I plan to run in the 2014 (or 2015) Boston Marathon

For those that don't know, the Boston Marathon this year was attacked by a currently unknown bomber, with a currently unknown ideology. The purpose of this post isn't to recap the horror and tragedy of the events that took place, or to endlessly speculate as to who might have perpetrated the attack and why; you can turn to any U.S. news website for that. The purpose of this post is to announce that I plan to try and run in the Boston Marathon in 2014.

The main reason for this is simple: the best way to deal with terrorism is to ignore it, while simultaneously standing up to it. I'm not going to let the attack change my life, nor am I going to live in fear. There would be no point in either of those things, and both of those things is evidently what the perpetrator desires. Instead, I'm going to train for my (first ever) marathon, in hopes of qualifying for Boston. Maybe I'll qualify for next year, maybe I won't. The odds aren't fantastic; only 7.9% of all marathon runners under 34 years of age qualify, and a slightly less percentage of men under 34 manage to qualify. With that said, I'm pretty sure that if I can't manage to qualify for the 2014 Boston Marathon, I can at least manage to qualify by 2015, at least maybe.

And of course, because my readership is extremely small, I'll even let you in on part of my strategy. I plan to run in marathons in greater than 5 months time that have the highest percentage of qualifiers for the Boston Marathon, at least, those that I can reasonably manage to run in, like the Inland Trail marathon in Elyria, Ohio, or the California International marathon in Sacramento, California, or some that are in New York. (You might be wondering how these geographic locations could possibly be easy for me to participate in. It's a secret.)

Seven steps to cut down on the amount of TV you watch

As a disclaimer, my process worked for me, and it might not work for you. It'll likely be (more) helpful if the shows you tend to watch are serialized (or procedural with a substantial serialized element), and not strictly procedural, and if they tend to be more drama-oriented, as opposed to being comedy-oriented or documentaries (or god forbid, "reality" TV).

Step 1

 

Make a list of all of the TV shows that you currently watch. Make sure not to just include shows from the current TV season, but all the shows coming up in future seasons that you've watched in the past and plan to watch in the future.

If you're having trouble making the list comprehensive, you should consult your DVR (if you have one). Or, if you are a person that pirates shows, consult your torrent client.

I recently made such a list, and I ended up with 37 entries. It was absolutely shocking to me how high that number was.

Step 2

 

Go over your list of TV shows, and try and recall what happened in the show during the last few episodes that aired. If you can't remember, especially if the show is currently in season, cross the show off your list. If you're pretty hazy and don't remember very much, also cross it off your list.

My reasoning behind this step was that, the shows I most enjoy are easily memorable, even those that haven't been on the air for awhile. It was trivially easy to remember where Game of Thrones left off last season (before watching any of the current season), for example, but Franklin & Bash? Easily forgettable.

Step 3

 

Continuing from Step 2, consider all of the most memorable events that occurred on a particular show; events that shocked you, had you on the edge of your seat, or made you deeply feel for the characters. Of course, include moments where you burst into laughter and the like as well.

For shows that have run a long time, consider how these moments are distributed.  If it turns out that these moments are mostly all located at a point in time well before the last season or seasons aired, then cross the show off your list. Doing this might be extremely difficult, because there are shows that are initially so good that you fall in love, and keep watching them well past their prime. It seriously pained me to cross off Supernatural, Sons of Anarchy, and a few more from my list here, in part because of how much I enjoyed the first few seasons of each. As I was writing this, it occurred to me that if I had applied this test to Lost while it was still on their air, I never would have made it much farther than the initial season (but, that first season was absolutely masterful).

For all of the other shows, subdivide the number of memorable moments into kind of memorable moments, and spectacularly memorable moments. Write both numbers beside the show on your list, for use in future steps. Your numbers don't need to be exact, of course, just write down how many you can think of.

