Why are some societies more violent than others?

I developed a theory in high school about why some cultures are more warlike than others:

Around 200,000 years ago, our ancestors — Homo sapiens sapiens — emigrated from Africa. The first place they settled was the Middle East, then India, then China. This is why people first began to farm in Iraq around 8000 b.c., then India, and then China around 4000 b.c. (Spielvogel 4-6).

Those closest to where civilization began became the most warlike. I believe that this was due to overcrowding. Competition for resources led to unending war in the Middle East. There was less war in India, although that culture suffered invasions and settlement by more-warlike peoples, like the Aryans and Muslims (among others). Hinduism — India's traditional religion — advocates Ahimsa (nonviolence), but India still has a history of war and many of its sacred texts contain gory stories similar to our Old Testament. European culture was influenced greatly by cultures in the Middle East (especially by the Hebrews, but also others like the Babylonians — whence our "a tooth for a tooth"). So, the theory goes, European culture is a step away from that of the Middle East just like India's. The most-pacific culture of all these is China's, which stresses harmony (Taoism and Confucianism), and where Buddhism has been popular.

Of course, all societies practice war. But, this is more an indication of the wishes of a nation's rulers rather than its people. Mao Zedong, for example, was just a thug who rose to power largely on the basis of his military skills. He lacked basic respect for Chinese cultural institutions. His Cultural Revolution (1966-70) destroyed many Chinese cultural practices and artifacts. If China were a democracy, then I believe it would be more like Japan today, and I doubt it would have fought the Korean War. When Japan was ruled by military strongmen, it waged war endlessly, but today it is very peaceful. Less-warlike people overthrow their leaders because they are tired of war — e.g., the U.S. in the 1960s — whereas the most-warlike overthrow them because they want war — e.g., Syria after its defeat by Israel in 1948 (Longrigg).

Works consulted

Spielvogel, Jackson. Western Civilization (1997).

Brown, W. Norman. "Hinduism." Encyclopedia Americana. 2007. Grolier Online. http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0202530-00 [13 Apr. 2007]

Longrigg, Stephen H. "Syria >> 4. History and Government." Encyclopedia Americana. 2007. Grolier Online. http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0377350-04 [13 Apr. 2007]

Comparing programming language to human language

There are two types of language: natural and artificial. Natural languages, in large part, are products of evolution — steps taken beyond non-verbal communication by many people. Artificial languages, like Esperanto and BASIC, are in greater part designed consciously by a small group of people. One type of artificial language is computer language. There are two types: those that specify processes and those that specify results. Those that specify a process are instructions (programs). There are two kinds of languages that specify results: those that specify a format (e.g., HTML), and those that something sought (e.g., SQL). But, it is not certain that these are languages. They differ from natural languages in terms of their users, their evolution, and their scope.

Who users are depends on the language. The word language is from the Latin lingua, originally meaning “tongue.” The majority of languages were originally forms of speaking. In contrast, computer languages are not spoken. Many believe that communication with inanimate objects is not language. But in reality, these languages do not even communicate with computers. They first need to be translated to binary code. Computers cannot understand anything besides zeros and ones. This is another problem with the use of this word.

Like natural languages, computer languages are always changing. Many have dialects. For example, FORTRAN has gone through seven major generations since its introduction in 1956. The most recent is almost completely different from the FORTRAN of 1956. To display a message in the FORTRAN of 1956, you typed, PRINT *, 'Lorem ipsum', but today, you type <tabwrite (*,*) 'Lorem ipsum'. The rate of change is much greater than in natural languages because computers are changing much faster. Still, no matter how much they change, the grammar that produces statements in programming is always clear.

The scope of languages differs. One might say that computer language is a type of sub-language because its scope is more limited. They are not nearly as complex as our own. Our languages describe the world, whereas theirs describe their own. The only more-confined language is mathematics. Nevertheless, if any of them were to be expanded, they would be very similar to certain other a priori artificial languages like Lojban.¹ These can be used as natural languages, albeit with great difficulty.

