All Humans Have the Right to Live Humane Lives.
All humans have the right to live humane lives.
Causing suffering intentionally or allowing preventable suffering to happen through inaction are both choices with the same consequences. Thus, both choices are morally equivalent violations of human rights.
Everyone involved in harming or neglecting humans is partially responsible for the consequences to others and partially obligated to assist in restoring the violated human rights.
Because of the serious nature of human rights violations, we are each morally obligated to protect each other's right to live humane lives, with force if necessary.
Each person should do all they can to ensure that all humans live humane lives, but this responsibility is too big and complex to be fulfilled only by individuals acting privately.
In addition to private effort, we need large organizations with the authority and resources to protect humans from both intentional harm and from neglect, ensuring that the basic needs of all humans are met and that all humans live humane lives.
This is not a new idea, and there have always been many objections to the proposal to guarantee the humane treatment of all humans.
Each of these objections is a claim that other values are more important than the basic human right to live a humane life. These supposedly more important values include: freedom, property rights, instilling a good work ethic, fairness, small government, and other values.
But those other values are only important to the extent that they promote the humane treatment of humans. They are not valuable in and of themselves but are tools for promoting the general welfare of humans, and this goal is valuable in and of itself.
All humans have the right to live humane lives, and we are all obligated to make sure this happens.
We Get Paid More For Being More Rare - Not More Useful
I had a sobering realization last week. If the ability to program computers was a common human ability, I would make very little money doing that. My work would be just as useful to society, but basic supply and demand economics would dictate a far lower wage for that kind of work.
The only reason I get paid as well as I do comes down to the fact that I just happened to be born with a natural ability for abstract thinking and problem solving that most other people just happened to not be born with. Sure, I work hard at what I do and have spent a lot of time developing my talents, but then so do millions of very poor people who just happened to be born with no particularly special talents. They get paid less than I, not because they are less useful to society, but because they are less rare.
We live in a society that has a strong distaste for anyone getting anything they didn't earn. People strongly oppose robust social programs for the poor on the idea that it is their fault for being poor and that they don't deserve to have what other people fairly earned themselves.
Yet, among people who all work hard, if the major factor between poverty and having enough simply comes down to whether you just happened to be born with some rare set of abilities or not, this reasoning completely falls apart. Since it all comes down to sheer luck of what natural abilities we happen to have, if we all work hard in useful jobs, then any difference in pay is a matter of luck, beyond our own control. If we have rare abilities, we make more than those who have common abilities.
How can people who are so opposed to people getting something they don't deserve not see that this is happening all the time because of the natural distribution of abilities and the supply and demand based compensation of the free market? This is an entire system where people are getting paid, not necessarily for what they deserve or what they have earned for themselves, but mostly based on random chance, even when everyone is working hard and developing their own skills.
I have nothing against the free market. It is an efficient machine for getting all kinds of things done. However, a just society is not something the free market produces, because it is not something that can be bought or sold. It is something that has to be created outside the free market, by recognizing injustices where they arise and correcting them. One of these major injustices is letting people suffer through poverty simply because we have the misguided notion that they have gotten what they have earned, instead of realizing that most of our circumstances are due to things outside of our control.
I Care How People Live Not What They Believe
I became an atheist when I was 18 years old. As a life-long Mormon, I had a sincere belief in God at the time, and for months before, I had been praying quite persistently for confirmation of my beliefs, as my religion promised God would give me. I became increasingly troubled by the fact that I was not getting any response from God at all, despite my sincere prayers. I was open and eager for any answer, even a small one, and I fully expected that all the beliefs I had been taught since I was a small child would be confirmed by God.
After many months of sincere prayer, of begging and pleading for even a small answer and receiving silence in return, I had the sudden realization that all the other people I grew up going to church with may be in the same situation. Even though we had all taken our turns standing up in church, testifying to everyone else that we knew it was all true and that God answers prayers, it was possible that just as I had said those words without really knowing, others may be going through the motions too, believing it and hoping for it to be true, but not having real confirmation.
Once I realized that, I instantly lost my belief in God, because I realized everything I had been told about God was by all these people in my life who really didn't know for themselves but spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince themselves and others that their beliefs were true. I suddenly saw how my whole life was spent around people who were determined to get me to believe in God without question.
I remembered all the time I spent in church, in seminary class, in evening church activities, and there was a constant reiteration of how true all of it was and how important it was that we stay involved with the church and get others involved - a constant, life-long repetition of this theme. We were also encouraged to "bear our testimonies", to publicly declare that we had received confirmation directly from God that all of it was true. Remembering all this, I understood that there was an illusion of solidarity but it was quite possible that everyone at church was declaring they knew the truth of these things because of the strong social pressure to bear their testimony often, not because they actually knew.
This entire realization came to me quite suddenly one evening, and it was extremely disorienting to be fully aware that all the people in my life did not know, and yet were utterly confident about, things that had completely shaped my view of myself, my world and how I was to live the rest of my life. I no longer knew what to think about myself and my life and what I should do with my future. Everything I thought I knew had suddenly been called into question, and I strongly felt I could not trust anyone I grew up with for the answers.
