what is common sense?

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe,  we will be discussing what it means when we say "It is just common sense that......"

What is common sense?

Is it daily observations of our world that we all get and accept so that we assume everyone else should know and think the same as we do?

When should we not expect others to agree with our observations? (in other words, the sense is not common?)

Is it something so accepted by us that we do not question the validity of our observations? Should we question more of what we take as common sense?

Maybe our common sense is influenced by the social norm around us, that it is common sense that we should dress "properly" for the occasion. In this case, is common sense being used as a reason to not question social norms?

Is common sense being use as a reason to stop discussion and inquiry? How do we respond to the argument that it is just common sense?

If we disagree that something is common sense, how do we defend our case? By taking a poll?

Is commons sense being use by the majority to overwhelm the opinion of the minority? Is the majority always right?

Maybe common sense is similar to axioms in logic and mathematics. Geometry started with the concept of lines being the extension of a point and parallel lines do not meet each other. These are starting points that is difficult to ask "why".  Yet from these simple concepts comes all the various theorems of intersecting angles and big body of geometry with useful applications in the real world.

How do we know which common sense concepts are axioms and which are not?

Should we use common sense as an explanation at all?

8-Aug-12 Tyranny of choice, when is more choice not good for us?

Next Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe,  we will be discussing whether too much choice is counterproductive and actually bad for us.

Modern society is built on freedom and from this we infer that more choices means more freedom, therefore must be better. It will also be better if we get to have freedom of choice more often.

Barry Schwartz wrote a book "The paradox of choice" arguing the opposite, that we have passed the point that more choice is a good thing and that more choices (and freedom) are now a problem for the developed world.

Here is his video on TED from 5 years ago summarizing his position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM  (use this link if the above video do not work for you)

Do more choices shift the blame from the world for not making jeans that fit (when there was no choice) to ourselves (for not choosing the right one when there is so much choice)?

Is having more choices the reason why our expectations are so high making us easily disappointed?

Should professionals like doctors take a more prominent role is deciding our treatments than making us weigh treatment options that we are not completely familiar with?

What about the cost of having these choices.  There is no free lunch,  the supermarket that provides more choice generally have higher cost, therefore higher markup and prices.  Should we be shopping at stores with lower prices and less choices?

One of the human weaknesses in decision making described in the book "Thinking fast and slow" is that we tend to just look at what is in front of us when we decide.  What the author call "What you see is all there is".  Do more choices get around this weakness?

I also think that the more choice we have, the more our attention and resources are sucked into choosing what is just in front of us and we become oblivious to other more important things that is happening around us or just our of our sight and senses.  Can we avoid reading product label after product label when the information is there even if this is just for a can of soup while precious time is slipping away?

Should we challenge the notion that we are always better with more freedom?

Barry Schwartz did not offer what the right amount of freedom is optimal.  How would we know when we reach that optimal and start ignoring or limiting our choices after that?  Can we resist?

Meeting on assassination missions

We had our Ideas Cafe discussion this evening on whether assassination missions can be justified.

We started off with some definitions with Ted's help.  Assassinations always have a target, usually a politically prominent person.  It is different from a terrorist act where the purpose is to kill and create fear with no particular target person in mind.

Richard started off with the premise that killing another human for any reason cannot be justified.  It therefore follows that a planned and premeditated killing by assassination is definitely not justified.

Mano said that the rule of law must be followed.  Someone cannot just decided that another person should be assassinated and go do it. The act itself needs to be judged by laws applicable or at least in the international court.

Ted felt that assassinations can be justified in extreme cases but all other avenues must be explored first.  If the Iranian president is to be a target of assassination because of his claims of using nuclear weapons on Israel, then at least we should bomb the nuclear facilities first.

Shula then pointed out that in bombing the nuclear facilities, some other unnamed person (and likely more than one) will likely die as a result.  Which means that these people are being hurt because they are nameless just so that the real source of the issue, the president, is spared.

Dan pose the example that if he is the dictator of country and he makes his own rules that allows him to mistreat his people,  then there is not much point to judge him by the law of his country.  The United Nations as a rule are reluctant to get into the internal affairs of countries.

There is also the issue of the international court not being participated by every country.  Is it a truly international court if important countries like the US do not agree to be part of it?  Why should anyone be subjected to a court system that he had not agreed to be part of?

Rafi said that we cannot rule out killing as a deterrent. If we unilaterally declare that we will not kill for any reason because we respect human life while our enemies have no hesitation in killing us, then we put ourselves in a defenseless position against them. 

Mano mentioned the example of the anti abortionist who justify to himself that he needs to assassinate the doctor doing abortions in order to save the many unborn fetuses.  This thinking is no different than the utilitarian or conventionalist argument of using assassination as a way of minimizing future damage to innocent victims.

