In-Sight Publishing

2023-02-12

An Interview with Catherine Broomfield (Part One)

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/02

Abstract

Catherine Broomfield is the Executive Director of iHuman Youth Society. She discusses: family and personal background; mentors; first work in the non-profit world; touching stories in the non-profit world; situations and difficulties of youth; finding; iHuman Youth Society; reasons for lack of purpose in youth; big negative effects happening to some vulnerable youth; and self-efficacy and self-esteem concerns manifesting in youth.

Keywords: Catherine Broomfield, Executive Director, iHuman Youth Society, Indigenous, youth.

An Interview with Catherine Broomfield: Executive Director, iHuman Youth Society (Part One)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background? What was personal background?

Catherine Broomfield: I was born in England and immigrated to Canada in the mid-1970s. My parents, younger siblings, and I arrived in the dead of a winter snowstorm. It was a big transition, to a new country.

2. Jacobsen: When it comes to community-oriented work? Were there pivotal mentors who inspired you?

Broomfield: Not specifically that I can think of, except, I had the experience of leaving family, being adrift in terms of having no family network other than my own immediate one, e.g., no aunties and uncles. It made me more in tune with the needs of others, more in need of the community, and always being someone who is a helper and a doer.

It led its way into the non-profit world.

3. Jacobsen: What was some of the first work while in the non-profit world?

Broomfield: My first job was as an executive director for a boys and girls club in Alberta. I have been involved in non-profit activities through sports events like Winter Games, Alberta Summer Games.

These were community engagement roles I had been involved in. Then I stepped away from them for quite a few years. I did some GIS mapping work, marketing. Working at the university, I coordinated international exchanges and worked with international students and post-secondary schools.

4. Jacobsen: In the experience in the non-profit world, what were some of the stories that you found touching?

Broomfield: In my experience with the girls and boys club as the first non-profit, there was a lot of interest and need by the young people in the community in which I was working, to have opportunity, to be introduced to new things, which they, otherwise, would not have been able to experience.

Given the economic situation of their families, it was an opportunity to introduce those young people to experiences, which they wouldn’t have otherwise. Secondly, to support a community/sense of belonging for the young people who came regularly, who shared learning and opportunities with one another?

I do not have a specific story from back then other than what many of the young people expressed about how they felt coming to the Club every day.

Now at iHuman, there are similarities to that earlier experience though there are 25 years between them. Young people still looking to fit in and belong somewhere. Still need a sense of purpose, identity and self-worth.

I’ve had many touching experiences of young people sharing their realizations and successes like getting their children back from out of children’s services care, anniversaries for sobriety, getting the first place or finding out they’re going to be parents for the first time, getting accepted for school or job.

These are everyday milestones in life and what is touching is that the youth identify iHuman as the place where they come first to share their news. This tells me we’ve created a space where a young person feels valued and witnessed and that’s about as touching as it can get.

5. Jacobsen: When it comes to some of the statistical data about parenting, internationally, we rank high in terms of single parent homes. Those kids have a harder time. What are some of the situations and difficulties for some of the kids coming into it?

Broomfield: I was, myself, a teenager mother. At the time, going through university, I was a single parent with a 2-year-old. I was working 2 jobs. After I graduated, I was still working and parenting alone. When my son was7-8 I had to make a difficult decision to take a contract job in the North and send my son to his auntie’s while I did that job. Single parents and their children make a lot of sacrifices in order to survive.

Certainly, I can appreciate the experience from both sides. Because my son was in daycare while I was running a program for other youngsters whose parents were also working full time and could not afford daycare.

There were times during that job when my son came with me.

He participated alongside the other children. We did things over the summer months, where we were doing camping trips and outings around Alberta, Drumheller for example. There is and continues to be a dilemma for parents who are needing to work but also wanting their children to have meaningful, safe activities for their children to participate in. Single parenting is not an easy situation. I think most people are trying to make the best of it that they can.

That experience [single parenting] certainly lends itself to the work that I do with iHuman. The youth that are here. They have experienced a lot of trauma, whether that be primarily because of the youth being Indigenous people or otherwise such as familial or high-risk situations.

Indigenous intergenerational trauma is based on the erasure of culture. For the youth, it is a loss of identity and sense of belonging and sense of purpose and self-worth. This is why these are the outcomes we’re trying to support youth through iHuman to achieve and reconnect the young person to those things.

I am not saying the experience of all single-parent families is why young people end up needing a place like iHuman for support. It is common, however, that there is a breakdown of a relationship in the family.

For the Indigenous youth, there is intergenerational legacies; addiction, gang affiliation, and so on. It is really complex. It sets people feeling as if they have no place to be.

No sense of place. Therefore, a person becomes more attracted to [belongingness]. They go to where they can find it, e.g., drugs, affiliation with gangs. They are looking to fill a need.

And unfortunately, there are people who are there who will fill it, even if it is not healthy.

6. Jacobsen: How did you find yourself iHuman?

Broomfield: It is a combination of the universe [Laughing]…

Jacobsen: …[Laughing]…

Broomfield: …I had a crisis in my personal life, “What am I doing? What am I working for?” I heard about an organization that needed an executive director who could make a commitment for several years. Someone who desired to help and support young people who do not have services and supports.

I realized have those skills. It seemed like a good fit. My values align with the values of the youth and the agency. Being on board, being a leader for this organization is a natural alignment for me.

7. Jacobsen: In connection to some of the difficulties some of the youth face, one experience stands out to me. The purpose void of youth. That’s key to unlocking the door to meaning in life, to get some meaning from life.

What are the factors that building into the lack of purpose?

Broomfield: I am speaking as an observer, obviously. It is not my experience. It is the youths’ experience. So, it is my interpretation of what I see or what they express. I think the key factor is the erasure of Indigenous culture.

The young people here have nothing to tether to. Because of factors stemming from policies such as Residential schools, ‘60s scoop. Those activities of the government have eroded or outright devastated the community.

So, the current generation of young people are seeing their parents and grandparents struggle with addiction, mental health, poverty, lack of employment, lack of education or skills.

Then that is what they observe; if you don’t see others having a purpose or being able to work towards a goal and accomplish a goal, then approaching life this way is something foreign to you. That is an experience of the many of the youth to not have the role modelling.

Then they don’t even know that it is something that is missing, or even know how to describe it. At iHuman, we ask, “What is your purpose? Why do you think you’re here? What is a path for you?” It is often something the youth have not thought of.

Thinking about these things requires being vulnerable. And for iHuman youth to be vulnerable is dangerous because it means you’ll probably end up being exploited in some way.

They have the same dreams as other young people, “I want a car, job, children. I want a family. I want a house with a fence,” but it is not something that they have seen modelled for them.

To have that [purpose] identified for them to see, it is an unknown to them.

8. Jacobsen: What are some of the other big effects on some of the youth?

Broomfield: Many have not been in school for a long time. Their experiences within any institutional structure tend to be critical and traumatic. They may have struggled with reading, literacy, numeracy, and so on.

They may be at the principal’s office or in the hallway, or at the desk doing little, because the engagement isn’t there. People talk about them. Being critical against them. They feel stupid. This is how they speak about their experience in school.

So, the opportunity or chance to leave school becomes a relief, I think. A sad byproduct though is it also fractures the opportunity to dream or think, “What can I do with this subject for my life? I really like that subject in school. Maybe, I will be a marine biologist.”

The environment where that stimulation can happen, is gone. You have one less environment where the young person is reinforced as being valuable, or as having done something good. The lack of that; they will seek this in some other way.

It tends to be the ripe environment for people waiting to take advantage of them in some way or other. It is “here, I will befriend you.” The youth are looking for it, the connection. All of our human needs are based on the connection; it is hardwired into us.

If we do not find this in good environments, then we will seek this out in unhealthy ones.

9. Jacobsen: Not only the education gap but these kids will also have self-efficacy and self-esteem concerns. How will those manifest?

Broomfield: I think, again, because of the environment that many of the youth have been experiencing. Those histories and legacies of trauma passed from generation to generation. They could be seen scientifically in terms of attachment theory.

If a young person does not attach healthily with a parent or caregiver, the strategies that they’ve used as an infant in order to get their needs met; those strategies carry forward in life. If you have not been able to have a safe and caring bond as a child, when you find those, it can feel foreign.

“This person wants something from me”; you can also feel not good enough. Even if you have goals and dreams, you can feel, “I am not good enough to have those.” It is common to see self-sabotage when youth find those opportunities or opportunities come their way.

The identity, purpose, and belonging, they are so innately tied to what the youth need. That they do not even know it. We’re trying to support them, encourage them, and show the youth that those are things that they can find in themselves and use the capacity to then go where they want to go in life.

It is not necessarily something that they have in life. You can find a sense of belonging at iHuman and elsewhere. You can find a sense of purpose. You can explore. You can gain strength and power.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Executive Director, iHuman Youth Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/broomfield-one; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Dr. Katherine Bullock

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/09

Abstract

Dr. Katherine Bullock is the Chair of the Islamic Society of North America-Canada and Lecturer at the University of Toronto. She discusses: family background regarding culture, geography, language, and religion; personal life and upbringing in the early years; first woman Chair of the Islamic Society of North America – Canada; the next generation of Muslim women leaders in Canada; Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes (2007); prejudice and bigotry; freedom of religion; the perceptions of the capabilities and roles of women; advancement and empowerment of women within the Canadian Islamic communities; prevention of those; some women Muslim scholars representative of the future and current leadership of Muslim women in Canada; and recommended books or organizations.

Keywords: Chair, Islam, Islamic Society of North America-Canada, Katherine Bullock, Lecturer, University of Toronto.

An Interview with Dr. Katherine Bullock: Chair, Islamic Society of North America-Canada; Lecturer, the University of Toronto[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is family background regarding culture, geography, language, and religion?

Dr. Katherine Bullock: I was born in Australia to an Anglo heritage. I was raised in the Anglican Church and attended the Presbyterian Ladies College for high school. In Australia, the PLC is part of the United Church. I think it’s different in the US/Canada.

2. Jacobsen: How did this build into personal life and upbringing in the early years for you? When did Islam become the proper way of life for you?

Bullock: The Church, and especially the all-girls high school, instilled some very important values in me, which I recognize today as also being Islamic – respect for others, commitment to excellence in work, the importance of family and community, being resilient and persistent through difficulties and hardship, and living an ordered and disciplined life. I converted to Islam in the 2^nd year of my Ph.D. studies at the University of Toronto.

3. Jacobsen: You are the first woman Chair of the Islamic Society of North America – Canada and were its Executive Director of Education, Media, and Community Outreach. What tasks and responsibilities come with these stations?

Bullock: I was the Executive Director of Education, Media and Community Outreach for a couple of years in 2004. That position no longer exists. As the Chair, the main task and responsibility are to see to the proper running of the board and to be the main point of contact with the Executive Director.

The board deals with ensuring legal compliance, setting the organization’s policies, strategic visioning and planning, and financial policies and budgeting.

4. Jacobsen: How might this inspire the next generation of Muslim women leaders in Canada?

Bullock: Hopefully just seeing a woman in this position will inspire another woman to imagine that possibility for herself. Although we’ve been a bit busy with all the duties I previously mentioned, I hope to establish a women’s group that can contribute to leadership development before my term expires.

5. Jacobsen: You authored a number of books with some emphasis on Muslim women in particular. In Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes (2007), what were the main questions, the central thesis, and the answer to the questions within the framework of the thesis of the text?

Bullock: Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil was born directly of my experience of converting to Islam and starting to wear hijab. I received so many unexpected negative comments from people around me, from strangers on the subway, to colleagues in my department where I was pursuing graduate studies.

I couldn’t understand why my friends and I had such a positive view on wearing the hijab and yet it is viewed so negatively by the wider society. I decided to investigate the origins of the Western notion of hijab as oppression and to compare that with Muslim women’s own perspectives and opinions.

6. Jacobsen: Muslims and other Canadian citizens undergo undue prejudice and bigotry. At times, this can include scapegoating and becoming targets of cynical political rhetoric or disproportionately negative media coverage, as far as I can observe.

Ordinary religious and non-religious people of conscience, typically, are appalled by this behaviour by politicians and others to demonize minority sectors of the Canadian population. First question, what is the source of this xenophobia and ethnic-nationalist hatred of the other and, in particular, Muslim women (and men) in Canada?

Bullock: First of all, I want to thank you and others like you who can see through the smear campaigns and for reaching out to gain more understanding. Muslims really need allies like that. I believe that the source of this xenophobia is actually quite complex.

It involves a sense of fear of loss of status and place; some white/Anglo/Franco nationalists feel that immigration is pushing them out of ‘their” society, and will change its values for the worse.

Second, I believe anti-Muslim prejudice is deeply rooted in Western cultural discourses. We can trace negative portrayals as far back as the eighth century when Christendom feared Islam as a Christian heresy.

Some thought Muhammad had wanted to be Pope and failed, then breaking off to found a rival and schismatic group. While we now live in a secular world, many of the early themes mentioned in these folktales are still around, such as barbaric men and oppressed women.

They passed on from Christian writers to missionaries, to colonizers, to secular publics.

7. Jacobsen: Second question, what can reduce and eventually – ideally – eliminate the rhetoric of division and hate? I realize some non-religious people want to eliminate religion altogether or stop the freedom of religion of others by implication.

I disagree with those non-religious people. I consider the freedom to religion and freedom from religion as equal rights for the religious and non-religious to mutually enjoy.

In particular, I note the emphasis among this sub-section of the non-religious population on hypervigilance on Islam as a set of beliefs and suggested practices, and Muslim communities and Muslims as individual citizens in their respective countries.

Bullock: This obviously is a very big and important question. It seems, most, unfortunately, that some forms of hatred will always exist as part of the human condition.

I have recently learnt how anti-Semitism in Canada has lasted for over 100 years. I think the best we can do is try and make as many friends as possible amongst the different religious and non-religious groups, and take a “live and let live” attitude, as you suggest.

We should learn about each other through dialogue and shared activities. We ought to be able to understand our differences with respect, remind ourselves constantly what we have in common, and work in solidarity on issues we share concern over, like the environment, good employment, affordable housing, and good education for our children.

8. Jacobsen: Now, within the Islamic communities in North America, what tend to be the problems in terms of the perceptions of the capabilities and roles of women? This links to larger issues within societies in the refusal to implement the rights of women, and the advancement and empowerment of women, in global culture.

Bullock: There is so much diversity in Muslim communities this question is hard to answer. There are those that see total equality between men and women as being normal, those who favour a patriarchal attitude, and many shades in between.

There are those who think Muslim women should not lead, nor work outside the home and those who think the opposite. Social workers, lawyers, women’s groups and community activists, both male and female, have raised the plight of women in situations of domestic violence, issues of mental health and parenting.

There are Muslim women teaching things such as self-defence, literacy, and know-your-rights to try and advance and empower Muslim women.

9. Jacobsen: What is being done to advance and empower women within the Canadian Islamic communities?

Bullock: In addition to what I just said, there are many activities, projects, and education plans to advance and empower women, both spiritually and secularly.

To name a few, there are groups that teach Arabic, Qur’an and Islamic studies; storytelling and art to boost self-esteem; sports and good nutrition; and leadership development and volunteer recruitment to increase civic engagement.

10. Jacobsen: What is being done to prevent the advancement and empowerment of women within the Canadian Islamic communities?

Bullock: What prevents the advancement and empowerment of women in Canadian Islamic communities are cultural practices, customs, habits and religious interpretations that say a woman should only be a wife and mother, and not have any other role outside the home.

I do not mean to downplay these roles. I have children and I understand completely the special honour and role of these traditionally female roles. I also know the exhaustion that can come with multi-tasking “inside” and “outside” roles.

But it is quite clear that Scripture intended for women more than the “home-based” role only. Women have many skills and talents that can and should benefit society.

11. Jacobsen: Who are some women Muslim scholars representative of the future and current leadership of Muslim women in Canada?

Bullock: Dr. Ingrid Mattson is a much-admired Canadian Muslim scholar. In Critical Muslim and anti-racism studies, Dr. Jasmin Zine stands out, and in Muslim chaplaincy development, Dr. Nevin Reda is providing leadership.

As for the next generation, I know several very smart Ph.D. students who will take their place as leaders in the next decade.

12. Jacobsen: Any recommended books or organizations?

Bullock: One of my favourite books that I think most people would enjoy is the autobiography of Zarqa Nawaz, called Laughing all the Way to the Mosque. Zarqa Nawaz helped produce the first Muslim sitcom on Canadian television called Little Mosque on the Prairie.

She used comedy and television to try and give a better image of Muslims to the wider society. Her book is inspiring as it talks about her life journey and how she made it to that high point.

Anyone who wants an inspiring book about Muslim women scholars should read Al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam, by Muhammad Akram Nadwi.

It is a bit academic in places, but it is inspiring for how it reminds us of Muslim women’s scholarship in our history so that we can reclaim that role with confidence, and know that we are not innovating something, but restoring something that has been lost.

13. Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Bullock.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Chair, Islamic Society of North America-Canada; Lecturer, the University of Toronto.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 8, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/bullock; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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Copyright

2023-02-12

An Interview with Stacey Piercey (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/02

Abstract

Stacey Piercey is the Co-Chair of the Ministry of Status of Women Sub-Committee of Human Rights for CFUW FCFDU and Vice Chair of the National Women’s Liberal Commission for the Liberal Party of Canada. She discusses: paths of misunderstanding transgender individuals; misinformation and disinformation campaigns; best definition of a transgender individual; definitions and misunderstandings over time; what is the same in the life-arc of a trans woman from youth to elderhood in those who are trans women and who are not trans; what is different in the life-arc of a trans woman from youth to elderhood compared to someone who is not a trans woman; what are the disproportionately negative life outcomes for trans women in different domains of their lives; and the different paths and shades of those paths available to trans women in terms of making the transition in Canada.

Keywords: Co-Chair, Liberal Party of Canada, Ministry of Status of Women, Stacey Piercey, Vice Chair.