I began reading voraciously, filling up my backpack with books from the library and reading them as quickly as I could, for years. Philosophy, religion, science, math, any subject that would help me understand the world I found myself in better. Over time, things became more clear to me, and I felt like I had a well-rounded understanding of the basics of how the world is, what kind of creature I am and what sort of life I should live.
For years, I felt very uncomfortable with and even angry about religion. I knew they were wrong, and I felt strongly that I should show others this so they could see the truth and accept it. I later realized the irony that it was my religious upbringing that taught me to go out and convert others to my way of thinking, to get them to see how wrong they were and accept the truth of the church. I was enacting a religious mandate, but without the religious content.
Eventually, I accepted the fact that people are going to believe what they will, and I can do little to change that. I also understand the simple truth that what matters most is how we live our lives, not the stories we tell ourselves as we live our lives.
I have learned to see other people as simply humans, with their religions and ideologies playing only a minor role in how I think of them. I am far more concerned with the human story and all the joy, sorrow, learning and struggle that we all know from experience. I care how people live, not what they believe.
Because so many people in my life are religious, I hear a lot of religious language, and since I don't believe the literal sense of what they are saying, I work to understand the deeper message. For example, if someone says, "I will pray for your family," the deeper message is that they care about my family and hope for the best for us. Or, if someone invites me to church, the deeper message is that they feel very happy going to church and they want me to be happy too. Or, if they say "God loves you," the deeper message to me is that they feel I am worthy of love, and they want me to feel comfort in knowing that someone with great power loves me.
Instead of being offended or confrontational with people sincerely sharing their religious beliefs, I look at the deeper meaning, of what they are saying to me, from one human to another. They are generally expressing that they care about me, that they are happy and want happiness for me, and that they want things in my life to go well. Understanding religious expression from a human perspective removes the ideological confrontations, and we are all just human beings, living together and caring for each other. Religion becomes as incidental as the color of our shirts.
The most profound lesson I have learned in my life is that real human beings matter far more than the most persuasive ideology and the most sublime religious experience. The idea that it matters what ideology a person subscribes to or what religion they are a member of is an idea that is only meant to serve the ideologies and religions themselves, by getting more recruits - it does not serve the interests of real people. It trains people to value group membership more than human beings. So, I practice interacting with others on the human level, focusing on the common experience of living as a human being, struggling to be good, to find meaning in life and to make a positive difference in the world.
After many months of sincere prayer, of begging and pleading for even a small answer and receiving silence in return, I had the sudden realization that all the other people I grew up going to church with may be in the same situation. Even though we had all taken our turns standing up in church, testifying to everyone else that we knew it was all true and that God answers prayers, it was possible that just as I had said those words without really knowing, others may be going through the motions too, believing it and hoping for it to be true, but not having real confirmation.
Once I realized that, I instantly lost my belief in God, because I realized everything I had been told about God was by all these people in my life who really didn't know for themselves but spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince themselves and others that their beliefs were true. I suddenly saw how my whole life was spent around people who were determined to get me to believe in God without question.
I remembered all the time I spent in church, in seminary class, in evening church activities, and there was a constant reiteration of how true all of it was and how important it was that we stay involved with the church and get others involved - a constant, life-long repetition of this theme. We were also encouraged to "bear our testimonies", to publicly declare that we had received confirmation directly from God that all of it was true. Remembering all this, I understood that there was an illusion of solidarity but it was quite possible that everyone at church was declaring they knew the truth of these things because of the strong social pressure to bear their testimony often, not because they actually knew.
This entire realization came to me quite suddenly one evening, and it was extremely disorienting to be fully aware that all the people in my life did not know, and yet were utterly confident about, things that had completely shaped my view of myself, my world and how I was to live the rest of my life. I no longer knew what to think about myself and my life and what I should do with my future. Everything I thought I knew had suddenly been called into question, and I strongly felt I could not trust anyone I grew up with for the answers.
I began reading voraciously, filling up my backpack with books from the library and reading them as quickly as I could, for years. Philosophy, religion, science, math, any subject that would help me understand the world I found myself in better. Over time, things became more clear to me, and I felt like I had a well-rounded understanding of the basics of how the world is, what kind of creature I am and what sort of life I should live.
For years, I felt very uncomfortable with and even angry about religion. I knew they were wrong, and I felt strongly that I should show others this so they could see the truth and accept it. I later realized the irony that it was my religious upbringing that taught me to go out and convert others to my way of thinking, to get them to see how wrong they were and accept the truth of the church. I was enacting a religious mandate, but without the religious content.
Eventually, I accepted the fact that people are going to believe what they will, and I can do little to change that. I also understand the simple truth that what matters most is how we live our lives, not the stories we tell ourselves as we live our lives.
I have learned to see other people as simply humans, with their religions and ideologies playing only a minor role in how I think of them. I am far more concerned with the human story and all the joy, sorrow, learning and struggle that we all know from experience. I care how people live, not what they believe.
