I hate lines

A friend of mine posted some pictures of his family's trip to a local apple farm. Of interest to me was the line for the apple cider donuts.
I think this line tells you something about the donut makers.

The people in line have both a monetary cost (the price of the donuts) and a non-monetary cost (waiting in line). But the non-monetary cost can’t be captured by the donut makers to help them increase their donut production. That non-monetary cost is paid by the customers, but it produces little benefit for anyone.  It’s just wasted.  If the donut maker were to increase prices (but not too much), the line would still exist but it’d be *much* shorter.  In both cases, a signal is sent to additional consumers: the cost of these donuts is high - you might want to consider skipping the donuts. Both cases turn away customers unwilling to pay the high costs. But in the case of the long line, a large portion of the costs are wasted.

We are tempted to think that in this situation the donut makers are innocent and the line wait is entirely the fault of the customers who are the ones with the high demand.  Conversely, if donut prices were higher, the fault for the high cost would be entirely on the donut maker and not at all on the customer. But both views are wrong.  In both cases, the combined costs (monetary & non-monetary) exist because the producer makes something that the customer demands.  Put another way, the combined costs of the donuts are high because they provide such great value to the customers.

My guess as to why the donut maker doesn’t raise prices is that they don’t want to be viewed as "mean" by their customers. If that’s true, then I’d argue that the donut maker is reacting to customer ignorance and that’s why this wasteful line exists. Average people seem to be very willing to substitute time (which, once spent, can’t ever be recovered) for money (which can be made back in lots of different ways - even in a recession).  And I think it’s a fool’s tradeoff.  Time is unbelievably more valuable than money.  And when the donut makers force their customers to waste time instead of money for the purpose of saving face, I think that’s "meaner" than if they just raised donut prices.

Unfortunately, most people don’t see it that way, and inadvertently waste an unbelievable amount of time waiting in line, being grateful to the producer who doesn’t give them the option of substituting higher priced donuts for waiting in line.

What would be interesting to me is if the donut maker had two lines.  Both lines served the same donuts, but one had higher donut prices.  Then customers could choose which was more valuable to them: time or money.  I think I’d start with the 2nd line being having donuts at much higher prices than the 1st line - maybe 2.5x-3x the price of the 1st line. If that were too high (so that no one bought donuts from that 2nd line) then lower it slightly until people started choosing the higher priced donuts to skip the long wait.

Of course, maybe what this post tells you about me is that I really hate lines.

Update: My friend, the one who went to the apple orchard, and accidentally got me thinking about this  (that's right, John, I said "accidentally") had a comment that made sense to me.  Which, IMHO, he should have posted either as a comment on my blog or a response on  his blog.  Anyway getting on with the update... he said that the two line deal simply could not work. There's no way that anyone would ever go for the idea of the exact same donut for slightly higher prices in the 2nd line.  Which makes me think of Tim Harford and price discrimination.

Harford makes the case in his book (The Undercover Economist) that Starbucks sells lots of different versions of essentially the same thing for widely varying prices. The mocha is just a normal coffee with a tiny bit of inexpensive extra ingredient thrown in to spice up the flavor.  But, he says, the cost of the mocha is quite a bit higher than the cost of the regular coffee. The purpose? To find the maximum price that you're willing to pay. (Read it on line, chapter 2)

Perhaps the donut maker should create a 2nd line for sprinkled donuts. Or donuts with raisins or some such thing so that the customer thinks they're getting more in the 2nd line and would be willing to pay a lot more in profit.  Maybe that would make it palatable to customers to have 2 lines: one long line with cheap donuts and one short line with expensive (but essentially the same) donuts.

Cheating for a $20 - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

If you're convinced that monopolies and oligopolies are everywhere, you should read this. It's a simple demonstration of how hard it is to maintain the type of collusion necessary for an oligopoly or a monopoly to survive. That is, unless you get it written into law. Put another way, sustainable monopoly & oligopoly requires government.

