Patrick Draper

Friday, 31 August, 2007. 04:23:53 AM

It's almost September, and we all know what that means. Bush and Cheney are going to start the psychological operation to build support for their war against Iran. Same crap, different country.

Monday, 27 August, 2007. 09:21:53 PM

The downfall of Pascal's wager is that if it's stated in a proper form for game theory, you can't decide anything from Pascal's wager. Game theory gives you a way to maximize your outcome depending on certain choices. So, here's the choices usually given:


           | God exists | doesn't exist
----------------------------------------
believe    |  heaven        nothing
disbelieve |  hell          nothing

The argument is that out of the possibilities given, you've got three possible outcomes, and so to maximize the possible benefit, you should believe.

But, if you just make this a little bit more complicated, you can show the problem with an oversimplification. I'm going to add a *fail* variable to the set of possibilities. Nobody can really choose to believe or not believe. If I am a believer, there's a chance that I could fail to believe. If I am an atheist, there's a chance that I might utter a prayer in my last moments and therefore die a believer. I've failed to disbelieve in that case.

These failures are something that no real control exists over. I might well fail despite all my efforts and intentions.

So, the slightly more complicated diagram with the new possibilities is the following:


                   | God exists | doesn't exist
----------------------------------------
believe            |  heaven        nothing
fail to believe    |  hell          nothing
-----------------------------------------------
disbelieve         |  hell          nothing
fail to disbelieve |  heaven        nothing

Now, there's absolutely no way to judge from this diagram what to believe, since approaching the wage as either a believer or a disbeliever could result in either heaven or hell. When you make the wager even a little bit more realistic, it's completely useless for deciding what your course of action should be.

Monday, 27 August, 2007. 11:24:09 AM

I have another patent application in progress, two this year.

Friday, 24 August, 2007. 02:31:29 PM

This is what the anti-abortion forces actually want. Many people probably don't know that an awful lot of politicians are pandering to anti-contraception groups.

Monday, 20 August, 2007. 12:33:55 PM

I installed Windows 2K on my old laptop and gave it to Kristiana this weekend for her educational games.

Monday, 20 August, 2007. 11:36:09 AM

How Propaganda Works

Tuesday, 14 August, 2007. 01:38:10 PM

Democracy's Invisible Line, an article by Noam Chomsky

Saturday, 11 August, 2007. 11:20:21 PM

Orwell

Freedom is Slavery

Giuliani

"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Saturday, 11 August, 2007. 12:41:08 AM

Bill Sali from Idaho betrays the bigotry that underlies vast areas of the Republican Party.

Friday, 10 August, 2007. 12:53:19 PM

Good article on Bad Astronomy on the horrible appointment to the State Board of Education. Don McLeroy is a young-Earth creationist and he's the head of the governing body of all education in the State of Texas. Of all the kinds of people to appoint for this job, a young-Earth creationist is the worst.

Friday, 10 August, 2007. 11:07:07 AM

nyceve on Daily Kos coined an excellent frame in her article. It's "Murder by Spreadsheet" which refers to the habit of for-profit healthcare companies to make decision on the basis of profit, rather than patient and societal welfare.