Studies Show

Studies show.  How many fraudulent arguments and political pieties begin with that statement?  Milk produces phlegm, Gluten causes inflammation, calories don't count, Obama caused the recession, money trickles down from the "job creators"  human activities don't affect the climate.  No matter how many large, double-blind studies are published in peer-reviewed journals, these flawed "Studies" many of which are speculations and fabrications or selected anecdotes persist.

Nobel laureate psychologist and Economist  Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow posits that we have two ways of making decisions: fast and slow as you might suspect from the title, or as he calls them: system 1 and system 2.  Reading it might just cause you to reevaluate a lot of  things you've been led to believe because people who want to enlist your support, sell you their products, receive your donations and secure your votes make skillful  use of this knowledge.

We have statistics thrown at us every day and we make decisions based on our statistical illiteracy, our intellectual laziness and the tendency to make decisions based on limited facts and wishful thinking.  So much of Kahneman's work applies to how we choose investments, but it applies to virtually everything we prefer to approach with the unreliable "system 1" rather than to wade rigorously through volumes of data until our heads hurt. In a large part, "studies show" is enough for most of us.  there's always a study, an authority, a  book and it's usually enough. We prefer to judge, to evaluate on limited evidence and we prefer intuition over analysis and when we believe something to be true, whether it's because we identify with a party or an organized faith or an ethnic group, we are

"very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.  If system 1 is involved, the conclusion comes first and the arguments follow."

That doesn't sound very profound or startling and yet we virtually always fail to detect such tendencies in ourselves, perhaps more so when we think we are highly intelligent.  As Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory says "If I were wrong, don't you think I'd know it?

We tend to disallow legitimate science and valid statistical conclusions out of hand if we are engaged in politics that argue to the contrary and apparently intelligence has less than enough to do with it. The difference between that quoted statement of the obvious and the body of work summarized in the book is an enormous amount of documented science.  ( I'll mention the Nobel prize once again.)

But this is not a book review and what I'm getting at is not another Lefty attempt to show the shoddy thinking and fallacy filled folly of the Right Wing. I'm making a case for divorce.  I'm just not getting the kind of liberal thinking out of the Democratic party I need.  I feel neglected and betrayed, ignored and saddened at the endlessly tainted logic, the misused statistics and conclusions supported by faith and gerrymandered facts. I want a divorce. Let me explain.

I got an appeal yesterday, to rethink my position on the legal modifications to prior self defense laws the press likes to call "stand your ground."  Places that have such laws have more murders, states the pleading, and not just more murders but more murders of  African Americans because non-African Americans tend to see dark skinned people as hostile and dangerous and likely to be carrying weapons. But don't take their word for it and you guessed it: studies show.

It so happens that I took part in the cited study which consisted of  pressing a key with either the right or left hand  to show whether the small black and white images of human eyes belonged to white or black people. Small images were also displayed which included items like crossbows and maces.  Delays in pushing either key determined whether or not I was a racist and wouldn't you know it -- I am a racist.  The study shows  and never mind the various possible reasons for time delays. Never mind any other study.

The problem from my standpoint is that it was impossible for me to determine the 'race' of well more than half of the eyes much less analyze the emotion  and there was a greater delay in pushing the key when I had that problem.  The delay is said to be proof that I associated black people with weapons and hostility, albeit mostly medieval weapons.  Seriously, but none the less, studies show. 

Now from this study, taken to be conclusive and irrefutably so, comes the leap of fallacy that I cannot be trusted to determine whether or not someone is a threat to my life because I'm a racist and by extension, no other whit person can be trusted because white people are racists. I would expect Liberals to gasp and perhaps to gag, but Democrats don't.  Democrats cling to this conclusion because studies show it's safer for to require me to run away from the attacker with a gun, white or black, and because they're Democrats after all. The conclusion comes first and the arguments follow.

Back when the Feds finally killed the 55mph speed limit, there were impassioned arguments from self-styled liberals like Alan Dershowitz telling us that there would be a bloodbath and indeed for a very short time there was a slight increase of highway fatalities. It was a statistical blip and those fatalities have continued to decline. Dershowitz made the mistake of taking statistically irrelevant data as proof of a trend -- of ignoring, as most of us do, regression to the mean and of choosing facts to fit the prior conclusion .

