There can be no other explanation...

I got a comment on my post "Why I am NOT a libertarian", which amused me to no end:

"If you are stupid and uneducated, who is writing your posts? 

False humility is not a virtue."

Yeah...

Somehow, the notion that someone could be obviously highly intelligent, and yet still have humility about their intellect...

...Or rather, perhaps to be more precise, lack the hubris necessary to believe that I could possibly EVER be intelligent enough, that I can make decisions for anyone else...

... is utterly inconceivable.

Someone with the I.Q. and education I have, COULDN'T POSSIBLY be sincere, and actually mean that I was not, and could not possibly be, smart enough.

I MUST be lying for rhetorical effect, or being ironically self aggrandizing.

There can be no other explanation...

Perhaps my long term history of passionately expressing this idea both personally, and as a libertarian activist and writer; with for example, pieces like this:

"It's Not About Elites or Idiots"

... could "prove" that I actually believe in what I have said.

Perhaps...

But, for those possessed of the authoritarian or paternalistic worldview...

...probably not.

There are more reasons than can be counted, why hubris, is the greatest, and most dangerous, sin (be it spiritual, intellectual, or both).

What's it like to live with someone more than 5sd from mean intelligence?

Frankly, it's absolutely exhausting.

While I was attending to matters in Canada, Chris got a friend of ours to be his personal assistant for a few days. His work days were going to be nuts, he's still not over the pneumonia and he wanted someone to take care of the house and the dogs while I was gone.

A few days later, the friend who helped him out (no intellectual slouch herself, and an experienced professional) asked me something: "how do you do it?" meaning, how do I handle the energy, the intensity, the intellectual challenge... How do I keep up?

Then this morning I read his latest post, understood 80% of it (despite having no background in the subject matter), and realized that the osmosis is working.

By that, I'm thinking of something another friend said: "I'm sure you learn more about guns through osmosis, just having sex with Chris, than I could ever learn after years working in a gun store."

He was a little off as to the method, but yeah that's about right.

At 16, my IQ tested out as 155, putting me at over 3 standard deviations from the mean of 100 (IQ is by definition scaled to a notional mean of 100). Chris's IQ is somewhere around 180, which is either "a little over 5" or "a little under 6" standard deviations from the mean, depending on which exact set of numbers you're looking at.

Intelligence isn't linear though (nor are IQ tests particularly precise or accurate)... Sometimes the difference in IQ seems more logarithmic than anything else. Sometimes it seems like he's only twice as smart, or five times as smart. Some days, in comparison to him, I feel like the village idiot.

Remember, this is someone with an IQ over 150 saying "some days I feel like the village idiot in comparison".

This can be rather difficult to deal with, especially when you're aren't used to the idea.

On top of that, he thinks in very different ways and handles information very differently. Sometimes we are speaking two different mental languages, and it shows. I really can't comprehend how he processes things, even when he explains it to me. I can't understand at all how FAST he processes everything. I'll barely have finished physically hearing a piece of information never mind beginning to think about it; and Chris has already processed it, understands it, and has either formulated questions, or moved on to the connections and implications.

He just seems to get everything, instantly. It isn't really instant, it's just that his "clock speed" is so much higher than mine I can't see the delay. It's like, my brain is a flash drive... pretty fast, a lot faster than a "normal" persons spinning disk hard drive.. but Chris's brain is like RAM. He's continuously inside my process/decision loop.

And sometimes, it's really frikken irritating...

So how do you handle it when your spouse is so much smarter, more educated, more experienced, and thinks differently (engineer brain) without going absolutely insane?

1. Lose the ego. Seriously. If you thought you were smart before, you might as well get used to feeling like an idiot. I figured this out about 3 months in.

2. Don't compare yourself to them. Not only will it not go well for your now small-as-a-grain-of-sand ego, but it's also the quick route to failure.

3. Keep at least some separate interests, and cultivate your own hobbies. Nobody can know everything, and it turns out everyone is good (or bad) at something. Pick something you won't be tempted to compare scores on. This keeps you from feeling like a complete idiot.

4. Keep your ears (and mind) open. Turns out you won't retain all of it (who can) but you may learn about firearms, politics, history, music, geekery... whatever comes out of their mouths. This will make you smarter as you learn more.

5. Cultivate a base knowledge of everything, especially what your spouse is interested in. This will also make you smarter, and also keep you actively engaged in their lives and their conversations. It is also extremely appreciated, as most people don't make the effort to keep up.

6. Make the effort to keep up. Ask about their day, or the problem they're working on, even if you don't fully understand it. Learn enough about what your spouse does to understand when they vent. This takes time but is worth the effort, as eventually you WILL understand.

