cloudsoup

A guy, who works in the department of a Human Resources consultancy company, says they made a selection process in which, among other things, they asked for a person with ample experience in using the internet (navigation, searches, formats…).
They received 50 candidacies, from which 30 came from Hotmail-directions, all of them erased as they entered.

The reason: You can’t pretend being an internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time.

Via boingboing

Helen’s photo of a pigeon. More on her Flickr stream

Weird photo, yes? It looks like a studio shot with a stuffed bird and airbrushed background. Well it isn’t – it’s in our back garden, no photoshopping involved.

• Salma & Sabina Agha – Dancing Queen (MP3)
  Salma and Sabinha sing the hits of Abba in Hindi.

Residents on the Brandon Three Estate in Camberwell say they are too frightened to leave their homes when Archbishop Michael Ramsey Technology College in Camberwell closes each day

Sergeant David Gwyther, from the safer neighbourhoods team, told the meeting the troublemakers numbered around 40 or 50 and he was not going to try to shut down the school.

He said: “Staying inside between 3.30pm and 4.15pm is something you are going to have to learn to do

icSouthLondon, ‘School kids are out of control’

• My IT experience prepared me significantly for the challenges of being a 21st century politician

  21st Century Boy, Jonathan Bishop. Jonathan has 25 friends.

Mark has been absorbed by The Borg. But this Borg is a better Borg than before.

I’m so impressed by Google. Their best ever hiring. Buy stock.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the origins of morality. It’s not earth-shatteringly novel but it’s an accomplished summary of the idea that emotion precedes morality and has an evolutionary grounding.

The NYT article majors heavily on Dr. de Waal at Emory University, who trots out his observations of primate behaviour and suggests that some patterns of reaction and response can be seen as analagous to behaviours we would deem as moral.

Although the article cites David Hume as a philosopher who believed that emotion preceeded moral judgement, it nevertheless puts up Kant – who, I suppose, trumps Hume, just about, in oppositon – and contemporary, less impressive representatives of the Philosophy of Academia who are clearly narked that a Biologist is trampling on their lawn. Is, they say, does not imply ought.

Well of course it doesn’t, and rationality must have its say. But moral predilictions are not particularly rational, demonstrably, and I’m not sure an out-and-out rationalisation of moral choices would meet with anything other than an awkward discomfort until we all carried on as we were beforehand.

So here’s one version of a common moral dilemma:

A car is speeding down the road. You see that it cannot stop in time to avoid hitting a group of five unaware people just up the road. You are unable to make them aware of the situation; they are effectively helpless.

However, there is a large man standing beside you. You know that, if you push him in front of the car, it will hit him and skid off of the road, and the five people will live

Not suprisingly, most people do not choose to push the large man in front of the speeding car. But perhaps, if moral choices were rational choices, we should.

It’s unsuprising that the NYT article mentions Peter Singer, the well-regarded philosopher who has tried to persuade the UN to award human rights to the great apes. Singer is a rationalist par excellence and I have a great deal of time for his arguments. Once you’ve stepped onto the escalator of rationality you can’t get off until you’ve reached the end.

So Singer justifies abortion, painless infanticide and euthanasia, says that bestiality may be morally acceptable, that intelligence or personhood is not the trumping fact of moral consideration. And he’s correct, from a rational point of view, isn’t he? And given his job – a very successful professional philosopher – cold-headed rationality is helpful.

I think, though, that Singer’s appeal to the facts of animal biology and consciousness and capacity of suffering sits ironically with his seeming willingness to set aside our biological endowments. I cannot conceive of myself enjoying munching on a witchetty grub, I have never been able to climb heights without a feeling of vertigo, I am physically attracted to some people and not others. And I have a basic, unreasonable, emotional kick-start to my ethical positions, too.

Is doesn’t imply ought. But is can’t be entirely ignored, or else we’d all push that large man in front of the car and none of us would feel uneasy about our action.

I’m tempted by the cold, unblinking logic of Singer. But I feel empthy with the messy, contradictory biology. I’m torn.

Hmm… experiencing some peculiar server problems at the moment

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.

Obituary in The Times of Chris Lightfoot.

The Nigerian scam moves to Korea. From my inbox:

we are being treated as foreigners here and watched closely because the Korean government believe we are security treat (sic)

But it’s a little more canny. The email asks me to:

send me a complete breakdown of the investment opportunities in your country and also let me know what exactly I need to do to enable you invest the funds for me in your country

– which would involve me in quite a considerable amount of work, don’t you think?