Because so many people in my life are religious, I hear a lot of religious language, and since I don't believe the literal sense of what they are saying, I work to understand the deeper message. For example, if someone says, "I will pray for your family," the deeper message is that they care about my family and hope for the best for us. Or, if someone invites me to church, the deeper message is that they feel very happy going to church and they want me to be happy too. Or, if they say "God loves you," the deeper message to me is that they feel I am worthy of love, and they want me to feel comfort in knowing that someone with great power loves me.
Instead of being offended or confrontational with people sincerely sharing their religious beliefs, I look at the deeper meaning, of what they are saying to me, from one human to another. They are generally expressing that they care about me, that they are happy and want happiness for me, and that they want things in my life to go well. Understanding religious expression from a human perspective removes the ideological confrontations, and we are all just human beings, living together and caring for each other. Religion becomes as incidental as the color of our shirts.
The most profound lesson I have learned in my life is that real human beings matter far more than the most persuasive ideology and the most sublime religious experience. The idea that it matters what ideology a person subscribes to or what religion they are a member of is an idea that is only meant to serve the ideologies and religions themselves, by getting more recruits - it does not serve the interests of real people. It trains people to value group membership more than human beings. So, I practice interacting with others on the human level, focusing on the common experience of living as a human being, struggling to be good, to find meaning in life and to make a positive difference in the world.
Valuing Humans
Our culture primarily values humans for their ability to produce economically. Those who cannot or will not produce economic value are marginalized and punished by being forced to live in inhumane conditions, and there is widespread resistance against any large-scale efforts to provide humane living conditions to those who do not produce.
As labor needs have shifted from a manual labor based economy to one based more on mental acuity, those without a natural aptitude for advanced mental tasks are finding it increasingly difficult to be productive and are being forced to endure poverty conditions through no fault of their own.
There is a widespread myth that humans can achieve whatever they want if only they want it enough and work hard enough. This myth blames the victims of poverty for not getting themselves out of their own situation, even though there is really nothing they can do to substantially produce more for themselves because of disability or lack of whatever natural aptitude is required to succeed in a highly competitive economy.
We need a cultural shift, where we value humans for who they are, independent of their ability to produce economically, and we need to ensure that all humans can live in humane conditions, with their basic needs met, regardless of economic potential.
Meeting the basic needs of all humans is the ultimate economic value and should be the goal of any compassionate economy.
Inside the Mind of a Computer Programmer
Since most people are not computer programmers, it can be difficult to understand what exactly computer programmers do. Obviously, we spend a lot of time getting computers to do all kinds of complicated things, writing in strange languages. So from the surface, computer programming may seem to be mainly about writing code.
But the code writing is only a minor part of the activity of computer programming. It is the end product of a much deeper process. Nearly everything about computer programming is a mental activity of thinking clearly about whatever problem we're solving and working out strategies for how to create a good solution.
For example, a simple computer programming problem is to draw a circle on a computer screen. In a computer programmer's mind, this is broken down into its most basic elements. A circle is a collection of points that are all the same distance from the center point. A computer screen is a grid of pixels. Drawing a circle on the screen means to color all the pixels that are the same distance from some center point, assuming that the center point and that distance will be given ahead of time.
Now that the task is understood clearly, the programmer's mind starts thinking of possible solutions. An obvious one is to check each pixel on the screen one at a time, to see if it is the right distance from the center point and color it if it is. Another possible strategy is to find a pixel that is part of the circle and then search the pixels surrounding it, finding others nearby that are also part of the circle and moving along, around the circle, until it is all drawn. Then, there is the strategy of starting at the left edge of the circle and moving one column at a time to the right, across the width of the circle, calculating which pixels in that column are part of the circle and coloring them.
After thinking of several solutions, the programmer's mind compares them to decide which one would be the best solution. In this case, the third solution is the best of these because it involves the least amount of calculations. Now that a strategy has been decided on, finding a way to implement this solution becomes the programmer's new task.
The programmer's mind begins designing a machine that has different parts, some for storing numbers, to remember which column it is on and which pixels need be colored. It also needs procedures, like what calculations to use to figure out which pixels to color, a process that moves to the next column when each one is done, and a way of telling when to stop, when the circle is done.
While designing this machine, the programmer has to solve many sub-problems and also has to go through the entire problem solving process for each of these smaller problems. And, each of these sub-problems may also have its own sub-problems to be solved. Eventually, as all the problems are solved, the computer programmer finally begins writing down the solutions in computer code, in languages that create a machine that does exactly what the computer programmer imagined.
Because nearly all of computer programming is a mental activity, the computer programmer values having a good mind that can think clearly, understand things deeply and create complex and elaborate machines. Clarity of thought and mental discipline are the most prized possesions of a computer programmer. The mind of a computer programmer is always active, always solving puzzles and designing systems and always seeking deeper insight.
Human Rights
All humans have a fundamental right to protection of their basic human needs from abuse or neglect by others.
Meeting and protecting basic human needs is the most important moral value. These basic needs are familiar to all humans and include food, shelter, health, autonomy, education, employment and other needs.
