What the heck is Sciencism?

"Sciencism" was an idea I first had about 3 years ago. The idea was to create a new religion based on science. Now, I know that it's been done before, but it's never been done quite like this. Whereas other people (atheists) have tried to create so-called "scientific religions", invariably it meant leaving out the religion part. Because the very last people on Earth who are capable of understanding religion and religious people and the religious way of thinking are atheists. The adherents of these "scientific religions" knew that there wasn't a God, and there was always a hint of a joke in the enterprise. If you do a google search, you will find a few people with such ideas. Needless to say, all of them are dead in the water.

In my religion however, Science is God, and is worshipped as a God would be worshipped. This means that while the first generation of "Sciencists" (note the spelling) know that there isn't a God, they actively indoctrinate and even brainwash their children (the second generation) to believe that Science is God. So just as Christians or Muslims grow up within a Christian or Muslim worldview, the child of a Sciencist grows up within a Sciencistic worldview. From that point onwards, successive generations of Sciencists would believe in Science as God, and would teach their children the same.

But is it really possible to raise children in this manner? Of course it is. There are hundreds of past and present religions, and the adherents of every religion indoctrinate their children into believing in that particular religion. In fact, children could easily be raised with the belief that Mickey Mouse was God. If you teach kids to pray to Mickey Mouse, they will. And if there is a sufficient critical mass of Mickey Mouse believers, then these children would have external validation of their beliefs, and could easily spend their entire lives believing that Mickey Mouse is God.

The idea of creating a new religion is not new. It's been done many times before, and I can think of 3 good examples that originated during the 20th century alone: various cargo cults, Scientology, and Mormonism. To non-believers, it is hard to imagine how Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) and L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) could not have been lying. In this sense, they were the "first generation". They knew they were lying. Once they died, subsequent generations had internalized these religious beliefs, and from then on, these beliefs could be transmitted without any further deception. Obviously current believers in these religions are neither lying to themselves nor to others, regardless of whether their beliefs are true or false.

My intention was that Sciencism should follow the same path. I know I'm lying, and the few brave souls who I hope to attract to this cause would also know that I'm lying. They would knowingly lie as well. But we could ease our conscience with the knowledge that it's all done for a good cause. But once these beliefs had been safely transmitted to the next generation, it would perpetuate itself.

So what's the status of this project? It's stalled. I simply don't have the charisma nor the leadership qualities to cold-start this new religion. All my previous efforts have been focused on trying to convince other people. But such a task is nigh impossible, especially for one such as myself who lacks the character traits to be able to pull this off.

But all is not lost. My project may yet come to fruition. I do have a captive audience. My own (future) children.

Abortion: why it's bad for you... but mostly good for everyone else

I'm a firm believer in letting everyone live the way they want to live. As long as they don't interfere in the lives of other people of course. If people want to have abortions, then I believe that they should be able to have them. Human life isn't sacred. Evolution will sort everyone out in the end.

The real question is "who will inherit the earth"? The answer is of course those who don't practice abortion and contraception. If the ultimate goal of all life is reproduction, and if success can be measured in terms of how many children and grandchildren one has, then those who have more children are more successful than those who have fewer or no children. Those who have children when young are also more successful than those who have children when old. Those who use contraception will tend to be less successful than those who don't.

However, if you live in a society you will always have some indirect effect on everyone else in that society. It is not really truly possible to "live as one wishes without interfering in others lives". There is always atleast an indirect effect. There are some problems with abortion and contraception that we need to be aware of.

• You need to ensure that your sons don't marry those who use abortion and contraception. A woman on hormonal contraception may fall in love with your son who may not be a good match for her. If this happens, your son may be in for a rocky marriage.
• You need to ensure that your daughters don't marry men who (through their sexual experience) expect women to be on hormonal contraception. They are likely to treat sex casually, be irresponsible, and have STDs.
• Those on hormonal contraception and who practice abortion are likely to be promiscuous. You need to ensure that your sons don't get involved with promiscuous women because of the risk of STDs. There is some evidence that using hormonal birth control actually increases the risk of contracting HIV due to changes in the user's immune system.
• Those who don't have nor want children will eventually depend on welfare to support them in their old age. Your sons and daughters may be the ones indirectly supporting the elderly through taxes.
• Those who practice abortion and contraception will raise their children in a likewise manner. And it may be that your children will learn these things from their children at school.

When looking for potential matches for your sons and daughters, you must find other families that share your values. Sexual selection is an entire half of evolution (the other half being natural selection). If you disapprove of the way someone is living, then the correct way is to ignore them and ensure that your sons and daughters do not marry them. Trying to force them to live the right way might work on the surface, but the genes responsible for that behaviour will just crop up in succeeding generations.