So my first reaction to the "states with SYG laws have more. . ." statement was the question: did they have more beforehand? and has the alleged increase been long enough to have statistical significance?  Will Regression to the Mean make this increase go away?  Without answering that question I'm supposed to hear Studies Show and jump on the bandwagon.  Sorry, I can't and because it's nearly universal in political advertising to play games with statistics, I have to side with Dr. Kahneman again when he explains that a few facts and a plausible story tend to trump informed and rational conclusion. WYSIATI he calls the gambit: "what you see is all there is" and we're all prone, in our laziness and longing to belong, to fall for it. If we fear guns we won't ask questions.  If we are invested in guns and gun rights, the opposite is true. First comes the conclusion.

The problem with interpreting statistics isn't just the pervasive ignorance of statistical method, the confusion between context and causality, but the laziness we're encouraged to cultivate in our consumer society. The vast majority of educated people will read the syllogism:

All roses are flowersSome flowers fade quicklyTherefore some roses fade quickly.

says Kahneman and agree, but of course it's not true, because it's possible that there are no roses among the some flowers that fade quickly, but my head hurts when doing the work needed to analyze it. It looks plausible,  the statements before "therefore" are true even if they are not the only facts that need to be considered and therefore we settle for "it's true" and will defend any argument based on it's truth. What with our liberal backgrounds, it's easier to agree that all white people are racists and defend policies based on it than to question Liberal authority. Easier to explain gender differences on society than on science and therefore it's fine to suppress data and prevent studies which might show. the studies that agree with us are always right.

Because it gets cold outside and insulation is necessary to sustain life, no one should interfere with our right to own warm clothing.

Does that mean that we're not allowed to own a coat in Key West but only where it gets cold? You know what I'm getting at here. Context means more than what's actually said. We see what we want to see, believe what we're disposed to believe.  We're not afraid of mittens, but still we think we're rational. We think we're guided by science and are objective, independent thinkers.  If I am actually to be all that, can I still be a Democrat?  Can I still be a Democrat if than now means I can't trust anyone in any way, that heresy is everywhere and the job of Democrats is to root it all out and punish it  even if we have to cut a swath through truth, science and  humanist values to bring the unbelievers to the stake?  No, I think I need a divorce.

Number One with a Bullet

The slavering ammosexuals have been making some headlines lately, with their "open carry" protests and mindless claims that "Obama's going to take our guns!" (Despite, you know, the lack of a single gun-control measure to emerge from this administration since he came into office.)

Here's the thing: the NRA-fellators get sweaty and start spewing spittle if you point out that the Holy Second Amendment has an opening clause that's just getting ignored.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

A simple grammatical test will tell you that the first half of that sentence defines why the second half exists. You have the right to own guns because the country needs a well-regulated militia.

(If you want context, the Founding Fathers didn't believe in a standing army - they knew that the fledgling country couldn't afford one, and they also believed that having an army around was how tyrants stayed in power. That's why Article 1 of the Constitution limits the army to a 2-year lifespan.

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years

(Weirdly, no such restriction on funding the Navy - our Founding Fathers loved their boats: rum, sodomy and the lash - you know how it is.)

The NRA used to understand this, but that day is gone. The modern NRA is a lobbying group supporting, not the people, but the weapons manufacturers. The only right they support now is the unrestricted sale of firearms, but it wasn't always thus.

The first president of the NRA, back in 1871, was former Gen. Ambrose Burnside (he of the famous facial hair), and he acted as a symbol of the "civilian militia" concept. One of the first actions of the NRA was convincing New York State to build them a firing range to promote marksmanship. Through the decades, the NRA helped various state and federal legislatures write gun control legislation.

In 1938, NRA President Karl T. Frederick (lawyer and Olympic gold-medalist for marksmanship) spoke in support of gun control laws before Congress. "I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. ... I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."

Now, in the Sixties, there was this thing they called "the Civil Rights movement." Blacks were tired of getting lynched, attacked, and occasionally beaten by the police. They started patrolling the streets on the "black side of town," carrying rifles, as a means of "policing the police." As Malcolm X put it:

I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves.

Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn't mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights — I mean, you’d be justified; but that would be illegal and we don’t do anything illegal.

