CUViper

In the spirit of my last post, and the 9/11 5-year anniversary (yesterday), I wanted to point you all to a post by Luis Villa:

In the next five years, unlike the last five, I hope we use their memory to inspire us to actually make the US and the world safer for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, instead of making us less safe, or settling old scores. [more]

Perhaps it is a bit idealistic to hope for everything that he says, but I do believe that things can be much better than they are…

In a comment below, Chris mentioned God’s Debris, by Scott Adams. This is a book that I recommended to him, and I’ll recommend it now to everyone I know. It’s available as a free pdf download, so you really have no excuse not to check it out. It truly is a thought experiment, and even if you disagree with everything written, it should still open up some interesting discussions.

Anyway, without spoiling too much, one of the characters in the book talks about “levels” of the soul. Level 2 basically amounts to blind faith and complete self-assurance, and he asserts that most leaders fit into this category. My initial reaction with a laugh was that our dear president nearly defines this level, and he would love it if we would blindly follow him.

But it’s still generally true that this is a good level for leaders, as confidence tends to lend charisma — the more the better. Even if you’re wrong, it’s really about convincing other people that you know what you’re doing. And that will always frustrate people like me who aren’t so set in their beliefs, but would rather consider all options carefully and logically.

I guess I just need a leader who blindly believes in something that I can get behind…

Wedding #2: Dave and Amanda. This one was much more formal, which I think would make my mom happier. Me, I think I’ll want something in between. I’m definitely a casual guy, but for things like this I appreciate the tradition and rituals.

We flew up to Portland for this wedding, and I must say, if I may rant a little, I find the whole liquid ban on planes to be quite a sad thing. Sad because we’re all so willing to give up our freedoms, of course, but that’s not what I want to talk about. It’s sad because I can’t believe that it’s at all effective. No one searched my pockets for any hidden vials, and I pretty sure the security scanner can’t detect liquids.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Come with me sir — this here detector says that more than half of your body is water. Are you trying to blow something up?

It’s not protection or prevention — it’s pure reaction. It’s the addition of security so that some higher-ups can pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Or worse, it’s a desperate attempt to do something, because we don’t really know how to stop those who would do us harm.

I think terrorism is like cancer, and the only treatments we’ve figured out are chemotherapy and radiation therapy. We may be able to fight it off this way, but a lot will be damaged along the way. What we need, if it’s not too late, is to figure out a real strategy for prevention. A healthy lifestyle can greatly reduce your risk for cancer, and I’m willing to bet that the US wouldn’t be such a target of terrorism if we were better world citizens. Sometimes you get cancer anyway, and you have to be prepared to deal with that, but prevention goes a long way.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to look at it this way, but I hope that more people will realize that our current method is unmaintainable. And I believe that the folks at the TSA are genuinely trying to make our travels safer — they’re the doctors searching for the key to remission. It’s a monumental responsibility that I wouldn’t want on my shoulders. But the changes needed to actually solve the problem are much larger, and I hope that someday soon we can find that solution.

/rant