Gene Roseberry

The lack of a kindness is not a meanness… or an offense.

I must make a distinction. A kindness, for my purposes here, is defined as an act performed by one party to its detriment for the benefit of another party. I think in common parlance there is another kind of kindness, which is truly mutually beneficial, but I consider this a totally different situation. One I’d label a transaction.

It occurs to me that this is where my lifelong problem with politeness arises from. I have a lifelong problem with politeness if you didn’t know. Politeness, too, I think, really is two separate things.

There are some rules of politeness that dictate you respect another person as an individual, and grant them the rights they deserve. For example. that is why it is rude to touch another person beyond the normal bounds of the relationship, or to invade their privacy. These are fine. I like these rules, although I don’t think they should really be defined as falling under politeness. They make rational sense and the actions they dictate are mandatory given a non-hypocritical ethics system.

Politeness, in the negative meaning I think of it as, also has other rules. Like, you have to say “thank you” for everything. Here is how this ties in with kindness.

Thanking someone is a kindness, as defined above. It’s a pretty small kindness, but it is. I don’t want to say the words, in general. I, on some small level, probably am thankful, but I don’t want to express it most of the time, and if I do, then it becomes a transaction.

Saying “thank you” has become an expected kindness, though. I dunno which came first, politeness, or the mistaken interpretation of the lack of a kindness as an offense, but regardless, politeness reinforces this mistake. Further, the fact the politeness of this sort exists, somewhat justifies its own existence. By this I mean, since everyone expects me to say “thank you” it sorta does become an offense if I don’t extend the kindness. Now we’re getting into the dichotomy of perceived reality and reality, though, which is not likely to be fruitful. Let me explain why this is problematic.

A kindness by my definition is a positive for you, and a negative for me, but this is not the most important quality. That would be that it’s voluntary. A forced interaction that is negative for one party and positive for another is not considered a kindness. Everyone knows this. If you ask to borrow my pen, and I allow it, that is a kindness. If you just take my pen, and I never find out, I didn’t extend any kindness. If I find out, and don’t enact any retribution, the act of not taking retribution is the kindness.

So what does politeness actually do? It removes an opportunity for kindness and replaces it with an opportunity for offense. If we go back to the simple “thank you” example it is clear. You have just done me a service of some kind, but I’m tired or distracted or have bronchitis or for some other reason do not want to say, “Thank you”. I can either act on my desire, and you would take offense, or I could go against my desire, cause me harm, and you would get nothing, as I can’t truly extend a kindness under the pressure of politeness. On the other hand, if I did want to express a kindness, I would have to more than say, “Thank you,” as that is what you already expect. I must go beyond politeness to extend any kindness.

There are two take aways. First, politeness is dumb and makes the world a less happy place. Second, pressuring a kindness in fact nullifies the chance of a kindness.