7. Ask for clarification when you don't understand. It will come up later.

8. It's entirely possible they have high standards, low tolerances, and a different outlook on the world. Rather than be resentful that your spouse isn't like all the others, learn to take their criticism gracefully and try to do it better. It will make you better at what you do, and will be appreciated.

9. Remember that no matter what, dealing with you spouse will always be intense. That's where the exhaustion comes in. It's not for the faint of heart. Their intelligence is intense. Their conversation is intense and requires your entire brain. Their standards are intense. Their hobbies will be intense. Their passions are intense. That also means other parts of your relationship will be intense, and I'll leave that there.

10. Life with your spouse will be challenging, occasionally discouraging, often humbling, and exhausting. However, you will get as much (or more) out of your marriage than you put in.

Mel

Seven Value Logic

Let's play a game of 20 questions. You know the rules: Try and guess what it is I'm thinking of by asking me up to 20 yes or no questions.

The questions have to be yes or no, there must be a discrete answer to each question, and if you don't have the answer by 20, you lose and I win.

This is called "decision tree logic" or "tree decisioning", because each question branches off into other questions, hopefully narrowing down to the trunk and root; the object we wish to identify (or the answer we want to reach).

The funny thing about 20 questions is though... As complicated as it may seem (and in fact it IS a very complicated problem from a structured logic standpoint), human beings are really quite good at it.

The reason we're so good at, what is a very complex problem technically, comes down to three unique properties of human thought: Induction (intuitive reasoning), association (relational resasoning), and indiscrete nondeterministic logic.

By unique, I mean that no other animal has exhibited these properties, except in the most basic way; and no computer can duplicate them.

At least, not so far.

Ok... so from this point I'm going to go into a description of how computers "think"... or more accurately how computers solve problems; how that's different from how humans think; and perhaps how computers can perhaps solve problems more like humans do in the future.

If you're a programmer, a computer scientist, or anyone with a passing fair knowledge of either subject, this is going to be grossly oversimplified for you.

If you have little interest in how computers solve problems, this will bore the hell out of you.

I'm trying to strike a balance between being technically correct, and being understandable and interesting for a layman... And I'll be honest, I don't think I did such a great job doing so.

I'm not sure it is POSSIBLE to do so in this particular case. You can either speak in human language, or in the language of structured logic; and they aren't particularly compatible.

Some folks have written recently about how AMAZING our current computing power, and the access to information it provides us, really is.

And it is. There is no question, it has changed the world dramatically, and will continue to do so.

We now have, on our desktops, the power to make tens, or even hundreds of billions of calculations every second (a dual processor quad core nehalem can run 150 billion instructions per second across its 8 cores; and each instruction can have MANY binary logic tests in it) ... Hundreds of million, or even billions, in our phones even.

So much computing power is available, in such portable packages; that computers have almost become extensions of our brains. Our, exobrains, as several folks have referred to them.

These exobrains have seemingly huge memories and infinite computing capacity in comparison to our actual brains.

And yet, we actually have a HUGE memory and computing capacity naturally... we just use it in entirely different ways than computers do.

As for our exobrains, we'll never really be able to use that calculating capacity as well as our real brains use theirs, until and unless we make a huge leap in the physical and logical nature of computing; and develop high value logic in hardware (I'll explain what that means as we go along).

Human brains are made up of neurons; and many people over the years have made the easy analogy between neurons and the transistors in our computers.

That analogy is not particularly accurate however; and in many ways is damagingly misleading.

Unlike computers, humans have the ability to use indiscrete and nondeterministic reasoning, to reach discrete and deterministic conclusions; through relation, deduction, and induction.

Computers as they currently exist can't do this, they can only approximate deduction through many binary cycles, and can't even attempt relation or induction; because they use a discrete two value logic. Binary, boolean, zero or one, yes or no.

Humans use, what can be usefully approximated as, a seven value (technically an infinite value, with 7 cardinal points), indiscrete, and nondeterministic logic.

In normal human language (vs. the language of structured logic), humans have an internal decision making structure, where there are seven discrete values (a discrete value in this context is something definite, with no plus, minus, margin of error, wiggle room etc...), with infinite shadings in between them; and any two sets of outputs from the same set of inputs will not necessarily be identical... (though they MAY be - which is what nondeterministic means in this context).

Those discrete values, expressed in terms of structured logic tests, are:

1. Yes: Terminate positive
   
   
2. No: Terminate negative
   
   
3. Indeterminate alpha: Both yes and no/Equally balanced between yes and no - Ask another question to discriminate until a deterministic value set is reached.
   
   
4. Indeterminate beta: More yes than no - Ask another question to discriminate until a deterministic value set is reached.
   
   
5. Indeterminate gamma: More no than yes - Ask another question to discriminate until a deterministic value set is reached.
   
