Monthly Archives: September 2019

Where the Boys Are

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On this website and elsewhere, I have often written that one possible outcome of modern feminism will be renewed attempts to separate the sexes. As of this moment, that prediction seems to be coming true. Separate kindergartens (“in single-gender… classrooms at one elementary school in Western Michigan.”). Separate schools. Separate playgrounds (“Separate Playgrounds up at More Schools”—The Denver Post, 31.5.2008). Separate parking places. Separate taxis. Separate railway- and underground carriages. Separate rows of seats on aircraft. Separate elevators  (“Office Workers Face Sex-Segregated Elevators,” Schmooze, January 2012). Separate floors in hotels (in Tokyo). Separate swimming pools and sports facilities. Separate streets (in the orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem, just a few miles from where I live). Soon, perhaps separate queues at shopping centers and entertainment facilities such as theaters, movie houses, and the like.

All these, and many more, either exist already or have been seriously proposed. In a handful of cases, the objective is to protect men against their own lecherous instincts. But mostly it is to defend poor defenseless females of all ages against those wicked, but unfortunately strong and powerful, creatures known as males. Males whose only aim in life is to touch them and fondle them and rape them if they can possibly get away with it.

As the old unlamented apartheid regime of South Africa had it, “separate but equal.” In the process, moves towards gender integration that took decades, sometimes centuries, to accomplish are being reversed one by one. Often the outcome is a regression to earlier arrangements. An excellent example is the recent trend towards what is called “Women only co-working spaces.” No doubt those who came up with the idea see themselves as daring innovators. In fact all they are doing is to put back the clock to the last two decades or so of the nineteenth century. As the first really large corporations made their appearance in the U.S and Europe, management looked for personnel who could do routine, physically not too demanding, work such as bookkeeping, correspondence, filing, and general administration. The normal solution was to recruit the daughters of the lower middle classes and have them work from the time they left school—generally at the age of sixteen or so—until they got married five or six years later. To assure worried parents that their daughters’ morals would not be corrupted, which God forbid, the women in question were concentrated in halls of their own. There they came under the supervision of somewhat older female employees and males were not allowed to enter. Contemporary photographs often show row after row of neatly dressed women sitting behind their desks; hence what one author has called, The White Blouse Revolution.

Unfortunately for feminists, the renewed move towards separate facilities for women is unlikely to empower women. Instead, if I am allowed to venture another prediction, it will result in men and women looking on those facilities, and the women who inhabit them, as second rate. The fact that, in every known society, whatever men do is regarded as the most important has been well documented by female researchers among others. So has the fact that, whenever women enter a field or profession, that field or profession will start going downhill in terms of both prestige and income.

There is a certain logic behind this. Integration or separation, now as ever the worst thing people of both sexes can say about a man is that he is like a woman; the best thing people of both sexes can say about a woman, that (as long as she does not grow a beard and speaks in a bass voice) she is like a man. In the words of the famous nineteen-fifties-vintage singer, Connie Francis:

Where the boys are, someone waits for me
A smilin’ face, a warm embrace, two arms to hold me tenderly

They think they have to go it alone and admitting they don’t have the answer viagra generic sildenafil will permanently mar their reputation. Action of mechanism: Kamagra tablets are manufactured with a chemical or viagra online prescription neurological reaction monitored from the brain that trigger the dilation of the blood vessels, which allow the erectile chambers to become flooded with blood to get firm erection during the sexual encounters. Many people lead normal lives in spite of buy sildenafil uk them. The main difference between the two is that the Kamagra Oral Jelly buying viagra in usa can be purchase from online pharmacies to treat your erectile dysfunction problems and should be used for this purpose alone. Where the boys are, my true love will be
He’s walkin’ down some street in town and I know he’s lookin’ there for me

In the crowd of a million people I’ll find my valentine
And then I’ll climb to the highest steeple and tell the world he’s mine

Till he holds me I’ll wait impatiently
Where the boys are, where the boys are
Where the boys are, someone waits for me
Till he holds me I’ll wait impatiently
Where the boys are, where the boys are
Where the boys are, someone waits for me.