Then, in 1967, in California, the NRA assisted California Assemblyman Don Mulford in writing the "Mulford Act," which would prohibit carrying of loaded firearms in public. While it was being debated, the Black Panthers staged a protest, where they walked into the California State House, openly carrying guns.

That strategy backfired on them just a little, as it ended debate quickly, and the bill (soon to be part of the California penal code) was signed into law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan.

In fact, Reagan, having been reminded that black people were allowed to carry guns too, explained to reporters "There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons."

So, apparently, that's what we need. In order to get some sort of reasonable gun control passed, we have to organize and arm brown people. Let's have black people wearing berets, walking the streets with semi-automatic weapons. Let's have armed Muslims outside of mosques, and keeping their neighborhoods safe.

Hell, let's have armed Sikh patrols, too! The beards and turbans already freak some people out.

We'd have the Second Amendment repealed within a month.

Stay inside, hide under the bed and play video games

Because life is just too dangerous to live!

Really, this is the safest time to live in the United states there has ever been and I'm guessing that's true of  the civilized, "first-world" in general. Your kids are more likely to grow up big and strong and to live longer than you do, just as you're likely to live twice as long as folks did a hundred or so years ago, but you'd never know it to listen and to read and to feel.

Have you seen the recent car commercials where the distracted young mother with child in the back seat ( kids can't ride in the front seat any more) nearly rear-ends another car but is saved by automatic braking? Last night I saw another one where Young Mother gets into oncoming traffic on a bridge but the car saves her at the last moment.  Self-driving cars are being tested now and self parking cars are a reality. Cars warn you of other cars in your "blind" spot you would have seen anyway if you were looking and we're supposed to be as giddy and elated about it as an American who just worked "selfie" into a sentence for the first time. We're in terrible danger because learning to drive safely is beyond us and the future must be about cars that drive themselves without participation from you. Driver training?  What?

 Oh, brave new world that has such cowards in it!  What a wonderful world where no risk of any kind is permitted or tolerated outside the world of video games, where a woman can be arrested for letting a 7 year old walk to the park.  Yes, arrested, not scolded or cautioned -- and she faces 5 years in the slam. Maybe she should tke the kid with her -- it's safer behind bars.

No, the joy of driving an open car, a sleek powerful masterpiece of engineering down a country lane, the joy of riding a bicycle unsupervised when you're 7, of walking to the park on a Summer day -- there are parents who won't let their kids play in their own suburban yards unsupervised, whose every moment is scrutinized, analyzed and proscribed lest there be any danger at all of any kind.


How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

A plague on both your houses

Among the Right Wing Nut Job folks, you have a long-running meme: they take their unquestioning support of the Israeli peoples, invert it, and claim that all liberals hate Israel.

Less clear, of course, is why the Right Wing supports Israel, right or wrong. The evangelical movement has always supported Israel for a number of reasons, but for the rank-and-file conservative, the reasons are less clear.

Personally, and I say this as an open, unabashed lefty, I usually don't have a problem with Israel. They're a small country, literally surrounded by people who want them dead, and they're doing their best in the face of that. They have an army that is second to none, with a long history of coming out on top of any conflict.

But in their current conflict with Hamas, they are dead wrong.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Hamas is any better. They keep attacking Israeli targets, forcing the Israeli's to respond. And in their position, Israel can't afford to appear weak, so their response may appear unreasonable at times.

Then again, the Israelis have attacked, starved and imprisoned Palestinians, and consistently treated them as less than human. They have taken everything the Palestinians had, and given nothing in exchange. But both sides are wrong. And now Israel is attacking civilian targets and UN facilities. They're killing children.

Both sides have equally-questionable claims to the area: the borders to the area called Palestine was set by the Franco-British boundary agreement of 1920, and the Transjordan memorandum of 1922; the Palestinians indigenous to that region were then displaced after World War II, to make room for the new state of Israel.

Both sides have killed thousands, even millions of people on the other side. The anger on both sides is tenacious and unending, and both sides have made promises that they have later broken. The only chance they have of ever ending the conflict is for the leaders of both sides to come together, and for both sides to give up part of what they want.

It isn't going to happen. And America needs to just stay out of it and let them work it out for themselves. The only outcome I can see from American involvement is a waste of money and American lives.

I say fuck 'em. Let them fend for themselves.

