The Top Ten Reasons I Hate Clickbate: Number Four Will Have You Reeling

            Okay, so this isn’t actually a top ten list, not that there is anything wrong with list styled articles, I actually quite enjoy the format when they are well written. Unfortunately, they are rarely well written. They use dastardly tricks to lure you onto their page. Sometimes tantamount to lying. Many an article will feature a photo or snippet in the description which is construed completely differently than in the actual body of the piece, if indeed it is even present at all. And once you get to the page, often times the writing amounts to about one page worth of text spread over a slow loading, sixteen-page slideshow with stock photos that add nothing to the already bland content. So why are we overrun with these types of posts? Because ad revenue is based off of website traffic, and forcing clicks creates the illusion of more traffic, rather than just producing quality material that would result in returning readers. So yes, the content is usually worthless, yes, the authors probably know that, and no, they do not really care. As long as people keep clicking, the website keeps generating traffic, and they keep getting paid.

It really is a metaphor for modern society when you think about it. They took a system; traffic based ad revenue, and they manipulated it to generate profit without actually requiring the effort of building up veteran clientele. Really it is just optimization. It is what we as humans do. We test a system to determine what is the minimum amount of effort we can put into it to get the maximum benefit out. In some cases this is a very good thing. Fuel for instance. Give me the most energy for the least amount of fuel, the most miles for the least amount of gasoline.

In entertainment, however, it just leads to oversaturation of unoriginal ideas and the consumer suffers. It is how you end up with 200 channels and nothing to watch. Music labels for are another culprit, having popular song writing down to a T. There’s a reason seasoned musicians with a wealth of talent, a flurry of fresh ideas, and a couple decades of practice go unknown, overshadowed by the likes of random television actress who can kind of, sort of sing. The labels have professional song writers that know just which three chords will get stuck in your head. They then throw it over a catchy beat and everything else gets fixed in post.

As long as it makes money, it works in their minds. As for me, I just do this for fun. Creativity still shines through, because the will to create can be just as strong as the pull of money. Some lucky talents might even get rich off of their originality. It happens every now and again. For now, however, I have just one request. Please stop with the clicking. If an article takes you ten minutes and thirty-five clicks to read, it’s not worth it, no matter how intriguing that cut-off topic sentence was.

-AMS

Why Can't Good Enough Just Be Good Enough?

            The scenarios: you are told to give a presentation for class; you are being evaluated on your performance at work; you are performing your rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins” that you have personally arranged for one violin.

            The performances: you give a good presentation that effectively communicates your point while engaging your audience; you successfully and professionally complete your work task while utilizing time efficiently; you artistically capture the spirit of two violins playing harmoniously on a single instrument.

            The results: in every case, you are told your performance was good and then are given “constructive criticism” on how it could have been better.

            Don’t get me wrong, constructive criticism is important, particularly when your performance is subpar. Or perhaps, the performer is dissatisfied with their own level of performance and requests your feedback so they can incorporate that into their own, already constructed, plan of improvement. My constructive criticism of our society so obsessed with perfection, is to sometimes leave well enough alone. Say, “hey, that was really good.” Notice the period at the end of that sentence. There is no “comma but.” Why can’t good enough, sometimes just be good enough? I liked your presentation, you may have a seat now, who is next? This constant push for improvement belittles our successes. Not only that, constructive criticism is rarely constructive. You can tell me that my concerto lacked soul, but that is just vagueness packaged as a comment. You can tell me that you think my tempo in the allegro movement of the concerto was inadequate to properly express the intended mood and contrast the previous movement. While such a criticism is indeed specific and workable, it is useless if I happen to find a quicker tempo detrimental to the development of unique timbre.

            Improvement comes with time and practice, and beginners thrive on advice, but there is a shift that comes later. Someone who is already adept at a skill learns through others, not by way of comments, but observation, implementation, and self-correction. If you want someone to give better presentations, don’t tell them they could have used more eye contact. Have them watch renowned presentations; have them give more presentations; have them watch their own presentations. They will see what worked and what can be improved. If you want to give a great presentation next time do it four times before your actual performance. Try your jokes out on a friend and see what flops before you are on stage. You don't need them to tell you if your joke was good, just see if they laugh. Also realize, you will probably never be giving a TED talk, so if you can keep an audience off of their phones for ten minutes, your presentation was probably good enough.

            -AMS

What Should I Write About?

In the absence of inspiration, what information could confer self-confirmation? Only when we create, does mental inebriation replace the exacerbation that would otherwise be a stipulation of the monotonous confrontation, between those who pretend to care, and those just can’t bear. When we wont wear, relief comes with rest, and sleep, and dreams that tear the reality of the mundane, where others complain, but abstain from forming formal formulae for foresting forgone forte, with trees of inspiration, seeds of contemplation growing roots as a foundation for the developing nation to undergo a change in conformation from a societal expectation of normality to individualization and stigma ablation, underneath a sky of refreshed precipitation, transpiration hydration and solar inspiration nutrition feed fruition and leaves, so relish the trees, embrace the accidental keys, the dissonance that frees the inspired from the creativity freeze griping the land, burying the demand under snows of emergency and catastrophe, as if elasticity had anything to do with harnessing electricity. Power the world today with the ideas of tomorrow, despite the need, despite the sorrow, despite what obstacles beg for your attention, a daily detention of creation will break the tension and free your mind from its descension into maddening unmention. Create. Share. Appreciate.

            -AMS

The Futility of Frugality

           Financial responsibility. Some of us have it and some of us don’t. And as always, there is that one person that just takes it way too far. Look, if you’re really going to stand here and argue about a fifty-cent coupon while there are people waiting in line, I will just give you fifty cents to go away. Still, with all of the people boasting about how much money they save by reusing tea bags (although honestly, switch to loose leaf tea and enjoy life a little), how much happier are the frugal spenders of the world.

            It comes down to tradeoffs really. Money is essentially credit for goods or services you traded to others, allowing you to claim your return good or service at a later time, and in any manner you choose. You think your spending $3.99 on a burger and fries, but it’s actually a complex web of trades wherein you provided your employer with a service for some amount of time and in return received societal credit that your employer determined fair compensation for your time (it probably wasn’t, just saying). The eatery providing the aforementioned sustenance then determines how much societal credit is equivalent to their staff providing food, cooking it, and serving it too you (In this case, I would say it is a fair trade).

