding, the appropriate incentives to achieve , the best learning environment, high levels of social trust and so forth. Many would likely argue that education is the way towards a perfect society but at least it doesn't need to be perfect to point you in the right direction. We should improve society for the sake of improving education and at the same time we should improve education to improve society.

The Wisdom of Animals

Humans are as much animals as dogs and lions are. The title of this essay relates only to non-human animals but common language usage has made technical accuracy and conveying meaning hard to achieve simultaneously in an Orwellian manner. An element of this essay will relate to what humans could stand to learn from animals however for the most part it will paint a picture of the character of animals and how they perceive the world. Animals, even excluding humans, is a rather broad category and my experience is primarily with dogs, then cats and to a much lesser extent other common mammalian pets and farm animals. All animals seem to broadly share character and intellect potentials with those other animals that share genes with them, the greater the overlap the greater the similarities. When put in such terms it seems obvious however it is easy to overlook the fact that most mammals share most of their genetic material and thus many observations of one species with overlap with observations of others.

The holistic approach to knowledge is useful in many ways but ensures you lack credibility in any specific field. It is also one of the hardest challenges faced by people to correctly assess ones own level of proficiency at something. Many people are arrogant and make excuses for their failings and many other people are overly humble and lack the confidence to perform to their potentials. It is a pretty impossible challenge without the use of quantitative comparisons with your peers. For running the 100m sprint you can be fairly assured of where you stand relative to most other people with a rather small margin of error. As things move away from directly relative quantitative measurements such as intelligence or how funny we are or how good at football we might be it all gets a lot more complicated and subjective. The only way to assess if someone really is the best footballer in the world is to see if most people think they are. As you compare yourself to people of a similar level it gets much harder to say who is better and we begin to rely more on the opinions of the masses to make these assessments.

When you don't know where you stand relative to the population on any given thing it is hard to then have much confidence in your opinions or abilities. When you cannot use logic to assess the validity of something you are forced to base your conclusions on how others receive them. There are many opinions on how to treat, train and behave towards animals, much of which has been used to good effect even when approaches differ. This just tells us various approaches work towards various ends. I have always thought I was pretty good with animals however never really had much confidence in my methods or my relative strength compared to others. I have always been around animals such as the pets of friends and family but than is a very closed circle and so any information gleaned from it is relatively meaningless. I might be great compared to my friends and family with animals however still be poor with them overall when compared to the broader society.

I have now been working full time with other peoples pets for over a year and have owned my own cat for over four years. In this time I have got to spend time with dog and cat owners from all demographics and mingled with lots of other professionals who work with animals full time. My suppressed suspicions regarding how good I am with animals has been given sufficient peer support for me to have a great deal of confidence in my opinions and methods. There are now only two topics to which I feel I have any claim to have an expert opinion on. For all my essays on philosophy and economics and so forth I am very much dabbling in the subjects likely way out of my depth to people who have dedicated lifetimes to studying. The first area to which I think my opinion should hold a lot of credibility despite my holistic approach to things is obviously animals, specifically dogs. The second is games but that has little baring on this essay and would require a justification as to why that is at least as long which I shall spare the reader.

I am not very good at expressing why I am good at something. Being autistic makes me less responsive to other peoples beliefs, desires and opinions. Some I don't understand or cannot empathise with, other times I simply miss the signals people frequently use to express something, and at all times I am not that influenced by others. I don't tend to be all that competitive, nor does the opinion of someone I don't know bother me assuming I am not in same way causing them harm. Pride and shame are two emotions I suspect I am less influenced by than the average person. This means I have little use for the skill of making myself seem good in the eyes of others. I always hate trying to do so as well so you will simply have to trust that I am really rather good with animals. Dogs seem to love me and we tend to have pretty good mutual respect and understanding. This I believe qualifies me to give an opinion based essay on my observations of animal qualities that I hope carries some weight just on the basis of my claims.

I suspect my autism is in part responsible for my love of animals in the first place although not exclusively. Being brought up around them is likely an essential ingredient in my development. I have always struggled with language as I demonstrated right at the start of this essay. I need things to be exact and specific for me to grasp them and language is a very imprecise way of conveying meaning. I can talk all day long about the tactics of a game to a total stranger as the parameters are clearly defined and there is an aim. I am however really awkward when it comes to small talk or socialising in large groups. I don't know where the conversation is going or what the point of it is and so frequently some make faux pas when I encounter something I have not before and don't know an appropriate response.

This is where animals come in as the one main defining difference between us and animals is the complexity and reliance on our language that we have developed and used to conquer the world. Animals still communicate however they do not use language or the concept of it in any way. Most think of language as audible sounds that relate to certain meanings (which animals have too) and visual signals that relate to those sounds so that language my be preserved and transferred by other means (which animals also have, although we can preserve our symbols on materials in the form of writing where animals only gesture with their bodies thus are unable to preserve the message through time). The fundamental difference is that we think in words using our language where as animals do not. Some people seem to attribute the actions of animals purely to instinct and reflex so as to remove the uncomfortable concept of thought without words. It is clear that animals pause to consider things and can cognitively reason in much the same way we can, it just very hard for us to imagine the process this occurs by as it is so alien to us due it occurring without words. I appreciate the company of animals as all of the difficult, inaccurate, and stressful exchanges of words are forgone. This allows me to fully relax while gaining many of the advantages of social interaction. Meeting new people is difficult and getting to a point where you can have a relaxed relationship most of the time takes a while where as it can be almost instantaneous with animals.

I mentioned earlier that intelligence was a very hard quality to measure and is the kind of topic interesting enough to warrant an essay of its own at some stage. Very few people would argue that dogs are cleverer than humans and I am not one of those people however I think a lot of people would also put most of that difference in intelligence down to the inability to speak. We are much worse at smelling and hearing than dogs however we don't use this as a measure of intelligence. I would argue that they are along closer lines to the ability to use language than is often given credit to. I am more of the opinion than intelligence is for the most part the level of activity in the mind much like the level of physical fitness is linked to the amount of exercise that is done. Stupidity is much more the result of mental laziness than it is a trait we are born with. Those that enjoy discovery and ask lots of questions are those that grow up the smartest. There are many people who are considered intelligent by our academic standards who seem to achieve those results much like martial arts experts achieve their proficiency – muscle memory. They work hard repetitively on a subject until it requires no real thought to obtain the answer in the same way that a martial arts expert will reflexively respond to an attack. These people do not necessarily have what I would deem as great intellect. They can seem dull or vacant compared to people who have active minds, regardless of their academic aptitude.

