I am not amused by this jubilation

An attempt to reason my distaste of the Diamond Jubilee

This weekend in the UK, it seems absolutely impossible to escape the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Not only is it constantly the focus of TV and radio, with every newspaper packed full of monarchistic minutiae, but all the shops are suddenly full of Britain-themed everything, an excuse for sales, promotions, and suggesting endless ways to host our own perfect jubilee celebrations, and every street is a flag-lined arcade.

So by now I am quite fed up with it all, and find the whole thing annoying and unnecessary. This is separate, I think, from the debate of whether we actually need a monarchy or not, and whether such an archaic form of political and social organisation has any place in a 21st century democracy; or whether we could or should be paying for such glitzy pomp in days of alleged austerity. These issues have been argued pretty thoroughly elsewhere, so I'll not dwell on it here (though in case you haven't guessed, I fall pretty strongly on the republican side of the debate).

What annoys me most about this current spate of pro-royalty enthusiasm is that it is unavoidable, yet totally unrepresentative. Whether we are a fan of old Mrs Windsor or not, it is almost as if we are expected to join in and fulfil our quota of jubilation, being good little citizens and parade around in honour of our betters. This obsequious nonsense is not a celebration which well represents the people of Britain. In focusing on this one aspect of the country, all the diversity and variety is swept aside. Of course, the celebration is meant to be just about the Queen and her six decades of incomparable diplomatic achievements, rather than a celebration of the country itself, and all things British - but the lines are easily blurred, with over-zealous patriotism being the currency of this weekend's events; and after all, it is the union flag draped over every surface, and not the coat of arms of the house of Windsor.

This is in no way a rant against the concept of Britishness; in fact, it could be seen as a rant for it. Because the things that I see being celebrated are nothing to do with the true nature of the people of this country - but more like stereotypes. These festivities are all about sucking up to a wealthy monarchy, waving flags, street parties, giant flotillas on the Thames, watching guards parade up and down, and all that nonsense; which is not what Britain is about, or really ever has been. It may be one aspect of it, but these jubilee celebrations are playing on this to the expense of all else. For everyone else who considers themselves British, but don't consider the crown to be the focus of their existence, I can imagine them feeling more than a little alienated.

I realise of course that not everyone is like me, with my cynical view of royalty and liberal-lefty dislike of archaic extravagance. I do not claim to be speaking for the 'average person', and accept that there may well be a majority who are in favour of a monarchy. But that's my point: we are all different, and to represent the British identity by this blue and red striped charicature does not acknowledge this. From looking at my twitter feed and speaking to virtually everyone I know, it is very clear that many people do not relish this kind of sycophantic celebration - and while of course this is not a representative sample, it shows that there are quite a lot of people who feel this has nothing to do with them.

It's worth considering what all this celebration would look like to an outsider. It would probably be exactly the kind of thing they would expect from those quaint, tea-drinking Brits - a shamelessly gaudy celebration of our favourite hereditary title. Again, that's my point: it is propomoting a stereotype. The typical Family Guy or Simpsons portrayal springs to mind, where any British person is a posh-speaking, wonky-toothed cricket-loving toff in a fancy house. If that is how the world interprets us, we can hardly blame them, if we insist on holding such nauseatingly grandiloquent celebrations as the jubilee.

Britain should mean a lot more than this pompous charade. It is a nation of great scientific achievement, a huge diversity of ethnicity and culture, a place where all sorts of new and unexpected things happen, precisely because we don't always fit into one type of character. In a nation that produced Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin, the Rolling Stones and Aphex Twin, Jane Austen and Arthur C. Clarke, J.M.W. Turner and Damien Hirst, there is no single definitive style or characteristic, other than the differences between them. One of the great strengths of Britain seems to be its willingness to embrace this diversity, and combine different traditions and cultures to make them its own; it has long been a favoured destination of people from around the world seeking, and finding, a better life, and enhancing the country at the same time. Our favoured drink is of Chinese origin; Indian food has virtually become the national dish (or not); and what would traditional British cuisine have been without the introduction of the potato? This is (partly) why I am so annoyed at the likes of UKIP, the BNP and the EDL for harping on about some kind of British identity which is under threat, as if there were ever one defining trait: rather, I would say that one of the defining features of Britishness is that there is no single, universally-conformed to identity, and that it embraces people of all different backgrounds and makes them its own.