            Now when it comes to saving money, you’ve really got three options. You can either obtain the same good or service for a lower price, obtain an inferior good or service for a lower price, or forego the good or service entirely for no price. Option one is great and should always be taken advantage of whenever possible. If you can’t tell the difference between a $200 bottle of pinot noir and a $10 bottle during a blind taste test, then who are you really trying to impress? Of course, this is rarely ever an available option. Your $1 Hershey’s chocolate bar is never going to hold a flame to single source, fine chocolate, but it will save you $3-4. Whether this is a fair trade or not is for you to decide.

            What makes this all the more complicated is that one must factor in extraneous factors beyond simply the price and taste of the chocolate. If the only place that sells quality chocolate is 5 miles further away than the more convenient store, this will play into your decision. There are also your personal ideals. Perhaps you can’t tell the difference between fine and economy wine, if buying a fancy bottle makes you feel $190 worth of better then to you it might be worth it (although at that point I think you might have self-esteem problems). Personally, I detest a certain large chain grocery store for its abominable business practices. For me any money I could save shopping there is more than made up for by my personal beliefs.

            I will now temporarily digress with a joke before returning to my point about determining worth. A man regularly drinks beer after work. His wife, fed up with this habit, asks him how much he spends on beer a week. Extrapolating that back over the past couple decades she determines that were he to not drink beer after work he would be able to buy a Ferrari by now with all of the money he would have saved. The man counters buy asking his wife how much beer she drinks a week. The wife smugly replies that she rarely ever drinks beer. The man then asks: “where is your Ferrari?”

            Now let me ask you what is worth more in your opinion, a Ferrari or lot of cheap beer? The answer might at once seem obvious, but keep in mind what I mentioned earlier about extraneous factors. It is not just cheap beer, it is relaxing after work with something that comforts you. In the case of this man, it is that feeling every day over decades. The balance may seem to be shifting now, so let me personalize it. I don’t drink cheap beer, but everybody has something. Perhaps you purchase coffee at $2 a cup when you can make your own for about a dime. But of course, you don’t always have a coffee pot handy when you’re out at the mall or taking a fifteen-minute break before you have to get right back to work. Maybe you buy fancy lotion that smells amazing, even though most people’s skin stays adequately moisturized on its own. Think about your usual purchases that you could probably cut out but never do. Think about what those are really worth to you.

            This brings us to the last point, forgoing purchases altogether. Everyone has that friend that never wants to spend any money when they hang out. If this person is cripplingly impoverished, perhaps this is a smart move. However, often times the person is just choosing frugality over living life. They say the best things in life are free, but let’s be honest, nothing is free. Someone still has to pay for the car and gas to drive to the national park and take that lovely nature hike. Plus, who do you think is paying to keep those parks up in the first place. There are your taxes at work. I am not advocating for spending irresponsibly, nor saying that you must purchase things to have happiness. In fact, research shows that experiences provide much more lasting happiness than material possessions. But here’s the catch, experiences usually cost money too. So, while you absolutely should forgo that Coke at the restaurant, because it is not going to kill you to drink water with your nice meal, if anything it will make the food taste better and save you some severe health complications down the road, (seriously soda is horrible for you), but you should not forgo the restaurant. Dining, especially with good company is one of the finer things in life so enjoy it. And if you are American, water is free here, and that is not true of most countries, so enjoy that too.

            -AMS

Blame It on My Faith in Humanity

            It is easy to witness a phenomenon, say a person being blamed for their own rape, and say to yourself, that is just awful, how can people do that, I would never act like that. And this, my friends, is one of the biggest problems of victim blaming. Not that people think it’s awful, but that people can’t conceive of other’s doing it.

            Now some cases are black and white. No one is blaming the person killed in the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center for his own death. “He really brought it upon himself, I mean what did he expect when he decided to go into work that day?” No, the justifications usually come in when the perpetrator is humanized. Clearly the man sitting in his office on floor 63 tapping away at his keyboard had done nothing to antagonize the plane that struck the building. And no one short of an extremist, is justifying the extremist measures of the parties responsible for organizing and carrying out the attacks for the sole intention of taking lives and inciting fear. But that rapist, you played football with him in high school. He seemed like such a nice guy. There is no way that he could actually do that to someone.

            Enter the good guy. The guy that has faith in humanity. The guy that lends you money for gas because maybe you do have a family emergency and are down to your last dollar with 40 miles yet to go. This is the guy that cannot conceive of another human actually committing such atrocities. I admire this guy. Sometimes I am this guy. But sometimes, this guy’s faith in humanity is shaken when someone breaks the rules of basic human conduct.

Our brains are made to organize the world into neat little boxes. And when something doesn’t fit into one of the boxes, we change the thing so that it does. It’s much easier than going out and getting a new box. So, when I am unable to fit the rapist into my box of expected human behavior because they are simply to vile, I try to change them. I try to change the rapist into something else, something that fits nicely.

Maybe the rapist was under the assumption the sex was consensual, maybe the victim did not make clear enough, their discontent with how the night was progressing. Maybe these things fit better with my perceptions of humanity. After all, people can be overzealous at times, and there are plenty of examples from my own experiences of someone falsely believing, that their hints were clear as day, even to someone as oblivious as myself.

So, let’s fix this and stop the victim blaming. I guess by crushing everyone’s faith in common decency. No, that doesn’t sound right. Oh! I know, let’s just all be commonly decent people. It’s great in theory, but that plan never seems to work on the implementation side.

How about some real advice in lieu of a real solution? While we can’t completely eliminate victim blaming any more than we can eliminate trusting people or cynics, we can at least offer support. For most of the people reading this, you are neither a cop, lawyer, nor judge. Victims of crimes, don’t need you to be either, that is what cops, lawyers, and judges are for. So, if someone comes to you as a victim, don’t worry about teasing out their story, trying to see the other person’s side, or even giving them unsolicited advice, no matter how useful you might think it is. You can do all of that on your own time. This, however, is their time, and what they need is someone to listen and support, and you can do all of that without ever making a decision about who is really to blame.

-AMS

Why I Didn't Read Chapter Four Last Night

Teacher: “Okay class, your homework for tomorrow is to read chapter four from the textbook.”

Student: “Sweet! No homework.”