Using the measure of mental activity combined with the ability to problem solve as the basis for describing intellect I would say I know of many dogs and a few cats that are brighter than plenty of people I have met. I am more able to engage with them and feel as if my actions are better understood and observed. I have been outwitted by numerous animal while playing with them which is both a humbling and pleasing experience. The inability to use language means that the scope of animal intellect is far narrower than humans but it most certainly does not mean it is absent nor much different to our own.

It is the calm grasp and understanding of reality as understood without words that inspires me so greatly with animals. Even trying to express this in words seems a little futile. Animals only understand things as much as they need to, an example of this is cause and effect which animals use to their advantage however we have taken this further and generated a concept which we have encapsulated in the words past and future. Animal understanding allows them to use cause and effect to satisfy a want they have in the present, our concept of future allows us to have wants based on an idea of the future. An animal responds to biologically evolved desires however we generate our own convoluted desires simply because we have language and they do not. This simplicity is rewarding and fulfilling and has much to do with why animals seem happier than people despite us having a much more luxurious and free life style.

If you managed to watch the Human Planet documentary or have spent time with indigenous hunter gatherer people at some point in your life than you can corroborate my observations that they appear much more content, happy and fulfilled than the average person you see in a suit walking about. They may have language but they do not have the resources or technology to spend time on much beyond seeing to the biological needs their bodies have. This and animal motives being based purely on biological requirements suggest that the secret to happiness is to focus on satisfying the needs your body expresses to you without words such as hunger.

Another thing that a lack of language helps animals with is open mindedness. Animals use association in reasoning much like we do however we use words to denote groups which make them conceptually inseparable which animals do not. If the only man a dog ever met beat it then the next man the dog met it would fear expecting another beating. If however the second man is nothing but nice to the dog they will become separate in the mind of the dog. Future men may be met with cation as a lesson from the first man however once proved to be kind would not be a problem. With people we may grow to dislike men because of something done by one however nothing we can do can change the fact that all new men are linked by this descriptive group term in our language. We are more biased by our experiences than animals and less willing to let go of the grievance than animals are all of which I attribute to language. The word man is a Platonic idea that is unchanging where as actual men have similarities but are clearly all different. If you associate with the word rather than the thing you will find it harder to escape prejudice 

Animals seem to communicate by conveying meaning through actions and expressions. Meaning is a term I have used before and I have a very specific idea in mind when I use it in this context. Both with a desire and with an understanding there is something you have in your mind that is outside of words. When we might come to communicate that or reason about it we will quickly start converting it into words and so lose sight of this wordless concept in our minds. The easiest way to experience what I am on about is to think of a process you understand the complete workings of. Your understanding of that thing is simultaneous in that you are aware of all the interactions involved in the process at once. Many examples of such processes are cyclic and have no discernible beginning or end. It always takes a little longer to unravel this understanding so as to be able to covey it to another using language with an appropriate start and end point. That thing in your mind that understands but has no words, because it is simultaneous and not linear like language, is what animals think in. We have it but are much less aware of it because our conversion to language is so rapid and natural.

Although it may be harder to get an animal to understand you when they do so it is always instant. An understood command or comment is responded to the moment you have started the process of giving it. In fact for animals the verbal bit is largely just a signal that a command is being given, it is all about tone, expression, body language and how your meaning is conveyed in those things that register in the animal. Although a little off topic I have observed behaviours in animals that are hard to explain using current science and other animal owners have experienced similar things. Words like telepathy have a stigma around them as they have been painted in a light that is hard to stomach. I would not like to taint these observations with that word despite it being the closest to what can be observed. A dog will respond to information it seemingly could not have known even accounting for their incredible sense of smell. My parents dog would reliably go and wait at the door 15 minutes before my rather would return from work which could be any time within a seven hour window. He could come from any direction and have his time affected by a ridiculous number of variables. The most logical explanation is that my dad knew when he was about 15 minutes away which would trigger some sort of nearly home feeling which would somehow be picked up on by the dog despite the vast distance (he would be driving home and so 15 minutes could mean he was over 15 miles away). If such telepathy was possible it would only relate to those things that could be thought without words, some understandings, some intentions and some feelings. I could always tell if my parents had had an argument when arriving home from the dog. It is hard to put into words how the dog would act differently so that I would know but I always did and it never failed. The same dog took me two full carriages along a noisy train to free a man trapped inside the toilet there. The dog may have been able to hear the man calling but how did it know they were calls for help compared to any other type of call. To my knowledge the dog had no experience of coming to some ones aid, even just with his presence. To me this implies he had some experience of what it feels like to be trapped and could interpret this understanding from the individual in the toilet and then empathise with it.

The idea of animals being telepathic in some manner (which if it were the case then it would be supported by science, and as we don't yet have suitable science to explain it seems like quite a good place to be conducting scientific investigation) aside it can be said with certainty that animals are very receptive to things that they can grasp and relate to. They are also much quicker on the uptake of such things that people are. If you want to gauge a person or the mood in somewhere the best place to look is at any animals around. From their actions in the context of the situation you can draw some very fast conclusions and from their general character you have a window into the character of the owner. There are three reasons why it is easier to learn from an animal than a person. The first is simply that when you do understand a dog they have not had to explain themselves with words and so the whole process is physically quicker. This may not be exclusive to animals as people we know well or common cultural expressions can instantly convey something to us as well but I certainly find it much more frequent in animals. The second reason is that animals have very little need of Machiavellian politics and are much better served by accurate communication than deceit. Animals are honest and wear their feelings on their sleeve as it were. People are much more self conscious about open expression and often wear metaphorical masks in an attempt to give off a better impression of themselves. This makes it harder to know the true intent and motivation of people compared to animals (this is as well as their being more complexity involved in human actions as we have our own constructions for desires as well as purely biological ones). One of the best tips I can offer for dealing with animals is to be entirely genuine when you do, if one keeps up their public mask while dealing with animals it sends confusing mixed signals and engenders mistrust. Lying is really an artifact of language, in the animal kingdom the comparison would be being sneaky and avoiding detection while stealing a bit of food or something. Words have made lies an art form in human cultures and are used to all manner of ends. Being sneaky is very honest when it is discovered as the intention is clear, where as lies manipulate the way in which we understand and interpret things which leads to a cloudier view on life for us humans who have to account for and filter communications for the lies. 


