mathoda.com - Latest Comments

Re: Getting to know Sarah Palin, one bad interview at a time

mathoda — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:07:04 -0000

I have a blog, which hardly makes me part of the media. I also wouldn't say I'm a liberal. I'm probably more libertarian than anything else, since I believe in both social freedom and economic freedom to live life however you want. If you read my review of Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope or my critique of his slam of Wal-Mart you'd probably have figured that out.

I'd say Ron Paul is a libertarian. Apart from his conviction that abortion is always wrong, he seems to favor both social liberty and economic liberty, with a very limited government role.

Sarah Palin is not a libertarian. She appears to favor laws governing how people can culturally live, and she seems unconcerned that the government can hold someone they deem a terrorist suspect in confinement without any judicial review. On economic issues she's in favor of a Paulson type plan, while being unable to describe why (as her interview with Kouric shows). While I think it's possible for a libertarian to favor the Paulson type plan, I think they'd have to do so with the greatest reluctance and with a far better understanding of why it's needed than she has shown.

She may be a smaller government Republican than George W. Bush, but that's not that high a hurdle, really, and frankly Alaskan citizens have the lowest taxes and highest benefits (eg, subsidy) of any state in the union. She favored the "Bridge to Nowhere" originally, and even when she turned against it she didn't refund to the taxpayers, she kept them for state use. I think a true libertarian would have said neither the Congress nor the state of Alaska should be holding onto such funds.

Re: Getting to know Sarah Palin, one bad interview at a time

Eric Dondero — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:17:17 -0000

Hey liberal media. Keep bashing libertarian Sarah Palin. You're doing a great job of convincing us libertarians to support the GOP more and more each day. Attack one of the few elected libertarians in the Nation - Gov. Palin? You push us libertarians right over to the Republican Party.

Re: America apparently now has terminator drones

mathoda — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:59:36 -0000

The use of such drones is being expanded in Afghanistan: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169509501550...

As the article states:
"In Iraq, the Army aircraft fed data on insurgent positions to Apache attack helicopters and ground forces. U.S. commanders said the effort has contributed to the deaths of more than 3,000 suspected insurgents."

Re: http://mathoda.com/archives/296

JTanekrs — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:52:14 -0000

The CERN rappers are talented and informative. Anti-Rap at LHCFacts.org

Re: On buying land (aka, how to tell if there is a real estate bubble) | mathoda.com

Ranjit Mathoda — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:44:32 -0000

Kit, I've actually left my private law practice to set up an investment management firm. More on that later...

Re: Socrates was wrong to state the unexamined life is not worth living

mathoda — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:10:48 -0000

Thanks for your extensive thoughts Anita. There's two issues I'll tackle. The first is what Socrates really chose between. The second is what role examination has in determining worth.

As you mention, what Socrates really chose was death via hemlock over exile. Arguably he saw exile as being deprived of the right to teach the examination of life in the manner he thought wise to the community he wanted to belong to, and saw this as worse than choosing death. By choosing death he could transform himself in the minds of his philosopher student community into the protector of the community's ideals. He would also be proving to his society and all future persons the strength of his conviction. The small irony is he could still have examined his life all he wanted, while in exile. He would have lost the ability to teach his current students in his current society. He would also have lost his halo of respect to the like minded community of philosophers that have followed him in time. To Socrates staying loyal to his community was very important, even at the cost of death. I think that's the real choice Socrates made.

To my mind, worth is in the eye of the beholder. If you don't examine yourself at all, you could assume your self worth and you could have worth to other people in your life. What Socrates said wasn't "If you have the wisdom to correctly examine your life and you fail to examine your life you may make mistakes that you later regret or you may not have as rich a life." What he said (according to Plato) is "The unexamined life is not worth living."

It seems to me some people examine their lives hardly at all, but still have worth to their families, their friends, themselves. Many animals don't appear to examine their own lives, but they are ascribed worth by others. A plant doesn't appear to examine its life, but it is ascribed worth.