            Today’s topic is efficiency. While not exclusive to higher education, it is certainly a prime example of a realm in dire need and will be the focus of this writing. Let’s look at the above example. Anyone who has ever gone to college, even just for a semester, has been given the assignment to read an entire chapter from a $200 textbook, with no further direction or questions to answer. The instructor simply requests that the students read the chapter. The instructor then spends the next class delivering a lecture on the material covered in that chapter, but in a much more concise manner, with emphasis put on the items that that instructor finds particularly pertinent. The wise student, will quickly notice, that the benefit from reading the material before being presented the same material is not worth the additional time and effort to actually complete the reading. This is especially true, when the student is taking other classes, with real assignments, as well as working, and trying to fit food and sleep into the equation somewhere too.

            So why don’t the readings offer any benefit? First off, they’re dreadfully boring. Anyone who has ever read a textbook can attest, that the authors provide such immaculate detail, that a description of something as tedious as reading a textbook chapter can go on for what seems like four pages. I’ll spare you this level of detail and limit myself to one, but the point I am trying to make is that the same information could be presented in a much more efficient manner. One might question the validity of a textbook written in bullet point format, but the information is much more readily retained by the reader, and additionally, since textbooks are almost exclusively used as a supplement to instructor led lectures, there is really no need for such detail. For instance:

• ·       Textbook chapters are long and overdetailed
• ·       Instructors typically cover the same material in class the following day
• ·       Lacking any real direction, students often get little out of reading an entire chapter

Now take a minute to compare what you just read to what you just just read. Both offered essentially the same information but the latter took significantly less time to read, and you would probably retain more from it. Plus, were you to have any questions or want any further clarification, you could just ask me next class, though I do plan on expanding on those points in the lecture anyway.

To sum up this detailed account of concision, I would like to make the claim that the inefficiency of most college curricula could be removed without significant loss in the quality of knowledge, and would likely lead to increased retention, and certainly prolonged interest.

-AMS

What Has Happened to the Neighborhood?

            I was born into a great neighborhood. The people are mostly all pretty nice, they are strong believers in individual freedom, and generally work very hard to preserve the community and help out those in need. But lately, there has been a notable change in the air. The people don’t say hello like they used to, the fund raisers that seemed to go every other week have all but stopped, and there has even been a spike in crime around the neighborhood. I used to love living here, but now I can’t go out after dark. My parents have even been looking into other neighborhoods with houses for sale. I couldn’t imagine moving, but I am forced to ask… What has happened to the neighborhood.

            I have only lived here for the short seventeen years of my life, but this is my home. I take pride in it. There is a sign on E Main St. that says, “founded in 1810.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine what life was like here, way back then, but I imagine it was not quite as wonderful as it has been during my time here. This being Alabama, there were most likely slaves and slave owners, not to mention the whole War of 1812 thing. This town was all but certainly built on the backs of people I wouldn’t much care for, or at least those they made labor for them.

            I of course, had nothing to do with the founding of this town, and I know full well that feeling guilty for any of its history is ridiculous. I live in the present, and as far as I am concerned, that is the only time in which this town has ever existed. Of course, in the present state of things, I wish I could go back in time just a little bit. The cause of the current downfall is mostly contributed to the shutdown of a large factory that used to account for about half of the employment of the entire town. Again, I had nothing to do with the decision to shut down the factory, and I don’t feel as though I played any part in this town’s arrival at the downtrodden state it is currently in. After all, I am only seventeen.

            We watched a film in school that showed the period of man amid the entire history of the planet Earth. By comparison we have been here for but the first half of an eye blink. My life in this town is not quite that brief, but nor has it been as consequential. Man has manipulated the earth more during their time than any other organism since the production of oxygen that nearly rendered the place desolate. I am just a school kid that plays in the band and occasionally donates to charities when they have something good like a bake sale. I will never be mayor or a priest or any pillar of the community. I plan to become an accountant and live a modest life with a wife and two kids. Hopefully by then the neighborhood will have found its second wind. Of course, if my parents “do” move, I will have to somehow adapt to a new life. I can still be an accountant with the wife and kids, but I would have to do it somewhere else. I’m sure it will be nice there too, though.

            -AMS

Why Write?

            Some might say it is crazy to spend hours of your life each week dedicated to writing works that maybe a couple dozen people read. So why do it. Why sacrifice your precious time to creating something that few appreciate? The answer is, what else are you going to do. In the end, when your life processes come to a halt and the presence that society has come to know and appreciate as you is now a mere memory, ever fading with each passing moment, what will you have left behind. The obvious answer for most would be children, and I won’t argue against this. Children are creations that simply come to take on their own role in the creative process. But aside from offspring what can you honestly say you are leaving behind. The rights to a bank account containing numbers, perhaps a house or a car that will later be sold or perhaps destroyed. If you truly ask yourself, what is my legacy, would you be happy with the answer?

            There are many forms of creation. Children, as I had mentioned, any form of art, be it visual, musical, textual, or otherwise, one could even create an organization or a business. Creations need not be tangible or even functional. The only thing a creation needs to be is created. To whom a creation is dedicated or for whom it is created is at the sole discretion of the creator. Often musicians will credit crowds with their success and tell them that what they do, they do for their fans. My work has virtually no fans, nor is it dedicated as such. I would, and be it the case will, continue to create my works on a regular basis from now throughout the foreseeable future should my entire fan base dwindle to my own views. My reason for this is that I can say with perfect contentedness, that I am proud of the work that I have done, and happy with the life that I am leading.

            So what is wrong with consuming and participating, why this need to create? There are, of course, those who appreciate art, and those who participate in organizations, some very noble ones at that. These people may even be content relishing in the works of others while offering nothing of their own but support. I am not going to tell you that either outlook on life will lead you to a better or worse outcome. I only insist that those who have never lived a day in the life of a creator take a chance and make something. Anything. Write a short story or learn an instrument. You don’t need to start your own business, just develop an initiative at work and propose it to your boss. Your creation could just be a recycling bin in the break room. It sounds unrewarding, but that recycling bin might be there long after you retire or change jobs. Eventually, employees won’t even remember a time when that recycling bin wasn’t there. You likely won’t be the next Beatle or Stephen King, but anyone can be recycling bin guy.