An Interview with Stacey Piercey: Co-Chair – Ministry of Status of Women Sub-Committee of Human Rights, CFUW FCFDU; Vice Chair National Women’s Liberal Commission at Liberal Party of Canada | Parti libéral du Canada (Part Two)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: To set some more of the theoretical and empirical groundwork of the extended educational conversation over the coming weeks, I see two streams of misunderstanding about trans individuals. One is simple, relatively benign ignorance; another is deliberate misinformation and disinformation campaigns, through multiple media and social media channels, to scapegoat vulnerable members of society for cultural-political points. To the simple, relatively benign ignorance, what seems like the source of this? What are the individual and interpersonal consequences for trans-Canadians?

Stacey Piercey: You are right to say that there exist two streams of misunderstanding about transgender individuals. There is ignorance, and that is understandable to a degree, not everyone is aware of what it is like to be transgender. It is a unique experience to the transgender individual. I can relate to you some common themes that I have observed. I can share as much information as humanly possible. If it was easy to explain, I guess there wouldn’t be such a need for advocacy or education.

As you know, this is not something that everyone will encounter. There will always be a lack of knowledge and some ignorance. Just like how I don’t know everything about other groups in society. I do trust that their experience is real, and I can understand to a degree the issues that are faced in other communities by relating my experiences. We are talking about intersectionality, overcoming our differences and the knowledge gained from being able to connect with others. That requires empathy. I learned a while ago to relate to people by addressing common interests and not pointing out differences. I like to connect with others and learn from them. That is my style, to find common ground and solutions were ever possible. I see myself often having conversations about being transgender and answering questions asked of me. People do want to understand and want to help, especially since this has become a relevant social issue.

The other type of ignorance has hurt me, and that is the deliberate misinformation and disinformation campaign that seems to be ongoing. I don’t understand the motives, yet it does exist. Sometimes it is political, sometimes they are exclusionary and sometimes this is outright hate. You may say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but there is, what someone sees in media affects me. I find myself judged unfairly, asked to defend myself or explain myself. I sometimes struggle, as I am seen only as a transgender individual. It is hard when every day all you see are these negative stories. And I know the difference, so I can’t imagine the opinions being formed by others as they watch or read these stories. In Canada, we have moved further along in the conversation when it comes to transgender issues. Our policies are about inclusion and integration. It is no longer about our right to exist. That is happening in other countries, such as the USA and Great Britain right now, as they are having a national conversation. It is a big media machine that has overtaken our story to a degree. I feel like I when back in time watching this unfold, I even forget this is not relevant to me as a Canadian. But it is. You see stories that use outright fear, to pray on these individuals and to make life harder for transgender people in general. We are such a small portion of the population, we have never had privileges, steady jobs, housing or opportunities likes others, and transpeople suffer this incredible onslaught in the media that doesn’t make it easy to live a normal life. My only explanation is that there is money to be made hating transgender people, or there is joy in abusing and oppressing a small minority. It is all beyond me; I was raised to help people, not to hurt them. I honestly have to say I struggle to find good positive stories. And that is wrong.

2. Jacobsen: For the misinformation and disinformation campaigns, what seems like the source for this? What are the individual and interpersonal consequences for trans Canadians?

Piercey: If I was the venture a guess, it is political. For any change to occur for transgender people, we need the support of the media. Good and bad stories bring awareness to the issues. I don’t know if there is a dividing line among groups when it comes to transgender individuals. I have met so many people despite their background, and once they come to know I am transgender, they always say I have a friend, a relative that is transgender. It is a tough life they have, can you help or have any advice. My experience is everyone knows of someone who is transgender in a way. Therefore when it comes to transgender issues, you get every political background creating awareness, some views are extreme, over the top and sensationalized, but it is always someones else’s interpretation of transgender people. In Canada, during our campaign for human rights, we wanted them to come out of the closet, be seen and know it is okay to be transgender. It was time to step forward and say there is a problem that needed to be solved. There were no government statistics; there were no supports, and often these issues were not classified as transgender.

There is another side to this campaign against transgender people, and that is some are not ready for a change in society. They don’t help you; they want you to go away and keep you out of sight. Or worse as I found, I was used, I would work hard, and I ran into empire building. I would have these great ideas and solutions, and others would take credit. I was not respected. Thus not everyone is supportive. In this country, I have seen change occur very shortly through government and businesses. How I am received now is different than it was years ago. The thing is, as a community, we don’t have the population to instill change; we don’t have the experts, we don’t have the representation and are reliant on others to help. We are small in numbers; we are not in control of the conversation, often we are not included, and there is no consensus. I am into policy, and the problem I see, is that this is very expensive to put a gender-neutral washroom in every building, it is expensive to paint a rainbow crosswalk, and it is advanced law, and advanced medicine. Not everybody is ready to deal with this, it is complex, and it needs viable solutions. There is not enough research, legal precedents and medical history to adequately deal with the problems at hand.

3. Jacobsen: Now, those amount to not knowing/being unaware or having imbibed illusory knowledge. To the factual basis of being transgender or a trans person, what best defines a trans individual – or the type of trans individuals – within the modern context?

Piercey: When I grew up it was simple. It was very binary. You were either a man or a woman. You were born as one gender on the outside and felt like another on the inside. Then you went about the process of transitioning from one gender to another. You go through a transition phase where you are for me as an example, male, not male or female, then female. In my mind that was transgender, it was a term that defined people who transitioned, had their surgeries, did their paperwork and changed their lives from one gender to another.

It isn’t like that anymore; it has become non-binary. We have a third gender concept where people who are gender non conforming that fit into the terminology of transgender. I have heard over 50 classifications for gender. For many there is no desire to seek surgeries, they are okay with who they are, and I would say this new generation or new perspective is what you are seeing more of today. I met fewer people who have the same background or experience as I once did. They are out there, living opposite from the gender they are born in, you don’t notice them because they live stealth.

For me, that shared experience of transitioning, living a point in your life as neither gender, going through that process of change is what makes a transgender person different. It is not about, sexuality, it is about gender and questioning it and living with the knowledge that gender is a social construct. And at the same time, gender it is a big defining point for many individuals. When you remove gender from the individual, what is left but only the person? I see it now as a very open community, that is inclusionary to anyone questioning gender.

4. Jacobsen: How has the definition changed of “trans” or “transgender” over time into the present if at all? How have the misunderstandings changed over time if at all, too?

Piercey: I think in my life the definition of transgender has changed in that has gone from binary to a non-binary. That breaks down any traditional views of gender. I see transgender people as more gender fluid now whereas before it was about going from one gender to another. I am old school in a sense I live female, that is me. But I am floored by some on the new ideas that I have seen. I will be honest I find some of the new terminology and concepts difficult even for me to understand. I am okay with it; I think you should be yourself in this life. I can remember when this was simpler, it was discrete, and not political. That was before the internet and social media. We had support groups. Now it is all over the media; everyone has an opinion on gender. Everyone is sharing what they think. I believe we are watching a gender revolution. And transgender has changed just like society did with technology. I expect what it means to be transgender will continue to follow this evolution. I am all for new ideas, and I believe change is good.

Interestingly enough, the misunderstandings have not changed, for me. It is still the case where I am the representative of everything transgender. If someone sees a transgender story, they think I am like that too. How do you say, I am an individual and not some glorified stereotype.

5. Jacobsen: From your perspective and observations, as you relayed being identified as an elder – an elder trans woman, recently, what is the same in the life-arc of a trans woman from youth to elderhood in those who are trans women and who are not trans?

Piercey: I am an elder, and I understand it is a term of endearment and respect. It is something I have been called personally many times, it is not a cultural thing for the transgender community. For me, it is more about being a survivor. For them, I am a role model, a faux parent, someone who is there with experience and guidance. You see, there are not many people like myself who have transitioned in life and have lived a long time. I have 20 years of experience and stories. A problem that exists is that there is little-recorded history. Whereas I have watched this grow, and I have watched a whole new generation come into the scene. I was always involved with the public, and I am in the transgender community too. People know I am the transgender Liberal, if they got a problem with the government, I will hear it first. Now if you want to know what it was like years ago, you have to ask my friends or me. In that sense I am an elder, I have within me the culture, the history and I can see the changes that have occurred. Another reason is that I have been called an elder is that I have made friends over the years with two spirited people from the indigenous population. That has grounded me, as I know transgender has been around forever, not a mainstream part of society, but it has always been there. And in other cultures, it is very respected. In Newfoundland and the Indigenous community, there is an oral tradition, and I share in these ways. I have all the knowledge of how to navigate the system, as I helped create it and how to transition legally. I can offer great advice and have over the years to many transgender people. And if you want to know something about transgender rights in this world I have one of the better networks, there is to access information. I am a responsible adult, and I like the term elder, and I have taken it too.

6. Jacobsen: Within the same question background, what is different in the life-arc of a trans woman from youth to elderhood compared to someone who is not a trans woman?

Piercey: I am in my forties. Now I have forty plus years of life experience. But that is not what makes me an elder. You can be older than me it doesn’t mean you are an elder in the trans community. Let’s start with the years of transition. Day one, you are transgender, you are brand new to this world. You may know about life, but you don’t know anything about transitioning. These are trans years, I have 20 of those years, and it is that experience that counts. What you may know about life is irrelevant to a degree when you change genders. People have always come to me at this point needing my help. More so in the past, before services were available, I am an expert in the trans community.

The experience is relatively the same for everyone medically speaking. You want and need to be supervised by a doctor. You have to live full time integrating into society for a year. Then you start hormone. Then you go through a second puberty. Living full time is a real test, and taking hormones that is permanent. If you make it this far, following the doctor’s orders and have no complications with the introduction of hormones and no adverse effects to your body you are on your way to transitioning. Hormones scare away a lot of people, and some people can’t take them, especially the male testosterone. It is a weird time, in a transgender person life. It is when they are most vulnerable, and hormones are new, and everything they thought about the other gender is now real to them. It is a learning and growing phases. Eventually, you settle in and find your way. You may have surgery, which again is a significant change, most of my friends are post operation. Therefore, we can relate to each other. Then you wake up one morning and your body after years now matches the image in your mind. You adjust, and you move on with life, everything is normal, gender is not an issue anymore. All is good. Transgender doesn’t solve problems; it is not an escape from your life, it creates tonnes of difficulties. The whole process takes time; it took me probably ten years to regain my confidence and to be good with who I am. It is very similar to a non-transgender woman entering puberty, and the issues faced, it just happens to them when you are younger, and as with them it takes years being a teenager to come into your own.

7. Jacobsen: In terms of the social issues in the lives of trans women, what are the disproportionately negative life outcomes for trans women in different domains of their lives? How does each of these disproportionately negative outcomes play out in concrete terms?

Piercey: I can easily say, that if I was with hundred people who identify as transgender twenty years ago. Fifty would not be able to change their lives. This door is not open to them. I would say twenty of them would be murdered or commit suicide or incarcerated. It was a big deal to be passible for safety reasons alone. Now I would say of the thirty left, fifteen have entered prostitution for survival, ten are on income assistant, and I would say you have five who are working, transitioned and you will never know they transitioned. That was me, I was lucky, educated, in a relationship, and I knew how to take care of myself. I came out again later in life because I was tired of seeing what happened to the community and its fight for rights and it was overwhelming me trying to help others. I know there are not a lot of transgender people who live long lives after transitioning. I was given seven years by one professional, it was said to me this is a rough life ahead if I do this. Now, I have some friends who have transitioned as long as I have or longer and I know of some individuals older than me too. The truth is we are a science experiment. There aren’t that many people who have done this. I am one of those at the forefront.

8. Jacobsen: What is the process of making the transition? Also, this is a nuanced area. What are the different paths and shades of those paths available to trans women in terms of making the transition in Canada?

Piercey: For me, this was a very regulated medical process to transition. As well, legally it is a real pain in the neck to change all of my documentation. It was not fun; it was hard work. Back in the day, the government would only recognize gender change surgeries, if they occurred within the medical system. Without your surgery, you couldn’t change your identity. These rules do not apply as much anymore. It is good, and it is terrible too, I liked all the supervision and supported I received. I was monitored as if I was part of a military experiment. If anything was wrong with me, I knew right away. It was reassuring. I remember transitioning was the scariest time in my life, going from male to female was a stage that I wanted to go through as fast as I could. It takes times to transition. I wanted to travel, get a good job, or have access to credit, I needed everything to be in order. I thought coming out was hard; I found socializing difficult as I was relearning many skills, and it took me a while. What works for me as a man didn’t necessarily work for me as a woman. I was taken care of, supported and helped to transition completely through the medical system in Canada. I have the best doctors.

Today you can now transition, or be gender non-conforming or gender neutral. It is not so much about taking a pill as it is more about changing your identity to reflect who you are. The rules don’t apply anymore as they once did for me, you can start hormones, and you don’t have to transition fully, you don’t have to have your surgery. A lot of people live gender neutral or some other gender that is not traditional male or female. I can’t imagine how different it is now, there are so many supports, and people are safe to be themselves at a young age, and the social stigma is going away. Part of the transgender experience was in hiding, ashamed and coming out, living underground, and outside of the system. I had to develop social skills, political skills, to fight for my rights, I had to know the law, the medical system and government policy as it was all needed to get by in life. Now, if was 15 and felt like there was something wrong with me. I can tell my doctor, and my teacher and I can transition with help. Whereas for me it took years to find answers, and help and support. In a way, transgender, as I understand it will be extinct.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Co-Chair – Ministry of Status of Women Sub-Committee of Human Rights, CFUW FCFDU; Vice Chair National Women’s Liberal Commission at Liberal Party of Canada | Parti libéral du Canada; Mentor, Canadian Association for Business Economics.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/piercey-two; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Hasan Zuberi, M.B.A. (Part Three)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/02

Abstract

Hasan Zuberi, M.B.A. is the Chairman for Mensa Pakistan. He discusses: time frame for events; vigorous and respectful debates; the one rule in discussions; keeping debates on topic; punishments for poor behaviour; some interactions Mensa Pakistan members can get in-person but not online; similar interactions online as in person but the interactions are simply better, richer experiences for the participants than online; expansions of Mensa Pakistan’s in-person provisions for the membership; technology and online environments improving in-person experiences; and in-person experiences enhancing experiences in the virtual environments.

Keywords: Hasan Zuberi, Islam, Mensa Pakistan, Muslim, Pakistan.

An Interview with Hasan Zuberi, M.B.A.: Chairman, Mensa Pakistan (Part Three)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How long is the standard time frame given in the announcement and organization of an event or meeting prior to its coming to fruition?

Hasan Zuberi, M.B.A.: Standard time frame is usually at least 2 weeks, so that the members are well informed in advance and can manage their availability.

2. Jacobsen: How can vigorous, respectful debates on various political, philosophical, mathematical, ethical, scientific, and so on, happen more easily through electronic media?

I ask because, I know, most people, or everybody, experiences – or has experienced – intense and unpleasant debates, or even simply sour dialogues and discussions, on a number of topics.

Zuberi: Well, simply: Every day, we have a members group on WhatsApp, and there we discuss (not debate) on all topics at hand, be it political, religious, and even social issues. Since it is not a debate, it becomes more engaging and informative.

3. Jacobsen: What seems like reasonable ground rules to set in an online forum to prevent vitriol and maintain respectful communication between the parties involved in them, especially in the cognitively highly capable?

Zuberi: Guess, it’s simply one rule: “Respect others’ opinion.” Senior members, play the role of moderators (if they are not the initiators) and keep the environment to the topic and if there is anything that can be deemed intense, it is politely discouraged.

So far we have not seen getting things out of control, and the credit goes to the fine diversified group of people we have.

4. Jacobsen: In online environments, women and girls get more harassment. Indeed, they receive more harsh criticism and ad hominem attacks, even if their statements remain, functionally in content and tone, the same as a man or a boy – not in all cases but, from qualitative reportage and complaints of women, probably most cases.

Any tips for women and girls, especially the highly gifted and talented to stay on topic, in self-protection of cyberbullying, stalking, and harassment?

Zuberi: Well, if I talk about our circle, it is very much protected and anything below the line can be communicated to the senior management for immediate action. We encourage our female members to speak up, and often appoint, senior female members/or our national psychologist to be at the listening end.

5. Jacobsen: What is the importance of an online moderator in the prevention of these behaviours by many men and boys – or some women and girls?

What seems like the appropriate punishments, reactions, or mechanisms to acquire justice in the cases of legitimate cyberbullying, stalking, and harassment? That is, how can the bullied, stalked, and harassed deal with these individuals?

Zuberi: Well in our system, as stated above, are the senior members, who are on senior and powerful positions and volunteer for the cause, they serve as the elders and advise on issues, referred to them.

Punishments, if required, are mostly related to warning the culprit at first and so far it has been enough just to let members know that Seniors are there to provide all help.

If required further, it can result in suspension and/or expulsion from the organization, and registering a case with Cyber Crime Cell of Federal Investigation Authority (FIA). Fortunately, Pakistan has a very string Cyber Crime Unit, called NR3C.

6. Jacobsen: Now, to the second aspect, the in-person environment has been the main form of interaction of the highly intelligent in a relatively tight locale. What are some interactions Mensa Pakistan members can get in-person but not online?

Zuberi: It is mostly in our meet-ups, and or other SIG activities, which provides a chance for in-person interaction.

7. Jacobsen: What about similar interactions online as in person but the interactions are simply better, richer experiences for the participants than online?

Zuberi: Well, obviously with technology in hands now, it has become easier for everyone to interact online, than offline, so it is normal.

8. Jacobsen: In the future, what would be wonderful expansions of Mensa Pakistan’s in-person provisions for the membership? I mean wildest dreams, wonderful, and dreamy ideas – pie-in-the-sky.

Zuberi: Culturally speaking, in our part of the world, the in-person meetups are still considered formal and respectful. We as a platform, try to provide our members with the opportunity to come, meet their peers, to share their learning and experiences with others, and to learn from each other.

We are also planning to collaborate with other organizations that provide positive learning opportunities, scholarships, activities etc., for our members.

9. Jacobsen: To the third facet, the nature of the interaction between the two. How do technology and online environments improve in-person experiences of the Mensa Pakistan group?

Zuberi: Above all, the technology and online environment has helped us to engage our long-lost old members who have migrated from Pakistan; or left the country for studies, family, work, to connect with the members back home. It also helps to connect and broaden their social networks.