Life is also a competition for resources. The more of my family there are, the better; the fewer of everyone else there are, the better. So if people think that their genes aren't worth passing on to the next generation, then I heartily agree, and so be it. This is how evolution works.

Why you should homeschool your daughters

These days, schools don't teach girls what they need to know to lead a successful life. Whereas previously the assumption was that girls would get married and raise a couple of children, the new track for women is: girls go to school, then on to college/university, get a degree, a job, spend several years in the workforce, and then and only then can they get married (if they can find a man) and have children (if they aren't too old to bear children by then).

The entire education system is built around this assumption. Most parents aren't really aware of what their children are being taught at school. Today I was talking to a single mother with 2 children, and the older of them, a daughter who is not yet 16 was given a book at school to read, which contained some rather adult themes. On the back cover I read something to the effect of "a single man (the protagonist) finds the best places to score with single women". The mum also told me that the book also contained some suicide, etc. This is not appropriate reading material for a 15 year old. Also, if the mum had not offered to read the book to help with her daughter's book report, she would never have known what her daughter was reading.

The track that today's education system pushes kids onto assumes that marriage and children will only enter a woman's radar when she's in her 30s. Until then, she's meant to experiment with various types of relationships and freely engage in contracepted sex while finding fulfillment at the office. Apparently, when she is experienced enough, she will be good marriage material.

All of this is a recipe for life-long unhappiness, as countless social-science studies have repeatedly shown. "Experienced" women are cynical and jaded women. Cynicism towards the opposite sex is a relationship killer. Studies have shown that pre-marital sex is a significant risk factor for divorce. So is cohabitation. So why not just be celibate until her 30s? Because lack of sex makes women unhappy.

It turns out that this single (and unhappy) lifestyle is enabled by independence. That is, a woman cannot have such a lifestyle if she is dependent. She is more likely to be happy if she transitions from a state of dependence on her father to dependence on her husband. Of course, this assumes that the man she marries is good marriage material.

So how can you ensure that your daughter does not become overly independent? For starters, university shouldn't even be on her radar until her children are fully grown. Unfortunately, schools are in the business of brainwashing children into thinking that career is the only option. Schools also teach young girls a whole heap of things that will not be of any use to them in a marriage. Kids in school also face tremendous pressure to have sex, both from their peers as well as from the curriculum itself.

She will be better off learning skills that will be of use to her in a marriage. The only way to ensure the marriageability of your daughters is to homeschool them. This way, you also have more control of their upbringing.

Rules for 7-couple sets, generalized

I have been thinking for sometime that there shouldn't be any reason to not use the 7-couple rules for 10 or 13 couple sets in scottish country dancing. Generally, the formula is 4+3N, where N is a whole number > 0. This means that the rules can be used for 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, etc. couple sets.

In a 10 couple set, suppose the couples are numbered from 1 to 10.

1. In the first time through, couples 1, 4, 7 are dancing. couple 10 is idle.
2. Second time through, couples 2, 5, 8 are dancing. couple 1 is idle. Couple 2 borrows couple 4 for their dance (who would normally be idle in a 4 couple set). Couple 5 borrows couple 7 for their dance (who would also normally be idle).
3. At the end of the second time through, couple who end up in 9th place slip to the end. Couples who end up in 3rd and 6th place stay where they are.
4. Couples 1,2,3 stay in their little set and bollow couple 4 when needed. Couples 4,5,6 also stay in their own little set and borrow couple 7 when needed. Couples 7,8,9,10 dance according to normal 4 couple set rules, except with borrowing of the 7th couple by the previous set.

If there are 10 couples available, it may be better for one 10 couple set with above rules rather than 2 five-couple sets:

1. If playing music 5 times, the dance takes extra time especially for strathspeys.
2. If only playing music 4 times, the last 2 couples may get to dance only once through.
3. There will be lots of standing around in a 5 couple set, with attendant problems like cooling down muscles.
4. 2 couples are idle at any time in a 5 couple set (40% idle). In a 10 couple set, only 1 couple is idle (10% idle). In a 13 couple set also, only 1 couple is idle (7.7% idle). As the length of the set increases, the percentage of idle couples decreases.
5. Extra dancing within each  3 couple "little set" in a 10 couple set. Of course the flipside is that people get less rest.

13 couple sets could also be advantageous, because the alternatives to a 13 couple set are as follows:

1. 2x 4 couple sets, and 1x 5 couple set. Again, there are various combinations of the above problems.
2. 3x 4 couple sets, and 1 couple don't dance.

Why a lower life expectancy and a higher birth rate is better

Thanks to modern medicine, life expectancy has increased substantially. More children survive childhood, and people live longer. But perhaps it's too good to be true? What if the status quo of higher life expectancy and lower birth rate requires a large expenditure of energy that's ultimately based on petroleum that may not be available in the future?

Childbirth

When more children survive childhood through external factors like caesarean birth, there is less "evolutionary pressure" to be able to survive natural childbirth.