The third reason that animals are so good at conveying certain kinds of information is that they very much live in the moment. As I have tried to describe earlier, they understand cause and effect but only make use of it for things desired in the present and have no extended concept of past and future. This point is the crux of the essay and is I think the main lesson to be learnt from animals. Describing them as hedonistic seems rather over the top but they do live life as it occurs for them. They don't dwell on the past or stress about the future and appear far more content as a result. Some might put this down as ignorance is bliss but that would be unfair. Animals learn from experience and are capable of using cause and effect to their advantage and so are clearly not ignorant of past and future. My interpretation is that animals without language find any extension of past and future to be irrelevant to their lives and are thus superfluous things not worth worrying about. For those people that find themselves comfortably satisfied in every biological sense yet still discontent with life, I cannot think of a better remedy than to think like an animal. Learn from your experience, plan your actions to the point of their intended effect and think no more of things in your past or your future. 


Much as I would like to end this essay on that last sentence I feel I need to make some apology for the bitty and vague feel of it. The topic of animals is vast and from my experience alone would be worth a book to fully cover. I was trying to pluck one key aspect of the whole interlinked subject and express it without needing to go into the novel length detail. As such I am not sure how convincing my arguments and observations are as they are not fully backed up. I also find it very hard to convey things that are intuitively known to me as they are with animals. If I work something out with logic I can then explain it however this is not the case with interacting with animals for the most part and so my descriptions have been wishy washy and unscientific. Much of my justifications for my beliefs are purely observed and unless you take my word for it then they hold little value. As many of my claims cannot be quantified and thus demonstrated all I can suggest is that you make your own observations and see if they agree with my findings. I hope if nothing else that some readers will view animals in a different light and with more respect. We are more alike than we would like to think and while in technological terms our language has put us at a huge advantage over the other animals in emotional terms I would suggest it holds us back. 

Sensitising

We frequently hear about how video games, TV and films are desensitising people in modern society. People worry that violence in fiction will begin to manifest in reality as people are more familiar with it. It is not just violent or criminal behaviours but also increasingly graphic sexual content that is being depicted although I am unsure of what this gives cause to worry about. It is fair to say that the exposure to this sort of content has increased at a very fast pace over not that large a time frame which is why there is such a fuss about the changes. Had this transition from highly censored media to highly graphic media been slow and smooth over hundreds of years no one would have noticed.

I don't really think there is any cause for concern in regards to desensitising people. I for one have played many violent games and enjoyed many violent films and have no urges to mimic any of those experiences. The thrill of entertainment is enhanced when it gives an experience that is not obtainable in the real world. It is only by acknowledging that an action is bad or not to be done that any interest arises in a program or game that is violent or criminal. Our morbid fascination with crime and violence is a direct result of a well aligned moral compass. If anything violent games are a good outlet for negative feelings and reduce the likelihood of violence in people. It would be very interesting to run a corroborating study to see if there is any relationship between the increase in the availability of porn and a reduction in sexual assaults and offences.

While I don't think desensitising is cause for much concern it does rather distract from the less obvious but more concerning issue of sensitising. This is the exact opposite of desensitising and may be seen to varying extents throughout western society. A simple but easy to appreciate example of where we are becoming less tolerant and less able to cope is with our connection to food. The extent of our industry and division of labour means fewer and fewer people deal with many raw ingredients. Skinning a chicken or gutting a fish are fairly gruesome tasks that we can easily avoid with supermarkets, butchers and restaurants. In many western peoples minds there is meat and there are animals but we try not to think about the process in between. This makes some of us often unwilling to eat food that resembles its animal counterpart and unable to cope when food must be cooked from raw ingredients (this is generally only the case when we elect to go to less developed areas of the world for whatever reason and must live as they do). Being sensitised towards clean and easy food is not really a problem in western society and is only apparent when taken out of that environment. In an apocalypse scenario or social collapse those sensitised towards food will have a harder time of it but that is about the extent of the problem.

There are other more pernicious examples of sensitising that have more impact on western society than changes in diet do. Pain and death are things that we have tried to hide away from view and experience. Our society deals with the death and pain very quickly with hospitals, crematoriums and medicines. When we die we are not left lying around for all to see, our dead are not left on display but promptly disposed of. If we are taken in pain we go to the doctor and expect something to be done about that right away. Certainly we are aware that people die, we see it in our media and we often know of people who have died but we have very little experience of it compared to at any time prior to around the 1950's or those that live in harsher countries. Some notable people of great wealth have gone mad with their quest to avoid pain and death and these are extreme examples however if it could be measured there would be an increase in the sensitivity towards pain and death in western societies.

Another area in which we are more sensitive is towards taking offence. Not only does it appear as if more and more people think it is their right to not be offended but there is also much greater tribalism associated with people taking offence at things although in shall not presently discuss this tangential aspect. There are many reasons for this trend in taking more offence as with the trend in becoming sensitised towards death, pain and food. The main one that is obvious in each of the categories is the improvements to society and technology that have occurred. Life has become easier, more comfortable and more convenient. As hardships are done away with the natural balance and relative perspective will realign to make less serious or significant hardships a greater concern. This is why taking offence is the most recently observable trend in terms of when it started to gather momentum. We started to take offence at things when our lives become free from any other more serious concerns. A couple of hundred years ago being called unpleasant things would be the least of most peoples worries.

As with food, being more sensitive towards death, pain and offence will make people a little more dependant on society as it presently stands and a little less able to cope should society suddenly change. This is not really that big of a problem and is just worth being aware of. A rapid change in society is unlikely and regardless of how unprepared people are most will adapt pretty fast if forced to. Keeping in touch with how life for people has evolved and human roots is useful and allows us to appreciate our lives better but is not something we should require of people nor spend too much time in educating. So if the physical aspects of the areas in which we are becoming sensitised are not really a social concern why did I describe some of the trends as pernicious?

It is the effect on the character of people that is the main problem with the sensitising of a society. In some respects it is alike to spoiling a child or pet which leads to less tolerant and greedier tendencies. By pandering to peoples fear and dislike of death, pain and offence we are suggesting we have a right to avoid these inevitable things in life. This in turn creates false expectation and disproportional responses to pain, death and offence. The effects of a sensitised society are not likely to play a major part in the development of an individual nor do I have any proof or evidence that an avoidance of the realities of life are to the detriment of society. I certainly don't suggest that we allow people to die more easily or stop medical treatment in the name of character building.

