Aaron

    Hello everybody, I apoligize for being  absent from the Poker Club for the last little bit. I didn’t really want to admit this, but the last few days I have horded myself up in my basement watching the Goosebumps’s TV series. I know that it isn’t very healthy, however it is probabley better than going out and doing drugs (maybe?).

      Anyhow, the other day I was searching the internet for some good trip ideas. Partially inspired by Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express , I began looking around at information on the Pan-American Highway. Now, I don’t plan on making that trip from Alaska to Chilie any time soon. However, I figured maybe there were other roadtrips around the States that may be more reasonable  for me to venture out  onto in the next few months. So, I poked around on the Lonely Planet website to garner some ideas, and I came across one that was, well, pretty “trippy”.  Is anyone wanting to traverse the “Peyote Road“? Isn’t this peculiar for a travel website to promote? See what you think.

The physical journey is only one part of the Great Road Trip of Life – taking a trip inside is often more rewarding than hitting the higway out of town. In some Native American cultures, a regular roadtrip on the soul’s metaphysical highway is a vital part of cultural life. They call it ‘taking the Peyote Road’.

The Peyote Road is a roadtrip like no other. You can travel far without leaving your home and see sights that no video camera could capture. The soul-food is cheap and you don’t have to worry about fuel. And of all the roadtrips in the world, this one is probably closer than any other to Dorothy’s epic roadtrip towards Oz and enlightenment.

 Guess I missed the lecture in Chapel Hill… Still, four and a half days left to celebrate!

TOMORROW, MONDAY OCT. 22
MURPHEY 116
7 PMArmy National Guard Captain Joel Arends to speak about Radical Jihadists, the War on Terror, and what American soldiers are doing to fight the pressing threat to western democracies.Joel Arends was named one of 50 Heroes in the War on Terror by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and has received the Bronze Star Medal in March of 2005. Lt. Arends and his team of 30 soldiers operated in and around Baghdad from February 2004- April 2005 working to catch terrorists, known bombing materials and confiscated jidhadist propaganda. One terrorist claimed to be a professor at UNC, although the specifics of this professor cannot be named, the terrorist was extremely well versed in UNC Basketball stats. To hear to more about this story and the war on terror from a veteran who has served in the field, you will not want to miss this lecture.

At least they were focusing on the important information.

   Hello everyone out there. This is my first post on ThePokerClub. I appreciate Charlie and Sandeep for trusting me to write a little on their precious blog. To quote Nesta, “There is so much trouble in Jah (the, for our Babylonian readers) world”; more than any of us can ever comprehend, much less try to remedy ourselves.

    Therefore, try to imagine ourselves with one last night to have fun. Tommorow morning, we will reluctantly wake up out of our beds and go to work on our futile (maybe not, who knows?) attempt to make the world a better place.  I mean, we all have our own ideas of what a better world could be. A great majority of us have benevolent dispositions, but we will strike each other down in our efforts to create “our version” of an idealistic world. So, before I try to blog seriously about world issues, let this poem by Allen Ginsberg represent the essence of worldly non-seriousness; which is all that really matters in the end.

         And just in case you are interested, the BBC has a really good special radio broadcast  on this poem. It interviews some interesting characters from the Beat Generation who give some interesting insight on this  poem. That is , if anyone gives a damn anymore about the written word. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/adventuresinpoetry/pip/b2ci4/

Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically altered poplar trees to pull toxins out of contaminated ground water, offering a cost-effective way of cleaning up environmental pollutants.

“Our work is in the beginning stages, but it holds great promise,” said Sharon Doty, an assistant professor of forest resources at the University of Washington, whose study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Doty’s research is part of an emerging area of study known as phytoremediation, which aims to use trees, grasses and other plans to remove hazardous materials.

“Phytoremediation is basically a solar-powered pollutant-removal system,” said Doty in comments e-mailed to Reuters.

 Listen up Greens!  Genetic modification–that much loathed symbol of science-gone-wrong–will soon make our world a cleaner, healthier place for all creatures.

Such discoveries confirm that scientific innovation and human development should not be limited by the precautionary principle.  Great possibilities await us in the future; miscalculations and mistakes will most certainly occur, but these are necessary steps on the road to prosperity.  A nuanced understanding of human creative abilities and adaptive capacities provides a more appropriate paradigm through which we may contemplate this process of wondrous discovery.

Article via Digg.

“This is why rationalists put such a heavy premium on the paradoxical-seeming claim that a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise… Some belief systems, in a rather obvious trick to reinforce themselves, say that certain beliefs are only really worthwhile if you believe them unconditionally - no matter what you see, no matter what you think. Your brain is supposed to end up in the same state regardless. Hence the phrase, “blind faith”. If what you believe doesn’t depend on what you see, you’ve been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.”

If you haven’t yet perused OvercomingBias, its one of the most informative, and intellectually challenging, blogs in existence. The sheer volume of information is immense; any given post contains multiple links to related posts which in turn lead to other related topics, and so goes the information super-highway. You will become more self-aware, more conscious of your own biases and thought processes, the more you read this blog.

