Political Physics

 

Much of the book I’ve written called Benevolent Libertarianism uses physics as a supporting lens through which to assess economics, markets and human behaviour in society, because there is a lot of overlap. For example, entropy and economic complexity overlap in that, in thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of disorder or the number of possible configurations of a system; and economically, societies tend toward more complex arrangements (akin to higher entropy), especially in free markets where countless agents interact. Just like in physics, where energy moves toward states of higher entropy, markets evolve toward more decentralised, diverse, and adaptive structures. In most cases, a centralised economy is like a low-entropy system - highly ordered but fragile. And in most cases, a decentralised market economy mirrors high entropy – untidy but resilient.

Another example, Newton’s First Law (inertia) states that objects in motion stay in motion unless acted upon. You can think of institutions and social norms as having "inertia" – in that, once they are established, they tend to persist unless disrupted by significant forces (revolutions, economic crises, technological shifts, and so forth). This principle helps explain the resistance to change in economic systems. One of the catch 22s of libertarianism is that the idea of a libertarian reform is likely to come up against institutional inertia, requiring strong catalysing forces to shift public policy.

You can also observe in physics that phase transitions occur when a system hits a critical point. Similarly, in social systems, network effects (like viral trends, revolutions, or financial panics) behave similarly. A small trigger can cause a systemic shift once a critical mass is reached – and this shows similarities around tipping points in markets or social movements.

I’ve also been fascinated for many years in how power laws or trends in society mirror nature's laws, especially tail end distributions or severe deviations from the mean.  Zipf’s Law is an intriguing one (which I’ve written about before in my paper on parsimony and power laws) - it states that the frequency of an item is inversely proportional to its rank. This applies to language (most common words are used exponentially more often) and cities (a few mega-cities dominate, wealth distribution, online traction, etc). It mirrors distribution patterns in natural systems, such as the size distribution of solar flares or earthquakes – and once you delve into more and more examples of this, as I do in the book, it becomes more and more interesting.

The Pareto distribution (the 80/20 rule – although it’s not always exactly that, of course) crops up everywhere too - from income and productivity to software bugs - and resembles the power-law distribution seen in self-organised systems in physics. In Benevolent Libertarianism, I try to argue for outcomes that enable voluntary rebalancing or opportunity creation without coercive equalisation – what you might say (although I might ditch this if it proves too provocative for a publisher) a kind of capitalism with a heart and a socialism with a head.  We also find with consistency that the value of a network increases with the square of the number of its participants. This applies to markets, social networks, and economies of scale – and it’s similar to gravitational attraction increasing with mass - interconnectedness yields increased (sometimes exponential) utility. One of the fundamental principles that has seen this human progression-explosion in terms of material standard of living is that free markets, open communication platforms and mutual connectivity gain value as participation scales, encouraging more and more organic growth.

At this point, it might have occurred to you that we can also discern political manipulation through a similar heuristic. I believe one of the most interesting things happening right now is that, in greater numbers, the public suspect they are not being told the full truth, but it's hard to come together in a co-ordinated way to challenge it. Discerning political manipulation through the above heuristics is really to be seen as analogical and metaphorical, especially in regard to physics, but I try to make it compelling in the book because sometimes when you have a situation that’s hard to capture in your mind, an analogy or metaphor can help bring about a eureka moment. So, here’s one way you could think of it. In physics, massive objects bend space-time, creating gravitational fields that influence smaller bodies. I think that’s similarly what’s happening with powerful political actors (corporations, lobbyists, governments) – they generate a "field" of influence that bends public discourse, policy direction, and media focus – in fact, it has become its own heuristic for gaining more traction (like Wagner’s law predicts in economics) where there is a kind of "gravitational lensing" effect, where the narrative becomes distorted based on proximity to manipulative political or financial mass. It’s a reliable mechanism for sucking people in. There are, of course, many good and noble cases where that happens in a free market economy, where successful innovators enjoy well-deserved spoils – but here I’m taking specifically about the negative aspects of manipulation into perverse and distortionary narratives. 

I also think there are interesting parallels in societal behaviour and conservation of energy in physics. In physics, energy is never destroyed – it is only transformed or redirected. Similarly, I think in many cases, political pressure or dissent is rarely extinguished; it is redirected or channelled elsewhere. Firstly, this means that suppressing people’s free expressions or dismissing them won’t work if the dissent is strong enough – it will pop up elsewhere, manifested in different forms. You can see with the left, how populist social fervour has been co-opted by establishment figures to maintain power under a new guise of extreme environmentalism, for example. When a bottom-up movement is suddenly adopted by the mainstream, just pay attention and analyse where the original intent is being repurposed, and you’ll probably see the patterns I’m talking about. I suppose, also, if you’ll allow me the grace to push the analogy further, with thermodynamic information theory, the higher the signal-to-noise ratio, the clearer the message. And sadly, socio-political manipulation often gains traction by lowering this ratio by flooding the public with noise (misinformation, skewed reasoning, distractions, hyper-partisan content, galvanisation to an external cause that makes participants look good) to drown out clarity and critical thought.

I think in an age where 1) information is so readily available to nearly everyone, and 2) critical thinking is rarely practiced by the majority trying to process all this information, political discourse becomes more fragmented and unstable as political leaders push for polarisation – a bit like a societal equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics. And unless the energy of reason, logic and empiricism is applied to decrease the entropy, it’s likely to get worse. This feedback loop can be seen as analogous to a system of particles in a confined space. When one particle exerts force, the reaction may cause the system to shift, with some particles moving closer together (strengthening the political base) and others moving further apart (deepening polarisation). The interaction between these forces is not one-directional; it's a constant interplay that politicians and the media can navigate to maintain their position, much like how forces in the physical world create dynamic equilibrium.

It’s surely as plain as day at the moment that the official narratives provided by political leaders and the media is so veiled, biased, and intentionally misleading that we must be close to a tipping point. The system of information that is presented to the public is like a quantum system where the "true" state is elusive and constantly shifting, dependent on the perspective of those who observe it. If you sense the position, the momentum is abstracted, and if you sense the abstraction, you no longer pin it down to straightforward empirical justification – and even in cases when you might, the battleground is a morass of often justifiable resentment and partisans.