   
6. Indeterminate delta: There may be an answer, but it cannot be determined at this time, with this information. Gather more information, wait for states to change, or ask a different question.
   
   
7. Indeterminate Epsilon: NULL, there can be no possible answer under any conditions, terminate or approximate.

You'll note, five of those states are indeterminate. This allows us to build far more complex logical structures, with fewer logical tests (fewer "branches on the tree"), than something that can only use discrete logic (such as computers... or in some cases the severely autistic).

Computers can only use two discrete logical values, yes and no, or rather, on and off (well... even that is inaccurate... it's really "above lower bound" and "below lower bound").

In comparison, this is a great limitation; because all seven of those cardinal values, and all the shadings in between, exist "in the world". In order to interact with the world (and to produce accurate and relevant solution sets to realworld problems) computers need to be able to approximate those values in their logic.

This is of course possible (or computers would be useless as anything other than calculators), through programming; but it takes up computational cycles.

We can approximate indiscrete logic in a discrete logic machine, using huge numbers of discrete logic tests in decision trees; but it's like a chimpanzee playing 20 questions with god.

Each decision tree gets so complex, as to require many orders of magnitude more calculations than the human brain does to produce a solution set.

Just using those 7 discrete values, ignoring the indiscrete shadings, and relational logic humans can do; to approximate a single DEDUCTIVE ONLY human logic test, can require hundreds of binary logic tests.

Simply because we are capable of dealing with indeterminacy.

If a question is suitably complex, but is subject to relational or inductive solving (as so many human questions are); we can do in a single logic test, what a binary computer could require tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of logic tests to do.

Simply put (yeah, I know, WAAAAY too late for that), human beings have intuition, and experience; and that lets us deal with extremely complicated problems, very quickly.

Computers can't really do that. Oh sure, they can address extremely complicated problems; but they do it by breaking them down into EXTREMELY simple ones. Yes and no, on or off... To solve any problem whatsoever, the computer has to play a giant version of 20 questions.

Of course they do most of this in hardware, at a very low level; or in firmware, or assembler above that; all far below the level of operating systems, and applications... and they do it INCREDIBLY quickly now.

Thankfully, computers have massive, and nearly perfect (sadly, only nearly), memory. In fact, it was the addition of stateful memory, that allowed calculators, to become computers.

Combined with this incredible speed at these simple logical tests; this allows computers to do a half decent job at solving a lot of problems..

But they still can't really deal with indeterminacy, chaos, randomness... If a computer needs to deal with anything nondeterministic, it must approximate it to a discrete value, and operate on that discrete value.

Even if we manage to develop 7 value logic discrete circuits, we still don't know how to approximate relational reasoning, or induction, only deduction; because we can't approximate nondeterministic logic tests, and relation and induction are inherently nondeterministic.

Of course, computers now HAVE the capacity for hundreds of billions of logic tests a second... so even if they can't actually use inductive or relational reasoning; they now have the capacity, at least for relatively simple questions, or for those questions for which discrete datasets and rulesets exist and can be solved for (like math problems); to adequately approximate, and simulate, human reasoning, using discrete deduction in (astronomically large and complex) binary logic decision trees...

If you can ask enough yes or no questions, fast enough, you can actually seem like you're thinking... but you'll never have an original though, or intuit something, or make a connection between two things that isn't derivable from a deterministic and discrete logic chain connecting the two.

Maybe we never will have a way to do so. We certainly have no clue as to how we would even start trying.

I just wonder which will come first: Developing a high value logic circuit, figuring out something like quantum computing at its true potential (meaning infinite indescrete values, and maybe, possibly, nondeterministic logic... but we have no idea how to do that, or if it's even possible) and how to program for it (which may be an even harder problem)... or simply building a binary computer so large and so fast, that we no longer care about the rest of it.

Anyway... I bet it'll play really cool video games.

This guy amuses the heck out of me

...and should scare the heck out of you, if you're a security professional, or even if you just understand the implications of all this stuff.

Trevor Paglen is an author, and Dr. of Geography, who developed a fascination for the "black" side of the military some years ago; and started snooping.

His first book on the subject "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me", was basically a recounting of his experiences in trying to figure out what mission patches for classified projects meant.

I posted a video interview of him talking about his book when I first found it, about a year ago; but I can't find it at the moment. I'll post it when I find it again.

I think this is it. It's not embeddable, but it is a flash video from C-Spans BookTV.

He's nowhere near 100% accurate (for one thing, he has a very odd and limited understanding of the military. He approaches it as a cultural anthropologist, from the outside looking in), but I'll tell you, the guy knows how to make an educated guess.