In terms of their users, evolution, and scope, natural languages differ more than they resemble the language of computers. Computer languages are not languages much more than algebra. A more-appropriate name would be code, or as Edsger Dijkstra calls them, "notations."²

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1. There are two types of artificial languages: a priori and a posteriori. A priori languages like Lojban and FORTRAN are based on logic. A posteriori languages like Esperanto and Interlingua are derived from natural languages.

2. Many thanks to Goulo for letting me know about Lojban and the writings of Edsger Dijkstra.

The causes of global warming

In recent years, many alarms have been sounded about global warming. However, very few of these have addressed its cause. This debate has erupted at a horrible time in the history of news making. Ever since the deregulation of U.S. news content in the 1980s, news channels have focused more on meaningless issues (like Anna Nicole Smith or miscues by politicians) in order to cut costs. As a result, very little analysis has been done of global warming in mainstream media outlets, and even when longer stories are aired (as on 60 Minutes), they simply describe what is happening, rather than why.

Obviously, the Earth is getting warmer. But, in the opinion of many respected scientists, humans are not to blame. Other scientists believe that they are, but that carbon dioxide (CO₂) is not an important factor. I consulted 7 publications: The Guide to Global Hazards, World of Earth Science, Science in Dispute, World Book Encyclopedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Car and Driver, World of Chemistry, and History of Modern Science and Mathematics, and wrote a report for a class of mine. Here is that report:

The temperature of the Earth is influenced by the energy it receives from the sun and by the energy that it emits into space. The energy that it receives is influenced by its orbit, inclination,¹ and the energy that the sun emits.² The orbit of the Earth can be closer or further from the sun, and its inclination can be changed, moving some parts of the Earth away from the light of the sun. The energy that the world emits is influenced by its atmosphere and by the circulation of the ocean.³

History of the weather

The Earth was created around 4.5 billion years ago. At that time, temperatures were between 46 and 59°F (8 and 15°C) warmer than today.⁴ Two-and-a-half billion years ago, the first glaciers formed.

Geologic history is divided in four ways: by eon, era, period, system, epoch, and series. Epochs last between 20 and 50 million years. So, our epoch (the Holocene) is really a part of the Pleistocene epoch. As far as we are concerned, there are two types of epochs: glacial and non-glacial. The Earth began to cool 55 million years ago and the glaciers found today began to form 38 million years ago. So, the Pleistocene epoch is glacial. There were up to 18 ice ages during the Pleistocene, each of which lasted around 100,000 years. The periods between the ice ages have lasted between 10,000 and 20,000 years. 20,000 years ago, glaciers in the world began to shrink, and 11,500 years ago, the last ice age ended.⁵

In the intermissions between ice ages, there have been various changes in temperature. At the end of the last ice age, the average temperature on Earth was 9°F (5ºC) less that today. By around 4000 b.c., the temperature was 4ºF more that today.⁶ At around the same time (3500 b.c.) the first major civilization emerged in Sumer. The Late Roman Empire (284 – 476 a.d) and the Dark Ages (476 – 800 a.d) marked an age of cold climate. Around 600 a.d., the climate began to improve, and by 1000, the temperature was 2ºF higher than today.⁷ As a result, the Vikings were able to establish colonies in Greenland, which was green, but is not today. The peak temperature marked the beginning of the High Middle Ages (1000 – 1275). Afterward, the Little Ice Age began and lasted almost until the end of the 1700s.⁸ At the beginning of this period was the Black Death (1347 – 1351), and throughout the period glaciers grew.

Warming today

From 1860 to 1980, temperatures rose 1.3ºF (0.7ºC). It is possible nonetheless that the data this was based on was affected by urban heating, which occurs as a result of the absorption of heat by asphalt and concrete.⁹

In the three decades before 1980, temperatures did not increase, even though CO₂ levels did. The quantity of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere increased from approximately 270 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 360 ppm in 2000.¹⁰ Many believe that temperatures have not increased as much as they would if were tracking the increase of CO₂.¹¹