All I would suggest is that perspective is an important thing to retain and any ways that we are able to help education and experience provide it should be utilised. With death we should let our kids have pets so they can appreciate death, they should be encouraged to stay with people on their death bed to prepare them best for the inevitable end of life and not have the truth obscured by cliched ambiguities such as they have gone to a better place. In a slightly less morbid vein they should also visit farms and slaughter houses as part of their curriculum so as to gain an appreciation for the process of making food.

Pain is a little more fundamental and is required to appreciate pleasure. We should seek to reduce ours and others pain despite the success of such actions having a sensitising effect. Nor should we inflict it in order to educate or provide experience. The hope is that a more pragmatic approach to the less integral aspects of sensitising such as death and food will foster better attitudes towards pain.

Offence is linked to free speech and would require a huge tangent to fully cover. Legislating offence is very hard and freedom of speech is desirable but so is stopping any intent to offend or incite. There are practical benefits to preprepared foods and health care however I see few benefits for the level of protection against offence we have reached in present society.

While the concept of sensitising is pretty insignificant when compared to other problems in society is it interesting that it is barely discussed and that the opposite trend is instead criticized. Longer life expectancies and greater quality of life are a great measure of the progress of society and one of the great benefits of living as such. Have we become a little blinded by the advantages of these improvements so as to overlook any possible drawbacks that may come with them? It is always good to question things that seem good as well as bad, most things contain bits of both and people wouldn't agree on which are which anyway. Even when it is found that the good greatly outweighs the bad it is still useful information as the solution is rarely to stop a good thing but to do more things to mitigate the bad. We have not stopped driving but cars have become cleaner and safer and will hopefully continue to evolve to maximise their benefits and minimise their detriment to society.

Dangerous Freedoms

There are many examples of actions we can do that do not necessarily effect on the freedoms of others if they are done with care. These actions, which I shall call 'dangerous freedoms', have the potential to harm others and remove their freedoms if not properly performed. If one accepts that maximising the freedom of individuals is a good thing then it is reasonable to allow dangerous freedoms as long as extra provision is given to ensure misuse is minimised.

There are three clear groups of examples that fall into the greater category of dangerous freedoms for which society presently treats each differently. The three groups I wish to discuss are powerful tools, drugs and the ownership of animals. Each of these larger umbrella groups contains many different kinds of actions which vary in their potential danger and therefore need different treatments. The specifics also tend to vary from society to society with certain things permissible in some places and not others. The only thing that links all of these together is that with correct use there is no reason why anyone else should be harmed yet with incorrect use there is a reasonable change of causing harm or the loss of freedoms of others occurring.

The ownership of animals is one of the more vague categories in how it is dealt with in most societies. There is also a huge scope for the threats various different animals pose. A gerbil, or even the mistreatment of a gerbil is unlikely to cause harm or the loss of freedom to a person. (Animal rights are outside the scope of this essay, while I am against the mistreatment of animals I also take a pragmatic view in which I must accept the nature of the food chain and a priority towards society advantaging humans) While a gerbil is mostly harmless a dog is not. An untrained or mistreated animal that is capable of harming a person is a liability. There are some laws in place that relate to what happens when a dog or similar pet attacks a person but these are reactive and not proactive. Any one is able to get a dog regardless of their aptitude or understanding, they can then treat that animal entirely within the law, and even with love and affection, yet still incorrectly thus making it a liability to others.

Horses are far less liable to act aggressively than a dog but are much more powerful than both dogs and, more relevantly, people. Should a horse become scared by something it can buck and accidentally cause severe injury. In the case of horses it is the sensible use of them that is most important in preserving the freedoms of others. With dogs this also applies but it is the correct treatment and training that is most important in preserving the freedom of others. I have little experience with the most dangerous of animals such as lions as they are not commonly owned or encountered in day to day life. Suffice it to say that it is likely you would need far greater efforts and vigilance to ensure the freedoms of others while owning a lion. It is reasonable to conclude that each species is different and requires a different level of provision in society. This sounds like it is lots of legislation however this really need not be the case. The attempts of current law to be all encompassing while remaining as generic as possible leave us unprotected and unclear.

As with animals, and indeed drugs, the difference in potential danger from tool to tool is vast, probably the greatest if taken literally. A drinking straw is not very dangerous even if used maliciously, while a nuclear bomb is. Where do we draw the line at what point a tool is dangerous? A butter knife is not dangerous while a cleaver is. There is a big difference between tools and animals that is important in understanding the intention of the dangerous freedoms concept. A cleaver is only really dangerous to others if used as a weapon which requires the intent of the wielder. The owner of a dog may have no intention of causing harm to another yet is still responsible if it happens. Many tools may be used to harm others intentionally, it is only those which are liable to cause harm unintentionally that concern us or may be considered a dangerous freedom. The car is a perfect example of this, we can intend to run someone over and this is called murder or we can cause an accident through incompetence and still kill someone. We already have ways to approach disincentivising murder within society, I am concerned with ways to pre-emptively minimise unintentional and accidental loss of freedoms through the use of tools and equipment. Certainly there is still a slightly vague line where improper use of a tool could cause harm to someone else. You might crash into someone on a skateboard and hurt them a bit but the odds of causing them serious injury are minimal.

Guns are a controversial point of contention which is mostly based on the intended purpose of guns in general rather than that of any given individual. I am against guns, I have no desire to shoot one or own one however I have no sound argument to use against the ownership and use of guns. Not being allowed to own a gun is the denial of a freedom, while this is a freedom I personally do not desire it would be ignorant of me to impose this view on others. There are many practical and recreational uses for guns and with my high value assigned to freedom I would be hypocritical to renounce guns based on my prejudices. The common argument against ownership of guns seems rather insubstantial, that the allowance of people to own guns increases the amount they are used to harm people. The gun is just a tool, the intention to use it maliciously is all the person and banning guns does little to change a persons intent, only the manner in which they may exact this. Banning guns is overlooking the root of the problem of gun crime ( which is just a problem of crime) and simultaneously removing the freedoms of those that have no ill intent. This is going off topic a little as I have stated dangerous freedoms are not about those tools which are dangerous if used maliciously. Guns fall into both categories; those tools that make for good weapons to exact malicious intent and those tools like cars that are inherently quite dangerous to use for others in the vicinity. The question regarding dangerous tools is how we can maximise the allowable usage of them while minimising the risk to others which I shall come to shortly.