And that, basically, is why I object to the whole jubilee thing. Not necessarily as an objection to the monarchy itself (though I admit that is definitely an issue), but because it is celebrating a caricatured, monolithic ideal of Britishness which exists only in the minds of a few, clinging on to the relics of an outdated system of authority and class; and broadcasts this bland stereotype to the rest of the world. This is not a celebration of modern Britain, it is a pastiche. Rather than glorifying some horrific vision of feudal serfdom, far better to celebrate our differences, our achievements, the cultural mix that is the real world: that, from my point of view, is what Britain should be about.

Capturing the Dragon

"Houston, it looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail"

Well that was amazing: I just watched the live video feed from NASA of the SpaceX Dragon capsule docking (well, being grabbed by a robot arm) with the International Space Station. This is a pretty important moment: it's the first time a privately funded mission has made it to space and linked up with NASA.

It was pretty impressive, to watch the robot arm being carefully guided to link up with the capture mechanism on the Dragon: that's a lot of complicated equipment being wielded in a place with very little margin for error, and watching the tense faces at Houston goes to show how hard it all is. But of course, that sort of thing has happened loads of times now, with the ISS having been in orbit for years, and numerous other complicated things (such as Hubble) being delicately positioned in orbit.

That isn't the point though: so far, every space mission has had the backing of very big, well funded (in comparison)  government agencies. The achievements of NASA et al. over the past decades have obviously been immense - humans on the moon, probes to the edge of the solar system, robots on other planets. These are right and proper things for publicly funded science to be doing - but if it takes a massive government-funded organisation to get anything into space, that's going to be a problem. It's not the kind of setup that will let humans really do space, or allow the kind of unlimited exploration and adventure that we'd all love to see.

NASA's budget, as we recently became only too aware, can only stretch so far, and making the hard choices between different missions is no fun. Now though, SpaceX has conclusively shown it is possible for a private company, in just a few years, to become capable of getting hardware into space, and interacting with the bigger players already there. Hopefully they and other private companies will soon be capable of dealing with the necessary commercial aspect of space - launching satellites, tourism, and so on - leaving publicly funded bodies to get on with the fun stuff.

That's the practical, financial argument, anyway. But from a futuristic, sci-fi point of view, this achievement is the start of something very important. It's hard to imagine humanity becoming a proper space-faring race if only governments of wealthy nations can go there. And while the initial plan, or so I gather, is for private companies to step in handle the drudgery of supplying the ISS, maintaining satellites and so on, I don't doubt that once more companies get off the ground, so many more things will begin to happen. Who knows the possibilities that could open up, once space becomes easy for ordinary people (OK, not quite, but you get the idea) to reach, who are free to boldly go as they see fit, without having to justify every bit of spending to governments or taxpayers: this is "a new era for space flight unfolding in real time" as the NASA video commentator put it.

Of course, today's achievement didn't happen spontaneously, and it certainly wasn't cheap: it took many many years to get this done, and months of planning just for the docking; and I'm guessing the price tag (for the mission itself and years of development) and was pretty heavy. Running up and down to space on a whim is still a long way away. But the fact that a private company can get to space is the important point, and illustrates how far we have come in the last fifty years. It's often lamented that humans have not been back to the moon since the '70s - almost as if we lost interest - but in those days, it took a large part of the wealth of a world superpower to do it. This is clearly no longer the case - and it can only get easier from here.  The true age of space flight could soon begin.

Images taken from the NASA video feed at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

Replicators of the singularity

Losing control, without the intelligence

The technological singularity is mentioned often these days, with speculation fuelled by advances in artifical intelligence and related fields. Briefly, the singularity is the point at which we develop artificial intelligences clever enough to design the next generation of themselves - and so this cycle will quickly go beyond our control and understanding (the "intelligence explosion"); we will be fundamentally unable to predict or comprehend what will happen beyond this horizon. Those who foretell the impending singularity see it as anything from the solution to all our problems - with hyper-intelligent machines able to manage the planet better than we did - to the end of humanity, as we become superfluous to the survival of our successors.