An analogy: suppose some birds somehow get isolated on an island where there are no predators. Eventually, some of them will lose the ability to fly, beause on this island there is no evolutionary pressure to be able to fly. There are no predators to eat the birds that don't fly. Soon the flightless birds will multiply. But this isn't necessarily to say that the flightless birds are somehow inferior. Because nature tends to be economical, it will often (within an ecological niche) get rid of unnecessary features because those features are expensive to maintain. Within an ecological niche such as the ground, a flightless bird is more efficient than a flying bird. So on this island, the ability of flight has been trimmed from some of the birds because it is unnecessary and wasteful. Still there will be flying birds as well, because they occupy a different ecological niche (the air). In the air, obviously the flightless birds don't do well at all but the flying birds do quite well.

In human populations, lack of evolutionary pressure leads to similar outcomes. When childbirth becomes safer through external factors (caesarians, etc), there is less evolutionary pressure for babies to present properly or grow to a safe size within the mother, and there is also less evolutionary pressure for mothers to be able to give birth naturally. Over time, this lack of evolutionary pressure leads to small but significant increase in the average size of babies, and small but significant decreases in the size of the female pelvis. Eventually, a situation may result wherein women cannot give birth naturally any longer and require medical assistance. Whereas now childbirth is a normal function of the human body, eventually it will become a medical emergency.

There are at least two problems that I can see with this situation:

1. It requires the presence of a medical industry that is often parasitic. Parasitic because it is more profitable for those in the medical profession to recommend that women get c-sections even if they are capable of giving birth naturally. Eventually when women lose the ability to surive a normal childbirth, it is the medical profession that will profit the most.
2. If for some reason medical care on a large scale isn't available, then it's possible that unimaginable numbers of women and children will die in childbirth. Returning to the example of the birds on the island, suppose predators such as dogs are introduced to the island. The flightless birds will most likely be wiped out. Similarly, when the childbirth environment changes (lack of medical care), the large proportion of women with pelvises too small or who are giving birth to too-large babies will not survive childbirth.

Just as in the breast-cancer industry that profits from donations to fight breast cancer, the medical industry similarly plays on our emotions when it comes to the safety of women and children in childbirth.

Childhood

Another factor that increases life expectancy is that more children these days survive into adulthood, thanks to antibiotics, vaccines, better hygiene, safety practices, etc. Same as in childbirth,  children who survive to adulthood with the help of external factors no longer face evolutionary pressure to survive to adulthood unassisted. This will lead to weaker immune systems on average, antibiotic overuse and resistance, reliance on vaccines, allergies becoming more common, etc. Soon children will come to rely on external factors to keep them alive because there is no pressure to be self-reliant. Again, the medical industry profits from this state of affairs.

Old age

Still another factor that increases life expectancy is that people live longer. Again, people rely on various (and usually expensive) medical interventions to help them survive to an old age. In fact, the cost of keeping a person alive for a year increases as that person ages. This is because as they get older they require more expensive interventions to keep them alive. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it costs more for one person to live to 100 than for two people to live to 50 each. Again, the big winner here is the medical industry. In order to justify the spending required, they play on our emotions, just as they do when it comes to women and children.

There are several disadvantages to having a large elderly population, apart from the required amount of medical intervention. The elderly are also less productive and a lot of welfare spending goes to them. And of course someone has to pick up the bill for this, and that is the taxpayer.

Higher birth rate

Thus far we've considered the factors that raise life-expectancy. If we were to overhaul this system, it would result in a lower life expectancy. But if more people are dying, then there will need to be some way to sustain population levels. Thus a higher birth rate is justified. However, it has to be done the right way. It makes little sense to encourage single mothers to have lots of children, because those children will ultimately wind up costing society far more than having a higher life expectancy. I believe that, done the right way, a higher birth rate will make people happier. People will be more productive (because younger people are more productive on average), and people will be more health conscious. It is well known that the more you take care of someone, the less care they take of themselves. It shifts the responsibility of survival to the individual, where it belongs.

With a lower life expectancy and a higher birth rate, government could go back to the ideal of "defending and protecting the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property", as explained by Frederic Bastiat. Such a setup requires less taxes, less government interference, less welfare, less medicine, less energy expenditure, more robust children and therefore people, etc. People will also have children earlier, which also leads to positive outcomes for children (better genes and parenting).

Establishing colonies beyond Earth

We have let a great opportunity go by.

When petroleum was discovered, it was a huge boon to mankind. It was a concentrated from of energy and raw material that had thousands of different uses. It was soon used to make and run pretty much everything.

Before petroleum, we could only use renewable energy. Nearly all of the renewable energy comes from the sun at a constant rate. Human populations were limited by the amount of renewable energy the earth received. Populations grew until food production maxed out, and food production was limited by the sun's energy.