The greenhouse effect is a natural and essential process caused by various gases in the atmosphere.¹² These are water vapor, nitrous oxide (N₂O), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. Methane heats the Earth 21 – 24 times more that carbon dioxide. The atmosphere had a pre-industrial methane concentration of around 700 parts per billion (ppb), which increased to around 1745 ppb in 1998.¹³ Methane is produced by bacteria largely through decomposition in swamps, landfills, rice patties, and pastures.¹⁴ N₂O warms the atmosphere 290 – 320 times better than CO₂, and ozone 2,000 times more. During this time, the concentration of N₂O grew from 270 ppb to 314 ppb. Water, although having less impact for each molecule, has greater influence due to its ubiquity in the form of clouds. It is responsible for between 60 and 95 per cent of the global warming effect.¹⁵ Humans have not had an impact with regards to water vapor. Many of these gases can be reduced though devices in cars and power plants. But, CO₂ is a product of perfect combustion. Carbon monoxide, N₂O, and sulfur are products of partial combustion.¹⁶ Therefore, human emissions of CO₂ cannot be reduced without reducing the consumption of fuel.

Even if global warming were caused by CO₂, it is not certain that the source of this CO₂ is human. For one thing, humans could not produce enough. Nature produces the majority through decomposition — 29 times more that humans produce each year.¹⁷ Before deforestation, plants stored more or less 990 billon tons (900 billion metric tons) of carbon, 90% of which was in forests. Today, only 616 billion tons (560 billion metric tons) of carbon are stored in plants. Aiding this, many farmers burn forest to cultivate the Earth. These fires produce more CO₂.

Theophrastus (372 – 287 b.c.) believed that deforestation reduced the capacity of plants to absorb heat from the sun. Voltaire (1694 - 1778) said the same. Early colonists in North America noted that the climate there was harsher than in Europe. They believed that clearing the forests would improve the temperature and precipitation. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson later said that they believed it had worked.¹⁸

The oceans absorb a lot of CO₂ — approximately 50% of it — without any danger of becoming saturated.¹⁹ Unlike oxygen, CO₂ is very soluble in water. It is also heavier than oxygen. A volcano can emit more contaminants into the atmosphere that a thousand cities the size of Los Angeles.²⁰ Some of the gases emitted remain in the atmosphere for centuries.

Despite claims to the contrary, the speed of the recent rise in temperature is not unusual. Before humans, changes of 42ºF occurred in only a century.²¹ In one incident 10,500 years ago, temperatures fell 45°F (7°C) in 50 years.

Conclusion

Global warming has actually been good for many countries, like Iceland, which has been able to overcome the perpetual famine that plagued that country before 1875. Many are worried about the glaciers melting completely, but this process is actually happening very slowly and will take several centuries to finish. It is true that some places, like the Netherlands, will have to spend a lot of money to ward off the sea, but there is nothing anyone can to do help them. Even if man-made emissions of CO₂ were causing the warming, and even if we were to cut these emissions, inertia would still cause the Earth to warm for centuries into the future.²²

The Bush Administration set back the debate when it denied the existence of global warming — an untenable position. Environmental groups were thus relieved of having to discuss the causes of the phenomenon. Instead, they focused on nightmarish predictions of the future, and public fears grew. This situation is not unlike earlier predictions of global overpopulation, which never came true. And this is yet another example of how the Bush Administration has seriously undermined the credibility and influence of the Conservative movement.

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1. Shopov, Yavor. "Paleoclimate." World of Earth Science. Eds. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2641950340> [5 April 2007]

2. "Global Warming." Science in Dispute. Ed. Neil Schlager. Vol. 3. (Detroit: Gale, 2002.) Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2643510068> [5 April 2007]

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Grootes, Pieter M. ‘Ice age.’ World Book Online Reference Center. 2007 [4 April 2007]

6. "Global Warming," loc. cit.

7. Hare, F. Kenneth. "climate." Encyclopædia Britannica of Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. (Chicago, 2007).

8. Shopov, op. cit.

9. Hare, op. cit.

10. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

11. Hare, op. cit.

12. "Global Warming," loc. cit.

13; Ibid.

14. "Methane." World of Chemistry. Ed. Robyn V. Young. (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006). Science Resource Center. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum= CV2432500448> [6 April 2007]

15.Bedard, Patrick. "We just gotta’ do sumethin’ about carbon dioxide," Car and Driver (November 2002) p. 21

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Fleming, James R. "Meteorology." History of Modern Science and Mathematics. Ed. Brian S. Baigrie. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.) Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.sable. jefferson.lib.co.us:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=CV2640700027> [5 April 2007]

19. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

20. Ibid.

21. "Global Warming." loc. cit.

