Category: thought and analysis

  • A Nerdly, Software-Engineering-ish, Computer-Sciencey Approach to the Gay Marriage Debate

    Gay marriage is a proposed change that’s hoped to be an optimization. Advocates say that the current system (society) is sub-optimal in that a particular sub-system (marriage) is not sufficiently general (same-sex couples aren’t allowed to participate). Let’s say marriage is a function by which a man and a woman are combined to create an…

  • Choice, Compulsion, Popular Opinion, and the Public Interest

    Choice Relative to our own capability to act, believe, intend, or feel in various ways, choice is the process by which we actually do act, believe, intend, and feel. While some in the cognitive sciences feel that our choices may be entirely a product of chemical processes and circumstance, most people believe at some level…

  • Choose

    There comes a point for all of us where we simply have to make a decision: either we choose the flat, gray neutrality of belieflessness, or we choose to see the world in the dynamic contours of faith. When you believe in nothing—or, rather, when your belief is that there is no right or wrong,…