Drugs come in many guises from medical use to recreational use and now even performance enhancing uses. Some are prescription only, some are illegal, some have age restrictions and others are not even really given credit for being a drug and treated like any other commodity. Different cultures and religions have slightly different takes one what is acceptable and what is not but overall the consensus is pretty aligned worldwide. Alcohol is one of the most variable in its treatment by different cultures and also one of the most consumed drugs. The arguments against recreational drug usage differ somewhat to those concerning tools and animals. They are not focused around the effects they have on others directly very much. You do not frequently hear people saying that the use of LSD is bad because there is a chance someone under the influence would attack someone they otherwise would not. The arguments are either superficial and/or macroscopic such as illegal drug usage brings crime to an area. This is as circular an argument as you could wish for as, rather obviously, if you criminalize an activity then the areas associated with that activity will have higher crime rates. Another common argument against recreational drug use is the harm that usage can cause a person (which varies tremendously from drug to drug). This argument holds little weight with me as it it rather like saying we cannot do anything dangerous. Lots of extreme activities and sports are much more likely to result in the injury of the partaking person than drug use would be.

Rather than the dangers of drugs to health people might argue against the compulsive nature of them and that once addicted the freedom of choice is lost. This is a trickier argument but does not apply across the board with drugs. Some are not addictive at all, some are physically addictive, some are only addictive to a portion of people and most can become psychologically addictive to those with the appropriate dispositions. As far as I am concerned only those which can cause a physical addiction in people are those which can be said to be the root cause of denying freedoms as a result of compulsion. These drugs should be treated with greater caution by society and there should be more effort to educate about the dangers. It seems counter-intuitive however to deny a person the freedom to choose to do something that in turn might deny their freedoms. (by inference of this argument you can correctly conclude I am also in favour of euthanasia, which is the only place I have found my moral arguments to differ from those of Kant) While we should take note of the issues concerning health and drug use and their addictive properties and take every measure to protect against them in society I don't see these arguments as any reason to prohibit drug use of any kind.

The strongest argument against recreational drug use in society is the loss in productivity one could potentially link with drug usage. Most recreational drugs make people unable to perform tasks optimally (or even close to) while under the influence, and often for a duration afterwards too. Some are rumoured to be so good as to make real life seem unexciting thus giving people a sense of apathy towards society. While I am sure plenty of studies could link drug usage with all sorts of things that are detrimental to society I think that they are only the result of the social conditions and systems and not the drugs themselves. If drugs were legalized crime would diminish as the system would support the recreational drug economy and so it would not need to police itself. I have no proof of this as there are no studies that are not biased by society as it now stands. Should it be found that upon legalizing all drugs that society was suffering under the weight of unemployed, unhealthy and apathetic people with increasing drug usage then we would have at our disposal more reasonable and well founded arguments in favour of denying the freedom to use them. Most legal systems operate with the policy of innocent until proven guilty and I see no reason not to approach dangerous freedoms in the same way. To remain with the legal analogies I feel it is also our duty to ensure there is no reasonable doubt as to the damaging effects of drugs on society prior to giving up on the defence of them and relinquishing personal freedoms.

There are two ways to look at the economic cost of drug use and they are the monetary and the labour costs. The direct monetary cost upon society is one way and it accounts for damage cause by drunk people and money spent in the health service to tend to people with drug related problems etc. A figure can be arrived at which accounts for the cost of drug use in society, this can easily be matched by taxation upon drugs as it already is to a large extent. This does not mean that labours are no longer required in order to clean up after the recreational drug use but it does mean that it is not causing a net loss to the rest of society and its economies. If drug revenue (or to describe a better way, money flowing out from the drug economy in to others) equals or exceeds the social cost then there is nothing to complain about. Those who wish to partake in drug use would be covering the social ills with their own labours. This would remove those labours from society in that they would not be advancing science or building infrastructure however this is no different to any luxury commodity in society. Unless it is found reasonable to ban any labour inefficient luxury in society then provided the drug market is not a net drain on other areas of society there is no moral grounds to prevent it.

Having argued that in an ideal world there is no reason to deny people the freedom to play with guns and cars, have powerful animals and take recreational drugs on the basis of maximising freedoms our task is now to describe a method by which society can safeguard these freedoms most effectively. The approach society has taken towards controlling the use of dangerous tools is along the right lines, although a little heavy on the bureaucracy, and may be applied to the the ownership and use of dangerous animals and the use of drugs. The driving licence is as close to the perfect example as we are able to find. It relates specifically to the task of driving and the use of vehicles and is something that must be earned through demonstrating appropriate proficiency. Essentially society gives privileges to people who obtain a driving licence as the earning of that licence allows society the trust and confidence to offer that benefit to the licence holder. Any misuse of that trust allows the privileges to be revoked or suspended. There are many kinds of vehicles and applications for them and licenses have evolved to reflect this with extra requirements for those that are more demanding or come with greater responsibility. It is a pragmatic approach to group as many similar kinds of tool into one category to ease the complexity however it is also wise to ensure provision is given to all kinds of use and variation in tool so as to best prepare people and protect against accidents. A balance of these two pragmatic approaches to licensing dangerous freedoms would need to be arrived at through trial and error. This is great so long as any changes do not only add to the volume of legislation but also make an effort to remain streamlined and manageable.

I do not really need to spend any time discussing how a licence to use dangerous tools could be done as it already is. People learn the theory and practise the use to an acceptable standard at which point they are tested. Should they succeed they obtain the appropriate licence and are free to use the tool in question. All licensing must be malleable so as to move with the times both in terms of advancing technology and cultural developments. I cannot predict how animal ownership might look in several hundred years other that presuming it will remain similar. Regardless of this I can show roughly how it could look in the present and we can use our common sense to apply this to any changes that might arise.

