Intelligence as Compounded Interest

What does IQ mean?

A=Pe^(rt) is the formula for compound interest. Suppose that intelligence compounds over time during the first 21 years of life, as the brain is developing. Intelligence quotient is supposed to represent the rate at which intelligence increases during that period. But what does that mean? Does that mean that IQ is a kind of APR in a compound interest formula? Lets take a look at what that would imply.

Suppose everyone starts out with 10 intelligence (an arbitrary number that doesn’t really matter).

If V has has a constant IQ of 40 (mentally disabled), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.4*21), or just 44,471. That’s 3/1,000,000ths of the intelligence of an average person.

If W has a constant IQ of 90 (a bit below average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.9*21), or 1,614,974,644. That’s 36,315 times the intelligence of the mentally disabled person, but only 12.25% of the intelligence of an average person or 1.5% of the intelligence of a person with IQ 110.

If X has a constant IQ of 100 (presumably exactly average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1*21), or 13,188,157,345. That’s 12.25% of the intelligence of a person of IQ 110.

If Y has a constant IQ of 110 (a bit above average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.1*21), or 107,696,733,712. That’s 8.17 times the intelligence of an average human.

If Z has a constant IQ of 160 (genius), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.6*21), or 3,911,061,021,110,377. That’s 296,559 times the intelligence of an average human or 87,946,325,046 times the intelligence of the mentally disabled individual.

And that is why rely on people like Einstein to solve the mysteries of the universe.

Of course, this isn’t the whole story.

1) The brain may not develop at the same rate throughout life. If it slows substantially in the late teens, then the differences in intelligence between people of different IQs should be less dramatic.

2) Over time, the brain may deteriorate at a rate that is related to its earlier rate of growth. If those with more intelligence lose it faster, then one would expect the population to converge somewhat at older ages, long after the brain finished developing.

3) The brain may not start and stop developing at 0 and 21. It likely begins developing while still in the womb, and it could be through with major development at a much earlier age. Or, it could continue developing at a reduced rate through adulthood. As far as I know, we simply don’t have sufficient data on when the brain develops and at what rates.

4) The brain might not develop at a compounding exponential rate. It could develop at a flat rate, or by some weird hybrid complicated function.

What happens to the numbers if we assume, instead, that the brain develops only from 0 to 18?

If V has has a constant IQ of 40 (mentally disabled), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.4*18), or just 13,394. That’s 2/100,000ths of the intelligence of an average person.

If W has a constant IQ of 90 (a bit below average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(0.9*18), or 108,535,199. That’s 8103 times the intelligence of a mentally disabled person, but only 2.7/100ths of the intelligence of a person with IQ 110.

If X has a constant IQ of 100 (presumably exactly average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1*18), or 656,599,691. That’s 6 times the intelligence of a person with IQ of 90.

If Y has a constant IQ of 110 (a bit above average), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.1*18), or 3,972,196,658. That’s 6 times the intelligence of an average human.

If Z has a constant IQ of 160 (genius), then, A=Pe^(rt) would imply that the AMOUNT of intelligence after 21 years of growth and development would equal 10e^(1.6*18), or 32,187,042,897,020. That’s 49,020 times the intelligence of an average human, or 2.4 BILLION times the intelligence of someone who is mentally disabled.

Implications

IQ is believed to be driven by a mixture of environmental and genetic factors. Although the genetic underpinnings of intelligence are not well-known, a handful of alleles have already been identified in the human genome as being statistically correlated with as much as a single IQ point even after controlling for 1 million independent DNA regions in a sample of over 100,000 people. There may be something like 10,000 of these minor genetic variations, any random 100 or so would be responsible for about 15 IQ points. Some have postulated that artificial genetic modifications would someday allow us to create future generations of humans that have most or all of these alleles expressed optimally, generating theoretical normal IQs in the hundreds, or perhaps even over 1000.

How smart would a super-human be with an IQ of 1000? 

Under the 18-year model discussed above: *only* 2-with-70-zeroes times smarter than a current average human.

Under the 21-year model discussed above: 1-with-82-zeroes times smarter than a current average human.

Think about the most powerful supercomputer in the world (as of November 2015), China’s Tianhe-2, which has about 1,408,000,000,000,000 bytes of memory, and compare it to a single byte of data (8 1s & zeroes, representing basically a single letter, number, or character). Take that amount of memory to about the fifth power, and that is how smart a 1000 IQ superhuman would be compared to us (a single byte).

