The Unreasonable Man

Daniel is a punk, and has the corresponding hair. Which is entirely appropriate at Halloween.

Please note. You are only allowed to use Macro mode on your camera to photographs tulips. Only tulips.

(Canon 1D3, 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens, 580EXII bounced).

But you will be allowed some leeway. Click on the tulip to see how.

This is a letter I just wrote to the Globe and Mail, in reaction to a piece by Margaret Wente, in which she made the case that Western society has achieved a thing or two; and the resulting deluge of letters essentially accusing her of being a cultural supremacist.

Sauvages?

Amazing. For the first time in my life, and entirely unexpectedly, I find myself writing in support of Ms Wente.

In today’s deluge of letters, your multitude of letter writters make the point that “European” culture is no better than “native” culture, because the former produced Nuclear War, the Holocaust, wars, and so on. As someone who has travelled worldwide, worked in 32 countries on five continents, and is amongst the world’s big cultural relativists, I feel compelled to comment.

Leaving alone the fact that first nations also had wars, and had equivalent evils, albeit on a smaller scale, Ms Wente does have a more fundamental, and it seems to me entirely valid, point. “Fact-based science” is absolutely, not normatively, better than mythic, religious, or “I am the priest and I know better than you so you must not question me” ways of running societies. Morals and ethics may not be better, but the resultant health is better than superstitious disease. The resultant wealth is better than poverty.

This is not “measuring other societies by our own measures”; this is being objective. The “Western” life expectancy of 80+ is better than the “non-western” life expectancy of 40+. Having fewer of your children die, and fewer of your wives die in childbirth, is objectively better than the opposite. And being able to fight disease, most would agree, is objectively better than praying for a cure.

By taking cultural relativism to the limit, your writers are doing themselves a great disservice. Yes, like other societies, Western society has produced many evils. But by inventing and promoting science, technology and law, western society has also carried within its very essence the death of those same evils.

People are people. Arab Muslims, First Nations individuals, Maoris, Bushmen, Lapps, Italians, and yes, even Dutch Canadians like myself are all wonderful and all their ways of life are equally valid. But modern Dutchmen live better than stone-age Dutchmen, and by carrying cultural relativism to politically correct extremes, we risk throwing away a lot of our species’ achievements of the last ten thousand years.

I am late, so I don’t suppose I will get published, But I could not let this go unchallenged. No, I am not arguing against First Nations culture: of course not. I am arguing against the politically correct assumption that any comparison must be flawed and unfair, and that all achievements are by definition equal.

This is not a value judgment. And there are good reasons (including mainly “chance” and environmental reasons) why some societies develop great architecture, others agriculture, and others space travel. These reasons are very interesting. Read “Guns, Germs and Steel” if you want to know more.

OK, so I am looking for a CRM app for my Macs. The Apple apps are pretty useless for all but the most basic use, so I need something better. But wow, what a forest of trees. There must be hundreds, most of which are useless. Which one is useable, and can share its information betwen my iPhone, iMac, and MBA?I have no idea where tofind the trustworthy advisor who can tell me where to look.

So I may need to use a a SaaS solution. Fine. Salesforce or SugarCRM. That way I have no hassles. But $40 -$200 a month? To keep a few addresses? The app should cost $40, period - not $40 a month.

These people are basing their business processes on this, that a minor app should cost $40 a month? My TCP/IP stack, or my Bluetooth driver, or my word processor, all do much more. Imagine if they all cost $40 per month. Don’t invest in these companies. I think SaaS CRM is doomed. It has to be.

Meanwhile I sit here undecided.

We live in a new world, and I must say I am a bit apprehansive as to how it will work out.

Specifically, we are all attention-deficit hyperactive. We check email 24 hours a day. We switch track ten times an hour An activity like this is now very difficult for many of us (click for larger):

When we cannot concentrate for more than three minutes, what is next?

Of course this is what men (people) have asked for millenia. Cavemen must have wondered what would happen when men forget how to kill and skin a mammoth. And yet, we managed, and in fact thrived.

Still.. I wonder.

That new macro lens (Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM) is sharp. The sharpest lens I own, and a good portrait lens as well.

Now I need a third camera to keep it on.

…was watching me, and not me, when I left The Netherlands.

You see, in most European countries, when you leave. you go through an immigration (or rather, emigration) check. This check showed me to be in arrears: an order had been issued to hold me and to confiscate any car I drive for 31 days.

The reason? I “parked illegally in Nijmegen on 27 April 2007 at 22 past midnight”. And I “ignored all letters about the 93 Euro fine”.

One problem: I have never in my life been to the City of Nijmegen. The other problem: they had sent letters to me but without my country or postcode (the Dutch database had no fields for a country or for funny un-Dutch postcodes). So these letters of course never arrived.

Amazingly, after I argued my case for half an hour, the cops let me out of the country without paying. But unless I sort this out, any car I drive in The Netherlands wil be confiscated, they tell me.

You see, this is the problem with the Database society. The Database can be wrong. And to those who say “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”, I say “rubbish”. I am thanking my lucky stars this mistake concerned parking, and not murder.

POSTSCRIPT: I read on CNN that from now on, to book flights you need to supply your birth date too. That is meant to stop false positive terrorist warnings:

They are often subjected to extra security at airports because their names are similar to ones on the lists.

A government program unveiled Wednesday is aimed at addressing that problem.

Under the program, Secure Flight, travelers will be asked to provide their full name, date of birth and gender when making airline reservations. The encrypted information will then be transmitted to the Transportation Security Administration, which will run it against the watch lists. The Department of Homeland Security believes the few pieces of additional information will dramatically reduce the number of people falsely identified as being on a watch list.

Won’t work. Wouldn’t have helped me.  Will just make our countries more police-state like.

Of the times.

(Exposure compensation -2, and Flash Exposure compensation +2 stops.)

Today, in the Netherlands.