Each year in my 500-student principles class I gather a group of eight students and tell them that I will auction a $20 bill to the highest bidder. If two or more students bid the same thing, the difference between $20 and their joint bid will be divided among the winning bidders. They can collude to fix the price just like oligopolists who violate antitrust laws, but they must mark down their bids in secret.

Today seven of the students stuck to the collusive agreement, and each bid $.01. They figured they would split the $20 eight ways, netting $2.49 each. Ashley, bless her heart, broke the agreement, bid $0.05, and collected $19.95. The other 7 students booed her, but I got the class to join me in applauding her, as she was the only one who understood the game.

It showed that, even in a market like this one with very few players, collusion is difficult to maintain. There are tremendous incentives for one or more parties to cheat and move the market toward a competitive outcome. Unfortunately nobody has ever gone as high as the predicted equilibrium bid of $17.50.
Cheating for a $20 - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

Kids Prefer Cheese: Breaking Balloon News

This perfectly captured my reactions to the balloon event last week:

What a feeling to have children. Wanting to hug them, spank them, kiss them, and yell at them, all at once. Poor little guy. Poor parents.

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Can't we all just get along?

I am, by no means a fan of Richard Dawkins. but this article is interesting to me. It tells a story of someone who seems to be spending all of his time arguing with the nut cases in Christianity. Those who can't conceive of the possibility that evolution might just be real. Those who are so caught in the literal reading of the Bible, that they fail to see Genesis as a poem, and seem to want to turn it into a scientific description. And, IMHO, those people are wrong. Genesis says two things about creation:

1. God did it
   
2. It was good
   

It does not say how God did it. And, frankly on the evidence, I think evolution is the best candidate.

But what's frustrating to me is how many people see this stupid argument and then find themselves with only two options: God or Evolution? If evolution is demonstrably true, then God can't be.

And it's *us*, the Christians who put them in that position. Shame on us for putting God in a box. For forcing an interpretation of His word that doesn't match reality. That interpretation is killing the message. It's making enemies of intelligent people who can and do look at the world.

Why can't we Christians get passed this stupid argument? Evolution appears to have happened. Get over it. Get onto a more important message.

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xkcd - A Webcomic - Bag Check

I like this, not for its humor, which I didn't find that funny. But for the fact that the TSA is horribly inconsistent.

They are in a difficult situation w/laptop batteries. If they prohibit them, then the airline business will tank as business customers find alternatives to airline travel that allow them to operate their laptops.

Trains between DC & New York would love this rule. As would the remote meeting services like GoTo Meeting, WebEX and Windows Live Meeting. Be suspicious of intentions if you ever hear any of the web conferencing providers advocating for tighter security at TSA.

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YouTube - The Greatest Prank Call Ever

This is brilliant! Remember this for the next election cycle!


[YouTube Link]
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AddThis :: Add-ons for Firefox

I think I may have found a way to blog more often. I've seen the "addthis" icons associated with different news sites. But it turns out that there's a firefox extension that allows me to share items of interest on my blog. So far, it looks pretty slick.
AddThis :: Add-ons for Firefox

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New Comment System

I'm testing a new comment system on my blog. Can any one of my 5 loyal readers post a comment on the new system and let me know what you think?

NOTE: If you are reading this from facebook, the comment system for you is the facebook comment system. I've only changed the comments on my blog.  If you're reading this on facebook, you can ignore!

Strange Attractions

I find it odd that I'm attracted to women who aren't my wife. And I don't just mean a few women. I seem to be able to find something attractive about just about every woman I see. It's incredibly annoying. But more than that, I don't understand *why* it is.

To illustrate my confusion, let me describe an internal dialogue I have with a woman at my office whom I find more than normally attractive. I see her daily, but I avoid talking to her - mainly because I know I'm attracted and I need safe distance. Here's the entirely made up conversation that I have with her in my head.

Me: I don't understand why I'm attracted to you. It doesn't make sense.

Her: You mean you're attracted to me despite my obvious unattractiveness?!

[Note: in my subconscious, women are always trying to find some way to make what I say into a personal insult. It might have something to do with the fact that it frequently works that way in reality, too]

Me: No! I mean that I'm attractedd to you despite there being absolutely no upside to it, at any level. Think about it:

1. You're a real person, but I'm only talking to a figment in my head. So being attracted to you has already made me slightly less sane.
   