It is often supposed that this will happen sometime this century; however, I am somewhat doubtful of this, and I don't see too much evidence that the end is particularly nigh. Mostly this is because one of the key requirements of the singularity is truly advanced AI, capable of thought at or beyond what humans can do. The argument is, as I said, that once this exists, machine intelligence will quickly and inevitably outstrip us, since our brains have barely changed in millennia; but given the difficulty in understanding natural language, interpreting images, or chat-bots passing as human in online conversation, I get the impression that this is wishful (if not slightly morbid) thinking.

On the other hand, after attending the excellent "Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore in Conversation" event, hosted by the BHA and my University's atheist society, I find there are other issues to consider. Blackmore discussed thremes (or 'temes') - the third replicator, the potential next step after genes (the biological replicators responsible for our evolution) and memes (the ideas which mutate and propagate using human minds as media). Thremes, in contrast to their predecessors, spread in technology: data moving around the internet, being endlessly copied, changed, surviving as best it can. I have certainly been skeptical in the past as to whether these exist yet, and was pleased to hear Blackmore shares this view - as she said, current forms of information replication still requires humans to make it happen, and so are at best memes in a faster environment. Even apparently self-replicating pieces of code, such as computer viruses, are still wholly human creations, and tend not to survive long enough to mutate and propagate of their own accord.

However, if thremes did begin to become true replicators in their own right, it would mean that humans are out of the loop. Once they have a way of replicating by themselves, the relentless consumption of resources can begin. I should clarify that this is no vindictive rebellion, any more than genes are actively trying to pollute the planet with biology, but a consequence of successful replicators surviving to replicate further. Now this concept, of pieces of information spreading, procreating, and to an extent thinking, for their own ends, sounds like the sci-fi-esque notion of the internet becoming self-aware, to finally kick back against its human masters - an idea that's been thrown around for decades (think Skynet). This is, on the face of it, plausible: after all, the human brain is nothing but a network of interconnected processing units, so why should a world-wide network of information not start to become aware of its existence? Could the internet become sentient and try to free itself from our grasp? These are scary thoughts, but fantastical, and as far as I know there is no likelihood of such a consciousness emerging spontaneously from what is basically just a huge collection of hyperlinked data, without us (or our invented helpers) actively making it happen, singularity-style.

But the point about thremes is that such self-awareness is not necessary. We don't have to think of far fetched notions of an actual consciousness (whatever that really means) emerging to worry about losing control: all that is required is for replicators to emerge. Much as selfish genes are not organisms with their own intentions, but merely sections of copiable biological code, there is no requirement for intelligence for such a takeover.

This prosepect is worrying indeed. As Blackmore said, the first we'd know about it is suddely being unable to access the internet, as the thremes voraciously consume all available resources in their Darwinian quest to "survive". This use of machines, by machines, for their own ends, looks distressingly similar to some visions of the singularity: humans have unleashed something over which they have lost control, and become redundant. The missing step is that it was never as part of an effort to create intelligent agents for our own ends, and never had an opportunity to be told to serve us. Of course, we can still pull the plug - but only as long as there is still a plug we can pull, in the horrendously complex system we've constructed.

This thought experiment illustrates, I hope, how easy it would be for such a collapse to occur: because we wouldn't even need to be complicit (although there will be much human intervention required before such self-replication can take off, I'm not sure that it would have to be deliberate, and not too confident we'd know it was happening). It's why we should be wary of talk of the singularity, of what it could entail, because the takeover of software-based replicators requires no super-advanced AI, nor emergence of anything sophisticated enough to "decide" we are superfluous - thremes could march on oblivious (DNA never "decided" to clean up the primordial soup).

I should emphasise though that this kind of self-replication of technology/code/data is far from imminent, and I don't see how current information technology could be coaxed into such behaviour. But the potential for this kind of game-changer to occur, without our consent or intention, suggests that the fear-mongering over what a singularity might bring is not as speculative as we might hope.

My life has no meaning - and that's just fine

The absence of a meaning of life is what sets us free

The meaning of life is something which has bothered humanity for as long as we've been around to be bothered. Generations of philosophers, theologians, artists and poets have debated, with little progress either way, what the point of it all is; with answers ranging from it all being part of a divine plan, to a quest for enlightenment or a journey of self discovery.

