An Interesting Future

It looks like the computer industry is starting to get back to its glory days and a real battle is starting to emerge. We’re looking at a genuine revolution where computing will move away from traditional PCs and move to a variety of new devices, plus there will be a new emphasis in connectivity through the Internet, location based services, new interaction and user interface techniques, and integration with more non-computer devices.

The participants in this battle will be Apple, Microsoft, Google and (to a lesser degree) Adobe. Whether one will appear victorious like Microsoft did after the PC battle is doubtful. More likely all three will share the victory: Apple because its best at producing easy to use but closed devices most people want, Microsoft simply because it has the momentum with its existing installed base, and Google because it “owns the internet” and has a strong contender for the next open platform.

Computers are likely to become more open and more closed at the same time. Apple seems determined to keep tight control over their devices: they control the hardware, operating system, software and media on the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Many people condemn this approach and I agree it has its disadvantages for the user and for competition, but it also has significant advantages: greater integration and compatibility, and better security being two of the more obvious ones.

I don’t think a closed approach is bad at all as long as the content on that platform is transportable. So audio files and movies should be encoded using a standard like MP3 or H.264 and preferably be unencumbered with DRM, but if it is required at least it should be in a form which works on multiple systems. Files should be in a form which can be used anywhere. For example for word processing files RTF would be good but I guess Word files have become a standard.

If files can be freely moved around I don’t see a closed platform as being a major problem as long as the company involved (such as Apple) maintains the positive advantages of that approach instead of just using it as an anti-competitive advantage.

Google’s Android operating system is more open but there are lock-ins there as well. The calendar program doesn’t use standards for example (as far as I know this is still true), and requires Google calendar services. So in that way its less open than the iPhone.

As Steve Jobs has recently commented, Google’s slogan “don’t be evil” isn’t necessarily strictly accurate. Google is a large corporation, intent on maximising profit, so in some ways its just as evil as any other company – maybe not quite as much as Microsoft, but no less evil than Apple or Adobe I would have said!

Jobs also criticised Adobe for being “lazy”. This was mainly in relation to Flash which is undoubtedly a terrible environment in terms of reliability and performance, but it could easily also apply to their efforts in modernising their major programs like Photoshop and In Design. I’m not saying these are bad programs – I love Photoshop – but they really don’t interact with the advanced features available on modern Macs very well.

Of course Adobe products are fantastic compared to Microsoft’s, because their software is just truly hideous. I can see no reason to use Microsoft products at all except for momentum. Interestingly though Apple is avoiding criticism of Microsoft. Ironically it might be through agreements with them that they are able to fight off the attack from Google (if iPhones and iPads defaulted to Bing instead of Google for search it would hurt Google).

So a few years ago things didn’t look great. Microsoft was in charge and it looked like most people were doomed to their approach of avoiding real innovation and maintaining the status quo. But that has all changed and now the future looks much more interesting!

What Is the iPad?

What is this new device from Apple called the iPad? Is it a computer, or a laptop, or a netbook, or an ebook reader, or an oversized iPod? Is it some of those things, or all of them, or none of them? The answer is yes!

I don’t usually like to comment on products I haven’t used yet but since everyone else is I thought I would join the crowd and throw my opinion into the mix. But what the iPad is will depend on the user.

For me it will be (yes, I will buy one) mainly a media viewer, especially for reading books. Assuming the book store has a good selection in it and I can upload free stuff myself I doubt whether I will ever buy another physical book. Of course that will very much rely on the book reading experience being as good as people say it is and that will have to wait until I get an iPad to test.

I think I will also use it for storing and displaying photos (I already do this on my iPhone but the screen is a bit small) and videos (again, the iPhone is great for this but the screen is small). I might even move the visual media off my iPhone completely to free space for more music and podcasts.

And that brings me to one of the reasons I still want a camera. I don’t like carrying paper and often take a photo of documents for storage and viewing on my laptop and iPhone. It seems the iPad would be better for that but I need that camera! Steve… are you listening?

So what about other people? Many people will not read a book on an electronic device no matter how good it is. And many people still get their digital photos turned into prints and watch movies on their TV. If they don’t need a media device what could they use the iPad for instead?

Well these people are unlikely to be very technically advanced so they probably don’t really need a computer. Of course everyone needs to be able to surf the web and work with email but they don’t need a computer to do this. They need a simple appliance which handles the web and email really well. That sounds like the iPad to me!

So I can see the iPad as being a really useful device for someone who wants to do simple internet activities and maybe play a few simple games. To do this they might not want to try to maintain a PC netbook (who really wants to worry about the constant updates and security flaws in Windows) or even a MacBook (which are probably too expensive for many users). The iPad is a low maintenance, easy to use, cheap, and very secure device which I think would suit many people.