Step 4

 

Now that you've written your memorable moments numbers down, compare the different numbers you've given to different shows. Are there any that just seem extremely lackluster to you? There were on my list, and I promptly crossed most of them off. I noticed a huge trend here, too, in that most of the shows that were lackluster I was a bit "on the fence" with as far as the distribution of memorable moments went, or at least, I should have been. I crossed out Beauty and The Beast here, as well as Arrow here, as two examples.

Step 5

 

Are there any shows you haven't crossed off yet, where there's no sense of jeopardy for any of the characters at all (and/or you're just not emotionally invested in anymore), or where the lack of realism has built to the point of lunacy? I crossed out Pretty Little Liars here, as an example. I crossed out Dexter as well. Heck, I even put an extra cross through Arrow and Beauty and The Beast here, too. I honestly had a hard time believing that I was still watching some of the shows I crossed out here. I had a hard time believing that I didn't turn Beauty and The Beast off during the first episode, even, without the temptation to ever watch it again.

Step 6

 

Count how many shows that you haven't yet crossed off. Divide by 3. Write some other stuff that you enjoy, and which you can do in approximately one hour of time. How many things should you write? Whatever number you got when you divided, and then add 3 more things to it (yeah, so this is just kind of arbitrary--just don't write too few things down, and don't write too many down either). Really think about how much you enjoy these activities, why you enjoy them, and especially how you'd like to do them more.

Step 7

 

For all of the remaining shows on your list, compare the enjoyment and benefit you get from watching them versus all of the other things you just wrote down in Step 6. Cross off all of the shows where you'd rather be doing something else, as opposed to watching them.

I crossed out a bunch of shows here (actually, I had a huge number of shows on my list, so I crossed out a bunch at every step, haha), and I was a little sad to see some of them go, but at the same time it was obvious that it was time to stop watching those shows.

In Conclusion

All in all, I managed to whittle my list of shows down from a gigantic 37 to a much more respectable 5. Then, I decided to save Lost Girl as it was kind of on the bubble, and see where the current season goes. I decided to save Continuum while I was at it, and see how the new season goes. Finally, I very recently watched the premier of Da Vinci's Demons, and think I'll add it to my list of shows to watch as well.

List of shows I'll be watching (all of which are tentative of course, as I plan to periodically re-evaluate shows now, and you should too!):

• Lost Girl -- on the bubble
• Continuum -- on the bubble
• Breaking Bad
• True Blood
• Game of Thrones
• Homeland
• Doctor Who
• Da Vinci's Demons -- going to see where it goes

37 to 8 is pretty good, when all is said and done. Assuming an average of 20 episodes per season for everything I watched, and that the average show had 45 minutes of content that means I'll be saving about 26,100 minutes per year, or 435 hours per year. That's an absurd amount of time, and I actually double and triple checked the math (and the assumptions I poured into it). To put this into context, in an average year of 365 days (yeah, I'm not including leap years and getting an average with a fractional day tacked on) there are 8,760 hours, with approximately 5,840 of them being waking hours. 435 hours is about 7.4% of the total waking hours in a year.

As such, here's another "hidden" (because I'm not explicitly listing it) step: re-evaluate your list at this point in terms of hours per year spent watching each show. You might just be able to cross some more shows off the list, or, alternatively, you might be able to rationalize how fantastic of a time investment what you've left on your list is.

Guns versus Cars (not about gun control)

This is a classic example of why arguments from analogy are bad, often fallacious, and not the best way to arrive at a reasonable position.

Non-U.S. readers might not be aware of the gun control debate taking place here, and that has been taking place here for a very long time. It is a political debate, and neither side is much concerned with having a position that's data-driven and actually based on the sum of reliable data, just like most political debates.

A fairly common analogy used by both sides in the debate is that of guns versus cars.

One side might say that guns should be licensed like cars. One would need to get a learners permit at a certain age, and after a period of learning, need to take a formal test composed of both a written and practical portion. No one should be allowed to operate a firearm without a license, or a learners permit (and then under appropriate supervision). Often times, this analogy is extended into territory where it's not even an attempt at an analogy anymore, like making sure the tests are very comprehensive, or requiring a license to own a gun (when one isn't required to own a car), and so on and so forth.