Socrates statement has a potent ring, but its vagueness has left it open to a myriad of interpretations. Self examination is how we may define self worth, but a person may define great self worth with even a cursory self examination or an unexamined belief. We may feel they are wrong, but that's our judgment of their worth. The point I'm making is that worth is not defined just by self examination. It can actually be assumed without any examination at all.

To pretend that it requires great self examination is really an unexamined statement put forth by philosophers. I do think unexamined statements may have worth. They could have worth because they are actually right or because they have meaning to those who fail to examine them. The point I'm making is that worth is a value judgment, so the statement "The unexamined life is not worth living" is only true to those who want it to be true. To everyone else, it's false. Philosophers have interpreted Socrates' statement as if it is universally true, and that can't be right. To them it has worth, and to me it doesn't.

Re: Socrates was wrong to state the unexamined life is not worth living

mathoda — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:40:32 -0000

If Socrates said "If you have the wisdom to correctly examine your life and you fail to examine your life you may make mistakes that you later regret" I would agree with your interpretation of his statement. On the other hand if someone doesn't examine their life at all perhaps their life has more worth to them then if they do start examining it. If someone is unwise in how they approach examining it perhaps they'd be better off not starting on such an examination. A flaw in what Socrates said is that every human life is examined to some extent. What I really think he meant was "If I am not allowed to teach the examination of life in the manner I consider wise then my life is not worth living." If that is what he meant, the statement is definitely vague and ill written in terms of communicating an idea. Vague statements are fodder for scholars to ponder, so it certainly hasn't hurt his brand any. But as I suggest that may have more to do with philosopher's receptivity to the statement then its actual truth.

Re: Searching for the path to youth

mathoda — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:42:12 -0000

Of course you could try pickled herring! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25141590/

Re: Socrates was wrong to state the unexamined life is not worth living

Anita — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:59:02 -0000

It seems to me that some ideas succeed not because they are true, but because the audience attracted to the idea will by its composition be inclined to agree. An example is a statement that Plato ascribes to Socrates, that "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I came across your website shortly after I emailed you and found your piece on "the unexamined life" thought provoking. I, for one, am in that group of "philosophers" who believes this dictum- the unexamined life is not worth living- to be absolutely true. I realize your points in the context of Socrates own situation, and the seemingly irrational claim that a person’s life can be deemed not worth living, if they choose not to examine it. However, I think there is a deeper quality to Socrates statement that is escaping your argument. Your premise against his final oration hinges on the treatise: if some do not ponder the wisdom of their actions much at all, must we (or particularly they) conclude their life is less worth living? What Socrates, and those philosophers who subscribe to the belief of an examined life meant to conclude, I believe, was not simply an analysis of one's own actions, but the examination of a fundamentally personal scaffolding, if you will, to each person’s life, that is deeply personal, and often times unconscious, that creates the unique architecture of each individual, and opens awareness to the motivation behind these actions you speak of.

A life governed outside of one’s own personal postulations of the very fabrication of themselves, would, I believe, lead to a life only of stringed events, redundant actions without cause or meaning. To live a life such as this, would be “not worth living” as there is no life, spirit, meaning, realization, pathos, etc. behind this. It would be like going through the motions without really understanding why. How long can any of us do that without abandoning the activity that leads us to this state of apathy in the first place? Working on a chain gang, assembly line, or dead-end jobs, engaging in unfulfilling activities or staying in burnt out relationships is reflective of this sort of meaningless repetition without motivation or meaning. And more often than not, one hears people in these situations say “I feel dead inside.” This is the life “not worth living” that I feel Socrates was referring to.

For example, Carl Jung, in his work The Undiscovered Self, explores the idea of 'mass-mindedness' and the obliteration of the individual to the influence of collective thought and oftentimes propaganda. Media manipulation, the overwhelming bombardment of population based opinion, the false-sense of achievement with possession of meaningless product and the engenderment of the individual toward group-think, rather than their alignment with a distinctly personal point of view, creates an environment whereby individuality becomes subordinate to societal decision and the popular vote. "The bigger the crowd, the more negligible the individual." (Jung, The Undiscovered Self Now, does that mean one needs to be a philosopher to examine their life? Absolutely not.

