Commentary

Why the media can’t tell the truth about why Lara Logan was attacked

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This is currently the top post on National Review.

Excerpt:

As Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer has detailed, al-Azhar University endorses a sharia manual called Umdat al-Salik. It is quite clear on the subject of women who become captives of Muslim forces: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.” This is so the woman can then be made a concubine of her captor.

This arrangement is encouraged by the Koran. Sura 4:23–24, for example, forbids Muslim men from consorting with the wives of other Muslims but declares sexual open season on any women these men have enslaved. (“Forbidden to you are . . . married women, except those whom you own as slaves.”) Moreover, Mohammed — whose life Muslims are exhorted by scripture to emulate — rewarded his fighters by distributing as slaves the women of the Jewish Qurazyzah tribe after Muslim forces had beheaded their husbands, fathers, and sons. The prophet himself also took one of the captured women, Rayhanna, as his concubine. And, as Spencer further notes, Mohammed directed his jihadists that they should not practice coitus interruptus with their slaves — they were encouraged to ravish them, but only in a manner that might produce Muslim offspring.

As I documented in an earlier column, Sheikh Qaradawi contends that women bring sexual abuse on themselves if they fail to conform to Islamist conventions of modest dress. Shahid Mehdi, a top Islamic cleric in Denmark, has explained that women who fail to don a headscarf are asking to be raped, an admonition echoed by Sheikh Faiz Mohammed, a prominent Lebanese cleric, during a lecture he delivered in Australia.

In light of these exhortations, should it be any surprise that the sexual abuse of women is Islam’s silent scandal? In Europe’s expanding Muslim enclaves, it is a terror tactic to extort women — Muslim and non-Muslim — into adopting the hijab and other Islamic sartorial standards. Rape has become so prevalent, and so identifiably a Muslim scourge, that embarrassed and hyper–politically correct Swedish authorities have discouraged police in cities such as heavily Muslim Malmo from collecting data that point to Islam as the common denominator in rape reports.

This week, muslims were also implicated in terrorist attacks in the United States and in supporting polygamy in Canada.

Commentary

Where have all the good men gone, and why aren’t men marrying?

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I read this annoying article by Kay Hymowitz in the Wall Street Journal, which is completely ignorant of the causes of men’s decline in education and work, as well as their refusal to marry as often as they used to.

Captain Capitalism responded to the article here, explaining why men aren’t giving women what they want.

Excerpt from his massive bullet-point list:

  • Did you hear of this “divorce fad” going around? Apparently men get to pay out the majority of the time be it alimony or child support.
  • Did you hear about this “divorce fad” going around? Apparently 65% of the time it’s women who initiate divorce.
  • Kids cost around $500,000 each to raise. given employment prospects we can’t afford that. Much rather buy a boat or frankly work all that much less.
  • Hey, you hear about this federal budget deficit and debt? Apparently we elected this guy “Barack Obama” and a bunch of democrats into office who are now mortgaging the future. This means our expenses in the future will be higher. Well, of course us “foolish, immature, pooping, farting boys” were too “immature” to vote for him like you wise women, but then again we’re too busy flinging poo at each other to ponder the future macro-economic ramifications of a collapsing dollar.
  • Hey, you hear about this social security medicare thing? Apparently enough “smart wise women” disproportionately kept voting for democrats to essentially have those immature 20 something men pay for the livelihood for these aging people. This added expense on our futures make’s it that much harder economically to commit to a wife and children.
  • Hey, you hear about this “welfare state” “medicaid” thing? Apparently enough “smart wise women” disproportionately over the years voted in enough democrats to essentially replace the role of fathers with government programs making fathers not only unnecessary, but an increasingly risky and unrewarding proposition, not to mention, making it easier for women to just up and leave their husbands, because well, “they needed to find themselves” and the government will take care of the kids while they go pursue their EPL fantasy.
  • Hey, did you hear about this “welfare state” thing? Apparently because we’ve now outsourced bringing up children to the government and have to create government jobs for all the “sociology majors” and “education majors”and “communications majors” our tax bill will go through the roof. Oh! Wait!!! No it doesn’t! I forgot! I’m a guy! I can live on very little, work a crappy job, work part time, live in a crappy apartment with my buds and STILL have enough disposable income to play video games and buy booze.