It might not support multi-tasking (yet) or allow running “real” computer programs but who cares? That’s not what most people want.

So I think everyone should have an iPad. Advanced users should keep their laptop and use the iPad as a media device and more basic users should use it as their internet device and maybe play a few games and create simple documents on it.

And that brings me to one last thing (in true Apple style). I consider myself to be a fairly advanced user and I use Apple’s iWork as my main “productivity” programs. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are beautiful programs. They are so much better than Microsoft Office in terms of ease of use, reliability, and consistently. If iPad users want to use these for basic tasks they usually use a netbook and Microsoft Office for then they are in for a pleasant surprise. They might want to start using iWork on their main computer too (if they have one). Maybe Apple should make a PC version!

Dorky Dawkins?

Yesterday I was sitting in one of the cafes we have distributed around the campus of the university I work at writing some notes on Richard Dawkins’ latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, when an odd person came up to me and claimed: “he’s a real dork you know”. I enquired: “who do you mean, Richard Dawkins? What’s the problem?” but by that time he had scuttled away.

So it seems that Dawkins’ influence is significant with all kinds of different people. I have no idea what this particular individual’s problem was – presumably he was some sort of religious freak who didn’t like criticism of his beliefs – and its unfortunate I couldn’t have got some more details. Actually, now that I think about it more, maybe its fortunate I didn’t engage this person in debate because I suspect he might not have made much sense (so much for universities being the center for informed intellectual debate!)

Anyway, if you are interested in the subject, my brief summary of some of the highlights from the book (which is actually well written and very readable) is here. If you have any comments please leave them in the discussion system, but please make it a bit more consequential than an ad hominem attack on the author!

I Get It Now!

I suppose many people would classify me as an Apple “fanboy” (or, to use a more complimentary term, an Apple enthusiast and computing professional). Even so, I was initially a bit skeptical about the new iPad. First, I didn’t like the name; second, I thought it needed a camera (and maybe a few other useful hardware components, like an SD card slot and USB port); and finally, I wanted multitasking!

I’m currently writing a review of some of the highlights of Richard Dawkins’ book, “The Greatest Show on Earth” so I’m carrying the book around with me (in my laptop bag) so I can work on it when I have a few spare minutes. But that book is heavy (its 470 pages) and uses a lot of space in my bag so its quite inconvenient to use.

It would be so much easier if I had a copy of the book on a compact, easy to read device which I could set bookmarks on, copy quotes from, and store lots of other books on as well. Wait a minute… that sounds like an iPad! And it wouldn’t matter if it had a camera or not (I have a very nice SLR and a camera in my iPhone and one in my laptop). And it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t multi-task either!

Of course, I could use a Kindle as my eBook reader but that really is a single purpose device (and about the same price as some iPads anyway) so that would be just too limited.

There is also evidence that Apple might be going to put a camera in the iPad – possibly even in the current model before its released – so it would be there if I did need it. Plus many people are saying that future versions of the iPhone OS (which the iPad uses) will include multi-tasking (its an operating system limitation more than a hardware one).

So I think I get it. I didn’t think I needed an iPad but obviously I do. I think when I do get one I’ll never buy another physical book. I have several book cases full of them and storing them electronically is just so much more efficient.

I do have eBooks on my laptop and iPhone already but neither of those are as nice to read from as a book. I do use PDFs on my laptop for technical documentation but that’s not the sort of thing I read for long periods of time – even a computer geek like me doesn’t like reading a 1000 page PHP manual like a novel!

I have said in the past that I don’t like to get too enthusiastic about a new product until I have a chance to use it but I think when I do get to test an iPad I will be quickly wanting to go out and buy one!

Just Water

I’ve never said that all alternative medical treatments are nonsense. It would be ridiculous to claim that there aren’t a few which (mainly through good luck rather than good management) actually work to some extent. But there are several alternative forms of treatment which are so silly and so unsupported by evidence that they can be completely discounted (standard disclaimer here: nothing is ever completely thrown away and we should always be prepared to look at new evidence if it arises).

Homeopathy would have to be one of the silliest beliefs and one of the biggest rip-offs in alternative medicine. Its disgusting that real pharmacies sell homeopathic junk along with real medicines. Or perhaps not: everyone knows the placebo effect can be very powerful and maybe that’s why some people think they get better when they use homeopathic remedies.

Of course its costs almost nothing to create a placebo (just like it costs very little to create a homeopathic remedy) but if they were sold for an unusually low price people would get suspicious and the placebo effect would not be as powerful. There’s nothing quite like having to spend a lot on something to encourage the purchaser into believing its unusually good!