            -AMS

No No Your Honor, I Only "Tried" to Kill Him

            In the American legal system, there exists a troubling ideology, that asserts one’s actions are somehow more pertinent than their intent as to whether or not, and to what degree said person warrants correctional services. But of course, there also exists the inane notion that correctional services should take the form of an avenging punishment. So perhaps it makes sense that our society makes a distinction between a criminal’s actions and their motives. After all, no one has ever uttered the phrase: “I hope that rapist gets adequate therapeutic care while serving a reasonable sentence for his crimes, and then reintegrates seamlessly into society having gained an appreciation for the societal constructs we have put in place regarding one’s right to feel sexually secure in a societal environment. Furthermore, I hope that he comes to terms with his actions and uses his experiences to educate about, and advocate for, a sexually non-hostile society.” Of course, such an utterance would be completely misplaced within a casual conversation, but I feel quite confident that the layman’s equivalent, is equivocally scarce. But, I digress.

            Let me return to my title with a scenario. Imagine, if you will, two different men, in two different dark alleys, robbing two different strangers, for two different sets of personal affects. Now imagine each man is armed with a firearm. Let’s say neither victim agrees to part with their belongings, perhaps the thought of life without their smart phone for a day was simply too much to bear, and the alternative of suffering fatal bullet wounds sounded like sweet relief from the drudgery of experiencing the tangible world for several hours. Each perpetrator reacts with the same intention, to kill the person standing between them and their new smart phone. Both victims suffer significant wounds and are abandoned in the alley. Emergency responders attempt to resuscitate both victims. One man survives, but the other does not. These two men, each committing, essentially, the same act, are now facing separate charges and looking at a significant disparity in sentencing.

So, I ask once again, why distinguish between the attempting murderer and the successful murderer; the drunk driver that hits another car, and the one that drives into a tree; the burglar that hits a rich man’s house, and the one that, to his own dismay, finds himself in the house of a poor man. The point is to correct bad behavior, not punish based on outcomes. The dog that chews on your slippers needs the same response as the dog that chews on your 14k white gold watch that was handed down to you from your grandfather. Incidentally, locking the dog in a kennel will do nothing to correct either behavior.

-AMS

The Truth About Shields Is...

Two men stand across the room, eyes deadlocked, hands unwavering. Neither so much as blinks an eyelid, for an instant is all it would take for the twitch of a finger and the loss of a life. Arms bore, and sights set, neither can foresee the other’s true intentions, and so dares not lower his weapon.

In the absence of a true shield, one must defend with one’s sword. They say the best defense is a good offense, but I disagree. Tai chi would teach that agility and manipulation of momentum are the best offense. You can only brute against the sword for so long, but it takes little more than a single step to cast an attack aside. Weapons do not win wars, but neither so, do soldiers. Wars are won through endurance and manipulation of resources.

Run! Run until you cannot physically take another step. Run until you fall to the ground, your legs completely devoid of the energy necessary to maintain an upright posture. Try as you may, any man would give up long before they ever reached this state. The human mind is a quitter down to its core. We conserve. We cut our losses and give anything to go back to some level of comfort.

To win a war, you need not kill all of the humans on the other side, you simply need to wear them down. Take them from their families for long periods of time. Teach the other humans that the ideals on which they sent their pawns marching are not being realized as easily as they had imagined. Their biased utopia will remain, but their will to fight for it will quickly fade. Soon they will give anything to simply stop running, take to the ground, and catch their breath.

The chess master knows how to win the war, he is experienced, he is calloused. He knows not of the battles that make up the war. He sees only the path to the king. He will happily trade every pawn in his arsenal for another queen. Monarchy is a pyramid, though. The queen must be supported by a base of ever growing size. A world of royalty would find its residents helpless and at the mercy of the few pawns left alive who still knew how to reap the crops and bake the bread.

On the battlefield, however, there is no foresight, there is not even hindsight. There are only two men with the fate of each other’s lives in their hands. There is only this moment when they must face the prisoner’s dilemma. Do you trust your fellow human, such that you both reap the rewards, or betray him knowing that he would do the same and you are better off a murderer than a corpse?

Of course, this is all to be expected. It is, after all, human nature. Killing is only murder when it is done in one’s own name. Killing on the bequest of a government is a service to your country. We know this is so, because the other humans do it too. We cannot not kill them, lest we be killed ourselves.

So, those men, standing across the room, a moment each from death, will not lower their arms. They will not call upon their fellow human for a truce. They will not even leave the room, knowing that outrunning a speeding bullet is much easier when the rate determining step is the human reaction time. No, they will stand their ground and pull their trigger.

They will then spend the rest of their life telling themself, that they had no choice but to outdraw their adversary. They will speak of this day, as the day they defended themself. They will make their sword into a shield, lest they have to bear the burden of knowing that their fellow human was never going to shoot. Their fellow human was afraid, torn between self-defense and murder. Their fellow human was hiding behind their sword in lieu of a proper shield. The truth about shields is… that shields do not kill.

            -AMS

Self-Inflicted Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease

            In this life, there are a myriad of things out there trying to kill you. As a species, we humans have gotten pretty good at preventing most of those things from killing us. We have shelters that protect us from other animals. We have ways to generate heat to fend off the harsh winter chill. We even have pills that you can swallow, that then dissolve in your digestive tract, release chemical compounds that are subsequently absorbed into your blood stream, and then those chemicals selectively kill organisms within your body while leaving your own cells unscathed. Humans have greatly shifted the leading causes of death through medical intervention. Yet it begs the question who deserves this medical intervention. There are debates about serving the poor, the isolated, the aliens, but the focus today is on the self-inflicted.

            Naloxone is a drug that can be used, in the event of an opioid overdose, to save that person’s life. Some dissent the use of naloxone, as they feel that drug overdoses are self-inflicted, and that somehow effects whether a person deserves to live or not. The logic is that the person brought this upon themself and should suffer the consequences of their own actions. The problem, however, is that those making this argument seem to forget the introduction paragraph in which I mentioned that human deaths have largely shifted over the years. There are still people killed every day by things completely outside of their control. On the other hand, smoking, poor diet, lack of physical activity, these are all lifestyle choices. So, before you judge someone for their inability to kick that pesky heroin habit, remember the thousands of people who couldn’t even lose forty pounds. While we may be doing well on reducing stigma against overweight individuals, the stigma against drug abusers is still very prominent.

            This stigma, unfortunately, carries over to the pharmacy all too often, an area I am intimately familiar with. Prescription drug misuse is a very real problem in the United States, however there is one very important thing to remember about drugs of abuse. Not every person using a drug of abuse, is abusing that drug. One statistic put prescription drug misuse at around fifteen percent of prescription drug users. While that number is disturbingly high, one must not forget that every statistic has two sides. Always remember that eighty-five percent of prescription drug users are using legitimately prescribed medication as directed by the doctor for the purpose of curing or alleviating a medical condition. So, while there will always be people that lie or steal for the purpose of obtaining prescription drugs illegitimately, they are in the minority.