Just as the universe operates through immutable physical laws, the political landscape is shaped by forces, both seen and unseen, that guide the movement of ideas, policies, and public opinion – and in this day of technological connectivity, we are probably in the advent of a system of organic resistance and bottom-up networked intelligence that can mount a serious challenge to the hegemonies that have pervaded for so many decades. And while we’ll never get rid of top-down central intelligence – and in some cases, we shouldn’t wish to do so - we may be witnessing the birth of a decentralised, self-correcting force capable of at least challenging legacy power structures in a way that’s not been possible before.

Two Models

Here are two models, which, for simplicity, we’ll call the private model and state model. The private model undergoes the following test: if people are willing to pay for what you’re providing, then you must be serving them in providing value. If anyone has made a lot of money from this model, then they are likely to be serving society prodigiously. Alternatively, the state model takes our money in the form of taxation and purports to serve us on our behalf. Within the private model, consumers are spending their money as they choose, so inefficiencies will be few. Within the state model, there’ll be some cases where the government spends our money in a way that benefits us, but also, given the model, there’ll be many cases where the state spends our money poorly and in ways that give us bad value for money. Even if you’re someone who really values a big state, it’s still the case that due to top down information failure, and self-serving interests from within the political establishment, a lot of money will be spent on things that rob us of greater value elsewhere through the private spending model. This inefficiency gets exacerbated by the fact that the state keeps growing its sector to serve these interests, so the inefficiencies increase alongside it.

But it doesn’t end there. Politicians become incentivised to fatten up their state model, and to do this they have to constantly adapt to reflect the views of the people on whom they rely for their power. The popular views held in society are often of the most absurd and ridiculous nature, which means as they become more ubiquitous, they are inevitably going to be absorbed into the state mindset, and eventually, as the Overton window shifts, they become part of mainstream policy. At this point, sheer nonsense has become part of lazy political gesturing, and the voters have become so inured that neither the governors nor the governed call any of it into question.

I think this relationship is a bit like the relationship between the greyhound and the hare on the racetrack. Greyhound racing uses an electrically controlled and propelled mechanical hare that must stay far enough in front of the dogs to keep them chasing, but not be so ahead that they stop bothering to chase. Politicians do that; they impose a small enough thrall to keep the majority tolerant of their aims, but they are careful not to go so far that folk reject the political system altogether and bring about anarchy (although watch this space - there is a lot of unrest out there). That is, they keep the hare close enough so people are willing to chase, and ensure it’s not sufficiently out of reach that people go off and do their own thing. You’ll notice that people in abusive/coercive relationships often do this too; they provide enough allure to keep their partner emotionally conjoined, yet are not so awful that they run a mile. The awareness of this is often what causes the victim to eventually extricate themselves. There is an analogue here too in countries with dictators and oppressed citizens who flee the tyranny in order to begin a better life.

All that is to say, there is a sub-standard co-dependency going on between the general population and the people that they elect into power – which means that if absurd views begin to proliferate in society, they are likely to find representation in the establishment too – and that makes everyone worse off. The government takes shape by moulding itself around their own perception of their electoral popularity – and as a weighted average, it is generally about as good or bad, and as prudent and imprudent, as its perception of the people it claims to govern.

More On Critical Thinking

 

If you’ve found my previous blogs on critical thinking helpful (see here and here for previous entries), you might also like to consider a further piece of insight that will serve you well. Most of the incorrect beliefs or viewpoints in the world succeed in duping people by cunning sleight of hand omissions, or by omissions due to basic ignorance or misinformation. That’s why, if you want to detect the errors in bad ideas, look for what is being omitted, because if you were to put the omitted evidence or data back in, it would usually undermine the argument.

It’s like if someone predicts that you should invest in a particular stock in the stock market because it has been rising consistently over the past 10 years. The evidence omitted is that periods of growth are often followed by significant downturns which has to be factored into your risk. Or if someone declared that, as their father smoked all his life and lived until he was 89, perhaps smoking isn’t that bad for people. The evidence omitted is that large-scale studies consistently show that smoking increases the risk of cancer, heart disease, and early death, even if some individuals appear to be exceptions. Or they do it a lot with statistics by omitting the base rate; so they’ll say doing x increases y risk by 20%, so x is dangerous, even though the 20% increase is relative risk, not absolute, and the base rate is a fraction of a percent, and the absolute risk remains relatively low.

Practice the art of looking for what is being omitted, especially in politics and pseudoscience, and you’ll become attuned to seeing what’s wrong with all kinds of bad arguments, manipulation claims, and misinformation. Before long, instances of selective referencing, data-mining, half-baked reasoning, cherry-picking, false framing, and misleading narratives will be like second nature to you.

Beauty's Metaphysical Reality

 

In my book The Genius of the Invisible God, I have a chapter called The Genius of Beauty. Here are a couple of extra thoughts on the subject that didn't quite make it into the book. Our love of beauty is one of the most remarkable aspects of human experience, and beauty is one of the most stupendous features of the reality we inhabit - especially as there appears to be no evolutionary advantage to valuing beauty at such a deep metaphysical level when it comes to survival and reproduction. Some will try to have us believe that our value of beauty is a mere evolutionary spandrel (a trait that emerges as a by-product of other adaptations, rather than being directly selected for) - but I think this raises several problems, especially when considering beauty's deeper metaphysical significance. Under the spandrel hypothesis, beauty is not something valued as a Divine phenomenon rooted in objectivity, but merely a subjective set of preferences that have been riveted onto our evolutionary legacy without any deeper meaning. 

This is a view that is going to come to grief once we start to drill down into the deeper truths of objective reality. For there is every indication that once we start to think about this more profoundly, we understand a very powerful objectivity attached to beauty, one that seems to exist on a higher metaphysical level to mere personal preference (see my paper on this here). 

Don't get me wrong, the human aesthetic experience of beauty, awe and wonder is of course woven into our evolutionary legacy too, as a complex interplay of adaptive traits and spandrels. And that doesn't mean that, when it comes to apprehension of beauty, there are no goal-making advantages in our evolutionary selection processes - just that they are secondary not primary - just like how an embedded narrative is a subplot within the grand overarching plot. 