Why do some people hate Barack Obama? Is it because he’s black?

Why do people try to climb Mt. Everest? Because they can.

There are literally over 7 billion people on this planet. If you asked (even just the English-speakers) what the answer to 2+2 is, you would get probably get multiple percentage points worth of people not saying 4.

If you ever get a job calling people on the phone and asking them about their opinions (which I did for about a year in college), I can virtually guarantee that you will be shocked at the number of people who say things that are completely ridiculous, dumb, and/or based on obvious factual inaccuracies.

I worked for a summer in a congressional office, and I didn’t answer the phones (luckily), but there was this one guy who just kept calling and asking ridiculous questions about President Obama’s positions, and the weird thing is that we were pretty sure he actually believed what he was saying.

So, yeah, there are a shockingly large number of people that are just unimaginably dumb, or downright crazy. But, there are a few more answers to your question:

1) Yes, some people hate Obama because he is black. Probably something like 5% of the population would actually admit that they hate him because of his race. Another 5%-10% of the country is likely influenced by a more subtle, but still substantial racist element. Perhaps they feel threatened in general or they are afraid of what he represents. Perhaps they are afraid that their kids or grandkids might someday NOT be on top of the world, and their natural instinct is to try to make sure that “someone” from some other demographic stays down.

a) NOTE: People’s satisfaction with their lives is largely relative, not absolute.If you ask people whether they are happy with their standard of living, people in first world countries who have running water, televisions, computers, cars, and savings will say “no” because they are comparing themselves to those around them. In that sense, then, being part of the “in” crowd, or the group that is on top is by definition a zero-sum game.

2) There is this psychological effect called “lens vision.” People CRAVE stability in their lives, and especially in their perspective of the world. Partisan identification starts to develop in childhood before most people are capable of seriously vetting issues. Then, later, when they are confronted with a statistic or an argument that undermines the supremacy of their choice, they subconsciously look for a way to justify retention of their partisan ideology. The result is that in a world where sociopolitical issues are complex, it is very difficult to change someone’s partisan identity. When people’s partisan identity DOES change, it is usually because it didn’t mesh well with that of the people around them.

In other words, partisan ideology is as at least as much about identity and social relationships as it is about actual issues.

In that context, it should not be hard to see how the story unfolds: In the information age, as it becomes increasingly possible for people to segregate into communities where they only live near people that are like them, where it is possible to only get news from news sources that don’t piss you off (news sources that match your ideology), people begin to experience an amplified “echo chamber” effect: The people around you, the news, and your own gut all tell you the same thing, and they all reflect and amplify eachother, reinforcing your partisan identity and your lens vision, and generating increasingly strong sentiments about political issues.

Due to your partisan tunnel vision, you don’t realize that you haven’t actually thoroughly vetted a lot of the things that you say. You aren’t particularly careful about how you say what you say, since you are already pretty sure that you are right.

HERE’S THE KICKER: People in the other party are going through the same process. They are certain that they are right. They are overly certain about the things that they say, and don’t adequately vet themselves.

Then, people from opposing partisan ideologies get into a conversation, and it quickly escalates. Over multiple conversations, dormant emotional memories arise irrationally to the surface and cause increasingly quick emotional escalation. The more emotions rise, the less the parties bother to vet themselves, and the less credence they give to the other party’s opinions and perceptions. In other words, they trust themselves MORE and the other party LESS. Since this process is occurring on both sides, it becomesincreasingly difficult to find compromise, because you are both demanding an extraordinary burden of proof from eachother both to prove one’s own point, AND to dissuade the other from his/her irrational position. You both rightly feel that the other party is being unfair, and you eventually give up and go back to your echo chamber to complain.

CONCLUSION

To a greater or lesser extent, this cycle of doom is responsible for the increasing partisan rancor in the United States. There are a lot of factors, but they all seem to feed on eachother. In the end, it is hardly surprising that you end up with a shockingly large percentage of Republicans who believe the most asinine things about President Obama, and have actual hatred for a man that they have never even met.

If nothing else, they hear infuriating things about him on a near-daily basis from their colleagues, friends, news sources, and (Republican) elected representatives. They can’t understand how he can believe such infuriating liberal nonsense, or they see him as the face of hypocrisy and greed (redistribution). Perhaps they see him as a threat (or a representation of a threat) to their lifestyle. Perhaps they believe that HE hates THEM.