Humans often do not get their basic needs met. This can be due to other humans actively or unknowingly making it more difficult for others. It is also due to the way the world naturally is and how difficult it can be to fulfill our basic human needs.
Having a right to the protection of our basic human needs means that we each have a moral obligation to each other. We cannot stand by while others' needs are being abused. We also cannot neglect human needs or allow others to do this.
Knowing we have a moral obligation to ensure the basic needs of all humans does not tell us how to accomplish this. Like all human problems, this one will require creativity, intelligence, compassion and determination. There is no simple or standardized solution for meeting the basic needs of all humans.
We need to keep this idea in mind as we make daily decisions, and as we engage in politics, making decisions for our communities. We need to focus on the primary importance of fulfilling the basic needs of all humans and let this focus put all the other issues in perspective. Consider every issue in terms of how well it helps or hinders the rights of all humans to have their basic needs fulfilled.
We also need to protect people from having their basic needs abused by others. How to do this effectively is another challenging human problem. Abusive situations create difficult moral dilemmas because we obviously cannot allow the abuse to continue, but stopping it may require inflicting some sort of abuse ourselves. Finding effective and minimally abusive solutions is a major challenge for us.
We need to explore new solutions to these ancient problems, and we need to shift our focus from personal enrichment to enrichment of all humans. In the end, we will all be better off if everyone's basic needs are met.
Meeting and protecting basic human needs is the most important moral value. These basic needs are familiar to all humans and include food, shelter, health, autonomy, education, employment and other needs.
Humans often do not get their basic needs met. This can be due to other humans actively or unknowingly making it more difficult for others. It is also due to the way the world naturally is and how difficult it can be to fulfill our basic human needs.
Having a right to the protection of our basic human needs means that we each have a moral obligation to each other. We cannot stand by while others' needs are being abused. We also cannot neglect human needs or allow others to do this.
Knowing we have a moral obligation to ensure the basic needs of all humans does not tell us how to accomplish this. Like all human problems, this one will require creativity, intelligence, compassion and determination. There is no simple or standardized solution for meeting the basic needs of all humans.
We need to keep this idea in mind as we make daily decisions, and as we engage in politics, making decisions for our communities. We need to focus on the primary importance of fulfilling the basic needs of all humans and let this focus put all the other issues in perspective. Consider every issue in terms of how well it helps or hinders the rights of all humans to have their basic needs fulfilled.
We also need to protect people from having their basic needs abused by others. How to do this effectively is another challenging human problem. Abusive situations create difficult moral dilemmas because we obviously cannot allow the abuse to continue, but stopping it may require inflicting some sort of abuse ourselves. Finding effective and minimally abusive solutions is a major challenge for us.
We need to explore new solutions to these ancient problems, and we need to shift our focus from personal enrichment to enrichment of all humans. In the end, we will all be better off if everyone's basic needs are met.
My Secret Disability
I have a hidden disability that others have no idea about, because I manage to get through life very well in spite of it. My memories of my past - including even a few minutes ago - are always very dim, like looking through a fog and only ever seeing faint glimpses.
If I try to remember things, like other people or even what the next room looks like, all I get is a very brief and dim image with very little detail. I cannot sustain any clear memories of anything, just little flashes of scraps of memories that fade in less than a second.
Because of this, I have the frequent feeling of having suddenly appeared in the middle of someone else's life, with only faintly accessible memories to help me figure out who I am and what I'm doing. The memories are there, but they only come to me in little bits that I have to piece together, along with information from my current moment, so I know who I am and what I'm doing.
There are a lot of interesting side-effects of this disability. One is that my sense of time is very stretched out. Everything always seems to take an incredible amount of time, and whatever I'm doing, it seems like I have been doing it for a very long time, even if it's only been a few minutes. I am perpetually immersed in my current moment.
Another effect of this is that I end up having to approach everything from a fresh perspective, because I can't remember easily enough my previous solutions, at least not fully enough, so I am constantly improvising to fill in the gaps. This has trained me to be very creative and good at solving problems, because that is what I do all day.
I am also continually reinventing my concept of who I am. I do have my memories, as dim as they may be, and I have all kinds of things in my life that ground me to my general life narrative. But because my memories are so non-vivid, it leaves me more free to rethink myself. I am not as tied into my past concepts of myself or my past beliefs, because I can barely remember them, except for whatever flashes of association bubble up.
Somehow, I have managed to compensate for my disability, with little tricks I have developed for myself, little ways to keep memories alive, memory aids, and ways of organizing things in my life so I remember things better and get things done.
Despite this disability, I am a good computer programmer, and I can develop all kinds of very complex systems even while only being aware of a small part at a time. I keep my programs very organized, and thankfully, my ability to remember logical relationships and how things work is far better than my memory for life events, so I am able to do very well in those kinds of tasks.
I'm also able to remember things much better when I have something triggering related memories. If I see a person, for example, I remember all kinds of things about them and my relationship history with them and important things I need to know, but when they leave the room, the memory of them fades very quickly until I see them again or something reminds me of them.
