Puddleglum's Wager

On the topic of Hogfather, I've gone down a bit of a Jordan Peterson rabbit hole recently.  What does that have to do with Terry Pratchett?  Mostly, that I find an interesting similarity in Peterson's arguments that mythologies are useful to controlling human behavior:

    “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

    REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

    "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

    YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

    "So we can believe the big ones?"

    YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

    "They're not the same at all!"

    YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

    "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

    MY POINT EXACTLY.”

    Death here is echoing Plato's "Noble Lie" in The Republic.  His belief is that in order for society to rise above Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes, humanity requires myths to stir their aspirations to higher ideals.

   This is similar to two of America's founders (whose identities escape me at the moment).  In personal correspondence, one mentioned that he was contemplating coming out as an atheist.  The other cautioned him against it saying that while he personally agreed, some form of theism was required for a society to function.

    What I find interesting is the comparison and contrast with another, older British work of fantasy:

    "One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

    The comparisons are obvious.  Both authors are suggesting that belief in a higher narrative is required for virtuous behavior, and can instill virtuous behavior, even if the higher narrative is false.  The contrast, of course, is that in The Silver Chair, there is a Narnia.

    Peterson seems to fall between the two.  He seems open to the idea that there is reality to the metaphysical claims of Christianity, but so far as I have seen, he never affirms it.  He seems more interested in the practical outcomes of Christian virtue, i.e. that the world is a better place when people love their neighbors as themselves, and if it's necessary to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind in order to do so, then let's not dismiss that.  It's much the same as the many psychologists who say that if a ritual will make you feel calmer, then you should use it for its practical value whether there's any objective religious or magical "power" in it or not.

    Of course, as any sophomore logic student will point out, this smacks of appeal to the consequences.  And to the extent that someone makes the statement, "__________ must be true, or else __________ will happen," it is.  It is absolutely irrational to say, "Christ must have risen from the dead, or else holodomor."

    But if one accepts that beliefs result in actions, then consequences are worth considering.  A friend of mine, writing on the occasion of a school shooting, said the question is not "Why does this keep happening?" but rather, "Why does this not happen more often?"  It's a good question.  If one is to throw out all metanarratives that would appeal to a higher story than the individual's existence, then you quickly find yourself in solipsism.  In such a worldview, other individuals are NPCs in your story.  And as a college acquaintance noted about playing Halo 2, "[NPC] teammates are just there as ammo drops."

    Why, yes, he was a bit scary.

Such violence

    During the Lump's short tenure in the local public education institution, she developed some struggles with reading.  Being a small school in a federally-designated "frontier," said institution lacked the resources to provide diagnostic and remedial action(s) unless the child in question was failing to read at grade level.  Since our children all have an abundance of raw horsepower, the Lump was able to compensate, and therefore was unable to get the assistance required to reach her full potential.

    "But wait," one might say, "Aren't their laws in place to require all children receive necessary assistance?"

    Yes, but unless everyone is willing to nationalize all teachers for military-style deployment regardless of the individual teacher's wishes, mandates will never be truly enforceable.  So instead the "necessary" in "necessary assistance" gets redefined to prioritize certain students over others.

    So the Shieldmaiden and I were on our own to troubleshoot the problem.  One of our first steps was to get her eyes checked.  The doc took a look and informed us that our daughter lacked the muscle tone to hold focus at a fixed distance.  Furthermore, she told us that she sees this quite often, because in the American on-size-fits-none traditional education model, reading is pushed at a younger age than is compatible with many children's eye muscle development.

    So we got her reading glasses, and she was suddenly able to read beyond her grade level.  Eventually, the Shieldmaiden and I pulled her out to homeschool.  We really should have done that sooner, and spared her some learning trauma.  Even home, though she still primarily stuck with larger-print books.

    Which brings us to violence in literature.  How?  Because this Christmas, we decided to try to help our daughter level up her reading by getting her a Kindle Paperwhite so she could blow up text and choose fonts to her heart's content.  She's probably swiping 6-12 times per actual page of text, but her reading has exploded.  The first book she tried was Robin Hood. 

    Howard Pyle's Robin Hood.  From 1883.  And written in pseudo-Middle-English.

    The Shieldmaiden and I take our kids' instruction and well-being seriously, and therefore, our movie selection for the kids up to this time has been pretty much 1950's-1970's Disney classics.  As a result, our daughter had only been exposed to the Robin Hood legend in the form of animated foxes.  So as my girls and I sat in the chair the other day perusing our respective books, the Lump spoke up and said, "Wow.  This is violent!"  Followed a few minutes later by, "So much violence!"