I fancy myself as a fairly intelligent, even-tempered person, and an experienced debater. But even I have difficulty sometimes with keeping political discussions cool and focused. For people who are not experienced, or who are less intent on keeping the discussion under control, it is hardly surprising that emotions accelerate and leave ordinary americans spitting bile at one another.

President Obama SHOULD Make Death a Taxable Event

I recently stumbled across a Forbes article complaining that President Obama would like to make death a taxable event. The article was referencing a January 17th, 2015 press release that called for, among other things, a new realization event when appreciated property is received by gift or bequest.

Vocabulary

In tax law terminology, if you own property that increases in value (or “appreciates”), you have “income” because your net wealth has increased. But, the tax code doesn’t usually make you “realize” that income (and pay taxes on it) until you actually sell the property and “realize” the income.

Why? We are concerned that you won’t have money to pay the tax, or the value of the property might go back down before you sell it, or we didn’t have an easy way of accurately measuring its value in the first place. It just wouldn’t be feasible or enforceable.

The tax law has both “realization” events and “recognition” events. You have to both realize income and have the tax law recognize that you realized the income, otherwise you don’t have to pay tax — yet.

The amount of money you pay for a property is its “basis.” Basis gets adjusted by certain things, and so your “adjusted basis” is supposed to represent your investment in a property. The actual fair market value of the property minus the basis equals the amount of income/gain that is built into the property, and which can be realized/recognized at an appropriate event.

So what is the problem? 

Americans decided long ago that 1) people shouldn’t pay taxes at death; and 2) the heirs shouldn’t have to pay taxes on appreciation that occurred when they didn’t have control of the appreciated property. Hence, the “stepped-up basis” rule. When you die, the basis in the property is automatically “stepped up” to fair market value at the time of death.

Ordinarily, realization and recognition rules only ever delay taxation on income. But, the stepped-up basis rule means that if you can hold off on selling those stocks of Apple that you bought back in the 1980’s long enough, then neither you, nor anyone you know or love will EVER have to pay taxes on your gains.

Take, for example, a hypothetical guy named Larry. Larry decides to found a massive corporation and call it Moracal. Since he built it from the ground up, his basis in his personal Moracal shares is approximately $0. Decades later, Larry’s net worth is around $50 billion. But Larry is getting old. He knows that if he can just hold out for a few more decades, he will have built a massive empire to last his family through the next, say, 20 generations+, all without ever paying any income tax whatsoever.

Suppose Larry wants to buy an island. He locates one that costs about $1 billion. Larry would have to sell over $1.2 billion worth of shares in order to generate $1 billion in after-(capital gains) tax return. Then, he would have to fork over about $250 million to the government. Larry would rather have his kids inherit that $250 million. So, Larry decides to take out a loan from his friend, Bill, instead. Larry agrees to pay 5% interest (capitalized into the loan), with the full principle and any accumulated debt payable one year after Larry’s death. Larry puts up $1 billion of Oracle stock as security for the loan. Larry has successfully purchased his island and avoided paying any income taxes ever. In fact, if Larry wants to, Larry can set up shop and run a tourism business on his personal island to help defray the interest expense from his $1 billion loan.

So what is the solution?

There are a number of possible solutions.

1. We could put a cap on the amount of time that an asset could appreciate without being taxed (say ten years or five years).
2. We could simply tax all gain every year, and do away with these rules.
3. When we DO finally collect taxes, we could charge interest on any tax that might have been levied, but was instead deferred (this is actually the best solution, in my book, for reasons that I will explain in a later post; in particular, it would seriously undermine the current incentives to waste billions of dollars on clever tax-planning).
4. Or, we could get rid of the stepped-up basis rule and make billionaires who have deferred taxes their entire lives finally pay a tax on their estate when they die.

So what is wrong with this last solution, which Obama has proposed? 

Nothing. There’s not a damn thing wrong with it, unless you happen to be a billionaire looking for ways to avoid ever paying a fair tax on your income.

As previously mentioned, I have plenty of other ideas about how the tax code could be improved. But that simply isn’t and can never be a criticism of a completely rational, non-partisan, sensible, and obvious solution to a single, discrete problem in the tax code.

The Carrot Spatula

Have you ever found yourself cooking meat and onions and at the same time holding a raw carrot? If not, you should try it, because it’s fun.

Have you ever been slowly poisoned by something without really noticing? It’s generally something considered “inadvisable.”