The same is true for anything else that may trigger memories. That's why I'm able to function in the moment, because all the things around me trigger my memories of what do to with those things and what I'm supposed to be doing. But those memories fade really quickly. If I close my eyes, I can often forget where I am and what I'm doing, unless there are enough sounds to remind me.
As far as I know, this has been going on all my life. Based on the little flashes of memory I get when thinking about my childhood, I was always like this, although not as good at compensating for it. For example, when I would play card games with my family and friends, I would completely forget I was playing a game by the time it was my turn again and constantly have to re-orient myself.
Despite this disability, I am doing extremely well in my life, with a great job, a wife and two children. No one really knows about this disability. I'm not trying to hide it, but it doesn't interfere with me doing what I want, no one notices it, and it's kind of hard to explain, so people just blow it off as me having a poor memory, like everyone else.
If I try to remember things, like other people or even what the next room looks like, all I get is a very brief and dim image with very little detail. I cannot sustain any clear memories of anything, just little flashes of scraps of memories that fade in less than a second.
Because of this, I have the frequent feeling of having suddenly appeared in the middle of someone else's life, with only faintly accessible memories to help me figure out who I am and what I'm doing. The memories are there, but they only come to me in little bits that I have to piece together, along with information from my current moment, so I know who I am and what I'm doing.
There are a lot of interesting side-effects of this disability. One is that my sense of time is very stretched out. Everything always seems to take an incredible amount of time, and whatever I'm doing, it seems like I have been doing it for a very long time, even if it's only been a few minutes. I am perpetually immersed in my current moment.
Another effect of this is that I end up having to approach everything from a fresh perspective, because I can't remember easily enough my previous solutions, at least not fully enough, so I am constantly improvising to fill in the gaps. This has trained me to be very creative and good at solving problems, because that is what I do all day.
I am also continually reinventing my concept of who I am. I do have my memories, as dim as they may be, and I have all kinds of things in my life that ground me to my general life narrative. But because my memories are so non-vivid, it leaves me more free to rethink myself. I am not as tied into my past concepts of myself or my past beliefs, because I can barely remember them, except for whatever flashes of association bubble up.
Somehow, I have managed to compensate for my disability, with little tricks I have developed for myself, little ways to keep memories alive, memory aids, and ways of organizing things in my life so I remember things better and get things done.
Despite this disability, I am a good computer programmer, and I can develop all kinds of very complex systems even while only being aware of a small part at a time. I keep my programs very organized, and thankfully, my ability to remember logical relationships and how things work is far better than my memory for life events, so I am able to do very well in those kinds of tasks.
I'm also able to remember things much better when I have something triggering related memories. If I see a person, for example, I remember all kinds of things about them and my relationship history with them and important things I need to know, but when they leave the room, the memory of them fades very quickly until I see them again or something reminds me of them.
The same is true for anything else that may trigger memories. That's why I'm able to function in the moment, because all the things around me trigger my memories of what do to with those things and what I'm supposed to be doing. But those memories fade really quickly. If I close my eyes, I can often forget where I am and what I'm doing, unless there are enough sounds to remind me.
As far as I know, this has been going on all my life. Based on the little flashes of memory I get when thinking about my childhood, I was always like this, although not as good at compensating for it. For example, when I would play card games with my family and friends, I would completely forget I was playing a game by the time it was my turn again and constantly have to re-orient myself.
Despite this disability, I am doing extremely well in my life, with a great job, a wife and two children. No one really knows about this disability. I'm not trying to hide it, but it doesn't interfere with me doing what I want, no one notices it, and it's kind of hard to explain, so people just blow it off as me having a poor memory, like everyone else.
Where The Rainbows Come and Go
Where the Rainbows Come and Go
by David A Musick
David was a small drop of water, and he lived in a tiny puddle with his friends and family. He was only a young drop of water, but he already had many friends in the small puddle. David loved to visit with his friends and play games with them among the rocks at the bottom of the puddle.
David’s parents were his friends too, and he loved to talk with them, because they were amazing drops of water. David’s parents used to live in a cloud before they came to the puddle, and he loved to listen to the wonderful stories they would tell him about living in the cloud and looking down over the beautiful earth, which was much more beautiful than the puddle, they would tell him.
David didn’t know why his parents left the cloud, but they told him that when they were falling to the earth, they met each other and fell in love, and when they landed in the puddle, a part of each of them splashed together, and David was born.
There were no schools in the puddle because it was too small for fish, so David learned everything by talking to the other drops of water and by watching things happen. David’s favorite thing to watch was the sky. He especially loved to look at the clouds floating in the sky over the puddle because, more than anything else, David wanted to live in a cloud so he cloud float in the air and look down at the beautiful earth his parents had told him about. The only part of the earth David had seen was near the small puddle he lived in, and he wanted to see more.
One morning, as David was watching the beautiful white clouds float by, he noticed something strange happening. The clouds were getting darker. Instead of being shiny and white, they became a dull grey color, and then they turned black. David wondered what was happening, and he was about to ask another drop of water why the clouds got dark, but then he saw bright flashes of light coming from the clouds, and he became even more curious in watching this.