Perhaps, sometime in the future, Yudkowski, Hanson, and Co. will implement a more efficient (i.e. visually succinct) sytem of displaying information via topic, but for now, just browse an article of interest, be sure to follow the links, and you will soon find yourself deep within the way of Bayes.

Can you guess who is who?

Via: Alex at MR.

“In winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Gore completed an unusual trifecta of awards for the year. The movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” which highlighted his crusade, won Oscars for best documentary and best original song. Gore also won an Emmy for the interactive work of Current TV, a cable channel he helped found.”

Alex at MR posts an excellent article by European economists Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi.  Their question: why the Political Left–the so-called modern ”liberals”–refuse market philosophies with startling gusto (foolishness?).

“Our point is that the goals that are traditionally held dear by the European [and America] left – like protection of the economically weakest and aversion to excessive inequality and un-earned rewards to insiders – should lead the left to adopt pro-market policies. What has often been the norm in Europe from the 60s until recently – heavy market regulation, protection of the status quo, an enormous public sector which rewards not the very poor but the most-connected and requires highly distortionary taxation, universities which often produce mediocrity in the name of egalitarianism (while the very rich get a good education anyway, somehow) –all end up decreasing efficiency and justice at the same time.” 

The question–a topic I have been pondering for some time now–is highly nuanced and requires much study.    

I am similarly frustrated with those who support “free market policies” but see themselves–and their philosophies–as ”conservative”.  Often, when socializing with conservatives, I wonder aloud how we might elucidate the wisdom of restricted government and civil market society to those on the Progressive Left.  Most usually, I’m met with hostility; they remind me that it is an impossibility for Leftists to begin sympathizing with a market oriented position.  I do not agree.   

Nevertheless, modern liberals continue their paradoxical oposition to the market.  How can this be corrected?  Is this a fear? A failure of logic? A refusal?  Do they require centrally institutionalized altruism? How can we spread the positive message of decentralized liberty and market reliance to our Left leaning friends, family, colleagues?

Look for more in this vein under the new thread: “The Left and Liberalism”.

Given by writer Czeslaw Milosz as preface to his novel The Captive Mind: 

When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling.  And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God.  But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious.  Well, and what about 100% right?  Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.
                                                               — An Old Jew of Galacia

In accordance with the above citation, topics for further discussion will include:

• Drug Prohibition 
• Public Schools
• Static Environmentalism

From An Economist in Paradise:

…the longer time a small island state has been colonised, the richer it now is. And there is a reason why some have had a longer colonial experience than others: wind patterns. Islands located near routes in the prevailing winds made useful stopovers and were more easily revisited and colonised.

Just another example of how economics marvelously unwraps unseen histories of human life.

Yes to the Carolina Chocolate Drops! Buy their newest album, “Dona Got a Ramblin Mind”… and then Go see this band!

I caught them last weekend at the Flat Rock Music Festival.

Though the music calls upon an old time and place, the Drops radically challenge short-sighted, superficial conceptions of the American South’s remarkably varried ethno-cultural histories. With sentimental beauty, alternative histories emerge and flower; the Drops–overflowing with remarkable sonic imagination–capture the detailed nuances, tensions and celebrations of a land and people defined by conflict.

And yet, their music is enthusiastic, sophisticated, and tinged with hypermodern complexity. Turn-of-the-century country, blues, minstrel, ragtime, march, and bluegrass hold foundations, but the trio melds concert, gospel, soul, funk, jazz, and Afro-Latin influences in ecstatic symphony.

Hats off to the Chocolate Drops and old sage Faulkner.

Yes, perilous: in this day, when it is not uncommon to find people who emotionally equate market with evil corporations, more must be done to communicate how unfathomably bountiful is the goods-basket that exists within the scope of the market. Non-profits, open-source projects, and aid organizations are all enterprises included in the concept of the market but are often associated with government. Tyler at MR always has good examples of currently-fringe aspects of the market in his “Markets in Everything” series. Taborrok, also at MR, has edited a book called Voluntary City, which I recommend highly, as it will elucidate your understanding of free exchange in society.

Not only is there more to the market than is conventionally thought, there is necessarily more to the market than any one person could conceptualize. That we don’t know things is a blessing. Human action exists now in immense prosperity not because of higher collective ‘knowing’, but because the range of choices for most humans is increasing rapidly. One reason we systematically undervalue the immense variety of human action because it’s hard for our minds to grasp others’ multifarious motivations. Once we sit back, relax, and ponder the tremendous magnitude of human experience that always evades the single mind, we understand everything’s gonna be alright precisely because there’s more to the market than we think.

Hinduism also points out that a difference of metaphysical doctrine need not prevent the development of an accepted basic code of conduct. The important thing about a man is his dharma [roughly, the personal basis of behaviour], not necessarily his religion.

That’s Kshiti Mohan Sen (Amartya Sen’s grandfather) in Hinduism.