    The Dot just shrugged and said, "So?  I read Redwall books."

    The Shieldmaiden's Christmas book was Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett, who observes that all the classic stories are bloody.

Later on they took the blood out to make the stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had read them to children rather than the children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on blood provided it’s being shed by the deserving*), and then wondered where all the stories went.

*That is to say, those who deserve to shed blood. Or possibly not. You never quite know with some kids.

    Indeed, I'm quite surprised by the sudden objection to violence, given that the girls used to take almost perverse delight in asking for the "gory stor[ies]" during our nightly Bible reading.  Second only to King Solomon's wisdom, and that was mostly because I read the climax in my best John Mulaney impression (NSFW&K).

    Of course, said desire for gory stories predated the short stint in the public education system, so perhaps that's what explains it.  The US public education system is rather notorious at this point for it's zero-tolerance policies against violence.  Indeed, when a kid can get suspended for how he eats his pop-tarts (and judges uphold that suspension), one might be forgiven for calling them zero-sense policies.  So perhaps a year and a half spent in an environment that eschewed any discussion of violence as possibly positive in any context is where this aversion to even thinking of violence (or physical contest, even).

    Of course, the answer is more adventure books.  Though the girls' current shared love of Nancy Drew might not be the best, since she has an alarming propensity for getting kidnapped.

Musing on honesty

Some years ago, my eldest went on one of her many, many book kicks.  In this case, it was the young readers subseries from the A Dog's Purpose series.  These were the halcyon days when she still liked me to read to her.  Not that she doesn't occasionally like me reading aloud to her (mostly from The Elements by Theodore Gray) any more, but these days most of our reading together is done silently, with me looking over her shoulder, the two of us racing to see who can finish the page first.  

    She usually wins.

    Anyway, I have no idea which book it was, but the plot appeared to center around a girl running away from home and staying with a variety of friends.  I say, "appeared," because I only ever read the last few chapters to her.  I picked up with the protagonist overhearing her latest friends' parents talking about how she wouldn't be able to stay with them any longer.  In order to try to get around going home, the girl comes around the corner and tells them that it's okay, because she's staying with her aunt next.

    At which point, my beloved daughter was very puzzled.  

    "I don't remember her having an aunt."

    "She doesn't," I replied.

    "She just said she does."

    "She's lying."

    "Lying?"

    "Yes.  I mean, I haven't read the rest of the book, so I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure she's lying to them so that they don't call the police or her parents and make her go back home."

    At which point, my daughter gave me a look that suggested that I'd taken leave of my senses, because obviously, no one would ever knowingly say something that was wrong.  Fortunately, before she went total BSOD from the illogic, she simply said, "Well, I guess we'll just find out," and I went back to reading.

    So the girl goes back to the house, the dog beats up the bully or something, and all ends happily ever after.  At which point, my child looks at me and says, "Huh, she didn't have an aunt."

    /sigh

    A couple of years reading Redwall books seems to have introduced her to the concept of deception, but she still doesn't quite get the concept as a practical matter, as evidenced by a semi-recent incident in which she was asked to cover up some misbehavior by a peer.

    Yeah...not the wisest pick of coconspirators.

    Of course, while it is useful to have a child incapable of deception, and obviously in the vast majority of situations, honesty has a greater level of morality, it does raise an interesting question:  what is the nature of virtue or character?

    Does it exist in doing right or not doing wrong?  Aristotle's Virtue Ethics would say that behavior becomes character, and so a person who cannot understand deceit would be at an advantage in developing honest character.  And of course, Kantian ethics would just fall all over itself celebrating the rigid adherence to "Do not lie."

    On the other hand, does character exist in the absence of temptation?  Most accept that one must be strong to be able to be meek:  it's not restraint to hold back from doing something violent if you lack the capacity to do violence.  And most also accept that if you do not feel fear in the face of danger, you're not truly being brave.  You may just be ignorant of the danger.

    It's a puzzling question that I'm not entirely sure can be sorted out.  For now, I'm just happy that there's one person in the world who will always give me a straight answer.

Doing Justice

I celebrated Thanksgiving 2020 with my family.  It was unplanned, as I was scheduled to work that day, however, on the drive down to start my seven on, I found myself an insatiable appetite.  It was so bad, I blew through my driving snacks in less than the first hour and had to stop in the first town to hit McDonald's.  Hunger tends to be my warning that I am coming down with something.  I assume it's my subconscious telling me to stock up on calories while I can before I lose my appetite.  I also had a mild headache and a slightly scratchy throat.