Suddenly, David heard a splashing noise. He looked around quickly and saw that a new drop of water had fallen into the puddle. He looked curiously at this new drop of water, and then he heard some more splashes as other new drops of water fell into the puddle, and then more and more and more, and after a while, hundreds of new drops of water had joined David and his friends in the tiny puddle.
David was very curious now about what was happening, and he stared to look for his parents so he could ask them what was going on, but then he saw something so beautiful that he stopped, and he couldn’t do anything but just stare at it. High above the puddle there was a bright band of glorious colors that stretched across the sky. David had never seen so many colors before, and he wanted to stare at it forever, but after a while it started to fade, and then the colorful band disappeared.
David was excited to talk to the other drops of water about the beautiful band of colors he had just seen in the sky. He swam quickly, all through the puddle, and told the other drops of water what he saw. He was very surprised when he found out no one else in the puddle had even noticed the beautiful colors in the sky because they were too busy doing other things. Most of the drops of water in the puddle were much older than David, and when he told them what he saw, they just laughed at him and commented to each other, “That drop has got quite an imagination.”
“But I didn’t imagine it!” David objected, “I really saw it. It was up in the sky, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” The other drops of water became angry with David and told him to stop making up stories and do something useful. David turned and swam quickly to the bottom of the puddle and hid behind a pebble and cried. He knew what he had seen, and he would never deny it, even if everyone else made fun of him.
It was in the middle of the day when David finally stopped crying, and the sun was shining brightly through the puddle. David liked the way the light would shine through him, and this time he did something he’d never done before. David looked inside himself to watch as the light shone through him. He looked very deep inside himself, and he was amazed and excited about what he saw.
Deep inside his own self, David saw the same beautiful colors he had seen in the sky earlier that day, and he began to hope and wonder that maybe someday he could become like that glorious band of colors he saw in the sky.
David was excited to tell all the other drops of water what he had just seen in himself, but he thought they wouldn’t be able to see it in him, and he was afraid they would just laugh at him again.
Then David looked around himself, and he saw other drops of water swimming by. He looked at them, but this time he looked at them in a different way. This time David looked really deep into the other drops of water, and he was amazed and surprised when he saw that all the other drops of water also had the same beautiful colors deep inside each of them that David had seen in the sky that morning.
Now David knew that all of the other drops of water could see the beautiful colors inside each of them, if they would look, and David was very excited to tell all of them where to look.
David swam all through the puddle again and told everyone about his wonderful discovery. When he told the other drops of water about the beautiful colors inside each of them, one of them said loudly, “First he tells us stories about wonderful colors in the sky, and now he tells us the colors are in us! What will he think of next?”
“Why won’t you just look?” David demanded.
“Because there’s nothing to see,” the other drops of water replied smugly.
“Why don’t you want to see the beauty in yourselves?” David asked.No one said anything for a while, and all the drops of water got angry with David. Finally, one of them yelled, “We thought we told you to stop telling stories and start doing something useful!”
David was very upset that no one would look and see the beautiful colors inside themselves. He swam away quickly and hid among the rocks at the bottom of the puddle. David began to weep, but this time it wasn’t for himself. David wept for all the other drops of water in the puddle, because they were too blind to see the most beautiful things, because they were too afraid to look.
As David was weeping, he felt the sun get brighter on him, and he turned around to look at it. David was surprised when the sun spoke to him. “David,” the sun said in a calm, quiet voice, “don’t be afraid, and soak up your tears. You have let yourself see things today that most drops of water never see. You have seen the beauty of the rainbow in the sky, but, more importantly, you have seen the beauty that is in yourself and in every drop of water.”
“But what about my friends?” David asked timidly.
“They make their own choices, “the sun replied, “but you did all you could to show them the truth, and that’s what’s really important for you.” Then the sun looked very seriously at David. “Now I have a very important question to ask you.”
“What is it?” David wondered.
“Would you like to live in a cloud?”
David was astonished at the question, and he trembled with excitement when he answered, “More than anything. But how?”
The sun smiled at David then spoke again. “You need to have a lot of light in you to live in a cloud, because it is the light that holds you up. You must open yourself up to me so I can give you the light you need, and you must never let go of this light.”
“I won’t.” David agreed, then opened himself up to the sun.
The sun began giving him light, and David rose up from the bottom of the puddle, and then he rose up out of the puddle and rose higher and higher in the air as the sun gave him more and more light. When David arrived at the cloud, he had so much light in him that he was totally white on the outside, and he was glowing a little.
David looked down at the earth below him, and he was dazzled because it was so beautiful. He saw the same beautiful colors on the earth that he had seen in the rainbow. This reminded David about something very important, and he looked deep inside himself again to see if the colors were still there. The colors were still inside him, but they were much brighter than before, and David was excited about this, because he hoped he was closer to being like the rainbow he had seen earlier.
David lived in the cloud for many days, and he was very happy to be there, learning far more than he could in the puddle. He became happier every day, and he became close friends with many of the other drops of water in the cloud.