However, as we come to understand more about the physical world, our relatively minor role in it, and our origins, it is becoming apparent that there probably is none.  As the product of a few billion years of disinterested evolution, clinging to an unremarkable ball of damp rock revolving though a cold and uncaring universe, the conclusion that there is no actual meaning or significance to our existence is scientifically the most likely explanation.

This is dealt with in various ways - from outright nihilism to the focus on experience and absurdity of existentialism, to the more optimistic outlook of humanism; and in a lot of the more progressive outlooks with which I am most familiar, this is not much of a problem.  However, far from being something we have to come to terms with - some affront to our existence which we must learn to bear - I see this as the best situation in which we could find ourselves.

Consider for a moment that at some point, from some divine revalation, deep philosophical insight or profound scientific discovery, we had found the actual meaning of life, and understood our true reason for existing.  I really, really don't like the thought of this.  Why?

Because it would mean we have a purpose.

Think of what that would entail: we would know what it is we are supposed to do. Yes, we may rid ourselves of all that existential angst, the endless pondering over the point of it all, but at what cost? It doesn't matter what this meaning actually is, to know that there is one would be a terribe, crushing blow to our sense of identity, as well as a threat to the delicately balanced social structure we have built. We'd know exactly what we were here for, what it is that some undefined being/process had intended for us, and that if we did not fulfil said task, we were failing in our mission as human beings. Irrespecitive of what we, as intelligent creatures, think we ought to be doing, we would have irrevocable knowledge that this does, or does not, fit in with the plan.

That, I think, would certainly take a lot of the pleasure out of life; and it's not simply for the joy of the chase, the pleasure we take in pondering these deep questions - rather that when we are free to do as we think best, we know that we are doing things our own way, for our own reasons, for better or worse. The way I see it, making the most of our brief existence, and striving to improve ourselves and our environment, is an essential part of what it means to have a fulfilling life, and I would hate to find out that this is somehow contrary to some pre-determined intention (conversely, I'd also be disappointed to know that that is the plan, again because then we are reduced merely to following instructions, not living for ourselves). Life would basically be reduced to a case of "that's what it's all about then - better get on with it".

The need to be free of any particular plan is all the more apparent when considering some of the alternatives to the absence of a meaning.  The Christian tradition, for example, posits that our meaning is for the glory of God, that we are his creations and are here pretty much for his amusement and adoration - I've written about how I'm not too happy with this vision of reality before, but my point here is that if indeed there is such a meaning, it would surely be a horrific thing to know. It would mean that all our efforts are pretty much for nothing, other than as a service to some incomprehensible and ineffable being. The Judeo-Christian tradition is perhaps a rather easy target in this regard, but the same applies to less dictatorial religious viewpoints, which stress personal enlightenment, relvalation and one-ness - such as Buddhism, Zen or Hinduism: if that really is the meaning, then our efforts must presumably be focused on it, and any other endeavours (such as art, science, exploration, love) are ultimately a waste of time.

This brings me to my central objection to any externally imposed meaning of life: that without it, we have done rather a lot of awesome stuff. The past few thousand years have seen us advance astronomically (literally) from our humble hunter-gatherer origins, being capable of sublime works of art and continually going beyond our current capabilities, reaching for the stars, and gaining a greater understanding of ourselves. Certainly, some of this has been tied into mistaken ideas of what it's all about (religious architecture and music can't be ignored), or directly as a desire to find out (after all, "why?" is the primary scientific question) - but I'm sure that a lot of our achievements come directly from this sense of freedom, this ability to choose our goals for ourselves, that comes of not having any set direction.

My point is that we need not burden ourselves with searching for a meaning of life, nor should we be compelled to assign "bettering ourselves", "pursuit of knowledge", "helping our fellow human" or other noble goals as our 'purpose' in lieu of a definitive answer - there simply is no meaning. We must embrace this, since instead we get to decide our own fate, to do what we think is right purely because it is us that it affects: to be the architects of our own future and be judges of ourselves, as a species, on our own merits for our own sake. I'd say we've done pretty well at that so far.