Mano also feels that most of us are law abiding citizens and he theorizes that assassinations likely involve the two extreme segments of society:  One segment includes those in the bottom, desperate and with nothing left to lose.  The other segment is the ones in the very top, who thinks that they are either above the law or that they know better than the rest of the "little people". 

This discussion reminded me of the discussion on spies and undercover policeman where they are by definition, lairs because they are hiding their true identity.  They have to do it in order to deal with segments of society or foreign governments, both of which are not following the rules of the country.

With assassinations, we run into problems of which law is in force, dictators that make their own laws and abuse their citizens, other cultural or ethnic value and believe systems. There are no stardard agreed upon frame of reference to judge.  So we revert back to might is right as a last resort to protect ourselves against others who are used to operating that way.

We like to be in civilized society with rules to ensure stability.  However, the real world outside is anarchy if we cannot get agreement to go by the same set of rules.

Messy but that is the way it is.

1-Aug-12 Can assassination missions be justified?

This Wednesday, we will be discussing assassination missions.

Can it ever be justified?

If so, under what criteria?

Do dictators who do not respect democracy and the fair judicial system also forfeit their rights to a free trial?

Can we afford waiting for the slow gears of due process while there is great humanitarian suffering under dictatorships?

Bin Laden, Saddam Huessain, Gadaffi; would the world be better off if they were assassinated? Is that the criteria for deciding?

Who decides?

Did Saddam have a fair trial?  Is it possible to have a fair trial under the mob mentality so prevalent when years of dictatorship change?

Can we reason with dictators or should we join their value systems of might is right and fight it out?

How do we justify the continual suffering of the victims while we try to have due process?

Or are assassinations just a simple act of revenge?

Bring your ideas for our discussion this Wednesday!

25-Jul-12 Equal opportunity for all, should the gifted be overlooked so that we can help those in need?

This Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe,  we are discussing more issues about competing choices.

We all feel for those who need help, whether it is someone encountering a spell of bad fortune, a student who is lagging behind the average, or just the down trotted in out society.  It will be a very cold and impersonate community if we don't.

Who knows, we may be among them some day by sheer stroke of bad luck.

We can see and feel for their suffering and difficulty.

How about the brilliant students who excels in class without any help at all.  Surely they can manage on their own while we take care of the ones in need.  They are already so far ahead of the class average.

But how much better still will these good students be if we do spend some attention on them instead of leaving them alone.  Or worse, will these bright minds get bored while we are tending to those lagging behind?  Is a program for gifted children the answer and if so, is it getting the proper support in relation to what is assigned to learning disabilities?

Are we suffering from blindness to how brilliant these good students will be if we invest some time versus how bad the laggards already are at present?

Should our society as a whole support the achievers among us with some of our valuable resources now at some expense to our needy so that they can contribute even more to our society and allow us to have more resources to help those in need later? Will the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of this world do more for us if we have more infrastructure, encouragement for them?

Help for the needy, investment on the promising; both are unending demands to pour our resources into without ever feeling that we have done "enough".

Our politicians would like us to think that they have done both with a fine balance while the demands from social welfare, education, research and development, and industry promotion are all saying they need more.

Other than continuing to do what we have done before, is there any other way of establishing the balance in these competing demands?

Is this a question of emotional pull on our compassionate heartstrings versus hard nosed investment economics?  After all, in our own personal lives, we somehow managed to spend money on  entertainment to sustain our sanity while we ignore some of the many humanitarian causes around us. We even manage to save some money as well!

Maybe comparison is the answer.  In the 70s, the general health of the Canadian male was put to shame by comparison with the typical Swede 10 years older which resulted in a general awareness of the need for more exercise and better diet.

If we can evaluate an elusive quality like health by comparison, perhaps we can compare other illusive qualities that way?

What if we are all off the mark, and the blind is leading the blind? That the typical healthy Swede can be even healthier?  That we can have a much much better society than others if we will put up with several years of welfare pain for more money to spend on the needy later on?  Or the reverse, put up with a decade or so of economic hardship and risk of losing our brightest while we build a compassionate society and great place to live ?

11-Jul-12 Is it wrong to pay a pro to be your bridge partner?

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe,  we are going to discuss things that are challenges to our concept of "fair play".

My wife likes to play bridge.  It is a game that involves two opposing teams of two. It is the weak member of the team that determines the level of play as the better player cannot do any more then what the weak play does.
 

So it shouldn't matter if someone brings along a bridge pro to be their partner? Everyone can learn from the pro and theoretically, the pro cannot really be an unfair advantage as the weak partner is the one that determines the level of play. But somehow, it does not feel right.

Concern parents hire tutors to help with their children's academic progress.  Is this unfair to other children who are expected to manage on their own?