His new book is "Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World." ; in which he extends and develops on the methods and means from the first book, into an expanded view of the black world, focused on geography (and specifically logistics, and how they are related):

So, what you're watching in this video, is an intelligent man with no experience in the field but a great deal or personal interest, training himself to be an intelligence analyst.

Following connections, that's really all it is. Find a point and follow it outward to get the big picture. Then find a thread, follow it 'til it dead ends, then zoom back out and follow the next thread, and so on. Then, once you have enough threads in the warp, look for threads in the weft (the parallels between threads, or where threads cross). Then look for where there SHOULD be a thread, and it isn't there. Pretty soon the picture in the tapestry starts to show up, and the holes become more and more obvious.

The smart ones, and the curious ones, and the persistent ones will always follow connections, and will always figure it out (of course, you could take advantage of that if you were a bit clever...) . That's the problem with intelligence (both types).

An Interesting Perspective from John Waters

"We need to make books cool again. If you go home with someone, and they don't have any books... DON'T FUCK'EM"

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I should note, I LOVE John Waters. He has a hell of a sense of humor, he' amazingly intelligent... he's wrong about almost everything political, and a fair bit of moral; but he's right about a lot of everything else. He's always had a hell of an insight into human behavior.

Saddling Up

So, a friend of mine posited the question, what would you have to do if you had to saddle up again; by which he meant you had to make a deployment, irregular or regular. What would you take with you, if you had a choice.

Assume two scenarios:

One: just you, any choice of weapons legally available to you within the means of a normal man (lt's say middle class to upper middle class) dedicating his entire financial worth to this project.

Two: You, and 3-7 other guys (for 4-8 total), presume limited availability of military hardware; such as security contracting companies have access to. Anything that's on the commercial market is fair game.

Presume you have time to train and condition, with the hardware you acquire, together as a team, before you have to deploy.

Those specific parameters are mine, not his; I chose them as seemingly reasonable for an excercise of this type.

He also posits a mission: After you have trained up, while awaiting deployment, your wife and daughter are trapped in central Mexico by a local "revolucion". They are in sometime communication, and are not being held by revolucionaries; but they will not be able to exit the area without armed escort, and possible direct force.

There have been border skirmishes between U.S. and Mexican troops and/or irregulars; and no governmental agency is willing or able to get them out (you could transpose this same situation to other AO).

Who and what do you do it with?

I'm game for this; could be fun eh.

Ok, first scenario, just me.

Primary weapon: Smith EBR M14 conversion, sage system, night force and an acog on QD mounts, plus BUIS, and an M6 (the big one, not the little one) on the rail with a QD. IR laser on the rail. A conversion sling (2 point, 3 point, 4 point switchable with QDs), and an LWS suppressor on a QD.

Sidearm: HK USP tactical, gemtech or LWS suppressor, M6 combo light with the IR laser.

10 spare M-14 mags (1 in the rifle), loaded up with 180gr Sierra Match King, and pouches. 4 spare mags for the USP (plus one in the pistol), 230gr .45 +p+/super hornady XTP loaded to just barely subsonic, with pouches.

Pop for a PVS7 (about 5 grand last I checked), or PVS14, a Dragon Skin, and a Blackhawk LBE setup, with a back frame (to lash the backup to, among other things), ass pack, and assault ruck with a 2 gallon hydration bladder.

Gerber multipro with toolkit, swamp rat camp tramp, a good set of dikes, a multi driver tool. a decent field spares kit with 2 of every pin, clip and spring, and a good cleaning kit with a couple punches.

20m braided spectrashield sheathed line, and 50m 550 cord, anchors, descenders, ‘biners. 50 zip ties of assorted sizes, 10 bungies of assorted size, 2 medium rolls hun-tape, 1 roll heat shrink electrical tape. 12 assorted cyalumes, pen pop flares, mini flares, two micro strobes, and 4 small personal lights. 2 full spare sets of batteries for everything. Baby wipes, simple green wipes (there are alcohol wipes and betadine wipes in the EFS kit), a bicycle inner tube, superglue, extra heavy duty aluminum foil, some microfiber cloth, baggies bags, rubbers or heavy duty baloons, clear nail polish, q-tips, some pencils WITH erasers, needles and thread (other than in the med gear), spool of fine safety wire, Lighter fluid (the ronsonol kind) or another flammable solvent, a half dozen disposable cigarette lighters, and a zippo

I can think of about a million little things that you’d absolutely kill for when you need’em, and you need’em more often than you’d think.

I’ll leave out the details of nav, comm, med gear, and food; suffice it to say I won’t go anywhere without an EFS kit, a double stuffed trauma pack plus SAM splints, my serious meds kit, a solid GPS, 2 short range comms and a long range comm plus spares (the choice varies depending on mission requirements, and support), and 5 days of minimally decent high calorie field food, plus about 15 energy bars, and 20 packets of gatorade.