Beauty, like goodness and love, reflects something greater than its earthly existence - it bears a resemblance to the likeness or qualities of God. When we encounter beauty in this world, we are tapping into qualities in creation that imitate the Divine in nature; whether that be in truth, in mathematical elegance, in creativity, in love, in goodness, or other properties that have their origin in God.

On The Problem of Political Authority

 

Mike Huemer, in The Problem of Authority, argues that political authority - the state’s supposed moral right to command and coerce - is an illusion. Mike challenges two primary propositions, that of political legitimacy and political obligation: 

1.         The government is entitled to rule over the society, including doing things that would normally (if someone else did them) be considered rights-violations. This is called political legitimacy.

2.         The rest of us are obligated to obey the government’s commands simply because they come from the government. This is called political obligation.

(Mike's words)

One of his central beliefs here is that if ordinary individuals cannot justly coerce others, neither can the state. He concludes that government authority is an unjustified form of coercion, making anarchism - where voluntary cooperation replaces state control - the morally superior alternative. Mike's very impressive; he has been an influential and highly competent philosopher at seriously questioning long-standing assumptions about the legitimacy of state power, and advocates for a more voluntary libertarian society. He's also a jolly nice chap, and has been on my show for a very enjoyable discussion about God's existence (which you can access here).

What about his central beliefs in The Problem of Authority, though - is he onto something? I think he's onto a lot more than many people would countenance - and Mike and I are certainly similar in our advocacy of free market economics and the espousal of general human liberties. And, of course, on the inefficiencies and overreaching of the state, we also concur. But… I don't think I can go as far as Mike in his rejection of any moral authority of the state - I think it's too strong, and that there are conditions under which a central authority and/or top-down central intelligence are/is necessary to maintain social order.

In my book Benevolent Libertarianism, I lay out several ways in which some services and institutions require the kind of large-scale coordination that wouldn't be optimally performed by the market. It's not just the case that the practical challenges of implementing and sustaining a Huemer-esque stateless society are prohibitively complex and costly, I think the end result would be both unrealistic and sub-optimal too. Just because the state is inefficient at most things it does, that doesn’t mean we should abolish it.

Standard economics teaches that services should be provided by the most efficient agent. While the market often outperforms the state in delivering goods and services, that doesn’t mean the state has no role in the cases it provides unique value. Some functions are better handled by the state than the market. The key is not to eliminate the state, but to ensure it focuses on what it does best and leaves the rest to more efficient providers.

Moreover, I won't lay the whole thing out here, but I also argue in my book that abolition of state is a problematic idea on several other accounts, to do with hardwired human incentives, human will, and human nature in general when it comes to power struggles. To take the latter as a case in point, an attempted stateless society would soon see people forming new power structures in hierarchies that would not differ significantly from the state.

Consequently, I do think Mike Huemer makes a compelling partial (perhaps majority) case against the illusion of political authority. But I'd only go so far as to say that the fundamental problem isn’t the existence of a state but its inefficiencies and overreach. I think the purported problem of political authority is not an absolute, totalising problem, it can be ameliorated with a state that is restrained, accountable, and limited to those areas where it is the most efficient provider, allowing human liberty and voluntary cooperation to flourish wherever possible.

Faith Alongside Science

 

Here’s a really obvious statement that is surprisingly not accepted by a large number of people. The primary arguments for God’s existence are not threatened or undermined by scientific advances one jot. And not only that; there is no way an individual could be thinking logically and rationally and even get close to concluding that primary arguments for God’s existence could even be threatened let alone undermined by scientific advance however far science advanced. Its illogicality doesn’t make it sparse; many high-profile public intellectuals believe in it. But this belief is an embarrassing amateurish one to hold philosophically. The gulf between the obviousness of this statement - ‘It’s so self-evident that it’s absurd to think otherwise’ - and the reality that many still reject it, is one of the most absurd intellectual gulfs in human history.

Here’s a better way to look at the relationship between God as Creator and our scientific advancements. God has created a universe with enough uniformity for us to do science, but enough mystery that the more we discover the deeper the mysteries abound. In that created model, there is also a striking connection between beauty, mystery, psychology and scientific truth, which forms a dynamic and healthy relationship between discovery and humility. Just as a good housemaker wouldn’t need to constantly intervene to make the house not fall down, but would expect the owners to maintain things to preserve its quality, our perfect God is obviously clever enough to have created a smoothly functioning system that operates freely on its own mathematical and physical ordinances, but still leaves room for wonder, awe, and the continual pursuit of understanding, knowing that the more we explore, the more we are reminded of the limits of our own grasp, and the infinite wisdom of the Creator who designed it all.

What Will Just Stop Oil Do Next?

 

For a much-needed break from a day and half of book editing - now that Just Stop Oil have ceased active civil disobedience, here are 15 alternative equivalent socially useful things they could do to pass the time: 

1. Chase ducks around the park while making quacking noises to the theme tune of Mission Impossible. 

2. Form a competitive interpretive dance troupe that only performs routines based on melting ice caps. 

3. Start a YouTube channel where they whisper Greta Thunberg quotes to confused houseplants. 

4. Develop a board game based entirely on guessing the emotional state of bamboo flutes. 

5. Camp outside petrol stations and dramatically faint every time a car fills up. 

6. Descend to supermarket car parks, find all the abandoned trolleys, and insult them in a Glaswegian accent. 

7. Spend afternoons dramatically re-enacting scenes from The Crucible using only sock puppets and deep existential sighs, and charge men 11% more for a ticket than women. 

8. Take their grandparents shopping in IKEA and turn their noses up at the fossil-fuel-scented candles. 

9. Host silent discos in public libraries using imaginary headphones and extremely aggressive eye contact. 

10.  Stand on Westminster Bridge and coordinate group farts to the chimes of Big Ben, freshly recreated from the hiss and gurgle of a barista frothing oat milk. 

11.  Open a community art gallery featuring only finger paintings of emotions they’ve never personally felt. 

12.  Petition the government to make every Monday a Saturday and every Tuesday a Sunday, and apply for state funding to research the carbon footprint of pavement shadows made from tall buildings. 

