Strålning i Mora

På Aftonbladet debatt den 25:e November gör Mats Pertoft, styrelseledamot i Elöverkänsligas Riksförbund ett inlägg i debatten som fick sin början för ett par veckor sedan då det blev känt att Mora kommun eventuellt skulle komma att implementera en "strålningsfri zon" i Mora. Detta skulle man göra för att tillmötesgå en enda person som säger sig lida av elöverkänslighet, vilket enligt utsago gör det svårt för honom att ha ett normalt liv. Han bor bland annat ute i skogen och bär tydligen när besvären är extra påtagliga en dräkt med silvertrådar, som tydligen ska avskärma från strålningen. Nu blev det lyckligtvis ingen strålningsfri zon i Mora, men det finns ju de, bland annat Pertorft och jag själv, som tycker att de som sällar sig till gruppen elöverkänsliga är i behov av någon form av hjälp för att klara vardagen. Så långt allting gott, och jag trodde att Pertorft var på väg att att säga något vettigt om vad de här människorna kan tänkas behöva för hjälp. Men sen havererar det totalt, när han säger att:

Vad däremot bör eftersträvas är en lågstrålande zon, alltså en zon med en lägre strålningsnivå än i dag, vilket emellertid även kommer att innebära lägre täckningsnivå när det gäller mobiltelefoni och tv-sändning – dock inte helt utan täckning.

Detta är alltså direkt jämförbart med att säga att vi såklart borde ge Uppsalas schizofrena en häxfri zon, där vi bygger speciella häxskrämmor som håller häxorna borta. För den som orkar ta sig för med 30 minuters informations-sökande på ämnet är det uppenbart att elallergi är ett psykosomatiskt problem. Det har gjorts en hel uppsjö av tester, där det gång på gång på gång på gång har visats att elöverkänsliga inte har någon som helst förmåga att känna av om det finns elstrålning i närheten eller inte.

Vad jag däremot är överens med Pertoft om, är det hans artikel säger i inledningen - att de elöverkänsligas problem ska tas på allvar. Men det innebär i det här fallet att vi börjar söka efter de underliggande orsakerna till ett problem som, återigen, är helt och hållet psykosomatiskt. Självklart ska de ha hjälp, men inte i form av strålningsfria zoner.

Extra tråkigt med det här utspelet är att Pertorft dessutom är riksdagsledamot för MP, ett parti som jag någonstans känner att jag skulle vilja kunna rösta för, men en av sakerna som omöjliggör det är den stora mängden alternativvurmande som kommer från det hållet.

'I voted for "fuck you" that's who'

Depending on whether or not you are Swedish, you may or may not know about how Swedish people in general (obvious generalization, I know) are very reluctant to discuss politics. This is probably something you will also find in other cultures, but in my personal experience, it's slightly more prevalent in Swedes. People will avoid the topic as much as possible, and flat out asking what someone voted for is considered really ill-mannered.

This bothers me, and it should bother you too. One of the better pathways to truth is often discussing things with someone who disagrees with you, as long as you can maintain a respectful level of dialogue. If you never discuss important issues such as politics with anyone else, your beliefs will never become truly tested, and you can't be sure you hold those beliefs for a good reason. And therein lies the problem within Swedish society and this issue - people aren't willing to have their convictions tested, they just want to cling to them like a comfort blanket. Most people have absolutely no good reason for voting the way they do, they've just chosen a path and decided to stick with it and vote whatever way others within that denomination seem to be doing.

The reason this should bother anyone sharing a community with people who won't have their beliefs challenged is obvious; everyone who is part of a society contributes to it in one way or the other. In the very least they can use their vote to influence who will lead the country. So if we have a hypothetical 50% of voting adults out there (indeed hypothetical but I'll say it's a plausible number) who mostly base their voting on dogma and tradition, then that's not leading us forward, now is it?

The reason I feel that this belongs on this blog is that this way of thinking is the very antithesis to a skeptical mindset. A skeptical person will not be too afraid to have his beliefs challenged, or too proud to admit he was wrong, if it comes to that. That kind of pride is messing with a lot of minds, convincing them that they shouldn't ever admit to being wrong, no matter how insurmountable the pile of evidence against your position.

This is actually one of the more practical ways of demonstrating that magical thinking (belief in deities, homeopathy, astrology, aliens etc) actually has real consequences. If you have a climate where no belief ever gets challenged, this is the political climate you will get, stale and dogmatic.

The recurring self-crucifixions of Marcus Birro

Disclaimer: There will be a few links to Swedish texts below, as I'm commenting on an event in Swedish media. Google translate should work fine for examining the sources. All translations from Swedish to English are my own and should not be assumed to be completely correct.

