On The Shoulders Of Giants

Could drugs be used ethically and responsibly? Could drugs be used without harming oneself or others?
My answer to these questions is, yes. First let’s define drugs. By drugs I mean any behavior or substance that artificially makes you feel good. By artificial, I mean that good feeling is not intrinsic and it is a direct result of that drug. This is a broad definition. This includes a variety of drinks, substances, rituals, religious activities, meditation and so on. You may not agree with me for putting alcohol and meditation in the same category, but I see a similarity here and I would like to talk about what all these things have in common: the fact that they make you feel good artificially and temporarily. I believe if one is careful enough not to harm oneself or others, they should be free to use whatever drugs they want. How is this possible? There are several conditions that need to be met for this to be true:
1. The origin of the substance has be more or less ethical. Sales of cocaine, finances a lot of other crimes such as organized prostitution and human trafficking. That makes cocaine an unethical drug.
2. It should not harm oneself or others. By this token regular use of cigarettes due to all its health risks is unethical. Getting drunk and becoming abusive with others is also reprehensible.
3. Should not interfere with a healthy lifestyle. This rules out alcoholism and heroine addiction and using drugs that would lead one to miss appointments and deadlines.
4. Its side-effects should not outweigh its advantages. By this token getting extremely drunk is not right.
5. It should not put oneself in a position of doing wrong. By this one drunk dialing your exes could be wrong.

As you can see, I don’t consider addiction by itself unethical. A healthy daily dose of meditation or prayer could be very beneficial.

If you can add to the above list, or disagree with me please chime in.

Speak up against what is going on Zimbabwe.

This is one issue that you should have stayed on principle and not on politics and you made the wrong choice. Please don’t say things like this:

“The bill has changed. So I don’t think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.”

from Wikipedia:

In Islam, there are several grades of sin:

1. khatia: mistakes
2. dhanb: immorality
3. haram: transgressions
4. fasad : wickedness
5. shirk: ascribing a partner to god

I like the first four categories. A mistake would be forgetting about an appointment. Immorality in my opinion would be harming yourself. Transgression would be stealing. Wickedness would be to steal from a poor person. For the life of me, I don’t understand why ascribing a partner to god would be worse than wickedness. And my reason for that is that wickedness causes pain which in my philosophy is real but ascribing a partner to god would cause no harm because in my theology god does not feel pain and is not harmed by us. If I were god, I would not even put it on my list. I guess, I would have been a more anthropocentric god. But I am limited by my human mind and it is not surprising that my theology would be anthropocentric and different than god’s theology.

I have already made up my mind about who I want the next Israeli prime minister to be.

Maureen Dowd gets grilled for her abuse of gender references.

It is time for another daily wrap. I woke up an hour later than I had planned. I really needed the sleep. I got ready and drove Randi’s car to my old home. I packed up some stuff and went to school. I met with Bob, the lab manager. I got the instruction material I needed. I went to a meeting with other TAs and the professor. I had a salad at UCen. I went to my discussion section. I liked my students and I engaged them in a conversation about electromagnetic waves. It seemed like they appreciated it. I went to OISS and got an OPT application form. I went to the lab and I helped the students with their experiment. I took the bus back home. I read the WSJ on my way. There was an opinion piece about Inbev’s offer to buy Budweiser and the xenophobia around it. I got home, I did the dishes and I took a shower. I was browsing the web. Heather came home with her friend Jamie and we had a good conversation. Heather and I went to the liquor store and bought what we needed. I’m hanging out at home, watching George Carlin’s videos and Heather’s cat is hanging out with me.

This is a topic that I call “Universal Ethics”. I read up on Judaism, Christianity and Islam’s views on sins and distilled some sort of a common denominator. I came up with the following list. As of now, I think every moral wrong can be put into one of these categories. If you know of anything that doesn’t fit, please let me know and I will revise the list.

1. Destruction (murder, arson, dropping a bomb, cursing…)
2. Desertion (leaving somebody to drown,…)
3. Stealing (includes eavesdropping, trespassing,…)
4. Betrayal (breach of agreement)
5. Deception (lying, concealing truth, make belief,…)
Labeling which includes one aspect of racism is a form of deception.
6. Pandering (”You are an alcoholic? Let me sell you some alcohol.”)
7. Bribery (to buy or barter preferential favors)
8. Arrogance (to think one is intrinsically better than others)
9. Misjudgment (letting reason come second to another desire)
10. Negligence (providing the conditions for something bad to happen through carelessness)

The number, ten, is purely coincidental.

This is an excellent editorial from the New York Times that talks about how Obama is refusing to enter the penis size arms race.