The Secret to Happiness

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In a 1998 essay (posted in two parts here and here), which you are free to read or ignore, the author (Derek Parfit) delves as deeply as he is able into the question of why the universe exists– of why anything exists; why there is something rather than nothing. Without any disrespect toward the author, reading it is a bit like watching a dog chase its own tail. Parfit carefully holds himself to rigorously logical thinking throughout, but he just can’t get the outside perspective on the universe that would be needed in order to see why it is here. He’s like a man at the bottom of a well shaft, wondering about the solid dirt ground and the smooth round walls, and the high, open ceiling. Having no knowledge of the surface world, he will never guess that someone once dug this shaft for water. The fact that there are such things as telephones and cities and chocolate truffles is completely outside his knowledge and beyond his imagination.

Aid-For-Labor

Handmade Afghan doll: click for larger view

If our aid efforts in Afghanistan have largely gotten us nowhere, we would do well to consider that most of them are implemented in a way that amounts to Marxism: the central authority distributes goods according to people’s needs, with the expectation that those people will produce according to their abilities. Humanity spent the twentieth century proving that such a model does not work, so it is incongruous that we would attempt it in Afghanistan. At one point during the last three years, I was given control of an aid program operating in rural Dand District, south of Kandahar City, and I was free to employ my own market-based implementation strategy. I may report that we not only sparked booming economic growth in all our target villages, but we also wrested two villages from Taliban control and formally aligned them with the Afghan government. Think about that: an aid program seized ground from the enemy without a shot fired or a life lost. If we want to win in Afghanistan, I offer this program as a blueprint.

On time, part two: hope

We all know that oil and water do not mix. The reason they do not mix is that the water molecule is polar– it has a lopsided electrical charge– and the oil molecule is not. Polar molecules have a positively charged end and a negatively charged end, and they can form various bonds that exploit positive/ negative attraction.  Water is a strongly polar molecule, which leads to its myriad exceptional physical properties. Water molecules self-organize according to polarity, creating surface tension, six-sided snowflakes, and a frozen form that is less dense than the liquid form. The strong polar forces in water are also able to tear apart molecules such as salt, which is why water can dissolve so many substances.

Burning down the gates

There was more than one fire on Sunday…

 

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Exploring the apocrypha

…Seeking to prepare some of my students for future forays into other religions, I prepared a lesson in which we critically analyzed some Christian apocrypha. This is the shallow water; I didn’t want to start with the Zoroastrian Arda Wiraz Namag…

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