2. The odds of being rejected by you are pretty high, because

• Your ring tells me you're married.
• I'm just not that attractive
  
  I suspect that being rejected now is not any more fun than it was in high school and college.
  

3. I'm married, so finding you attractive causes pain to my wife, whom I adore.
4. In the unlikely event that you did *NOT* reject me, acting on this will ultimately cause me pain as all of the following would almost certainly happen:

• I'd get caught
• I'd damage my marriage, probably irreperably
• I'd lose my kids (at worst) or lose their respect (at best)
  
• I would (correctly) become a fool in the eyes of my friends and family

[End of conversation]

What is the possible benefit to *ANYONE* for me to continue to find random women attractive? Yet it still happens. And with a disturbing frequency. I wish there was an off switch. Because I can see no benefit to having this feature remain active.

From talking to my male friends, they seem to experience this about as much as I do. So it seems relatively normal. However, many of my friends simply can't talk to their wives about this at all, out of fear that just mentioning it will hurt their feelings and result in a huge fight. I count myself lucky that my wife (at some level) understands this, even if she doesn't feel it. To her, there is an off switch - at least from a visual sense. She got married. She's stopped searching for attractive men. She recognizes them, but it simply doesn't have any impact on her. For her to be really attracted to someone takes *much* more than just seeing them. At least she understands that it doesn't work that way for me. And she wishes that there was an off switch for me, too.

But the off switch doesn't seem likely to happen. So I keep my distance from women whom I find attractive. I just don't understand why this feature of being a male is necessary. I could really do without it.

Exports over Imports

The benefits of exports go to producers. The benefits of imports go to consumers.

When imports are cheaper than domestic products, the benefits of those imports are widely dispersed among consumers who save money. But because the benefits are dispersed this is a difficult group to politicize. On the other hand, it's very easy to create a political rally around producers. They tend to be concentrated in companies. Large companies are easy to find. Making it easy to organize events that stir up political will.

As a result, politicians, seeking votes, will almost always prefer to meet the needs of producers over the needs of consumers. This political tendency does not measure the relative benefits that accrue to producers & consumers, compare them, and select the maximum benefit. Rather, it measures only the benefits of exports and ignores entirely the benefits of imports, because the benefits of exports are much easier to convert to political capital.

Hence, we get tariffs on tires that provide huge benefits to tire manufacturers, but raises the cost of tires for the rest of us. This will distort the market in unanticipated ways. No one could have predicted that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) would be the response to the tariff on sugar imports - hurting American sugar consumers without actually helping American sugar producers.

The Missing Tweets

I recently went on a cruise with my wife to celebrate 15 years of marriage. It was super fun. But I missed tweeting, because I was to far away from the internet to do anything. So I kept a memo on my phone that I called "The Missing Tweets" that captured my thoughts as I had them. This post captures what I would have tweeted if I had been able to tweet them:

1. I think I like the Inspiration's deck plan better than Glory's.
2. Boat feels bigger but only a little.
3. I don't know if I'll be able to cruise again w/out a balcony.
4. SUUUSHI!!! All you can eat! Can life get better?
5. Curtis, where are you going?
6. Curtis, where'd you go?
7. Woah! Curtis, did you pass us and then get waay ahead? What are those lights up there that we aren't catching.
8. Pretty blue water.
9. Surrounded by blue water on all sides. It's only pretty b/c we're in a safe cocoon. The ocean is wilderness w/o this boat.
10. I'm not as fascinated by the size of the boat this time around. But I should be.
11. God bless margaritas - Cozumel
12. Ughh. Too many margaritas.
13. Not sleeping sucks.
14. I miss internet access. Can't lookup the origins of "starboard" & "port"
15. Wife & I watched two teenagers making out in hot tub. I wanted to knock on glass & give them thumbs up.
16. Enjoying our dinner companions, Eric & Misty.
17. I don't get singing & dancing shows. Was more interested in the gigantic sound board we sat behind.
18. Watched a cool lightning show tonight from ship's bow. Then made out w/my wife.
19. Weight gain! Possibly 10 lbs. Will only be certain when get back on same scale.
20. Passed Curtis yesterday afternoon. This AM he's ahead of us. Did he pass us along same route or take quicker route?
21. Raining on only *part* of boat.