Remember that 77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama (70% of unmarried women, but 77% of young unmarried women). And research shows that women consistently vote for bigger and bigger government, more wealth redistribution for the “poor”, and more intrusion into the family by the state. Men don’t like paying more in taxes and getting less liberty. It makes it harder for us to justify marriage rationally. We want to get married, but the numbers don’t come out in the black. We can either afford marriage and family or government social programs, but we cannot afford both.

I think the problem of men not wanting to marry is caused by women actually believing feminism – that men and women are identical. Once you believe that, there is no special role that men are supposed to play, and no way to distinguish a man who fills that role from one who doesn’t. According to feminism, which most young women believe, men aren’t meant to be providers, protectors or moral/spiritual leaders. Chastity is out. A boring, good-paying job is out. Morality is out. Sobriety is out. Apologetics and theology are out.

What’s in? Being good-looking, inoffensive, and entertaining. Women are not selecting responsible men because they think that the men can be changed to be responsible, through sex, or maybe through nagging, and eventually through the threat of losing all his money and custody of his children. Men aren’t stupid. They’ve noticed that responsibility and morality are out, and they’re acting like clowns because that’s what women prefer when getting drunk and hooking up, the Duke University student and her report on all the men she slept with – they were graded by physical attractiveness, sexual technique, popularity and athletic ability.

Men do what women expect them to do in order to get sex. Just read the peer-reviewed studies on hooking up. If women don’t select men who can do specific things as husbands and fathers, then men won’t prepare themselves to do specific things. If they are already getting sex for playing the fool, then why should they do more than play the fool? If women obsessed over Paul Ryan and William Lane Craig, then that’s what men would aspire to. They don’t, and so men don’t. Mature men intimidate women with their strong opinions, moral judgments, and exclusive theological claims. Much better to have an immature man who is shallow and politically correct.

There is a way for women to get what they want from men, but they actually have to engage in conversations with men and find out what men want from women. And what men want from a marriage. What they want from children. What they want from government. What they want from schools. What they want from the workplace. What they want from the church. You can’t take away everything men need to marry and then expect them to marry. Nagging, belittling, withholding sex and controlling are not incentives for men to marry. Every time you break a man down, that is one less husband and father candidate. And eventually, the money flow dries up for the sperm-banks and social programs that substitute for men. What will women do then?

For myself, I am NOT on the same track as secular men (video games, alcohol, girlfriends an TV). I’m earning and saving to support Christian scholars and apologetics events in churches and universities. That’s my role right now until women destroy feminism with their own hands. Marriage is only good for me if it is good for God. And I need to be convinced that it will be good for God by whoever is applying for the job. I would like to see the reasons why I should marry in a woman’s moral decisions, her studying of difficult apologetic topics, and her political and economic conservatism. I would like to see that she understands men and marriage and understands how marriage and parenting can serve God, if done in an unselfish, moral and disciplined way. No pursuing happiness. No reducing moral obligations to “legalism”.

Making one woman feel happy with a diamond ring and an expensive wedding is not a good choice for me when I could spend a lot less money sponsoring a stack of debates over my lifetime on Christian topics, in front of hundreds of thousands of university students, or even in churches. There are ways that marriage could be a good deal for God, but I want to see the value proposition for marriage before I sign up. So far, most women seem to resent the idea that marriage should be have to be proven good for God. They resent the question itself. But everything we do is for God, and I have a right to ask what is in it for him? I think a lot of Christian men are asking the same question.

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Can computers become conscious by increasing processing power?

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There is a very famous thought experiment from UC Berkeley philosopher John Searle that all Christian apologists should know about. And now everyone who reads the Wall Street Journal knows about it, because of this article. (H/T Sarah)

Searle is writing about the IBM computer that was programmed to play Jeopardy. His Chinese room example shows why no one should be concerned about computers acting like humans. There is no thinking computer. There never will be a thinking computer. And you cannot build up to a thinking computer my adding more hardware and software.