Or in those of the Bible: Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

When the Drones Come Marching In

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Contrary to the common wisdom, drones are not new. Perhaps the first to build and use them were the Austrians in 1849; besieging Venice, which had revolted against Habsburg rule, they launched two hundred balloons that carried 33 pounds of incendiaries each. How effective they were, and what role they played in the city’s ultimate surrender, is disputed to the present day. Drones, in the form of remotely-piloted gliders and aircraft, were also employed by the German Luftwaffe during the last years of World War II. They scored their greatest success on 9 September 1943 when a contraption affectionately known as Fritz-X hit the brand-new Italian battleship, Roma, in the waters between Sardinia and Corsica and sank it. Others were used against installations such as bridges, with mixed results.

During the next few decades drones only played a marginal role in warfare. That, however, began to change in 1982 when the Israelis employed them with considerable success during their invasion of Lebanon. Some were used for conducting reconnaissance in front of the advancing armored divisions; others, to confuse and attack Syria’s anti-aircraft defenses until there were literally none left. Since then drones have multiplied and developed. As those who build and sell them never tire of pointing out, range, endurance, speed, maneuverability, payload, accuracy, and so on have all improved beyond recognition.

However, the most important developments in the field are seldom mentioned. They are, first, the fact that drones tend to be much smaller, cheaper—some come at less than $ 200—and more expendable than manned aircraft. And second that, being smaller, cheaper, and more expendable, they are capable of being used, and sometimes even produced, not just by states and their armed forces but by many other groups and organizations as well. Especially since the advent of GPS, almost anyone can build a drone in his garage. And indeed quite some people have been doing just that.

To gain a full perspective on the matter, consider the following. Starting at least as far back as the Peloponnesian War, the largest and most bloody wars were always waged by great powers against one another. In 1949, the year in which the Soviet Union became the second power to own nuclear weapons, this kind of warfare became obsolete. As additional countries acquired nuclear weapons during the following decades, they too were prevented from fighting each other in earnest. In time, it was this development that led to what many political scientists call The Long Peace.
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But that is only one side of the coin. While nuclear weapons have been preventing great powers from seriously fighting each other, drones have been working in the opposite direction. As the American experience in fighting the Taliban, as well as the Israeli one in fighting organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah shows, when it comes to fighting guerrillas and terrorists drones are of limited use. Neither in Afghanistan, nor in Gaza, nor in Lebanon, did they enable their owners to break the other side’s fighting spirit and win the war. Perhaps, to the contrary: as recent events in the Gulf illustrate all too well, they made it possible for these and similar organizations to extend their reach, striking at targets dozens and perhaps even hundreds of miles away. The effect of drones, in other words, has been to help level the ground on which non-state and state belligerents fight each other. It is in this, above all, that their importance lies.

And the future? I am not saying that drones are invincible. With the possible exception of nuclear weapons, no weapon is. Drones can be brought down either by anti-aircraft defenses or by other drones. And they can also be fought by electronic methods, meaning that the command and control systems on which they depend can be interfered with. That, for example, is what the Iranians did back in 2011 when they captured an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel near the city of Kashmar.

But make no mistake. As far as anyone can see, nuclear weapons will continue to limit war among the most important powers. Meanwhile drones, becoming increasingly sophisticated, will help make it easier for non-state organizations to confront the powers in question, thus presenting the world with a new challenge that is not just military but political as well. And one that states and their militaries better take seriously before it is too late.

The Last Unknowns

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For about a year now, I have been working on a book in which I hope to address some of the most fundamental questions that have long faced mankind and presumably will continue to do so for quite some time to come. Doing so, I was fortunate to stumble across a book by the title of The Last Unknowns. Edited by John Brockman, of Edge Organization, and published in June 2019, it contains a list of about a hundred questions of exactly this kind. Prominent among the authors is a Nobel Prize winner, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who wrote the introduction. The rest form an impressive list made up of professors—mainly of physics, computer science, brain science, biology, evolution, and ethics, and education—the heads of various research institutes, and journalists. All with the occasional entrepreneur, artist and musician thrown in.