13.  Perform spontaneous flash mobs to pigeons in UK seaside towns. 

14.  Walk backwards in remote Welsh villages for 30 days to undo the mistakes of society. 

15.  Run workshops teaching teaspoons how to embrace their individuality in a world full of forks, knives and tablespoons.

Still Don't Underestimate Old Testament Advances

Following on from all that was said in yesterday’s blog post about harsh Old Testament verses, I had some further thoughts, because it’s good to remember how "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and how our wisdom is bound up in an unshakeable desire for goodness and moral rectitude. Perhaps what seems like God’s harsh Old Testament injunctions are, in fact, necessary sanctions against societies that have become so deeply corrupt and morally depraved over time that they are beyond hope of redemption. Maybe if we could get the truest sense of how far these tribes had fallen from basic goodness and cultural decency – perhaps like a modern day Hamas or Islamic State (ISIS) and the atrocities they committed in the Middle East – and pictured ourselves as being part of the enslaved victims under their cruel tyrannies, we might feel differently about the call for Divine justice to be wrought on the offenders.

You may say that even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain the calls for the women and children in these ghastly tribes to be put to death too. But even if we do ascribe those motives to God Himself (and it’s not evident that we can always do so), it is possible to conceive of conditions under which societies in those times could have become so wicked and corrupt that even the death of the entire tribe can become part of a broader Divine judgement, especially if the alternative of allowing the society to carry on with its wickedness is less preferable to the creation story than destroying the entire nation.

And in response to people who recoil at how harsh God seems to be in the Old Testament compared with the New, I think we have to be careful that we don't look past some deeper truths about what's happening. Because the proper reading of the Old Testament reveals the duality of a) A God who is good and sovereign in a way that's higher than we can imagine; and at the same time b) human beings who are, in a number of ways, much less morally, socially and culturally developed than people of today. I think that's at least part of the reason why some of the Old Testament presents moral cases that modern folk don't necessarily see as being moral. In other words, it's because the societies of the day were so comparably crude, primitive and barbaric that we have to understand how good and sovereign God is if we are to see those judgements as moral.

We might think of the situation as being a bit like a medical unit during an ancient battle zone. In the context of survival in war, with comparable limited resources and knowledge, some of the treatments might seem severe or barbaric by today's standards - but they were administered on the best understanding and tools available at the time. Similarly, God's interventions in the Old Testament, though apparently harsh by today's standards, were administered in the context of what He knew was the spiritual and moral condition of humanity at that time - and severe conditions often require severe measures.

In the end, we must remember that God's justice is always coupled with His infinite grace and mercy, even when we struggle to fully understand it. The Old Testament’s seemingly harsh judgments reflect not only the depths of human depravity but also the lengths to which God will go to protect the sanctity of His creation. God’s actions in those times were not arbitrary or cruel, because He is not arbitrary or cruel, but a reflection of His righteous and sovereign nature, aimed at preserving the goodness and flourishing of the world He had made. While we, with our limited perspective, may find these acts difficult to comprehend, we trust that God, in His perfect wisdom and holiness, was acting in ways that were ultimately for the good of humanity, preparing the way for the ultimate revelation of His love and grace through Jesus Christ. 

This is the same God who, in the fullness of time, sent His Son to bear the ultimate wrath on our behalf - offering forgiveness and redemption to all who would turn to Him in faith. It’s absurd to think that He is cruel and unjust – and only through superficially hasty reading of the texts and historical and cultural contexts could one believe otherwise. 

 

Don't Underestimate Old Testament Advances

 

I find it a peculiar solecism and irony that many people of today will have no truck with the so-called immoral teachings of the Old Testament. It is one of the most abject failings of the imagination. It's true that the tribes in the Old Testament were base and ignoble by the standards of modern Britain or America. But what you have to realise is that they were so bad, in fact, that those prescriptions we read about in scripture are actually quite advanced in the context of the day. They are radical steps in the right direction that, although startlingly under-developed by today's standards, assert moral culpability to nations that previously lacked it in such sophisticated codified form.

Moreover, nowhere else in the world at that time saw those kinds of advancements achieved even by human influence, let alone imparted by Divine revelation. Criticising those Old Testament teachings as immoral by today's standards is as foolish as criticising Britain in the Industrial Revolution for not being as materially prosperous as the Britain of today. In both cases, comparing the alternatives around them, their achievements demonstrate significant contextual advancements.

Truth, Beauty & Power

 

In my writings previously, I have talked about how beauty is connected to truth (see here and here). It’s beautiful to seek the truth, and beautiful things have an extra level of beauty by being true. Special & general relativity, the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio, the double helix of DNA, celestial mechanics and quantum mechanics can be thought of as beautiful intrinsically (especially mathematically) but beautiful on an even higher level because propositionally they are true. Even the 4 billion years of biological evolution on this planet, despite being “red in tooth and claw”, has beautiful mathematical ordinances that underpin it, and beauty in the vast and rich diversity of life we see all around us. Truth in is beauty, and beauty is in truth.

On the other hand, an artist or writer might be able to conjure up a beautiful alternative to Stalinist Russia, or a beautiful troupe of fairies, or a beautiful fantasy world of dragons, legends and myths – but they would be beautiful on the first level, but not the second.

Given the power of truth in beauty, and beauty in truth, I think it’s good to note three further things. The point that there is beauty in truthseeking ought to be very inspiring to us, and encourage us to seek the truth to make the most out of all the good that is on offer. Given 1, it’s plausible that the thrusting reservoir of ugliness, dissatisfaction, anxiety, confusion and division that has flooded our society in recent times has the primary cause of a lack of truthseeking at the heart. Given 1 and 2, it’s as essential as ever to be reminded that God is the truth, and the source of all goodness and beauty – and that the search for truth and beauty is a search for God, much like how a need for light and warmth is really a need for the energy of the sun.

Reply To A Reader: On Why I Think We Can Do Away With The Term 'Gender'

 

On my blog post Why I Think We Can Do Away With The Term 'Gender', a reader followed up with the enquiry: “When people experience the thing that people call “gender dysphoria” (wrongly, in your view), what is it that they’re experiencing?”