Yesterday I made some exasperated comments to my roommates regarding the nature of their entertainment. It wasn’t, and isn’t, a very big deal, but this aspect of their group has been bothering me for some time. I think I’m getting close to an understanding, so I hope writing this will help me push through the conclusions that can be made, and the ambiguities that must be left unknown.
I have difficulty explaining the behavior in question, but I think it boils down to picking on things, and people. I know that sounds really lame, but let me try to explain.
In my interactions with my roommates, and a certain group of people they hang out with, it seems as though their primary activity is making fun of stuff, and the people associated with that stuff. Now, making fun of stuff, in the strictest sense, isn’t really a “good” activity, but I understand it’s appeal, and I obviously am not one who never criticizes for entertainment. So why does this bug me?
Reason #1: the quantity
I totally understand having a pet peeve, or getting into a mood and occasionally ranting about something. I’m kinda doing that right now. But it seems like the only pleasure my roommates can find is in gleeful proclamations of the “gayness” of everything around them. Part of my distaste of this particular situation is the ubiquity of the action.
In my pondering on the subject I’ve come to a few conclusions as to why things are not as bad as they seem. I think each of the individuals involved have lives outside of tearing down everything they see, but I’m not a part of that. Aaron has music, Kelsey has art and school and stuff, and Kim probably has Dancing with the Stars or something. Regardless, their constructive interests rarely overlap with mine, or each others. As a consequence, they unite around their destructive overlaps, which are sizeable. This effect is magnified by Aaron’s confrontational and obstinate assuredness on all things, and the unwillingness of normal people to fight about everything. So, since I am mostly only observing this crowd in groups of 2 or more, and usually Aaron is one of the 2, the odds of the discussion being about something everyone thinks is good, is pretty low.
Reason #2: forced enrollment
This issue is pretty inherent in the system, and there’s not too much my roommates can do about it. Basically, their group usually decides quickly, or has already decided in some previous meeting, that they hate something. Once they’ve decided, it means you are no longer allowed to enjoy, or attempt to enjoy, that thing. Of course, this is only in certain group situations. They don’t control what I do on my own, and don’t try to.
The quintessential example would be the group watching a movie. Often a movie is picked already with hating it in mind, just because it looks stupid, or because someone has already seen it and declared it stupid. In these cases, the ridiculing begins immediately, so someone who hasn’t decided to hate it cannot easily view the content to make a determination of its quality, since there is loud mockery going on over the dialog.
Like I said, there’s not much that can be done in these situations. It’s just a difference of opinion, and really two separate activities being tried in the same place. It would be like trying to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the actual film being shown, you’re just not doing it right. It does lead nicely to reason 3, though.
Reason 3: Seeking it out
I think humor is a good response to horrible things. It can turn something that upsets you into something that brings you joy, which is a great way to make your life suck less. However, this principle only makes sense if you it apply it to horrible things that you can’t avoid. Once you seek out horrible things for this purpose, the system breaks down.
Now, I think my roommates and their friends do seek out horrible things. They might disagree. I know Aaron says his Netflix queue is full of, “things that look interesting,” when I suggest he’s purposely putting stupid %$#@ in it. But I don’t think that’s true. He doesn’t treat them as such. He’s more likely to say, “Hey, come watch this gay documentary,” and then mock everything from opening to closing credits than he is to actually watch the movie and see if it was, in fact, interesting. And he doesn’t come up with very many diamonds in the rough, like I suspect he would, if he was actually sifting through the less popular products in life, looking for things of particular interest to his niche.
So, I could be wrong, and they might not be seeking out horrible things when they read the Craig’s List’s casual encounters or texts from last night, but so what if I’m not? Their life, they can do what they want. Which is true, I agree. If they really find more entertainment in ridiculing horrible things than in partaking in quality products, then that’s what they should do. I just am not in the same situation, and so rarely want to join in, or observe.
Which leads to reason #4: the quality
This whole issue wouldn’t be such a big deal if my roommates were better at making fun of things. I just don’t find the things they say humorous most of the time. I guess it’s hard to keep up originality given Reason #1.
I think some of you out there, when I describe picking a horrible movie, and then making fun of it instead of watching it, are thinking of some Mystery Science Theater 3000 type scenario, but that’s not how I perceive things. I like those scenarios, but they are about as difficult to come by as actually good movies. You can’t just make fun of any ol’ movie. The badness of the movie has to be of a specific type and at a specific level to make making fun of it really entertaining. If it’s not like that, then you end up getting what I was complaining about, which is repeats of what was said in a funny voice, or the replacement of random words with, any combination of dick, butt, poop, tit, etc. or just kinda stale jokes in general.
Now, obviously, much of this is taste and nobody really controls that, and also, of course, they’re not supposed to be doing a performance quality level of mockery for my benefit all the time, but come on. I mean, using “gay” as an insult is sometime humorous when mocking an individual who would do so seriously, but they’ve used it to the extent that they are now the people it would be funny to use it against. And immature “naughty” words like poopy head were kinda ironic at the age when our peers were all swearing like sailors, but they’ve been ironically immature for longer than they were really immature at this point.