But I would argue this. Outside of our day to day artifices of what we do, is who we are. When one defines who they are by what they do, where they live, who they are married to, etc . . .they have, in my opinion, lost a sense of who they are. There is an undercurrent to the storm-viewed waters of our lives, a subtle electricity that vibrates to individual frequency and is different from one person to the next. To never tap into what that is, is to do a great disservice to no one else but ourselves, in this our one lifetime. To simply state that we are products of our upbringing, environment, birth-rite, is too simple. As I believe, it is too simple to say, by examining our actions, we have examined our lives.

As a physician, I see all too often. People who come face to face with death, and if granted the chance to reverse a grim prognosis, change their lives because of it. This comes from a deep recognition, nearing the time of death, that the life lived was not as significant as once thought before being admitted for terminal diagnosis X,Y, or Z. Colloquially we say, they are "soul searching." Weighing out their priorities, reassigning their values, redistributing their emotions, perhaps Socrates would say “examine their lives.” This exercise in self-discovery often leads to places of extreme spiritual renewal and new founded establishments of who that person really is. The deep exploration, and recognition of one's own structure, motivation, raison d'etre, if you will, and on some level, a subconscious connection to the divine, is a crossroads which, I believe, everyone comes to at one point or another in their life, and it is often at a time near death. However, Socrates, in his foresight of impending death, already realized to wait until a forced crisis to begin thinking of these constructions of one’s life, is equivalent to death itself. The examination of one’s life, must be a lived experience from day to day. This requires a certain silence, that within the noise of mass influence, cannot always be heard.

Victor Frankl, in Man's Search for Meaning , which chronicles his survival through an Auschwitz concentration camp, reiterates my point above, "When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves" (Frankl, Man' s Search for Meaning).

That change in ourselves can only manifest itself in an operative shift from a re-examination of oneself in the face of such extreme life alteration. Until one is faced with death as a reality in this lifetime, the question of "self" often goes unexamined. At the end of Frankl's heroic survival through the horrors of Nazi Germany, he emerges almost resurrected in self and spirit, a metamorphosis, which he himself declares, may never have happened outside of this adversity. Socrates too, facing hemlock or exile, realizes to stay trapped in abandonment without the ability to relate to and explore the human condition, and thereby have no mirrors for the examination of himself, chooses death instead. Frankl echoes this idea.

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary." -Frankl

And there was Nietzsche. Nietzsche was not a huge fan of Socrates, or the Socratic method, however, the following passage from this Genealogy of Morals, ironically aligns him with Socrates statement in discussion to the examination of one's own life. His revelations here, crystallize the statements and references I have made above. The spirit of his argument; that in spite of man's achievement, discovery and pioneership, the one frontier that is often left untraveled, are beyond the borders that lead to ourselves.

"We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge--and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves--how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves? It has rightly been said: 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also' [Matthew 6.21]; our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are. We are constantly making for them, being by nature winged creatures and honey- gatherers of the spirit; there is one thing alone we really care about from the heart--'bringing something home.' Whatever else there is in life, so-called ,'experiences'--which of us has sufficient earnestness for them? Or sufficient time? Present experience has, I am afraid, always found us 'absent-minded': we cannot give our hearts to it--not even our ears! Rather, as one divinely preoccupied and immersed in himself into whose ear the bell has just boomed with all its strength the twelve beats of noon suddenly starts up and asks himself: 'what really was that which just struck?' so we sometimes rub our ears afterward and ask, utterly surprised and disconcerted, 'what really was that which we have just experi- enced?' and moreover: 'who are we really?' and, afterward as aforesaid, count the twelve trembling bell-strokes of our experience, our life, our being--and alas! miscount them.--So we are necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not comprehend our- selves, we have to misunderstand ourselves, for us the law 'Each is furthest from himself' applies to all eternity--we are not 'men of knowledge' with respect to ourselves." - Nietzsche