One day, some of the drops of water in the cloud were doing something very astonishing. No one knew why, but certain drops of water were letting go of the light the sun had given them. These drops of water would turn dark and fall from the cloud. This got a lot of attention from all the other drops of water in the cloud, and everyone was talking about it.
Many of the other drops of water wanted this attention too, so they let go of the light and fell from the cloud also, but no one knew why they were letting go of the light. One drop of water spoke up. “Some of our dearest friends have let go of the light they had, and they have left us. They must have known what they were doing even though we don’t understand. We would be wise to join them and leave this cloud behind also.” Then this drop of water let go of the light also and fell from the cloud. Many other drops of water cheered in agreement, and they too left the cloud and their light behind.
David was very upset by all of this, and then he heard his friends shout, “Let’s go!”
David looked at them quickly. “Why?” he demanded.
“Because everyone else is going,” they replied, then dropped from the cloud.
“But you were so happy here!” David cried to them – but they were already gone.
David looked around himself, and the cloud was getting darker, and there were bright flashes of light as so many drops of water were letting go of the light the sun had given them. There was a lot of loud noise, and the cloud shook as so many drops of water were leaving so quickly. David wept bitterly in his heart for these drops of water, and he didn’t know what to do.
After a while, David looked up from his weeping and looked around. There weren’t very many drops of water left, and all of them were weeping too, for their friends who had left.
Then the sun started shining very brightly, and all these drops of water looked at it. “Don’t cry, my beautiful drops of water, and soak up your tears. Your friends have made their own choices, and you have made yours. And because you learned to hold onto the light I gave you, you are ready to receive more light. I will share my light with you, and if you all share the light with each other, you will grow brighter together and become the most beautiful kind of light, a rainbow.”
David and the other drops of water came together and began to share all the light they had with each other. Then the sun began to fill them up with more light. They glowed brighter and brighter, and the colors that were in each of them grew until the drops of water became all these beautiful colors, and there was a glorious rainbow stretched across the sky. The rainbow shone brightly for a long time, but then it faded and disappeared as the sun used it to color everything beautiful in the world.
I Create Invisible Machines
As a computer programmer, I realize that the vast majority of people have no idea what I actually do for a living. Of course, anyone who has used a computer is familiar with the final results of computer programming and understand that computer programmers are the people who make stuff happen with computers. But what very few people besides computer programmers understand is the actual process of creating a computer program.
A computer program is just a process, sort of like those machines where a marble rolls down a path, flipping switches and making things spin as it goes by. In computers, this process is designed to accomplish some sort of goal, like adding up numbers, displaying images on the screen, or anything else the computer does. The computer programmer has to understand what needs to be done and then create a way to make that happen.
Because computers do such complicated things, people don't generally realize that there are only five basic things that computers do. 1) They put numbers in memory. 2) They get numbers from memory. 3) They compare numbers to each other. 4) They go from one step to the next. 5) They can do option A versus option B depending on conditions. That's basically all that computer programmers have to work with. Sure, modern computer programming lets us build complicated things faster because so much of the work is prefabricated, but even then all we have are fancier versions of the five basic building blocks.
One big challenge of computer programming is that we really do have a very limited toolbox, so when we try to build some computer program like a video game or a word processor, we have to figure out ways to build it with only those five building blocks, where everything is about numbers stored in memory and the program moves forward, able to branch off depending on conditions. Usually, this ends up being some elaborate process, made up of hundreds or thousands of the basic building blocks.
Another big challenge of computer programming is that we are designing machines that are essentially invisible. We see the code and we can see whatever results might appear on the screen, but all of that is superficial. The actual process and the logic of it all is in our minds, and we hope that the code we write translates that into behavior of the computer. It's a lot like building a complex machine in the dark, where all you can do is feel it. You can imagine how it should be built, and you can feel what you are doing in the moment, but you can't ever see the overall working of the machine. The most you can do is do enough tests that you are satisfied it's working the way it's supposed to.
So, I spend my days building invisible machines, thinking of elaborate processes that will accomplish some seemingly simple goal and painstakingly building those processes out of some very simple parts, carefully testing everything along the way to make sure it works properly, always concerned that something isn't right, either in my thinking or in my code. I am a computer programmer, and while it is often extremely challenging work, I have always loved doing it.
A computer program is just a process, sort of like those machines where a marble rolls down a path, flipping switches and making things spin as it goes by. In computers, this process is designed to accomplish some sort of goal, like adding up numbers, displaying images on the screen, or anything else the computer does. The computer programmer has to understand what needs to be done and then create a way to make that happen.
Because computers do such complicated things, people don't generally realize that there are only five basic things that computers do. 1) They put numbers in memory. 2) They get numbers from memory. 3) They compare numbers to each other. 4) They go from one step to the next. 5) They can do option A versus option B depending on conditions. That's basically all that computer programmers have to work with. Sure, modern computer programming lets us build complicated things faster because so much of the work is prefabricated, but even then all we have are fancier versions of the five basic building blocks.
One big challenge of computer programming is that we really do have a very limited toolbox, so when we try to build some computer program like a video game or a word processor, we have to figure out ways to build it with only those five building blocks, where everything is about numbers stored in memory and the program moves forward, able to branch off depending on conditions. Usually, this ends up being some elaborate process, made up of hundreds or thousands of the basic building blocks.