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Ok, so everything above that line I wrote like 2 weeks ago. I never published the post because I didn’t want to cause unnecessary strife in the home life, and because I wanted to tweak it and make it funnier. But, ya know, screw it.

That stuff up there really has no conclusion, and a good conclusion isn’t really springing instantly to mind here. I guess the conclusion should be that they can do what they want, including doing little but belittle their own choices in entertainment. I just wish they wouldn’t, so I wouldn’t be so bored/annoyed. But I can help the situation too by having books and stuff on hand I can retreat to. I suspect we’ll survive. Especially now that I monopolize the TV w/ Modern Warfare 2.

I have a bit of time here so I guess I’ll to throw out a general status update for anyone who doesn’t get news about me from elsewhere. Or for anyone that wants a recap.

Big news I guess is my internship is disappearing. My last day is the 11th. I didn’t download porn or anything, so stop thinking that. The project just didn’t get enough money for me, so there you go.

“What are you gonna do?” you inevitably ask because everyone seems to. I’m going to chill out for a bit, then I will look around for things to apply to. Then I will apply to things and see if anyone wants me. Repeat until someone cool wants me. For you CS people out there you can keep and eye out for me, ya know, send me info on jobs and put in words for me, and stuff, if you want.

What else? Yusuke came for Thanksgiving. We hung out, ate some food, he bought a hard drive that he tried to leave at my house, good times. Mostly we hung out at the parents house and ate and played a few games, or we laid around my house and played Modern Warfare 2. I’ve been playing that a lot. I’m not really an FPS guy but this game is sucking me in so I’m going to try and become and FPS guy with this game. Get caught up on 7 years of not playing any FPS’s. FPS. If you have a PS3 and want to be my friend and play with me that would be good. I suck right now but someday I’ll be awesome and you’ll want me on your team. erosebe is my name.

My computer is still broken. I got the new motherboard but apparently it was not the problem. So I guess it must be the processor or the PSU. I was hoping someone would be cool and let me borrow a PSU to plug in and see if that fixes the problem, but nobody helpful seems to be around. So I don’t know what I’ll do. I might have to take the PSU somewhere and get it tested and if it’s fine then I’ll try and get Intel to give me a new chip. Warranty says 3 years, but I bet there’s some hoops. Might have to scrap the whole thing and start over. Hopefully not, though.

Lauren gets back at the end of the month. Yay for that. She’s going to come visit me for a bit before going back to college. I think that’s still the plan anyway. Haven’t talked to her in a few days cause she went to Scotland and saw Fiona and Fiona stole her internet powers or something.

That seems to be about it. I look forward to my free time. I’m hoping to do some coding on my own projects which I’ve never actually started. Maybe learn a new language or two. That’s probably the loftiest of my hopes. I also want to play a lot of video games, read a lot of books, start working out more than never, and start donating platelets regularly. First appointment is the 14th. (I have to donate more blood since I won’t have any money to give away)

That seems to be all for now. Come visit me while I’m unemployed. I’ll probably be bored and more willing to do that stupid thing you’ve been trying to get me to do.

Million dollar idea number… who can count? I’m writing it up here so that when it happens and I say, “I predicted that,” I’ll have some hard evidence to point to. So here’s the scheme.

You know those companies that make pretty much everything boring that everyone needs, like soap and toasters or whatever? I dunno what everyone needs, I don’t buy that stuff, but you guys know. Companies like GM or Johnson&Johnson or Coke and Pepsi. They have a wide range of products, many brands all competing with themselves and one or two other major companies, and a slew of tiny companies.

Imagine you’re CEO of Pepsi and actually want to do your job instead of sit on your piles of money. You have this problem. You have like 100M people that love Pepsi and only buy Pepsi and never buy Coke when they’re buying pop, but they buy some chips and bean dip and they buy uh… whatever chips Coke owns, not the Pepsi chips. So pick one of those people. Maybe this guy doesn’t really care which chips he buys, so it would just take a tiny incentive to make him go for the Pepsi chips instead. This is an opportunity.