A sparkling conversation

I just got back from 'Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore In Conversation', a British Humanist Association event, held just over the road in the University where I work (in association with the university's atheist society).  It was, not surprisingly, amazing. The conversation was fascinating, covering a diverse range of topics from memes (of course) to the nature of religious belief. There was some very interesting discussion of Zahavi's handicap principle, group/kin selection and the mechanics of gene replication - so I'm very glad that I've recently been ploughing through The Selfish Gene, in that I managed to understand more of what was going on. There was also some very interesting debate about consciousness, which I'm aware has been the focus of a lot of Blackmore's recent work (she gave a talk at Bristol on the subject a year or so ago, which is still pretty much all I know on this); aside from the difficulty of defining what consciousness actually is, they considered whether consciousness is necessary for the kind of intelligent things we get to, and if we are indeed actually conscious (note to self: read her books).

I loved the format of the event - after a concise introduction from BHA chief Andrew Copson (we all giggled when he said "hashtag": still not sure why), basically the two of them had a nice friendly chat about their work and stuff in general, rambling from topic to thrilling topic; followed by a more interactive session where the audience joined in with some very interesting questions.

These questions eventually got around to the subject of free will - as they tend to do in such situations as this - specifically with the question of whether they believed they had free will. This was one of the (many) highlights of the evening, as it's something I've recently become pretty interested in (both through debates with religious people who claim that we do possess it, and that it is proof of God's existence; and that I'm currently reading Pinker's Blank Slate, which contains some very though-provoking perspectives). On this subject Dawkins responded with his customary Hitchens quote - "I have no choice!"; but Blackmore's answer was quite unexpected, a position I was not previously aware of... though relating superficially to some things I'd previously been pondering.

Her opinion on the matter, briefly, is that she does not have free will; but unlike many other scientists/philosophers (to whom she has asked the question) she does not feel the need to live as if she did. Rather, she accepts that things are not the consequences of her conscious exercising of free will, but the result of this person that she is doing the things that it will do - and whatever happens, happens. Though this seems a little strange at first, I can see how it can be a liberating perspective: that she is able to look upon herself with a more detatched perspective, and take a step back from the immediate first-person experience to consier how this self of hers is reacting. In stressful situations, for example, she describes how it becomes a matter of intellectual curiosity to sit back and watch how she will cope.

It's interesting how this also allows more compassion and sympathy to be felt for others: since they are no longer to be viewed as purely free and autonomous consciousnesses acting in accordance with their independently existing will, but as beings influenced by their genes, their environment, and their experiences, it is easier to understand their motivations and recognise the humanity in them (again, as Pinker would say, the fact that people are influenced by genes, and whether or not they are in any sense free, makes no difference in terms of blame or intent - but does allow us to understand them better). This does not detract from what it means to be human, the value of freedom, or the necessity in making sensible decisions - we can still do the things we do, and we can still have valid reasons for doing them, it just means that there isn't necessarily that spontaneous "me" in constant control. Like I said, this is a fascinating perspective, not one I'd thought about much before, and certainly something I hope to elaborate on in future.

So with that and the general discussion about genes and memes, a mention of temes/thremes (the third, machine-based replicators, which it was good to hear of after having been present in yet another lecture in which she was developing the idea), the potential of Dawkins and Blackmore using their memetic knowledge in designing a new religion, and on how best to counter religion's resilience to critical thought, the evening definitely contained a lot to think about. I'll leave it there for now, lest I ramble incoherently on, and fail to an even greater degree not to brag about how lucky I am to have attended; but hopefully I'll return to many of the issues raised when I've thought a bit more about it all.

In Defence of Prejudice?

In which I express concern and outrage at Sam Harris's defence of profiling

On checking my twitter feed the other night, I was more than a little disturbed to see a few disparaging references to Sam Harris - a leading figure of the modern Atheist movement, described as one of the 'four horsemen'. On following a link to his website I soon understood why - and am rather shocked and appalled that such a thing has come to pass. Essentially, Sam Harris has written an article in defence of airport security profiling, specifically, targeting people who fit the typical description of a Muslim terrorist. I suggest you go read it.

The main theme of the article is that the current security theatre pervading airports in the US is absurd and pointless, not only subjecting ordinary people to significant inconvenience and stress, but likely being ineffective in actually preventing terrorism.  Well, I can't say I disagree with that, and it certainly seems the actions of the Transportation Security Administration are becoming increasingly ridiculous. However, where Harris goes with this is deeply troubling, in that he advocates profiling based on appearance and ethnicity, and focusing attention on those who 'look like terrorists'.