Excerpt:

Imagine that a person—me, for example—knows no Chinese and is locked in a room with boxes full of Chinese symbols and an instruction book written in English for manipulating the symbols. Unknown to me, the boxes are called “the database” and the instruction book is called “the program.” I am called “the computer.”

People outside the room pass in bunches of Chinese symbols that, unknown to me, are questions. I look up in the instruction book what I am supposed to do and I give back answers in Chinese symbols.

Suppose I get so good at shuffling the symbols and passing out the answers that my answers are indistinguishable from a native Chinese speaker’s. I give every indication of understanding the language despite the fact that I actually don’t understand a word of Chinese.

And if I do not, neither does any digital computer, because no computer, qua computer, has anything I do not have. It has stocks of symbols, rules for manipulating symbols, a system that allows it to rapidly transition from zeros to ones, and the ability to process inputs and outputs. That is it. There is nothing else.

By the way, Searle is a naturalist – not a theist, not a Christian. But he does oppose postmodernism. So he isn’t all bad. But let’s hear from a Christian scholar who can make more sense of this for us.

Here’s an article by Christian philosopher Jay Richards.

Excerpt:

Popular discussions of AI often suggest that if you keep increasing weak AI, at some point, you’ll get strong AI. That is, if you get enough computation, you’ll eventually get consciousness.

The reasoning goes something like this: There will be a moment at which a computer will be indistinguishable from a human intelligent agent in a blind test. At that point, we will have intelligent, conscious machines.

This does not follow. A computer may pass the Turing test, but that doesn’t mean that it will actually be a self-conscious, free agent.

The point seems obvious, but we can easily be beguiled by the way we speak of computers: We talk about computers learning, making mistakes, becoming more intelligent, and so forth. We need to remember that we are speaking metaphorically.

We can also be led astray by unexamined metaphysical assumptions. If we’re just computers made of meat, and we happened to become conscious at some point, what’s to stop computers from doing the same? That makes sense if you accept the premise—as many AI researchers do. If you don’t accept the premise, though, you don’t have to accept the conclusion.

In fact, there’s no good reason to assume that consciousness and agency emerge by accident at some threshold of speed and computational power in computers. We know by introspection that we are conscious, free beings—though we really don’t know how this works. So we naturally attribute consciousness to other humans. We also know generally what’s going on inside a computer, since we build them, and it has nothing to do with consciousness. It’s quite likely that consciousness is qualitatively different from the type of computation that we have developed in computers (as the “Chinese Room” argument, by philosopher John Searle, seems to show). Remember that, and you’ll suffer less anxiety as computers become more powerful.

Even if computer technology provides accelerating returns for the foreseeable future, it doesn’t follow that we’ll be replacing ourselves anytime soon. AI enthusiasts often make highly simplistic assumptions about human nature and biology. Rather than marveling at the ways in which computation illuminates our understanding of the microscopic biological world, many treat biological systems as nothing but clunky, soon-to-be-obsolete conglomerations of hardware and software. Fanciful speculations about uploading ourselves onto the Internet and transcending our biology rest on these simplistic assumptions. This is a common philosophical blind spot in the AI community, but it’s not a danger of AI research itself, which primarily involves programming and computers.

AI researchers often mix topics from different disciplines—biology, physics, computer science, robotics—and this causes critics to do the same. For instance, many critics worry that AI research leads inevitably to tampering with human nature. But different types of research raise different concerns. There are serious ethical questions when we’re dealing with human cloning and research that destroys human embryos. But AI research in itself does not raise these concerns. It normally involves computers, machines, and programming. While all technology raises ethical issues, we should be less worried about AI research—which has many benign applications—than research that treats human life as a means rather than an end.

Jay Richards is my all-round favorite Christian scholar. He has the Ph.D in philosophy from Princeton.

When I am playing a game on the computer, I know exactly why what I am doing is fun – I am conscious of it. But the computer has no idea what I am doing. It is just matter in motion, acting on it’s programming and the inputs I supply to it. And that’s all computers will ever do. Trust me, this is my field. I have the BS and MS in computer science, and I have studied this area. AI has applications for machine learning and search problems, but consciousness is not on the radar. You can’t get there from here.