Photo: Zoha N.

I have been a vegetarian now for long enough now to consider it a permanent life decision. People ask me why all the time and I brush it off to avoid having a lengthy, serious conversation. I don’t enjoy conversations where I feel I am defending my choices or trying to convince someone else how to live their life.

I won’t do a lengthy post trying to convince my readers to give up meat either. Instead, here is a 4 minute TED talk that gives a great introduction and proposes a 70% solution for those who fear committing all the way – “Weekday Veg”. Hopefully this short video will pique your interest and lead you to further research the benefits of becoming a vegetarian.

Photo: Chris Metcalf

Technology was originally created with the intention of saving us time. The cotton gin was created to save time processing cotton, the steam engine to save time over using horses for power, and computers to save time on calculations. But where is all this free time? It seems that people are busier and more stressed than ever before.

Despite the incredible pace of technological innovations in the last several decades, it has been ineffective in actually saving us time. An incredible number of tools are available today that have never been available before, but we don’t know how to effectively use them to reduce stress and provide more leisure time. It is not a limitation of the technology, rather our training on these technologies lags far behind – we just don’t take the time to learn how to use them effectively!

The technologies that dominate our everyday lives
In the grand scheme of things cell phones and email are new technologies. The majority of people got their first cell phone less than 10 years ago and email maybe a couple years before that. Now we are combining the technologies – chances are if you bought a new cell phone in the last year or two it now has email on it. The downside to these rapid technological advances is that we haven’t had time to properly learn the best way to use them.

Have you ever been talking to someone in person when their cell phone rings? How is this person supposed to respond? It is wonderful that you can be reached at any time of day by your friend 10,000 miles away, but at what cost? The call disrupts your face-to-face conversation for a digital one. Text messages are less obtrusive but the same principle applies – they dictate our lives and take us out of the moment.

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Photo: Punchup

First, what is a second order effect? I wanted to start this with one of those “Merriam-Webster defines second order effects as …” that you so often see in papers by freshmen in high school, but I refrained. Let’s start with a first order effect. This is the direct result of a change. Taking it one level deeper, a second order effect is the result of the direct result of the change. It is better explained by an example.

A new tax break is created to give an $8000 rebate to first time home buyers this year. A first order effect is that more people buy homes this year. A second order effect is that less people buy homes next year because so many just bought houses this year.

As you can see, the second order effect is often an overlooked consequence. Laws, rules, and regulations are often put in place to create a change in behavior. But what is the consequence of that change in behavior? All too often we lack the foresight to look this far into the future, but there also could potentially be third, fourth, or fifth order effects!

Title IX
Title IX’s regulation of college sports is an example that jumps out in my mind. The intention was to make sure women and men have the same rights. One area most effected by this is collegiate sports – women and men must be equal in both athletic scholarships and the male-female ratio of athletes needs to match the schools student ratio. This is a tremendous first order effect – more women get to play sports and receive scholarships.

But unfortunately the school’s economic situation comes into play. Football is the only sport that makes money and there is not a women’s sport with an equivalent number of players. So if the school wants to have a football team, they will also have to have 5 women’s sports teams before they can even add another men’s sport. A second order effect is that schools are (economically) forced to drop some of the less common men’s sports teams. A third order effect may be that the sport loses popularity over time (wrestling is an example). Fourth order? How about we start losing the Olympic medal count to China because they train their athletic children to focus on a specific random sport. Fifth order? Communism wins.

What does this have to do with communism?
Absolutely nothing, that was a stretch. The point is, it is extremely hard to predict the result of a result of a result of an action. The consequences of the action may outweigh the benefit of the initial goal – this is why Republicans often vote for less government intervention – it’s not that they don’t want better healthcare, rather they believe the unintended consequences outweigh any improvement.

Image: Melchoir

.99999 repeating is the representation of an endless string of 9s. Just when you think it should end, add another 9. Then do it again. Intuition tells us that without rounding this number is less than 1. We know it must end in a 9, and any decimal that starts 0.999… regardless of how many 9s you write, has to be less than 1. Well here is proof that you are wrong!

x = .999…
10x = 9.999…
10x – x = 9.999… – .999…
9x = 9
x = 1

How is this even possible? Why wouldn’t you just right 1 instead of .9 repeating? Now you can – if anyone questions you show this proof to blow their mind! You also now have the right to tell the joke “How many mathematicians does it take to change a lightbulb? Point nine repeating!”

Photo: Jason Scragz

I love attaining knowledge, but here is a puzzling question – is it ethical to use information gained in an unethical way? If so, are we just supposed to turn a blind eye to how it was obtained and move on? If not, are we just supposed to forget the knowledge we gained and pretend it never happened? Neither option jumps out as the right answer, so let’s inspect a couple examples.

Using the Information
How about an extreme example – let’s take a look at the Nazis, some of the least ethical people ever. They did a whole series of messed up experiments on human prisoners that resulted in thousands of deaths and countless more ended with dismemberment, disability, or at the very least emotional torment. Just to give you an idea, some of the tests were carried out to find out the the effects on the human body of extreme cold and heat, mustard gas and other poisons, altitude, and drinking salt water.

Today we know a lot about the limits of the human body because the Nazis forced thousands of people past the limit and did not stop until they were dead. For example, we now know that you die from hypothermia when your body temperature reaches approximately 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers today openly use the Nazi experiment data and are determined to see good come from all the deaths by using it to help others in the future. Here is a good essay examining the ethical debate of using this data.

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