The other side might say... that guns should be licensed like cars. That one wouldn't need a license at all unless they were operating the gun in public. That the written test would be extremely trivial, and with all of the answers contained within a fairly short packet, with virtually no delay period to retake the test if it is failed. The practical test would also be extremely trivial, and the people who were so abysmally bad they couldn't pass it could always pay an unscrupulous third party about $500 (bribe included) to bribe the person administering the practical test. The license would be honored under the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution, and thus would be valid in all 50 states. Often times, this analogy is further extended as well, like adding bits about "expanded capacity fuel tanks" and the like (which is OK in some instances, but not OK in others).

Both sides overextend the analogy, and both sides fail to realize that they're arguing by analogy. Both are quick to point out how bad the analogy actually is, or how guns aren't anything like cars, when confronted with the other side using the analogy. One side will point out how there is no second amendment for cars and invoking emotionally charged patriotic rhetoric, whereas the other side will point out that cars are designed for transportation and not killing, also invoking emotionally charged rhetoric.

Certain points of comparison will be ignored by either side. For example, one side will mention a tax on ammunition (analogous to a tax on gasoline), whereas the other side will never mention anything about a tax on ammunition. However, they'll probably mention the rate at which cars can expend gasoline, and the other side won't. They'll naturally both have rebuttals to both points, that generally point out where the analogy of the other side is flawed or overextended. In the examples mentioned, one side will note the justifications regarding why there's a tax on gasoline, and how that wouldn't or shouldn't apply to ammunition. The other will note how there are fuel economy and emissions regulations that vehicle manufactures and owners must adhere to.

There are a couple points of observation that I think are worth noting here:

1. Arguments from analogy are almost always bad arguments. If you notice yourself using them, you're probably wrong, or at least you should find a way to better substantiate your own position. OK, so you're not probably wrong, but you are probably wrong if you can't find a better way to substantiate your own position other than an argument by analogy. Sometimes analogies work, like representing atomic bonds as springs connecting two respective atoms, but the only reason we know those analogies work in the specific instances that they do work is because it's been verified in some other more rigorous way. Just because they work in one respect, like pretending a bond is like a spring connecting two atoms for the purposes of explaining IR Spectroscopy, doesn't mean they'll work when explaining something else, like say, reaction mechanisms.

2. Ideological bias is blinding. People on either side generally can't see, or don't want to see or acknowledge when their arguments are bad. They're often not even interested if their arguments are convincing to the other side, or even potentially convincing; it's more about parroting, and trying to influence people who are yet undecided. This bias can be avoided by not identifying with a particular ideology, though, but instead identify with taking a scientific or realist approach to such things, and holding that truth and accuracy are more important than any ideology.

3. Arguments from analogy can be replaced fairly easily, but at the cost of taking a step or two back form the analogy. It's perfectly valid to examine the different regulatory structures for cars and guns (and even include more items), considering everything, and have a debate not about gun regulations need to tighten or loosen (or both), but instead about the principles by which we should go about regulating inanimate objects. It's even possible to make such a debate based primarily or at least in large part on actual evidence, like say comparing objective measures of benefit versus objective measures of cost or harm. Making a debate about actual facts that are accurately represented is not convenient, though, unless one is more interested in accuracy than ideology.

P.S. This article from a blog I follow does a good job at illustrating my point, both in the actual article, and some of the reverse in the comments section. While not the most "rabid" example, it's probably better than those examples, because virtually everyone participating has a graduate degree and should be well aware of the problems of arguing from an analogy.

Intoxication, Consent, Analogies, & Fallacies

I received a question on my ask.fm account (www.ask.fm/mattinnominate) which warrants a response that’s a lot more detailed than the character limit at ask.fm provides for. The question was as follows:

“Why is it my fault if they're drunk and we chose have sex, but there fault if they're drunk and choose to drive a car?”

