Distributed Mind

Having been recently, through a combination of laziness and stupidity and refusal to go into more debt, into relative poverty, I have been painfully reminded of something I have known for a while (based on past experience as well as observation) and not said anything about - so this time allow me to say something about it. The problem is the price of food, or rather good food. Those concerned about the environment or their own health (and in some cases vegetarians and vegans) may find eating on a budget somewhat challenging.

There is plenty of cheap food in stores, but most of it is of questionable quality, from the ingredients to its method of production. Some of it may not be, it is difficult to tell (being certified organic can raise the price of a food, but some food may be organic without being certified), but based on the price one can guess, as organic foods cost more to produce in most cases, and there is value in labeling food as organic since organic foods are worth more (there is some circularity here, I know). Organic foods tend to run somewhere between 30% and 50% higher cost (and rarely as much as 100%, and in a few extreme cases 300-400% for some produce). Also, foods with things like less hydrogenated vegatable oils, trans-saturated fat, etc. tend to cost more. In short, the healthier a food and the lower the impact on the environment, the more it costs.

(As a wonderful example, at my local grocery store, a gallon of regular mil is around $3.00; a half-gallon of organic soy milk costs $3.29. The soy milk involves no harsh chemicals and none of the resource costs and environental impact of keeping cows, and can be consumed by numerous persons who cannot drink milk, but it costs more than twice as much.)

There are two main implications to all of this: (1) Those on a budget, as well as the cheap and frugal, will tend to buy goods that have a higher environmental impact. While I would love to reduce my impact on the environment in this crucial way, I simply cannot afford to, so instead I buy the losuy products. Since the people in these classes represent a large portion of the population, the current situation represents a continuing significant demand for products that are much less preferable for the near future. Thus there is less incentive to switch to organic products for the industry - except maybe for the larger profit margins, which are precisely the problem. (As a detour around this problem, producers could be regulated directly, not to produce organic foods, but to produce normal foods under more stringent guidelines. This is actually the most likely resolution, even though organic foods may be preferable still; at least the margin of environmental impact could be significantly decreased.) (2) The poorer consumers are once again held down by the system. Although richer consumers will not necessarily buy healthier foods, the poor will not have any choice not to. Rates of things like heart disease will be higher due to the iffy fats in much of this food. Probably even worse and more subtle, I suspect we will find that in a few years cancer rates will be much higher in the poor. It will take a few years' for any gap to be noticeable since most wealthier purchasers have still eaten plenty of pesticide-laden food. If organic foods become more common - and one can only hope - this gap may never materialize. But if nothing is done, I really see this as a plausible and unfortunate scenario. Undoubtedly the middle class and the wealthy will write this effect off as the poor smoking too much or something lke that.

What could we do to fix this? This is one case where the potential impact prevents a large strategic opportunity for the government to step in. Instead of allowing agriculture - with its significant envioronmental impact - continue on in its current state and spend money cleaning up the mess, or beating teh agriculture industry over the head, the government could try the carrot approach and make it more attractive to grow organic foods, or at least to be held to some sort of higher standard. This could be through financial incentives such as tax breaks or subsidies (we already have plenty of those, why not use them for something useful?) or disincentives such as even fees for conventional growers and distributors, or some other method yet to be determined. But I think it is something worth investigating.

Much has been made lately of Harvard President Larry Summers' comments about women in science. I don't know the background, except that I know some studies have been done on various biological factors in the past suggesting that women in general have a disadvantage in some areas based on specific abilities (which will not likely be good indicators at the level Summers is talking about: in academics). I can't really comment on this, or even Summer's comments, which I am not familiar with in detail. But, being a numbers kind of guy (person?), I decided to be a good reductionist and look up some of those numbers.

I was really undert conviction when I read a passage in Luke this morning, namely chapter 6. The sixth chapter of Luke records what is basically Luke's version of an incident better known from the version appearing in Matthew: the Sermon on the Mount. They may be the exact same incident merely recorded slightly differently or similar sermons that Jesus gave at a similar time in his ministry, either is a plausible explanation. At any rate, some things appear slightly differently in Luke's version, though essentially the same. Here are some excerpts:

"But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation.
Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep." (Luke 6:24-25)

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." (Luke 6:32)

"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil." (Luke 6:35)

"Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you." (Luke 6:38)

"Or how can you tell your brother, 'Brother, let me remove the speck of chaff that is in your eye,' when you yourself don't see the beam that is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother's eye." (Luke 6:42)

"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45)

"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46)

(WEB)

My summary: Give it away, not just to those who love you but to those who don't care, just like God does. And don't always come whining to God if you aren't ready to show the same compassion to those around you. Tend to your own house first, and don't pretend to actually be following me if you aren't.

