Uncle Jim

James Rawls Williams, my Uncle Jim, passed away last month at the respectable age of seventy-nine.  My Uncle David died at age sixty-seven from a brain tumor that changed his personality before he passed.  My Uncle Donald passed at fifty-nine from the same type of blood cancer that took Uncle Jim.

For most of my life, I always felt not quite grown up, even well into middle age.  I used to say that a man is not fully an adult until he has raised a child and buried his father.  Thankfully my father still lives.

Cadets at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs are often paired with volunteer sponsor families living in the area.  When I was a cadet, I was fortunate to have my actual family members as my sponsor family.  From that four-year period, I learned to love my Uncle Jim as someone who gave good advice and lived a life of dignity.

I did not see much of Uncle Jim and family after I graduated.  When Aunt Janie and Uncle Jim last visited us here in Dallas over a decade ago, Uncle Jim recounted his experience during the University of Texas tower shooting when a man with a brain tumor became a mass murderer.  As he concluded, I could tell that Uncle Jim was still moved by that event even though it had transpired nearly a half century earlier.

From that visit, I have a picture of Uncle Jim and Aunt Janie with my wife Shannon just after I gave them a tour of my backyard pumpkin patch.  In that picture, you can see that Shannon was pregnant with the last of our six children.  My youngest son, James, is Uncle Jim to my two grandchildren.

Parental Basic Income

I think that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is inevitable as technology makes more jobs obsolete.  When enough voters lose their jobs, they will seek political change.  That change will stabilize when UBI becomes law.

People will then shift from finding meaning in their work to finding meaning in spending time with each other.  Whether those people are mostly old friends or mostly new family depends on the affordability of housing.  Raising children is meaningful work but it requires an extra bedroom.

I propose Parental Basic Income (PBI) as a first step towards UBI.  Since the invention of birth control, many potential parents have chosen to reduce the risk of childhood poverty by not having children.  PBI will create a future in which parents are confident that they can raise a happy family.

Bernie Sanders

I really like Senator Bernie Sanders.  I have been watching his speeches on YouTube recently and I generally like what I am hearing.  I also started listening to his latest book It's OK to be Angry About Capitalism.

What I am hoping to find in his book is something describing what I have been seeing in those countries that have adopted the Nordic Model.  Those countries seem to be doing better across the board in multiple categories.  I think we should start adopting some of their policies to see if those would also work for us.

I think I voted for Bernie some years ago in a primary election.  When I tell people that I am a libertarian that wishes Bernie Sanders were President, I know I am telling a bit of a joke as most will perceive that there is some cognitive dissonance there.  I am still trying to figure out what the common appeal is for me between libertarianism and the Nordic Model as they seem to be opposed.

 

Like my parents, Bernie is his mid-eighties now so I imagine he will be retiring soon.  I am hoping to learn what I can from him while he is still politically active and distill those lessons into some general principles.  I will also be looking for the "Bernies" of succeeding generations.

 

Optimism is Effort

I love the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.  I frequently reference their animated educational videos in my weblog entries.  To support the production of more of their edutainment, I ordered some of their merchandise for my youngest children who are also fans.

I watched their new video Tired of Doomscrolling? in which they conclude with a message of optimism for the future of humanity.  It reminded me of their older video in which they describe their philosophy of Optimistic Nihilism in which they remind us, like stoicism, that that nothing really matters since everyone eventually dies.  Ending on a positive note, they say that knowing this liberates each individual to choose their own meaning of life.

I think, however, that this philosophy contradicts billions of years of evolutionary history in which life gravitates toward increasing complexity.  Furthermore, similar to those who believe in divine providence and the assurance of an eternal hereafter, adoptees of the philosophy could use it as a justification for passivity in the face of long-term challenges to humanity.  To clarify that that the optimism in Optihumanism is active rather than passive, I made the following update to my Optihumanist Principles:

Optimism is effort. We support our belief in the future through our endeavors.

 

Morris Stischer

Earlier this month I drove down to Houston and attended the Veterans Day ceremony hosted by the Galveston Naval Museum.  I was especially interested in touring the World War II submarine preserved there because my maternal grandfather Morris Stischer served as a U.S. Navy Fireman First Class on a submarine back in the early 1930s.  By coincidence on that same road trip, I was given an old photograph of him standing between two of his fellow sailors.