Swedish poet, author (I use those terms loosely) and prominent catholic Marcus Birro, columnist for the Swedish tabloid Expressen has chosen to bestow on his readers yet another column. This time, Birro attempts to victimize the religious by writing about the recent World Youth Day in Madrid and how it was criticized by Swedish media.

This would not be the first time Birro nails himself to the cross and moans about how everyone in the evil mainstream media as well as social media is out to get him and his superstitious comrades by way of persecution. In fact, Birro has made it a part of his repertoire to vividly accuse anyone who questions his beliefs of being a modern day witch burner. His recent column, entitled "That which cannot be proven is a big part of my life", is basically a long rant against science and everyone who embrace the scientific method as the best way so far of discovering the world. He argues that all such people are somehow fundamentally disconnected from the rich world of emotions that "his people" consider to be so important, and apparently the rest of us don't. But I won't go deeper into that article. Fellow #sweskep Charmkvark has already done a fantastic job at picking apart that one over at skepchick.se.

This new article of his, entitled "We're not ashamed for believing in God", while not containing quite as many factual errors and misconceptions as the last one I linked, is riddled with the idea of martyrdom. Let's just look at the opening lines (my translation):

When the media hunt is on it is without exception distasteful. It doesn't matter who or what is being hunted down the village slope, with stabs and blows. The hunt in itself is dishonest, vulgar and repulsive. It appeals to our lowest instincts.

So right off the bat, we are to assume that there is in fact, a hunt going on, with Birro and his peers playing the part of fair game. Nowhere to be found is an understanding that the ideas they present will seem odd (to say the least) to the rest of us, who are not convinced by appeals to "thinking with your gut" and similar nonsense, but ask for some sort of reasoning. Instead, as soon as criticism is voiced, it's persecution. Yes, your ideas on the subject of theology are in the minority in this country. But being the minority doesn't give you the right to cry wolf every time someone points out flaws in what you're saying. Sometimes, the minority is just wrong. And sometimes, the minority holds a perfectly valid point of view, with which the majority happens to disagree. None of this should be labeled as persecution, witch hunting or anything remotely similar. You have ideas that differ from the mainstream, Birro. You're not being persecuted for them, you're being questioned and criticized. Ask political dissidents in China about the difference and I'm sure you'll be made to understand.

Birro then goes on to say that Catholics in particular are often held responsible for "hellish perversions". He's not providing any examples here, but I can only assume it's in reference to child molestation and the pedophile priests that are being protected by the church. Tell me, Marcus, who should be held responsible if not the people who chose to remain in an organization where the high-ups protect perpetrators of such vile crimes? Of course, no one is holding the individual devout catholic responsible for the actual rapes committed, but they have a lot of explaining to do about why they chose to stay in their denomination after all of this.

If he instead by "hellish perversions" is referring to when Catholics are being questioned about their actual beliefs (hellfire, vicarious redemption, views on homosexuality etcetera), then I can only wonder why he doesn't understand that this philosophy seems eccentric to the rest of us.

A large part of Birros articles talks about the World Youth Day, and tries to make the point that media should have been reporting about all the wonderful things that the participants got to experience, instead of focusing about how it's irresponsible of the Spanish government to spend large amounts of money on this in a time of economic hardship, and other pieces of valid criticism that has been seen in the media. Would he also like to see more heads of state expressing how impressed they are at the stability in dictatorial regimes, instead of focusing on the bad parts. Is it maybe also a form of persecution that this isn't happening?

I won't bother to comment in detail on the rest of the article, as it can easily be summarized just as an incoherent blabber of fake martyrdom.

It's easy for me to understand why Expressen, a major Swedish tabloid, chooses to have Birro writing for them. It brings in the bucks, and tabloids don't care about ideology, they care about numbers. It is, however, really really hard for me to understand how we became a country where someone expressing views such as his is someone that some people look up to and admire as an intellectual. And then they go switch on the telly, just in time to catch some ghost hunting and seances before they go to bed, safely asleep under their dreamcatcher.

The unification of church and state

The Swedish minister for education Jan Björklund and the Ministry of Education and Research (Utbildningsdepartementet) have recently, in a fit of lunacy, decided to oppose the suggested curriculum for religious studies in Swedish public schools. The new curriculum as suggested by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) suggested a modernization, in that it would present all major world religions on an equal footing. This didn't go over so well with Björklund, who argues that Sweden is a predominantly Christian nation and thus the religious studies should be biased toward Christianity. Such utter nonsense and stupidity.

For your information, Björklund, the majority of Swedes consider themselves atheist or agnostic today. The religious apologists are becoming a minority (albeit at a slowing pace as of lately), which has to be seen as a slow but steady victory for reason and science. The fact that the majority of religious people in the nation belong to a certain religion shouldn't in the slightest affect the way we teach religion in schools, since the state definitely should remain agnostic in matters of what religion is "right". If we applied the same sort of thinking (catering to the majority) to other topics in Swedish schools, socialism would be the big focus in social studies and math wouldn't really be taught at all. Reality is not a democracy, and public opinion in matters of how the world works doesn't affect the way it actually works.