This was my reply, which may be of interest:

Ok, admittedly it’s a socio-culturally sensitive one, but if gender isn’t a valid concept, then neither is gender dysphoria – just as if there is no such thing as an elf, then the concept of an elf headache isn’t a valid diagnosis. The best way to tackle matters like this is to tighten the circle – start with what we already know and work outwards. We know some people claim they experience ‘gender dysphoria’, and it’s clear that they are indeed experiencing something real and distressing. But if gender dysphoria isn’t a concept, then their distress does not stem from a mismatch between their non-existent ‘gender identity’ and their biological sex, because, as we’ve seen, ‘gender’ is an ill-defined and unnecessary concept, as per my:

1)     Sex is a perfectly adequate category for defining males, females, and those in the tiny minority who fall into a category that can be defined as intersex.

2)     Everything else that you can put forward as justification for the term gender is better defined under a broader category of maleness and femaleness.

Instead, what they are actually experiencing is a complex range of identity issues, discomfort or dissonance related to factors that are already part of the highly complex human experience of being male or female. They call it ‘gender dysphoria’ because it’s a term that has been incorrectly presented to them via memetic propagation and social contagion. Just as if the next generation became convinced that some of them were elves, then the term ‘elf headache’ might similarly become part of common idioms.

I’ve already said that there are occasional departures from the standard presentation of gametes, and that this represents a disability in formation. But that doesn’t give validity to the term gender. Within the complex range of male and female experiences, especially in instances of strong homosexual inclination (but not just that), individuals are going to experience discomfort with their body and psychology due to natural variation in personality, preferences, or behaviour (as I said in the articles, a male who feels more comfortable expressing emotions in ways that are culturally associated with females, masculinity/femininity, physical appearance, temperament, etc), complex psychological struggles with self-acceptance shaped by societal expectations about those aforementioned traits, and underlying issues such as anxiety, depression, or past trauma that are being processed through a lens of identity as well as mental well-being. But that does not mean inventing the term gender is a solution or helping them.

Imputing the term ‘gender’ is a misattribution for sex and other complex factors – in fact, ironically, this misattribution is impeding more fruitful exploration of the psychological, social, cultural, or biological factors at play here.

Seek Earned Criticism

 

A general piece of wisdom that’s been popularly suggested over the decades is  “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from”.

In most cases, this will serve you well. Think about it; if you wouldn’t trust someone’s advice - because they lack expertise, wisdom, or good judgment - then why let their criticism affect you? Being discerning in accepting criticism helps filter out noise and focus on feedback from credible sources.

However, like most good bits of wisdom, it’s rarely absolute - even people you don’t respect or trust might occasionally have valid criticisms or nuggets of wisdom from which you can benefit from hearing. Don’t take advice from x about y, where x is someone who is frequently wrong about y – is good advice. But x might be occasionally right about z, so be careful not to miss valuable insights.

All that said, if you are the sort of person who is sensitive to criticism, prone to self-doubt or easily discouraged, then it’s prudent not to be bothered or upset by criticism from people who haven’t earned the right to offer it. Sometimes good criticism can emerge spontaneously, almost accidentally, with some insight that transcends the reputation of the character. But by and large, good criticism requires wisdom, knowledge and discernment - so be careful not to get derailed or disheartened by unearned and unjustified criticism from those who haven’t demonstrated the credibility to give it.

20 Albums That Influenced Me

 

About 5 years ago, I partook in the fun social media post-a-thon “20 albums over 20 days that have influenced me in some way”. One popped up on my memories the other day, so I thought I’d compile them into one list for a blog post. These were submitted in no particular critical order.

Day 1 - Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
One of the finest journeys in musical album history – a gorgeous, mystical blend of folk, jazz, and soul, with poetic and introspective lyrics, all projected by Van Morrison’s stunning voice.

Day 2 - The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths
A marvellous exploration of British melancholy, wit, and post-punk energy, all in one. Morrissey’s sardonic lyrics and jangly guitars from Johnny Marr make this an album that’s both intelligent and emotionally raw. The album is a masterclass in creating beautifully tragic songs that still feel empowering. ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ is pure sonic brilliance, and in ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ we have one of the best anthems of the 1980s.

Day 3 - Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd
A masterpiece that redefined the concept of the album as an immersive experience. And the 12 minutes of ‘Time’ segueing into ‘Great Gig In The Sky’ is probably my favourite 12 minutes on any album ever. Their follow up album Wish You Were Here is equally as good, as is ‘Echoes’ from the previous album Meddle. Some of the best rock music ever written.

 Day 4 - Freak Out by Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention
This is a brilliant, raw, acerbic antidote to the soppy, superficial   flower-power bubblegum love songs being churned out around that time! In 1966 nobody was prepared for an album like this - not even the The Beatles or Bob Dylan ventured that far into this kind of courageous, counter-cultural sonic expressionism and intelligent parody of the musical establishment.

Day 5 - Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan
This isn't just the album that got me into great music, I think it got me into music full stop - it made me appreciate the album as a work of art, not just as a set of songs with a few singles and the rest as filler. Amazing that this was released in 1965, before any of the other truly great albums - it is the first album in rock history that creates its own little sub-universe and draws the listener into it. Without it, there'd be no Revolver or Sgt. Pepper, no Electric Ladyland, no Ziggy Stardust and no Dark Side of the Moon.

Day 6 - Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
The eighties killed off many great seventies artists, but thankfully Kate Bush wasn’t one of them. Side one is the most familiar, with the terrific hit singles ‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Big Sky’, the title track and ‘Cloudbusting’. But it’s the conceptual innovation on side two that’s probably the strongest, with a terrific series of songs about a woman going mad in her own seclusion. And yet the astounding 'Hello Earth' near the end is probably Kate's equivalent of Hamlet being "bounded in a nutshell and counting himself a king of infinite space" - knowing there is always hope when we have thoughts and dreams. Very apt for a time like this!

Day 7 - OK Computer by Radiohead
More than any other, this album taught me about music as a 'grower'. When I first heard OK Computer, it came across as a difficult listen. It was a sonic trip that sounded like it was made in outer space, but I admired it more than I liked it. But after about 15 or 20 listens, it began to grow on me, and it started to sound more and more like a friend than an acquaintance. That, I realised, is the multi-layered brilliance of the songs - they have depth; they grow into the listener's cognisance like acorns grow into trees; and they sound fresher with every listen. A remarkable achievement!

