Voluntarily Taking on Responsibility

Jordan Peterson argues that voluntarily taking on responsibility as the main source of meaning in life.  It is an interesting proposition, and is probably at least somewhat true.  That has drawn my attention to the fact that I seem to have been avoiding unnecessary responsibility for a long time.  At work I am (intentionally) the second in command in most positions I take, or a consultant, which involves even less responsibility.  I avoid the responsibility of a full time job to keep open the potential of working for Scott, or other movie projects.  At church, I help out where ever I can, without committing to do so (besides leading home group).  My main ministry to camps entails responsibility for the safety of the people who use what I build, but beyond that, I am a volunteer who takes on little further responsibility compared to a camp staff member.  But I use that ministry as an excuse to avoid other ongoing responsibilities locally, since I travel so much for that and work.  I obviously parent my own kid, but avoiding further responsibility is one reason we haven't further pursued fostering or adopting. (That also might require a larger house, which would cost more, which would require even more responsibility on the career front, etc.)

I handle the responsibilities that I have just fine (Family, Scott, Apple, Ropes Courses, Home Group) but I rarely voluntarily take on more or new responsibilities.  This is likely because no one taught me that principle growing up, and instead I associated responsibility with stress.  And stress was a bad thing to be avoided, so I have structured my whole life to minimize stress, relatively successfully, but possibly to my detriment.  Stress can strain relationships, which can already be challenging for me, and can harm one's health.  So I might live longer, but I would be living less during that time, if I wholly committed to avoiding stress.  So I need to make changes there, but I have 40 years of habits and inclinations pushing me in the wrong direction.  Small steps might be more responsibilities at church, instead of just 'helping out' when I happen to be available.  Then maybe some changes at the job level, since some things have been shifting in that realm for awhile, and the current trajectory isn't sustainable for long.   But one step at a time, and church seems like the initial move.

Assassinations, Elections, and the Media

 Apparently someone shot Trump in Pennsylvania tonight.  I am in Pennsylvania at the moment, but a different part.  The initial news stories about the incident were all over the place.  It is reasonable for some level of confusion during an incident, until the details are confirmed, but the media made fools of themselves in their initial reports of Trump falling on stage, and Secret Service interrupting his speech.

It is reported that he was shot from a few hundred yards away, and it hit him in the ear, narrowly missing the rest of his head, which would have surely killed (or at least incapacitated) him.  The difference of a couple inches at that range is a God thing.  Good marksmen can reliably hit targets at farther ranges, but ballistics has some level of incalculable variation.  If God is an interventionalist in national politics, and he wanted to remove Trump from the equation, Trump would be dead.  This doesn't necessarily mean that God wants Trump to be president again, just that he is still alive by the grace of God.  God apparently has further plans for him, or is at least just letting things play out, if that is how you view his role.  I believe God is sovereign over all things, but lets us deal with the results of freewill.  That bullet trajectory was not a free will issue.

I have expected major incidents to take place in the runup to this election, both domestically and internationally.  (China might invade Taiwan, the Russia-Ukraine conflict might expand, etc.)  I still think there is a 25% chance that one of the two main candidates might pass away before the election, or before inauguration, and we would never know if it was from natural causes. (Which is quite possibly as they are both around 80 years old.)  Today was close to that, and still shocking in a certain sense, but also comforting in another sense in that "we" (the American people) survived the incident. Trump is still alive, there aren't riots in the street, and this might actually strengthen his campaign.

Why would that be a good thing?  I believe having a clear winner is probably the best outcome for the upcoming election, compared to a 50/50 split with fights over every detail.  So we need a landslide, in one way or the other, where there is no question that 'the people' have spoken.  It is hard to imagine Trump doing something to alienate his base that badly, but easy to imagine Biden doing so.  Therefore from my perspective at the moment, a clear Trump victory seems like the best outcome for the country, at least in the short term, and the outcome of this event seems to be making that more likely.

So that begs the question: could it have been staged?  I think that is a perfectly reasonable inquiry in this day and age.  In one sense, in the video I saw, you hear some pops, Trump grabs the side of his head ducks behind the podium.  He eventually comes up with blood on him, and is rushed off stage to 'safety' after a triumphant fist pump.  He comes off (relatively) strong in the video and the story (Trump survives being shot in attempted assassination).  The claim is that the shooter was killed by the Secret Service immediately. (Presumably by over-watch snipers responding with high-tech shot-detection gear.)  It is just like the setup in the Mark Wahlberg movie Shooter.

My first reaction was that him being shot in the edge of the head would be too risky of plan. (No one wants to be killed in their own staged assassination.)  But what if he wasn't really shot, and just rubbed some blood on his face or nicked his ear when he ducked?  You would only need one or two body guards in on that part.  But then there is the shooter to be staged, which is more challenging, but an option is presented in that movie.  But in this case, tragically other people were hit by the stray bullets, and at least one was killed.  That becomes a little harder to justify as collateral for a publicity stunt, and even with only ten people involved, you'd never keep it a secret.  So based on the reports I have seen so far, it is just big enough of an incident to be undeniably real, without being big enough to tear apart the country immediately.  It will be interesting to see the further details as they are revealed, and what effect this has on the election.

But it won't increase trust in the media, and it is hard to imagine people trusting them any less at this point.  And if something bigger does happen, how will we know what 'really' happened, or if it even happened at all?

