As much as I loved 300, this isn't about that. I was reading this article by Austin Bay and remembered something I was thinking the other day. For all the fuss about "mercenaries" recently related to a columnist at the Washington Post, there have ever been only two kinds of soldiers: slaves and mercenaries. We chose mercenaries when we discontinued the draft and I see no reason to go back. Up the pay to soldiers if supply is too low and be proud that we have an army where they "volunteer" for money instead of "serve" at gunpoint.

Objects in Space is an episode of the fantastic show by Joss Whedon, Firefly. I'll be writing about themes from the show that struck me as Conservative, like their economic structure, their opposition to Humanism, the remarkableness that they had, as their moral guidance, a Protestant preacher, but that's for a future day. I've just finished watching the commentary to the episode Objects in Space and I wanted to put down my thoughts.

The "artistic" theme of the show involves two insane people in the episode, River and Early. River was experimented on in a nefarious plot, and Early is sadistic, but in an unusual way. What distinguishes them from the other characters is that they have much keaner appreciation objects as physical beings bereft of their function, remoevd from the meaning our human minds bestow upon things by knowing what those things are commonly used for. This bestowing of meaning is foundational of what distinguishes human thought from, say, Artifical Intelligence (AI) because we are able to create for ourselves models of our world, whereas AI typically accumulates facts and then searches these facts for connections without ordering it, but these two, because they are unique - even if somewhat regressed in their understanding - present a unique challenge to the members of the crew. If all of humanity thought this way, there would be no civilization, but when confined to these two, it seems as if they are capable of incredible insight.

His monologue is fascinating, and it reminds me why I'm simply not a very good engineer. Though I didn't then have the vocabulary to discuss it, this was my very understanding: that because I don't easily understand objects as "objects in space", but rather things with function, I'm less capable of using them in ways that they are not designed for. It is a remarkable scene, for me, in Apollo 13, the engineers are capable of constructing an air filter out of the objects to be found in the capsule, despite none of those objects being a manufactured "air filter". I ran into the same trouble in the machine shop in school; I was frequently blinded by the vast difference in function between a "block of metal" and a "hinge" that I frequently failed to see how similar they were physically, so shaving off the bits of metal that would transform a "block of metal" into a "hinge" was something that took a lot of mental anguish.

It's also something I struggle with in Accounting, although it's something I believe I'll do better with. In Accounting, distinctions are made between "money", "money", and "money". I mean money is different in some situations than in others. Money is basically the opposite of value; it flows in the opposite direction of what we value, but isn't valuable by itself. We can't eat a nickel, but we can use what money can be traded for. In this way, we can quantify the value of one thing against the value of something very dissimilar. We can compare apples and oranges, literally. So, Accounting doesn't just track money; it tracks real things using money as the measurement of them. And it makes distinctions between different types of value. There is money that arrives regularly, called Income, and things that can provide Income, called Assets. There are things that can suck money away, called Liabilities, and money that simply goes out, regularly and without end, called Expenses. Now, when I buy a pair of sneakers, they are an Expense, simply the cost of owning a human corpus. One must keep coverings on the lower bits. A pair of sneakers to a athlete, however, can make them play better and so increase their Income; to an athlete, sneakers are an Asset. Here, a real thing is measured differently and causes the numbers on a Balance Sheet to move differently, simply by changing our conception of them. By changing the meaning we "imbue" to them, amazing things are suddenly different. Learning to exploit this, as I grow as a business-man, is currenlty fascinating me and making me more content to wait to start my own firm.

What concerns me a little is his assumption that this is unique to "Existentialism". (Perhaps "interests" is a fairer term; I'm not that worked up really except with a hope that he'll fair as well as anyone before the Creator.) I don't  remember where I read this (I don't believe that it was Mr. Whedon; likely it was the book Finding Serenity edited by Jane Espenson), but I read that there is concern that leaves many people lost because, if objects exist independent of the meaning we give them, we are left with the choice between meaninglessness, accepting an absolute reference for an authoritative "meaning", or accepting our own meaning as the only meaning relevant to us. This conception of objects as independent of meaning, in fact, is exactly and explicitly Christian belief. "Rape" is only evil because God said so. Without His giving such a meaning to the action, it is nothing but a particular type of intercourse. It's interesting that, of the 10 Commandments, only "God is the authority" (forgive my paraphrasing of 1) is absolute. All of the rest are dependent on circumstance and intention. This is the root of my somewhat excessive rejection of the King James translation; translating of sixth commandment as "Thou shalt not kill" rather than the more-accurate "Thou shalt not murder" confuses the issue. "Murder" is a specific type of "kill", distinguished by the meaning given the action. Killing in war is not murder; killing in self-defense is not murder. This is the same relationship that "adultery" has to "sex" and "lying" has to "talking"; an action alone cannot be a sin. Dennis Prager once called this "situational ethics".

I love this show. It's television and it only lasted half a season. But its consistently full of deep ideas, expressed beautifully and accessibly. And virtuously. In this episode, there is an explicit difference made clear between River and Early: River and Early both see a gun as nothing but a particular configuration of steel and they both know how to use a gun to cause lethal damage to another human being, but Early puts himself above the pain of others, rejecting "good" and "evil" and River embraces that Good and Evil are different and chooses to recognize that difference and chooses Good freely. That, in the end, is just right.