Baby Skylar

Congratulations to my daughter Ada and my son-in-law Coleman on the birth of their daughter Skylar.  Skylar is my second grandchild.  The joke that I tell my friends is that all of that investment in my children is finally paying off.

PAPA 2024

Since 2020, I have been adding to my website Papa's Anthology of Paternal Advice (PAPA).  From listening to the audiobook First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living by Richard Bode, I was inspired to go through my tips for living that I have been collecting in my notes over the last year and publish them to the PAPA website.  The new updates include the following:

• Maintain line-of-sight when supervising young children
• Drive safely for yourself and others on the road; you have no right to put the lives of others at risk without their consent
• The best way to learn is to teach
• Consider postponing a boat project until retirement
• Be wary of forming friendships or partnerships with the litigious
  
• Your spouse is your best friend
• Do not take on too many projects at the same time
• Have two of everything, but not three
• Simplify your life as you get older
• Consider self-publishing; when your message is being published by others, it might not be delivered the way you want it to be
• A little redundancy is a good thing
• Just before you open your next big box of rice, put it on your shopping list
• Keep a new pair of shoes in your closet for when you need them
• When you buy a new vehicle, consider holding onto your old one just in case

World Religions

I recently watched the presentation "The Ark Before Noah: A Great Adventure" by Irving Finkel.  When he described the extreme reaction of George Smith upon discovering that the story of Noah's Ark was an adaptation from a much older Babylonian mythology, I recalled how I had also immediately spotted the obvious similarities when I was first introduced to the Epic of Gilgamesh.  Dr. Finkel has a number of other good presentations on related subjects available on YouTube.

As a youth being raised as a Southern Baptist in a city which was said to have had the most churches per capita in the Bible Belt and in which all three of the universities in town represented different shades of Christianity, I was not cognizant of world religions.  The 1980 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) book Deities & Demigods, which included a section on the "Babylonian Mythos", might have been my first introduction to religions beyond Judeo-Christian.  When you are first introduced to the idea that many different peoples in many different places have had many different religions over many millennia, you start to realize that your assignment to the religion that you were taught to believe in as a child is a circumstance of when and where you were born.

I remember that the late Daniel Dennett, my favorite philosopher, proposed teaching world religions in public schools.  The Unitarian Universalists (UUs), which teach their children about different religions in Sunday school, recognized that their children, upon adulthood, often adopt the religion of their spouses rather than continuing on with UU.  The joke about this is that when the children are taught about the different varieties of religion outside of UU, they then think that they are expected to pick one.

It is clear to me that Dennett's proposal to teach world religions in taxpayer-funded schools, if enacted, would upset many parents.  My thinking on this has been influenced by my new understanding of Terror Management Theory from listening to the audiobook The Worm at the Core.  By providing entertaining illustrated books about ancient myths from other cultures, parents can inoculate their children against subjugation by modern myth-based religions.

Beacon

In a Christian church, deacons assist the pastor with the duties required to keep the church running.  They might not be paid but their status is recognized by the honorific "Deacon".

"Beacon" might be a recognizable title for the equivalent position in a Religious Humanist or Religious Transhumanist organization.  Since a beacon is a guide in the dark such as a lighthouse, this term fits nicely with the theme of the Brights, those who identify as having a naturalistic worldview free of supernatural or mystical elements.

Organs for Life

Since 2023 October, I have been helping out with the Organs for Life website.  This effort is sponsored by the non-profit Immortalist Society and championed by Joseph Kowalsky.  The goal of the project is to promote the advancement of an emerging medical technology that will enable donated organs to be preserved indefinitely until needed for transplantation.

Similar to the XPRIZE, Organs for Life is offering a cash award, a CryoPrize, for a successful implementation of the organ preservation technology.  As stated in the rules, this requires the successful demonstration of a cryopreservation, rewarming, and transplantation of an organ.  It might not be long before the CryoPrize is awarded as many researchers have been having recent success with nanowarming.