Achievements. For those of you who don’t play video games Achievements (or Trophies) are the great innovation of the newest generation of consoles. They are awards given for accomplishing tasks in game that remain with an account outside of any game. So my friend who plays first person shooters gets awards for playing his games, and I can get awards for playing role playing games, and we can still have some competition and comparison between the two of us. It also gives extra incentives within a game. Instead of just saying, I beat Mario, you can say, I beat Mario and I never died, and I have the Achievement to prove it.

It sounds stupid. It’s not though. Meaningless points have meaning to people and the Achievement system has taken off in the gaming culture. I don’t think it has to stop there, though. I am proposing that companies make real life Achievements.

I don’t know exactly how one would want to implement such a thing, but I suspect a good way would be something like this. A person goes to a website and ops in, making an account at Pepsi.com or whatever. Once you have an account the user can look at all the Achievements out there to get. These would be things like, drink a swimming pool of Pepsi or eat a half ton of chips. On this site they would make clear what products count toward the Achievement. Then Pepsi would automatically track your progress based on your purchases, and you’d get little badges and stuff when things were accomplished. Now the user is part of the ecosystem. If he can he’ll get all his goods from Pepsi, barring some large difference in taste, quality, and/or price.

Partnerships could be made between companies with non-overlapping businesses. That way you could make one account and have Achievements related to a wider variety of products.

There would be fringe benefits besides the added tiny incentive. Companies could identify their biggest customers easily, and highlight them, using them for promotion and contests. Achievements could be used to encourage exploration within the brand, trying a variety of products, or new products when they are released. When another Achievement system is inevitably released, the rivalry between systems could increase sales for both sides, and would definitely increase loyalty and involvement of the customer bases.

I don’t think it would be without benefit to customers either. For one thing it might be the kick in the teeth one needs to realize they’re spending too much money on something, or that they need to eat healthier. When you get an e-mail from Pepsi congratulating you on your ten thousandth dollar spent at Taco Bell, you might view fast food a bit differently. It would also make shopping a bit of a game. Make life a little more interesting. It would be good to know I’d used 100 bars of soap when I have, or whatever. It could also be a tool for getting to know people. You could look them up and see what they were proud of. Some girl you think is cute has on her wall that she’s spent $10k at Taco Bell might be an interesting piece of information to have.

Perhaps the major companies won’t adopt this scheme. But it might be an opportunity for a new niche brand. If you make generic everything, perhaps you could use this scheme to gain a few percentage points of market share and earn those millions you so deserve. Or maybe some company will make the achievements and get the companies to sign on. Maybe the game is like a kind of advertising. If I was those guys that made Farmville I’d create some system like this, and get a few companies to sign on cheap to get started, and then new companies could get their Achievements added in for a reasonable price.

You convinced?

I just thought of this a tweeted it, but it’s such a great idea I have to elaborate a tiny bit.

We’ve been voting all wrong. We should run our elections in reverse. You get the huge pile of candidates, and then we vote them off one at a time. Last man standing gets the office.

This would solve a lot of problems for third party candidates. Right now when it’s a race between 3 candidates, people are loath to vote for a third party candidate they think will lose, as it seems like wasting their vote, making it less likely their second choice will win. With the survivor system, they could just vote out their least favorite, and then a week later or so they could make the final decision, knowing that at the very least their second choice is getting in. Well, that’s assuming the election went their way.

It would also be a good way of changing the debate. Instead of always arguing over the same issues throughout the election, the issues would get whittled away as the choices for candidates showed what the public cared about. Some people might be able to stop going to the polls as the election progresses, either happy or unhappy with all the remaining candidates and figuring they’re all equal.

Does anyone know why we don’t do it this way? I mean, obviously there are details that would have to be figured out, but in general, is there some major flaw with this I’m not seeing right now? Do any other countries operate in this manner? I wish it worked like this.

The commercials might get pretty dirty, but really, how much lower can they go?