Total load out, about 100 lbs including the weight of the food, water, LBE, sack, pack, and armor; most of which I had at one time, and had no problem with for short hauls (meaning less than 10 miles. You can generally handle about 1/3 your body weight for extended periods of time, and a lot of that weight is in consumables). Of course I’ll need a year to get back to where I can do it again, and I’ll need two solid knee braces, and a solid collapsible walking staff (cold steel and others make good weaponised examples).

Then give me a good 4x4 ATV, with a backrest pack setup, and front and rear rack setups; loaded up with ammo (say another 10 mags for the M-14), a shotgun as below, fuel, water, and spares... oh and a field genset, storage battery, a winch, a compressor, and another longer range com with a longwire setup. Seal the tires up with green slime. Give me a field bivvy with a breakup net over it for me and the quad. I may need to worry about transporting the rescuees back, so maybe throw in a trailer.

Another option would be a disguised 4x4. Stick all your Mil gear in with old tools, regular camping gear, etc.. and strap various items to undercarriage or under bodywork.

If I can pick out 3-7 other guys, things change completely. I’ve based this on hardware I own or can easily acquire, legally, within the next few months. If I have access to military hardware things change substantially, but not completely.

I’m thinking of a 500 mile infil-exfil corridor here, from between brownsville and mission (holes a mile wide down there) and northern Ouaxaca; we’d never be able to do it on foot.

One guy with an ATV could cover that in a few days, but four or six guys in an obvious off roader or two (especially if we could mix a woman or two into the op) would be better.

If it were stable enough for regular border traffic to continue, I’d want to smuggle the gear in and cache it overnight, then cross at a regular crossing with the proper tourist permits etc…

You’d be surprised at how much crap you can conceal and disguise on a couple of off road rigs; especially if you take lots of bribing cash.

Second situation, you have backup. Now, I said if I had otherguys things changed completely, and I meant it. Let’s explore that here.

First step, training. I need guys who do not quit, ever, no matter what. A man is never defeated until he concedes defeat to himself. I know some folks who’ll do.

Assume 4 man team total (the most likely scenario actually, and the easiest to insert and support) including myself. Everybody crosstrains on comms, and medical; with two specialists in both (I’m well qualified in either, but I could use an update on both). Everybody crosstrains on demo, with two specialists. Everybody crosstrains in basic vehicle maintenance. Everybody crosstrains on basic spanish (or the language of choice for the AO), with two specialists. Everybody crosstrains on navigation. I want two fixed wing pilots (I’m one), and two rotorheads if I can get them.

Physical conditioning. Runs are great for young guys, but don’t do much for knock knees like me. I can walk all day if I have to (it hurts, but I can do it). I can walk for four hours with my 50lb little girl on my back, but I can’t run for five minutes even when I get my fat ass back down to fighting weight, or my knees will collapse. That means hiking, in mixed terrain and hot weather, with field loads, in good boots. Minimum 5 miles per day, up to 20 miles per day. Bicycling, and circuit training for strength and endurance. Good supplemental regimen in place.

Gear loadout is a bit different. Still presuming no access to non-civvy gear, I change the mix up some. Everybody gets substantially the same personal gear I mentioned, but the doubled items get cut down to one per person, and some of the single items get cut down to two for the whole team. For example I’d mix it up with One heavy med kit, one medium kit (and two personal kits of course) the guys not carrying the big meds haul extra ammo, food, and water; along with 5ks each of commercial plastic explosives, and detonators; and some civvy flashbangs.

With 4 guys, I change out the weapons a bit. First thing, we all get the same primary weapon, but in different configurations. 7.62X39 ARs, with an AK magwell and a piston upper (I just don’t like the AK). Two configured as entry guns, two as DM rifles. Yes, the round is marginal for DM use, but I want to be able to “field resupply” if possible.

Second, two shotguns as secondary weapons: SBS mossy 590 with the Knoxx CopStock folder, a breacher standoff, side saddle, surefire forend (cut to clear), a ghost ring setup, and an IR laser. Fold the stock and lash it to the pack frame. 20 reduced recoil 00 buck shells, 10 hornady SST slugs, and 5 breachers, plus pouches..

Third, we change the pistols to 9mm, again for field resupply. I think I’d stay with the USP, but switch to the 9mm version; and an extended threaded barrel. Otherwise a Sig P226, same type of barrel.

Why the emphasis on field resupply with 4 when I went all out on power with 1? Because with one guy operating alone, I’m doing every single possible thing I can do to avoid ever having to use ANY of my ammo; and I may be able to get away with it. With 4 guys, the liklihood of getting into an extended firefight of some kind is much higher, as is the lilihood of needing to provide suppressive fire etc…

Also, everyone still gets two short range comms, but there are only two long range comms in the personal packs total.