That summary may not be entirely fair - and certainly there is a lot more to this sermon in between those points that I am leaving out. But I think this is one way to look at it. I also have to add the disclaimer that Jesus gave this sermon in a very different social and religious context than we in the American church today live. Israel was a sort of dysfunctional church rather than the secular world Christianity has always existed in, so there is some complexity there in trying to apply it, but the fact that Jesus can distinguish between sinners and those following him suggests this world is not so different from ours. Also, some of the emphases here I have to feel are part of Jesus trying to make the point - a point he was having to make repeatedly elsewhere - that being rich is not an automatic sign of God's blessing, a notion that appears to have been rampant in first century Judaism. So, in part by saying blessings to the poor, and pronouncing woes on the rich, Jesus is turning this notion on its head. But I don't think we should confine ourselves to that reading; just because it was challenging first century misconceptions about God's universe, does not make it any less true in an absolute sense. So, with the disclaimer that there may be some subtleties due to context that I am plowing over, let me try some application anyway (it might be a good idea to check this passage against these caveats later though, and see how my reading holds up):

I find this so damning because I know how miserably I have failed in the past at it. I may have given some money, though not so much I ever went for want of anything even remotely "necessary," but I am very parsimonious with my time. Laziness is wasting a resource we could give to others, or at least (in my case anyway) use to acquire more material goods to help others with. Even in my relative poverty, I still am quite rich relative to most people in the world, and even many in Bloomington. I have a comfortable, clean apartment, some CDs, a high speed Internet connection, a car; while I may not have much to spare, I am not in want either. I think maybe Jesus is suggesting something more radical here. Not that we should all go sell everything we have and go live out on the street, but let us remember why we have the resources we have: to enable us to do our work, which is God's work.

Also damning is the part about loving those who love us. I always try to get off easy by "serving the church" and helping my friends. These are not bad things, but we can't stop there, or as Jesus points out, how will we be any different than those who do not know God? And I know that I spend much more time with my "friends" who love me back than with those, like the people at the assisted-licing facility I visit or the homeless, who need so much more but can't always give me as much - or anything - in return.

Finally, Jesus points out the problem of hypocrisy. Either that we (and his audience) may or may in the future be concerned about others' sins while ignoring their own and also fool themselves into thinking themselves Jesus' disciples while merely fooling themselves (much as Matthew records at the end of his version of the sermon, where Jesus talks about not knowing those who thought they knew him: Matthew 7:21-23). I find this less personally damning (except for the part about what we say - I wonder what that says about the way I really feel about other people given the kind of snarky remarks I have been known to make recently), than a concern for the church as a whole. Obviously individuals, including myself, may be mistaken regarding whether we are realy following Christ, and that needs to be guarded against. But I also feel the church in America is sometimes so worried about others' sins that it neglects it own. For I think that all of the reasons I have to be dismayed reading this sermon, the church as a whole has. We are generous, but let us be more generous. And we are good but let us be more good. Of course, that I have the arrogance to even mention this suggests I too need to be fearful of taking on that hypocrisy - as I am, I hope. Let us all pray, as Jesus said, that we do not fall into temptation.

There is so much more here that could be dissected or pulled out, and in the end there would be so much, as always, to fix in our lives after we had read it (there is a reason the Sermon on the Mount is so famous). It deserves that time, but at some point in the future. Take a look at this passage if you haven't lately.

The Huygens probe set down successfully on Titan today. It lasted more than 90 minutes, which was longer than expected, apparently.

Titan's surface:

Titan from above during approach:

(Image credit: ESA/NASA/University of Arizona)

As a preview, these are some topics you can hopefully expect to see posts from me on soon:

• More things on Christianity on politics, specifically why the Republican party is not a natural fit for Christians (I don't feel I need to explain why Democrats are an unnatural fit, that's been covered elsewhere in great depth) and the implications of what I so tactfully refer to as an unholy alliance. Also, maybe some musings on how evangelism is like political persuasion and vice versa (to tell you the truth, I have no idea where I was going to go with that, but I have it written down, so...)
• A proposed platform for a party that would be palatable to Christians and most other persons and that would split the artificial extremes that exist currently in American politics, as well as an explanation of why such a thing would appeal to the mythical center.
• History in primary and secondary school, specifically what's wrong with it, and posing the question of how we fix it

That's all I have scheduled. The first two items I wrote a not to myself about on something like November 3rd, and still I haven't written them, so we will see how that goes. It also occurs to me I never finished writing about gender and personal relationships, though I am not sure I want to. There are also some old posts that I have mostly finished I could edit and release, but generally there is a reason those haven't been put up (okay, sometimes that reason was intellectual laziness, or just laziness).

If I don't write on any of this, just yell at me to finish, and maybe I will.

I have been playing some Pokémon lately (since my sister and mom bought me a GameBoy Color and Pokémon Red, so I can lose to Hannah at it), and I have to say I was hooked for a while. I have to admit it is not one of the all time great video games, but it certainly has its appeal. It's very, well, cute. And it can be somewhat entertaining, at least for a computer RPG fan such as myself.

My current project is reading The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce M. Metzger. I really feel compelled to give a thorough investigation into the early origins of Christianity, and especially the books we rely on so much. That is always a somewhat scary affair, though, since one is trying to critically examine the very foundations of one's life, and that is not easy. Not to mention even slight doubts about some of these texts - say, questioning the inspiration the book of Jude, nevermind that it relies or at least quotes Hebrew sources that aren't considered inspired - are enough to brand one a heretic automatically. But, it is a good investigation to do - after all, that kind of thing earned the Bereans praise in Acts 17 (well, in that case, it was investigating claims about Christ, but the idea of investigating is the same anyway).

I am now back from California. My presence there is, of course, why I had not written much in the last two weeks. I could have written more than I did, but with everything else going on around me, I really didn't feel like it. Thus, I was silent on many interesting things (especially, for example, the tsunami, which I almost wrote something about, though a week late), but such is the course of the universe. You can expect me to be more vocal now, though.