Politically Incorrect Implications of Evolution

The idea that all life on earth evolved from single celled organisms is the prevailing scientific view.  Asking where that first single cellular life form originated is where it gets more entertaining, but let's set that issue aside for the moment.  There are various levels to which this idea of evolution is seen to conflict with the biblical worldview, in regards to time spans and divine intervention, but the 'theory of natural selection,' or 'survival of the fittest' is a fairly agreed upon idea, regardless of what degree you might believe it might have impacted the resulting life forms we currently find on earth.  But if you believe that that principle is responsible for 'all order and advanced life on the planet,' that should only strengthen the value that you have for the principle.

But the logical conclusions of any belief that 'survival of the fittest' has been the primary mechanism that drove development of all life on earth are in stark contrast to the values that most people who hold that belief espouse.  Just to be clear, I am not necessarily in support of any of these ideas, I am just pointing out that they are the logical conclusions of the idea that the theory of natural selection is responsible for the undirected development of life on the planet, and therefore all biological order.

First off, the endangered species list should be hugely offensive to anyone who believes that advanced life developed by the less suitable variants dying off.  By protecting less well adapted animals (or plants) we are weakening the entire ecosystem and planet.  If they can adapt to survive in the changing conditions, great.  If not, the planet is apparently better of without them.  But to try to modify the environment to better suit their needs, would be the height of sabotage of the evolutionary development process.

Regarding humans, healthcare should be relatively minimal if it existed at all.  It is imperative that the weak and sick die off, ideally before they have the opportunity to reproduce.  This strengthens the species as a whole.  So the logical course of action would be to refuse to date or sleep with anyone with any identifiable defect of any sort.  This would be especially important for females as they have fewer reproduction opportunities, while males aren't as negatively impacted if one of their offspring is from a genetically inferior partner.  I hesitate to point this out, as we are seeing this beginning to actually happen in Europe with the increasing popularity of euthanasia, but it needs to be discussed in its most extreme forms to highlight what we are really dealing with.  Any form of mercy stands in opposition to the cold ruthless process of natural selection.

And then there is the issue of race.  Among humans, the theory of natural selection is basically a justification for 'might makes right.'  If you have the strength to dominate someone else, you can justify doing so for the good of the planet.  If one culture is particularly dominant, then it must be the stronger option, and the propagation of those ideas and values at the expense of other cultures is for the good of the planet.  It appears historically that over the past 500 years, white Caucasian cultures have developed the technology and means to colonize and subjugate most of the rest of the world, specifically Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  It each of these places, the existing inhabitants were marginalized by the stronger newcomers, and their land and resources shifted to be exploited in new and more effective ways.  In America the native peoples were nearly wiped out, and have been nearly entirely replaced with decedents of the Europeans.  The peoples of Africa and Asia are still numerous, but have largely adopted European methods of achieving success.  Colonization was by no means perfect, but it is today viewed as an unpardonable sin, while 'natural selection' would indicate that it is a moral good.  It cleanses the planet of less effective and efficient cultures and civilizations, and assimilates what is left into the 'superior' system.

It would be more logical for Christians to have a more mercy-based social justice and environmental view, and for atheistic evolutionists to want to see natural selection run its course without intervention.  But that is not what we see, in regards to the strongest supporters of protecting endangered species being biologists.  And the view that evangelizing to foreign peoples is a form of erasing their culture is primarily held by atheists who should see the process of dominant ideas replacing weaker ones as a positive step in the process of strengthening civilization as a whole.  Artificially propping up weaker species or cultures would weaken the entire planet and hinder further development and progress.

The converse proposition is not necessarily as hypocritical, because if you don't believe natural selection is the primary mechanism driving the development of life on earth, you are free to hold all sorts of different values about life, and various Christians do.

Interesting Implications of Chess

Chess is an interesting game that has been around for hundreds of years.  Unlike modern games with stylized artwork and backstory, chess feels very plain, with a few key identifiers in piece design on an otherwise plain board. It is all strategy and no luck via random chance, but complex enough to have nearly limitless possibilities. (There is no single approach to winning that can't be overcome with the correct response.)  In one sense it is a very straightforward game of strictly defined logic and planning, but it is actually thematically skinned.

The pieces all represent members of a royal court, with of course the king and queen in the most important roles, surrounded by bishops and knights to help them, and a bunch of little pawns arrayed before them.  The king is the most important piece, but he doesn't actually do much himself.  Keeping him alive is the point of the entire game, and you lose if he dies.  The queen is an important piece, that can move in unpredictable ways (relative to the other pieces which are more restricted) and run circle around the king and other pieces.  It is the most effective solution for trapping the opponents king, but if the queen is lost, the game goes on.  It is even possible to replace the queen, you just promote one of the pawns.  Which pawn?  Any one that can survive the gauntlet, and make it to the other side of the board.  Heck, you don't even need to lose your first queen before you can promote another piece to the position, resulting in having more than one queen simultaneously.  But not the king; you can't get a second king, and you can't promote a pawn to a king at all.  That is actually the only role they can't be promoted to.

Checkers appears to have been created purely as a rebellious response to these limitations, where any piece can become a king by reaching the end of the board, you can have multiple kings simultaneously, and they have the fewest movement restrictions.  But these characteristics do not reflect historical realities in the same ways that chess does.  Its interesting to think about the messages implicit in the game of chess: most people are just pawns, and if you work hard and with a little luck, you could be promoted to a bishop or knight, or even become a queen, but you will never be king.  And if you do become queen, watch out, some other pawn behind you might be striving for your new role as well.  That is actually a lot of cultural context and messaging overlaid on a game that otherwise seems very straightforward and logical.