Gun Culture

It felt strange, even for someone who has owned some kind of firearm for more than 50 years, to open the trunk of my car, take out an assortment of rifles, and openly walk through the parking lot on a sunny Sunday morning with what any newspaper reporter would love to  describe in lurid verse as an "arsenal" and including (of course) "weapons of war."   Wars are wars after all, even those that ended 150 years ago.  I was hardly the only one with an armful of expensive hardware of course -- it being a gun show. There were acres of cars that the acres of  "gun nutz" had arrived in, but if I had been expecting vintage Dodge Chargers with Confederate flags or jacked up trucks with nasty bumper stickers and layers of mud, I would have been disappointed.  No Daisy Duke sad to say, just Aunt Bee and the Sheriff. I was parked between a Prius and a Cadillac.

After having  my relics examined by a nice chatty fellow at the door to be sure they weren't loaded, to insert plastic zip ties to be sure they couldn't be loaded, I was advised not to take any less than $900 for one rifle.  Welcome to gun prices.  Welcome to the gun culture.

Lots of army surplus clothing, holsters, belts, boots --  even bulletproof vests on display. Booths from a local gun range offering senior discounts on Tuesdays: booths full of sporting goods and bow-hunting items, a booth with costumed civil war reenactors who kept me there a long time talking about my 1863 Tower carbine.  Some of the gun culture, a large part of it, is history culture.

Tables and tables of new commercial ammunition, hand made cartridges, surplus ammunition which usually comes in boxes of  100, or 250 or 500 rounds and would having even one box delight those people who write howling headlines?  A couple of hours at the range?  Hell no, it's an arms cache suitable only for a mass murderer.

And of course there was a large, well staffed NRA booth with a bowl of Tootsie Rolls and piles of safety pamphlets.  Maybe they were perverts and murderers and closet Nazis -- even the ladies -- but they didn't look at it. Still I walked on.  Well dressed businessmen, an off-duty cop I know, some guys in camo, some guys in Army uniform, a fellow Ham and pillar of the community Sunday School teacher type just there to buy a few boxes of ammunition for cheaper than at Wal-Mart sells them.  It's the South and everybody loves guns. Even your Aunt Bee.

All in all, a nicer looking crowd than I see at the barber shop and some of the restaurants I frequent.  I spent more time talking about history and historical weaponry and to people making sure I knew what my stuff was worth  than I  spent conducting business, and met several history buffs but not one snob and not one unfriendly person. No swastika tattoos, no white sheets, no one talking to himself. What can I say?  I have an arsenal after all and I may do it again.

I sold most of what I brought and all to licensed firearms dealers who yes, despite what you hear, really do conduct background checks  and boy, were my pockets were bulging when I left.  Did I mention that gun prices have soared and continue to soar?

I don't know, maybe it's like my experiences with the scary "biker Culture" that have had nothing whatever to do with the stereotypes we fling around.  I've begun to suspect that there are so many gun cultures that don't resemble either the others or the stereotype as there are kinds of Liberals or Conservatives or Bikers or Bookworms or Bloggers.  There might be a lesson about lumping people together, stereotyping people and making cheap shots here somewhere, but it's time for dinner and I'm part of the food culture too, doncha know.

Please sir, can I have some more?

Pecunia non olet said Vaspasian, or so they say. Money doesn't stink, or so you'd think when looking at the way Florida governor Rick Scott laps it up like a cat with spilt milk. Showing up Monday at a  Boca Raton, Florida home of GEO Group CEO George Zoley for his $10,000 a plate fundraiser ( another $3K if you want to come to the reception) would suggest that Scott can't  smell dirty money, as Zoley's company is in the business of running private prisons -- some say the worst in the country -- that squeeze the life and health out of prisoners as well as exposing the guards to unnecessary danger.

Of course it may be that Scott smells it all too well and, like a culture, is attracted to the smell of graft and corruption and human suffering. You'll recall his involvement with the largest Medicare fraud ever exposed. You may not recall that Zoley gave Mr. Scott $20,000 to add to the $800,000 of taxpayer money to pimp up the governor's mansion. Yes, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the great flood of lobbyist money soaked up by the Governor, but Scott is not one to forget his obligations to contributors.


