Structure.....All Souls College Examination

Skyscrapers took a long time to begin their rise towards the heavens because, before the invention of the steel frame, the entire weight of the building had to be held at the base. It is therefore reasonable for a modern reader to wonder how wide and how tall the Tower of Babel actually was. Steven Millhauser wrote a short story in which the inhabitants of an ancient city build a tower that pierces through the bottom of heaven. It's best if I don't structure things that way.

A year ago, at this time, I was counting down the days until I turned thirty.

26.

The Atlantic has a very interesting article about AI in this month's issue. From my understanding of the Turing test, computers struggle to make small talk. This is something that they have in common with young men at bars.

And, in what cannot be deemed a coincidence, Jeopardy is currently airing episodes that are pitting an IBM computer against past human champions. It is fair to say that the fate of all humanity rests upon this competition.


No pleasure can be quite as sweet as watching Alex Trebek chastise a computer.

None of this is really about AI. The First Computer weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 feet (2.4 m) by 3 feet (0.9 m) by 100 feet (30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power, which is probably not big enough for God to be interested in smiting.

It would probably be best if we got some sort of smiting ration somewhere in Leviticus.

Questions from the All Souls exam given each year to graduates of Oxford. Only 3 fellowships are awarded to students who take the exam and roughly 100 or so people take it per year. I had an idea, not on the scale of the Empire State building or even the first computer. It's a modest proposal. I'd be interested to hear some of my friends responses to the questions. However, I am fairly certain, and it's kind of one of the questions that are time spent doing deep critical thinking has been reduced by the advent of the internet. The internet is not measurable, but if I was God, I would probably consider smiting it. In Egypt, before the fall of Mubarak, the internet was briefly blacked out, which just goes to show that humans aren't as good at smiting.

Q: What is war good for?

A: Provided by....Augustine. Just war? The greatest generation. Stopping pogroms/death camps. Reducing overpopulation. Bringing democratic freedom to the rest of the world. Expelling Canannites from the land of milk and honey. Creating a sense of national identity. Getting young people killed. The economy? Eisenhower and the military industrial complex.

Fact: Estimated percentage change in the US defense budget, NOT including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan= +80percent.

War as fundamental to human existence. One could argue, as I'm nearly certain Augustine does, having found it impossible to ever read anything of his, just war does exist. Although, in a post-modern context, that's probably always debatable.

Without war we wouldn't know how great peace is. Note: Peace would probably be just fine without war.

Philosophy.

Defense contracting companies.

In general, governments.

War is, in my opinion, only really good in hindsight. Therefore, I propose that all future wars be fought in the past, after historians and thinkers have had time to sort out the implications of the war. Therefore; the UN will enter Rwanda post haste rather than waiting for a genocide to take place. However, the Italians will not invade Ethiopia in 1935 because in hindsight it sort of causes WW2 and was also terrible.

The only problem with my plan is that it involves the construction of a time machine, or at the very least, a large band of extras, preferably from the movie 300, who will go back in time and pretend to fight the wars that we should have fought or come to amicable terms on those we shouldn't have. The arbitration for such a large firm of actors would lead to, no doubt, a stalemate in contract negotiations, which would tie up the legal and intellectually resources of the greatest nations long enough for the world to be at peace.

So, take the Oxford challenge: What is war good for?