NOTE: I did not, at the time, or now check that these would fit in the 140 char limit. But this is what I wrote down.

NOTE2: Curtis refers to my friend who happened to leave from the same port as we did on a different boat. We saw multiple Disney boats on our cruise. I just assumed all of them held my friend.

How To Link Calendars across Pre

Someone on twitter asked me how to share calendars between two Palm Pre phones. As I have one of these phones and I know (I think) that I can do it, here are some instructions:

1. Create a google calendar account for each phone. This can be done here
   
2. Go into each google account, and share that account with the other one
   1. Login to http://calendar.google.com
      
   2. Under "My calendars" on the left hand side, click the menu for your calendar, then choose "Share this calendar"
      
   3. In the screen that comes up, under "Share with specific people" add the email address of the other gmail account that you created.
3. Connect each Pre to it's google calendar account. Do this by:
   1. Open calendar app on Pre
      
   2. Tap on "Calendar" menu
      
   3. Tap on "Preferences & Accounts"
      
   4. Tap on "Add An Account" (at the bottom)
      
   5. Enter the appropriate information to add the google account that you created

After doing this, both Palm Pre's should have read/write access to their own calendar, and read access to the other calendar.

Guilty.

A friend of mine made a commitment recently to not mix phone & driving. I, too, must confess that I do this. And I, too, am going to commit to not doing it any more.

Although I have a few caveats. I will answer & talk on the phone as I have a hands free system in my car. But I won't do anything that requires diverting my attention from the road. Examples:

1. Reading an email, text, tweet, or web page
   
2. Writing any of the same
   

Perspective

Previously, I tried to paint a picture of how President Obama's spending cuts sounded big, but weren't really. I think I did ok. But in comparison to this, I failed miserably.



And this

What the?

I am shocked that such a thing as this exists:

We'll let you in on the secret of how top blogs and top professionals keep their blogs up-to date - ghost blogging.

Utilizing top notch college educated and college graduate professional-class writers in diverse fields of expertise, we are able to provide premium quality blog copywriting services, or ghost blogging, for a wide range of markets

The only comment that comes to mind: no ghost bloggers here, as should be amply demonstrated by the relatively low quality writing.

Holy Crap!

A child of a friend of mine unloaded this one at a family gathering.



Of course, I saw this and laughed. Because it's hilarious. But the timing of this post is oddly coincidental, because I was just last night thinking about why I have different standards of acceptable language for myself than for my children.

I am one of those people who just doesn't get offended by language. Say any word you like. It's just a sound - even the F-bomb. Why it's a more vulgar sound than say, "fork" is beyond me. It's just a sound. At the same time, very few people are offended by "pit" or "skit", and they sound remarkably similar to a word that people are hugely offended by. And, of course, the reason is that those words have a meaning in addition to the sound. And the meaning of those words bothers some people.

But, of course, when a friend of mine looks at when I'm sick and says, "Dude, you look like s*it." He doesn't mean what he's literally saying. What he's really doing is trying to use words to express empathy for how he thinks I'm feeling. I *know* that. I know that he's not literally trying to compare me to fecal matter. The literal interpretation of the sentence simply does *not* come to my mind. Instead, I appreciate the attempt at empathy. The specific sounds he chooses to utter are less important to me than the meaning behind those sounds.

This is *not* the case for my wife. When she hears the f-bomb, or the "s" word, I think the meaning of those words go through her head. And in most contexts, she's really just not that interested in thinking about those things. They distract her from the point, and get her thinking about something she doesn't like thinking about. Similarly, she has banned the word "stupid" from our children. Why? Not because she dislikes the sound of it, but she remembers being a kid and how hurtful that word felt. Even if they weren't using it at her. It, too, is a distraction to her.