Perhaps, I have stabbed myself in the foot here with my argument that one does not need to be a philosopher to examine ones own life, and then promptly go on to reference some big-gun philosophers, but the idea of self-realization and discovery is a very ancient, if not human one. Above the doorway to the gates of the Oracle at Delphi in Athens the words "gnothi seauton" Greek for "know thyself" lays carved in gold. Ironic since it was the Oracle who was mythicized to tell your future. But appropriate, for despite what any god or man could ever predict or tell of oneself, it was nothing compared to what one could garner of themself in their own rite and capacity..

Socrates chose death. He chose death over exile. He chose physical death over an existential one. A bold, yet perfectly appropriate choice for him. So in conclusion, I would ask you to expand your view to not simply an examination of one’s own actions as a conclusion of the examination of one’s own life, but rather to deepen it to a core examination of the motivation behind them. This, in my opinion, is the life worth living, and the self worth realizing.

We only have one lifetime to “get it.” Do we not owe it to ourselves to endeavor this exploration? I humbly appreciate any rebuttal or reply to this. Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Anita Sircar, MD

Re: When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

mathoda — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:42:51 -0000

I think this is the visualization you're referring to... very neat! http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/pol...

Re: When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

mathoda — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:53:11 -0000

Lynn, your suspicion is right, Google is working on better visualization of data for presentation on websites. They have two initiatives I'm aware of. The first is called Google charts. With some tinkering you can use Google to generate a chart image based on some data (see http://code.google.com/apis/chart/). The second is that they bought the gapminder presentation software that Hans Rosling used in his fantastic TED presentation (see http://www.gapminder.org/blog/gapminder-foundat...).

Re: When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

Uv — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:29:29 -0000

I just came across the "2008 Campaign tool" on NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/). Its right front & center on the home page right now...incredible data visualization. Really brought home the fact that elections are like herding cattle...most of the white voters voted for Clinton, and all the black people voted for Obama! Data visualization indeed cuts through the bull shit and really helps facts hit home.

Nice post!

Re: When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

Lynn Marentette — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:12:19 -0000

Good question! I just completed a class in information visualization and communication and I want to see more of this going on. Any suggestions for the casual blogger?

Maybe Google is working on this.

Re: Short Story: A Long Way Down by Ranjit Mathoda

Uv — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:59:12 -0000

I've read this story before, and I enjoyed reading it just as much..maybe more...the second time.

Also, I second Kevin's comment about making it shorter. There are parts that can be cut out that seem a tad bit verbose and take away from the rest of the story which is short, intense & punchy. Just the way I like it.

Re: Short Story: A Long Way Down by Ranjit Mathoda

Kevin — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:30:03 -0000

Cool story! I like how the overdose of rage blockers makes agreements legally inadmissible. I also like the annoyance of the suit phoning home ;-)

In terms of suggestions, in general I would recommend that you edit it down, see if you can keep the same content but make it shorter and denser. But there's no specific problems, really, and I think that same advice applies to most fiction...

Re: Incorporating your business should be vastly simpler

Alex T. — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:59:08 -0000

Create the site Ranjit, company.gov... well create it on another domain and then propose to the Federal Gov. that it be loaded up at company.gov. Of course this will require months of lobbying on the Hill and if that goes well you may face Court challenges to the Constitutionality of what has been traditionally been a state power/function being taken away from the states and given to the Federal Gov. Break out your Chemerinsky, hello Supreme Court...
ps - company.gov is nothing right now. Hurry up!

Re: Socrates was wrong to state the unexamined life is not worth living

Thu, 15 May 2008 13:21:56 -0000

I think that what that quote can be interpreted to mean is that to blindly follow a path without examining why you are doing what you are doing or if it is even what you want to be doing is to live a life that is nowhere near as fulfilling as it can be. I look at friends who have married only because they assumed it was the next step to take in life, who have had babies because it is what comes next after marriage, who have never once questioned why the want what they want for themselves and if they really want it or if they have bought into what society, their family, their friends and peers expects of them. Obviously the personal interpretations will all vary but that's just my two cents.