Another big challenge of computer programming is that we are designing machines that are essentially invisible. We see the code and we can see whatever results might appear on the screen, but all of that is superficial. The actual process and the logic of it all is in our minds, and we hope that the code we write translates that into behavior of the computer. It's a lot like building a complex machine in the dark, where all you can do is feel it. You can imagine how it should be built, and you can feel what you are doing in the moment, but you can't ever see the overall working of the machine. The most you can do is do enough tests that you are satisfied it's working the way it's supposed to.
So, I spend my days building invisible machines, thinking of elaborate processes that will accomplish some seemingly simple goal and painstakingly building those processes out of some very simple parts, carefully testing everything along the way to make sure it works properly, always concerned that something isn't right, either in my thinking or in my code. I am a computer programmer, and while it is often extremely challenging work, I have always loved doing it.
Waking From the Horrors of History
Humans have done horrible, horrible things. Human history is a long chronicle of cruelty, bigotry, violence, subjugation and torture. Despite all the truly wonderful and good things humans have done, it seems that this goodness is almost drowned out by the unceasing malice that seems to erode whatever progress we make.
There has been progress, real advances in human kindness and basic goodness. The awareness of basic human rights is spreading, along with respect for those rights. Ancient bigotries are being overturned and violence is becoming less acceptable. The human rights movement is succeeding.
However, it is important to remember that all this progress in human rights is merely in the beginning stages. Within the memories of people alive today are widespread racial bigotry, legally endorsed misogyny and horrible mass murders, all in some of the most advanced societies. These kinds of practices are still widespread throughout the world, including in the most civilized places. The human rights movement has made a good start, but it is working against a powerful legacy of cruelty that is still very much alive and able to reverse the progress that has been made.
I often feel like so many of us are waking up from the horrors of history. It's as though all of Humanity has been under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen all this time, giving us an extremely distorted view of the world and each other, like we were living out some awful dream where we were constantly fighting with each other over things that seemed so important at the time and doing horrible acts that seemed so justified at the time.
Gradually, more and more people throughout history have been waking up from this delusional and aggressive stupor and are appalled by the vicious and hateful societies they find themselves in. They have worked to wake others up, but this has led to their deaths. In the last few hundred years, more people have woken up to the horrors of human behavior and have made progress in raising awareness and gradually changing society.
Their struggle to stop the violence and cruelty is an ancient one that has been repeatedly squelched by the same violence they were working to end. As more of us have joined this struggle, we have been able to reduce many kinds of bigotry, hostility and aggressive behavior. While we should celebrate these successes, we also need to remember that we are still far from having a civil society. All our gains can be undone if we do not continue our efforts.
As we wake up from the horrors of history and stop perpetuating them, we are making a difference, in our own lives and in the lives of all we encounter. Also, as we speak up against bigotry, violence and cruelty, working to stop them, we are changing the culture from one that accepts or endorses that kind of behavior to one where it is completely unacceptable to treat another human being that way. We are making a difference, and we can win this struggle, but we still have a tremendous amount of work to do.
There has been progress, real advances in human kindness and basic goodness. The awareness of basic human rights is spreading, along with respect for those rights. Ancient bigotries are being overturned and violence is becoming less acceptable. The human rights movement is succeeding.
However, it is important to remember that all this progress in human rights is merely in the beginning stages. Within the memories of people alive today are widespread racial bigotry, legally endorsed misogyny and horrible mass murders, all in some of the most advanced societies. These kinds of practices are still widespread throughout the world, including in the most civilized places. The human rights movement has made a good start, but it is working against a powerful legacy of cruelty that is still very much alive and able to reverse the progress that has been made.
I often feel like so many of us are waking up from the horrors of history. It's as though all of Humanity has been under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen all this time, giving us an extremely distorted view of the world and each other, like we were living out some awful dream where we were constantly fighting with each other over things that seemed so important at the time and doing horrible acts that seemed so justified at the time.
Gradually, more and more people throughout history have been waking up from this delusional and aggressive stupor and are appalled by the vicious and hateful societies they find themselves in. They have worked to wake others up, but this has led to their deaths. In the last few hundred years, more people have woken up to the horrors of human behavior and have made progress in raising awareness and gradually changing society.
Their struggle to stop the violence and cruelty is an ancient one that has been repeatedly squelched by the same violence they were working to end. As more of us have joined this struggle, we have been able to reduce many kinds of bigotry, hostility and aggressive behavior. While we should celebrate these successes, we also need to remember that we are still far from having a civil society. All our gains can be undone if we do not continue our efforts.
As we wake up from the horrors of history and stop perpetuating them, we are making a difference, in our own lives and in the lives of all we encounter. Also, as we speak up against bigotry, violence and cruelty, working to stop them, we are changing the culture from one that accepts or endorses that kind of behavior to one where it is completely unacceptable to treat another human being that way. We are making a difference, and we can win this struggle, but we still have a tremendous amount of work to do.
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