Although cats and fish are very different animals I think it is pretty reasonable to encompass most species that are cat sized or smaller (with exceptions for things that are poisonous) into one group which is a license that could be earned while at school much like the cycling proficiency test (which never seemed to have any real official use in the UK other than pleasing schools). The small animal care licence would simply cover the basics of how to feed, clean, handle and so forth. More emphasis would be given to the more demanding animals such as cats. The popularity of animals as pets would also determine the emphasis given in this large group licence. Dogs are sufficiently dangerous, popular and specific enough to demand a licence just for them. This licence would involve a practical test as well as understanding some basic things about dogs (like the separate driving theory and practical tests). The practical aspect would be pretty informal with the aim of educating people rather than testing them and to give new dog owners the chance to spend time with dogs under the supervision of someone who understands how to treat them well. The theory tests would also not be aimed at catching people out or forcing them to commit to memory lots of text and rules but to get people familiar with the basics. Essentially then the licenses for animal ownership are very similar to driving licenses or other tool licenses. They are both prerequisites for use and/or ownership, they both involve a test to demonstrate proficiency which has both practical and theory aspects, they both require a little effort on the part of those trying to obtain licences to learn and practice a little prior to the tests and they may be rescinded as a result of improper use. The difference is only in how strenuous the testing and learning must be which should be related to the potential risks. This is why small animal care and cycling proficiencies can and could be done by children while still at school and take far less time to obtain than a pilots licence or a gun licence. Getting each separate licence, whether it be a group one or very specific, to be the appropriate length and challenge would be done through trial and error with good use of common sense.

Licenses for drug usage are a little harder to enforce and a little trickier when it comes to revoking privileges. The obtaining of the licence would be more straightforward than tools or animals as it each would require less theory in order to prepare people for them and the practical side of it would simply be a supervised trial sampling of the drug in question. The trial would allow people to experience the drug in a safe environment and observe any bad reactions. The problem is then how does society make these licences relevant after they have prepared people via the obtaining of them. Any attempts to rescind a license will only encourage a black market to arise where people can purchase drugs even without a licence. With the physically addictive drugs it would also be irresponsible of society to remove access from an addict. While I think honest drug education to the extent of a supervised experience of the drug is a huge benefit to society regardless of the drug laws it greatly reduces the significance of having achieved this via a licence if that licence is of little relevance itself. People learn best with incentive and so although drug education could still be done at schools it would have more impact if it actually related to the thing in question. At school there is no incentive to learn skills outside of exams.

Having established it is desirable to educate people about drugs in society and that this education will be best received if directly linked to obtaining that privilege it is time to return to the problem of making a drug licence meaningful once obtained. Certainly revoking them will only serve to increase the crime in society and so the role of the licence should be three different things. It should allow monitoring of drug usage, a mechanism to obtain support and degrees of convenience regarding the obtaining and use of drugs. The monitoring aspect doesn't relate much to the individual but would be of great use in tracking any crime and would also offer a wealth of data to be put to use in improving society further. The support side of it would be much like rehabilitation and could offer help dealing with addiction and potentially even a welfare minimal quantity of physically addictive drugs to addicts who were having financial difficulties. Having the support linked in with the licence would greatly encourage users to respect the terms of the licence. The most important side of the control would be the convenience factor. While it would be counter productive to entirely revoke all benefits of the licence it would be possible to make the obtaining and using of drugs less convenient, if only for periods of time. An example would be a person found to have done some bad things while drunk may as part of their penalty no longer be allowed to be drunk, purchase or consume alcohol in public places for a time. They would still be allowed to drink but would have to get their beverages from a shop and consume them in a private place. Potentially upper limits could be imposed on allowable quantities however this would also require great care so as not to spark off a large black market. I think regardless of how careful you are there will always be some people with reason to go outside the normal channels and as such there will always be a black market however by doing things sensibly this can be minute rather than commonplace. It would also be far easier to detect criminal activity with a well monitored market as licenses would allow.

The three groups of dangerous freedoms are a curious study in their own right. The arguments for or against them in society from a moral or philosophical point of view are basically identical however each group is treated differently with seemingly little logic beyond historical tradition. The ownership and use of tools is regulated sensibly and for the most part how I see it should be done in a utopian society. The ownership of animals is very lax in control even given the relative difference in danger posed by animals and cars or guns (the animals in this instance also have the argument of deserving a higher degree of ownership and care that inanimate tools but this does not relate to the freedoms of other people). On the other hand drug usage is far more controlled that tool usage in societies and is at the extreme opposite of animal control in this regard. I would use this as an example of how our societies tend towards systems that evolve easily out of those pre-dating them rather than logic or efficiency.

The crux of this essay is to show that we can maximise freedoms in society outside of criminal intentions. The legal system is in place to protect people (and their freedoms) against the ill will of others but it is not entirely appropriate to deal with the incompetence of others. Education is the only real solution to this and therefore maximising the effectiveness of that education by linking it to real tangible benefits associated with that education is the best way to increase the net freedom. While discussing this with my exceedingly liberal Engels I came under attack for suggesting I could increase freedom by imposing systems, rules and requirements which themselves diminish freedoms. The best analogy I have to show how this is the case if I have failed to demonstrate it sufficiently through the arguments in this essay would be to liken it to the application of breaks prior to taking a fast corner in a car so as to be able to have the fastest possible speeds.  

A Better Incentive for Socialism

Persuading people as to the merits of socialism due to its effect on those worse off in society is all well and good. It may touch some empathic part of of us and sound reasonable in practice, all the while the wealth gap widens. This is because the power to change things resides with those who have most power economically. We often like to call this group of people the one percent and think on it no further than that they are the wealthiest people in the world. It is far more complicated than that as the one percent includes people who have control in much more powerful financial institutions such as banks, oil companies and governments which are all in competition with each other in different ways. Companies are in direct competition with each other and governments have to appease both companies and their citizens. The system is set up so that if an institution fails to perform sufficiently well in economic terms, another will come along that can. This means that even though many of the one percent would like to see a better deal for the ninety nine percent their hands are tied by the system, should they ignore this restraint they will jeopardize not only themselves but their institution and all those that depend on it be they employees or citizens.

Our economic system has very little in the way of moral safeguard or moral incentives. Appealing to the empathy or morality of the one percent to enact change is futile and not because they are any more lacking in these areas that the ninety nine. It is because the economy works on profit and capital alone. Morality is only relevant in so far as it effects profits, it relies on many separate individuals changing their spending patterns to reflect their morality. This is happening more and more but is still mostly superficial in effect and inconsequential in volume.

