The End of the World as we know it, and I feel fine. Well, sort of.

So the world didn't end yesterday, in case you failed to notice.

Very glad of this, I am - I didn't even get to clean out the fridge; and I'm also not terribly surprised that we're all still here.  Part of me, though, couldn't help thinking that there was a calculable probability that the guy might have been right.  Not because I think some old codger in America with a bible and a calculator has any sort of inside access to the End of the World project plan, but because the possibility always exists, no matter how small, that some sort of catastrophic event will befall the planet.  6pm on 21st May 2011 is as good a time as any for that to happen.  Just ask the dinosaurs.

Of course, there's also a calculable probability that while reading this, you will dissolve and rematerialize on the other side of the room.  Just because the probability of a thing happening is non-zero doesn't actually make it probable.

Equally, though, a non-zero probability is, well, a non-zero probability, and so the mind wanders off to consider the possibility.  I had lunch with my friend Phil the other day.  Talking with Phil is like improvisational acting - the only rule is that we must follow the discussion down whatever rathole it may happen to go.  I took advantage of a lull in the conversation caused by Phil having taken a rather large mouthful of bacon, and posed the question of whether he felt that we had the skills to survive in the event of a total societal breakdown.

By 'skills' I was referring to the hard skills required to procure food - spear fishing and bear wrestling, that sort of thing - but Phil took the question in another direction and talked about his friend, 'Bob' (I don't actually remember the friend's name, so we'll call him Bob).  Bob head-butted a guy at a family party because the guy took a swing at him, and then calmly returned to his beer while the guy bled through the nose outside.  Bob would survive in the post-asteroid-impact world, not because he knows how to trap and strangle a wild turkey, but because he doesn't hesitate to consider the possible consequences of his actions, nor does he dwell on their outcome afterward.  To put this in moral terms, Bob lacks a conscience.

Now, Bob may well feel badly about hitting the guy, may have thought later about the possibility that the guy had more friends at the party than Bob, may even have realized that he might have diffused the situation by applying a bit of diplomacy, but in the moment, when it really counted, Bob didn't think, he acted.  When society breaks down, those who act decisively and unhesitatingly will win out.  After the asteroid, or whatever, my money's on Bob.

Or rather, it would be, except I'll be dead, because I'm a thinker.  I can't help it - I was raised that way.  I am well-socialized.  I usually think about what could happen if I take a particular action.  I've often come to regret those occasions when I have taken action either in ignorance of, or in willful disregard for the consequences. You might think that as a result, I'd have learned not to act without due consideration, but 'due consideration' is a moving goalpost.  How much analysis and consideration is enough?  Would one more piece of data make the decision completely different?  At some point you have to act, or you get stuck in the analysis phase forever.

So how do we teach our children to behave responsibly and considerately toward others without becoming victims of those who have not learned similar consideration?

Michael was crying at the playground the other day.  A little kid had punched him.  This was not the first time Michael had been injured by someone else's child's behavior.  I sat Michael down on a bench and talked to him about it.  I told Michael that if someone hits him, he could hit them back, or at least give the other kid a good hard shove.  Michael shook his head tearfully. "I don't want to."  "Why not?" I asked.  "Because god doesn't want us to fight."

This is, and has always been, my problem with religious rhetoric.  Not defending yourself because 'god doesn't want you to fight' is obviously an impractical position, but it's difficult to dispute because it's dogmatic - either you believe that fighting is wrong and you don't fight at all, or you are forced to accept that fighting is always right, which clearly isn't the case either.  Dogma is simple.  It's black or white, never grey.  Life is complicated.  It's almost never black or white, almost always grey.  Dogma and life are, therefore, incompatible.  Perhaps I don't understand morality well enough, but it seems to me that a rigid moralism might be useful as a behavioral framework, but not terribly so in practice.  I think one should learn morality first, but then learn to adapt it to the situation.

I guess the next challenge is to teach Michael how to adapt his anti-fighting stance to fit the circumstances. Hopefully I'll get around to this before the next time the world ends.