Sulfite Sensitivity

I want to warn everyone about sulfite sensitivity.  It is an allergy-like reaction to sulfites, also spelled sulphites, which are found in many foods and drinks.  Sulfite sensitivity affects about one percent of the population and is more prevalent in those with asthma.

In my twenties, I quickly learned that I did not do well with drinking beer but I tended to be just fine with mixed drinks.  As I got older, I started having unusually strong reactions to drinking red wine and hard cider.  I was also showing symptoms after eating certain foods such as shrimp but not consistently.

In my forties, I finally figured out that the problem was caused by sulfites.  Sulfites are sometimes used to preserve the coloring in foods.  It is also part of the process of creating beer, hard cider, and wine.

Margaritas are generally safe for me since sulfites are not present in distilled drinks such as tequila.  Once, however, I ordered a margarita at a restaurant and I started suffering the symptoms almost immediately.  I later learned that the restaurant had substituted the tequila in my margarita with tequila-flavored wine because of a legal restriction on serving hard liquor in that county.

Now whenever I start to get a particular type of headache, I know to retrieve the food packaging for whatever I had just eaten.  Oftentimes I will find the warning "Contains sulfites" in bold print just below the list of ingredients.  Sometimes, however, I will have to scan the ingredients to find the sulfites included using one of many different terms:

• Calcium bisulfite
• Calcium sulfite
  
• Potassium bisulfite
• Potassium metabisulfite
• Potassium sulfite
  
• Sodium bisulfite
• Sodium metabisulfite
• Sodium sulfite
• Sulfiting agents 
  
• Sulfur dioxide

I have learned to check the ingredients before I buy a new food or drink.  Recently I have been disappointed to find sulfites in bottled lemon juice, canned fava beans, onion powder, and sushi.  Fortunately, I am able to find brands of frozen shrimp that do not contain sulfites.

It seems odd to me that food and drink distributors knowingly add a preservative which effectively acts as a poison against one percent of their customers.  I guess they assume that most of those with sulfite sensitivity both know that they have it and know to avoid consuming their products.  Obviously, I wish I had learned about my sulfite sensitivity decades earlier.

Odyssean Bargain

At a Church of Perpetual Life discussion, Cairn Erfreuliche Idun shared something pithy with us that she had originated.  She said she once ran it by B.F. Skinner and it resonated with him:

The better you understand the controls that control you,
 the better you can control the controls that control you.

It made me think of the "Odyssean bargain".  I read about this on the Web some years ago but when I search now I cannot find that phrase used in the same context that I remember.  Here is what it might mean:

In Greek mythology, sirens are man-eating monsters that entice sailors to their deaths through alluring song.  Odysseus wanted to be able to listen to the siren song without being drawn in and consumed.  He achieved this by having himself bound to a mast while the rest of the crew was protected by plugging their ears with beeswax.

So what he was doing here was taking steps while he was in control to prevent self-destructive behavior later when he knew he would be out of control.  I have heard that people who are addicted to a drug sometimes deliberately put themselves in a situation where they cannot possibly access the drug for many days so that they can make it through to the other side of withdrawal.  An example of this might be an addict throwing away their cigarettes just before launching for a sail across the Pacific.

There is a trend where people will motivate themselves by vowing to donate funds to an organization that they hate unless they achieve a goal by a given deadline.  These cases might not be Odyssean bargains because the actors are still in control, not out of control, as they are highly motivated to take steps to avoid the self-imposed negative consequences.  This will not work with sailors under the siren spell nor with addicts to whom all negative consequences are secondary.

Something else that sounds similar but is probably different is the advice that one should not go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.  If you postpone heading out until just after a meal, you are ensuring that you staying in control during the period of temptation instead of making it physically impossible to load your shopping cart with junk food.  An Odyssean bargain might instead be to choose to go to a health food store where that option is not available.

The word "bargain" implies that something is freely given in exchange for something else.  For the opportunity to hear the siren song, Odysseus made a conscious decision while he still had free will to restrict his freedom of movement in the future when he would not.  When I was finally able to quit smoking some decades ago after being bedridden for three days, that was more of a happy accident than a bargain struck.

Update 2024-04-29
Today I discovered the Wikipedia article Ulysses pact.