            -AMS

The Metrics System

            Oh boy! An entire blogpost dedicated to why the United States should switch over to the metric system. Wait, why is there an “s” at the end of metric? No, this isn’t a post about switching over to the metric system of measurement. Honestly, I am pretty sure everyone that has ever traveled outside of the United States would agree that the switch is long past due, and the only reason, I believe, that we haven’t yet made that fateful transition to the base ten method, is the expense associated with changing all of the speed limit signs. Of course, we also have to change all of the speedometers as well, although most modern cars have the capacity to switch, or have dual displays. No, this post is all about the use of metrics as they apply to a job site.

            I have already talked a lot about how the education system has become so bogged down with standardized tests, that the teachers don’t even have time to teach anymore. Well, unfortunately education is not the only field that has been burdened by the cold, unbiased judgement of a job metric. Take fast food restaurants for instance. They are measured on how quickly each person is moved through the line. Now, of course, it is fast food, so I understand wanting to emphasize quick service and ensure that your employees are trying to maintain that standard, however, there are many situations that may chance happen, and the metrics never reflect these circumstances. For instance, what if one man decides to order one hundred fifty-four combo meals out of the blue, because he is feeding an entire staff, and a last-minute change in schedule (or lack of common decency) didn’t allow for him to give advanced notice. Surely the staff cannot be expected to get this man through on time. And, even if his particular datum is disregarded, the labor dedicated to his order would still take a toll on the rest of the orders slowing down the overall time.

            More ridiculous than these measures of output however, are expectations of input metrics. Sales, for instance. Many corporations put expectations on their businesses to make continually growth. First of all, one cannot control the level of demand for a particular product or service for a particular geographic. Secondly, an expectation of continual growth equivalates to infinite growth. Even if your service is so efficient and your quality so superior, that you take control of the entire market, you will eventually level out. You can’t rightfully expect someone to visit the same store four times in one day.

            Let’s talk about the problems with these metrics. As I have already said, they do not account for extenuating circumstances, and explanations of such bad data typically fall on deaf ears. More severe than that, is the effect the metrics have on the employees. Job stress is too often related to meeting unrealistic metrics with undersupplied labor allowances. This equates to jaded employees and an overall decrease in moral. A decrease in employee attitude, of course leads to, and here is the kicker, dissatisfied customers, and an overall decrease in business.

This becomes even more problematic when these metrics leech their way into more sensitive areas, such as healthcare, public safety, or, as I said before, education. The problem with metrics in these fields, is that, while the customer might always be right, the patient/patron/student should always come first. Businesses have to put themselves first sometimes in order to stay profitable, which is, obviously, crucial to maintaining a running business. Public services, however, even if (unfortunately) privatized, still have an expectation to act in the best interest of those they serve, as it rightfully should be. I, personally, feel that none of these fields belong in the private sector, but until that day changes, I still will hold them to a higher standard and can only hope that the free market will side with me on that.

-AMS

Figurative Smiles

            The problem with the world today, is that everyone knows what the problems are with the world today. Everyone knows that our healthcare system is a nightmare, that our schools are underfunded, that poverty is still widespread, and that violent crimes still take innocent lives. What about the good things going on in the world today? If you have ever heard the advice, to smile while answering the phone, it supposedly improves your overall demeanor and makes you come off more personable to the other party, despite the fact that they will never actually know that you were smiling. As ridiculous as it sounds it does work. So why don’t we expand that advice.

            What if everybody was smiling all the time, always? Well then, our faces would hurt from overworked cheek muscles. But what if, and hear me out here, what if we all smiled metaphorically. This is probably tired advice, but trust me it is underutilized. I know because I have lived in the world. Now, I don’t expect the guy ringing out my groceries to build a deep relationship with me. I know that if I see that guy again next week, I probably won’t even recognize him, but we have all had that run in with the person who dare not speak a word that is not absolutely necessary to the immediate job at hand. Is it really that hard to throw me a “Hi, how are you doing today?”

I would like to take this time to briefly berate every company that has mandated their employees use a standardized greeting. (Hi, welcome to _____). It reinforces the brand, I get it, but it is fake and the world knows it. Also, I know where I am. I didn’t wander in here blindly without intention. So, for everybody that works customer service, or everybody that interacts with persons who work customer service (read everybody), here is the secret. Charisma is a characteristic, but personability can be learned. Want to improve yours? Try this. Throw them something unique. Everyone says “Hi, how are you?” Be the person that instead says “Isn’t it a great day today?” Don’t say “I’m good,” rather, say “I’m fantastic.” People largely tune out everything you say to them, because they think they know what you are going to say. So, say something different. Pull them back into the interaction. Don’t believe me? Try this then. Ask a hundred people for a dollar. Then ask a hundred people for 73 pennies. You’ll make more money the second time even though you’re asking for less money.

Now you know how to be a better person. If only everyone did. There are of course those people that are just angry at the world. No matter what you do they will never be happy. What do you do with them? My advice. Kill them with kindness. The nastier they are to you, be that much nicer. Something wasn’t done correctly take responsibility and apologize profusely, even though you likely had nothing to do with it. Be so apologetic, that they feel bad for being dissatisfied. Of course, there are limits. Some people just take things too far, and the only thing you can do is confront them. Let them know that they are a burden on you and everyone else involved and that their behavior will not be tolerated. Everyone is entitled to one bad day, but some people just need to be reminded that employees are all people as well, with their own problems and their own bad days. I know that took a negative turn at the end so let’s all put on a nice figurative smile and have a first-class day.

-AMS

Body Weight: Optimization, Denial, Acceptance

            Optimization in food production. Optimization in regulation of hunger and energy utilization. We have done the first and evolution the second. Humans haven’t always had easy access to food. It is hard to get fat off of scavenged fruit, and deer tend to run away when you try to eat them. So we store. We store food, yes, but that was not always an option. So we stored energy. We ate what we could, then stored the energy until we could manage to trap another rabbit. That is in the past. This is the future, and the future has shelves. Seemingly endless shelves stocked with food. Cases of produce that don’t even grow in this climate. We have truly optimized food production and storage. The proof? Twenty billion dollars, by some estimates, spent in the United States for the sole purpose of eating less food. That is a market that I am sure did not exist two millennia ago.