Day 8 - Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
There are days when I think this is the best album ever made (although I think those days would be more numerous if Brian Wilson hadn't made the big mistake of leaving Good Vibrations off the album). This album, like all great pop albums, sounds amazing when you first hear it, but it never stops sounding amazing with repeated listens! An album that exhilarates you the first time you hear it, but still seems to grow with every listen is a truly rare and wonderful thing - and Pet Sounds encapsulates that sentiment more than just about any album. 

Day 9 - Can't Buy A Thrill by Steely Dan
Possibly the most underrated band in the world. With Steely Dan you get an agglomeration of most of the other greats rolled into one; The incisiveness of Dylan; the wit of Lennon; the slick polish of Pink Floyd; the melodiousness of Genesis; and the sumptuousness of Frank Zappa. They get everything right on this album, and on their follow up Countdown To Ecstasy, which is nearly as good, but not quite.

Day 10 - Hunky Dory by David Bowie
In truth, apart from Lodger, I could have picked any of Bowie's greats as my choice - from Hunky Dory through to Scary Monsters - depending on my mood and what I'm looking for.  I think that's probably what makes that Bowie period so special - so many great albums that are so good for so many diverse reasons.  

Day 11 - Blue by Joni Mitchell
Amazing! One of the most beautifully honest and emotionally deep albums I've ever heard. And there is an ineffable quality to Joni Mitchell that's not immediately obvious to fathom, in that she doesn't have a classically great voice, but when you combine that voice with those profound lyrics and the exquisite music, it has a combined quality that's hard to beat. I think it's because she uses her voice so magnificently in making it sound like a musical instrument.

Day 12 - Forever Changes by Love
Almost nobody has even heard of this band, yet in 1967 they made one of the best albums in the history of popular music. I saw them live when they came to Norwich, and it was the best gig I've ever experienced.

Day 13 - The Notorious Byrd Brothers by The Byrds
I almost can't choose between The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Younger Than Yesterday the year before, but the former just grabs it on account that it doesn't have the dreadful Mind Gardens on it. Other than that aberration, this is almost perfect pop music! But it's so much more than that - because when you think of the connective chain, six degrees of separation-style, that began with The Byrds, it's incredible what a panoply of great music emerged. I mean, you have all those terrific Byrds albums, at least one really good solo album each from Gene Clark, Gram Parsons and David Crosby; then there is The Flying Burrito Brothers created by two former Byrds; and of course we have Crosby, Stills and Nash (and later Neil Young), from which we get the link to Buffalo Springfield (Stills), The Hollies (Nash) and later Manassas (Stills), and a whole catalogue of brilliant Neil Young solo albums, and several decent solos from Steven Stills too.

That is a *lot* of good music!

Day 14 - Automatic For The People by R.E.M
More than any other music, R.E.M's albums in the nineties remind me of my important friendships - the created experiences of what we used to call 'making future memories now'. Smell is the sense most closely linked with memory, but sound can elicit nostalgia in a way that even the olfactory senses are too low-resolution to touch - and this album is so very precious to me. I think this beautiful album is R.E.M's high point on what has been a fabulous career. Here they substitute the trademark guitar sounds of their eighties material for the lush string arrangements and a greater acoustic feel, and they've never been more profound, sincere and evocative than right here.

Day 15 - Let It Come Down by Spiritualized
There's a mystery attached to Spiritualized: how can a band this good be so under-appreciated by the masses? Sure, without Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and The Velvet Underground there wouldn't be a Spiritualized of this calibre, but even so, few bands in the history of rock music have been able to create the combination of melodic electricity and profound delicate beauty as Spiritualized. Their lack of adulation is one of the cosmic musical solecisms that needs redressing. But in addition, there's a further mystery within the mystery, because even those who do give Spiritualized their worthy regard always seem to vaunt their inferior (but still excellent) preceding albums Lazer Guided Melodies and Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space over this one. The reality is, Let It Come Down, with its 110 piece choir/orchestra and the sonic depth of its guitars, brass and piano is one of the most gorgeous, soulful, deeply meaningful works in rock history.

Day 16 - After The Gold Rush by Neil Young 
Can't not have a Neil Young album in this list - he's terrific. Short and sweet.

Day 17 - In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson
If Tony Iommi sired a love child with Sandy Denny, and that child grew up to read Coleridge and learned to play the flute and mellotron, and they all formed a band, this is what they’d produce. This album is like the musical equivalent of a brain probe that traverses the rich gamut of order and disorder deep in the sub-ducts of personality, where we humans are so much better and so much worse than we can imagine. The contrast from track 1 to track 2 is like going from Charles Manson to Paul McCartney – you almost can’t believe it’s the same album. It’s Iago and Desdemona inside the same cranium. And if you have the software, trim down Moonchild to just the first 4 and a half minutes, and you'll have chopped off the only boring bit, leaving yourself a near-flawless prog rock masterpiece

Day 18 - Transformer by Lou Reed
Not as seminal as The Velvet Underground & Nico, but everyone needs a lost weekend-kind of an album, where we have nostalgia for the old days of Jack Daniel’s, cigarettes, wimmin and the nightlife - and this album is mine. Equally I’m so glad those days have passed – but I’ll always have the enchantment of memory, and this music best encapsulates that reminiscence. This isn’t glam rock, but it’s certainly decadent rock-cabaret. Yet despite the hedonism, there are few moments in music that are more beautiful than the last 45 seconds of Perfect Day, with Mick Ronson’s glorious string arrangements and piano. 

Day 19 - The Beatles
It's impossible for me to single out one Beatles album, as they all mean so much to me. I know you understand, because, let's be honest, what these guys did was quite remarkable: it takes some special ability and creativity to make a series of albums like these that pushed the boundaries of musical innovation further and further away from the competition, yet still remained wholly commercially appealing to every kind of demographic. Dylan, Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin - they all enchanted subsections of their potential target listeners at the expense of others - whereas The Beatles charmed everyone in a feat of intelligent populism that seems highly unlikely to be emulated ever again. There are no other albums in the world quite of this magnitude, whereby the music satisfies an almost impossible triumvirate: 

1) Of being able to be carefully absorbed on the stereo, with the listener concentrating on every note as they become immersed in the album as a work of art operating from within its own little sub-universe. 