10. Jacobsen: How do in-person experiences provide the basis for enhanced experiences in the virtual environments of the Mensa Pakistan group?

Zuberi: It serves as the basis. People understand others, especially when they meet them and express themselves in person, and in the online environment; it becomes easier to understand their words.

11. Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Hasan.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Chairman, Mensa Pakistan.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/zuberi-three; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner (Part Three)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/15

Abstract

Rick Rosner and I conduct a conversational series entitled Ask A Genius on a variety of subjects through In-Sight Publishing on the personal and professional website for Rick. Rick exists on the World Genius Directory listing as the world’s second highest IQ at 192 based on several ultra-high IQ tests scores developed by independent psychometricians. Erik Haereid earned a score at 185, on the N-VRA80. Both scores on a standard deviation of 15. A sigma of ~6.13 for Rick – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 2,314,980,850 – and ~5.67 for Erik – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 136,975,305. Of course, if a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population. This amounts to a joint interview or conversation with Erik Haereid, Rick Rosner, and myself.

Keywords: actuarial science, America, Erik Haereid, Norway, Rick Rosner, statistics, Scott Douglas Jacobsen.

Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner (Part Three)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let us talk about good and evil, what defines good? What defines evil? Do these terms suffice in the representation of the reality?

Or do these terms carry metaphysics and ethical baggage, which detracts from the reality of proper notions of morality? In a discussion on good and evil, we can analyze the topic from multiple levels.

Let us talk about the small acts and thoughts, the little world of good and evil, then the next session can engage on a micro-level foundation into dialogue on the medium- and macro-level forms of good and evil.

What seems like quintessential small acts of good and evil – everyday acts of kindness? Also, as an aside, does religious belief or faith influence personal conceptions of good and evil?

Erik Haereid: I have experienced a strong connection to others based on mutual feelings and empathy.

One time I met a stranger, a man, on the street downtown, crowded with a lot of people walking in their own thoughts, and he looked me in my eyes and I did the same and both smiled warmly.

It was nothing sexual (I am heterosexual, and I guess he was too), only a friendly empathic mutual silent confirmation (“Hey, I see you”). I felt good the rest of the day.

Small actions like that are good because they enhance something in us. We did both, I am quite sure he did too, became better persons after that moment. I smiled warmly to some others, become more tolerant, friendly and inviting.

Most people, at least in my country, do not understand warmly smiles; they misinterpret it in mistrust. Many, not all, of course, think you want something from them that they don’t have or don’t want to give to you.

The mistrust is basic in our culture. We want the kind smiles and friendly behaviour, but we mix things up. Either we make it sexual, or we think it’s irony and contempt. Trust is essential here; you have to believe in yourself to receive good deeds and implement it into your personality and self-image.

When curiosity is replaced by judging people for their genes or personality, we have a problem as a group, if you ask me. Individual freedom has to be supported by respect for every individual in the crowd.

If not, some maybe gain a lot, but society is polarized, and this implies more conflicts. But, as we can see from for instance my country, the lack of winners strangles each individual; you are forced into an average (the average is the winner).

If you are outside the standard, the average tends to attack you. This system creates polarization too; you have to fit into the average to be accepted by the society.

A good deed or thought is when it makes the other person feel better, also in the long-term. It’s trusting in it. We have to believe in the behaviour. And the same with evil actions; it has to be pointed at us, and we have to believe that the person wants to harm us.

A good thought and deed are one that strengthens the other person’s self-esteem and self-image in a way that does not make him, her or them more extreme egocentric (narcissistic). Evilness is the same with the opposite sign.

In this context, I believe that good and evil deeds (and thoughts) have to make perpetual influences on the object’s mentality. If you save a person from drowning, you make changes to that person’s mentality for the rest of his life.

If you make a person feel bad about herself as part of her perpetual self-esteem, you make eternal changes to her mind. A rape is such a deed. Being bystander to for instance a school-killing, too.

The deeds and thoughts have to be meant; deeds, where the outcome is good/bad for the object, is not good/bad deeds if it is not intended to be. If it’s by chance, by impulse, it’s something else. A condition for good deeds is that the sender has empathy with the other person(s).

To hate or scorn someone for their genes and natural behaviour is evil, even though it’s impulsive and one can’t control the impulse at the moment. This is so, I believe because hate and contempt also are products of some nurturing processes.

You can choose to reflect on your impulsive thoughts, feelings and actions. If you nurture your impulses, you act evil/good. The fact that you have impulses doesn’t make them acceptable or true; they can be worked on and changed.

You can blame the forces of evolution, that something is cemented and not possible to change, and then fasten your immediate emotional experiences.

Or you can believe, as I do, in the elasticity of our brains, and that almost everything is possible beyond the present stringent scientific discrimination and reduction; that we in the future with help from AI, nano- and biotechnology will find a way.

It’s easier to act bad and evil, than good. Then you control your feelings. But the price is high; you also teach others to act the same way to you.

I think the best good act and deed one can do is to open up, and not close others out from your feelings or thoughts and invite others to express their feelings and thoughts whatever they are. This is, of course, more difficult than it sounds.

It assumes that we can handle our own feelings among other reactions and that we really are open-minded towards all other people. As soon we start discriminating, in thoughts or actions (normative, not descriptive), the tense and stress among all in that social realm increases.

Rick Rosner: I wanted one more comment on statistics. Now, it is frustrating because I have many, many years of college courses and extensive training in statistics. But statistics is beyond me now, in terms of being able to do it, because statistics is so coding based that I cannot do anything productive in the field anymore. Because I do not code.

I understand statistics and probability super well, but, at this point, I am nothing but a rank amateur because I cannot build databases, statistical apps, or work with statistical apps.

Now, in terms of good and evil, I look at good and evil as the preservation of order versus the destruction of order, order versus chaos.

Generally, everything is dressed in story and detail, but, basically, when people are fighting for good; they are fighting for the preservation of structure and order and, usually, higher order.

Star Wars is probably our most prominent good versus evil story now. You can see good as being a higher order that includes individuality and liberty, and the ability to do high-level things. That to be fully developed people who are free to pursue their lives.

The Empire is a suppressive force, which will blow up your planet if you defy them. It is a lower level of order. It is draconian and rule-based and is based on a few simple rules.

The people who are in favour of liberty, the Jedi and the Rebels, stand for a higher level of, say, information processing. The ability to look at the world and address it in sophisticated and creative ways rather than having to reduce the world into a few simple rules as The Empire does.

Good versus evil is about higher-level information processing versus chaos and lower level information processing. The increase in information and order in the world is basically good.

To further clarify based on the questions from you, Scott, evil is associated with the destruction of higher order, whether it is killing a living being, where the living being is higher order, or destroying works of art that are reflections of higher order and so on.

These terms carry ethical baggage, sure, because the ideas are usually brought to us within a philosophical framework that is often obsolete to some extent and has developed its own repressive and not innovative characteristics.

For instance, America is based on, or a lot of American politics is rooted in, the Constitution is the highest level of rule-giving order.

What we have been running into in today’s stupid American politics, the dumber forces in politics trying to justify whatever they do that is reactionary or repressive by saying that it is based on the originalist conception of the Constitution.

That this is immutable. You must let people have as many guns as they want given the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Then people on the Liberal side arguing less persuasively because they do not have the infrastructure and ruthlessness of the Conservative side.

That our understanding of the Constitution must be tempered by 225 years of history. That the Constitution is centuries old and it is not going to adequately address every possible thing.

So, the Constitution of this embodiment or this symbol of good, but it is obsolete in a lot of ways. So, yes, conceptions of good and evil can have ethical and historical baggage that fuck things up.

[Addendum from Rick.]

As an addendum, I have said this at greater length, and so have a lot of other people elsewhere. To quickly point out the political situation in the US, due to some demographic game playing that began with the Republicans 30/35/40 years ago – before Reagan, well-funded Republican thinktanks began to research how to wrangle voters.

They found that dumb voters are easier to wrangle. The current situation in American politics is the result of one party spending two generations getting better and better at manipulating dumb voters.

The Republicans, who started out as a respectable major political party, are, now, at their nadir. Because they have become a party of dumb assholes. Once you start herding dumb people, you have to keep going dumber.

You end with a base and elected officials being more and more amoral/immoral. The values that get lost in the demographic push further and further right. To quickly sum up, it is like smokers.

When I was a kid, a huge percentage of adults smoked, probably well over half. It was in planes and restaurants. Planes would be a bit blue with smoke because so many people smoked cigarettes. Nobody thought anything of it.

I worked in a bar in 1980. 2/3rds of the people smoked. The air was blue-ish with smoke. Over the past 30 years, more and more people have gotten the message about how terrible smoking is – for people and animals around them.

What was widely spread around the general population in 1984, the person who smokes in 2018 is more likely to be either a dick or an idiot. They are like, “Fuck you! I will keep smoking.” They either didn’t get the message.

Or if they did, they don’t care. It is a smaller segment of the population. But in a Bayesian way, as that population shrinks, it keeps proportionately more of the idiots and the assholes. That is basically what has happened with the shrinkage of the Republican base.

If people want a more in-depth conversation on gerrymandering and electoral politics, then they can go elsewhere on other things you and I, Scott, have talked about.

Haereid:I have corrected my view on the evolution process; I see it as brutal, not evil. That’s an important distinction. The evolution process seems evil because it (for humans) contains a lot of evil actions, like manipulations that harm others to gain possession. But in a pure form it’s basically honest and egocentric. I clarify this below.

First a short comment on statistics and data. I also think that statistical methods and math will benefit more in the future, not least because of the huge access to data, such as Google and other big companies has. Greater storage capacity, stronger processors, and “infinite” data access (AI) in the computers will make statisticians’ biggest nightmares, not getting enough data, history.

But, I am not aware of how much and where statistics is used today, but know it’s used in many areas (like medicine and psychology).

Back to the topic: I agree that the development and freedom of the individual must be at the center and that we can and should mature to a higher order; as through a Hegelian dialectic.

It is the outcome of a creative, individual free will. This is what I mean when I say that egoism is altruism (see below); that the good exists in individual freedom and not in the appearance of a straightjacket of conformity and normality.

Egoism is altruism in practice (cf. Aristotle’s Eudaimonia); I use altruism in the sense that all actions we make lead to a win-win situation or any other outcome where one or all loses, and where altruistic actions create win-win situations. I do not believe in complete self-sacrifice. Therefore, I do not use the term altruism in the strictest, most rigid sense.

The best example of altruism is when we feel better after doing others well. Since I feel better, I did it for me, even if you also felt better afterwards. Win-win. You could criticize it and say that it is lack of empathy. But I don’t think so, because the feelings and emotions are contagious.

I do not use egoism and altruism as opposites. When we nurture ourselves, according to our own abilities, opportunities, in freedom, we influence others to do the same, and thus society becomes good (theoretically).

Altruism in the usual meaning of the word, i.e. complete self-sacrifice, often leads to the opposite of intentional intent; violence, war, assault, exploitation, pecking order… It may be a good purpose, but by suppressing your own needs and abilities, your own opportunity to get the best out of your life, and be brainwashed to believe that an overall system, a culture, trumps your own preferences and opportunities, you develop evil.

We become evil of being hindered in our individual growth and development (this is also theoretical: of course not all become evil to others, but perhaps to themselves; self-destructive). The sense of belonging is conditional on being allowed to be oneself in that culture.

In Scandinavia we have a well-developed welfare model, something that I’m a fan of to some extent. And we also have a culture that cultivates equality; by nurturing an egalitarian society everyone gets the same possibilities, worth and we get a good community. This is the doctrine. In practice, it’s almost the opposite.

By cultivating differences, people find each other in mutual respect, and then people act good against each other. It’s about accepting the strengths of others, and using them as inspiration. When we focus on the weaknesses of others, we spend our time on others and not our own abilities and opportunities.

In short, it is not about being equal but about equal worth, and that equal worth is created through acceptance and respect of inequalities. This is good.

At a macro level, such as nations and global societies, one should (to act good) prepare for individual freedom, safety net for those who, for various reasons, should be abandoned, general healthcare, police, etc. (welfare model), and the right to be different; being ourselves (since everyone is different).

When the focus is on equality, the culture undermines the individual’s needs; to develop their abilities, talent, opportunities. Thus, people get frustrated and attack each other.

Egoism (in my sense of the term) is about respecting each other, narcissism about not doing so. An egoist knows how to develop his abilities, but also to see what he is capable of and not. A narcissist believes he is God, Lord above others, and that others obey him.

Competition is important to acknowledge and see how far it is possible to develop. You are not competing to make the others worse, but to make the others even better so you have more to aspire after.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Erik Haereid: “About my writing: Most of my journalistic work I did in the pre-Internet-period (80s, 90s), and the articles I have saved are, at best, aged in a box somewhere in the cellar. Maybe I can find some of it, but I don’t think that’s that interesting.

Most of my written work, including crime short stories in A-Magasinet (Aftenposten (one of the main newspapers in Norway, as Nettavisen is)), a second place (runner up) in a nationwide writing contest in 1985 arranged by Aftenposten, and several articles in different newspapers, magazines and so on in the 1980s and early 1990s, is not published online, as far as I can see. This was a decade and less before the Internet, so a lot of this is only on paper.

From the last decade, where I used more time doing other stuff than writing, for instance work, to mention is my book from 2011, the IQ-blog and some other stuff I don’t think is interesting here.

I keep my personal interests quite private. To you, I can mention that I play golf, read a lot, like debating, and 30-40 years and even more kilos ago I was quite sporty, and competed in cross country skiing among other things (I did my military duty in His Majesty The King’s Guard (Drilltroppen)). I have been asked from a couple in the high IQ societies, if I know Magnus Carlsen. The answer is no, I don’t :)”

Haereid has interviewed In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal Advisory Board Member Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, some select articles include topics on AI in What will happen when the ASI (Artificial superintelligence) evolves; Utopia or Dystopia? (Norwegian), on IQ-measures in 180 i IQ kan være det samme som 150, and on the N orwegian pension system (Norwegian). His book on the winner/loser-society model based on social psychology published in 2011 (Nasjonalbiblioteket), which does have a summary review here.

Erik lives in Larkollen, Norway. He was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1963. He speaks Danish, English, and Norwegian. He is Actuary, Author, Consultant, Entrepreneur, and Statistician. He is the owner of, chairman of, and consultant at Nordic Insurance Administration.

He was the Academic Director (1998-2000) of insurance at the BI Norwegian Business School (1998-2000) in Sandvika, Baerum, Manager (1997-1998) of business insurance, life insurance, and pensions and formerly Actuary (1996-1997) at Nordea in Oslo Area, Norway, a self-employed Actuary Consultant (1996-1997), an Insurance Broker (1995-1996) at Assurance Centeret, Actuary (1991-1995) at Alfa Livsforsikring, novice Actuary (1987-1990) at UNI Forsikring, and a Journalist at Norsk Pressedivisjon.

He earned an M.Sc. in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences from 1990-1991 and a Bachelor’s degree from 1984 to 1986/87 from the University of Oslo. He did some environmental volunteerism with Norges Naturvernforbund (Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature), where he was an activist, freelance journalist and arranged ‘Sykkeldagen i Oslo’ twice (1989 and 1990) as well as environmental issues lectures.

He has industry experience in accounting, insurance, and insurance as a broker. He writes in his IQ-blog the online newspaper Nettavisen. He has personal interests in history, philosophy, reading, social psychology, and writing.

He is a member of many high-IQ societies including 4G, Catholiq, Civiq, ELITE, GenerIQ, Glia, Grand, HELLIQ, HRIQ, Intruellect, ISI-S, ISPE, KSTHIQ, MENSA, MilenijaNOUS, OLYMPIQ, Real, sPIqr, STHIQ, Tetra, This, Ultima, VeNuS, and WGD.

Rick G. Rosner: “According to semi-reputable sources, Rick Rosner has the world’s second-highest IQ. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writer’s Guild Award and Emmy nominations, and was named 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Registry.

He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmy Awards, The Grammy Awards, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He has also worked as a stripper, a bouncer, a roller-skating waiter, and a nude model. In a TV commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the World’s Smartest Man. He was also named Best Bouncer in the Denver Area by Westwood Magazine.

He spent the disco era as an undercover high school student. 25 years as a bar bouncer, American fake ID-catcher, 25+ years as a stripper, and nude art model, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television.

He lost on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire over a bad question, and lost the lawsuit. He spent 35+ years on a modified version of Big Bang Theory. Now, he mostly sits around tweeting in a towel. He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and daughter.

You can send an email or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.”

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 15, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/haereid-rosner-three; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Tim Moen (Part Three)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/02

Abstract

Tim Moen is the President of the Libertarian Party of Canada. He discusses: attenuation of the loss of an authentic self while in the midst of more, and more, public recognition; tasks and responsibilities come with this station with being the leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada; honest mistakes as a leader; how an elected leader demarcates the vision for the political party and conveys the image to the leader’s constituency; the more heartening experiences in political life; the more disheartening experiences in political life; the primary policy of the Libertarian Party of Canada; egregious examples of government overreach in Canada; model of consent; the individual as the basic unit of society; the bad, the good, and government, individuals, and groups; preventing government from harming society; and sub-clauses to the primary policy.

Keywords: Libertarianism, Libertarian Party of Canada, Tim Moen.

An Interview with Tim Moen: Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada (Part Three)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What attenuates the loss of an authentic self while in the midst of more, and more, public recognition?

Tim Moen: This is actually a huge question that to properly answer would require pages, but I’ll try and be concise.

A few years ago I was disoriented and alone in a structure fire. The heat was rising very quickly and was unbearable and I knew for a fact that I was going to die. Obviously, I made it out, but the man that emerged was not the same man that went in. I realized I had been wasting so much of my time and not devoting time and energy to the things in my life that mattered most to me.

Having a purpose driven life is the most important part of maintaining a sense of self. I don’t just mean having a purpose like winning an election, I mean having a clear understanding of what I want my life to have meant after my time here is done. Combine this sense of purpose with remembering I’m going to die is probably the biggest force that keeps me honest. Sometimes I find myself saying words because it’s the path of least resistance or because I know people will react favourably and having that clear image in my mind of my life ending and what it felt like having left so much undone and allowing others to control my destiny snaps me back to my purpose.