Disclaimer: I am aware that no one is perfectly rational, even me. However, it’s much easier to write in absolutes and to include myself as a rational person. The text written below is meant to describe situations in which scientific consensus is not converted to public acceptance or policy, and should not be taken to be a manifesto supporting the creation of classes of human, rational above irrational, with me being king of the rational.

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Rational people have many problems. One of them is getting people to listen to them and do the things that will make life better. This is sometimes difficult because the majority of people are irrational, at least with regards to some specific subjects. Probably just in general, but definitely given choice cases.

Since rational people are rational, the way they think is to gather the evidence, examine it, and draw conclusions based on that evidence. Since rational people are people, they then often make the irrational leap to assume other people will do the same. If you make this mistake you would think that if people just had easy access to all the information they would make the rational decision. This, of course, doesn’t happen.

I admit to frequently falling into this mode of thinking. It is a known trap, but one that is difficult to avoid. One tends to assume others will think like one does, and that differences are based off of differences of taste or information. Rational people cannot afford to make that mistake. So what options are there available to us, to pull the irrational our way.

One good option is to rely on different modes of communication, probably provided by different people. Scientists as a population are near 100% rational, at least in their field. They read the papers, do the research, examine the statistics, and form and opinion. When new evidence is present, opinions are adjusted accordingly. All is as it should be. However, scientists are not trained to present this information to non-scientists, aka the irrational masses. It’s not really a scientist’s job to do so, and as such, they are not necessarily any good at it. It would be great if they were, but I think the skill sets are two diverse and rare to expect the majority of the scientific population to be skilled in both. And we can’t rely on the occasional Gould, Segan, or Tyson to do all the work.

That’s why we need middle men. There are lots of people out there who are rational people, really like science the concept, but don’t really enjoy science the school subject. Some of these people have valuable communication and persuasion skills. Some are creative, able to write movies, songs, books, interesting text of all forms. These people need to be conscripted to promote the conclusions of the scientists to the irrational. People with these qualities should be looking for ways to offer their services, and science as an institution should be reforming itself to allow this new relationship to exist. By this I mean there should be works in the public media in promotion of the scientific view of things, and scientific bodies should be working to promote and fund these projects.

These middle men should be given lots of freedom by the scientists. Basically, there should be only one rule and that is strict accuracy in presenting the facts. Then the middle men are free to use their talents to communicate to the irrational in ways they’ll actually understand and care about.

The anti-science movements out there use all kinds of cheap marketing and gimmicky ploys to convince people to think their way. We rational people think they’re a joke, because we’d never fall for it, but there’s a large chunk of the population out there that will, and they’re the one’s we’re fighting for. Essentially, I’m advocating for using the same tools being used against science, for it. At least until such time as we can improve education enough that rational thinking is less of a rarity.

This goes against my instincts. It seems wrong to lower ourselves to the level of our detractors. However, I can think of no other way. Risks are high. Failure an unpleasant option. As such, it seems wise to go with the sure thing.

Democracy is only a good idea if you have something else preventing tiny majorities from bullying large minorities. That’s why we have the court system, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We rational people need tools to keep the irrational majority at bay, and I think appealing to their irrationality may be our only chance. It might nauseate your idyllic sensibilities, as it does mine, to admit that marketing could be helpful, but when one pragmatically looks at human nature, I think it is the rational conclusion.

Update: fixed those typos in there. /shrug Sorry you had to read it like that.

I heard on This American Life recently a story about the original Hell House. A hell house being like a haunted house put on by a church to show ways of getting to hell in an attempt to scare people, usually the young, into joining the flock. In the story they describe how the hell house being covered did scenes of rape, suicide, and school shootings. It sounded pretty intense and graphic.

These scenes generate intense emotional states. I don’t deny that religion can have strong emotional appeal. After just witnessing the senseless murder of a beautiful young person full of potential it seems a natural emotional response would be to want to believe that the evil doers get punished and the innocent get rewarded.