For the record, I would like to state that even though I am a pretty zealous atheist I do see the value of religious studies in schools. Maybe more so than some religious people do. The study of religion is a very important part of understanding the human condition and gaining better understanding of other cultures. So we should definitely be teaching children about religion, but no religion should be presented as the more interesting one. They're all equally interesting, and all equally deluded.

Finally, a big fuck you to Jan Björklund for taking a step backwards in terms of separating church and state, and betraying the supposed ideology your party once used to stand for. Today, I am ashamed to admit I voted (in part) for what I thought was a liberal party. I see now that I was wrong. And I'm also increasingly more ashamed to be Swedish, with an openly racist party in the parliament, and conservative ideas such as this one getting support. Time to pack up and leave?

Reverse science

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/vetenskap/gudomligt-ingripande-far-vetenskaplig-forklaring-1.1175282

This article, published today in a major Swedish newspaper, reports that a possible scientific explanation has been found for the parting of the red sea event from the bible. This is a horrific example of science being used in reverse, where you start with a conclusion and then work your way backwards to find evidence that will support that conclusion (conveniently ignoring evidence pointing the other way). This is not how the scientific method should be used. When examining claims such as this one, it would probably be a better idea to start by first trying to figure out whether or not the event actually took place.

This does nothing to support the claim that the parting of the red sea actually took place, nor does it even begin to explain how the event was in any way an act of god. Hooray for pseudoscience. It really bugs me when faith groups try to present their superstitions as science. Sort of like how racists dress up in suits to gain the support of the public.

The original paper can be found here.

Arrest the pope

Is attempting to arrest the pope a silly publicity stunt? I guess. But in the name of trying to raise awareness it does the job pretty well.

Loving father or sadistic madman?

This morning I spent a while pondering the claims of religious zealots, as I often do, and started to think about the God hypothesis from one of the few perspectives I am able to handle: the programmers perspective. I've created lots of universes using various computer programming languages, but none nearly as sophisticated as the one we find ourselves living in. I then went on to think a bit about the heaven/hell theory, and how it would fit into a universe simulation.

Let's say I'm a designer who has devoted my life to creating a really complex universe simulation. In fact, let's say it's a simulation identical to the universe we live in. I come up with the idea that I want to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior for the individuals in my simulation. It makes no difference in this thought experiment what kind of standards I want to set for "good" and "bad" behavior.

It is assumed that I am free to intervene in the simulation in any way whenever I please, which seems to be a good fit with the god hypothesis as presented by christians, muslims, jews and other less common denominations of terrestrial faith. Now, let's think about what would be a good way to go about stimulating the kind of behavior that I want to see. To me, an obvious way of encouraging good behavior to spread is to make sure that individuals that behave well will have a greater chance of reproducing (and thus making sure that their genes for good behavior are inherited), and vice versa for bad behavior. This could be accomplished by making "bad" individuals less attractive to their mates and/or simply giving them a shorter lifespan by intervening in various ways. If you give this system a couple of thousand generations, the "good" behavior will spread and bad behavior will recede until eventually, the population in the simulation are almost exclusively by my definition "good". All fine and dandy.

Another option, since I am all-powerful, is simply to alter the conditions for the simulation and make sure that all individuals are born with the traits that I want. This seems more like painting a picture than creating a living universe, though, and we are assuming that that is what I want, a living universe populated by individuals with some sort of free will (or at least an illusion thereof).

Now, what seems to me like a rather wicked way of going about this, would be to instead do the following.

I implant a myth into the folklore of the population, that is spread only by word of mouth. This myth contains information about what I think is good or bad behavior, along with a warning to everyone that engages in bad behavior that they will be punished after death and promises of a reward for those that behave well, a reward that will also be given to them after death. This seems at first glance like something that could also work, and it might well do so. It does however show that I have a rather low sense of empathy for the individuals in the universe I've created, given that I still allow them to be born bad but order them to be good, or else. Doesn't this seem more like a "mad scientist" type of experiment than a "loving father" to you? The individuals have absolutely no way of verifying the claims in the folklore myth, and the faculties for critical thinking that they have been born with will instead tell them that those claims are no more likely to be true than those of the madman wearing the tinfoil hat screaming about alien invasions. And yet, they are expected to believe this without question or be punished for eternity in the afterlife. Why would you want to torture someone after they die? This is nothing short of sadism, and I find it a revolting thought that this is how the creator of the universe would act. If he does, he could at least have the decency to warn us about it.