Skeptics from around the world have recently participated in a publicity campaign to demonstrate the uselessness of homeopathy. They took various overdoses of homeopathic concoctions to show that it made no difference how much or little you took, the effect was the same: nothing. The demonstration was convincing enough to force the spokesperson for the New Zealand homeopaths to admit their products were just water (or sugar pills or something similar for solid forms).

This won’t stop homeopaths claiming homeopathy works of course, because they’ll just fall back on that old trick that pseudoscientists use: to claim the positive effects come from “vibrations” in the water, or “molecular memory”, or some unknown form of energy. This might be enough to convince themselves and some of their more naive customers but the real villains here are the pharmacists!

Pharmacists undergo extensive training, including sections on alternative medicines, and they must know that there is both no known mechanism through which homeopathy could work and that there is no good evidence that it is effective. There’s really no excuse for them to sell something that they must know doesn’t work.

There are three possible excuses: first, they could say they are retailers as well as health professionals; second, they could say that they are just catering for a demand from the public; and third, they could say the placebo effect is worthwhile for some people. I don’t think these excuses really work though because pharmacists advertise themselves as being health professionals and should act that way.

And yes, they are retailers but consumers expect a reasonable standard from any product they buy and surely those standards should apply more to health-related products. Apparently not.

I see the whole issue as a component of a bigger picture though. I think I have detected an increase in activity from skeptics and a definite increase in their influence. This has been most obvious with the new atheists, but unfortunately it has been subverted by the so-called climate skeptics who are really just using pseudoscience against science instead of the other way around (that’s why I usually call deniers instead of skeptics).

Well, you win some and you lose some. There’s a long way to go before any real progress is made against the superstition and other nonsense which is so common today.

Good Old Bill

There have been a few occasions in the past where I have been critical of Bill Gates, mostly because of his role leading Microsoft, a company which I think has stopped the computer industry from progressing and held back innovation for many years. On the other hand I do believe in giving credit where credit’s due and I must agree that Bill’s contributions to worthy causes (through his charitable organisation) have been substantial.

His latest contribution (at least the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s latest) is for $10 billion over the next 10 years to research new vaccines and use them in the world’s poorest countries. That’s a fairly substantial sum and one which has been put towards a very worthwhile project. Despite the claims of the anti-vaccination movement there is no doubt that vaccination is generally a very positive intervention and one which can potentially avoid more disease and suffering than just about anything else.

So I think this contribution is important for several reasons. First, just by donating $10 billion, which would not have been available otherwise, the research and medical program can proceed. Second, it was a good move to choose a positive, long-term target for the funding. Third, I appreciate him showing that non-religious charities can do as much or more than those based around religions. Fourth, by countering (more by implication than specifically) the people who oppose vaccination he reduces their effectiveness. And finally, by setting an example other people with excessive wealth might follow him.

So well done Bill, now could you do the world another big favour and tell Microsoft to stop making that awful (so-called) word processor, Word? We all hate it. Thanks for that!

Telecomorons

How hard can it be to implement a telecommunications technology which has been developed and fine-tuned in numerous other countries overseas and to get it working in New Zealand where a similar network is already operating? And the fact that a significant budget is available due to excessive profits squeezed from users through monopolistic tactics would make it easier. And when the successive CEOs have been paid a huge salary you would think they would make sure they got it right, really. Wouldn’t you?

If you are not from New Zealand you probably don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, although I’m sure every country has its own examples of gross corporate incompetence. If you are from New Zealand you will no doubt recognise Telecom as the target of this tirade!

Telecom originally used the wrong technology (CDMA) for their cell network and have finally decided to follow (most of) the rest of the world and introduce a GSM network (more correctly 3G UMTS) like (almost) everyone else.

Their advertising made it look like the greatest network anywhere but after continual outages, poor performance, and other issues, I’m not seeing a lot of advertising any more. Maybe if they had spent more money on the network and less on lying to the public they might have got a system which works more reliably!

I have often ranted in the past about previous Telecom CEO, Theresa Gattung, and what a low life deceitful piece of scum she was. It seems like the current CEO, Paul Reynolds, is just as useless but maybe a bit better at hiding the dirty tricks his company engages in. Is that better? Its so hard to say with these people.

I know some of my critics will say that its not fair to blame the CEO for technical failures of the equipment his company runs, but he gets paid a lot to run the company and when its successful he takes the credit. He should also take the blame when things go pear shaped as they have done with monotonous regularity recently.

I have no reason to be too concerned about Telecom because I don’t use any of their services directly (although I’m sure that some of my internet traffic traverses their network and I have had a few failures related to that on occasions). I use Vodafone as my cell network and yes, I know they are also a large corporation who don’t really care about anything except their profits, but at least they operate a reasonably reliable service.

