Want to help cure cancer? AIDS?

The World Community Grid has recently added another weapon to its arsenal: fighting cancer. The Help Defeat Cancer project will analyze scans of cancerous tissue, looking for patterns and markers that will help differentiate the various types of cancer and their signatures. This new project comes only a few weeks after the introduction of the second iteration of the Human Proteome Folding project, which calculates the precise interactions of atoms during protein folding. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that fold in precise physical structures. Analysis of these interactions can help cure myriads of diseases, as all biological processes involve protein synthesis and folding for their operations. The FightAids@Home project has already run an astonishing 22,272 years of computing thanks to the participation of its 200,000 members.

"According to the World Health Organization, cancer causes 7 million deaths each year, or 12.5% of deaths worldwide. More than 11 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year, and it is estimated that there will be 16 million new cases every year by 2020" [Help Defeat Cancer | World Community Grid] while "UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, estimated that in 2004 there were more than 40 million people around the world living with HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus." [FightAIDS@Home | World Community Grid]. The threats of terrorism are a mere shadow when stood against the miniature killers that target us all indiscriminately.

You can personally contribute to helping cure cancer, AIDS and a host of other genetic diseases by contributing your wasted computer resources to calculate the causes of those diseases, a different approach from the traditional pharmaceutical method of trial and error on symptoms. Even your most ambitious personal use of your computer's resources waste the vast majority of its potential. If you were to look at the resources you are using (i.e. your cpu and memory usage), you would find that about 95% of the time your cpu is idle, working at a fraction of its gigahertz capacity.

Downloading and running the World Community Grid agent on every computer on which you can (i.e. yours, your parents', neighbours', at work) can have a much greater impact in saving lives than any other significant effort you, or even the world's governments, will ever undertake. If the WCG's efforts in calculating the causes of diseases would yield a cure for cancer, millions of people would escape death every year. Unlike the billions spent on the "war on terror", this minimal effort on your part will yield genuine impact on the world and, litteraly, save millions of lives.

[Cross-published: Newsvine - Want to help cure cancer? AIDS?]

Perpetual war

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein and the war on terrorism has little to do with terrorists. There have been dozens of individuals as murderous and unstable as Saddam was in every century of human history. The idea that a few barely organized lunatics are more dangerous than an army that possesses thousands of nuclear warheads is ridiculous. Things should be kept in perspective and skills should not be superhumanly exaggerated.

Both wars have everything to do with national politics. With those never-ending conflicts, both parties do not need to actually work when they are in power. They can both maintain vague policies about security-related probabilities and not be held accountable for actual policy-making. With a constant culture war, dividing the population on emotional issues, policy-making can be easily deflected with rhetorical speech.

As long as we're here, small parentheses should be opened about emboldening and giving aid and comfort to the enemy: it's ridiculous. Any adult who thinks that some actual terrorist out there in, say Yemen, Pakistan or Iraq, is listening to what some people are writing or saying in editorials or speeches is either drunk or delusional. Add to that the fact that all the emboldening and comfort for exercising the fundamental act of criticism and peer-review in political decision-making is not going to do much difference in front of a guided missile or hand weapon, and much of this debate adds up to a content level between kindergarten and 3rd grade.

Since the information media has neither mandate nor incentive to provide understanding of political affairs, it is simple matter to provide incentives to the opposite and maintain sufficient secrecy to minimize accountability. With power should come proportional accountability, which is simply not possible with secrecy. Between secrecy, and its hypothetical efficiency boost, and accountability, which when correctly applied prevents corruption, incompetence, nepotism, war and propaganda, the benefit of the doubt is a foolish gift to grant to politicians.

Harpers published an excellent essay on American right-wing policies and their abuse of executive privilege, at a cost of several trillion and millions of lives: Stabbed in the Back! - The past and future of a right-wing myth, posted on July 14, 2006.

Shorter Bush Administration: $296 billion deficit is good news

In a graphic display of lunacy, the Bush administration has cheered recent news that budget estimates put the federal deficit for 2006 at $296 billion, rather than the previously projected $423 billion.