Harris's argument has one big false premise: that it is obvious who the suspects are. As PZ Myers points out in his response to this, many terrorists, such as Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, are not even slightly middle-eastern. It seems rather incongruous, and historically inaccurate, to see modern terrorism solely through the lens of the events of 9/11, and to conflate the categories of "terrorist" with "Islamic extremist". Indeed, given the rather small number of terrorist acts actually perpetrated by militant Islamic fundamentalists in the past few decades, it seems that the threat of this kind of terrorism has been blown out of all proprtion by the media and a goverment only too eager to impose draconian laws - as Adam Curtis's excellent 'Power of Nightmares' documentary describes. The discrepancy between the real and imagined threats - and the political power this can confer - is a fascinating issue underlying much of recent history; but for the time being, it suffices to say that Muslim-initiated terrorism is neither as pervasive nor as exclusive as we are often led to assume. To say the least, this weakens the argument that a typical terrorist looks like what we think a Muslim looks like, whatever that may be.

To be fair to Harris, he is not making veiled references to what a terrorist supposedly looks like, to insinuate it's a Muslim issue without naming names: he comes right out and says it openly. But he does not stop there: not only, he says, should we preferentially profile Muslims, but those that look even slightly like they might be one. Profiling moves from any demographic and statistical  justification it may have had, to snap judgements based solely on appearance - because apparently when it comes to trained fighters attempting to pass off as innocent citizens, "TSA screeners can know this at a glance". Disappointingly, he even invokes the spectre of political correctess, as if not preying on a group of people due to their enthicity and appearance were symptoms of over-zealous adherence to a code of feigned diplomacy, rules imposed to stop us telling it like it is.

This kind of built-in prejudice is far too close for comfort to that most heinous of crimes, "driving while black" - the parallels with the treatment of young black men over the last century, from the casual stereotyping to the lazy justification, are all too obvious. But I won't dwell on that, partly because using the insert-blacks-here gambit is a somewhat patronising way of making the point, but mainly because I can't believe that Harris had not thought of it before writing this piece - and presumably deemed it a worthwhile policy to support regardless.

What I will mention is that research has shown that terrorists are disproportionately likely, compared to their peers, of coming from engineering backgrounds. Whatever the reason may be (maybe engineers are easier to recruit, or aspiring terrorists see it as a valuable skill to obtain) is beside the point: but wouldn't it therefore be more sensible to profile passengers on this basis? Should suspicion fall on a large swathe of the population, simply because they possess a skill which is associated with a vanishingly small group of terrorists?  No, clearly not, that would be grossly unfair - and the same should apply for any other such criertion.

One of Harris's main points - where again, there is a grain of truth - is that in casting the net so wide as to include everyone (in what he disingenuously calls a "tyranny of fairness"), we sample too sparsely and risk missing the real criminals. But in making this point he describes the case of a young girl being taken to have her sandles examined, while he inadvertently smuggles a bag full of ammunition: and isn't this exactly the problem? He, as a fine upstanding example of the average white male, would be unlikely to fall within the arbitrary definition of what a terrorist looks like, and could get away with carrying dangerous weaponry onto a flight. Doesn't this hint that the kind of profiling he advocates is doomed to fail?

As PZ goes on to say, this approach also misses a fundamental point about how terrorists will try to mount an attack: they will go for whichever method is least expected. The moment we decide what a terrorist should look like, we virtually guarantee that none will; telling them who is not under suspicion is essentially telling them where to hide the bombs. Why, after years of battling enemies who are allegedly hidden amongst Americans, in sleeper cells, home grown terror factions, or otherwise able to evade detection, would it be sensible to assume a terrorist would look the part?