The other prerequisites to staying authentic and grounded are; having a strong degree of self-knowledge, and having a trusted group of friends and family who are willing to help you check your ego.

2. Jacobsen: A purpose to life brings popular mega-church pastor, Rick Warren, to mind, for me. He speaks to purpose in life within a theological framework. Many like him; some don’t. Your experience exists in or out of the theological interpretation, though. A realization of the profound nature of death and the proportional reinvigoration of meaning this imports to life. What practical steps follow from the experience (examples) – for staying grounded, gaining more self-knowledge, and developing a close, trusted group?

You are the leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada. What tasks and responsibilities come with this station?

Moen: My job is to be the public face of the party and to speak on its behalf. I believe its also my job to help discover the vision and strategy of our party with our members and communicate it to our members. Ultimately it is my job to serve the needs of our members and our candidates.

3. Jacobsen: What have been honest mistakes as a leader? How does on confront them, admit them in public, and solve them for better performance in the future? All in the ‘public eye.’ How does a federal political party leader remain on amicable and friendly terms with other federal political party members in spite of differences about desires for the direction of the country?

Moen: I’ve met and enjoyed the company of people of all political persuasions. It is easy to ostracize and divide but I think its more productive to look for common ground and then engage in constructive conflict. It is easy for me to do because most people are libertarians in their private lives. They would never hurt someone or steal from them. Generally speaking, I think we all have the same goals and so as long as we can engage in civil discourse and can agree that we want to achieve the same things then we can have constructive conflict and work our way through the haze of cognitive dissonance together. Doing this requires that you view other people not as combatants to fight but rather as other people who share my goal of having a constructive conversation. If they don’t want to hurt people or take their stuff in their private lives yet they think that winning an election gives them new rights then the problem isn’t that they are bad people wanting to do bad things, the problem is that they are good people being led to do bad things because of a bad mental model or idea. On the other hand, it could be that I have a bad mental model and I would value having that mental model corrected so that I don’t do something bad.

The frame or lens through which we view these conversations with people who have different mental models largely determines how successful the conversation will be. I like to think of poor mental models as mind viruses, they spread and cause otherwise good people to do bad things. I am as susceptible to a mind virus as anyone else and conversations with people who challenge my mental models are valuable because at worst they cause me to ensure I have thought deeply enough about a position I hold to have good reasons for holding it and at best they cause me to change my mind and eliminate a mind virus.

4. Jacobsen: How does an elected leader demarcate the vision for the political party and convey the image to the leader’s constituency? Inspiration remains important for collective action.

Moen: At the end of the day my vision can’t part with the vision of my party or I’m not the right person for the job. I travel around Canada meeting with party members and listening to them and drawing inspiration from them and communicating my vision. I try and communicate why I am involved in the party and what gets me out of bed and motivates me to action. It is something that I’m really passionate about and I don’t think it takes much to motivate or inspire other people. When people see a bit of courage and authenticity that is often all they need to take action themselves.

5. Jacobsen: What have been the more heartening experiences in political life?

Moen: When I see people coming together to work for a common goal and see that we are having an impact on public discourse and culture that is very heartening. Meeting so many passionate and committed people is very motivating. Having earnest conversations with people genuinely interested in the conversation and seeing a mind change as a result of that conversation is very gratifying as well.

6. Jacobsen: What have been the more disheartening experiences in political life?

Moen: The most disheartening experiences are when people are focused on tearing each other down rather than putting aside differences in philosophy and personality for the good of achieving team goals. This is an ongoing problem with libertarians. We are very good at picking apart poor mental models and finding systemic flaws and this strength can turn into a weakness when we fixate on problems rather than focus on solutions. I’ve seen many good people leave in anger. I’ve lost a few people I considered friends because of mistakes I’ve made as a leader. People invest a lot in me as a leader and it really sucks disappointing them.

7. Jacobsen: What is the primary policy of the Libertarian Party of Canada?

Moen: The primary policy of our party is to restrain government from hurting people or taking their stuff and limit its role to protecting individuals. We recognize that government is an institution that has a monopoly on and a mandate to use force and that the only proper use of force is to protect people from the initiatory force (ie murder, assault, rape, theft, fraud). Basically, we think the government should not violate consent and should protect people from violations of consent. People in government don’t get a special exemption from behaving ethically.

8. Jacobsen: What have been egregious examples of government overreach in Canada to you?

Moen: Taxation, the drug war, the growing surveillance state and healthcare stand out as big issues for me. The carbon tax strikes me as particularly horrific in that it is not just confiscating money under threat of force, it is punishing people for consuming the very thing that allows them to survive and flourish. The drug war has ruined lives and created a demand for violent criminals. Bill C-13, Bill C-51 and now the TPP are artefacts of a growing surveillance state that collects data on citizens by invading our private sphere. Our healthcare system is a gigantic point of failure and when it fails the poor and marginalized will be the first to feel the effects.

9. Jacobsen: Within this model of consent, what suffices to amount to consent?

Moen: By consent, I mean the standard legal definition. Consent means that another person should have your permission to enter your private realm. Consent is the difference between lovemaking and rape, or boxing and assault, or charity and taxation. If I tell you that I do not want you to do something to my body or my property and you do it anyways you have clearly violated consent.

10. Jacobsen: With respect to the individual, does the individual form the basic unit of society to you?

Moen: Yes. Society is a group of individuals. Institutions like government are abstract mental models that are often confused as entities that exist in material reality, what really exists are a bunch of individuals acting in accordance with mental models that may or may not lead to otherwise good people doing bad things.

11. Jacobsen: What defines the bad? What defines the good? How can the government increase the good and decrease the bad? How can individuals and groups in society increase the good and decrease the bad?

Moen: “The bad” can be broadly defined as violating consent. “The good” can be broadly defined as that which serves the needs of individuals and leads to flourishing. A proper government can create an environment for the good to emerge if it focuses on its job of protecting individuals from the bad. Humans are generally self-interested and behave in ways that maximize their personal well, being. For the maximum good to emerge it is necessary for the self-interest of an individual be tied to their ability to serve the needs of others and help them flourish. If self-interest is tied to violating consent one would expect the good would have a difficult time emerging and the bad would have an easier time emerging. So a free market where individuals can profit by serving the needs of others seems like the best place for the good to emerge and big government where individuals can profit by violating consent seems like a good place, for the bad to emerge.

12. Jacobsen: Furthermore, how can the government be prevented from harming individual citizens? Of course, no government can be protected from in its entirety. Nothing is full proof.

Moen: Government, as I just pointed out, is an abstraction, not an entity that exists in material reality that can cause harm. If by “government” you mean the specific group of individuals that people imagine have special rights then the question becomes, “how do we prevent these people from harming individual citizens?” To my mind, the answer is to get rid of the demand for a group of individuals to use force in immoral ways. The demand for a government that imposes on individuals comes from a lack of understanding of governments proper function and comes from a place of fear. At the end of the day, people the demand government action because they don’t see it as immoral and they are frightened of some particular hobgoblin and so they demand a government that alleviates their anxiety. So to prevent the government from harming individual citizens is a bit like getting drug dealers to stop harming drug users. Ultimately the problem would largely go away if the addiction was treated. So I see this as a very similar process to treating addiction. There is no legislative lever that will protect people from the government without a will from people for it to happen. Constitutions, bills, charters of rights are helpful insofar as citizens understand them and inscribe these principles on their hearts and minds but they are only pieces of paper with ink if people don’t embrace them. If people don’t believe in or want the government to be limited then it won’t…no matter what.

13. Jacobsen: What derivative policies, which have details and acts as sub-clauses to the primary policy, follow from the primary policy?

Moen: Since all law represents threats of violence for non-compliance our goal is to limit laws to only those that protect individuals. This means that activity between consenting adults that doesn’t harm anybody else should not be interfered with by threats of violence, even by people in government. So as an example we would repeal prohibitions on drug use and sex work.

Another area the government overreaches with force is on the financial lives of citizens. Taking money forcibly (or through threats of force) ought to be limited or eliminated. This means we want to dramatically reduce or eliminate taxation and find non-coercive ways to fund the government and eliminate all non-necessary government departments and spending. We also take issue with onerous regulation on individuals owning and running businesses and working for businesses. Raising the bar to enter the marketplace creates an unfair advantage to crony capitalists at the expense of consumers and start-up entrepreneurs.

We also want to improve property rights. Property rights give individuals immediate access to justice and dispute resolution. This includes our comprehensive policy on indigenous sovereignty which gives indigenous people sovereignty over their territory and allows them to push back against government appropriation of resources on their property and allows them to develop or not develop resources in a manner that is determined by them.

Our military is there to protect Canadians and not as a proxy for US imperialism or UN “Peace Keeping”. We would ensure our military isn’t used for a political agenda but to establish Canadian sovereignty and particularly to find ways of ensuring our Arctic sovereignty is established and protected.

A key element of liberty is the ability to exclude others from your private realm and so we would eliminate warrantless spying, repeal Bill C-51 and C-13, and the TPP in whole or in part.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/moen-three; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Dr. Madeline Weld (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/11/02

Abstract

Dr. Madeline Weld is President of Population Institute Canada. She discusses: impact on policy from religion; consequences of blocking family planning; efforts to reduce women’s ability to make informed choices; the most stunning fact about demographics and birth rates; and if we ruin the planet, will we Disnify it (?).

Keywords: Madeline Weld, Population Institute Canada, president.

An Interview with Dr. Madeline Weld: President, Population Institute Canada (Part Two)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When I think about something mentioned at the start of the conversation, it was the impact of some religious organizations, sometimes quite big, who stand against family planning. One of them tends to be the Roman Catholic Church.

The largest religious segment of Canadian society is Roman Catholicism. How does this impact policy?

Dr. Madeline Weld: Roman Catholics in countries with birth control access do not listen to the Vatican. Because Catholics in Canada use birth control and abortion at the same rate as everyone else. But, historically, I do not think there is any other organization that has caused more damage…

Jacobsen: …wow…

Weld: …to the population movement than the Vatican, which is a political organization. I look at it as a political organization intent on its own preservation rather than a spiritual organization. When the UN was being formed after WWII, the head of the World Health Organization was a Canadian named Brock Chisholm, a Canadian humanist.

He was in favour of family planning. He thought overpopulation would be a problem. He wanted to make family planning part of the WHO’s umbrella services, like child immunization, and so on. The Vatican got together a group of Catholic countries and they said that they would withdraw from the UN if this happened.

They bullied the WHO into dropping family planning from their agenda. This is described by Milton Siegel, who was the second to the chair or the vice-chair of the WHO [he was Deputy Director]– and who attended every meeting, as something they simply dropped as a topic.

The Catholic Church for all environmental things; it has been consistent in opposing family planning. The president of Ceylon now Sri Lanka was concerned about overpopulation: on his small island.

The Vatican was at the conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 [UN Conference on Environment and Development] also got family planning off the agenda. Then the Cairo conference in 1994: The International Conference on Population and Development had both the Vatican and the progressive feminists being against population control.

They talked about racism, colonialism, and so on. They talked about people freely and responsibly choosing the size of their family. But they did not speak about a woman living in a pro-natalist country, where her religion, mother-in-law, and husband say that she must have a lot of kids.

By not initiating any programs or ideas for programs for governments to take for this sort of thing, it fell by the wayside. The amount of money for family planning as a percentage of total population assistance fell dramatically. It went to AIDS.

The point is the Vatican interfered a lot [Laughing]. I do not think there is any organization in the UN that did more damage. We have the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, which is 56 Islamic countries plus the Palestinian Authority.

I am not sure how supportive they will be of family planning. They are a powerful block. I agree that religion [Laughing] does not help with family planning. In Canada and all over Europe, even Spain and Italy, they do not listen to the Vatican. Spain and Italy have some of the lowest birth rates in Europe.

Jacobsen: However, this came from the secularization of the organization of the outside rather than from the inside.

Weld: Yes, I think women benefitted from the secularization of society with more freedom and so on. There is a reform movement in the Catholic Church too. There is a strong contingent of pro-choice people in the Catholic Church too.

Jacobsen: I did an interview with the president of Catholics for Choice.

Weld: A lot of Catholic women disagree with the Catholic anti-abortion stance. There was a commission in the Catholic church to look at their stance on family planning. They had 56 lay people and 16 clergy representatives looking at it. [FYI: This was Pope Paul VI’s Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, which produced its report in 1966: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control. And there were 56, not 54 laypeople on it.]

They were supposed to see whether changing the Vatican’s stance on abortion would harm the organization and whether the Vatican should do it. The commission looked at it, decided it would (harm the authority of the Vatican), but said it is the right thing to do anyway.

Basically, all the lay people agreed to it. 9 out of the 16 clergy representatives agreed that the Catholic Church should change its stance. A dissenting decision was made that if the Catholic Church changed its stance then it would look like the Holy Spirit would not have been guiding the Catholic Church all along.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Weld: But it has been instead with the Protestant groups, where birth control was okay.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Weld: What was a mortal sin would now be okay, it could not do that. Guess, who wrote much of the dissenting opinion? Karol Wojtyla who later became Pope John Paull II. It prevailed, the dissenting opinion. That is an unfortunate thing. [https://epdf.tips/the-catholic-church-on-marital-intercourse-from-st-paul-to-pope-john-paul-ii.html]

There were two times when birth control could come into the fore. One was when the UN was formed with the WHO led by Brock Chisholm and another was when the Catholic Church looked to reform on birth control positions. Neither happened.

2. Jacobsen: Now, I look at this as one of those ethical splits. One from a transcendentalist traditionalist religious perspective on the source of ethics. Another on international secular human rights. When I look at those things, I recall Human Rights Watch stating equitable and safe access to abortion is primarily a human right.

Of course, it lists the consequences of not providing the safe and equitable access to abortion. So, if some of these religious organizations and some progressive feminist groups are blocking family planning and potentially abortion too, what are the consequences of doing this for women?

Weld: They are higher abortion rates. If women cannot use birth control, a bunch will seek abortions, and if illegal then illegal abortions, which means an increased rate of abortions and an increased rate of deaths from illegal abortions.

I can understand but do not agree with being anti-abortion. But if you are anti-abortion, then you should be pro-birth control, right [Laughing]?

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Weld: Some people think women should not have those rights. I do not see why a sensible person would be against birth control.

Jacobsen: We have come to the same conclusion. If someone is pro-life in a strict and realistic sense, they should be pro-choice because the consequences would be pro-infant life, pro-maternal life, and pro-human right.

Weld: Right. I think the most awful case that made the news was this woman from India, who was in Ireland. Her fetus was dying. It was not viable. But the Irish doctors refused to abort because they were terrified at the time that the Irish draconian laws of the time may make them go to prison if they perform it.

The woman died because by the time the fetal heartrate died; she died of septicemia. It was a sad story. That was about five years ago. I forget when. Because Irish abortion laws were voted to be changed very recently.

3. Jacobsen: Now, in open societies in Karl Popper’s terms, such as Canada, the notion of the restriction of women’s bodily autonomy through various legal or fundamentalist religious measures cannot be done or, at least, as easily.

So, the people who try to do that or want to do that – and, to be frank, some people probably want that in this country – must work through coercion and culture.

Do you note any attempts within the culture or arguments made socially/culturally to either guilt women or shame women, or talk women, into being against contraception – trying to reduce their ability to make proper and informed choices about family planning?

Weld: I know in Ottawa the Morgentaler Clinic prevented people from demonstrating in front of the clinic. It is not advertised. You cannot tell looking at it from the outside. They cannot protest with 50 metres now.

That is some protection. There are organizations. I see their ads on the bus, advertising to pregnant women. Something like Melinda House or Maryam House, where you can go and have your baby. They have outreach.

They try to discourage abortions by women. I do not know of any attempts. The Catholic Church is always preaching against it. But I do not know of any coercive attempts. I do not know if they can without breaking the law. But they try.

They try to influence their legislatures and stuff like that. It is entrenched in Canada, though. Maybe, they can limit it to a certain number of weeks. I do not think even Henry Morgentaler did abortions after 22 weeks; unless there was a medical cause to do it.

I do not think they are going to give up. I think they have a pretty good turnout at their pro-life rallies in Ottawa. But they bus all the high school kids there. They beef it up [Laughing].

Jacobsen: [Laughing] something heard by me. The idea, “What will you do after you’re 35? What will you do in the latter part of your life? Oh, don’t worry, you’ll change.” These said to women.

These to negatively associate singlehood or non-motherhood, and to get them to have children or get married and have children. Tiny guilt and shaming tactics over time. They may not be conscious of it.

Weld: People, in general, or humans are pro-child. I think it is natural to want children for a lot of people. But people must make their own decisions. If life is too complicated, I know that more women now who are trying to freeze their eggs – or have their kids later in life.

Sure, they have a right to do so. But from my perspective, imagine looking after a toddler when you are 45 or something, I have two sons. They are 31 and 29. I was 31/32 and 34 when I had my kids. I am glad I had my youngish energy to chase around after them.

Because your energy levels decrease as you get older. You might have a rebellious teenager when you are 60 [Laughing]. Right now, I am 63 and independent. My kids have moved out and have their own life. The freedom is great.

It is something that people want to consider when they put off having their kids. They will be looking after kids into their old age. Do they want to be doing that? Of course, you will not see your grandchildren if you have huge distances between the generations.

Anyway, I think society must figure it out. Given that we have so many people already, I think small families is a good thing. The longer you wait then the less the population is, because parents do not die instantly when they have kids.

I am thinking in terms of biological realities. There might be an optimum-maximum age. There was a case of an Italian woman. She had a kid when she was 65. It was a few years ago. It made the news. I thought, “Why would you do that?”

Jacobsen: Did she have any kids prior?

Weld: I do not recall. You can read cases of old women or an old woman who want to have kids. It is weird.

4. Jacobsen: What is the single most stunning fact about demographics and birth rates, and so on, encountered in your entire career, even post-retirement included?