Hell houses put paying visitors through an emotional ringer, specifically designed to manipulate people into being primed for the finale, where they are asked to pray with the church, and join. Those who don’t agree to, have to walk past those who do, so they can be identified and shunned. This is a very powerful use of emotional and social pressure. In this instance the church asks you to abandon reason and thought and bow to your emotions and the will of those around you.

But they don’t always encourage such behavior. The church tells you to ignore the emotional and social pressures to have sex, for example, except in very special circumstances from which they profit. Many of the teachings of the church are about controlling ones emotions and going against one’s nature. It is natural to have sex out of wedlock, it is natural to covet, it is natural to kill. I mean, when you’re very angry if you ignored reason and went with your emotions, don’t you think you might have killed someone by now?

This is called internal inconsistency and it’s a bad sign. Any time you come across a belief system of any sort that doesn’t promote or discourage the same basic beliefs in all circumstances you should be worried. It means either that what you think is the core belief isn’t, or that the organization is just changing the rules as is convenient. In the case of the church, it’s the former. The church doesn’t actually support making decisions with your emotions. That’s just a tool they are using against reason. It supports making decisions with the church.

As Glenn Beck or someone else on Fox would say, tricking children into believing what you want them to is despicable, and it reminds me of the Third Reich.

Hey look. This guy agrees with me. Just hit the interwebs, as far as I know anyway. Take a gander.

GMO apparently stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. For the purposes of this post I really only care about the crop type of organism. Any sort we eat, so I guess cows could count, or whatever.

I’m making this post cause I had a discussion with Lauren about the subject. She asked the questions and I angrily spewed the answers. She’s in Europe, where people are most afraid of GM anything, so that’s why she got to ask the questions.

So, I think GMO’s are good, and that the Europeans opposed to them are douche bags. Let’s try and explain why.

Issue #1: We don’t know the long term effects!

Response: So? I suspect that won’t be satisfactory for many, so I’ll elaborate.

First, we don’t know the long term effects of anything. The Europeans accept cell phones and pills and food additives like the rest of the modern world, so what’s the deal? The stuff in GM food is not completely foreign. Usually it’s just more of the stuff that was there before. Possibly it’s something from another food, like fish proteins in tomatoes, or whatever. But it’s safe in a fish, what’s the big deal with eating it in a tomato.

Second, if you’re worried about the environmental impact, which frankly makes more sense than personal health risk, there are many strict regulations about the development and production of GM crops, to attempt to eliminate any negative environmental impacts. But even if they fail, the impact of not having GM crops is not zero. GM crops reduces the amount of land humans need to occupy with farms, so it’s good for the environment in that regard. Also, GM crops can be grown in more varied climates, allowing food to be grown closer to where it is needed, reducing the impact of transporting the goods. GM crops resist pests on their own, meaning farmers don’t have to spray pesticides, a far more efficient and environmentally friendly way of maximizing crop yields. GM crops can last longer on shelves, meaning less waste, also environmentally beneficial. Oh, and btw, lots of people are starving and GM crops could fix that, so a risk to the environment might be worth taking.

Third, it’s not like there’s no testing going on as to the safety of the these foods. GM foods are regulated by more agencies in the US than anywhere, and subject to stricter standards than any other type of thing we put into our bodies. Those of us who eat GM food have been doing so without noticeable impact for more than a decade, so that’s something, right?

Fourth, it’s not like non-GM food is exactly natural. We’ve been using artificial selection to modify the genetics of our food since well before we new the earth was round. Cows don’t exist in nature. The seedless grape is basically an evolutionary impossibility, if it weren’t for us tinkering. We’ve done it the old way for millennia and we’ve survived, and the old way is dangerously inefficient and messy. In trying to positively affect a few traits we may be negatively affecting hundreds of others without even knowing, which just can’t happen with the new GM technologies.

Issue #2: What if I’m allergic?

Response: The only way you’d be allergic to a GM food is if they transferred a gene that’s product you were allergic to already into a new food, which could technically happen. They will try really hard not to do that, though, because the goal is to make food more edible, not less. In fact, with GM technologies, they’ll soon have allergen free versions of the foods most commonly causing serious allergic reactions.