Sir, you do not have generalized cancer, but rejoice, you have flesh-eating bacteria and we will only need to remove your left leg.

As always, the NY Times provides mandatory cheering for the lunatic fantasies of the Bush Administration: Bush Cheers High Tax Revenues.

Justice Department Lawyer To Congress: ‘The President Is Always Right’

The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday heard testimony from Steven Bradbury, head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel. When questioned by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on whether the President’s interpretation of the Hamdan case was right or wrong, Bradbury replied, “The President is always right.”

From ThinkProgress: Justice Department Lawyer To Congress: ‘The President Is Always Right’

Biological evolution as the foundation of morality and ethics

A very frequent argument presented by religious folks is that there needs to be a basis for morality and ethical behavior, which religion claims to be. Most humans have very negative views of human nature and believe that most humans cannot act in a moral fashion without a specific set or rules. Religion provides such rules through terror, fear from eternal damnation, and egoistical desires, which the ideas of heaven and God's love provide with convincing images. Fundamentalists are especially hard on individuals who do not follow their respective set of laws, believing they are immoral and therefore justified for forced conversion or murder.

But there is a strong biological basis for morality and ethical behavior, which stands as the foundation of the survival of a species. Any species or group of animals that would conduct themselves without an ethical political behavior would extinguish itself, as inter-species competition is too strong to allow any group weakened by internal violence to survive in the natural environment.

Evolution has woven morality in the genetic code of the surviving species and societies, as all groups that allowed internecine violence to dominate have vanished through self-destruction. For further arguments on this thesis, follow this post at Hell's Handmaiden: Atheists are bad, bad people: The Conclusion!, as well as the earlier portions of this well-written essay: part I and part II.

Shorter Donald Rumsfeld: I have no idea what I'm doing

In a spectacular display of incompetence, United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified before the Senate, regarding the largest defence lease in the Pentagon's history, that he had no knowledge whatsoever about large procurements, which amount in billions of dollars, and is not capable of keeping track of activities in the largest operational organization in the world.

Despite trillions, yes trillions, lost in the enormous military budget, a deficient strategy and poor planning for the war in Iraq, an incapacity to anticipate obvious consequences, such as home-grown terrorism from Iraqis who view Americans as occupiers, bizarre displays of lunacy and public non sequiturs, there does not seem to be any mechanism in the American political system to hold the Secretary of Defence, the holder of the largest discretionary budget in the world, accountable.

Any individual with a mere fraction of that power and responsibility cannot say "We know for a fact where they are" about any subject and simply never be held accountable. Any organization incapable of enforcing responsibility in such matters is dysfunctional and political institutions are not exceptions. The undertaking of such a serious matter as war should obviously hold conditions, such as severe consequences in the case of errors. Any accountability regarding the people who have the power to wage war should take serious any allegation that supports and impose consequences if they turned out to be wrong. The lives of a few people, not matter how powerful politically, are insignificant to history. Most systems are currently configured in a way that can more effectively work to secure its leaders' reputation over their actual work. Expecting anything else than pork barrel politics is at best delusional, hypocritically criminal.

This is a case study of the failure of checks and balances short-sighted by secrecy in policy-making. While the benefits of executive privilege remain anecdotal at best, its damages are countless in human history and repeated only because no significant commitment exists to evolve politics into a generator of human evolution, rather than being its most primitive institution. Staying the course in such conditions is criminally insane, yet continues undebated by the single most useless political institution in the world, the United States Senate, now a mere shadow of its history. It is very hard to take seriously a group of rich old white males who are supposed to represent the American population debating steroid use in baseball, in a committee on government reform no less, gay marriage, the life of a woman in a vegetative state, flag burning, video games and other insane and utterly pointless matters. If all other problems had been solved, these matters may deserve a few passing lines in political debate. But with so many problems plaguing our societies, it is unwise to continue without significant changes in the way our political institutions work.