Anyways, now you can COMBINE your desire to not be slowly poisoned to a cruel and painful death WITH your desire to hold and consume a raw carrot while cooking meat and onions.

I call it… The Carrot Spatula.

Here’s how it works: You take the fork out of your right hand and stab it partially into a piece of meat so that the sharp tines are muted. Then, you take the carrot, and you use its blunt, crisp, delicious end to stir the meat and onions. This allows you to consume your meal of meat and potatoes without risking the consumption of any toxic poisonous flakes of non-stick frying pan.

Plus, it makes your pictures look WAY better. First, check out this perfectly gorgeous-looking full-colored pan of food.

Now, compare this ugly, sepia-toned picture of THE SAME FOOD sans carrot.

Tragic.

AND BONUS —

Your carrot is likely to soak up freaking delicious meat and onion juices, fat, and spices, and thereby increase its flavor factor substantially WITHOUT ceasing to be an official health food.

Brought to you by your local carrot snapper (person from Utah).

 

A Better Primary System

1. Let Iowa and New Hampshire continue holding nominating contests in early February.
2. Then, sort all remaining states (and voting territories, like Guam) by size, and classify them into three tiers, with an approximately equal number of delegates at stake in each tier.
3. All states in the first tier (the smallest states) vote on the second Tuesday in February.
4. Tier two votes on the second Tuesday in March.
5. Tier three votes on the second Tuesday in April. And then you can hold the conventions in May.
6. Tiers 1 and 3 rotate places every four years.

WHY SHOULD WE ADOPT THIS SYSTEM?

The current primary system is a mess.

Almost every state is faced with a dilemma: 1) leave the primary where it is and resign oneself to a state of irrelevance, or 2) move the primary inexorably earlier, wasting millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars (as in the case of California in 2008) just in the transaction costs of hosting Presidential primaries separately from local primaries. The alternative (moving all of the local primaries earlier and earlier every year) is likewise sub-optimally palatable.

The public are forced to coexist with an inexorably lengthening election cycle, in which national elections have become a near-constant phenomenon.

Those few states that take a moral stand and refuse to move their primary to gain influence are punished for it.

Finally, the primary system is lumpy. Some states’ primaries are all alone amidst a sea of media coverage. Others’ are all clogged into Super Tuesday.

It is, quite simply, a senseless mess. And, everyone knows it.

If everyone knows and agrees that it is a mess, then why hasn’t anyone changed it? 

That’s a great question. One might similarly ask why Congress never seems to get around to passing budget bills until the government is brought to the brink of collapse. The simple answer is that a complex system with many stakeholders contains a lot of obstacles to doing things. Few states have a strong interest in reforming the primary system. But, the traditional first few states have a very large interest in retaining their primacy.

Plus, not everyone has coalesced around the same solution yet. A lot of people would like the states to all be equal. Iowa and New Hampshire want to retain their primacy. Some people think that the race fundamentally changes once the first couple of actual votes are cast and recorded, and so it is a good idea to put a couple of states without a ton of delegates a bit ahead of everyone else, so that the system has a chance to adjust to whatever happens and really vet the candidates. Some people want a drawn out primary, so that the candidates are more thoroughly vetted. Other people advocate a shorter primary, so that the eventual winner is less damaged by the time they go up against the opposition.

This system gets around those concerns. 

By retaining Iowa and New Hampshire as the first states, this plan simultaneously avoids pissing off those states and retains the advantages of having a couple of states out front for early vetting. The inhabitants of both states are actually quite used to performing this job, and take cultural pride in it. Anyways, they really only have a few delegates between them, so it doesn’t make that much difference to everyone else.

Then, this system puts all of the other states on equal footing with eachother. Under this system, there are no states that are truly irrelevant, as there is a substantial possibility that any given competitive election will still be undecided by the time it gets to the third wave.

In the current system, campaign events are heavily concentrated in the first 4 states, and almost non-existent for states whose contests occur after Super Tuesday. This system would allow candidates to focus their efforts in states that are conducive to their message. All states would see campaign events.

By the same token, we should do away with the electoral college, and enter an era of true representative democracy.

Just saying.

 

Why I’ve Stopped Doing Interviews for Yale

It’s a random process, disguised as a deliberative one.

Source: Why I’ve Stopped Doing Interviews for Yale

Gay Icon Adam Lambert’s New Single Finds Huge Success in… Russia?