There are a few other things that Sam Harris says, aside from this main point, that I take exception to, and need addressing. He has the audactity to say that, far from being affronted by such blatant prejudice, the minority groups automatically labelled as potential walking detonations should be glad of this.  Yes, with their insistence to dress as they do or show their darkened faces in public, they should be happy to be suspected - it's for their own good! - because after all, the do look a big dodgy.  His insistence that he would not mind, if the roles were reversed, drips condescention, and it is tempting to imagine that he has never been on the receiving end of this kind of open discrimination. His Ben Stiller quip falls rather short of the mark: having a passing resenblence to a one-off criminal is not the same as having your whole ethnic group, even your very identity, tarred with the same badly applied brush. Furthermore, I find his 'Bollywood villain' comment to be somewhat inappropriate in this setting: so he's Indian and looks a bit shifty? And doesn't look concerned at the elderly couple being subjected to various prodding and probing? Get 'im! No matter that this is a completely different ethnic group from the ones he tries to argue are chief suspects - he doesn't fit in the innocent, white, harmless category, and is offhandedly cast as the bad guy.

I agree that there needs to be a degree of common sense applied to security. The ban on carrying liquids, or requests to remove clothing bearing even a picture of a gun, are over-eager attempts to look as though something - anything - is being done. There might perhaps be an argument that certain groups - toddlers, the infirm, young families - are "obviously" not about to commit acts of mass murder; but given the known cases of seemingly innoccent people being tools of horrendous killing (perhaps against their will), it is hard to see how this could be applied without being an obvious security flaw.

Security agencies may well be paranoid and making a lot of ineffectual fuss in desperation, and I certainly do not want to live in a world ruled by fear and suspicion, but history shows what can happen if we are not prepared. However, this does by no means justify a policy based upon discriminating against minority groups merely due to past associations or prejudices. Whichever way is chosen to protect airports - and society in general - we should never settle for a method which is indistinguishable from systematic, institutional racism.

Happy Birthday, Planet! (sort-of)

Some brief thoughts on Earth Day (because I have a ton of other stuff to do)

So, today is Earth Day: a day to celebrate our lovely pale blue dot, and in order to mobilise ourselves, a call to action to stop it getting wrecked.  As Phil Plait mentions on his blog (go there, there's a fantastic video/animation from orbit), there will inevitably be a slew of articles and blog posts bemoaning the mess we've made, and how we really need to get our act together and sort out greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and all that sort of thing.

And yes, we have undoubtedly caused a lot of destruction all over the place, from shocking habitat loss to a slow warming of the entire planet; but I too would rather not dwell on the negatives. I am reminded of an article I read the other day in New Scientist (from last June - I'm actually that far behind), which discusses the possible formal classification of our current era as the Anthropocene, i.e. a geological age in which we are the principal instigators of planet-wide change. The point of the article is not, however, to focus on the pain and pollution us pesky primates permeate, but to point out the fact that this kind of large scale change is actually a bit of an achievement. The Anthropocene has been a long time coming, not just the result of recent increased fossil fuel use or land development - we have been clearing flora and decimating the fauna for about as long as we have been human - and in those few hundred thousand years we have made a significant and measurable effect on almost all areas of the planet.

Putting aside the fact that many of the changes are most certainly detrimental (species extinction and the rise of precarious monocultures, and all that), this is a remarkable thing to have done. This planet is huge: we have built over only a small fraction of its surface, excavated a tiny proportion of its interior, and have barely begun to explore the vast depths of the oceans... and yet we are capable of altering it on a large scale, without even trying. With not even a hint of deliberate terraforming, we have made alterations that nature alone would never have done, making large tracts of land more suited to our habitation or exploitation. With inevitable population growth and advances in technology, and the prospect of geo-engineering looming, this will only become more pronounced.

Now of course I'm not saying that our apparent destructiveness is a wondrous thing to be celebrated: but it is rather impressive. The main point of the New Scientist article - with which I am inclined to agree - is that this shows the awesome potential we as a species have, for large scale alterations to an entire planet. We have been changing the environment since we first started hunting mammoths or rotating crops, but we now wield more power than ever before in terms of our ability to shape the future of life on Earth (for better or worse) - which is something which we really need to face in the coming years.

The upside of all of this (other than my usual awe at humanity's grandiose achievements) is that with this power, we have the potential to start doing things properly. Maybe not yet, but soon, we will likely have both the technology and the motivation to use our innovative and progressive nature for the good of the planet, limiting the damage we do, as well as making it a safer and more stable place to live (nature doesn't exactly have a good track record at not killing us).

Or if all else fails, our experience of making drastic and permanent changes to the operation of an entire world will be useful when we finally go beyond our Earthly cradle and start colonising and terraforming other planets.