Author: Andrew Sullivan

The Dark Side Of Churchill

Madhusree Mukerjee's recently published book, Churchill's Secret War, unearths the great war leader's willingness to see millions of Indians die of starvation rather than ship food supplies he wanted elsewhere or stockpiled for the future. Hyperbole?

My indictment is based on what Churchill did, not on what he said. The Ministry of War Transport papers, the Cherwell Papers, and the official histories of British wartime food supply, shipping, and economy are my key sources. They show, for instance, that the War Cabinet scheduled eighteen ships to load with Australian wheat in September and October, 1943. Not one of these ships was destined for famine-stricken India.

Had anyone else been prime minister, he would have striven to relieve India’s plight instead of consigning wheat to stockpiles.

Churchill’s diatribes, as recorded in Amery’s and others’ diaries, are, however, useful in understanding why he acted as he did. Famine had failed to temper his hostility toward Indians. Churchill would tell his secretary that Hindus were a foul race protected by their rapid breeding from “the doom that is their due.” He wished Arthur Harris, the head of British bomber command, could “send some of his surplus bombers to destroy them.”

Whole Foods Hampsters

Dan Ariely vents after Whole Foods passes on his request to experiment:

Companies in general are willing to spend lots of money on consultants, they are willing to spend lots of money on gambling that their intuitions are correct, and sometimes they even spend money on focus groups. But, when it comes to testing things empirically, the typical answer is “interesting, but not for us.”

If You Can’t Take The Heat, Pick Up A Controller

A new video game, “Fate of the World,” challenges players to stop climate change without crashing economies or ecosystems:

Change is achieved by applying policies, in the form of cards, to a dozen geographical regions, with each turn representing the passage of five years. Players can promote nuclear power and institute cap-and-trade schemes, or pin their hopes on untested technologies like fusion power or carbon capture and storage — so-called “clean coal.” …

Far darker options are available for seriously unscrupulous planet savers. These include sending secret agents to overthrow recalcitrant governments and surreptitiously adding contraceptives to the water supplies of nations resistant to birth control. Those with apocalyptic leanings can even release a genetically engineered virus to crash the world population.

The Cannabis Closet: Pain Or Unemployment?

A reader writes:

I live in Northern California, and I voted Yes on Proposition 19. I smoked a little cannabis when I was in my late teens and early 20s, back in the late '70s. It didn’t make me want to try other, more potentially dangerous illegal drugs. In fact, because I was a student and broke most of the time, I rarely could afford to buy it (and frankly, I was too naive to know easily how to get it). For me, it was like having an occasional glass of very nice wine, usually during a party when a joint was being passed around. I enjoyed the experience and left it at that.

I’m in my early 50s now. I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis for more than 20 years, and while some treatments for the disease are effective, their efficacy varies from person to person, and they often only work for a while.

It’s a very painful and often disabling and even disfiguring disease; I've taken many, many different medications in an attempt to control it and relieve the pain. The latest "cocktail" of drugs I take for RA is, my doctor tells me, controlling the disease. Unfortunately, the joint pain remains.

About six months ago I finally got brave enough to take my medical records to a “pot doctor,” and got the “card” (it’s actually a letter) that makes it legal for me to use cannabis to treat my pain. I went to a dispensary and bought some.

It helps with the pain, but I discovered (this wasn’t a big surprise) that while I was under the influence, I shouldn’t try to do anything very productive, and certainly shouldn’t attempt to drive. Of course, it's the same with alcohol, and it's the same with opiate-based prescription analgesics as well. I drink very little, and I hate taking opiate painkillers for fear of becoming tolerant, dependent and addicted. Cannabis is a wonderful alternative, used responsibly and with care.

So while being able to use pot for pain has been nice, I've only used it in the evenings or on weekends when I know I’m going to be home and prepared to be unproductive while I'm in less pain.

But now I find myself in a conundrum. I’ve been unemployed for a couple of years. I continue to search for work, but so far have been unable to find a job. Here's the thing: If I do find a decent job and get an interview, what happens if they require a drug test? If I’m using cannabis, I’ll fail it. Goodbye, job.

So even though I have my weed tucked away in my cupboard, ready to use when I hurt badly, I haven’t used it for quite some time, just in case. When it comes to pain relief versus full-time employment, I have to be realistic and pragmatic and go for the latter. Prop 19 might not have changed this situation much (certainly it would have taken some time for the overall social culture to change), but it was something to look forward to. Now I guess that change will just have to wait. And as long as I'm unemployed, so will I.

How Video Games Are Like Real Life

They are policed. Brian Crecente reports on multiplayer online games and the occasional criminals who play them:

Modern massively multiplayer online games don't have to deal with just cheating and player hazing, but gold running, character theft, even real world crimes, like players targeting underage players for real-world sex or discussing crimes they want to or already have committed. … 

… if a player is signed in as an 8-year-old boy, but the program believes they are chatting or behaving like a 40-year-old, moderators will be alerted to watch them.

A World Without Political Parties

Scott Adams envisions one:

Imagine a democratic political system in which no one is allowed to be a member of a political party. How would things be different? My hypothesis is that confirmation bias, or cognitive dissonance, or something of that nature, influences voters to irrationally agree with the platform of their own party no matter what the facts suggest. My hypothesis is easy enough to test. All you'd need to do is come up with a phony issue and present it to your test subjects as something to which their party agrees, or disagrees, and see if party affiliation influences opinions. I think the effect would be large.

Debating Israel-Palestine

My little experiment in a three-post mini-essay concluded last week. I'm not sure it was that successful an idea, but there are many points in all three posts – here, here and here – that I hope can stimulate push-back and debate. So have it. Again, the point of this was to try and get away from tit-for-tat blog-spats and toward a bloggy attempt to air some ideas which require a little more space than a single post. The Dish remains open to any and all rebuttals or clarifications.