22. Kovach, Robert. "Global warming." Guide to Global Hazards. (Philip's, 2003) <http://www.xreferplus.com/entry/5913813>The consequences of global warming. (2003). In Guide to Global Hazards. Retrieved April 06, 2007, from DISPLAYURL [6 April 2007]

I love nonsense

My favorite type of art is surreal. Surrealist art, in my opinion, includes beat writers like William S. Burroughs, filmmakers like David Lynch, and painters like Salvador Dali. Many people dislike stories that don’t make sense. Some are actually offended, like you’re wasting their time or like trying to bewilder them. The latter is true for my writing, although I hardly think that reading surreal fiction is a waste of time.

Let me clarify why I try to confuse people. Seven years ago, I asked a high-school teacher of mine how I could clear my mind. He told me to try Zen Buddhism, and gave me the name of a temple. Zen means “meditation” in Japanese. That’s what Zen Buddhists do the most — they meditate. They count their breaths while staring at walls in an effort to clear their minds of un-needed thoughts (non-thinking) so they can let their true nature shine through and so they can see the truth. People are good at heart, so nothing bad results. We were also given lectures by our sensei, and in my spare time I read some koans (Zen poems). The lectures by the sensei usually made sense, but he would also rail against thought and reason, saying that they had no place in the temple, which is absolutely true. He wanted us to “just sit.” The koans I read were sometimes dense like a story from Jorge Luis Borges, with lots of symbolism and false clues, but more often just didn't make sense (e.g., cows on top of poles; the sound of a single hand clapping). As you progress in meditation, you sit for longer periods. The sessions remain the same length, but you do more of them each day, eventually sleeping at the temple to accommodate the meditation schedule. In this way, you begin to feel a sense of progress, but that’s when the monks at the temple step in. They throw you false clues in the form of nonsensical statements (e.g., “you must kill Buddha”) and act like they think you're doing a bad job. You begin to feel as if you’re no closer to obtaining “enlightenment” than before. You begin to break down, losing hope, and if you’re lucky, you do. If you’re lucky, you will abandon reason and the thoughts that are causing you to feel hopeless. You will give up trying to reason.

I never obtained enlightenment, because (1) I was 19-years old, (2) I have low self-confidence, and (3) I have ADHD [I didn’t know this at the time]. So, I gave up. But, I came away from Zen with an immense respect for things that do not make sense.

One thing Zen taught me is that humans don't really know anything. No matter how long you go to school – you can earn 5 Ph.D.s – you will still know almost nothing. Today, I see these professors in my classes – some in their 60s who have been studying things all their lives — roaming into subjects they don’t understand. For example, my professor in Spanish literature began to lecture us the other day about European history while he was talking about a poem, and for the first time, I noticed several serious mistakes in what he was saying. He said that in the 1600s, the Protestant countries of Northern Europe were more advanced than the Catholic countries, which is untrue. The most-sophisticated countries of the time were Spain, Italy, and France, which were all Catholic. He has also been lecturing me personally about how I need to format my papers. He thinks that I shouldn’t bold my headings (!) and that I need to indent paragraphs below headings (!) although the headings set them off just fine. Likewise, another professor told us about the “5 Ps of marketing” (the business Spanish professor thinks there’s 5, although all the marketing textbooks say there’s 4). Indeed, what good does a Ph.D. in psychology do if you want to talk about physics, and what good does a Ph.D. in Spanish do you if you want to talk about marketing? Once you realize how little you know, the better off you will be. Humans love to fool themselves into thinking that the world makes sense to them. The world absolutely makes sense, but not to a human, who is far too weak to understand something so complex and so large.

My fictional writing

Today I write what you might call poetry. It’s not that type of poetry, i.e., rhymed stanzas (lines) of a fixed length. It can be called poetry because it is phrased mostly for an emotional effect, rather than for a certain meaning. Anything that is arranged for a certain sound, impression, or even a certain appearance (e.g., words in a circle) is poetry. Most people arrange poems for a sound, making them beautiful but hard to understand. I phrase my writing in blank verse, meaning there is no special sound. I also put it into plain-old paragraphs. I phrase it purely to cause the reader to ask — as strongly as possible — what the fuck is going on?