I read the book for A to Z. Twice. As I did so, it occurred to me that I might list what I considered the most interesting questions and, based on my studies so far, try to provide brief answers for them. Doing so, I can only hope my readers will enjoy the intellectual exercise as much as I did.

So here goes.

Q. Are complex biological neural systems fundamentally unpredictable?

M.A (My answer). Perhaps. If so, we might as well give up any hope of ever gaining a complete understanding of such systems, with all the consequences that such a lack of understanding implies.

Q. How would changes in the marginal tax rate affect our efforts and motivation?

M.A. Raising taxes to confiscatory levels, as in some Western countries during the late 1960s and 1970s, is certain to reduce effort and motivation. And vice versa: in trying to stimulate an economy, few things are as useful as a cut on taxes. Ask Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Q. Will it ever be possible for us to transcend our limited experience of time as linear?

M.A. In the past, there have been many societies that did not experience time as linear. The way they saw it, it was either static or cyclic. So why not in the future, too?

Q. How can science best leverage reason to overcome the heroic passion for war?

M.A. First, who says war is exclusively the product of unreason? And second, suppose we do in fact succeed in getting rid of the passion in question; won’t doing so also put an end to some of our noblest qualities, such as curiosity, comradeship, courage, entrepreneurship, and self-sacrifice?

Q. Will the appearance of a new species of talented computational intelligence result in improving the moral behavior of persons and societies?

M.A. No. If there is one field in which computers and everything they stand for are irrelevant, it is morality.

Q. What is the hard limit on human longevity?

M.A. The book of Genesis, which was probably put together about 800 BCE, puts it at 120 years. Limiting ourselves to cases where the documentation may be relied on, during the three millennia since the just one person is known to have live longer: to wit, a Frenchwoman named Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years, 164 days. And even in her case it has been suggested that the relevant documentation was counterfeit.

Q. Why are we so often kind to strangers when nobody is watching and we have nothing to gain?

M.A. It depends on what you mean by “so often.” As long as this is not spelt out, the question remains meaningless.

Q. Is there a way for humans to directly experience what it’s like to be another entity?

M.A. No.

Q. Will a machine ever be able to feel what an organism feels?

M.A. Probably not. Computers may be sufficiently intelligent to beat the world’s master at chess; but there is no indication that they are, or ever will be, able to experience such things as love, rage, etc.

Q. Will scientific advances about the causes of sexual conflict help to end “the battle of the sexes”?

M.A. I hope not. In the words of a 1950s popular Israeli song, take the “battle” away, and all that remains will be the plumbing.

Q. How do I describe the achievements, meanings and power of Beethoven’s piano sonata Appassionata?

M.A. Don’t even try. Instead, listen to it many, many times. Better still, play and replay it as well as you can.

Q. Why do we experience feelings of meaning in a universe without a purpose?
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M.A. No one knows or is likely to know. But the fact that we do experience such feelings is perhaps the strongest argument against the idea that the biological depends entirely on the physical.

Q. How will we know if we achieve universal happiness?

M.A. I once stayed in southern California where the sky is always blue and the temperature always around 25 degrees. Having asked what living in such a climate was like, I was told that, after a couple of weeks, one no longer notices. Similarly, chances are that, once we achieve universal happiness, we’ll get used to it, take it for granted, and start feeling unhappy once again.

Q. Have we left the age of reason, never to return?

M.A. Has there even been an age of reason?

Q. Will humans ever embrace their own diversity?

M.A. They’d better, because they have always been and will always remain diverse. Furthermore, where there is no diversity among people they will go right ahead and invent it.

Q. Are stories bad for us?

M.A. How can they be, given that it is they who give us our identity?

Q. What will be the use of 99 percent of humanity for the 1 percent?

M.A. Similar to the use 100,000 men who built the great pyramid had for the Pharaoh who put them to work. Does that mean they lived in vain?

Q. Is scientific knowledge the most valuable possession of humanity?

M.A. Some would argue that our capacity for love is.

Q. Are the laws of physics unique and inevitable?

M.A. Scientists like to think so. However, they cannot prove it.