In humans the urge to act with self interest is paramount, I am not suggesting we are all immoral and greedy. Think of it more like this, when you give to charity have you ever given so much that you can no longer yourself eat? Or course not, that would be insane and very few persons can claim to have acted that way. Every single action an individual takes they must sensibly consider themselves, in far less of their actions will they need to think of others. The whole economic system is founded on the trait in humanity for self interest. A mechanism borrowed from evolution which has been using it fruitfully for a very long time.

Regardless of the fact we may feel sympathy for those who suffer most from the machinations of the global economy our overriding self interest will be directed by the economic systems to keep the wealth gap widening. I can propose new economic systems that might solve the problem all I like however I predict that only obtaining the sympathy vote is not enough to change things. While I think that things will have to get a lot worse before they can start to get better regarding the global economy it is not worth giving up trying to avoid the need of a decline in society.

A more pragmatic form of persuasion would be directed at the self interest of those with the power to make changes and not at their sympathies. I shall first attempt to illustrate my argument quantitatively before exploring the social side of it. The old adage of not being able to place a value on human life is nonsense as it is exactly what our economic system does. If you take a persons life expectancy and see how many working hours they are statistically likely to have left and multiply that by the amount they are paid per hour you have the value that the economy places on that person. Ultimately this creates scenarios where groups of people know they are worth less than other people and also relative to goods and commodities. Rational decisions are made based on a risk and return basis. Sensible people don't do risky things with low chances of return. As the relative value of a life decreases their sensible risks are allowed to increase. Put in other terms the greater the relative poverty of a person the more things they will do that others would not. This works the same way in reverse to a certain extent but is less relevant to this point. A wealthy person may be able to throw a million at a high risk venture that is overall a low risk to them based on their overall worth. Rich people can afford to take some bigger risks in economic terms however in social terms this is not the case. Rich people have more security, more insurance, more health care and more all round protective measures than the poor because they have more to lose rather than simply because they can afford it. There must be some point at which a critical difference in wealth gap is reached where events such as the French revolution occur. Or a point at which people are willing to sacrifice their lives.

If those who have risen to wealth and power wish to continue to rely on the security of society to be able to enjoy their wealth and power they must ensure they are passing enough down the wealth chain to keep values within society aligned. Examples of tensions based on expanding wealth gaps exists all over the world today such as The Arab Spring, the London Riots, “the game” in many US cities and an increase in terrorist attacks from a variety of rogue individuals and organizations. The incentive for those in power to prevent social revolts is strong but it is hard to predict exactly how and when they would be detrimental. Not only is it unclear exactly what we should be trying to prevent but also how to go about doing so is very tricky. Obviously the overriding aim is to reduce the wealth gap however there are good and bad ways of doing this, both economically and socially. For the most part these will be topics of other essays however I can say for certain that the solution is not giving handouts to the poor nor is it denying the rewards for excellence. You stifle the industry of a nation by having too much in the way of welfare as there becomes little incentive to work. Similarly you stifle innovation by making the returns for success not worth the effort. At least as people begin to realise the effects of an increasing wealth gap the incentive to change and the power to make those change will reside in the same people. Let us hope collectively that the one percent are able to each do enough independently to remedy the problem as a whole. A master plan to solve the global economic ills seems so unlikely due to the competition between the one percent. 

A 1984 Utopia

A surprising irony has come to pass whereby the dystopian predictions of George Orwell have been turned on their head. Big Brother is watching them and not us. By them I mean people and institutions in positions of power such as government and large companies. Computers are here to stay so long as we can still make power to run them. This is because as they are just so very useful and the perfect complement to the human brain. The internet is in its infancy but will also remain so long as there are computers to form networks with. As wireless technology increases the internet becomes ever harder to regulate, the greater the attempts to do so the greater the efforts of resistance. Governments and large companies are able to come under great scrutiny through the sharing and acquisition of information across the internet. It is effectively just a numbers game, there are over seven billion people in the world, the vast majority of which do not work to protect the interests of underhand governments and companies. There will always be more and better hackers and people desiring to expose wrong doing by those in power than there will be trying to prevent them. Money is not the most important resource in such situations but time and the public has a lot more available time than powerful people can command. It is not practicable for any such organization to invest in sufficient internet security, nor forgo the use of computers and as such they will always be at risk of exposure.

WikiLeaks, Anonymous and other such organizations have proven to be rather like the Robin Hood of the information age where they take info from the corrupt and powerful and share it with the ignorant. These new age internet Robin Hood's have received very mixed appraisals, some think their actions immoral, some are fearful for their own interests and some do not like the implications that their government and most powerful institutions are vulnerable or corrupt. I however am in favour of such organizations and collaborations existing as I think they are a great balancing and monitoring service that help ensure power cannot be abused freely. I think it is reasonable to trust these Robin Hood organizations in general to continue acting with the best interest of people in mind and with a strong moral compass. As soon as they lose the support of the non-hacking public they would fail as an institution. Morality will always be a little grey when social change is under way and so rather than asking about the legality of an internet exposure or sharing of information we should be asking about the social benefit.

Knowledge is power and as such the internet has empowered the masses. The old Machiavellian rule of thumb regarding the opportunists lie is no longer a political trick that can easily be got away with. Not only may lies be discovered but they may come with proof to prevent any further lies being given by the culprit to evade the situation. My hope is that the existence of internet hackers exposing wrong doing will persist through the support it has from the public. This support will be given for the public service that the hackers can offer in cleaning up industry and government. This great risk of exposure will create an environment of more honest and morally acting institutions and allow democracies to function better. So long as we applaud the actions which bring to light a major injustice that has been going on and deplore those actions which would come under the same legal classification but that are not helpful to society or are done solely in the interests of the perpetrator then society can begin to enjoy a new kind of regulation over power. This is not something that directly serves to narrow the wealth gap in economic terms however it will bring many of the same benefits that an economic solution would.

George Orwell was right in that as technology has advanced it has become easier to monitor people and their actions. Pleasantly he did not anticipate the abundance of the technology used to do so which allowed the people to watch the governments in vast numbers. It is not all good as people use hacking to further their own ends or make unpopular and/or impractical political statements and demands. These acts while being hard to detect will not go unchallenged as they have neither the support of the government or of the public. If we are sensible in assessing which internet “crimes” are advantageous to society at large and which are not we can be of great help securing a better future for society simply with our approval and disapproval respectively.  