    Being the conscientious healthcare worker that I am, I immediately got tested upon arrival.  And an hour later, I was headed back home with the week off.  I got home, filed for time from the extended illness bank, and set out to get in an extra week of work on the house.  While the Shieldmaiden was laid out for most of a week, I was upright the entire time, if easily winded.

    Among the challenges our family has faced is Sensory Processing Disorder in at least two out of three of our children.  Arguably, it's five out of five members, but only two have formal diagnoses.  While intense intervention has rendered our oldest mostly in control of herself, our youngest is not nearly as self-regulating.  So after a few days of Dad hammering and cutting on things, complicated by the lack of being able to go anywhere, and his own runny nose, the Squirt had had enough.  We threw on his weighted vest and earmuffs to no avail.

    At that point, the Shieldmaiden suggested that I stick him in our oldest daughter's "stretchy."  The stretchy is 15 feet of Lycra hung from the ceiling in a body sock/chair/swing/hammock that's part of her extensive collection of SPD equipment.  It's her happy place these days, with a particular emphasis on "her.  I was in a hurry to get back to my renovations, so I grabbed my son and stuck him in the stretchy, which calmed him substantially.

    But while I had helped the Squirt, it backfired when the Dot came around the corner and found him in it.  She was obviously distressed.  The Shieldmaiden tried to calm her down, but she was very, very hurt.

    Meanwhile, as I worked on my project, it occurred to me what I had done.  I had taken her property to provide mental health benefits to her brother.  If someone eminent-domain-ed our house to put in a psychiatric clinic, I'd certainly have some negative feelings.  Might even say a few choice words.

    And I really had no excuse, because in the past, we have often rented her equipment for him with no problems.  She's never said no, and usually only charges us 50 cents or so.  Rarely more than $1.  Instead, I'd violated her property rights because I was in a hurry.  

    This sort of thing does not fly in our family.

    I went to my beloved to ask where our daughter had gone and was informed that she was outside on the swing cooling off.  I brought her inside and apologized.  After she forgave me, we entered negotiations for restitution.  I offered her $1, expecting her to counter with $5.  I mean, after all, that's over twice the maximum amount she would have charged us for 30 minutes of stretchy time.

    Instead, she thought for a moment and then said, "I guess $1,000 is probably too much, isn't it?"  I informed her that her gut was right on that one, and she countered with $10, then proved markedly reticent to decrease.  Eventually, we settled for $4 and a trip to McDonald's for ice cream.

    Really, though, what's a conscience worth, right?  Though next time, the Shieldmaiden handles arbitration.

Christmas with the Quirks

Once again, my Christmas and Christmas Eve were spent with my faithful light-up pink flamingo lawn ornament and Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  I really should name the flamingo, given that I’ve spent more Christmases with it than with my family...by probably 3-4 times.  The nights’ soundtrack was provided by Lindsey Stirling and Piano Guys on Pandora, since I sadly could not get jouluradio.fi radio to stream.  I made up for it by streaming Raskasta Joulua IV on Pandora, though.

It’s a pretty bleak way to spend Christmas, but fortunately, “A Grander Snuffy’s Christmas” had dropped, which brightened up my Christmas Eve. The Political Orphanage has become my podcast of choice for basically it’s entire existence. It is, as the name suggests, politically-oriented, but unlike the Red Team/Blue Team personality- and identity-driven soundbite shoutfest that most of the political world consists of, the Orphanage actually engages in long-format discussion of not only policies, but also underlying worldviews and epistemology. It is also humorous. Very, very humorous. Much of said humor revolving around horses, which I can only assume is an Oklahoma thing. The third Christmas special was once again “sponsored” by Snuffy’s off Route 44, “Where everything tastes better...on a horse.” While much of the humorous “ad copy” has--sadly--fallen by the wayside for the duration of election season, the team made up for it with this year’s Christmas episode. And if the minimum wage ghost of this year’s Christmas Carol did not rise to the genius of the unlicensed angel Wonderful Life or if the Horse Nog Christmas Cards didn’t quite finish as strong as the review of the Nutcracker on Ice (with horses)...well those were a heck of a high bar, anyway. Plus it definitely won on sheer quantity, clocking in at over an hour...as long as the previous two specials combined. During a brief monologue towards the end, Heaton brought up that George Noory always has live programs on holidays for those spending them away from family, which I had completely forgotten, so I tuned in briefly on Christmas night to get a second fix of quirky individuals. I don’t listen often now, as there are no local stations carrying Coast to Coast AM, but when I switched to thirds for the last year or so in Tennessee, I listened fairly often. For those who are unfamiliar, Coast to Coast AM is that supernatural/conspiracy theory radio program you hear in the background of every movie scene where someone is driving across the desert at night. It’s the show whose guests will tell you everything from who really killed JFK and which crystal to use to deter alien abduction. The callers come off as chronic substance users and/or mentally ill. Yet I greatly admire George Noory. It’s always impressed me how he can listen to all the crackpot theories from both his guests and callers with a straight face. The only time I ever saw him cut off a guest was the guy who called in the night after the Sandy Hook shooting claiming it was a red flag operation. Even more impressive is when he has two guests on in one show back to back with mutually exclusive theories, yet still gives each of them a completely credulous interview. He truly embodies respect and dignity, and I just do not understand how he does it. All in all, there are worse ways to spend a Christmas. Sure, it’d be nice to have a job where I spend Christmas Eve assembling children’s presents and knocking back a couple mugs of Christmas cheer, but it was nice to spend my nights listening to a couple men who display a level of grace that I really wish I could attain.

