Year In Space

This blog is intentionally not focused on current events, but I'm making an exception to remind everyone that the NASA/Roscosmos Year In Space mission launches tomorrow from Baikonur Cosmodrome for the International Space Station.

It's a far cry from the duration called for by most Mars mission architectures, but this is a large step forward. Astronaut Scott Kelly will set a new duration record for American astronauts, while cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will spend more time in space than any Russian since the deorbiting of Mir. 

The third passenger on their Soyuz flight to the ISS, Gennady Padalka, has been practically forgotten by the media. Padalka will only spent the normal six months on orbit, but upon landing will emerge with the human time-in-space record.

Of course, it's not all butterflies and rainbows. Kelly and Kornienko will occupy slots that could have been assigned to other astronauts and cosmonauts, delaying when they get more flight assignments. Considering how much more science year-long missions will yield, it's entirely possible this is the new normal. However, the astronaut corps has shrunk significantly in the post-shuttle years, so I may be worrying about a non-issue.

Altogether, this is a very exciting time in our push to the planets. Let's hope for a nominal launch.

Smarter Every Day interviews Scott Kelly

Pi versus Tau: a case of nominative determinism?

Tomorrow is Pi Day, which to most people is a day to celebrate mathematics and pretend to like nerds. It seems like good, clean fun, but behind the false front, a battle rages on. Do we keep π, or abandon it in favor of τ?

For those who don't know, τ is a mathematical constant which can be approximated 6.2831853071... or precisely 2π. Many argue that τ is a more elegant and efficient way choice, and a better way to teach mathematics. But that debate is not what this post is about.

No, I want to investigate a different phenomenon: the effect one's name has on their position in the debate.

This first occurred to me when I was watching a Numberphile video on the debate. Brady Haran cleverly replaced letters from the debater's names with their respective constants. It's just two data points, but it got me thinking: do the letters in your name affect how your opinion?

Mere cleverness, or important evidence?

I wondered if this extended beyond Steve and Matt, so I started looking around. My name, in case you forgot, is Nathaniel. It has a T, like Steve, but also has an H right next to it. Where do I stand on the issue? Well, I think τ is more beautiful, but the switching costs are too high to attempt an actual change. I'd rather we just introduce the concept when teaching trigonometry.

My friends are relatively nerdy, but the sample size is too small to drawn any conclusions. I might be seeing a trend, but then again I might be fitting data to the theory. Until I see a rigorous psychology of science study on the subject, I'm putting this one down as "plausible."

No More Politics?

For some time, I've been disinterested in your everyday object-level politics. However, I've taken a sort of hiatus from even metapolitics, and it's quite pleasant. It's quite possible I'm not going to go back.

There's several reasons why this is the case. For one thing, it's draining. You argue and explain and grind away, and it never seems like you're making any progress. In the end, you're faced with a dilemma: explain the 101 material for the umpteenth time, or veer into more advanced territory that's off-putting to newcomers. A Grunted and Hinged post on beginners and burning out described this process in detail. My experiences with libertarianism/Objectivism conform pretty well to the model.

Politics is also mind-killery. I don't think I need to walk anybody through this one. We've all felt it, that frenzy when your beliefs are being attacked. We instantly lose all ability to reason, fixating on discrediting our opponent's position, no matter how eloquently the argue or how much evidence they put forward.

That sensation is a product of our ape brains, still mostly optimized for life on the savanna. To my knowledge, there isn't a direct solution for this, but there are a few hacks to avoid being in that situation to begin with. The most popular tactic is keeping your identity small--or, if you prefer more colloquial terms, "being independent." Of course, Independent and Person-With-A-Small-Identity are still identities, and people will attack you for them.

(If you're thinking "I could be independent without making that part of my identity," I'm afraid it's too late. You also just lost the game.)

Furthermore, there's usually a reason someone starts identifying with a particular ideology or movement. You don't wake up one day saying "I think I'll be a feminist!" Going back to Gruntled and Hinged:

Let’s oversimplify a bit, and presume that the only question that feminism seeks to answer is whether or not women and men are equal.  So you, New Feminist, get involved in feminism (for the purposes of this exercise, and because I’ve already slightly oversimplified, please assume you’re female). You start identifying as a feminist, and as a result start having conversations/arguments/discussions about whether or not men and women are equal.

I emphasize this point, not to comment on feminism, but because your beliefs necessarily contribute to your identity, which then contributes to your behaviors.

Take my own example. I decided I valued natural rights, the Constitution, and limited government, and consequently began thinking of myself as a libertarian. Since I was a libertarian, I began discussing libertarian ideas. Wasted countless hours on the internet arguing about politics, and wasted my vote* on Gary Johnson.

But what did all that accomplish? I stressed over things I couldn't control and didn't shift the political landscape significantly. Meanwhile, my education (both formal and informal) languished. I paid the price for that, too--itself a reason to get out.

So now, I'm realigning my identity away from politics. My beliefs have shifted** and so have my priorities. How I label myself is important, because it's a way of caching the self. What political label you use will impact the direction your beliefs update. As a libertarian, I became more anarchistic and extreme, as a radical centrist the reverse occurred.

You should also try to replace the symbol with the substance. For a long time, I called myself a nerd, because it seemed like an accurate identifier. Even if we ignore the social connotations, though, it wasn't very useful. Nerd implies a lot of things to different people. For me, however, it referred to a relatively succinct set of interests in ideaspace. Now, I'll say "I'm interested in philosophy and spaceflight" instead of introducing myself as nerd. I still am one, but a very particular type of nerd.

The same goes in politics, but that's a lumper's game. Nuance dies upon first contact with the political. If you want to talk about complex ideas intelligently, getting out of politics is the way to go.

*I don't actually consider my vote wasted, since Romney was guaranteed to win Kansas. You could argue that voting at all was a waste of time (especially since I had to do the mail-in forms), but I was 18 and really wanted to.

**More on that later.