2) As background music while they do other things like work or entertain guests. 

3) Or as a hit factory, where most of the songs on every album are indelibly stamped in the public psyche as singalongs in the car, in pubs, at parties, etc.

 It takes some kind of brilliance to achieve all three of those qualities on one album – but the Beatles managed it at least five times in one decade, so I'm picking them all!

Day 20 - Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant
One positive thing about relationships from yesteryear is that the good music survives long after the romantic residue has gone back to the dust. A past girlfriend of nearly 20 years ago had this terrific album by Natalie Merchant, and I thought it so good that I immediately went on to play.com (remember that website?) and bought her entire back catalogue, and ditto the 10,000 Maniacs (her antecedent band). It’s one of the most impressive back catalogues, yet so rarely appreciated as much as it deserves. Just listen to a song like The Letter – at just 2 minutes 12 it perfectly captures sentiments we’ve all felt, with the most beautiful simplicity, you wonder why no one has ever written it before.

The Maze and the Watchtower: Seeing Beyond the Illusion

 

Irrespective of whether I like someone or how I feel about people as individuals, when it comes to most of their highly partisan left or right-wing political views, beliefs or rhetoric I encounter, I simply do not trust the conclusions they draw or the reasoning they attempt to employ to get them there. I believe that some highly partisan political commentators have good intentions, but I have little confidence in their ability to discover that they are part of a large, complex game of power, manipulation, deceit, and self-serving narratives designed to obscure the truth.

First, here’s an important preliminary quote from a recent Blog post about why politicians lie way more than you think:

"There are generally two ways to lie. One type of lie is called suggestio falsi, which is the suggestion of something which is untrue or deliberately telling an untruth – such as about where you were last night, about breaking something and blaming someone else, about not being at an event you claimed you attended, and so forth. The other type of lie is called a suppressio veri type of lie, which is concealment of truth – such as failing to disclose conflicts of interest, ignoring information about negative consequences, not revealing the true costs of policies, and so forth. Because suppressio veri lies are less blatant and slipperier due to the ambiguity of what they omit, they are harder to directly confront, more widespread, and therefore the most insidious and destructive kind of lies told in society. And they are mostly the kind of lies that underpin the political system – they are habitual tools of manipulation that erode trust and exploit people's assumptions, allowing politicians to shape narratives and control perceptions without outright fabricating facts. In the way that politicians craft the squalid art of omission and indirect duplicity, it could be argued that they, and the media that amplifies and legitimises their distortions, are society's biggest liars."

Now, I don’t like to be overly-bivalent in my analyses of societal phenomena, as I prefer a more sophisticated, nuanced analysis that considers a wider range of perspectives and complexities. But to the greatest degree, I really do think society is made up of two groups of people; those who have figured out what the system is like, and those who remain in its thrall. I acknowledge that this comes in degrees, but only up to a point – the reality is, once you’ve sussed out the trick and seen through the illusion, you can never unsee it. I think of it as being like a maze and a watchtower. Most politicians, most of the media, and the public who’ve bought into it all, from whatever side of the political spectrum they happen to place themselves, are controlled by strings inside a complicated maze, being guided through its dead ends and wrong turns, relying on signs of manipulation placed within the maze to have them believe they’ve been directed through their own volition and competence.

Those enlightened few who can see the maze from the watchtower can see the bigger picture; they can see the extent to which those inside the maze are bought cheaply to protect the interests of those who pull their strings, where their outcomes are frequently aligned with the agendas of their funding sources and political thrall. I’d actually go so far as to say that virtually everyone who is pushing for some kind of left or right wing political agenda, party political partisans, tribal in-group mentalities, so-called social justice warrior narratives, wokeism, identity politics, or culture war distractions, has been bought or compromised in some way, and they unknowingly serve the very power structures they would vehemently oppose if they could see beyond the snare.

Within the maze, there is a ladder leading up the watchtower – it’s the ladder of authentic, uncompromised truthseeking – but few dare to grasp its rungs. Many don't even see it is there, or don't recognise it for what it is, because it looks like too much hard work to reach. And the watchtower at the top of the ladder is not one small, isolated viewpoint - it is a vast, elevated expanse of interconnected insights - a profound vantage of extraordinary clarity, where the exposed realities of the intricate web of power, manipulation, ideology, and human susceptibility converges into a comprehensive awakening. From this grand perspective, the maze below is revealed in its entirety, and the forces that shape and direct it become unmistakably clear.

And it's important to remember both the conditions under which one finds oneself stuck in the maze, and the plight of being trapped there. Residents are contending with the elephant and the rider problem (see Haidt) - where they are driven by the emotional elephant, and where emotions frequently take the lead and steer our rationality, not the other way around, with the rational mind struggling to justify decisions made impulsively by the emotional mind. Instead of rationality guiding emotions, it often serves as a tool to justify what the emotional elephant has already decided. Furthermore, they are also contending with the fact that there is a divide between left and right wing ideologies that is often deeper than mere social influence, and how much the left and right are genetically predisposed to their beliefs, as differences in moral priorities appear to have a heritable component, where genetics predisposes people to certain orientations and beliefs. Add to that the fact that online content algorithms amplify this effect by feeding them material that aligns with their preexisting views.

As they consume content that supports their biases, they are pushed further into ideological silos, deepening the divisions within the maze and making the ladder of truthseeking even harder to recognise. These predispose them further to actively seek out views and content that already align with what they believe, where they search for mirrors that reflect and reinforce their own biases, and gravitate toward views that validate their existing beliefs, leaving them trapped in a cycle of confirmation bias and self-reassurance. And to entrench them further, tribalism fosters loyalty to one’s "side" - whether political, social, or cultural – often at the cost of critical thinking. Running around the maze, they seek to defend their group’s beliefs and narratives, not because they’ve diligently critically evaluated them, but because dissent feels like a betrayal of their identity. 