That’s right. The people who ban “gay propaganda” apparently have a penchant for gender-bending pop stars (take a peak at this popular 2010 music video). Keep in mind that both gay icons Madonna and Lady Gaga made waves when they spoke out on the subject during sold-out concerts. Methinks a little bit of the repression may be partly to blame?

Top40-charts.com currently lists “Ghost Town” as the #5 biggest song in Russia. As out.com points out, however, top40-charts.com isn’t the most reputable of charting organizations, and doesn’t disclose its methodology publicly. So, lets take a quick peak at some other sources.

Shazam

If you hear a song on the radio that you like but don’t recognize, you can get out your phone and use an app to get the song’s info. Shazam is a wonder of the modern era, and for our purposes, provides an extremely useful charting service that gives a uniquely valuable glimpse at the amount of “buzz” a new song actually generates in actual people. For some perspective, the most shazammed song ever got 20 million shazams. 103 songs have at least 5 million lifetime shazams. The #1 song in the USA right now, The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face,” has 3.8 million shazams, which is currently at #4 on the US shazam chart. The Weeknd’s next single, “The Hills,” which recently rose into the top 5 on the US Hot 100, currently occupies the #1 slot on the US shazam chart. “Ghost Town” has 2.5 million global shazams and currently sits at #36 on the US shazam chart (it rose #77-#74 on this week’s US Billboard Hot 100). It is also #7 on the global shazam pop chart and #22 on the overall global shazam chart.

“Ghost Town” is currently the #10 most shazammed song in Russia. So, that is consistent with it being a pretty buzzy single there.

iTunes

Daily Russian iTunes positions for “Ghost Town,” Aug. 10-Sept. 4, 2015 (“Ghost Town” was #42 on 8/10 and #44 on 9/4): 69, 62, 72, 23, 32, 26, 29, 25, 23, 22, 42, 36, 21, 29, 38, 25, 23, 21, 38, 36, 28, 36, 36, 49, 44

 

Presumably, the top40-charts was referencing the tracking week from August 21 through August 27. During that time frame, “Ghost Town” occupied an average position of #31 on Russian iTunes.

Conclusion

Top40-charts.com may have exaggerated Adam’s current popularity in Russia somewhat. However, “Ghost Town” clearly has momentum in the Russian market. Russians with smart phones, at least, are shazamming it regularly, and iTunes figures are strong and prolonged.

Additionally, “Ghost Town” has become a legitimate hit in numerous other countries, peaking at #2 in Australia, and #1 in Poland, and charting in dozens of other countries. United World Chart (which IS a reputable charting organization by my estimation) has ranked “Ghost Town” as one of the 50 biggest global hits for three weeks in a row now. It is currently charting in the US on Billboard’s pop and adult pop formats. It’s doing all right.

The Government Spends More than $250 Billion/Year Subsidizing Healthcare for the Wealthy

What is the biggest tax break in the US tax code? Mortgage interest deduction? Charitable deduction? Big oil? Capital gains? No, no, no, and no. The biggest tax break in the entire code is the tax asylum for employer-sponsored health insurance. If you get health insurance through your employer, you get a good chunk of compensation completely tax-free. Or, in other words, the government is subsidizing your healthcare. You might think that is a good thing for Joe Shmoe Americano. I’m here to tell you why it is not.

America has a marginal, progressive income taxation system.

What does that mean?

If you are a single individual, and you made $50,000 last year, then your marginal tax rate is 25%. But, you don’t pay 25% of your (taxable) income as tax. Rather, you pay 10% of your first $9,225, 15% of your $28,225, and 25% of your final $12,549. So, your average tax rate is going to be substantially less than 25%. But, if you made $1 more, then you would have to pay $0.25 in additional taxes. Make sense?

2015 Tax Brackets for Individual Taxpayers

Joe Shmoe is not paying into the highest tax bracket–at the federal level.

Joe Shmoe makes $50,000/year. At least 95% of single adult Americans make less than $90,000/year, and therefore never touch a marginal tax rate higher than 25%. Almost half of Americans don’t pay federal income tax at all, although they still end up paying a substantial share of other taxes, many of which are regressive, especially at the state and local level. Of state and local taxes, the bottom 20% actually pay double the effective tax rate of the top 1% of income-earners.

In other words, almost half of Americans, the poorest half, are denied access to the biggest tax break in the tax code.

The higher the marginal tax rate you are paying, the more of your health insurance is being subsidized by Uncle Ben.