Weld: I guess that there are 1 billion more people every 12 years. It is 9 zeroes. It is stunning. Since 9:58, my time, this morning, 13,319 more people have been added to the world. That is the net increase since I have been sitting at this computer.

So, in an hour and a half, we have thirteen and a half thousand new people, which is a lot.

Jacobsen: Is it considering the deaths?

Weld: Yes, it is births minuses deaths. We have this population clock on the website. I guess that is the most stunning fact. Also, humans have taken over 2/3rds of the land surface of the Earth for their uses and only the parts that are difficult to get to are a little safe from us.

It raises the question, “Do we want to turn the planet into a feed lot for humanity? If so, why?”

5. Jacobsen: Will we Disnify the planet if we ruin it?

Weld: I think we are to a degree. I think we delude ourselves if we think we are in control. If the soils are impoverished and cannot support high-yielding plants, and if the rivers are depleted if the aquifers are depleted and it is happening, what will we do now?

They are trying to breed plants that do not require much water. But we are always scrambling to solve some other problem. It is always something. The increase in food production has slowed down. There is always a maximum that can be produced.

It cannot be done forever. A lot of our food production depends on cheap fertilizer, which depends on oil; as the price of oil increases, the price of fertilizer will increase. We should limit our numbers before things naturally self-limit and make things unpleasant for us and other animals.

We could be a blip. It happened when the meteor wiped the dinosaurs out. Why would we do this to ourselves? Why would we cause this transformation and this depletion when we can avoid doing it?

Jacobsen: Because intelligence may be a lethal mutation as per the words of Noam Chomsky.

Weld: [Laughing] Yes, I think that is true.

Jacobsen: Alan Watts used to joke – the Eastern scholar from the 60s-70s – about what if the eventual state of a species is to produce a new star by discovering nuclear energy and then blowing themselves up.

Weld: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: Of course, he was being facetious. But what if?

Weld: Yes.

Jacobsen: It is similar what if in a concrete sense of our intelligence allowing us to manipulate the environment very well and over a short, brief time – a “blip” as you noted.

Weld: I think we need to develop a new ethics called Ecological Ethics that have been promoted for a while now. Because most ethics only consider human to human interactions. I think we need to consider that we are part of a bigger system and what we are doing to our support system, ecological system.

I think that may be done willy-nilly because it will happen whether we like it or not.

That is my hope anyway.

6. Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Weld.

Weld: Thanks for the interview, Scott.

Jacobsen: That was a lot of fun.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] President, Population Institute Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/weld-two; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner (Part Four)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/23

Abstract

Keywords: actuarial science, America, Erik Haereid, Norway, Rick Rosner, statistics, Scott Douglas Jacobsen.

Ask A Genius (or Two): Conversation with Erik Haereid and Rick Rosner (Part Four)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With a moderate pivot from good and evil, and morality, into religion and theology, what defines religion to each of you? What defines theology to each of you?

Within the definitions given, and in general, what seems reasonable and unreasonable in theology and religion? What seems true and false in theology and religion? What seems functional and dysfunctional in theology and religion?

Rick Rosner: The problem with theology and religion in general: it was designed to answer questions via making up stuff that were not yet answerable throughout history by actual understanding of how the world worked.

Religion has been and is a comfort. It has been a means of exercising social control and concentrating power. It contains a lot of guesses about the nature of things that have turned out, as we have learned more, not to be true.

It does not mean that you have to throw out the entire exercise. Because, to some extent, theologizing and building religions. That is practicing philosophy. It is just that philosophy, especially with it is theological, eventually turns out to be disproven.

On the other hand, as we have recently talked about, there is no guarantee that what we believe as supposedly scientific objective people will not be undermined by discoveries in the future.

I have been saying a lot, lately, that cold random universe is a misunderstanding and will be undermined by an order-based universe. A universe that where everything that exists and emerges from increasing order rather than the universe playing out as a kind of random bunch of collisions among particles bouncing off each other.

Who knows what philosophical implications will be of an order-based universe? But the older religions, the book, Homo Deus, talked about some of the reasons for the way that the religions of the time meshed with the economic and social structures of the time to reinforce them, to help things function smoothly.

That the monotheistic religions, where Man in God’s image, functions great for a farming society, where we have to believe that we have souls, but we cannot believe that animals have souls because that is too brutal.

Because look at what we do to animals, Man being created in the image of God and everything else being created for use by Man helps agricultural societies function. Then the earlier gods with dozens of gods and spirits and stuff.

Those were helpful in pre-literate periods, where those gods were probably more improvised. It did not matter because no one wrote anything down yet, because there was not language yet – 60,000-70,000 years ago.

So, I like the argument the author makes in the book. Religion is a tool of its era. Each type of religion is a tool of its era to support or provide mental buttressing and societal buttressing for the necessary structures of that society.

But most of religions guesses about the nature of things have been wrong except in the most generous, general terms. It would be weird to think that everything was wrong until now we have science and then we are right about everything.

That seems deluded, arrogant, and counter historical. At the same time, we have all this feedback that we are getting things right because science is so effective at manipulating the world.

So, it is a mix. Where lots of evidence that science is correct, lots of historical evidence that our beliefs at any point in time will be disproven later, my best guess is that the specifics of science, most of them, will survive.

There are definitely 100 or so elements made of protons, electrons, and neutrons. All that is not getting thrown out. It is not some made up a belief system that will be overthrown 200 years from now.

What might get overthrown are the philosophical underpinnings why science works and math works, there’s always the chance that what we perceive as protons, neutrons, and electrons will get tweaked to the point that we barely recognize the later versions that people in the 1930s had a hard time adjusting to the quantum mechanical versions of the elements that make up the world.

Einstein famously hated the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics. He worked hard to overthrow it. 90 years later, we are kind of okay with it. In the ‘70s, there was an ad for a Palm Olive Liquid, which was a dish soap that was emerald green.

It was supposed to be kind to your hands. So, there is a whole series of ads about Mash the Manicurist.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: She would talk about how Palm Olive is gentle on your hands. The housewife she is talking to in the nail salon says, “Oh, psha!” Mash would always say, “Well, you’re soaking in it!”

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: The woman would look down and her fingers were in this green liquid making them all nice.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: It is kind of what Quantum Mechanics is like. We have kind of been soaking in it culturally for almost a century now. What made people crazy in the 1920s and 30s, people say, “Oh, alright.”

Nobody is freaking out about a single photon being able to travel through more than a single slit at a time. We have plenty of freak-outs to come, philosophically, as we move into the future.

One thing that is coming is the era of big data and the discovery of previously unrecognized relationships among aspects of the world that we could not find out because our brains are too small, and our data processing apparatuses are too primitive.

We will get hit with a bunch of new relationships to try to understand. Also, we will get hit with a bunch of black box relationships that will be tough to understand because the correlations will be made within systems that we cannot get at.

With the handiest example being, all the sudden: AI schema that has made computers the unbeatable champions of Chess and Go. We do not know what principles they have developed within their architecture.

We do not know what algorithms that are working off. I think there is a similar thing happening with Google Translate. It has developed a metalanguage within itself. That is not any human language but facilitates the translation among human languages.

That is a big scary black box deal. We will have our big data apparatuses. They will be coming up with all sorts of relationships and discovering new aspects of the world, and correlations.

Why those correlations are, they may be beyond us. I read some science fiction story. Maybe, it as by Chang. The guy who wrote the short story that became the Amy Adams movie.

Anyway, it concerns scientists 150 years from now. I do not know. They write for the Journal of Human Science, which is a completely bullshit journal because humans can no longer do science because it has moved beyond regular humans.

It is all being done by massive information processing AI entities. So, what used to be the chief or the noblest pursuit of humanity, it is now this little hobbyist magazine, which would be the equivalent of a model railroad magazine today.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

We will continue to be surprised. Those surprises will continue to be in philosophical, existential, and theological terms will be good and bad surprises. Theology got hit by bad surprises during the past 2,000 years.

Earth got knocked out of the center of the universe. The Star System got knocked out of the center of the universe. Humans got knocked out of the center of God’s Creation. God got knocked out as the creator of the universe. Theology’s ass got kicked.

In some ways, we have gone as far as we can go to kick ourselves to the corner of the universe. Although, I would argue that IC further kicks us, by establishing a super long timeline. So, we are not even favoured by having our own special place in time.

We got kicked out of our special place in space. Then IC kicks us out of our special place in time. A Big Bang universe, every moment of a Big Bang universe is its own unique moment.

But a universe that kind of keeps going as a rolling boil across trillions and octillions of years. There is no favoured place in time really either. But once we have taken it as far as we can go to kick humans and human consciousness into insignificance, there are surprises that will pull consciousness back to a pretty important role in the business of the universe

Erik Haereid: To me, religion is about people, imaginations and metaphysics. It’s about what people in general need to believe in beyond their narrowed perceptions, and their struggle between conviction and if their perceptions are true or false.

Religion is also the history about all these imaginations, the doctrines, through history and in every culture that exists and ever has existed.

It’s a broad conglomerate of fictions, in the space where we have needs, doubts, we are uncertain and scared, where we are children even though we are grown up. Religion contains our absent or dead father and mother.

Religion fills, for a majority of people, the mental gap people tend to get when they don’t feel whole. But it departs from fictional movies and novels because its task is more existential; while ordinary fictions that we know are false are entertaining, religion is nurture and mental food.

Theology is the study of such religious belief. It’s the investigation of those histories, trying to prove if it’s true or false. To me, it’s also associated with the priest, who spoke at school and in the church, and represented an alternative truth and path.

And therefore it’s more like telling us the truth, like a teacher in history or geography, more than asking critical questions about if it’s true or false. I can’t remember much self-criticism from my childhood’s priests.

They told us a truth, with conviction and aura. I can’t remember that they said something like “…but, maybe what I tell you now is not true”. So, theology is, to me, the beginning of and cause to religion wars (Here I link theology to every religion, not only Christianity).

It’s the foundation of centuries with quarrels and unnecessary fights. Because it does not contain any doubt. And since religion contains several gods and texts which do not fit into a single truth, theology’s lack of respect and humility creates violence and wars.

God does not exist, other than a need, a wish, as comfort, to reduce personal responsibility and emotional baggage. A type like Jesus may have existed. That’s possible, and likely.

But most of the figures from the texts are mythical, and some of them may have existed in some way; the texts exaggerate them to fit the reader’s needs, the aim of the text.

To me the Bible, Koran and the history of any God is a manmade project, well written, superb actually, fictions that fulfills many people’s needs. In addition, it’s an edifice of doctrines that force people into certain beliefs and ways of thinking.

It’s a “dictator’s” voice speaking to his audience, his uncertain and unsafe people, promising them safety and prosperity. And the people, in lack of independence and belief in themselves, listen, grasp and take it for granted.

To me, this castle of fantasies reminds me about how fragile we humans are, emotionally, and how dominating emotions like anxiety, guilt and shame, are. Religions are a tool for humans to abide by in their lives.

Therefore, theology in the sense that it tries to prove Gods existence, or at least to make arguments for Gods existence, is close to nonsense. The main problem is that some really think the text is true, whether it’s the Bible, Koran or Vedas. But as fictions, the texts can be rewarding.

What is meaningful is discussing human’s fantasy abilities. And our immense needs to build these kinds of illusions and imaginary worlds. And of course our inclination to let us convince; believe in such castles of words, symbols, actions, meaning, even though most people at some deep level understand that this can’t be true.

The history of religions is more like a testimony of a wonderful creative human brain. It’s absolutely amazing what abilities we have, to let us lead into such fantasy worlds, let us be seduced and directed.

And especially let the imaginations, or rather the people who manipulate, convince us that the imaginations are real. What I think is most interesting, which psychologists certainly can answer better, is where the boundary goes, that’s where we let go of the imagination and think it’s real.

I don’t believe in any God, but in the creative power, human abilities and will that faith triggers in people. The downside is the hate that also often appears.

Faith makes us creative; think of all the monumental temples, churches, mosques, and other buildings and monuments that people have built to worship their God. And all the beautiful texts. And all the complex and wonderful rites and ceremonies. The problem is not all these manmade constructions, but the dogmatic and sometimes hateful content.

What are functional and not? I think there are some moral compasses in some biblical texts that are functional, for instance, the story of Jesus Christ. The Ten Commandments is another example. People use it, and also to the good.

To people who have faith, religious texts, rituals, spiritual leaders and monuments have functioned as a safety net, social acceptance, and as a beam through their lives.

To us who don’t have faith, the monuments and rites can be affecting and beautiful. And the music. I have visited churches to calm down, to find inner peace. I like to walk on cemeteries. I feel quiet and peaceful when doing so. When I travel I often visit a church or two, because of its monumental and at the same time tranquil environment. It’s relaxing.

Religions are dysfunctional as extreme dogmas, brainwashers, messing up people’s perception of reality (in the sense that there is a reality), as inspiration to violence, and as motivation to perpetual religious wars.

A main problem in some religions is the double standard, like the situation in the Catholic Church with the Catholic priests abusing children. And when the theology doesn’t open up for new and other interpretations of the texts.

Religions are a lot about extremities. When parents and other authorities teach their children to kill in the name of God, with great promises both in life and after, it’s quite obvious that this becomes dangerous when it’s systemized. As we can see.

Belief in prosperity or at least a nice continuation after death could be functional to a lot of people, because it reduces the anxiety connected to the thought of the scary and unknown phenomenon death.

On the other hand, most religions demand some strict behaviour to achieve the nice continuation, e.g. Karma. This could also motivate people to act good in life.

There is for sure some functionality in religions like Buddhism, where one uses contemplation and meditation techniques and rituals to achieve inner peace. In the secular world, we have adapted it as yoga and learned meditation techniques trying to get the same effects.

One way to conviction is when the belief in God helps you substantially in a traumatic situation in life. If a dogma, a faith, a strong belief in whatever it is, can bring you through the most severe trauma, alive, I guess you lean toward believing that this God or whatever exists in one or another way, even though it’s maybe possible to explain the phenomenon via biochemistry, psychology or something.

I agree with Rick in that religion is an explanation of what people need to know, don’t know, and based on an inner pressure of having to know. It’s about human needs.

And why can’t we live without knowing, without gaining complete control? Curiosity? Anxiety? Probably both based on a need to understand and see the whole picture that makes meaning and sense, and make us survive.

Humans try to explain their lives and the world they perceive, the Universe, based on various reasons. On this road, we get stuck, locked, because we tend to be convinced (because it pleases us).

When something feels odd or dangerous or dislikeable, people tend to reject it even if it’s based on data, science, logic, and everything humans see as truth. These obstacles postpone a smooth understanding of how things work.

We need to feel safe in our environment, before we move on. Rick mentions Einstein’s resistance to the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics.

I am sure it took people some time, then back in 1543 (I had to look up the year) when Copernicus draw the new picture of where the earth stood in the Universe, and changed people’s consciousness from a geo- to heliocentric view, before they accepted that the Earth orbits around the Sun and not the opposite.

We often choose what pleases us; fulfill our needs, even if it’s false; even if it’s plausible that it’s false, and sometimes even if we know that it’s false. Then our subjective truth becomes something else than an objective truth.

The irrational nature of us is a part of the truth. We can choose to call this nature whatever we like, for instance, a part of a deterministic Universe that we don’t know yet, or that exists beyond what we are capable of ever knowing.

When people find peace, some other, alternative truth can be disturbing. Also, truths based on enormous amounts of data, information, and smart black boxes inside AI-agents. Maybe this is temporary, because we don’t know or understand yet.

Maybe there exists an objective truth that is good and not bad, where every human brain and body on the planet fits into a higher level of consciousness. We’ll see. Until then we are all more or less separated, with our own, individual truth, and in groups where each individual seemingly fit into some dogmatic truth.

If the absolute truth is a higher level of human consciousness, a summary of all individual truths, then the objective truth is the present truth, including science and religions, knowing, doubting and believing. Knowing can, after all, be reduced to a mental process. Maybe our own technology one day will help us to gain a common truth.

Religion is not wrong in the sense that it’s not functional, on the contrary. It’s, as Rick says, a tool, like eyeglasses, cars and computers. We always look for the best tool, the most correct map, and adjust it all the time.

It’s interesting and rewarding to read Ricks thoughts, like when he says that we, humans, are captured in theology, philosophy and existential questions and definitions, because we can never collect or reach science.

In the future, it’s contained in the CI’s black boxes with unknown algorithms finding new relationships and correlations to events and phenomenon. We will never be the Masters we dream about, gaining the total control we try to, understanding everything, being superior as we are to other animals.

Because on this road we invent things that prevent us from achieving this. Like AI and black boxes. And because this will happen perpetually, we will always turn us to theology and religion and spirituality, because we can’t accept that we do not know everything! If I understand you right, Rick.

2. Jacobsen: Also, to close the Part Three add-ons, we talked about the little world of good and evil. In relation to religion or the lack thereof, what comprises the middle world and big world of good and evil?

Rosner: You have been asking questions about various levels of evil over the last few weeks and days. Good and evil on a small scale. This reminds me of a diatribe I went on with you. It was under a different topical umbrella about companies that suck and people who are assholes.

I assume this falls under little evil. Things that do not directly threaten people’s welfare but make life a little bit more unpleasant for everyone. That can include microaggressions and even the refusal to grant cognitive credit to animals.

It allows us to, in America, to kill 10-20 billion chickens per year. We raise meat animals under terrible conditions. Also, milk cows don’t have the greatest time. I assume that will be looked at as a greater evil when we have a better understanding of consciousness.

Although maybe not, because the kinds of consciousness that will be more commonplace, more complicated, and more powerful than ours in the future, the life of a chicken may not be any more important than we often view it.

Medium evils are acts that directly harm other people. That threatens their lives. That takes away their money or freedom. That discount their opinions. Right now, we are 18 days away from the mid-term elections.

There is massive voter suppression in the country. That seems like it is, at least, medium evil. The Republicans, or even each party, doing it. But the Republicans have been much more successful and ruthless about it, since 2010.

That is, at least, medium evil. Big evil would be things like war. In discussing all these, you have to discuss whether the actions that lead to the goodnesses and evils are intentional or just a matter of generalized incompetence and not being able to resist our own tendencies.