No money doesn't care who owns it and it doesn't stink even though the people and deeds connected to it may reek. The dollars saved by understaffing prisons and serving substandard, sometimes maggot infested food to prisoners adult and juvenile affirm his credentials with his party and particularly because so many of the inmates rotting and starving and being beaten in GEO prisons are immigrants. Last year a group of protesters  chained themselves to the doors of the GEO Group corporate headquarters in Palm Beach in protest over  GEO's "pivotal role in promoting discriminatory laws that target people of color,

immigrants, youth, transgender individuals, and the poor."   There have been hunger strikes.  There have been investigations looking into accusations that inmates were being served rotten food and suffering from food poisoning at the Broward  County, Florida facility. There were also allegations of sexual assault among detainees and reports of several suicide attempts says the Broward/Palm Beach NewTimes blog.  Did I mention that Scott is a Republican?

But we can't accuse old snake eyes of total blindness to appearances.  After all Zoley was a second choice after it became known that the original host, real estate mogul James Batmasian, was convicted of tax evasion in 2008. Batmasian, who spent eight months in federal prison and completed a two-year supervised release program, also had his legal license suspended in Florida. That stinks, even if his money doesn't.   It stinks almost as much as his rather dishonest and scurrilous accusations made against his likely opponent, Charley Crist, but to his supporters it doesn't matter any more than facts do. Rick Scott saved us money by abusing prisoners and a penny saved is a penny you can spend on yourself.  And besides, prisoners can't vote.

"This Is How Progressives Should Deal With A Post-Hobby Lobby America"

Reason number eleventy-hundred why I like living in Massachusetts.  

Gordon College in Salem, Mass., wants the government to allow it to discriminate against people based solely on their sexual orientation.  The mayor of Salem says no, you can't discriminate based on sexual orientation.  

At one time people with "sincerely held religious beliefs" discriminated against interracial couples, and Jews, and Mormons, and Catholics, and anti-slavery groups. However, religious beliefs do not give people the right to deny other people their Constitutional rights.

Bravo to Mayor Driscoll and the city of Salem, Mass. (where my children were born).



"The mayor of the city of Salem, Massachusetts doesn’t regret her city’s decision to sever its ties to Gordon College, the Christian university that asked the federal government to grant it a religious exemption from workplace protections for LGBT employees.

In fact, in a letter she posted to the city’s Facebook page, Mayor Kimberly Driscoll pledged to donate five dollars to an LGBT youth charity for every angry phone call her office gets from conservatives bent on harassing city employees over the decision.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic decision in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, Gordon College President D. Michael Lindsay joined a group of other Christian leaders who sent a letter to President Barack Obama insisting that their “sincerely held religious beliefs” compel them to demand exemption from federal nondiscrimination laws.

Gordon College, Lindsay argued, is “an explicitly Christian institution,” and as such, should be allowed to fire or to refuse to hire individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Some students and faculty reacted angrily, saying that Lindsay was making their school sound bigoted and backward. 


The New England Association of Schools and Colleges announced earlier this week that it is considering pulling Gordon College’s academic accreditation over its insistence on adhering to discriminatory policies, regardless of their religious foundations. Then came the city of Salem’s decision to cut all contractual ties with the college until its rules match the federal government’s."

***********

I've read many an essay about people who wish to discriminate against the LGBT community based on their sincerely held religious beliefs and how we who do not share those beliefs should be more understanding and respectful of their feelings on this specific issue.  

I've also read that people with sincerely held religious beliefs love the sinner but hate the sin.  How is discrimination against the LGBT community, which forces people into second-class status through shaming and rejection and limits their employment opportunities,"loving the sinner?"  What some religious people see as loving the sinner and hating the sin other people see as bigotry.  And their sincerely held belief is as legitimate as anyone else's.



This Is How Progressives Should Deal With a Post-Hobby Lobby America

Today's Lesson in Recognizing Racism

"A 51-year-old Florida man charged with attempted first-degree murder, among other offenses, refused the help of a public defender on seemingly racial grounds during his first court appearance, WKMG-TV reported on Thursday."

“I said not guilty,” Thomas Thorpe told a judge in Orange County Court. “I pleaded not guilty and I don’t want this negro (sic) standing next to me. I don’t want a negro (sic) standing next to me.”--Arturo Garcia

Hmm, I've gained new insight as to the persistence of the racial divide in this country. Apparently there are people who have difficulty determining when racism is in play. Note how this story is careful to state that the defendant refused assistance from the public defender on "seemingly" racial grounds. Watch the clip from the news; the newscasters also are not sure if Mr. Thorpe was being a racist by announcing that he didn't want a Negro standing next to him.