This article brings up a good point, at least to my mind. When I was a senior in college in 2002, a fraternity brother of mine had a similar experience as the VT killer. He would travel with one of the girl's sports teams (I can't remember if it was soccer or lacrosse, but I believe it was in the Spring) because he had a friend on team. Now, I only have his side of the story, which, as you'll see, is part of the problem. One of the girls' fathers noticed him at the games and complained to the coach that he was "stalking" his daughter. The girl, by my friend's report, didn't complain and objected later to the following events. The coach, without believing the charge, was required to forward the complaint to the university officials. The University was then had the University police, incarcerate my friend and bring him to a mental institution, where he was examined by several psychologists, who all believed he was perfectly fine. He was then examined by a University-paid psychologist who, according to my friend who claims to have seen the doctor's notes, wrote down outrageously false statements inferring to him thoughts of suicide and murder. He stayed in the hospital for a few days. When he got out, he tried to contact the girl to indicate to her that he meant no harm and she replied that 1. she hadn't complained and 2. she and the rest of the team had been warned that they were not permitted to contact him at all nor were any of them allowed to testify in his defense. He was expelled from school, though he was allowed to reapply for the following year. I lost track of him after this. He was never allowed a lawyer or the opportunity to defend himself or call his own witnesses. It was never reported in the school or city paper.

Now, he my friend was eccentric, but I don't believe he was a threat to anyone. I also don't condone mass-murder as an appropriate response to most anything. But, at the same time, I'm not sure how seriously I'd take the history of the VT killer to be exactly what we're told it is.

UPDATE: Well, I finished the article and it appears the part I was referring to was supposed to be a speculation from his point of view. At the same time, all we know is falsifiable "official" things like "restraining order" and "hospitalized" which are basically meaningless in the modern university, where eccentricity is a punishable offense, and the reactions of a few instructors who don't specialize in psychiatry. Obviously, they were right, but I'd be interested to know more whether teh alienation could have been causal or correlational. We're talking about a autist, someone with extraordinary difficulty expressing emotions to begin with.

Four words for this movie:

Best. Fight. Scene. Ever.

The only draw-back is I'm going to have to call my saintly old Gram, and 80-odd year old lady who took my family in after my parents' divorce and for decades was the local church secretary in Center Ossipee, NH, population: not-so-very-many, and apologize to her for some of the things that made me laugh so hard I have a sore throat.

In appropriate for anyone under 45 for violence and language, and one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

I just finished David Eddings' Saphire Rose for about the fourth or fifth time. After almost a year and 3 volumes, the hero returns home to his Queen's palace and walks in on a conference where they are having the classic argument: fix the streets or the highways. It always does my heart good when the hero picks the highways.

Sales people get a bad reputation all around the world as liars. But salesmen don't have to be lie to sell and everyone sells in everything they do. An actor's audition is really a sales call, selling (or renting) his talents. An IT consultant, like me, when he has an design idea better than his clients, has to sell that idea to the in-house developers, and I don't do it for money I do it in exchange for building the idea I think they want more than their own. I was talking to a friend recently about TV networks and heard their motives best described as selling shows to the viewers for ratings and then selling their demographics to advertisers for money. Pundits have the same double-sales idea, where they have to sell an idea to the public and then sell that grassroots support to the politicians for laws (and sell the listener demographics to advertisers so they can do it again tomorrow).

I think that's why talk radio only really works for conservatives. Neal Boortz has his theory in Somebody's Got To Say It, and I think greater logic in the arguments is a big deal, but the larger point is made here, in SPIN Selling. The most persuasive way to sell big ticket items is to listen. The sales cycle on big ticket items (the time between you first approach them and when they buy) is much longer, so you can't just fool people. Listening lets the salesman address the customer's real concerns and not just make them feel good about the purchase for the few moments it takes to get them to the check-out counter.

Talk radio lets people feel listened to; a columnist doesn't. So it sells ideas better to people who consider their vote a big ticket item.

This was posted today at the Free Exchange blog. My first reaction is, "I don't think so". The premise seems to be that welfare states can work in Europe, but not in America, because of cultural differences. Obviously, I'm posting at Townhall, so the "not in America" rings true, but I'm not convinced it can even work in Europe. Even if Europe is working better with a welfare state, that doesn't mean it'll work as well as a markets approach. Europe's not really my beat, so I guess in the end I don't really care, but the very next post makes more sense. Europe is going to realize someday that it's being walloped economically by the free market. The question is, can it figure it out before or after it becomes a Sharia nation through demographic shifts.

In fantasy, there are three main character archetype: the Sorceror, the Warrior, and the Scoundrel (sometimes called the thief). I was thinking today again about how valid this seem to be. Are nations and national characters also subject to these characterizations? I was thinking today, does that make theocracies like Iran and ancient Israel Sorceror countries, Europe, with their militant kings, knights, and chivalrous past, Warrior countries? I think that makes America the first (and maybe only) Soundrel country.

In many modern fantasy stories, where the setting is allowed to move from Medieval times to the Renaissance (like in the Belgariad), the Soundrel changes his vocation from Thief to Businessman. This is accurate; supply-and-demand is irrepressable and the greatest thing about free markets is that it allows the most resourceful members of society to find employment within the laws and the constructive restraints it provides. Government-controlled economies, like Feudalism and Socialism, are notorious for their Black Markets. And, when the government does not use its access to force to take sides in business, the Scoundrels in society are too busy competing with each other to harm the populace. "When the dog and the cat fight, the mouse wins."

I'm happy and hopeful to join the ranks Bilbo Baggins, Han Solo, and Prince Kheldar of Drasnia. It'll be great fun and I think it's the greatest wisdom of our country to embrace the Scoundrel while not trusting him.