Re: Freeman Dyson’s opinions on climate change

mathoda — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:43:03 -0000

Here's some potentially bad things that can happen if you direct a tremendous amount of resources at a problem you really don't understand: (a) you can forego the use of those resources for problems you really do understand (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_consensus), (b) you can make the situation worse because of unintended effects of your remedy or because the situation was the opposite of what you thought it was, or (c) you can make the true causes of the situation more difficult to study. Another issue is there are potentially millions of unlikely but disastrous events you are uncertain about; like an asteroid hitting earth or a failure to worship Zeus. How do you divide resources among them? One approach is to expend resources on getting a better understanding but not to take action until your understanding and the cost benefits of your remedy improve. The problem will still be roughly the same in 5 years but your understanding of its real threat hopefully improves significantly.

Re: Freeman Dyson’s opinions on climate change

Uv — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:43:27 -0000

Ron,

The argument is compelling, but tell me...in the absence of accurate data/models that produce a transparent view of the situation...whats the worse that can happen by directing resources towards consuming/polluting less, and how does that compare with the alternative?

Definitely thought provoking...but I'm afraid of the way incentives are stacked in this case.

Uv

Re: On learning, producing and wisdom

mathoda — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:39:16 -0000

Wow, that's a long bike ride! An additional idea I've heard on how to be better at keeping your commitments is make a bet. It doesn't have to be monetary, and you can either make it with someone else, or you can tell yourself that if you don't keep the commitment you will instead take some other action (like donating to a charity). The idea is to increase the unpleasantness of not keeping the commitment...

Re: On learning, producing and wisdom

Andrew Warner — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:18:06 -0000

I love the point about making commitments. After I committed to running the NYC Marathon, I found myself running more frequently. When ever I can't get myself to move fast enough, I commit to something big. (My current commitment is a 200-mile bike ride.

Re: Sharing web links and thoughts should take less clicks

nextujeremy — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:26:45 -0000

Hi Ranjit,

Thank you for this valuable feedback. We're out to make sharing as easy as possible, and this includes providing more and more features for the users. We'd like to provide the user with the ability to set social web preferences so with just one click of the ShareThis button, it will share to wherever you wish around the web. Love to hear any additional thoughts you may have.

Thanks for using ShareThis!

Jeremy Bock
Product Support Engineer
ShareThis

Re: Sharing web links and thoughts should take less clicks

andydavies — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:22:59 -0000

This is where things like feeds should come into play - I covered partial aspects of it here: http://www.andysnotebook.com/2008/04/why-isnt-t... but it's not the full picture and of course my thoughts have moved on since...

What's needed is something that can act as a master feed (to avoid the joys of synchronisation), ShareThis could be it for example, then all the other services need to pull in the feed from ShareThis and republish.

The other services would need work though e.g. in Google Reader, you'd need to be able to say that everything from a feed should automatically be shared etc.

It can't be that hard it's just that the rate of innovation amongst some of the mainstream products Reader, del.icio.us etc seems glacial compared to the likes of FriendFeed

Re: Incorporating your business should be vastly simpler

Workpost — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:55:14 -0000

Some states are easier (and cheaper) to set up a company than others. It would be great if they all cost 50 / year to file for a new business but some cost 500 / year or more. For established businesses, that's no problem. For new businesses, it's a barrier to entry.

Re: How close is Google to accomplishing its mission?

mathoda — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:57:51 -0000

I agree that someone could come along and create a way of organizing and making useful information than Google... in fact they already have in Facebook, FriendFeed, etc., for what those sites are used for. What does Facebook do but present information about your friends? That's a type of information that's certainly encompassed by Google's expansive mission statement. Even for Google's core function of search there's alot of innovations that Google hasn't implemented, as your blog points out.