When petroleum was discovered, it meant a several-hundred-fold increase in the amount of available energy. Food production no longer depended on purely renewable energy. Food production could now be accelerated by using artificial fertilizers. It also made automobiles feasible. It enabled travel by aeroplane. And it fueled the space industry.

Some of the greatest accomplishments of mankind was in space. Sending astronauts to the moon (and returning them to earth), launching satellites to distant planets, landing rovers that performed scientific experiments and measurements, etc. All of these were greatly facilitated by energy from petroleum. In fact the space industry may not ever have existed if petroleum had never been discovered.

Now the petroleum is starting to run out. Or more accurately, it's becoming more and more expensive to extract. It is likely that without petroleum, space research will not be feasible anymore. And without the space industry and space research, we may all be in danger.

What is the nature of this threat? Well it is well known that meteorites often strike the earth. Most of these are tiny and burn up in the earth's atmosphere. But rarely some are big enough to survive the violent entry into the earth's atmosphere to impact the earth. Very rarely, they may be big enough to pose a threat. The damage they could do is immense. Meteorites often travel through space at 40 kilometers per second.

Throughout our planet's 4 billion year history, it has been bombarded by meteorites, asteroids, and even other planets. After life formed 3.6 billlion years ago, each impact caused massive extinction events. Life always came back, but it was generally the more complex life-forms that suffered most. It is not unreasonable to suggest that humanity may suffer serious losses if not downright extinction if a sufficiently large sized body were to impact the earth.

The only real way to ensure that humanity doesn't go extinct is to form colonies on other planets or in space. Unfortunately these ventures require massive amounts of energy, which we very soon may not have any longer. The petroleum is instead being wasted on maintaining an excessively high standard of living. When the petroleum runs out, we will have to go back to using renewable energy from the sun. That level of energy will not be able to sustain the current food industry, and it is likely that large numbers of people will starve. And it will be difficult for any government to justify spending in space research when people are starving.

Common interests

I used to think that the kind of woman I'd like as a wife was someone who had interests in common with me. I think this is what most people are looking for.

Other people think that it's better to not have common interests. These people feel that it's better to do different things because that way they will have more to talk about. But I don't see how you could have a meaningful conversation with your significant other about something that they are not particularly interested in. I have also met a few people whose marriages failed because of different interests. Face it, when you both are off doing different things, then you two are more likely to come into contact with other people who will threaten your marriage.

But while I think that having common interests is a good thing, I now believe that it's not quite as simple as that. I think it's a better idea to have a combination of: the same "social interests" but different "skill interests".

What do I mean by social interests? Anything social that both of you enjoy doing, and which enables you to spend time together. For me, it's dancing. I would like to meet a woman who enjoys dancing as much as I do. For other people it might be sports, or bike-riding, etc. I think that for the majority of people, those who do things together stay together. I know of several real-life examples.

On the other hand, you are better off with someone who has different "skill interests". These are activities that you have a talent in and enjoy doing by yourself. Some examples: cooking, working with cars, gardening, computers, etc. While these things can sometimes have a social aspect (you might attend a computer convention or a gardening expo or whatever), exercising these skills gives pleasure even when done as a solitary activity. If you feel that you need the presence of other people in order to enjoy some activity, then it's probably not a skill interest. For example, I don't consider cooking to be a skill interest, because I only gain pleasure from it when there are other people in the kitchen as well. If I'm cooking by myself, then it's a chore.

So the idea is that when a man and a woman come together, each having a different set of 5 skill interests, then they are bringing a total of 10 different skill interests to the table. If on the other hand they both had the same set of 5 skill interests, then they are only bringing 5 skill interests into the marriage. The more skill interests brought into the mariage, the less the need for expensive outsourcing.

When looking for a potential wife or husband, I don't think it's a good idea to go to those places where people usually go with the aim of meeting single people, such as bars. Chances are, you won't meet many with similar social interests. In fact you might meet people who are wont to lie about their interests, just as job interviewees do. The best way to meet people is to just do the things you normally enjoy doing, and eventually you will meet someone you like. If they're there it probably means that they like being there and are enjoying the activity, ie. they are not faking. It will also give you an opportunity to observe them and their interactions with others, which can be useful clues in determining their marriageability.

However this doesn't always work, and my own case is a good example. I enjoy folk dancing, but it's something that only old people do. The average age of the folk dancing community is probably 60. I'm an anomaly there because I'm considerably younger (34) than most people there. There is more I could say, but I won't right now because it's not the right time.

So if you're not having success in your current social activity, you might have to try a different social activity to see if you can expand your list of social interests. Thus I tried african drumming and newer forms of dancing. But even though I enjoyed these activities immensely, I still felt a bit alone in these communities, so for me they weren't really "social activities". So I gave them up and went back to folk dancing.