            Well here it is, the secret to dieting for all who have been dying to know. All diets work, but dieting doesn’t work, the only way to reduce fat through metabolization is to consume fewer Calories worth of food than the number of Calories of energy you exert.

Please also notice how carefully that previous sentence was constructed. Calories are not something that you consume. A Calorie is a unit of measure of energy. It is also capitalized on purpose. A Calorie, as we know it, is synonymous with a kilocalorie or 1000 calories. The true number of calories in your food is simply a property of the food, denoting the amount of energy that can be produced in the form of heat when the food is literally burned.

Why don’t diets work? because a diet is temporary. Your diet needs to change in order to effect a change in your body. Any diet that reduces caloric intake can be effective, but it must be maintained.

            What about those magic diet pills? They don’t work, plain and simple. Pills can’t increase your metabolism, not safely anyway. Your metabolism is strictly regulated in response to your activity levels, amount of stress, the external temperature, and other such factors. Any significant increase would come with significant side effects. The medications that are actually proven to help with weight loss work on the hunger signals in the body to reduce cravings. They are also prescription medications and are not available online or through phone order.

            What if I don’t want to lose weight. Our society has done well to promote inclusivism. You should not discriminate or shame people based on innate properties of their person. Here’s the thing though. Body weight is not innate. A refusal to strive for a healthy weight is, of course, one’s own choice, as is the choice to smoke cigarettes. It will also certainly lead to health complications and an overall decrease in life satisfaction just like smoking cigarettes.

            There is a dangerous tendency for persons with unhealthy habits, such as maintaining an excessive weight, to be in denial about the extent of their problem and the inevitable effects it will have in the future. Even worse, however, is the tendency I have seen, for such people to accept their problem. To say I am obese and I am okay with that. I am never going to change. These are the people who have given up on themselves. Let me be clear that I do not think people should be shamed for their problems. We don’t know their story, and the heroin addict is certainly not going to stop using because he gets called a junkie. Do not expect me to support his drug habit either. For as long as someone is engaging in an unhealthy behavior they should be encouraged to improve their lifestyle.

            -AMS

Eat Your Vegetables, They're Good for You

            The problem with genetically modified foods is… that there is yet to be determined any actual problem with genetically modified foods. A trend in the United States these days, is for people who have access to cheap produce to rebel against our privileged lives by choosing to spend excessive amounts of money on the same foods. I know what you’re saying, it’s their money, what do you care what they waste it on? I agree, except for one inadvertent problem. People don’t like to do research.

            With all of the criticism about our schools not teaching life skills, perhaps we need to put some more emphasis on learning on how to find facts from unbiased sources. There is currently no substantial data to suggest that genetically modified foods, foods treated with pesticides, or foods that contain gluten are harmful to the average person. Why, then, do so many people steer away from them in favor of much more expensive versions? They hear horror stories from enough sources to think that they are dangerous. They might not even remember the stories, they just become convinced that there is a consensus regardless of the source of the information. Similar situations exist for the issues of global warming and immunizations. There are people who seriously think that a significant portion of professionals in the field agree with their counter opinion. In reality, the reigning scientific consensus is that global warming is occurring and manmade, and medical professionals will overwhelmingly recommend immunizations to nearly everyone. So, what is wrong with labeling foods as genetically modified or having been exposed to pesticides? The problem is that it promotes the idea, to the uninformed, that these foods are somehow dangerous, despite there not actually being strong evidence to suggest that.

            Let me briefly explain what genetically modified organisms (GMO) actually are. Certain traits are seen as favorable in organisms. To maximize the yield of these traits in the offspring, one can selectively breed the organisms containing these traits. Over time, this practice can lead to significantly different organisms. Think dogs. Golden doodles are an adorable, hypoallergenic dog that were created by breeding two dogs that contained desirable traits. When talking about crops, the traits are things like resistance to pests and weather or a lack of seed production (seedless watermelons or grapes). In this day and age, however, we have the technology to bypass selective breeding, and we can do it all through gene altering in a single generation. Genetically modified crops have been around for years, we just got better at doing it. If you don’t believe me look up a picture of wild bananas or carrots from a few thousand years ago, they were all but inedible. There is nothing wrong with genetically modified produce, in fact without it, we likely wouldn’t have enough food to go around.

            Speaking of food shortages, let’s talk about organic produce. It might seem like the fruit without the poisonous spray on it is the obvious choice, but there is a reason organic fruits can cost five times as much as treated fruits. Our genetically modified fruit is delicious and insects know it. A significant portion of organic crops are lost to pests. In fact, if we had only organic crops, many of us would likely die of malnutrition from not being able to afford fruits and vegetables. Additionally, the “poison” we use, is specifically designed to target pests but not humans. Think of antibiotics. They target bacteria while ignoring human cells. Pesticides are tested for their safety. There could of course be dangers in certain products that we don’t yet know of, but the same can be said of anything and everything. We might eventually find a connection between dish soap and cancer. Plus, organic produce might contain insect born diseases or parasites that would have otherwise been prevented by pesticides. That is the job the Food and Drug Administration though, to pull products that are shown to be harmful. So for now, I feel confident saying that the benefits of readily available fruits and vegetables outweigh the potential risks of pesticides or genetic modifications.

            -AMS 

Murder Is Wrong, Unless They Started It

            If you haven’t heard the news, the wonderfully ignorant state of Ohio has recently decided to resume their use of lethal injections as a means of “correcting” certain criminal actions, such as murder. Am I the only one that sees the irony. The issue of capital punishment is one that, for some reason, is heatedly debated, despite clear and compelling evidence that it should be abolished. Now anyone that follows any of my writings could probably guess that I take exception with much of our correctional policies. For this particular issue, though, let’s just look at the blatant facts. The usual arguments for the use of capital punishment are, it helps deter crime, life sentences overuse tax money, and that the criminals deserve extreme responses to heinous crimes.

            If you noticed, throughout the introduction of this writing, I used the word correction instead of punishment. You may have also heard prisons referred to as correctional facilities. If this confuses you, I understand. Most Americans misinterpret our criminal justice system. Studies have already shown that most jurors do not even understand their roles properly. No big deal, they’re just the ones standing between you and a life sentence, or even a death sentence. In simple terms, the system is supposed to correct negative behaviors and promote criminals, upon their release, to function within the established structure of our society. Punishments are not supposed to be methods of vengeance for the affected parties. They are meant to be deterrents of future crimes.