I don't think that creating surrealist art is easy. That’s why I think Jackson Pollock is such a horrible artist. Is splattered paint really unusual? Of course not. Walk over to a neighborhood with a lot of construction, and you will probably see some splattered paint on the ground. His artwork doesn’t make any sense, but as I wrote above, most things in life do not make sense to humans. To see something nonsensical is not surprising to most people. Better surrealists take their art a step further and make it bizarre. Better surrealists still take it into the realm of terror and then humor. When your art is so damn strange that audiences break into uncontrollable laughter, then you know that you have created something very surreal. (Laughter is our instinctual response to paradoxes in life.) I am not entirely certain which is stranger: things that are humorous or things that are terrifying, but if you’ve reached either threshold, you’re doing your job. Here is the general progression of nonsense:

    clarity → murkiness → nonsense → absurdity → horror → comedy

So, writing great surrealist material is not as easy as writing random things. I’m not sure what the magic ingredient is, though. My technique is like walking a tightrope. I am always trying to make things as weird and stupid as possible, but at the same time, trying to keep the reader from giving up on reading the essay or story, or getting bored from something that is so random as to not be stimulating. One method I use is changing the way in which the piece does not make sense. This may mean talking about an event which could never happen in one sentence, like never listening to music in your life (“I’ve never listened to music before in my life.”) In another sentence, you might include words that appear to make sense at first, but are really just a bunch of tongue-twisters (e.g., “Is me what it is that tell be want to do.” which seems almost like “Is me what it is that you tell me what to do,” which still doesn’t make sense even when it is translated). An essay I wrote the other day colored each word in a paragraph differently. Another included some photographs of people in strange poses. The general idea is to always keep the reader on his or her toes.

The best place to present your writing is in a café. You can’t use color or arrange your words in shapes, but you can use your voice and your body. I like to place emphasis on words which should not be emphasized (e.g., “Because this music is of just like talking to me.”). The audience will already be confused by the fact that you are referring to nonexistent music and that it is just like "talking," but if you act like you are surprised by the fact that it is talking to you, you will make their bewilderment complete. You can also gauge reader responses easily in such an environment. If you’re posting your writing to some site, it’s much harder to tell.

Here is a short story/poem/essay I wrote a few months ago. I also posted it on Uncyclopedia. Feel free to tell me what you think or give me suggestions on how to make it better.

A Breath of Heaven

Dad, can eyes see themselves? I plan to cure all illnesses of mankind, 'cuz I'm so fucking ideational.. Like the O as in Don’t eat that fruit! You can belly-laugh it up.

I was with another guy having lunch at an outdoor restaurant. My companion was looking at me eat, saying “Oh yeah…” I looked innocently at him--not confused. The other guy kept talking, “that feels good, doesn’t it? Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoooo…” looking very emotional, near tears. I looked at his face and saw a tear streaming down one side. That night, he got really, really, drunk. He then went driving on a county road. He could only see a blurry tunnel. He saw an oncoming car’s headlights as a light and he heard a voice saying, “go towards the light.” So, he turned towards the car, and said, “I CAN SEE THE LIGHT!" and began screaming, "AAAHHH!” He hit the accelerator, saying again, “I-CAN-SEE-THE LIGHT!!!” He hit the car and they both vaporized.

Although he vaporized, he still went to work the next day. He clocked in, sat down, and went to work. I remember him, and in our hearts, an evil power is spreading. Indeed, my rage is like a hot coal. If you touch it, it will burn right through you straight to your soul. I’ve swallowed the coal, and it’s killing me. Because this song of is just like talking to me. Quite frankly, you ought to just open the door to see who's there.

But we saw the great tree of life. We were all facing it, and began climbing it. The tree began rumbling and making a sound “aahhr.” By the time I quenched the light with my hand, it had burned my eyes. My eyes were in shock—I didn’t see white—I saw red and cried out loud: “aaah.” It's incredibly ideational. I raised my hands towards el cielo, praising God.