We organize as mutually supporting pairs; one entry gun with one DM gun; and those pairs never have both pilots, both medics, both linguists etc.. if possible. We designate a commander, an XO, one primary RTO, and one primary medic, with their alternates.

If we get six guys, the equation changes a bit more. I still like the weapons mix, but with six, I really need some heavier weapons. At that point I have to have an LMG of some kind (with an SMG, or assault carbine as a secondary weapon), and one of the guys should have a long boltie in something heavy, maybe a .338. Also, with six or more, I need at least two ‘naders, and some personal frags, and some flashbangs. The infrastructure load out is spread out more, but we still maintain double coverage on all items and specialties. Instead of six atvs we go to two custom jeeps, or land rover defenders.

Organizationally, we remaing in mutually supporting pairs, with a pair designated to remain as ready reserve consisting of the tactical commander, and a designated medic, who is also a reserve radio operator. We also designate an XO, an alternate medic, and an alternate RTO as with 4.

Eight is the maximum I’d want for something like this, and again we’d spread the infrastructure load out, but instead of double coverage on critical items, we go to triple coverage. At this point I want an MMG/GPMG for each vehicle. Also, we can change calibers back to standard if so desired because we can carry enough weight of metal with us that I’m not as worried about field resupply.

Some organizational notes on 8 people: At this level we organize into two fireteams of two mutually supporting pairs each team. Also, at this point we designate an S2, S3, and S4, and their assistants; as well as a designated medic, two alternates, the tactical commander and XO (the XO is probably the S3), and a dedicated RTO and two alternates.

Funny enough, all of this is still civvy legal in the US, but expensive as all hell. Honestly, if I had to do this without legal access to military hardware here in the U.S. I’d train up and gear up with everything but the mil weapons, then head down to the CZ and pick up what I need there.

Now, reader Ross posits a different scenario. It's Tuesday, you get notice of the problem today; you have til Friday to infil and make the grab, and say the rest of the weekend to exfil until the excrement is throroughly splattered by the rotating ventilation device.

Scenario three:

You have no budget but what is in your bank account (presume appx $5000), and no resources excepting what you have, or can scrounge from friends in that time.

Ok, that's a pretty good scenario.

One problem in applying it to me: If it ever came down to life or death, I have friends who can get me almost anything I need from the list above within a couple days. Of course I'm still fat and out of shape, and don't have time to train or build a team... but I've still got some of those friends I mention, and not only would they be willing to go with me, but I couldn't stop them if I wanted to.

But, let's presume for sake of argument we are talking about J. Random Gun Nut.

Now, assuming no budget but what you have in the bank, and no friends to acquire from or use for your team, THATs a more serious limitation; but you can get everything but the night vision and the ATV pretty easily and quickly, even with just the cash in your bank account.

I cut the load by about 50%, and pick up a used but reliable beater 4x4 or something similar. My primary weapon becomes an AK variant, with an ultimak, a folder, and an eotech; and I pick up the cheapest gen 3 viewer I can find. I stick everything in like regular camping and off roading gear and come in on a regular tourist permit as described above. If I can't get the toursit permit because of the hostilities, it's still pretty much trivially easy to get into mexico (I've done it on ATVs and dirtbikes a bunch of times).

If I can get three to five solid guys to go with me (and I know I can), and they can use their budget as well, I can still do the two 4x4 gig; and there are a couple of women I know who I'd want to ring along. They're both great backup, and great cover.

Now, heres a curveball for you; presume you have access to a boat in brownsville, that is large enough to take you across to the central mexican coast, with 4 ATV's. Have one guy offshore, running comms for you, and coming in for extraction; how does that change the equation?

UPDATE: Clarified the original mission, training, equipment parameters etc... and added the section about an "instant" mission.

The Prometheus Society?

A commenter left a link to an article about the prevalence of social and psychological difficulties in those with extremely high intelligence. Interesting article, from the prometheus society.

I was familiar with the various 999 clubs and societies, and Mensa (and was once a member of Mensa - too many assholes), but not Prometheus. Anyone have any experience with them?

Apparently I qualify having recieved over 149 on the SBIV, though my old SAT score was only 1540 and they want 1560 (new would be 1600. They changed the norming and scaling in '95). Actually I qualify in several ways from several of the tests. Of course finding the records of those... oy I probably don't want to bother.

But if the organization is useful and interesting, maybe...