Morality

Morality is a pretty large topic with much significance to humanity but there is little consensus as to why we have morals, their origin, or ways of defining them. They are also of significance to me in particular as they are of great importance in designing a utopia. I am however starting to come to the realisation of the circular logic behind my usage of morality in social engineering.

“Justice is certainly approved of for no other reason, than because it has a tendency to the public good: And the public good is indifferent to us, except so far as sympathy interests us in it.” - David Hume

Emotions evolved in some species to preserve the self interest in individual living entities. Some of these species that found it best to operate in groups either for mating, hunting, protection etc evolved the emotional capacity for sympathy. There are two mechanisms to explain this, the first is simply from the advantages society or teamwork can confer to the individual therefore making sympathy yet another emotion that facilitates self interest. The second is based on the concept of the selfish gene whereby species will share a vast number of the same genetic material and thus it is in the interests of the genes rather than the individuals to do what is best for others, the more closely related the better.

I see no reason why sympathy has to be from either one of these ideas and suspect it is likely a composite of both, varying from species to species for which predominates. The self interest of an individual is present to facilitate the proliferation of genes any way so the selfish gene is a precursor to self interest. Whether humans feel sympathy so that they can function best in a group or to allow the group best to function is a moot point as both are derived from the fight to preserve genetic material. The fact that sympathy can aid both of these ends only suggests that it will be more strongly favoured by evolution in social animals capable of experiencing it.

As an example of which form of interest predominates in various species I would suggest that ants must be very much founded on the notion of the selfish gene where as humans seem much more concerned about the self rather than the genes. I am not suggesting ants feel emotion and act upon sympathy when performing altruistic duties for the colony. I suspect their evolution path split so long ago from humans that the emotions that guide us in our actions and the hormones that instruct ants are near indistinguishable. Humans evolved the capacity to reason and thus allow emotions to take a back seat and act as advice instead of direct instruction. In both cases however the various stimulus for action evolved to proliferate the genes.

Morality is concerned with human behaviour and so I shall be speaking about sympathy in humans.

Sympathy or empathy is the human link to the preservation of our genetic material as a species rather than an individual. It also facilitates the smooth operation of society which aids both the species and the individual. Morality is the result of the sympathetic emotional responses people have towards others when put into context of the operations of society. This implies it requires those persons to be sensible of the operation of society and how it may confer advantage. This further implies that morality is determined not only by each individuals interpretation of society, other people and themselves but also on the structure and operation of the society in which they reside. Morality is as much a human construct as is civilisation yet remains palpable due to the emotional links it has with empathy or sympathy. As such it feels as if morality should be an actual thing because we do not just know of it like we do with rules or laws but we experience them too as if they were implicitly present. The notion that morality has been somehow predetermined is an illusion, all be it a helpful one. Even the idea that morality is a separate thing unto itself is an illusion which results more from the fact we use a single word to define a whole group of derived feelings. Particularly as those derivations rely on so many intangible factors.

Morality is shorthand for the feelings we experience regarding the good or bad of actions in regards to society and others. As they are our feelings they are specific to the individual and depend on their perceptions of the world. As we have reason we can still chose to act either immorally or morally but this does not guarantee others will perceive our actions in the same way. Mostly morality is aligned within a society due to the interaction and custom of the peoples. This means people tend to act on the accepted morality of the society as they have learnt it in addition to feeling it. It does not always mean people agree with the accepted morality of the society, but it certainly has that tendency. As actions are more relevant than feelings it does not matter what people think provided they act morally according to the social norm. I am not saying a person that believes murder is acceptable is morally good provided they commit no murders, simply that this is all society desires morality to achieve. As the morals of people depend on the society I would suggest that any philosophising as to the morality of belief rather than action is outside the scope of the concept of morality.

The common ground between different societies is human emotion. While different societies allow emotions to be applied in various contexts the basic stimulus for generating emotions is fundamentally the same. A variety of optimal survival and proliferation conditions afford pleasure which leads to other positive emotions. Complex political style interactions will differ the most in how they trigger emotional responses in societies but the most fundamental emotions linked to human needs are pretty constant throughout humanity.

To conclude, morality is a word we have to describe where we use our sympathetic capacity in assessing the emotional response of a hypothetical person within a given situation in a specific social condition. To put in simpler terms, when you see something happen to someone in which another intended that outcome and you would not like that to happen to you it is likely that you deem the persons intent to be immoral. The extend of the immorality you levy on the event will be directly linked to how repulsed you are by it. As we exist in society we naturally bypass the process of putting an event into that particular context and as such morality seems to be something perceivable such as heat or acceleration.

The problem with using an idea of morality in the design of any society means you are entirely biased by the society in which you exist in. Morality is defined by the society and not the other way around. The only two factors one needs to consider when tinkering with the workings of a society are the effects those changes will have in the optimising of running that society and the emotional responses of the people to those changes outside the context of morality or custom. The former is reasonably easy to measure as it is basically just the efficiency and speed of all processes in society. The hardest things to measure in this regard are things like the efficacy of the education system as statistics do not paint a complete picture nor afford the best incentives. Gauging the public feeling of changes can be tricky, let alone assigning values to them, but to do so with disregard to present custom and moral belief is really quite hard. It is “permissible” to make a change that will be poorly received by the public provided it improves to operation of society and would not be objectionable to the emotions of people assuming none or different moralities. This is not to suggest that this is always good however as the ends may not justify the means. Making changes that will cause an up cry for minor enhancements to society are simply not worth it. Any changes therefore must not only be gradual where they concern the operation of society so as to not cause disruption, but also in terms of public feeling towards them so as to retain sufficient support for them.

Ultimately our present morals and customs are pretty irrelevant in defining a utopia, however they are highly relevant when we start to consider a path towards that utopia. For a rule or system to be sensible in a utopia it only needs to demonstrate how it will improve the operation of society and promote basic positive emotions. For a rule or system to become sensible in reality we require both of the previous elements in addition to ensuring that the present moral compass will be minimally offset. The quest to find the absolute morality lies at the end of the quest for utopia or the optimal society. This cannot be an absolute however as it depends on many non-social factors such as the laws of physics, the available resources, the stage of human evolution and so forth. If each set of these and other varying conditions can have an optimal society then each can also have an absolute morality. This still means there are infinite possible kinds of morality but does at least give us direction for what to aim for in both attaining better morals and better society.