To err is human...

 ...but to really [redacted]-up takes a computer.

Usually, that’s just an excuse for a person’s mistake.  As one friend who used to work in hospital IS to me, most downtimes are caused by “EBKAC”:  “Error Between Keyboard And Chair.”

Occasionally, though, computers are allowed to run free, applying their algorithms to make all-new original mistakes.  Today’s case in point was found while Christmas shopping.  The Shieldmaiden recently read Hattie Big Sky and recommended it.  I went to Amazon to locate it for order and was surprised to find it listed as a series.  Even more surprising was the series it was listed as, “That Night with the Alpha Billionaire: Chasing Love.”

So, obviously, what we have here is an algorithm fail that has lumped a historical fiction series in with a YAFSKO (“Yet Another Fifty Shades Knock Off”).  But, being the kid of guy who can’t look away from a train wreck, I indulged my morbid curiosity and clicked on the link.  It got even funnier.

As you can see, the algorithm erroneously lumped not just two, but three series together!  And while George Graft here assures us “If you are searching for "R" rated romance look elsewhere. Hattie's story will appeal more to the reader with strong christian values searching for self improvement or help in finding a new career path” that “contains no vulgar language or vivid sexual scenes,” I somehow suspect that “Hattie Black”’s “BWWM Interracial Romance short stories” are somehow less chaste in tone.  

Just a guess.  But then, I am judging the books by their covers, so I could be wrong.

Hey, this is a family blog!

Of course, between those two series, the YAFSKO is probably still better-written than the Christian(ish?) romance.

Anyway, kids, this is why we don’t have to worry about AI ever taking over the world.  

On the other hand, I suppose this is also precisely why we have to worry about AI ever taking over the world. I recently caught a podcast interview with Lord Martin Rees in which he asserted that AI would be a great boon to China in helping them run its planned economy...just as long as said economy never has a book whose author has the same name as characters in other series, apparently.

47 Hours

Once again, I am making an attempt to return to blogging.  And, given the title of this blog, it seems appropriate to start with a post on the return of Theseia.

A bit of background is in order.  Theseia, my second wife, and I have been sadly separated for longer than we were ever together.  It's all my fault, really.  I replaced her 258 some years ago with a 304.  The oil pump housing was cracked, so I replaced it.  Unfortunately, I forgot a needle valve bolt and blew out all her oil across the backroads of McMinn County on the test drive.  The engine promptly seized, as engines are wont to do when they have no oil, and my beloved jeep turned into a giant paperweight.  That was 2011.

I never was able to squeeze the funds out of my Tennessee pay to replace the engine (again), and so she sat.  In 2013, we moved to Montana.  In 2014, my parents were kind enough to haul her in their dump trailer to their cabin in Munising, Michigan, where again, she sat.

Over the years, we got our finances in order, but still never managed to get the funds to ship her to Montana or the time and funds to get her ourselves.  Until now.

The old saw as I heard it is, "a good friend will help you move a couch; a great friend will help you move a body."  Somewhere between those is the kind of friend that will help you move a 1976 CJ-7 across the country.

Said friend, in my case, recently purchased an early 2000's Ford Econoline 350 ambulance with ye olde Powerstroke diesel.  We put in to our respective employers for time off and worked on getting it ready for the road trip.

The first task, of course, was debadging, which, it turned out, went much more smoothly than feared.  It only took about an hour at a shop with a heat gun and a plastic scraper.

The real trick was getting a receiver hitch installed.  Those, shockingly, are not standard equipment on ambulances.  The original plan called for taking it to the local Uhaul, but, when my friend went to schedule the appointment, it turned out that the local dealership was shutting down due to lack of volume.  As my friend was on the phone with a local car dealership, I happened to look over to his other van, a gas one that he had used to haul his own CJ Scrambler the previous year.