Washington Post: Tanker Inquiry Finds Rumsfeld's Attention Was Elsewhere

Evil is in human nature

The idea that there are evil or equivalently negative sentiments deep in the very nature of humankind is very peculiar in light of a very single fact: we are thriving, becoming wiser and wealthier. While billions of humans still live in terrible conditions, the condition is improving for most humans, unequivocally thanks to the immense progress of science in the past decades. Any species that fundamentally inhabits evil sentiments would be very unlikely to achieve even a fraction of that greatness, as its very nature would prohibit it from cooperating and develop its understanding.

Despite strong media hype, terrorism is but a shadow of the evils that threatened humankind with total destruction. The notion that a group of improvised soldiers are more threatening than the military forces that destroyed and enslaved so many societies is ridiculous. Comparing Islamic terrorists with fascists, the term islamofacist being a favourite of American right-wingers, is shameful and offensive in many more ways than Howard Stern may ever achieve.

Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and so many others who enslaved entire nations had armies, air forces, naval forces and highly trained killing machines. That the forces of large-scale destructions, from the Roman Empire, European kingdoms and the many military dictatorships of the 20th century be compared with psychopathic, untrained fools is unacceptable. The dedication of these soldiers of god is often cited as their unshakable resolve, and hence the terrible danger they represent. Yet most police officers, medical workers and other first responders would show the very same resolve if they were faced with the power to intervene. Terrorists remain delusional brainwashed youth, no matter how much damage they can create. They are mere dust compared to the millions of deaths from the many avoidable causes that still lack proper funding, from pollution, cancer, AIDS to illegal arms trade and the $1 trillion criminal market created by drug prohibition.

Dark sentiments cross the mind of almost every human being throughout his life. But the vast majority of our consciousness is dedicated to constructive sentiments. Those sentiments have resulted in the kind devotion of parenthood, social skills that encourage sharing and severely punish those so-called evil sentiments. Greed, bad temper and physical abuse, among many negative individual treats, are suppressed by our much more powerful empathetic, one might say "good", sentiments, which are almost universal among all cultures that exist to this day. Cultures that promoted violent or otherwise psychopathic behaviour have collapsed.

Empathy is the moral guiding force on which all imagined systems of beliefs rely on. It is our ability to understand how others think and feel that allows us to understand that it is equally important to preserve in ourselves as it is in every other being we can apply those principles on. The petty excuses of our violent history are mere passages in textbooks read only by a few interested in their meaning. It is cowardice that pushes people to reject the responsibility of freedom and fuels excuses that do not stand to scrutiny. War and peace are only differentiated by the ability of those in power to understand the driving force of the human species. Those who went against this force, the dictators of our authoritarian institutions, are only remembered by a few, despised by most.

All the great political and religious conquerors of history, those who shared egomaniacal personalities, barely have any impact on our modern civilization, much less than any of the great inventors that created the modern economy, without which justice and morality are but an eyesight away from total impunity. By modern standards, most of the "great" individuals of history would be considered psychopaths and would be socially rejected. There are still many people behaving similarly to history's egomaniacal leaders. But we now more often see them in padded rooms or shouting on the sidewalk than in a position of authority. That is because modern science has allowed us to create an economic order that rejects such egomaniacal behaviours from most of its institutions.

There is one policy that can forever solve the problem of terrorism. It is decades long but absolutely flawless: improving the life of all humankind. This feat can, and will, only be achieved by science and as such our technological progress needs a much steadier course. There is no call to jihad, or any delusional sacrifice, that can compete with freedom and a high quality of life. The beauty of science is that with the proper governing body and funding, it will mostly be taken care of by itself. All that is needed is political commitment, funding and a strict separation from politics. A contribution based on a flat percentage of the GDP would be simple to manage and fair.

Science is by far the professional body most dedicated to improving human life, as it has no meaning with such results. Science has so far saved far more lives in the few decades of its modern age than all the demagogues of the past. It is the single most lucrative investment from an economic perspective and the single most effective policy towards freedom, justice and democracy.

Why They Fight

If North America was invaded, Americans would resist - just like the insurgents in Iraq.

http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1862