Oh and I jsut took the "International High I.Q. society - ultimate I.Q. test" and only got 136; but again, it's one of the worst formatted tests I've ever seen. Only 35 questions, more than half of them were on geometric pattern recognition (worse, dependingt on pseudo-random color patterns as well), and several of them had what I would at best call highly ambiguous answers i.e. none of the options available were entirely correct; or multiple options were.

One of the things I really hate is when they ask a question that if framed as pure SIMPLE physics would have a definite answer, but if taken in the real world example that they use to frame the question the correct answer in pure COMPLEX physics would be incorrect.

Classic example...

Imagine a monkey, suspended by a frictionless pully, with a frictionless rope, and no rolling resistance; counterbalanced exactly by a weight on the other side. What will happen if the monkey starts to climb:

1. The weight will rise and the money will not move
2. The weight will rise and the monkey will fall
3. The weight will fall and the monkey will rise
4. The weight will not move and the monkey will climb
5. nothing will move
6. The weight and the monkey will both move higher

Okay so the SIMPLE physics answer is 4, the monkey will climb. Assuming the system maintains equilibrium of mass, then it will remain in balance, whether the monkey is climbing or not.

The only problem is, that assumes an inertialess system with no swing in the rope; and that the monkey never exerts enough force in climbing to upset the equilibrium of the system.

If the monkey is EXACTLY counterbalanced by the weight, then the energy the monkey expends in overcoming it's inertia, the energy of acceleration, and the swing in the rope are going to cause the weight to bob a bit; and over the length of the climb, the weight is going to very slightly change position.

If the monkey uses enough force to unbalance the system more than the oscillation would damp out, then the weight will move upward, then bob back down slightly, with every pull; however unless the rope is weightless, every bit of rope on the monkeys side will further unbalance the system and therefore cause the weight to move up until it hits the pulley. At that point of course the monkey would climb up just fine.

So which answer do they want? BEcause none of them are actually "right".

How about this one,

You have two containers one with 1 liter of water, the other with 1 liter of milk. Take one teason of milk and evenly mix it into the water to make a water/milk mixture. Now take one teaspoon of the water/milk mixture and mix it into the milk to form a milk/water mixture.

There is now:

More milk in the milk water mixture
More water in the water milk mixture
More milk in the water milk mixture
More water in the milk water mixture
The same amount of water and milk in both mixtures

So anyone see the immediate and obviou problem with this question?

MILK IS MOSTLY WATER ALREADY.

Or is that just overthinking the problem?

The Smartness cult continued

Occaisonal commentor, and general philosopher and prognosticator Francis Poretto had this to say about my "How Anal am I" post from thursday:

"Good, professionally developed tests of any sort give consistent results, which this one does not.

As regards IQ testing for the 0.01% of the population six or more standard deviations above the mean, there are inherent problems. Standardizing such tests is next to impossible, and making them sufficiently challenging to measure fine variations among persons that gifted risks making them incapable of gauging ordinary intelligence, for a variety of reasons. So if you're one of those fortunate few, the numbers will always be wildly variable.

Myself, I don't obsess over it."

Lord knows I am well aware of the standardized testing issues. I jsut hate tests that are poorly constructed; and unfortunately as near as I can tell that includes ALL I.Q. tests no matter who built them or delivers them; at least if you're "smarter" than about 140 or so.

The highest I've ever scored on an I.Q. test was an estimated 200 (almost none of the tests even try to measure over 200, and anything over 140 is an estimate) when I was three years old. The lowest was 157. The mean is about 180.

They wanted to put me in first grade. I was both physically large enough (I was 5ft at 9, and I stopped growing between 12 and 13, at 6'2"), and emotionally mature enough (you wouldn't last long in my family if you weren't); but my mother was adamantly against "Treating me different because I was smart".

One of the many many huge parenting mistakes she made over the years. I love her, and she did her best, but even she admits she was a horrible mother.

Here's the thing though, I grew up in a family of loser geniuses. Not a one of my aunts and uncles has an I.Q. under 120, and most of them are over 140 - but none of them were able to deal with it, and all of them were and are basically losers in the game of life, given their intellectual capabilities; though some have made good.

Grandmother, grandfather, father, mother, all over 150. My father is a lifetime criminal who has spent more than half of MY lifetime in prison. My mother had one small business after another because she jsut couldnt live with a "normal" job, but after a few years she would abandon the previous business and move on to the next, even if it was successful; because she jsut didn't care or got bored.

I taught myself how to read between age two and three. By the time I was five I was regularly reading Steven King, Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert etc...

All of that put me into a "special" category for as long as I attended state schools (all of whom got extra money simply for having me there). My Mom hated it, but my grandfather LOVED every minute of it. Here I was, pride of the family, scion of the generation...

My family were (and are) such perfectionists it's kind of difficult to decribe. If I got a 98 in school, the comment was never "Great, an A", it was "Why didn't you get 100... wasn't there extra credit you could take".