Grammar aside, the first thing that jumps out to me with this question is how bad the analogy is. The two things the analogy is comparing are not at all alike.

In scenario #1, we have two people, presumably in a private space. One person is intoxicated, and the other person may or may not be intoxicated. There is not imminent risk to other people, aside from the two parties involved.

In scenario #2, we have a person and a car (an inanimate object), with the car presumably being driven in a public space. The person driving the car is intoxicated. There is imminent risk to other people, aside from the person driving the car.

The analogy could be made a bit better if scenario #2 were different. For example, I think it would be a bit more analogous if a potentially sober potentially intoxicated person egged an intoxicated person into driving the car. It'd be even better if that person hopped in the passenger seat, and the car was being driven in a private space where only the two aforementioned parties were in actual danger.

Even this better analogy leads to a false comparison, though, which is a prime example why making an argument from an analogy can be a fallacy.

To even begin to analyze scenario #1, we need to know how intoxicated the first person is, how intoxicated the second person is (if at all), and how intoxicated they are relative to each other. Depending on the answers to those questions, having sex with the person might be rape, or it might be ethically fine, or it might not be rape but be in an ethically and/or legally grey area. Even worse, there are more questions to consider, because the impairment effects of alcohol are not instantaneous upon consuming it; what if at the start of the act, both parties are capable of consent from a legal standpoint (more on this later), but partway through the act one of the parties is no longer capable of consent from a legal standpoint; obviously, there is some dividing line between legal and not legal, rape and note rape due to lack of ability to consent, and that dividing line is unknowable right at its limits, but when you get far enough from the limits, is quite obvious.

It's not the intent of my post to determine what is rape and what isn't rape in this scenario, because that's not possible, as it's determined after the fact, the determination is partially subjective, and rests highly on a lot of other factors that shouldn't matter (or shouldn't matter as much as they do) like how well acquainted the two parties were (i.e. total strangers versus friends versus dating versus married), how various laws are specifically written, precedents, the gender(s) of the respective parties, and so on and so forth.

I will offer the advice, which is not in any way legal advice, that you shouldn't have sex with someone if you'd be *at all* nervous about either your or their ability to safely perform an action that might be dangerous to others or to themselves. Examples might include driving a car, splitting firewood, operating a firearm, or any number of other things. If there's even a small fraction of a chance their judgment is too impaired to consent, don't have sex. Rape isn't cool, and not being a rapist isn't difficult.

The main reason I thought this question deserved a longer reply was not because it was actually any good (A simple "yes, it's your fault if they're too impaired to consent, and your analogy sucks" might have been sufficient). It's because it raises some interesting questions on its own.

The first question is that, legally or ethically speaking, how is it that a person who intoxicated at a certain level can be held responsible for exercising the judgment to drive a car, recklessly endangering other people and themselves in the process, but simultaneously be deemed incapable of exercising the judgment to have sex? The only real answer here is that there's a compelling state interest to protect the public, and one way of doing that is holding drunk drivers accountable for their actions. Quite by accident (and also interestingly), this is almost entirely consistent with how we might expect a system that operates without the presupposition of free will to behave, unlike how much of the rest of our justice system behaves (although, punishment versus rehabilitation is where the rest of the system generally diverges).

The second question is that given the impairment effects of alcohol are continuous (or at least, continuous at every level until death occurs, so continuous for everything we're talking about), how is it there can be any kind of clear delineation between too impaired and not too impaired? There isn't really a good answer here. One answer is that there's a dividing line, perhaps arbitrary, but that it's impossible to know for certain where that line actually falls. It's not a very satisfying answer, though, is it? Wherever that line falls, is it reasonable to assume that a single less alcohol molecule in the total blood volume of the person would then put the person into the "able to consent" category again? No, it's not, so that unknowable dividing line seems to be an inconsistently placed unknowable dividing line, at that. There is at least tiering of drunk driving offenses, based on blood alcohol concentration. There appears to be no such parity as far as sex goes, at least as far as I can tell based on my searches on the topic. There also appears to be no real standard for when both parties involved in a sex act are too intoxicated to consent, especially if there's a different level of intoxication between them. I have no idea why there aren't any (that I was able to find) attempt to codify such things into the law, but my guess is that the reason is purely political, which is somewhat unfortunate, although simultaneously enlightening about some governmental dysfunction.