So in front of my wife, I simply don't use curse words. Because I *know* that they bother her. I know that those words act as a distraction to her. If I want her to pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm better off using language that isn't a distraction to her. If I use distracting words, she focuses on them instead of the point that I'm trying to make. Talking like that, results in me spending too much time trying to get her to focus on the point and not the language.

And I do stuff like this all the time - I bet you do, too. At work, I never refer to a colleage as "dude". I do that *all* the time with my friends. I don't greet my colleagues with a hug, yet have no problem doing that with my friends. What I say and do has different impact in the context of where I am when I say and do those things.

As an adult, I have a much better tuned sense of what sort of contexts I can use certain language in without bothering anyone. As adults, we *know* certain words can be a distraction. We know this because we spent time in our teenage and college years experimenting and learning the impact of that type of language. Some of us took longer to learn than others. But the end result is that most adults rarely use curse words. But in the right context, we do. Because we *know* how that other person will understand it. And in those very limited contexts, it's ok. (Except, the times when it's not. We are still learning from our mistakes. Hopefully, we make fewer mistakes now than before.)

But my children don't yet understand this. They are simply too young to appreciate the subtleties of human interaction. They trample over someone else's feelings without blinking an eye. My 3 year old hasn't learned

1. what it means to him to hurt someone else's feelings,
   
2. much less how to be aware of when someone else's feelings are hurt,
   
3. much less to be aware of what *he* did to hurt those feelings.

The 11 year-old has a basic grasp of #1 and an occasional grasp of #2 & #3. But it's very coarse, and needs refinement.

The result: we have banned certain words from them. They don't know how to distinguish the subtleties of using them. They don't know enough about when they will offend someone and when they won't.

I fully expect that their teenage & college years will be years of experimentation. And during those years, they'll learn, like most adults do, that it's just easier to communicate with people when you aren't worried about offending them. And what will probably happen (eventually) is that they'll fall into the same existence as most adults. We swear occasionally, but since we don't know who is and isn't bothered by it, we avoid it most of the time. Because that's the lazy way out. It's an easier existence to not have to be constantly patching things up with people who were distracted by the words we've chosen.

Or... I could be really f-ing wrong.

Strange Family

Imagine a family that made $50,000 this year, but borrowed like crazy and spent $77,000, overshooting their income by $27,000. What would you think of if this happened?

Wife: Ok. So it's bad that we over spent by $27,000. I'm concerned about that, so I did something good. I found $386 of spending we can cut.
Husband: What? We can't do that. I refuse to stop that spending!

My reaction is to applaud the wife for realizing that there was a problem, but that even her paltry figure is ridiculous in the face of overspending their income by $27,000. And the husband is worse, to be certain, but only by about 1%. Simply put, both of them are unrepentant spendthrifts.

Well, it turns out that if you look at what the US federal government is doing with it's budget, and shrink the gargantuan numbers down to numbers that most people can relate to, that's what you get: a cut of $386 on a $27,273 deficit. The actual numbers:

President Obama: Ok. So it's bad that we over spent by $1.2 trillion. I'm concerned about that, so I did something good. I found $0.017 trillion of spending we can cut.
Congress: What? We can't do that. I refuse to stop that spending!

When, during the campaign, the democrats criticized President Bush's profligate spending, I agreed with them. And I had a flicker of hope that perhaps the democrats would take on the mantle of deficit hawks that the republicans had entirely dropped over the previous 8 years.

That hope was fleeting. Does anyone seriously think that it makes any difference at all, who is in power? Does anyone seriously doubt that a campaign promise is a lie told in order to get into power?

Uncertainty

I saw an interesting post from Lauren over at ImaginaryBuffy, that asks some questions about abortion. She doesn’t understand the “conservative/republican” position on this, despite feeling that abortion is wrong unfortunate. (UPDATE: the previous wording was a misinterpretation on my part. Please see Lauren's clarification in the comments) This question is interesting to me in light of this post of mine. This is one of the areas in which, both sides are simply not able to negotiate. For both sides, it’s all or none. Some value choice, and they see any limits on choice as morally wrong. Others value life, and anything that ends any life is equally wrong. There’s simply no negotiable middle ground. Hence, the two sides find themselves in a battle.