Q. How can AI and other digital technologies help us create global institutions that we can trust?

M.A. The one thing that can generate trust is trust. That is why technology can only help us in a very marginal way, if at all.

Q. Is a single world language and culture inevitable?

M.A. Not only isn’t it inevitable, but it will never come to pass. The reason? Where there are no differences, people will go right ahead and invent them. And doing so won’t take them very long, either.

Q. What quirk of evolution caused us to develop the ability to do pure mathematics?

M.A. This question might seem quirky at first sight. However, it has the power to blow away our entire Darwin-based view of the world. Evolution theory teaches that only “useful” qualities survive by being passed to the next generation. So how did our ability to do pure math, which is of no use whatsoever, survive?

Q. What does it mean to be human?

M.A. To be capable of anything.

*

To which I’d like to add one question of my own:

If the brain is a computer and thought equals computation, why do so many people find math the most difficult of all subjects?

White Trash

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In America and elsewhere, what has not been said about right wing “extremists”? That they are ignorant (which many are). That they are bigots (which many are). That they are boorish (which many of them are). That they are racists (which many are). That they are anti-Semites (which many are). That they are Nazis and supporters of Adolf Hitler (which some of them are). Also, that their number and penchant for violence, including lethal violence, is increasing. To the point where, the FBI claims, it now presents a serious threat not just to the victims and their neighbors but to society in general.

What is not often said is that, practically without exception, they are white men. People who, following over half a century of civil rights, women’s lib, gay lib, and immigration (both legal and illegal), have been turned into the most denigrated, most marginalized, most abused group in America. Nigger and Dago and Chink and Greaseball and Kike and queer and poofster (and butch) are out and may, if those who use them are unlucky, lead to legal action. But Honkey, a derogatory slur meaning, originally, “white devil,” is in. So are “Hick,” “Hillbilly” (“often used as an insult and racial slur against White folks who live in the country”) “Redneck” “a poor white person without education, especially one living in the countryside in the southern US who has prejudiced, unfair and unreasonable beliefs”) and “White Trash.” To engage in homosexual, or lesbian, or “transgender” sex is chic, and anyone who considers it revolting had better old his or her peace. But for a man of any color to have or merely try to have normal sex with a woman is to invite accusations of harassment, exploitation, abuse, and rape.

Every time a black person or a gay person or a woman have problems at school or at work, then that is because they are discriminated against. Every time a white one does, then that is because he (or, less often, she) has personality problems. One reason why all this is permitted is because straight whites have long turned into a minority in their own country. And whereas middle-upper middle- and upper class white men generally know how to defend themselves against such slurs if they really want to, blue collar men, whether because they do not have the necessary education or for other reasons, often do not. The emphasis, which in many places had been turned into a legal requirement, on “positive discrimination-–as if discrimination could ever be “positive”—and “diversity” ensures that, when it comes to finding work, they are often relegated to the end of the queue; the consequences of this for their income and prospects hardly have to be pointed out.

Psychological research has “discovered” that many right-wing extremists are thrill-seeking, impulsive, inflexible, obsessive, angry, have problems in facing anger, Above all, they have a desire to hurt others. In short, they are walking compilations of evil qualities. As so often, academia contributed by providing the necessary footnotes, thus causing the hunt to become respectable. What is hardly ever asked is whether the people in question may possibly have some reason to be what they are supposed to be—and whether some of the reasons in question are in any ways based on fact.
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All these trends, and others like them, got under way in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1970s. In the 1980s they were to some extent held in check by Ronald Reagan; since then they have turned into a Niagara, particularly under Barak Obama. What might have happened if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 elections hardly bears thinking about. Concentration camps for whiteys (said to be a “derogatory ethnic slur”), perhaps?

The outlook? As a Jew, I have no reason to sympathize with the kind of “white trash” I am referring to. Still, unless there is a radical change, “white trash” unquestionably will continue drinking beer, buying weapons, and chewing their wrath. A few, no doubt, will go of the rails and engage in terrorism, fourth-generation war, or whatever it is called.

Culminating, more likely than not, in something like The Handmaid’s Tale.