 A third question, closely related to the first question, is regarding differing levels of intoxication in two parties who are both too intoxicated to consent. Did they both rape each other?  Is there no crime? Is the less intoxicated party guilty of rape, but not the more intoxicated party? There's of course no definite answer to the question (unlike there is when we're not talking about inability to consent due to intoxication, but instead when we're talking about inability to consent due to age).

An ethical dilemma

One of my wonderful contacts on Yahoo! Answers posed an interesting query regarding an ethical dilemma, which I answered. Unfortunately, the answer length limit prevented me from actually posting my answer to the question, so here it is.

For those that want to read the actual question, please see: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aok9OZSgvJZpjMHrsjCoc5Tsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20130412015417AAIKJbb

My answer:

Recognize that whatever you do in this situation, you only have n number of passes, and there are m number of people (m > n) who want the passes. A maximum of m - n number of people will be unsatisfied, regardless of what you do, with a minimum number of 0 people being unsatisfied (or at least net unsatisfied) depending on approval of how you allot the passes.

You first need to examine the personal financial aspect. As you note, you don't want to personally profit off of the passes, but at the same time you don't necessarily want to take a loss on them either. Given that this isn't money you need (as if it were, you wouldn't have purchased what's essentially a luxury good with it), I don't think you should give the loss mitigation aspect much consideration at all in your decision. One way to look at it is that you're already getting something that's more valuable to you by not attending (otherwise, you would be attending), and you were willing to pay whatever the cost of the n passes was for something of comparatively less value to you. Obviously, what you're getting instead wouldn't have cost you that much money if we were examine things before the decision to purchase the passes, but we are examining things after your decision to purchase the passes instead, not before.

Given that you're getting *at least* the value of the passes by merely not going, the considerations regarding what to do with the passes should be less hindered by any financial aspect on your end. Now for some more points of consideration.

Are the friends who wanted you to give them the passes for free genuinely needy, or could they have afforded the passes if they had wanted to? Obviously, they at least have the financial means to trek to and back from wherever this place is (about 1000 miles and 16 hours in total, as per Google maps). Assuming that they can find a 4-passenger vehicle (full, and splitting gas cost equally) going there that gets 30 mi/gal, the price of gas is $3.500/gal, and they purchase some food and beverages during the car ride, that works out to them having at least ~$50 to spend on a whim. That's not so much, so maybe they really are genuinely needy; you'd know better than a person on the internet who doesn't know them at all. You're obviously considering this option, which further suggests you don't really mind taking a complete loss on the tickets.

Another point of consideration is that if you sell the tickets to the highest bidder, you can use the additional money towards something productive. Even if you only sold the tickets for your cost and donated the money, depending on how wisely you donated the money, the benefit could be immense (albeit perhaps not fully directly experienced by you, then again, research suggests this would make you happier than if you had just spent the money on yourself anyway, so it's not a bad a trade at all). A few dollars donated to a charity that primarily serves Africa, as an example, can pay for a mosquito net that prevents a child from dying due to malaria, or pay for a pair of shoes (which prevents various illnesses/diseases, as well as injury), or make a significant contribution to a child's education (~1 year of schooling would cost only about $30), or any other number of huge benefits. n*349 dollars would obviously have a much larger impact. n*(349 + A) where A is the average additional money you make by selling them to the highest bidder would have yet an even greater impact.