Perhaps any effort to move to a post racial society should begin with basic instruction in how to recognize racism. Please don't be hurt by this, but the majority of black people will be exempt from these classes as we find it to be an instant indicator of racism when someone announces that he doesn't want a Negro to stand next to him. Especially when that Negro may be all that stands between him and spending the rest of his life in prison. Let's face it; we have superior recognizing racism radar.

By the way, the judge is concerned about Mr. Thorpe's mental fitness and has ordered that he be evaluated as to whether he is mentally fit to stand trial. Thorpe is an idiot, as racists typically are, but it's a stretch to think that spouting racism is an indicator that one is mentally ill and incapable of participating in one's own defense. If expressing racism is a sign of mental illness, we really need to get busy building a lot of new mental health facilities to house the number of unfortunate racists in these United States.

However, the larger issue regarding the ability to recognize racism is a major breakthrough in advancing to Utopia--a post racial society. This uncertainty as to when racism is present explains so much!

I have often heard many white people accuse black people of playing the race card. It's because they didn't see that there was any racism involved in an incident such as the murder of some unarmed black youth by an armed white adult male who claims that he was in fear of his life, until black people pointed it out! Of course they think we made it up because they were unable to see it for themselves!

The problem isn't racism; it's blindness.

Think that I'm wrong? Some white people are quick to assert that they don't see race! That's why they are not racists; they just have Race Blindness Syndrome (RBS). Let's hope that it's curable.

I wonder if anyone has told Mr. Thorpe that he may have to live in a prison cell with a Negro?

Who fired that shot?

Another Malaysian plane goes down, but this time we know why. We don't know who, because Putin denies it, the Russian separatists say it wasn't them and the Ukrainian government says it was. All of them are wrong however and we can be sure our friends the Republicans will soon let us know that this crisis, like all crises can be charged off to Barack H. Obama, the Kenyan born, Madrassa educated, communist Muslim jihadist demon.

What did you think? After all he didn't invade and his sanctions were either too little or too much and that's impeachable. Just as George Bush's decision to allow minor immigrants to have a hearing before deportation was Obama's fault -- just like The Republicans refusal to beef up security at the Benghazi embassy was Obama's fault and the deplorable conditions in Central America have never had anything to do with any Republican administration or policy.

Isn't it amusing -- or perhaps disgusting, but we can be sure that our Republican Congressional hostage takers will take precious time out from doing nothing but Obamabashing to bash Obama, but hey -- at least we'll know whose' fault it is.

What a piece of work is Man

Lovely meal, nice restaurant, best company, but the people at the next table were telling each other just what the Universe thought about this or that and how the Universe had solved some problem one of them had had. You don't get this at the Taco truck or the Wendy's drive through.

Perhaps they were Northerners.  The locals would simply have substituted the word God with no embarrassment, or perhaps they were the last holdouts of Deism, the folks who seek God in nature and not in churches or scriptures.  Who knows? But I hear this a lot.  I'm even wondering whether our practically  infinite universe is large enough to contain an ego of the size required to believe it had such significance in comparison to all there is or was or ever will be.  I'm guessing none of them were astronomers or astrophysicists or even of sufficient awareness to question the idea that something of the nature of nature itself was sentient or of  good intentions toward men -- men of good will or otherwise.

But say for the purposes of cynical condemnation, that the universe was a brain that somehow coalesced from a primal particle of infinite energy and infinitesimal size.  What can be a brain like that be composed of? Given the speed of light, and make no mistake, the universe does give us the speed of light -- given an all-there-is, the extremities of which can never, ever be reached in an infinite amount of time,  the allegedly sentient universe isn't old enough to have noticed us yet and never could be, even if somehow it were interested in our dining pleasure or our marital problems.  That which we can see of the universe is 30 billion light years across, a combination of  absolutely nothing and absolutely everything: violent on an unimaginable scale, both random and predictable and driven by principles we don't fully understand - but it can suggest to Shirley that she break up with Dylan or Cody or that I buy a new car. A sentient universe must need be speechless.

What a piece of work is man -- what quasi-demonic deity could match us for arrogance, for self-importance?