Ubiquitous photography and the police

There is an interesting list of cops who were caught behaving illegally in NYC by the prevalence of cameras on Carlos Miller's very well named blog Photography is Not A Crime It is a First Amendment Right. What is interesting is the list is that all of the acts involve cops setting up citizens to take some sort of legal fall rather than just the cops doing something illegal off duty. 

At the same time, there is a large fight in Britain to get rid of the surveillance state that has appeared with a CCTV camera on every corner of London ( I exaggerate by only smidge). Those who are against the ubiquitousness of the camera surveillance also seem to be the ones who are all for the ubiquitousness of cameras busting cops who go bad. Is there a contradiction here?

It may be that as long as the surveillance is in the hands of the people, it cannot be abused in the same way it would be by those in power. But, I'm not sure that is the case, especially given the move of technology. Would you trust a photograph as evidence the same way you would have 30 years ago? How long before that same level of skepticism is brought to video, as it likely should?

The Rational Moderate

Chase Frantzen

Welcome to the (sometimes and mostly) wonderful world Chase. I can't wait to read your first comment (I'm betting on woot!) and your first online flame war.

Congratulations to The Frantzens and here's hoping you keep posting up to and beyond the point that it completely embarrasses him in front of his friends.

The Rational Moderate

Just Brilliant

Not Skeptical. Not Politics. Just Brilliant.

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance
by IgnitionVM

The Rational Moderate

The War on Drugs is Stupid Reason number #368

Let me get this straight, Michael Phelps won the most olympic gold medals of anyone ever, and he did so while being a pot head. He does a drug that makes you lazy, slow, and want to eat every unhealthy thing you can get your grubby little hands on, and he STILL WON MORE GOLD MEDALS THAN ANYONE. ELSE. EVER. 

This little bit of news does give us an opportunity to examine a logical fallacy: The Slippery Slope. 

Ever heard arguments like these? If you do drugs like pot, then your life will be ruined because you will only care about getting high and nothing else.

If you smoke pot, then when that kick wears off you will go out and try worse drugs that will eventually ruin your life.

If we legalize pot, then everyone will be smoking it and we could end up being operated on by a doctor who is high.

If we legalize gay marriage, then that will open the doors for incest and pedophilia and before you know it someone will be marrying a goat.

The slippery slope is basically where one step leads directly to worse and worse outcomes, ad so the conclusion is you should never take the first step. Some actually try to use slippery slope as a valid logical argument by stating that you shouldn't take the first step because it is a slippery slope. It's not. It is a logical fallacy.

The problem with the slippery slope argument is that the next steps never necessarily follow from the first. Either the person making the argument has missed some crucial difference between the situations to make it unlikely (for example, with gay marriage the difference is in consent - adults can, children and animals cannot) or that the first step isn't really what will lead to the others happening (for example, with pot being illegal a) it doesn't mean I will - never have, never will - and b) this hasn't stopped people from smoking it and so it is already likely that a doctor has performed an operation while high.) 

So we need to avoid slippery slope arguments or we will end up believing all kinds of fallacious arguments and before you know it civilization will collapse as a whole.

The Rational Moderate

Reason Why Alternative Medicine is Bad #2753

I'm not a fan of alternative medicine in the sense that I don't think there is any such thing. If it works, it's medicine. If it doesn't work, it's nonsense. But you sometimes get this argument from proponents: "If it seems like it is helping the person taking it, and it isn't harming them, why not let them take it?" Well, one of the main reasons stems from their taking some type of alternative medicine to begin with. The average partaker of alternative medicine never looks at a plant and says to themselves, I should ingest this to help with my shin splints. No, they get testimonials from others- word of mouth leads them to believe that x will help with y. But once you start believing in testimonials as a good reason for trying a certain *cough* treatment *cough* then you are more likely to rely on this in other cases than your shin splints.

This leads to problems such as believing that the bones, skin, hair... of albinos will help cure what ails you because others claim it does. Yes, in Tanzania, witch-doctors are kidnapping and killing and/or mutilating albino people to use their body parts for medicine. The government of Tanzania has banned the practice, but when your dealing with people who (not completely at their own fault) believe this alternative medicine works you should not be surprised when the witch-doctors ignore the ban. If you have the testimonial of your neighbors and from those who are supposed to be an authority on the matter (witch-doctors) and you are in the habit of not critically thinking about the problems of blindingly believing such things, or of the errors of reasoning that people are prone to about their own experiences, then you shouldn't be suprised when you end up with this kind of horror show. 

The Rational Moderate

Solutions: Your Shrinking Investments

Howdy, howdy, howdy. S&P is back after the end of year holidays and a nice bout of sickness. To kick of the year I'm starting a new column entitled Solutions, where instead of my normal complaining about ridiculous garbage spewed by politicians and other public figures I'll attempt to offer what I think are some genuine fixes to what ails us. Today, I'm going to offer a quick tip for all of you wanna be investors who are scared out of your minds about the markets right now.

When we go through economic downturns, be it recessions or what not, people tend to spend less money on frivolous things which means going out to dinner less and maybe skipping that new movie and perhaps just spending more time at home... bored...

*wink wink nudge nudge*

I coined the term "Bailout Baby" as soon as I heard that the government was considering stepping in to prop up the failing banking institutes during the presidential election and stuck with that term as "TARP Baby" lacks the alliteration and sounds like some sort of sticky disease. Come June we are going to start to see the outcome of this recession in maternity wards across the nation. So my solution for those who are looking at the rock bottom stock prices and are thinking that there must be something worth while investing in and holding on to for a rainy day: any large company that specializes in baby necessities such as food and diapers (ala Procter and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson...) 

Keep in mind the necessities bit and avoid such nonsense as Baby Mozart or Einstein or DeSade or whatever nonsense they are trying to sell as that leg up your kid needs to get into Harvard. If people are trying to tighten their wallets they become a little bit better informed about products and will recognize snake oil for its slither. 

The Rational Moderate

(Oh, the picture of that beautiful baby is of my Best Man Pat's new little girl Katherine Anne. Congratulations Pat!!!)

Two Great Things Even Better Together

I have long held that Outkast's "Hey Ya" is the best written song in the past 15 years (I might even go to 20 if you push me on it). Combine that with Peanuts - Gold, I tell you Gold!

Don't worry we'll get back to writing about bleepin Bagojevich and throwin bleepin shoes soon.

The Rational Moderate