I was poked, prodded, tested, turned inside out... I learned to fuck with psychobabblers heads by the time I was about 8. I would get every question right on the test, but deliberately invert the answer key, or deliberately get the hardest questions right and the easiest wrong etc...

When I was a kid my mother refused to let me skip grades, which I always found kind of irritating because I was doing high school course work by the time I was in 3rd grade, and college work by the time I was in 6th. She ABSOLUTELY refused to send me to private school full time, or any special schools for the gifted, both of which were makign me offers all the time. One time the state even tried to take me away from her because some psychiatrist said she was endangering my welfar by not letting me go. She DID at least let me attend the accelerated and supplemental classes.

By the time I was 13 I was just tired of it and I refused to participate in any more unless there was a clear and direct advantage to my doing so; or the law required it (like the CTBS, SB, and ASVAB).

It's funny, but I finished highschool with a 4.5 GPA (extra GPA credit was given in my school for AP classes) and too many incompletes and absences to graduate. I tested out of high school at 16, and went to college with enough advanced credit to be between a sophmore and a junior in my first semester.

I joined the Air Force the day I turned 17, and finished my degree (double major Aerospace Engineering and Comp. Sci. with a minor in math) while serving in the AF, at 19.

You know what I got out of it? Burned out at 24 with a failed marriage, a business and economy in the shitter, ulcers, overweight, overstressed...

All in all not worth it.

I wouldn't change my intelligence for theworld; it is part of the very definition of who I am. It's transparent to me; as I said in "The Smartness Cult". Sometimes people ask me why I'm so smart, or why I know all this stuff (or sometimes why I'm a know-it-all) and all I can say is "Why are you a girl, and I'm a boy".

And of course the one that always gets them "Yup, I've got an I.Q. over 180. That and $4.50 gets you a latte".

I won't even get into the cow orker issue...

Ahhh I'm just rambling. It's Saturday morning and I got up too early (girlfriend had to leave early for work, got up with her)...

The Smartness Cult

This is a repost of a comment I made on an eternity road entry about intelligence. The subject was brought up in the comments on my Subtelty and bullshit post, and indeed the post itself, and I thought it'd be approrpiate here.

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Some folks assume that the very intelligent (or those that think they are) sit around all day congratulating themselves on how smart they are.

The mean of the various IQ tests I’ve had comes out to about 180, the lowest was 157, the highest over 200. According to the most recent numbers I’ve seen, there are somewhere between 6000, and 60000 people smarter than me in the world (gotta love those orders of magnitude eh).

That and $4.50 gets you a starbucks latte.

My intelligence is a fact of my life. I’m very proud of my capability, but my raw intelligence is no big deal to me. I generally don’t make a thing out of it, and when I mention it it’s as an interesting fact, or most frequently to explain why I was able to come up with an answer in the way I have (I'm a bit of a trivia nut and frequently come out with weird correct answers to weird obscure questions). I can’t imagine being any other way, and I just dont think about it on a daily basis.

As many have pointed out in the past, the highly intelligent really do think differently, and others often find it disconcerting. They may even be hostile to your ideas, no matter how they are presented, because of their own insecurity about intelligence. They may percieve you as arrogant. They may become self righteous.

Such is life.

More in the extended entry

Our society has a love hate relationship with intelligence. Clearly it is one of the highest commercially valued attributes. The very intelligent are in general higher valued by society than the less intelligent.

The intellectual elite certainly shout the praises of the highly intelligent, since of course they percieve themselves to be highly intelligent(often correctly; intelligence has little to do with common sense or factual reality).

On the other side, the intelligent are often looked on with self righteous indignation. “how dare they think they’re better than us”. Or we are geeks, freaks, weirdos (and I am, and I celebrate this fact) etc…

We mock the intelligent, we parody them, we have many derogatory stereotypes etc… Some discriminate against them. Some dont want to work with them.

We as a society are simply not comfortable with what we do not understand. The highly intelligent are therefore in a position where they understand more than most others, which makes many of those people uncomfortable, even resentful or fearful.

Unfortunately making this relationship worse, many very intelligent people are exactly what the rest of the world hates about us: they are arrogant and overbearing, they have poor social skills, they have little regard for others feelings etc…

Again, such is life.

The thing that angers me about all of this is those that pretend that either intelligence is not a factor, or that it is somehow unfair that some are more intelligent than others.

I ask, “How is it unfair using what god or nature or my parents gave me?”

So then they get into veil of ignorance or inherent value bullshit, which they almost invariably use to justify why I should be artificially handicapped against others, to “level the playing field”.

Excuse the vulgarity but, fuck you. Go read Harrison Bergeron and then please fuck off and die.