Moreover, the maze amplifies their illusion of competence - the Dunning-Kruger effect - where they overestimate their understanding of complex issues, and mistakenly feel more informed than they actually are, emboldened to make confident assertions while ignoring the limits of their knowledge. And as those pulling their strings tug a bit harder, they remain subliminally motivated by fear and in the shadows of the maze, while all the time believing they are a force for good, acting with near moral certainty, convinced of their own righteousness even as they unknowingly perpetuate the very dynamics that keep them imprisoned. They remain fully sold on the labyrinth’s paths; blind to the watchtower, they embrace their imprisonment with the zeal of willing convicts.

I think most individuals are trapped in the maze, navigating its endless twists and turns without ever questioning its design. A smaller minority have begun their ascent, partway up the ladder of truthseeking, striving to rise above the confusion. And then there are the rare few who have reached the watchtower – where, through a determined effort to learn the truth, they are elevated to a level where they can see the maze for what it truly is and understand the forces that shape it.

Net Zero: Created By Madness For Madness

 

You know by now what I think of Net Zero – it has been “one of the most widespread Dunning-Kruger ‘Mount stupid’ delusions ever wrought on modern societies” - and it’s good to see that Kemi Badenoch wants to do away with it – and probably deserves to win the next election on that alone. 

She is right to call out its adverse effects on living standards, and the ridiculous financial burden of Net Zero policies on UK citizens, particularly in the energy sector. The UK’s artificially hasty push towards renewable sources, coupled with a failure to develop domestic fossil fuel resources, has resulted in some of the highest energy prices globally, and it is rightly making British folk mad with indignation. Because of politicians’ short-sighted economics and preening attempts at virtue-signalling, UK citizens are saddled with rising household inflation and escalating industrial production costs, leading to accelerated deindustrialisation, and bigger consumer struggles to make ends meet. The UK deserves better.

That the UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves refers to climate policy as the "economic opportunity of the century," merely keeps reaffirming the same mistakes and the same painful realisations that most politicians do not understand basic economics (see my Green/Environmentalism side bar for much more on this). One of the main things they don’t get is that jobs are a cost, not a benefit – in other words, labour is an input, not an output. If something requires more labour to produce, it means fewer resources are available for other productive uses. Moreover, if government mandates force businesses and households to invest in expensive, less efficient green technologies, and pay more for their goods as consumers, this diverts resources away from other sectors of the economy, which are classic misallocation and inefficiency errors in economics. A true economic opportunity reduces costs and increases productivity, and Net Zero policies do precisely the opposite.

Knowledge of price theory brings the basic understanding that prices reflect scarcity and consumer preferences. If renewable energy was as efficient and cost-effective as politicians claim, it would outcompete fossil fuels without such radical government intervention. In reality, subsidies, mandates, and regulations artificially distort prices, creating hidden costs that mostly go under the public's radar. Higher energy prices raise production costs across all industries, leading to reduced competitiveness and real income losses for consumers. And government-driven investment in green industries often crowds out private sector investment in more productive activities, leading to a lower return on capital. And, to rub salt in the wounds, the precipitous transition to Net Zero increases costs for businesses, who then pass these onto consumers, which further erodes purchasing power.

If Rachel Reeves really did want to pursue the true "economic opportunity of the century", she would pursue policies that lower costs, improve efficiency, and allow freer markets to converge upon the best solutions without so much government misallocations. Instead of Net Zero mandates, a market-driven approach - where innovations emerge based on actual consumer demand and price signals - would be far more beneficial. Instead, politicians are merely shifting costs and distorting markets.

I know some will allude to precautionary mindfulness around market failure, and state-based initiatives to jumpstart technological innovation, but these pale in comparison to the superior efficiency, adaptability, and wealth creation of market-based approaches. The counterarguments are the exception not the rule. Market failures are rare and trivial in comparison to government failures, which are frequent and more destructive. Real economic opportunity and, in fact, greener societies, come from increasing efficiency and productivity, not artificially inflating employment in sectors that only exist due to subsidies, regulations and political posturing.

The Mental Health Dilemma

 

There is an "overdiagnosis" of mental health conditions, says Health Secretary Wes Streeting, where Generation Z are giving up on work, a new study suggests, with almost four in ten considering leaving their job and ending up on benefits, and many people already in that situation. We all probably know quite a few people who are playing the system; people who don’t work and probably could work, where the state is funding their lifestyle; and we all probably know people who are too unwell to work, and rely on justified welfare support, and are not getting anything like the support they need. Blanket solutions are problematic here, as every situation is a case by case.

The overdiagnosis issue is a complex matter to solve, because what we have here is a Type 1 and Type 2 error problem. A Type 1 error occurs when a diagnosis wrongly identifies someone as having a mental health disorder deeming them unfit for work, when they really could and should be working. And a Type 2 error occurs when there is a failure to identify a mental health disorder that is actually present.

By and large, the UK is a very risk-averse, interferingly cautious society, where we’d rather be awash with Type 1 errors to guard against Type 2 errors – that is, by analogy, we’d rather let off ten guilty people than see one innocent person go to jail (see my Blog post on Blackstone’s ratio). Type 1 errors are becoming ever-more predominate in many areas of society – from trans issues, to online censorship, to climate change policy, to free speech impediments, to race, equality and diversity policies -  and it seems clear that we are probably predisposing ourselves to increased Type 1 errors occurring in the domain of mental health, which are highly likely to be far more numerous than Type 2 errors. Additionally, because it’s both empirically harder and riskier to fail to diagnose a mental health disorder, or accuse someone of exaggerating a disorder, or suggest that their troubles could be overcome with more personal responsibility, we’d expect Type 1 errors to dominate.

If too many people are wrongly classified as unable to work, the results will be a shrinking workforce, higher welfare costs, lower productivity, and a greater burden on taxpayers. Some are saying we’ve already reached that point, and things are destined to get far worse if this continues. 

I don’t claim to have easy answers to these highly complex problems – but it’s certainly something that a nation shouldn’t be afraid of addressing, because the long-term consequences of this could be severe - not just in terms of economic stagnation and an overburdened welfare state, but also in how we perceive work, personal responsibility, and resilience. Ironically, of course, failing to address an overabundance of Type 1 errors by erring too heavily on the side of caution can itself be an example of the very same Type 1 error under examination. It's a feedback loop where the excessive risk aversion perpetuates the very problem it seeks to prevent. A Type 1 error of Type 1 errors.

Further Reading: Exploring Mental Health