Also, under big evil, I guess, you would have situations of which we are not yet aware that impinge larger structures than just our planet. It is reasonable to assume that there are other conscious species out there.

That many of them are going to be much, much older than us. That their actions might encompass much larger things. There is the possibility of Star Wars level of evil. Then there is the possibility that the universe has some intentionality.

It implies the possibility for universe level good and evil. I realized that talked about evil with all my examples…

Jacobsen: …[Laughing]…

Rosner: …and no examples of good at various levels. But having decent manners counts as a little good, some Jewish people joke, including us, about Mitzvoth.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Rosner: When I talk about them, it is about something really trivial I did. Nothing comes to mind like holding a door open for somebody. A medium good might be working to be less of a dick in a long-term relationship.

My wife and I, as a precautionary measure and not because we have a lot of conflicts, have been going to couples counselling for decades, about once per month. It is like doing maintenance on the relationship and then helping to build an emotional framework.

Where if there is something that annoys me, I can look at it, then decide, “Is this something I can let go because it has no real importance? Or is it something I need to call her on because it has the potential to impact our relationship? Also, are there things I need to work on myself that be annoying and whether I can lose them in the context of the relationship?”

Then there are medium goods, overt acts that have actual impacts on other people and also on you, like giving to charity. Since I have been unemployed, I have been crappy at it. Giving up money or time has a real impact on your life and someone else’s life, it seems like a medium thing

It seems like something that you have to do. But it is not simply opening doors as an activity that you’re used to, e.g., I was a doorman for years. I am very cognizant of doors. That’s all I have time for.

Haereid: I believe that one main reason to evilness on all levels, from person to person, with groups like organizations involved, religious, political and others, and with states, big, medium or little evil, is overregulation (suppression, brainwashing, dogmatizing…).

When people are diminished or overruled by someone else beyond their own needs and opportunities, we seem to produce violence and evil actions, physically and psychologically, against ourselves and others.

We are kind of forced into a tyranny of egality, and of course, we hate it because it’s not natural for us. But everyone (my exaggeration) tells us that we need to fit in by being egalitarian. No one (another exaggeration) sees that to fit in and be good we need to be different.

When I talk about equality and egality I mean equal in almost everything else than worth and quality; to achieve a perception and feelings of that humans have the same quality and worth, we have to incarnate that we are substantially different. That’s my point.

A little evil could be to be rude by not answer a colleague or neighbour when it’s natural to be polite, and you are not distracted by something else. And in general being rude to someone you just don’t like, without any constructive criticism.

A little good could be to be more than polite to that neighbour or stranger you meet at the store, and say hello and smile or something like that.

I would say that if you torture one person to death, knowing that this person died under severe pain, it’s big evil because of the severity of the pain, even though no state or government or religious organization is involved, and even though no other persons are seemingly influenced.

If the evil is medium or big depends on the amount of the pain, for how long this affects that person(s) and of how many persons this affect. If one person damages a world (by for instance creating and spreading a harmful internet virus, starting a war or intentionally spread an AI-agent that is programmed to kill or hurt as many people as possible), that is big evil.

And if a group of people, like a religious fanatic group as Daesh, creates violence by torturing and killing people, that is big evil.

If you kill a bird because you are hungry, it’s not evil but brutal and necessary; it’s life, it’s natural. But if you catch a bird and make it suffers in some kind of pain some time before you kill it, it’s evil. It’s, as Rick says, the conditions before killing the animal whether it’s by hunting or raising that matters.

Regimes, both secular and religious, and groups like political or religious movements, are good when they teach people to think for themselves, let them act as they want to (to some extent) and evolve as themselves and not necessarily to be approved by others (persons, regimes, groups, organizations…).

When we get what we basically need we tend to accept that other people think and act otherwise than us, and we also approve it and learn from it.

Goodness is about getting opportunities, evilness about not. Religious texts, rituals, cultures can both reveal opportunities and not. The same about secular societies; the regimes, the culture, the organizations need to facilitate, so that each person get these optimal opportunities. This is big good; the freedom to choose, the number of possibilities.

A Norwegian priest said recently that God gives her a bigger perspective of life, and a room to express all her difficult emotions and feelings. Then God is good, for her and her surroundings.

I also believe that faith can raise one’s consciousness over and beyond the levels people with no faith usually possess; faith can under certain circumstances make us more intelligent and embrace our emotions in a better way.

Its evil intentionally to focus on others flaws to gain position oneself. This is so on personal level, between groups and states.

Goodness is when for instance a political leader acknowledges and shows respect to an opponent. Such as John McCain did in the 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama, when a woman said Obama was “Arab”. McCain stopped her, and said that “Obama is a decent family man…”. McCain defended his political opponent.

Goodness is to embrace others by confirming them, and make the others see their own opportunities and abilities, talent, like a trainer.

I will also mention the decadence of the western world, illustrated in, for instance, the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”. This becomes evil when it escalates and harms people severely, because we are intelligent enough to know the consequences. I think it’s qualified when religions criticize this kind of behaviour.

This decadence can be illustrated by let’s say drinking two bottles of liquor containing 40 % alcohol each day instead of two-three glasses of wine to your Saturday dinner. It’s about moderation.

Appendix I: Footnotes

From the last decade, where I used more time doing other stuff than writing, for instance work, to mention is my book from 2011, the IQ-blog and some other stuff I don’t think is interesting here.

You can send an email or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.”

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 15, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/haereid-rosner-four; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Dr. Madeline Weld (Part One)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/23

Abstract

Dr. Madeline Weld is President of Population Institute Canada. She discusses: family background; factors in birth rate; ethical rightness of human rights; rape as a weapon of war; climate change and overpopulation; authoritarianism and xenophobia; and a rational approach to immigration policy.

Keywords: Madeline Weld, Population Institute Canada, president.

An Interview with Dr. Madeline Weld: President, Population Institute Canada (Part One)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In terms of family background, what was it?

Dr. Madeline Weld: My dad was an English Canadian. My mom was originally from Germany. He was working at the military mission in Berlin [and she was one of the local staff], choosing to marry her was unpopular with the Canadian government and his parents [Laughing].

He was a diplomat. We travelled a lot. Up until I was 15, I only spent 4 years in Canada. I lived in Brazil between 4 and 8. I lived in Pakistan from 10 to 12. Then we went to Switzerland and then came back here when I was 15.

As it happens, I was born in the United States. My father was posted in New York when I was born. So, I was born in White Plains, New York. Anyway, my childhood was constantly travelling every few years and returning to Canada after a posting abroad.

From an early age, I was aware of the population issue. I remember in Brazil seeing the Favelas and thinking, “Oh my goodness.” I was also aware, even though I was short of 5 when we went, of the contrast between how I was living, and they were living.

I got interested in population growth and the human population was growing rapidly. I remember thinking in Pakistan at pretty places, “Is this still going to be here? Or will it be deforested?”

That is how I got interested. I always have been aware of it for as long as I can remember [Laughing]. That is my family background [Laughing].

I have a bachelor’s degree from Guelph in Zoology. Then I have a master’s and Ph.D. in Physiology from Louisiana University in Baton Rouge. My most recent work was at Health Canada. I am retired. Yay!

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Weld: [Laughing] I worked for Health Canada for 14 ½ years up until October 2015.

2. Jacobsen: When it comes to demographics and population statistics or analysis, what are some of the top factors that are strongly negatively or positively correlated with the birth rate of a nation or a region of the world?

Weld: Certainly, the education level is strongly correlated. The higher the education level in the country. The more likely women are to have smaller families. That is strongly correlated, so is culture. Because in strongly pro-natalist places, where tribalism is also strong, it is harder to get acceptance of birth control.

I would say correct information too. Part of the problem in Africa is there are incorrect myths of birth control: the harms, causes of infertility, and so on, or that it is a Western plot. It is the case in some Muslim countries and some imams have been saying it. Then we have, in Tanzania, the president, Magufuli, who is pro-natalist. [He said people should have as many children as possible and those who don’t want a lot of children are lazy.]

The other very important thing is availability. Bangladesh got its total fertility rate close to 2.0. It made a concerted government effort to provide family planning for women in the villages in a culturally appropriate way.

Family planning and government-political will to do something are helpful. Thailand, for instance, in 1970 – and the Philippines – had the same poverty level and population. Then Thailand promoted family planning quite vigorously, but not coercively as in China.

The Philippines had the Roman Catholic Church that was against family planning. Thailand’s total fertility rate fell. Now, it is a net exporter of rice; whereas, the Philippines must import rice. Thailand is doing better economically. The work of Jane O’Sullivan in Australia showed something interesting.

Usually, we say, “Birth rates fall when a nation accumulates a certain amount of wealth.” But what happens is the reverse, when the birth rates fall, especially when they have 2-3 children, the wealth of the nations increases. So, individuals become richer.

I think we are putting the cart before the horse when we say, “If we bring wealth to a certain level, we will get a particular birth rate drop.” I think the most pernicious myth is the demographic transition theory. It assumes all nations will go through the same stages Europe went through.

That when wealth increases then the total fertility rate will fall. It has not happened on the continent of Africa, and a few other countries. People need to speak to the benefits of small families. Both to societies and to the environment.

Some have done this in an appropriate and effective way.

3. Jacobsen: On the last point, if someone argues for the ethical rightness of human rights – in other words, the implementation of reproductive rights for women, and if one looks at the economic development of a society as a result of family planning and other things like this, could an easy argument be made that it is both morally and economically the right choice to have family planning and reproductive health rights for women respected and implemented?

Weld: Yes, I agree. Even if the world were not overpopulated, I am in favour of women’s rights, education, and the right to choose to have kids or not. I believe that is a choice best made by a woman and, preferably, her partner [Laughing]. That they raise a family together.

So, I think the choice is important, and the informed choice depends on being independent. Because a lot of women in these surveys say that they are not the ones to decide. It is their husbands or their mother-in-law. They think it is a duty.

It would be educating them that they have their own rights and rights to self-determination, and so on. That is not the case for a lot of them. Right now, we have the resurgent Islamism. That is one of the things there. They become very pro-natalist.

The more fundamentalist the place – regardless of religion, but some more than others – then the more kids they will have; the less choice and economic independence that they will have. So, I would say. It is, as of right now, people have as a right to have as many kids as they want, even if they cannot afford them.

But they will have the consequences. In a lot of these overpopulated places, where there is conflict and women are raped, even unhealthy family planning, no family planning has imposed the horrors that they experience in conflict zones, overpopulated conflict zones like Darfur.

It is partly ethnic. It is partly Jihadi. Even if you have ethnic groups that do not get along, the more there are economic and resource pressures, then the worse they will be.

4. Jacobsen: Also, the trend right into the present with rape as a weapon of war.

Weld: I hate to say it, “Humans are not perfect. They are a mixed bag based on evolution. Maybe, that behaviour is evolutionary, which is not something that I would support from an ideological point of view. But, maybe it is.

It takes a moral code to behave decently if you are the conqueror or the winner of a war – not to abuse the women. I wouldn’t want to be the women in a conquered nation or a conquered tribe [Laughing]. Some call them primitive societies and not technological societies.

In some cases, there is a lot of raiding and kidnapping of a woman, as has been described by Napoleon Chagnon in some South American tribes. But from that perspective, when the population is low and not technologically advanced, the damage is limited, especially environmental damage.

With our population, we can cause a huge amount of damage. The progressive movement ignores the impact of population growth, “It’s Capitalism or overconsumption.” [Laughing] But all these people, the question is, “Do they want to live on a subsistence level or consume some more?”

The Chinese started to develop and eat more meat. Can anyone blame them? They could not before. Once they got the chance, they did. As a human, we should not expect people to behave like ascetics once they have the chance to consume more.

They will continue to consume, not at a minimum level. The more people there are then the less likely they are to be able to attain a higher economic level. Right now, we are depleting the oceans. We are overfishing.

In Africa, most of the cause of deforestation is subsistence farming. They cut down trees, need more fields as the population grows but the fields might not last very long (erosion, depletion of soil).

5. Jacobsen: I agree with you. On that strain of the progressive movement or their arguments, I disagree with them. I agree with the arguments and evidence that population and overpopulation is problem number one.

It relates to another problem of our time, which is climate change.

Weld: China in absolute terms produces more greenhouses gases than the US. It has the population. Some pollution in places in China is unbelievable. They do not have the same environmental protections [Laughing] as we do.

I guess protestors can be more easily dealt with by the Chinese government.

6. Jacobsen: [Laughing] If we look at some of the leaders, some would be the Tanzanian leader. It would be the religious leaders of theocratic states.

It would also be some rising in Western Europe and North America with a certain zeal, tendency toward to authoritarian thinking, and xenophobia with attempts to try and return women to the home.

Weld: What is happening in Europe now, and starting to happen in Canada, there is too much immigration before integration; the population is not happy with it, with some of the cultural things happening. They are starting to react.

With the massive immigration in Australia, in Britain, in the US, it does not benefit the people economically. We do not need this amount of immigration from an economic perspective. It benefits developers. It benefits bankers who get more mortgages. It benefits some businesses who get cheap labour. They have strong political influence.

Also, politicians want the ethnic vote. One way to do it through more immigration. It is what Mulroney’s Immigration Minister, Barbara Jean McDougall, did when she vastly increased the amount of immigration coming to Canada to a minimum of 250,000 per year.

Every government has done this. (Justin) Trudeau upped it. Finance Minister Bill Morneau pointed out young people face a job insecurity problem. If young people are having trouble and immigrants are too, why bring in vastly more? There is no justification for doing this.

Immigration has not lowered the average age. Because we bring in such a large number of immigrants (including parents in the family reunification category). This has been shown by several studies and known for a long time. But the issue of “our aging population” is continually brought up as an argument for more immigration.

If immigrants cannot get a decent job, and get more in public services than they pay back in government taxes, and two mainstream economists estimated this at $30 billion per year, how are they going to pay our pensions?

We have Canada’s policy of mass migration benefitting a few and the costs are borne by all. They include more congestion, more smog in cities, lost time in traffic, and so on.

7. Jacobsen: What would be a rational approach to immigration policy for societies that already have a lot of infrastructures?

Weld: Our infrastructure is under stress. You can see that in big cities including Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa. I can see the quality of the roads going down. We keep increasing the population. But we need to put more into infrastructure because they are being used more.

There is a lot of pressure on infrastructure. We should have balanced migration. There is no reason that we should be constantly increasing the population. When is it going to be enough, when we have 1.3 billion like China? The argument about big space is bogus. Because much of Canada is chilly and mostly rock like the Canadian Shield.

We should be realistic and incorporate ecological considerations. We should help people where we are. Whenever we bring an immigrant to Canada, we spend a lot of money on that person; we could spend more on people in place, including refugees – help them where they are and help them return to cultures more familiar to them.

Basically, we are finding all excuses to increase the population. The Prime Minister says, “We are strong because of diversity.” No sociological studies support that. In fact, they show there is less cohesion in mixed neighbourhoods.

Robert Putnam’s study (E Pluribus Unum, 2007) found that. Putnam is liberal. He was dismayed by his findings. He could not find confounding factors that changed his results. Whatever he did, his conclusions were the same.

There is no need to increase our population. We should support countries – not Tanzania – that are trying to implement rational family planning policies.

Population control has become a dirty phrase. Norman Borlaug, who launched the Green Revolution, which saved India from starvation that Paul Ehrlich predicted, said the problem of hunger will not be won until the people working for food production and those working for population control work together.

He recognized that a continually growing population will run out of food. We are turning Earth into a feedlot for humanity, in Paul Ehrlich’s words. I think it is what we are doing. We are cutting down trees and making forests into fields.

Everything for human consumption. Even green energy, like these miles of solar panels. That is not a place where birds can nest, or Cariboo can run.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] President, Population Institute Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 22, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/weld-one; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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An Interview with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo (Part Six)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/23

Abstract

Dr. Christopher DiCarlo is an Author, Educator, and Philosopher of Science and Ethics. He discusses: in vitro meats; ignorance and getting along; and final thoughts.

Keywords: author, Christopher DiCarlo, educator, philosopher.

An Interview with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo: Author, Educator, Philosopher of Science and Ethics (Part Six)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Dr. Christopher DiCarlo: Do you know what in vitro meats are?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Are those the ones that are grown in a lab or on sheets? They are thinking of doing it like with 3D farming with plants but with meat cells or muscle cells.

DiCarlo: Yes, exactly, but it is all private, no government in Canada or the states are putting any money into this. We know why. You are going to piss off the dairy, pork, and chicken producers. Agriculture is huge money. A lot of money went into that hamburger. It costs 250 grand to make one burger.

Obviously, they have to raise their capital by any means. In a perfect world, if we can create in vitro meats, animals do not have to suffer. It makes sense to me. If we have the technology to do this, then do we have to continue the mass slaughter of other sentient beings in order to continue to feed us?

I do not see why especially if we can control for the disease. We do not need hormones, steroids, or antibiotics. It all comes down to taste. In vitro meats are at a stage right now, where they are not particularly favourable. I cannot hold people’s feet to the fire. They make their own choices. We have to evolve culturally.

I hope that at some point in the future humans get a level of technology, where it is pretty much Star Trek. I would like an 8-ounce steak and want to talk to the replicator. It makes you the 8-ounce steak and no animal ever has to suffer.

We can transform matter and energy in a way so that we are a lot more compassionate to living, breathing, and sentient beings. We are not there yet; we are still in post-caveman days. So, how we should behave?

The supernaturalists have top-down Divine Command Theory and the naturalists have a ground-up ethics. Let’s figure out the best possible mechanisms we can.

That is why we developed Relational Systemics. If we wish to treat people fairly, we have to take in as many considerations within systemic relationships as we possibly can: “What is to come of me?”

This works in 2 different ways: “What is to come of me as I am alive? What is to become of me in my lifetime? What choices do I make that result in certain consequences? And what is to become of me after I die?”

So, the supernaturalist, obviously, what is to become of me in this life, it depends what type of person you’ve been in the eyes of God. That will determine what type of fate you are going to have while living and after your death. A naturalist says, “I have no idea what is to become of me after I die. I do not have any compelling evidence to think that I may continue.”