            Deterrents come in two forms. There are general deterrents, meant to prevent crime of any kind through the looming threat of punishment, or there are individual specific deterrents, punishments set upon individuals for a particular crime with the aim of preventing reoccurrences. What do the data say about the correlation between long prison sentences and future criminal acts? They are positively correlated, meaning that persons are more likely to commit crimes after being released from a lengthy sentence. It makes sense, you spend years locked up with nothing but criminals and then get released into the outside world, likely with no opportunities or resources. What do you expect them to do? As for capital punishment, there is a pretty strong negative correlation between death sentences and reoccurrence. Criminal punishments in general, however, are not strong deterrents of crime. Evidence suggests that the severity of the punishment is less important than the certainty of punishment. Basically, punishment is not a deterrent if someone does not believe they will receive it. So, let’s just increase the certainty of punishment for anyone accused of a crime. Well, that would be great if there were not a disturbingly high percentage of false convictions within our justice symptom. Those sentenced to death are no exception. Just another reason capital punishment should be banned.

            Now let’s quickly address the issue of expenses, because it won’t take long. It is a fact, that within the current legal system, it cost more to execute a prisoner than to keep them locked up for life. And just in case you were wondering, the cost is largely associated with appeals, so reduction in cost would almost certainly lead to an increase in the, already much too high, rate of false convictions.

            One reason left. Even if it costs more, kill them anyway, they deserve it. I mean after all, they did kill someone in cold blood. You know, just like you want to do. Maybe it is just me, but I believe that murder is wrong, regardless of who is committing it or why. Self-defense is one thing, because it is done in the absence of non-lethal options. Lethal injection is a long time coming though. It is not a means of correction, and frankly, it is a concept that just seems to be slow to die despite no reasonable argument for its existence. As a final appeasement to anyone that still wants retribution for a severe crime, lethal injection is typically painless or causes only moderate pain, a life in prison, on the other hand, is a long slow death. So, while I personally believe life sentences could be avoided with more proactive responses to criminal behavior, let’s at least take one step in the right direction and abolish capital punishment.

            -AMS

The Illusion of Choice Part Five: The Superstitious Human Experiment

            Welcome back, to the fifth and final entry in my series of everything. At this point I think it is important that we take a look back at the reason I began this series in the first place. This is the illusion of choice. It is a look at whether or not free will truly exists, or are we just simply playing our parts in the script of life. For anyone that persisted through this entire series, it should seem reasonable that choice is just an illusion. Sure, you can change your mind about a decision, but ultimately you were always going to have changed your mind. Now let’s not be confused, we are not so much reading from a script, as no such script exists. Really, we are just matter, behaving in a predictable manner to an interaction, much the way an ice cube will melt when put in a warm environment.

            Remember the theory of everything, the idea that all physical interactions could be explained by a single equation. Remember, that human consciousness is purely a result of our experiences. There are, of course, predisposing factors, such as genetics, but these still are results of the events that culminated in our existence. Factor all of this together, and you will see that anything and everything we do, choose, believe, everything that exists, has existed, or ever will exist, they are all just a result of the events that preceded them. If you can account for all of the variables, and I do mean all variables, it is all predictable. In the end, everything was set in motion from the very beginning. The big bang. That single event set the stage for everything else. We can look back at events and think, if this, then this would have, but really what happened was always going to have happened. Everything in your life, and even before it, led to you quitting your job, or missing the bus, or discovering the cure for cancer.

            This is a difficult concept to grasp, and understandably so. We cannot see the variables at play, and most of them predate our existence. Take our melting ice cube analogy. Of course, we can predict that an ice cube in a warm room will melt. We know the relevant variables, the melting point of ice and the rough temperature of a warm room. But maybe the ice cube doesn’t melt. Maybe there were more variables at play that we didn’t know about. Perhaps the room was under incredibly high pressure preventing the phase change of the water. The end result was still predictable, had we all of the necessary values and equations, but without these, we can only make educated guesses based on what values we do have, or even what trends we have observed in the absence of any quantifiable information.

Let’s expand this to a person deciding whether or not to buy an ice cream cone. This is a much more complicated scenario with many variables. How much does the person like ice cream, how much does the ice cream cost and how much money does the person have, is the person on a diet, did they have a hard day, what is the temperature today, are they alone or with friends, are their friends buying ice cream or not? The list goes on and on. We could attempt to collect every conceivable variable on this person buying ice cream, and with that construct a consistent equation of whether or not this person would buy ice cream under any given situation. But such an esoteric equation would hardly prove useful. What if you owned an ice cream shop, though? You would certainly want to know which factors were strong determiners of a person’s decision to buy ice cream. Variables which do not play a significant role or which cannot be manipulated, such as genetic factors, are of no use to you, but everything else is fair game. Rest assured that any successful business is probably capitalizing on these as we speak. The perfect evidence that choice is merely an effect of influencing factors is how manipulable consumers are.

No one likes to think that they are being manipulated though. Our minds don’t typically work on cause and effect. Humans much prefer purpose based answers. For instance, an experiment done with children, posed questions such as why do have sharp rocks? Is it because the wind blowing on the rocks shaped them, or was it so that animals would have something to scratch their backs on? You can imagine the children mostly chose the purpose based answer. Adults exhibit the same behavior, if to a lesser extent. For instance, snowshoe hares live in snowy environments and have white fur. Why? Most people would say to camouflage themselves from predators. This would be a purpose based answer and would also be incorrect. Hares in snowy climates have white fur because they were able to avoid predation there, and thus flourished. As for why their fur is white, that is purely a genetic factor, likely a result of a genetic mutation.

This brings us to the last topic that we need to cover. That would of course be god. There have been numerous debates over the existence of such a being. These debates are largely fruitless, however, as a being of boundless abilities is immune to logical arguments. Any arguments against a god could be countered as simply, god is capable of anything, and his will is beyond our understanding. As such, the evidence against such a being usually boils down to a lack of evidence for such a being. This is, of course, a backwards way of thinking. Analogous to believing in ghosts because no one has proven that they are not real. As such, arguments against the existence of a god are the wrong approach. Rather one should consider the likeliness of a god being fabricated.