At this point, it's fair to compare the option of selling the passes and donating the proceeds versus giving them away. Is the benefit your friend(s) would get from the passes equal to the equivalent benefit that could be gained by many other people through you donating the money to a charity? Almost certainly not; your friends have at least ~$50 to blow on a non-essential fun activity (not even considering all of the advantages they obviously have just by mere geographic location, or any other advantages), and the people who the proceeds could benefit might legitimately answer a question like "If you have $50, then what?" with "If I had $50, I would be rich". From your perspective, you'd probably be (by a very rough approximation) equally happy with either alternative here, but the net global change in suffering versus happiness towards the side of happiness is clearly tilted way, way, way, towards the side of donating the proceeds, to say nothing of the fact that another person will still get to enjoy the benefits that come along with your passes (presumably, also one of your friends).

I'm not sure I'd even take the idea of a lottery seriously. There are no real advantages to using a lottery system to allocate a scarce luxury good, from an ethical standpoint, or from an economic standpoint, or any other standpoint I can think of. That's sort of hyperbolic of course, because the "big" advantage of a lottery system is that it's fair to all of the immediate parties involved, and while some people may feel disappointing, they won't feel slighted by you. Then again, assuming your friends are reasonably intelligent and compassionate people, I doubt they'd feel slighted if you sold the tickets to the highest bidder and donated the proceeds to a charity. The reason I say I wouldn't take the idea of a lottery seriously is in part because of the analysis I just gave, and partially because, as a rule, can you think of any situation where the most ethical way to distribute a scarce good is by lottery? Even a hypothetical scenario? The only hypothetical scenarios I've ever seen or been able to think of are really contrived (like, scarcity + need + no ability of any parties to pay + no other reasonable options at all, and usually all the possible parties in these scenarios are quite similar), and don't involve any other options that are even remotely good as far as distribution goes.

I'd personally pick the option of selling the passes for as high as you possibly can, and donating the proceeds. In fact, I'd suggest getting (emotionally charged information / pictures) about the cause you'd plan to donate to, and let everyone know about that before/at the same time you start your auction, to drive up the price even more (essentially, donation by proxy, as it's unlikely whoever is buying them would have donated that extra money anyway--it's just human nature, and not really something that people can be blamed for).

Time to treat blogging like playing a game

Or at least, treat blogging like a game in some respects.

I’ve started to write and/or written a lot of different blog posts, all in various states of imperfection. Some just barely start exploring a topic, with no more than a paragraph or so of content. Others are virtually finished, and just need some further polishing up. I haven’t posted any of them.

It occurred to me that I was thinking about my blog in the wrong way. I was thinking about it like a showcase, to be filled with perfectly polished and immutable works. If I had near infinite amounts of time to devote to my blog or it was generating income for me, and I had a huge readership, this would be a fantastic way to view things. Unfortunately, none of those are the case.

Instead, I'm going to treat this blog like playing a game. That probably doesn't make any sense. Let me elaborate.

By treating it like playing a game, I mean posting without fear of failure and without (excessive) concerns over imperfection. If I write a blog post and it sucks, so be it. I can edit it. I can delete it. More importantly, I can learn from it and do better next time, at least in some respects.

I'll be able to better gauge the quality of my posts, and the interests of whoever actually stumbles across my blog, at least in the case people leave comments. This is far more useful than having some word files on my computer that I pull up and go "no, not good enough", and then decide not to work on anymore because I've lost interest in writing the post.

By posting, I feel like I'll gain some momentum as far as posting goes. In a way, this is like deciding whether or not to play a game; the more often you play and the more you enjoy it, the easier it is to find even more time to play. This might actually translate into more momentum as far as polishing my posts goes, or, maybe not. We'll see.

If this post is any indication, my new strategy might be working. I've written this post in a few minutes, with almost no editing, and it doesn't seem all that bad. I could probably find a better metaphor than playing a game, running perhaps, but I'm not going to worry about that. I'm just going to post this.