However, if you are a good skeptic and a good naturalist, you would say, “I remain agnostic.” Now some people, some hardcore positive atheists might say, “You are belying your worldview, your ideology, as an atheist thinking that something could possibly happen after you die,” to which my son and I had this conversation for years.

We know so little about multiple universes. We know so little about time and probability. Let’s say you and I die simultaneously, we both get struck by lightning. Somehow, where you are and where I am, you and I both die.

We get buried and cremated, and whatnot. Our lives end. It seems like our lives have ended forever. My students keep saying, “But I cannot even imagine what that would be like!” I said, “Really? Do you remember what it was like 10 years before you were born? It would be like that.”

“So, you could imagine what that is like and after you die you won’t be able to imagine it,” Socrates said this. He said, “Life is either going to continue or it is not.” If it does not, you are not around to piss and moan about it.

That makes this life all the more important: get as much out of this life as you can without harming others, get as much as you can out of this life as possible.

Then my son and I thought, “There does not have to be a God in order for us to somehow have our existence continue after we die. All there has to be is enough time, an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of possibility.”

If those two things exist, then it is theoretically possible that you and I are going to have this conversation again at some point in time.

Given an infinite amount of time and the multiple worlds/multiple universe theory, and based on how little we know about aspects of causality, it is theoretically possible that all of the components, all of the stardust that has made you and me, Scott Jacobsen and Chris DiCarlo, have somehow come together in particular ways; I am saying, “You cannot imagine the amount of time.”

Trillions of years are unfathomable to us. However, to a dead person, the passage will be instantaneous. Because if consciousness ceases, and if they are somehow regenerated, their matter reproduces that consciousness to recognize themselves in some other way again or even in not in different ways, then death will be an illusion.

Either we will never experience consciousness again, ever, or we will, but it will take a shit load of time to materialize.

When people come to me and say, “Atheism is so bleak.” I say, “No, you are selling it short. Reflect on your own ignorance. Our ignorance is so incredibly vast as to the true nature of what is actually going on there should there be an actual multiverse.”

I try to take my students from the level of subatomic physics to String Theory all the way through to the levels of cosmology and the expanse of our known universe. The 13.7 billion years that our Big Bang period. To the fact, that now M-theory maintains this may not be our only universe.

There may be an infinite number of universes. This bubble structure or bubble theory/model that they have outside of our own.

If that is the case, this is what Sagan talked about in terms of awe. I am in awe of the natural universe and what could actually be going on with my puny little brain. My insignificant little being in this magnificent huge backyard of a universe that we have.

So, I try to tell people, “What is to come of me?” Ultimately, I have no idea. However, if the answer is nothing, and if I cannot figure out a way to upload my brain as a digital copy like the great Kurzweil thinks we can do in 40 years, then that is it.

However, if I can gain immortality that way, by uploading my brain, digitally copying it then downloading it into an autonomous titanium robotic exoskeletal being, I would do that tomorrow if I could.

The last debate I had with this Christian guy. So, people told me there were Christians in the lobby crying because of what I had said and that it woke them up. That, maybe, that is all there is to the universe that it is all ultimately meaningless.

But like I said, we have what I call Proximal Meaning. Our lives are short and meaningful here. However, in the expanse of space and over an infinite period of time, we are nothing. We are nothing. That affects a lot of Christians. It made some of them cry, which I did not want to do. I do not want people to feel hurt.

But suffering is inevitable and even epistemic emancipation can put people through times in which they are going to suffer because you are trying to think in ways your brain has never allowed you to think before.

So, I try to tell people if the universe is ultimately meaningless, and if that is all there is and when we die that is it, then you are not going to change it.

You are not going to change through thought or through your actions the way the universe actually is. So, why do not we all live as if this may be the only life we have, okay? And whatever happens afterward, as long as you live a life, as a life as your systemic self will allow you to live, then you have nothing to worry about.

You have nothing to worry about. Try to make the world where you are a little bit better for others, especially if you can pay it forward. If you can do that, then I think that is about as much as we can expect of you given what the state of your brain is.

You are not a serial killer; you are not someone who is incapable of acting that way. Enjoy this life as much as you possibly can because we have absolutely no idea how long we have to live at any given time. What’s around the next corner? What’s hurtling through space that might be headed towards this planet?

What idiot might be elected president who has their finger on the button of how many nuclear warheads? None of it is certain so appreciate what we have and try to live the best life you can.

This is what Socrates said, “There is nothing more important than thinking about how we ought to live.” I think you and I have come back full circle to where this conversation began.

2. Jacobsen: Any thoughts or feelings in conclusion?

DiCarlo: I am hopeful for education that it will take a turn out of this bizarre, post-modernist, wacky notion that no ideas are any better than any other ideas.

That we can actually see for ourselves that, at least in terms of pragmatic benefit, that there are better and worse ways of thinking based on how it is we wish to behave towards others.

If we are to be compassionate beings, not to ourselves but to other species as well, then hopefully the turn is coming now, where people can have meaningful dialogue and can be diametrically opposed to one another but see the importance of still getting along.

That is the final message we take from critical thinking and education. We are always going to disagree, but it is extremely important to know why we have these disagreements and still figure out reconciliation techniques to be able to get along. So, that is what I am very hopeful for in the future.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Dr. DiCarlo.

DiCarlo: No problem, thank you.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Author; Educator; Philosopher; Fellow, Society of Ontario Freethinkers; Board Advisor, Freethought TV; Advisory Fellow, Center for Inquiry Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 22, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/dicarlo-six; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Tim Moen (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/23

Abstract

Tim Moen is the President of the Libertarian Party of Canada. He discusses: activism and the Libertarian Party of Canada; election and feelings; media exposure and responsibility to the public; and great wisdom from the Lord of the Rings.

Keywords: Libertarianism, Libertarian Party of Canada, Tim Moen.

An Interview with Tim Moen: Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada (Part Two)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What were your early involvements in activism and politics prior to the Libertarian Party of Canada?

Tim Moen: I started writing and expressing a political opinion about a decade ago. I didn’t have much of a political opinion before and generally went along with TV pundits like Bill Maher and his 90’s show “Politically Incorrect”. About 10 years ago I went through a period of self-exploration where I examined my faith and realized I had not reasoned my way into this belief system.

I realized that if I had been born in another country my view about the nature of reality would be completely different and I’d be worshipping a completely different deity. My beliefs had been a product of my environment, my culture, my family more than anything else. This was very disconcerting and left me feeling like I couldn’t trust that many beliefs and I started examining my worldview through the lens of skeptic trying to parse out truth from falsehood.

Examining political beliefs through this lens caused me to realize that politics was essentially a set of implicit and explicit claims about the morality of using force. I started blogging, making videos and appearing on podcasts to promote clearer thinking and skepticism towards extraordinary claims about government and the use of force.

In 2009 the Province embarked on centralizing control of Emergency Medical Services taking control away from communities and local practitioners. My first foray into the political sphere was appearing as a panellist at a local town hall meeting trying to alert the public to what we could clearly see was going to hurt them.

In the fall of 2013, I wrote an article about my experience working with Neil Young on a film project about the Oil Sands and what I saw as some hypocrisy and unclear thinking. The article went viral and was noticed by some libertarian activists who started trying to convince me to run as a candidate for the Libertarian Party of Canada (LPoC) in the 2015 general election. I was very resistant to that idea at first, I saw involvement in politics as implicitly supporting an idea I found immoral, but ultimately they convinced me that I’d be missing out on an opportunity to connect a lot of people to important ideas.

A few days after committing to run for office in 2015 my MP resigned and I was thrown into a by-election in early 2014 with zero clues about how to even file candidacy paperwork or run a campaign. I had a number of volunteers sign up to help me including a guy who moved across the country to volunteer for my campaign. We threw a lot of things at the wall including a meme that said, “I want gay married couples to be able to protect their marijuana plants with guns.”

That meme went viral and got me a lot of attention. I was interviewed on Fox, CNN and “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” made fun of me. This wave of attention led to me being nominated for the leader of the LPoC in May 2014.

One of my goals as a leader was to expand the party and get more people involved. We worked hard for a year and a half and had our best result in 43 years in the past election.

2. Jacobsen: Following election to the leadership, what were the feelings for you?

Moen: I felt very honoured to be given the trust of my fellow party members. This was followed by an immediate weight on my shoulders as I came to realize the fact that I carried a responsibility to be a competent caretaker and communicator of a message we all felt tremendous passion for.

3. Jacobsen: You have moderate exposure in the media. What responsibilities come with this public recognition?

Moen: Whenever you start getting a bigger audience there is a temptation to tell people what they want to hear. This is particularly true when you are a politician who is in the business of trying to win popularity contests. This is why so many politicians seem like vacuous and soulless caricatures of what voters want rather than their authentic selves. It is understandable, it’s really cool to be held in high esteem and have adoring fans who see you as the answer to all their problems and it really sucks being the villain that everybody hates and be seen as the antithesis to everything good.

I understood this when I agreed to get involved in politics and it was a real concern. I was really concerned about this toxic pull to bury my authentic self in exchange for popularity. In fact, I wear a replica of the Lord of the Rings ring of power to remind myself of this corrupting influence.

So with all that said the responsibility that comes with public recognition is to hold on to my humanity, my authentic self, to not portray myself as something I’m not. This is first and foremost a responsibility to my self, then my family and friends, and finally as a responsibility to the public. Then there is also an incredible responsibility to my party and people who I speak on behalf of to present the message that is so important to all of us in the most genuine, authentic, and grounded way possible. The by-product of speaking from an authentic, grounded place is that the message has much more integrity and is far more difficult to dismiss. Our message can seem shocking to some people and I think it’s important to be sympathetic and connected with listeners as I am delivering the message.

4. Jacobsen: What great wisdom comes from Lord of the Rings, besides insights into the potential corrupting nature of power, for you?

Moen: Power should only be entrusted to those who view it as a burden not as a tool to achieve some noble end. I think it also provides a path forward for fellowship and cooperation among dramatically different cultures. In todays divisive political and cultural milieu, it offers a demonstration that different cultures can be against globalism or imperialism, the idea that a particular culture ought to be the dominant one, and that they can work together for the common goal of guarding against the desire to dominate while maintaining their own cultural identity. It reveals that real leadership and fellowship emerges when courage is combined with a servant’s heart.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 22, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/moen-two; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo (Part Five)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/15

Abstract

Dr. Christopher DiCarlo is an Author, Educator, and Philosopher of Science and Ethics. He discusses: Religulous; and foundational questions for naturalists and supernaturalists.

Keywords: author, Christopher DiCarlo, educator, philosopher.

An Interview with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo: Author, Educator, Philosopher of Science and Ethics (Part Five)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Do you remember that line from Bill Maher in Religulous when he’s interviewing ex-Mormons? Familial, basically it is social suicide, that reminds me of this narrative you are telling me.

Dr. Christopher DiCarlo: When I was in grade 6, we knew our teacher was gay. We knew he was gay. He was the poster boy for homosexuality but we were Catholic. So, we said, “No, he cannot be a fag, right? He married whatever her name is. Her Grade 1 teacher. He had kids. No, he’s not a fag.”

Turns out, he was gay. However, he was Catholic. It was the 1970s. He comes out. He gets excommunicated. To a Catholic, you cannot be buried in consecrated ground. You are forever in limbo. You are never getting into heaven with your family.

So, he stayed in the closet. He did what so many gay men of the time did: they lived a lie. He finally came out. His wife accepted it. His sons accepted it. Now, his community accepted it, but it took decades for people to realize this. His whole life was a lie because of a belief system.

To me, that is harm; therefore, it is wrong. Therefore, guys like me have a right to say, “No, I am going to speak out against it. I am going to try to be more compassionate to others who might be going through that same situation.” Ideally, in the perfect world, we do not want people to suffer needlessly.

We are all going to suffer. We have to suffer, but that seems so needless. Today, Muslim communities are even worse than what the Catholic community was like in the 70s. In Saudi Arabia, places like that, people get thrown off buildings, get stoned, get executed all the time.

Simply, through no fault of their own, for being homosexual, it is medieval. I have a right to speak up against it. It would be interesting for you to know that some of the work I am doing in critical thinking. I am meeting with people from Iran. He has to be smuggled into Iran.

I might be on a hit list [Laughing]. That I do not know about, but I do not think I can visit Iran like I did with Guatemala and what I will do with other countries. So, we are going to do it by Skype and by smuggling the information and allowing teachers to take over at an underground level.

Jacobsen: It is going to be hard because the kids can report back to parents or authorities.

DiCarlo: I know and then the teachers will be in trouble.

Jacobsen: But these are also individual choices to make.

DiCarlo: That is it. That level moves very slowly, creeps. However, we have to try it. You have a mission in life. Philosophers have missions in life. If they are not trying to make the world better in some ways, I mean that is audacious as hell, but if we do nothing than we are doing a disservice to our calling.

Which is the love of wisdom, is the capacity to educate and to offer people more than what their particular code system is telling them is right and just. So, it is like an “emancipation,” for lack of a better word, to free up their minds to think in a more liberated way.

I understand this is extremely audacious of me to believe. That I am a liberator in that context, but whether I am pie in the sky misguided or not. That has become my calling and that is the type of thing I am finding myself to be most passionate about. That is what I am going to continue to do.

2. Jacobsen: How might hypothetical naturalist and supernaturalist respond to each of the 5 foundational questions of life?

DiCarlo: We get of them sent to us. Publishers want us to use them in our courses. None of them would talk about the elephants in the room.

They all talk about, “We can think about this, here is a Venn diagram, here is a truth tablet, here is propositional logic, there is formal and informal logic and fallacies and what not.” of them have great stuff in them, but none of them dealt with the nuts and bolts of thinking. Which is: let’s look at the 5 most important questions that people try to answer that sum up the meaning of life.

Then we can look at the two major ways people try to answer them: naturally and supernaturally. I try to be fair in the book and treat both sides as fairly as possible and not tell you what side you should believe and put it out there for both of these sides.

In terms of the question, what can I know? The ancient skeptics, like Socrates, were so adept at identifying. To me, this is one of the most important distinctions that humankind has ever made. It is to be aware of the fact that you do not know absolute truth.

To me, this is probably the greatest understanding of our epistemic state that any human has been able to do at any time in the history of thought. By absolute truth, I mean knowing from a God’s eye view thing. So, the supernaturalists maintain that they are in possession of absolute truth.

So, it is not as though an Orthodox Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever, get up in the morning and say, ” I could be very misguided in my views. I should question why I believe this stuff.”

No, I mean when you are a true believer, it follows that the information in your head is about how the universe is and that God answers very those other 4 questions and that gives you a certain feeling.

To me, the brain evolved in order to get you to do certain things in certain ways: largely to reproduce. However, along the way, your brain in eating and having sex releases certain chemicals that feel really good. Evolution has modified your brain over time to make you feel good by doing certain things.

What does that mean? That means that our brains get us high. Lots of things that we do get us high.

Watching a good movie, voting for the right candidate that we think will take this country to the next stage, watching the Raptors do as they did, or Milos Raonic doing so at Wimbledon, or swinging on a swing, or watching the birth of your child, these things get us high.

They are incredible experiences. Religious belief is the granddaddy of all highs. If you have got those big 5 answers supernaturally, things are going along and can get you through some rough times.

Not only is it going to feed you dopamine and serotonin and other types of neurotransmitters that make you feel wonderful; they are also going to produce endorphins for when you are stressed and will reduce your stress. So, the work that I did in Harvard looked at the neuropsychological factors of religious beliefs along this evolutionary model that I developed.

So, when you say, “What can I know?” To be consistent, a supernaturalist would say, “I know absolute truth. I am in possession of the information, which is absolutely true. That which cannot possibly be misguided or mistaken.”

When you are making a claim like that, man, it is not an easy thing to deal with that level of dogmatism. The number one question I get from students and people who interview me is: what do you do with a pig-headed person who is so dogmatic that they simply will not listen to reason? Do you give up on them?

I say, “Obviously, it depends not on the circumstances. Who is it? Do you want them to give up on it?” My mother was a Catholic until the day she died.

We would have conversations. She knew I was an atheist. She would hold a rose up and said, “What a beautiful thing God has made!” I would say, “Glorious accident mother, absolutely amazing.”

However, nothing more than that. A wonderful, genetic freak accident of nature. As she approached death, I called the dogs off, essentially. Because you have to exercise a level of diplomacy and critical thinking when answering those big 5.

I thought the greatest thing for my mother as she is approaching death is to think she is going to meet St. Peter at the pearly gates. She is going to see Jesus. All of her dogmatic beliefs will be proven right.

She will be up in Heaven looking down on me praying for me to come back to the fold. Even though, we had our disagreements; I would never raise the issue of God. I let her go to her grave believing that what she knew was absolutely true.

However, for others who are dogmatic, who wish to engage in conversation, how I do it is less, less in your face, “What an idiot you are for believing this stuff. Here is all the evidence. Why cannot you see it?”

I tend to be far more Socratic. So, initially, I will not necessarily agree with them, but feign ignorance as Socrates did and say, “This God that you believe in, sounds like a quite an amazing character.”

They respond, “He is, let me tell you more about him.” So know, you have put them at ease. Now, you have made them more comfortable and let them know you are open to listening to their side. So, then I say, “Tell me more. What else can this God do?”

Give them enough time, I will ask questions, which will much force them to think about things like “How do you reconcile omniscience with free will? How can they reconcile, if they are Christian, an all intelligent God with the capacity to see original sin?”

That is a no-brainer. That he didn’t see that. He had to make a part of himself flesh to die to himself to alleviate original sins from what he created, of what he should have known would be sin in the first place.

So, I get people to walk through the inconsistencies and contradictions, so that they see it. Instead of me hammering them like a Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, type of approach, I say to them, “I want to believe in this God, so convince me.”

It puts them at ease. It makes them talk; the more they talk, the more you throw in some questions that allow them to realize, “Oh, huh… I never thought of that.” Then you leave them for a while and let them mull all that over.

Dan Barker told me, “Chris if I had someone like you who showed me the inconsistencies and contradictions, I would have changed my views in a day.” I said “No, you would not have. You were hardcore Christian. It would have taken you weeks, months, and, maybe, years.”