There is a long history of gods of various abilities. I consider this one of the most compelling arguments against such a being’s existence. The gods are not consistent across faiths. They are merely independently created ideas unique to a group, but common in the societal creation of myths. People love to come up with stories and it seems probable that your god, whoever it may be, is no different than anyone else’s. The idea of a god being real is a purpose based explanation for life and the universe, but the idea of humans creating gods is a trend that has shown time and time again. Even pigeons have been shown to be superstitious. Pigeons have been shown, when given food in response to an action, to repeat that action. In one of my all-time favorite psychological experiments, several pigeons were kept in cages that dispensed food at random. The pigeons of course did not know this and began to develop beliefs about what caused the food to come. They would think that whatever action they were doing at the time the food was delivered was the cause, and then repeat that action in the hopes of receiving more food. Humans exhibited the same behavior in response to good crops, medical breakthroughs, and anything else they couldn’t explain at the time.

In light of the question is there a god, I say no. I say, there does not need to be a god for what has happened to have happened, and that the persistence of belief in a god is simply human nature. I also believe that the spread of science will one day eliminate the widespread belief in a god. The fastest growing religious affiliation today, is the nonaffiliated. Religion gave people comfort in the absence of explanations. But we now know more than we could have ever imagined, and are learning at an increasing rate. The ability to pass down information more efficiently has allowed us to build our knowledge base ever faster, and it is only a matter of time before we start finding more and more of the variables that dictate our lives. Whatever may come to pass, though, remember that it was always going to be, because in the end, choice is just an illusion.

-AMS

The Illusion of Choice Part Four: The Big Bang Schema

            Up to this point we have the universe, we have life, we have consciousness, and we have communication. You may recall how I stressed the importance of cause and effect throughout this entire series. Well we discussed the effects, what about the root cause? What about the very beginning? This is where speculation really comes in. I mean, how do you possibly determine what happened before everything? That is not to say, that scientists are just guessing, but the theories are certainly not as solid as say evolution. We will explore my preferred theory, but first, more psychology. I want to preface this entire writing with a lesson on learning theory, particularly the idea of schemata and adaptation.

            Let’s start with what a schema is in the first place. It is essentially your entire understanding of a concept. This series, for example would be my schema on the existence and behavior of life and matter. Now, anyone who has ever tried to change someone’s mind knows, I will never convince you of what I am saying unless I first convince you that what you already think could be wrong. I must show you evidence that contradicts your current schema. Schemata, however, are resistant. For adults with long held beliefs, they will often ignore or distort contradictory information in order to fit it to their current schema. Children, on the other hand, must redevelop schemata constantly. Just think of all of the beliefs a child might have about the world that will eventually be proven wrong to them. Wait. There is no Santa Claus, meat comes from dead animals, I can’t be a cat when I grow up, next you’re going to tell me fluffy didn’t go to live on a farm.

            This is learning for a child. Their entire life is made up of trying to explain the world around them, only to find that their explanation doesn’t make sense after all, and then having to adapt to a new schema. If I asked you what 11 + 1 equals, you could tell me it was 12, that fits your current schema. But, what if I said no it’s not? it’s 100. Can you tell me why? Can you even accept that what I said is true? and I promise you it is. This entire series is my schema, and it might certainly be disproven at a later date. I accept that. I find it unlikely that anything will convince me against something as concrete as the theory of evolution, but for something like the origin of the universe, it is probably only a matter of time before certain aspects must be amended. I invite you to keep an open mind as you read this, and perhaps your own schema will be amended by the end.

By the way, the above math equation is true when the numbers are binary representations of values. Binary is a base two system. That means each place value represents two raised to an additional power. 11 + 1 is (2¹ + 2⁰) + 2⁰ = (2 + 1) + 1 = 4 = 2² + 0¹ + 0⁰ is 100. (That’s right there’s math in here too.)

So now that we are all caught up on 1920s psychology, let’s look at some scientific theories from this century. The most well-known theory for the origin of our universe is the big bang. Basically, the universe originated from a single point and expanded outward creating energy in the process. The greatest evidence for this theory is that observation of the known universe shows matter spreading outward in an ordered manner. This would of course imply that it is moving from some point of origin. Question. How did the bang occur? Answer. It’s complicated. Through use of mathematics beyond your wildest dreams, modern physicists have created a model in which the universe, upon coming into being, was populated with an energy field with a strong negative pressure. This drove expansion while simultaneously generating energy. When the field became too unstable to continue this process, the sudden cease in expansion led to the release of the energy from the field into the universe which drove the formation of matter. I told you it was complicated.

Okay, but energy can’t just come into being, there is such a thing as the law of conservation of energy. True. But not all energy is positive. Gravitational attraction is opposite the energy of matter. Time for more math, and negative numbers even. Don’t worry I won’t make you calculate the sum total of energy in the universe. Others have already done that. What did they find? The answer is about zero. Remember the saying every action has an equal but opposite reaction. Well for all of the energy in the universe, there is an equal amount of opposite or negative energy.

So, the energy can exist without breaking any physical laws, sure, but what triggered it to come into being? If no one has ever told you before, quantum physics is strange. Subatomic particles have demonstrated some very unusual properties, one of which is the ability to spontaneously come into being. Quantum uncertainty essentially explains away cause and effect and leaves only the effect. As you can imagine I am uneasy about accepting such reasoning, but it would explain how a universe could spontaneously come into being. I would argue that such events being explained without uncertainty by yet unobservable factors is still a possible development. Like I said, my entire outlook might one day be completely foreign to my present self.

Regardless, we are left with but one more burning question. What about before the big bang? The simple answer, it didn’t happen. Alright, hear me out. From our everyday perspective, time is constant. It appears constant. But actually, time is relative. Time and space are interwoven, and changes in one can affect the other. It is difficult to wrap your mind around, but the implication is this: if there is no space there is no time. What was there before the big bang? Nothing. There was no space, it had not yet come into being. Since there was no space, there was no time. We like to think of time as a fundamental concept that has just always been. Logically, though, this would fall apart when looking at the physical properties of the universe. Were the universe actually infinitely old, the processes currently in motion, stars burning for instance, would have all expired long ago. According to the current model, the laws of physics are the only thing that need precede the big bang. If we can accept that fundamental persistence, then we can have a contradiction free origin of the universe.

Is anyone still following me? Well, if you are, I thank you. This was certainly a very technical piece. Our next installment will be a look at the persistence of gods and human influence, as well as the logic of an argument for or against an illogical concept. Can you really ever disprove the existence of divinity? Should you really ever need to? Perhaps proof is the wrong approach.

-AMS