Vote For Someone

Tried writing this in a more conversational tone like a normal blog post, but it wasn't flowing well, so here's a list of points that I've been stewing on recently.

Part 0
I had this last, but I bumped it up because I think it's the most important one of these.

If you're going to go all the way to the polling station and vote, and you're not voting third party because they're not a "viable" choice or you might be "throwing your vote away," and there is actually a third-party candidate whose policies you like better than the guy you're voting for (or worse, you don't even know if there is a candidate like that because you haven't checked) - then you have to explain to me why you accept argument 1, but reject argument 2:

1. You should vote for the less evil of the top mainstream candidates, because your vote is unlikely to make a critical difference if you vote for a candidate that most people don't vote for.
2. You should stay home, because your vote is unlikely to make a critical difference.

Seriously. Please explain this, because it seems to me that if you're voting for the lesser of two evils, then whatever logic you used to get to that conclusion also leads you to not vote at all, if you follow it consistently.

What If Jesus Had a Wife

Preface: I'm posting this here because I wanted to say something about it, and I couldn't find a way to do it that was unlikely to come off as an attack on a particular person's beliefs.

So maybe you've heard recently that a manuscript was found that makes reference to a wife of Jesus. Specifically, it says "Jesus said to them, 'My wife...'" So. What does this mean for Christianity?

Well honestly, I don't think it means that much. I assume that most Christians will dismiss it and move on with their life exactly the same as if they'd never heard of this manuscript. Though it's interesting to think about why it is that most Christians seem to want for it to not be true. Why would it matter if he did have a wife? Why would that make anything else different?

Well, as it turns out, at least one person is saying exactly that - "it's probably not true, but if it is, so what?" -in this article that someone in my facebook feed linked to.

Alone

Every once in a while, something comes along and really, truly makes me feel... alone.

Not in the sense that no one cares about me. Not in the sense that I'm not getting the human interaction that I need. Not even in the sense that no one understands me. Just that... 99% of the people on this planet are different than me. And actually, 1 in 100 is probably grossly optimistic.

Raspberry Pi

There's a new computer coming out. It's not the most powerful thing on the market, but it looks pretty cool. 256MB of RAM, a pretty powerful graphics processor, a couple of USB ports, HDMI out, an ethernet port, and an HD card slot. And it's about the size of a credit card:

For size reference, that's a regular sized ethernet port on the bottom right.

It looks like the kind of thing that you could hook up to your TV and use as a Home Theater PC. With the HDMI output and ability to play H264 videos, you could hook up a USB hard drive with all of your movies and it would probably work pretty well for that.

Oh, and did I mention it only costs $35?

The Sword of Good

Followup to the previous post: a short story titled The Sword of Good, available at that link. If you're not surprised by the ending, then you've successfully conquered your moral blindness. And it might make you think twice the next time you watch the Lord of the Rings, too. It's a pretty fun read and has a very tongue-in-cheek take on the epic fantasy genre. Excerpts:

Not for the first time, the thought occurred to Hirou that if he'd actually known he was going to be transported into a magical universe, informed he was the long-lost heir to the Throne of Bronze, handed the legendary Sword of Good, and told to fight evil, he would have spent less time reading fantasy novels. Joined the army, maybe. Taken fencing lessons, at least. If there was one thing that didn't prepare you for fantasy real life, it was sitting at home reading fantasy fiction.

Moral Blindness

Enough ragging on charities for now. (Maybe I'll go back to it later.) Today, I'm posting because a friend said she was going to watch the Princess Bride, and it got me thinking.

Alright, first let's take a step back. Torture is wrong, right? Can we agree on that? Prince Humperdinck was wrong to torture Westley.

Money and Charity

One of the things I was thinking about while writing my last post about giving to charities is that it might not be all that useful of a post. Telling people why they shouldn't give money to Kony 2012 and should instead give to Against Malaria probably didn't help all that much... because most of the people sharing the video from Invisible Children weren't going to donate either way.

I think the principle still applies that any effort directed toward a less efficient charity is effort that could save more lives by being directed at a more efficient charity. Even if, say, only 1% of the people who saw the video end up donating, exposing the video to 1,000 times as many people will still increase donations - so sharing the video may still have the end result of putting more money in the pockets of the charity. And similarly, if people instead shared the Against Malaria link, it's very possible they would end up getting more donations than if the link weren't shared, so sharing the link helps them out indirectly. There's probably some interesting studies that could be done about how sharing links through social media increases charitable giving, since sharing the link is not a limited resources like money for donations is.

Apart from all of that, I think that my post probably didn't help much because the people sharing the Kony link aren't really, truly interested in helping the people in Africa. They're far more interested in feeling like the kind of person who helps people in Africa. How do I know this? Because they're not giving money.