You and I know: we talk to former theists who are now atheists. They tell us their story and sometimes – although, it is rare – there is that flash of epiphany. That secular epiphany, “How could I have been so stupid?”

To me, those are people who were along that path, already questioning things, to begin with. They were the ones who were already thinking, “What am I believing here?” So, they read The God Delusion or looked up Sam Harris online or read Dennett’s books or whatever.

But it is the ones who are hardcore dogmatic who are firmly entrenched, digging the heels; if you come at them in an adversarial way, they are only going to become more entrenched and dislike you all the more for it.

I am trying to teach people how to have intelligent, adult conversations and disagree and still get along. Because that is your neighbour, that is your kids’ teacher, that is a cop who pulled you over. We want to make sure people are treated fairly. So, when people say, “What can I know?”

The naturalist says, “I know that I do not know what absolute truth is.” So, that, immediately, puts me into a pragmatic level of lessening my epistemic requirements and saying, “What do I know about cause and effect relationships?” It comes under the rubric of the scientific method and the sciences. That is what I will say I know.

But that knowledge is perhaps limited to being pragmatic, useful, and beneficial. It may turn out to be absolutely true, what physicists are telling us about matter or energy and biologists about function and mechanisms, may, ultimately, turn out to be absolutely true.

But all my colleagues and I are not in that businesses. We are not here to worry about it. That is what the worry is about. We are all humans. Does it work? Does it cure cancer or put people on the moon?

Vaccines cause the recognition of certain types of pathogens and kill them before it gets a chance to kill our children. Pragmatic truth is really good. It has helped our species and many other species.

That is the difference between the natural and the supernatural claims to knowledge. Why am I here? The naturalist – I am here – one answer: luck. Luck that is why we are here.

If the world happened in any other ways and functioned differently, that comets, meteors, didn’t crash into the Earth at the right, specific time to wipe out the dinosaurs to give the mammals the shot that caused the line of descent from ground squirrels to simians to primates to the split divergence of orangutans from the rest of the great apes to us, then we are not having this conversation.

We are not here. Why are we all here? Luck: that is my explanation. Luck by way of natural forces. Supernatural? Depends on the particular flavour of the day. “By the divine grace of God. We are here because God wanted us to be here.”

What am I? A natural explanation, “I am a descendant of the African ape. Prior to, that more than likely, a reptilian, prior to that fish, prior to that much pond scum, blue-green algae.”

Jacobsen: [Laughing] I love that phrase.

DiCarlo: Prior to that, every atom inside of us was once inside of stars. Joni Mitchell was right; we are stardust, billion-year-old carbon. That is it! Nothing more special to us than that and why we are here is of lucky episodes.

Supernaturalists, whatever. “I am a physical being but I am also a spiritual being. I am often a dualist. That means there is some corporeal aspect to me that will survive bodily death and will maybe be recycled and maybe not recycled depending on the flavour.” That is the thing within us that does the choosing.

That is not somehow affected by the natural law and that is a tricky one to reconcile. However, none the less, this cosmic goo or this spiritual fog or whatever it is you want to call our essence and continues on after we die somehow in some other realm.

I have no evidence for that so I stay over on the natural side. Supernaturalists, they believe it for their various reasons and like I said, as long as that is not generating verb harm, you go ahead and you believe that to the cows come home.

I am not, but you go ahead. How should I behave? this is the field of ethics; most supernaturalists will have some divine command theories.

God has created us for a particular reason, wants us to behave a particular way and out of that emerges somehow a free choice. Out of your choices, you get the black checks or the red hearts from God who is watching your behaviour.

If you get enough red hearts over black checks, you get rewarded in some particular way. If you do not, it is not going to favour your protoplasmic goo after you have shuffled off the mortal coil. For a naturalist, we are on our own. We are in a big old cold universe. I am an ultimate nihilist. That means I have found no ultimate universal rules for behaviour, but I am a proximal ethicist. That means we have to come up with the rules. It seems like we have indicators that help us.

We try to avoid pain and suffering. We tend towards comfort and approval in certain areas. So, maybe, those connect as guides. Maybe what good and bad is coming from biology, and what is good and bad for an organism than can come from the bottom up rather than top-down, it will give us some capacity.

It will then make rules, which will favour our comfort and disfavour our discomfort. It will extend to another species as well. Because other mammals clearly can experience pain and pleasure; therefore, we owe them rights or must extend rights to them as well.

Nothing in the universe tells me in any way that I am more privileged than a squirrel. If you can show me that, please do. I am more conscious, maybe than a squirrel, but a squirrel is way better at other things, e.g., walking on a wire, than I am.

So, why do I get to value my life more than that of a squirrel? Or we can talk about hierarchies if you want but that would get into a criteria problem. What criteria now? Is that entirely arbitrary and favours ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism?

So, I, basically, want humans to get along as much as we possibly can so we can get as much as what we want, but that cannot be at the expense of other species and other humans. I am not saying this is easy to figure out.

This is what social and political theory is about, trying to make sure people have the lives that they want, but not at the cost of so many others. That means another species as well.

That goes right to the level: I am an omnivore; I enjoy eating meat as much as I enjoy eating plant products. However, I do not eat as much pork anymore because I drive into Toronto and see those huge trucks carrying pigs.

I know how intelligent they are. I see they are going to the slaughter. I would rather not see them die, so I am going to try to cut that out as much as I can. I am a little bothered that there has not been more attention paid to.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Author; Educator; Philosopher; Fellow, Society of Ontario Freethinkers; Board Advisor, Freethought TV; Advisory Fellow, Center for Inquiry Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 15, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/dicarlo-four; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Monika Orski (Part Six)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/15

Abstract

Monika Orski is the Ordförande/Chairman, Mensa Sverige/Mensa Sweden. She discusses: the fun of the super smart; researchers of the gifted and talented; theories of creativity and genius; other demographics of Mensa Sweden; and the old “nature” argument.

Keywords: chairman, Mensa Sverige, Mensa Sweden, Monika Orski, Ordförande.

An Interview with Monika Orski: Ordförande/Chairman, Mensa Sverige/Mensa Sweden (Part Six)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Now, if the super smart are anything like ordinary people, where their higher general intelligence simply implies a bigger hammer or a stronger ox, they must have a friendly competition with some of the other chapters of the super smart groups. You mentioned some within the definition of Western Europe. How do some of the Mensa chapters have some competitive fun? How do smart people compete with one another, simply in a more amplified and varied set of ways?

Monika Orski: Probably in lots of ways I am not aware of, but of course I know of some kinds of competitive fun.

I am not a particular fan of board games myself, although I occasionally enjoy one at some Mensa meeting. There is a quite large group within Mensa who are very much into board games of different kinds, mostly with a preference for the strategic games where you need to think fast. No large Mensa gathering feels entirely complete without a games room, and some participants will spend almost all of their time in it, while others might step in for an hour or two in between other activities.

At EMAGs, the European meetings, there is usually also a football (soccer) tournament, where mensans from different national groups form teams – sometimes mixed nations teams, to get enough players.

Some national gatherings, including the AG of Mensa Sweden, often include a poker tournament. Only small money stakes, of course, as it’s purely intended for friendly competition for the fun of it.

There has also been a logic puzzles competition with national teams from the four Nordic Mensas. It’s been a while since anyone organized one of those, though. If I remember correctly, Sweden lost the finals to Denmark the latest time we had it. It might be time for us to try and organize a re-match.

2. Jacobsen: In the European context, who are some researchers with a great deal of experience and research into the gifted and talented community there?

Orski: This is a question where I need to resort to an excuse: I’m an engineer, not a psychologist. I don’t have the deeper knowledge of psychological research needed to provide a good answer.

From my own reading, I would pick the names Ian Deary and Robert Plomin. In the more local, Swedish context, I know that Roland Persson has done a lot of interesting research regarding gifted children, and there is also some interesting work by Berit Carlstedt on intelligence and intelligence testing. But those happen to be some names I know of, I’m sure there are many others.

3. Jacobsen: In the European context, who are individual, establishment or independent, researchers with interesting or unique take on creativity and, indeed, genius? Any personal theory or theories, from reading and observation, as to what comprises the roots necessary for genius to flourish – with, of course, a definition of genius as a bulwark for the theory or theories?

Orski: As above, I have no particular knowledge of the foremost research into creativity or genius. I think my reading is too amateur too really allow me in good conscience to point to anyone.

I know that there is a continuing debate on whether genius is a useful term at all. But if we are still going to use it, I think the definition used on the English language Wikipedia page for the subject “genius” is a good one: “A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creative productivity, universality in genres or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge.”

Thus, I think it important to remember that gifted rarely means genius. There are few geniuses, while gifted is a label used for a fast-thinking part of the population – be it the 2% allowed Mensa membership, or 5% as is often set as an estimate of the number of gifted children, or something in between. This is not a large minority, but it is not truly rare, as genius is.

How can we help genius to flourish? My theory, or maybe rather my guess, would be to follow the same principles as to help anyone gifted to flourish, only the genius would probably need more of it and at a much faster pace. Let people learn things, and keep learning. Leave room for creativity. Don’t be afraid to give a young person space to explore things in solitary occupations. Keep teaching them new things. Let them find their multiple talents, even if they chose to pursue one of them more than others. Allow them to create positions for themselves to keep exploring, and to keep learning also when they are no longer young.

4. Jacobsen: Also, I am curious. What are the religious demographics, if known or even simply surmised, of Mensa Sweden? What are the political demographics? How does this, potentially, reflect the international data on intelligence and political orientation & religious beliefs?

Orski: The simple answer is, I don’t know. We do not keep records of religious, ethnical, or political characteristics of our members. I might add that I would find it quite repugnant if a society like ours did.

Religion is not particularly present in Swedish everyday discourse. Many people would rather define themselves as of no particular religion at all. This makes it a bit hard to define. Also, it’s not a particularly common topic in everyday talk.

Regarding politics, some people tend to talk much more about it than others, especially on social media. Those are usually not the level headed, middle of the road types. But from what I know of the politics of the mensans I meet, I have no reason to believe there is any significant difference to the general political demographic. There might be reason to take into account that the educated part of the population is probably overrepresented in Mensa, but other than that – we have all sorts, just like everywhere else.

Which leads me to another demographic, where I have no statistics but a qualified guess based on who I meet in Mensa. While we have people from all walks of life, there is an overrepresentation of those with university education. Seems quite natural, especially if you take into account that in our part of the world, access to education is not limited by the financial means of your family.

5. Jacobsen: Occasionally, in the early 21st century less than the 20th century but still, we find individuals, internationally speaking, who crop up. They, at times, hold great stations of power and influence, and prestige.

They proclaim science as a male thing, not as a female thing; science only built, statistically speaking, for the male brain, in their some time terminology; even, that women simply are intellectually inferior to men and, therefore, should have a pre-ascribed role within society based on, what they see and argue, innate differences in not only abilities but also preferences based on temperaments.

Ironically, temperaments seen as innate in which they feel the need to encourage through all systems and channels reaching mass audiences in society, especially reflected in the reactions to non-traditional roles for women in representations within films and television, for example.

Even so, or while saying these things, often, these individuals will lose their jobs and be lambasted in public. Others, at the same time, will see them as pariahs of the genetic truth of the human species in sex differences – full stop, end of story, exclamation point.

What seems like the proper interpretation of the situation here? How can one respond to the arguments about innate differences and prescribed roles for women in society? Why do these individual make these arguments?

How do – in your lifetime of as one and in conversations with them – women tend to react to these individuals when speaking with one another, which may not be the same manner in which women speak in public or to men for that matter?

When they bring data forward, or historic examples of more men than women as the listed discoverers or inventors, what seems like a proper retort?

Orski: The old “nature” argument. Of course, if this was in fact a matter of nature, there would be no need to try to force that conviction on anyone, and even less to put it into laws, as those authoritarian sexists often will. No one seems to see it necessary to make laws to prevent that humans photosynthesize, or that we fly by way of flapping our arms. Why? Because there are truly innate traits of human nature that make those acts impossible.

My recipe for a proper retort is usually to simple say that is not true, and go on do something productive, nice, or both. There is usually no way you can reason with people like this. They obviously have a need to cling to some sense of being superior, no matter how unrealistic. Unless you are a psychologist they came to in order to get help with the inferiority complex that is likely to be somewhere at the bottom of this attitude, it is not your job to make them understand how the world works.

For those who are simply unaware of the different expectations men and women still live under, even in relatively equal societies, I recommend a little mind game. Next time you think a man is well qualified for a position, ask yourself if you would also think a woman of exactly the same merits and exactly the same level of professional behaviour qualified. Also ask yourself the corresponding question next time you think a woman might not be quite qualified for a position.

Lastly, for all the decent men with true merits of their own who encourage women to make sure they do not get positions based on gender: Ask yourself whether you would be in your current position if you were a woman with exactly the same qualifications. If your honest answer is yes, assuming you have a realistic assessment of your qualifications, then you can congratulate yourself on being hired on merit, and not on the all to common male quota.

References

Mensa International. (2018). Mensa Sweden. Retrieved from https://www.mensa.org/country/sweden.
Mensa Sverige. (2018). Mensa Sverige. Retrieved from https://www.mensa.se/.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Ordförande/Chairman, Mensa Sverige/Mensa Sweden.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 15, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/orski-six; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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2023-02-12

An Interview with Tim Moen (Part One)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/15

Abstract

Tim Moen is the President of the Libertarian Party of Canada. He discusses: family background, culture, family, geography, language, and religion/irreligion; religion and God; and arguments for God.

Keywords: Libertarianism, Libertarian Party of Canada, Tim Moen.

An Interview with Tim Moen: Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada (Part One)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In terms of culture, family, geography, language, and religion/irreligion, what is your background?

I grew up on a farm in Northern Alberta about 80 km NE of Grande Prairie with my mom and dad and younger brother. My grandparents were Mennonite Brethren who were branded Kulaks and fled Stalinist Russia and settled in Southern Alberta around Lethbridge. They worked hard to build a life in Canada and I’m grateful for their legacy of hard work, responsibility and sense of connection to something greater than one’s self.

Our family went to a non-denominational Church and I was a very involved and earnest evangelical Christian and truth seeker. I spent a year in Bible College immediately after high school studying theology with an eye towards serving as a pastor. That year left me with the impression that there were no real answers to be found and I realized I’d have a difficult time being a pastor selling any kind of certainty so I moved on to a career in Emergency Services.

I’ve spent over 22 years working in Emergency Services in various roles and still work today as a Firefighter/Paramedic. I love helping people and I consider my primary purpose in life to protect people from destructive forces whether its acute illness, fire, trauma, authoritarian force, or unclear thinking.

2. Jacobsen: At the time, what images of religion and God were in mind for you?

My image of God at the time was one of an omnipotent, omniscient, mostly compassionate celestial dictator. A God that knew my every thought and desire and had a plan for me. Religion to me was the institution where one became educated in order to obtain salvation and more closely align one’s beliefs with a very real spiritual realm.

3. What argument and evidence seemed the strongest in favour of the God of evangelical Christianity to you? This can include traditional arguments such as the Cosmological Argument (from contingency), Kalam Cosmological Argument
(based on the beginning of the universe), Moral Argument (based upon
moral values and duties), Teleological Argument (from fine-tuning), and the Ontological Argument (from the possibility of God’s existence to His actuality).

The most compelling argument I’ve heard for a God is probably the Unmoved Mover argument. The way Tom Woods explained it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ2oY7nvM-M is very compelling to me. I’d always thought of the Unmoved Mover as a way of saying that there must be a beginning to the universe ergo God most have started it, which seems fairly easy to dismiss, but Woods explains that it that this view of the Unmoved Mover is a straw man and further explains that bringing potentiality into actuality is an ongoing process and demands a God. In other words; for reality to continue to exist requires a supreme being. If one then takes a layman’s interpretation of the quantum realm and how strange and difficult to explain the substrate of reality becomes it becomes compelling to imagine a supreme being there. It satisfies a deep psychological longing to explain reality in a way that is easier to understand and also a longing to never cease existing. In fairness I haven’t thought very deeply on these issues for years so I haven’t delved into the arguments for or against the Unmoved Mover in any depth.

Once you have a compelling argument for the existence of a supreme being you still have all your work ahead of you to argue for the “God of evangelical Christianity”. There are as many interpretations and conceptions of God as there are believers so its difficult to know how one would go about proving the existence of a particular conception. For example, what is the null hypothesis for a Young Earth Creationists argument that the Earth is only 10,000 years old? What about Evangelicals that believe in an old Earth and evolution? Are we expected to believe that God ignored humanity for its first 100,000 years, essentially sentencing them to eternal torment, and then suddenly showed up with a bunch of rules and then sent his son to die and offered everyone in the past 2000 years another path to salvation that didn’t exist before? These types of questions are ones that vexed me in the past and essentially turned me into an anti-theist for a period of time, but I now think this is probably not helpful to try and demand a literal description of material reality from scripture in the same way it is not helpful to propagate the idea that the scripture is a literal description of material reality.

I have considerably softened my view of Christianity over the years. My mind started to change towards Christianity after reading the writing of Michael Dowd who is a Christian pastor and author of the book “Thank God for Evolution” has a completely different conception of evangelical Christianity that doesn’t require belief in the sort of supernatural person in the sky I believed in as a child. It was further softened as I went through grad-school and read research on optimal mind states and started practicing some forms of meditation, based on peer reviewed research, that looked very similar to how I was taught to pray. Expressing gratitude is peer reviewed and is also happens to be how many religious practices teach to begin prayer. So when I’ve attended religious ceremonies and church over the last few years I’ve come to view them through a different lens. There are likely good evolutionary reasons these institutions emerge and there are very good things going on here and they fill a deep human need.

In summary, I think there are some compelling reasons to believe in a supreme being although I remain unconvinced. I think that Evangelical Christianity can comport with these compelling reasons to believe in a supreme being if it isn’t taken as a literal description of material reality.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Leader, Libertarian Party of Canada.

[2] Individual Publication Date: October 15, 2018: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/moen-one; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.