As for me, I have an opinion on this. I’m on one side. However, I would immediately change my opinion, and change sides, if one fact could be determined. That fact? The point at which a group of cells stops being just a group of cells and becomes a life.

Before that point, I’m pro-choice. Beyond that point, I’m pro-life.

Now, despite the fact that this is a very contentious issue there are some areas of universal agreement. For example, no one thinks that aborting a baby after it’s born is a choice that the mother is allowed to make. We all agree that after it’s born, it is life that can NOT be ended at the discretion of the mother. Additionally, no one thinks that a hysterectomy is killing unborn children. We all agree that before conception, it is entirely appropriate to give the owner of those cells the complete choice on what to do with her body.

The debate lies entirely in the grey area between conception and birth. If we could determine the point at which cells become a life, then that would be the ball game. The debate would be over. Unfortunately, we don’t know when between conception and birth it happens. If you believe it happens at conception, your pro-life. If you believe it happens at the beginning of the 3rd trimester, then you are pro-choice, but you support making 3rd trimester abortions illegal. If you think it only happens at birth, then you’re pro-choice throughout the entire pregnancy.

For me, since we can’t (yet) determine when life starts, the only thing left is to look elsewhere for guidance. On this question, I tend to look two places. Since we’re dealing with uncertainty, I have a tendency to look to risk analysis to help guide me. And the questions that I ask when thinking like this are:

1. What are the risks associated with making abortion illegal?
2. What are the risks associated with leaving abortion legal?
3. Are there any hints that suggest whether it's just a bunch of cells or a life?

Here are my answers:

1. In the worst case scenario, you’ve forced someone who’s pregnant to take on the responsibility of caring for a child that they’re not ready or capable of doing. This poor care will result in harm to that child and to the mother, possibly even death to the child and the mother.
2. In the worst case scenario, you’ve killed someone.
3. Yes. If you do nothing, you end up giving birth to a child, which everyone accepts is a life with rights.

IMHO, the worst case scenario when you allow abortion is worse than the worst case scenario if you make abortion illegal. Because killing someone is worse than harming two people. And definitely killing someone is worse than potentially killing two people. Additionally, since doing nothing results in a child, it seems to me that the default stance is that it’s a child.

Also, the worst case in #1 is more strongly stated than it should be. Pregnancy is a consequence of an action that was freely chosen (*). It’s really hard to describe living with a consequence of freedom as being anything other than freedom. So it’s somewhat overstated to say that we’re “forcing” anyone to care for children against their will, when they can freely choose to avoid pregnancy. Certainly we don’t consider it an imposition on the freedom of parents of born children, that we punish them when they fail to adequately care for their children. Why do we then consider it an imposition on women’s freedom to avoid childcare responsibilities if they’re pregnant?

(*) Yes, there are cases wherein the mother was raped. Clearly, in that case the mother did not freely choose. In those cases, maybe the mother should be free of the responsibility of caring for that child. Note, however, that there are more options than just abortion to alleviate such responsibilities.

Which brings me to another place I look. I am a Christian. And as such, I believe that the Bible contains a wealth of wisdom. And on this topic, there are a number of verses that are often cited to indicate what God thinks about this. I’m going to pick just one of them:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
Jeremiah 1:5

Many Christians use this passage to settle the issue. But I don’t think it’s that clear. First, God was talking to Jeremiah. Second, “before I formed you in the womb” could also mean before conception. There are many other verses that Christians use to demonstrate that the Bible thinks that a fetus is a life. But all of them have similar problems to the one above. Specifically that they rely on a certain interpretation of what the words imply. Now, because of my risk analysis, I tend to agree with this interpretation. But, I’ve been wrong in the past about interpreting God’s meaning, and I am pretty sure that I’ll be wrong again. It’s not that I think the Bible is wrong, but rather that what I think it means might be wrong.