"Hey," says I, "What model is the Vanbulance based on?"

"Ford Econoline 350."

"Hmm," I muse, "And what model is the Free Candy Van?"

"Ford Econoline."

"You know what I think might be worth a try?"

And so, about an hour later, the hitch problem had been solved.  Unfortunately, during the install, we found no exposed wiring to tap for the light hookup, so that did have to be referred to a professional the following day.

And so it was that on October 9th, my friend pulled up to our house in the Vanbulance at 0500.  After about 10 minutes of loading my travel gear, we pulled out into the early morning headed east on US 2.

The trip out was largely uneventful.  We took shifts driving, buckling in to the bench in back for naps.  About the only real issue was rescheduling the Uhaul car trailer pickup.  We were making great time, so we decided to prepare for a possible through the night push by rescheduling the trailer pickup for my parents to get it and have it on site in the morning.  Unfortunately, rescheduling messed up the pickup location.  It took several calls, but I finally secured a trailer at a close-ish location to my parents.

The Shieldmaiden and I have driven through the night to Michigan once.  It was a white-knuckle adventure dodging deer through two states, and we swore off ever doing it again.  That said, my friend was on a tighter clock than I, and it was his rig to risk, so while I offered my cautions to pushing through, in the end, it was his call.  In good news, apparently the deer in Wisconsin and da Yoop only prance across the roads in July.  We saw a whopping three deer and one corpse the whole way.  We arrived at about 0200 local time and promptly passed out.

We were up at 0600 local time.  We hitched up the trailer and ran into the first real problem:  the hitch we'd brought was too low.  The problem with small towns is that nothing opens until 0800, and most places until 0900, but we headed in to town anyway to see what we could find.  And also get breakfast at Falling Rock, the greatest coffee shop/used bookstore ever.  A quick trip to NAPA, and we had a straight-mount, 7500-pound-rated hitch in hand.

Back to the cabin, hooked up the trailer, backed it up in front of the jeep, and ran into problem two:  a jeep sitting in Upper Peninsula soil for 6 years makes quite the holes.  But, with the appropriate use of leverage, a side-by-side with winch, chocks, and a whole lot of elbow grease, it only took...the better part of an hour to get it on board.

Finally, though, we were good to go.  I said my goodbyes to my parents, and we hit the road again.

It only took about an hour to realize that we were not getting as good of fuel mileage as the 24 mpg or so we got on the trip out.  Unlike Northeast Montana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Eastern Minnesota have these things they call "hills."  With that kind of load, we had to turn off the overdrive, and watch the needle drop depressingly fast.  That said, the drive was beautiful.  I'd never actually been in da Yoop for the fall colors.

The really are quite lovely.

There was a nice little bit of chop to the Big Lake, too.

We still managed to make it through da Yoop on the first tank.  I dropped the windshield and pulled the doors in the hopes of cutting drag.  More on this in North Dakota.  We fueled up on the western edge of Wisconsin and drove through the first half of Minnesota.  Once the ground leveled out, we were able to reengage the overdrive, and fuel economy improved substantially.

Eventually, we reached North Dakota.  We stopped to fuel up.

Now, the attentive eye will note something here.  Didn't I put that windshield down in Wisconsin?  Let's take a closer look:

Why, yes, that is a broken hinge.  And the other side is fatigued.  Unfortunately, I did not have an attentive eye after that much time on the road and we continued to drive.  Fortunately, God loves idiots, drunks, and children, and we did not put the jeep's windshield through somebody else's.

We continued to drive, and this time, I was the one who wanted to push through.  My friend was pretty well tapped out, so I took over the final leg in Williston, ND.  Again, there was a remarkable lack of deer, though there was one hitchhiker outside of Poplar who thought he should get out into the lane to make sure I saw his thumb.  I managed to dodge him, and was very awake for the rest of the trip.

We rolled into Glasgow just shy 0400.  We parked at my place at just under 47 hours from our departure.  I drove my friend to his place and returned to find the door to my house locked.  And I don't exactly carry keys.  I had to call the longsuffering Shieldmaiden to let me in.  I promptly passed out in bed, with an alarm to get up at 0800 so I could victoriously go to church the following morning...which I slept through.

And that was the adventure, with the short epilogue that a few weeks later, I took the Vambulance and a utility trailer and engine hoist on a much shorter road trip down to Billings and picked up a pair of AMC V8s for both Theseia and my friend's Scrambler.  I hope to have her back on the road under her own power sometime in January.