Examination bodies publish past exam questions which are used as reference for people preparing for the exam. Is this unfair to others who study for the sake of acquiring knowledge rather than passing exams?

How is fairness in sports and games determined?

I understand that there is a lot of scientific research going into fishing lures. The scent, color, movement of the lure in the water, are all well researched as fishing is big business. How "fair" is it to buy one of these lures to go catch fish? How much credit can one claim when the poor fish goes for this super attractive lure?

If boxing is separated into various weight classes to make the opponents better matched, then why is basketball not separated into various leagues based on the player's height?

 What is the difference between performance enhancing drugs and plain good nutrition for athletes? Are vitamins and other supplements okay so long as they are not too effective at improving the athlete's performance?

Is the practice of identifying future Olympians early in their childhood and dedicate their youth to training for Olympic performance fair to other "amateur" athletes?  How much training is an unfair amount of training for an amateur athlete?

In law enforcement, is it "fair" for radio announcers to broadcast where the police has set up speed checks to catch speeding motorists? It has the intended effect to have less speeder be caught but it also slows down motorists who may have otherwise driven faster.


Should radar detectors be allowed?

Similarly, my gps warns me of intersection camera ahead presumably so I will avoid getting a ticket for running a traffic light. Is that reducing the practice of running traffic lights at the camera locations but at the expense of more light running at the intersections with no cameras?

How are these practices not considered obstruction of justice?

Shouldn't we be on the side of the police who is trying to help all of us?

What is the foundation we use to judge fairness?

Meeting on pardoning criminals

Last evening we had an interesting discussion at the Ideas Cafe on the practice of pardoning and removing criminal records from people who have served their time and have since been in good behaviour.

It was inevitable that we got involved in details of what is the current practice in Canada which none of us if sure of. But the more interesting discussion was with the overall handling of people who have been judged to have committed an offense against the law. 

Richard suggested the view point that criminal record is a fact and we should not in general be suppressing facts of what had happened.  It is better to look at the person as a whole including his/her criminal record and the kind of challenge they face and the adversity they had to overcome.  The person with the criminal record may well be a better employee/volunteer/friend because of the life experience gained through the process.  Pardoning and eliminating the criminal record only provide a false picture of this person.

There was general skepticism that our society is not ready for such frankness, that human resource department will automatically exclude people with criminal records without an interview and people's judgments will be unfairly biased.

Shula further pointed out that in peer review of academic papers, the practice is to have the author anonymous  so that the reviewer will not be bias by professional jealousies and other personal preconceptions.  So facts that are not relevant are best kept away to prevent bias that we all have.

Richard also suggested that atonement with the community affected by the crime is a better way of integrating the offender back into society.  For the offender to come face to face with the damage done, victims affected, and hopefully eventually come to be at peace with the community that they have offended.

Shula put forward the view that she would not want punishment for the crime to be affected by how attractive the victim is.  That the law is to judge the crime itself in terms of the act in order to preserve equal justice for perpetrator of all such acts without consideration of how powerful or beautiful the victim is.

Tina agreed with Richard that atonement with the community is a good way to go and that the court can hand out the judgement and sentences but that atonement with the community is a healing process for the offender to recognize what was done as well as for the community to accept some of the circumstances leading to the offence.

Raffi raised the difficulty of defining the community affected and the people to be involved in such a process, that perhaps in our current society, it is difficult to have people involved.  Besides, the community affected is no longer just closed geographical circles.  It can be international in scope for white collar banking crimes and the victims are sometimes difficult to define.

Through this discussion, what stands out to me is that the general public needs to know more about this subject as my perception is that the majority looks at having or not having a criminal record as an indicator of the probability to re-offend. Most don't realise that a small infraction such as being caught owning a small amount of marijuana in their youth may leave a criminal record for life and that hard crimes resulting in bodily injury can be pardoned after the offender have served time and in good behaviour within a set waiting period.

Richard also brought up the point that historically, pardon has been granted to participants of rebellions as a way of moving on after an uprising.  Mano also mentioned that sometimes the justice system with its rigid set of rules can lead to a dead end and pardon is a way for a higher authority to exercise judgement on these situation.

This is somewhat opposite to Raffi's view in favour of having professional jury as is the case in some European countries.  Raffi felt that having common citizens as jury may end up with examples like the OJ Simpson case where the jury discarded DNA evidence because it was too new a practice at that time.  A professional jury with some training in logic and fact analysis will make a better decision here.

The problem I think, with a process that is overly professional without everyday citizen involvement is that it risk drifting away from what common citizens see as relevant to their lives. Professionals go by rules of engagement but it is the common citizen that can raise the point that the rules themselves may need to be revisited from time to time because the outcome is not relevant to what the whole justice system is about.

Lots to think about and we didn't even get to Sandra Zhou's comments !