My conclusion from all this is to take a somewhat unconfident stance: I *think* that life begins at conception, and as a result, I’m pro-life. But, because my opinion is not confident, I fully admit that I might be wrong. If we, at some point in the future, conclusively determine when a life starts, then as I mentioned above, before that point I will be pro-choice and beyond that point, I will be pro-life.

UPDATE2:
A clarification of my worst case scenarios:

1. In the worst case scenario, you’ve created legal protection for something that is not a life. In other words, you’ve taken ownership rights over a woman’s body parts and given them to the body parts. There are many potential long term consequences to the one who has suffered misappropriation of rights:

1. The mother could try to exercise an abortion on her own (e.g. coat hanger abortions), likely harming herself, possibly killing herself.
2. The mother could be a bad mother and cause a lot of harm to the baby, up to and including killing it.
3. The difficulty of raising a child might cause harm to the mother, up to and including killing herself.

2. In the worst case scenario, you’ve taken away legal protection from something that is a life. In other words, you’ve taken the ownership rights of a life away from that life and given them to the mother. In this case, there is only one long term consequence to the one who has suffered misappropriation of rights: it is killed.

My conclusion is still the same. The misappropriation of rights in #2 is worse than the misappropriation of rights in #1. In #1 a person has wrongly lost rights to a body part (assuming that it’s a body part and not a life). In #2 a person has wrongly lost rights to all his/her body parts (assuming that it’s a life and not a body part). I don’t see any reason why one person’s rights to a body part should trump another person’s rights to all of his/her body parts. Additionally, the potential consequences of the misappropriation of rights are only visible in #1 because the misappropriation of rights is so complete in #2.

Whoa!

Every so often, I read something that really forces me to examine a preconceived notion. This article by David Friedman (quoted in it's entirety) is one such time.

If you want war, work for justice

I think it is a more plausible slogan than the usual version. If you and I disagree because I want an outcome more favorable to me and you want an outcome more favorable to you, there is room for compromise—as we see whenever people bargain over the price of a house. But if we disagree because I see what I want as just and the alternative as unjust and you see it the other way around, compromise looks to both of us like moral treason.

Consider the issue, currently a live one in Europe, of whether people should be fined for saying or writing things critical of Islam. For those who support the traditional liberal view, agreeing to a fine of five hundred dollars instead of a thousand dollars isn't a solution—any punishment at all is an intolerable violation of free speech. For some orthodox Muslims, on the other hand, permitting people to slander the Prophet is clearly unacceptable; if the government will not impose a fine large enough to stop such an outrage, it is up to the believers to stop it themselves.

That, I think, is part of the nature of beliefs about justice—they are absolute, bright edged, in a way in which preferences are not. The point is summed up in the Latin phrase Fiat justicia, ruat coelum—let justice be done though the sky falls.

Those whose bumper stickers read "If you want peace, work for justice" simply take it for granted that there is no question what is just; if you want to find out, just ask them. The problem with the world as they see it is merely that other people are insufficiently virtuous to act accordingly.

IMHO, this is spot on. I just took it for granted that peace requires justice. Now, to be fair, I do think that there is a lot of unanimous ideas of right and wrong. But not all of it is unanimous, and there's a great deal of disagreement on some topics, like abortion. I'm sure you can easily come up with others.

And this reminds me of some of the things that Rob Bell talks about in Velvet Elvis, e.g. brickianity.

I love it when I can find things that are surprising, but persuasive enough that I'm forced to think differently. Very cool.

Comments?

I've been posting on this blog for nearly 5 years. I had hoped that when I started it, that people would comment and provide feedback. I had hoped that, by putting out my opinions, that those who disagreed would come and help me check my thinking. And in doing so, I could learn something that I didn't previously know. Maybe I'd change my mind.

But I get so few comments. And I don't know why. It's certainly not because my thinking is above reproach. Those of you who have managed to garner a lot of comments, how do you do it?

On a side note: blogs that don't allow comments make no sense to me. I find almost no value in having a one-sided conversation. It seems about as useful as talking to a wall.