If you make $500,000/year, then you currently pay some of your income into the highest marginal tax bracket, 39.6%. Suppose you were shopping between two health insurance plans. One cost $10,000, and had an expected value to you of about $11,000. The other cost $20,000, and had an expected value to you of $18,000. Which are you going to choose? Now, what if I told you that the government would subsidize 40% of the cost? You are now picking between a $6000 plan that is subjectively worth $11,000 (for a consumer surplus/profit of $5000), and a $12,000 plan that is subjectively worth $18,000 (for a consumer surplus/profit of $6000). The plan that has a net negative total value for society (because it benefits you only $18,000, while having an actual cost of $20,000) is the plan that you choose. Why? Because the government is subsidizing a large chunk of the cost, and it has a bigger price tag.

You should be able to see where this is going. The wealthy, who pay some of their income at high marginal tax brackets, have a perverse incentive to overspend on health insurance policies, even inefficient ones, at tax-payer expense. The poor and the lower middle class, meanwhile, who maybe could actually use subsidized healthcare, are left out. Even those who do work for an employer that provides health insurance are left out of the primary benefit of the tax break because they aren’t being taxed at a high marginal rate in the first place.

Conclusion

Joe Shmoe is getting a modest tax break/subsidy. But Richy Rich is getting a much larger subsidy, even if he gets the exact same insurance. Of course, Richy Rich can probably afford slightly better insurance than Joe Shmoe, especially with the bigger subsidy, and he is strongly incentivized to take full advantage of the tax break to do so. Meanwhile, Poor Guy down the street doesn’t get any subsidy at all, even if he happens to get health insurance through his employer. That part of the problem, at least, was rectified in part by the Affordable Care Act. But, we still have a system that gives increasingly large tax breaks to the increasingly wealthy top percentiles of our nation, and that just ain’t right.

Mormon (LDS) Church to Continue Boy Scouts Because They Can Still Discriminate Locally.

The Deseret News reported simply that the LDS Church had decided to continue its boy scout program (despite its recent decision to stop discriminating against LGBT scout leaders). But this is not the progressive, enlightened move that it might seem on first glance. The Church states:

In the resolution adopted on July 27, 2015, and in subsequent verbal assurances to us, BSA has reiterated that it expects those who sponsor Scouting units (such as the Church) to appoint Scout leaders according to their religious and moral values ‘in word and deed and who will best inculcate the organization’s values through the Scouting program.’ At this time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will go forward as a chartering organization of BSA, and as in the past, will appoint Scout leaders and volunteers who uphold and exemplify Church doctrine, values, and standards.

In other words, the LDS church can still pick local scout leaders based on its own standards of morality. Hmm… I wonder what the Church’s standards are on the morality of homosexuality. Has that changed recently? No? Oh. Ok. So, the Church is conceding only that it is not going to throw a tissy fit about gay scout leaders in other people’s troups.

I’m proud of you, Church, for not acting like a spoiled child. Congratulations. This is absolutely the moment that we have all been waiting for. 

This is seriously breaking, headline news. Church did not throw tissy fit. Seriously?

 

Why Can’t the LDS Church be Progressive?

The LDS church claims to have over 13 million members worldwide (although that figure counts people like me who simply haven’t yet bothered to tell them in writing that we think it is a bunch of BS, so a more legitimate figure is probably less than half that). It has been around for almost 200 years, now. That is nothing compared to, say, Catholicism. But even in that period of time, the Church is already doing logical summersaults to try to keep its story straight and to therefore retain a semblance of legitimacy.

Mormon theology depends on absolutes. The Church is either true, or it is not. Either everything that they “know” to be true is true, or it is ALL a bunch of BS. Either Mormon men actually channel the power of the priesthood, or they do not. The leaders of the church put themselves in a foxhole when they made homosexuality absolutely immoral. Now, either homosexuality is immoral, and should continue to be fought against, or Joseph Smith was never visited by two pillars of light that solidified into holy beings. The Church can’t take it back and still retain legitimacy in the eyes of any rational human being. Luckily for the church, it has a lot of irrational believers. But, it would still take a pretty big hit.

Category-Specific Mailing Lists Coming Soon

I will be adding category-specific mailing lists in the near future so that loyal readers can be notified only when a post comes out that they care about. For now, if you would like to be placed on one of these lists, please email me privately at sometimesprofound@gmail.com.