You are less likely to be allergic to GM food than anything else you eat that you’ve never tried before. Oh yeah, and millions of people are starving, maybe you could suck it up.

Issue #3: There’s already enough food, it just doesn’t get distributed correctly.

Response: Resounding SO? Who cares if there is enough food? Fact is, if there were more, it would be easier to distribute, and cheaper to buy. Also, just cause there’s enough food now, doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to plan ahead. There’ll be an extra 3 billion people on the planet pretty soon, and I bet they would like to eat the same amount as I would. Not to mention potential problems caused by climate change.

We should work on figuring out how to move food around better, but that’s a separate issue from whether GM foods are a safe and good idea. And GM foods could help with the issue, making foods that travel better, grow in more locations, and increasing the amount of food we have available to move if we need to.

Issue #4: The problem is that food is too expensive, and GM seeds are the most expensive of all.

Response: Well, this also has nothing to do with it’s efficacy and safety, but I’ll address the concern anyway.

First, not always true. If it was then GM food would be more expensive than normal food, and it’s not. If it was more expensive, then nobody would care, and this whole discussion wouldn’t even exist.

Second, in the cases where it is true that poor farmers can’t afford the seeds the fact that Europe is not buying the product of those seeds can’t be helping. The purchasing power of Europe, also it’s proximity to many poor nations, could have a dramatic impact on the cost benefit calculation. Also, European trade policy has several unfavorable implications for nations that try and export GM foods that act as further disincentives against the poor to take the initial risk and grow the crops they could use to feed their less fortunate countrymen, or yield enough to finally move beyond subsistence living.

Douche baggy Europeans, and the hippy Americans buying “organic” have used their wealth to opt to spend more to irrationally avoid “weird” GM crops and in so doing have chosen for others to starve to death. And now, as the financial price of their decision grows, they are beginning to flip, revealing that they are not willing to sacrifice more than a few mocha lattes a week for your “principles”, proving they either didn’t have any to begin with, or that they don’t really hold them strongly. Certainly not strongly enough to justify contributing to the whole starving children problem.

So, in conclusion, there are millions of people starving to death and GM crops would help. I win.

You know how I’ve suggested ways of using freerice.com to good use in the past? Yeah, well, I’m doing it again. I’ve got a better system that takes no effort after initial setup and will yield greater results.

So here’s what you do.

1. Download and install and use Firefox. Most of you should have that skip covered already.
2. Download and install Greasemonkey.
3. Optional: Download and install FaviconizeTab. This will allow you to shrink the Freerice tab, so if you don’t care how big the tab is, you don’t need to do this.
4. Reboot Firefox. This makes the newly downloaded addons actually work.
5. Install the freerice cheater. This is a script that Greasemonkey uses.
6. Go to freerice.com.
7. Answer the question. If it starts rapidly answering for you and wracking up the rice, skip to step 13, else continue.
8. Right click on the little monkey face at the bottom of your browser and click Manage User Scripts.
   Alternative: Click Tools->Greasemonkey->Manage User Scripts
   Alternative: Hold Alt and then press T, then G, then M
9. Click Add.
10. Click Ok.
11. Click Close.
12. Answer another question.
13. Optional: Click View->Page View->No Style
    Alternative: Hold Alt and press V, then Y, then N
    This prevents the page from loading fancy make pretty things, so it can load more quickly.
14. If you have FaviconizeTab: Right click on the freerice tab and select FaviconizeTab.
    

There. You should now be donating up a storm. You can simultaneously set up multiple tabs to do this, if you want, although there is a point at which the slowdown will not be worth it. This will depend on your computer and internet connection, so feel free to experiment.

The script will run as long as the tab is open regardless of whether that tab, or Firefox, is the focus, so you can leave it going all day.

I hope you enjoy helping the worlds hungry. Please contact me if you have any comments or questions.

Also, thanks to Samwise for showing me the freerice cheater script.