As I have said in the past: Vodafone isn’t really a great company, it provides mediocre services at a quite inflated price, but its a lot better than Telecom! That’s what you get in this wonderful market-driven, pure capitalist system: the ability to make a choice. Choice one: a pretty average, over-priced service provided by a big corporation which doesn’t really care. Choice two: a below average, over-priced service provided by a big corporation which doesn’t really care.

Isn’t the free market wonderful?

iYawn or iCool?

The problem with the amount of hype that the release of a new Apple product creates is that it almost inevitably results in disappointment when the product itself is revealed. The hype machine (or reality distortion field) has been in overdrive recently regarding the new Apple tablet device which we now know is called the iPad. So does it live up to the hype?

Yes and no. There’s another one of my helpful answers which I can justify…

When I first saw the early commentary this morning and read through the specs I wasn’t hugely impressed. Some people were expecting a real innovation in the user interface hardware (maybe some sort of tactile feedback or proximity sensing) which we didn’t get. Others were expecting a built-in data projector and all sorts of other cool stuff which we also didn’t get (and realistically shouldn’t have expected) so I don’t think the hardware is truly revolutionary.

There isn’t even a camera (as far as I can see) and what’s the excuse for that? My Mac laptop has a camera, my iPhone has a camera, everything has a camera now. Why not the iPad too? Its just unbelievable!

But let’s get over that and see what it does have, instead of what it doesn’t. It is a light, thin, beautifully designed tablet computer running the finest touch operating system and incorporating a lot of very good quality (if conventional) hardware. There is also some very nice software (iWorks looks great) plus a huge library of existing iPhone apps. That’s impressive enough.

The thing that changed my mind was watching someone using the iPad. Like all Apple products the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There’s a synergy between the components that no one else can copy. So despite the device’s limitations its still a beautiful device and, even though I already have an Apple MacBook Pro 17 and an iPhone 3G I want an iPad too!

I might not get one straight away though, because there are some improvements I would like to see. First, I need that (forward facing) camera for video chat, etc. And second, I want multi-tasking! The current iPhone OS (3.1 on the phone and 3.2 on the iPad) only allows one program to run at a time (that’s not strictly true, but it looks that way to the user) and that is a limitation other phones don’t have. Its not a huge problem most of the time but it is a limitation I would like to see removed. But that will probably need to wait for iPhone OS 4.0.

Before I decide whether I think the iPad is a success or failure I will need to see how many are sold. No, I don’t really mean that, because that’s cheating. What I really want to do is use one to make sure that the user experience is as good as it looks in the videos. I suspect it will be and I suspect I’ll never buy another physical book. I also suspect Amazon might be a bit concerned about the future of the Kindle!

Back to Basics

Maybe the biggest problem I have with debating ideologically driven people (you know the ones I mean: creationists, global warming deniers, believers in the paranormal, extreme conservatives, etc) is that they think about things in a different way from me.

They will probably accept this as a fact but claim that their way of thinking is at least equal and probably better than mine. Needless to say, I would disagree.

So the question is, what is the best way to analyse a subject, to think about it, and to draw conclusions which might have some merit beyond that given to an opinion or an anecdote? Well this requires going back to the basics of your world view and of your general philosophy. I think that my epistemological philosophy is hard to fault so I’ll go through it here and refer my detractors to it with the challenge of finding a better one!

Step 1. First we have to admit that logically there is no way to ever know what is real and what isn’t with absolute certainty. This is an old theme in philosophy, most famously advanced by Rene Descartes with his famous phrase “cogito ero sum” (I think therefore I am). He was saying that the only thing a person can be sure of is that he, himself, exists. All the rest could be a delusion.

Descartes also included the existence of God as a prerequisite but that was an arbitrary inclusion and shows how even great philosophers can be badly influenced by the prevailing religious dogma of the time.

Since then other philosophers have claimed that we can’t even know for sure that we exist (and pointed out that the claim of the existence of god as a first principle is bogus). I agree this is ultimately true but also useless. Its far more useful to accept that what can be objectively demonstrated as very likely can be said to be true (this is probably most like philosophical pragmatism).

Step 2. Given that we need to find an objective, unbiased way to establish the truth we need to look for a method which would allow this.

It should be obvious that revealed truth and truth through authority aren’t valid because there are multiple sources for revealed and authoritative truth and no way to establish which is best. So saying something is true because it came from a holy book is useless because another “truth” could easily be contradictory and also come from a (different or even the same) holy book. The same applies to truth derived from gods, mystics and prophets.

A similar argument applies to truth from individual, subjective experience. It doesn’t matter how strongly an individual feels something is true they could still easily be wrong. This can easily be demonstrated by showing that religious zealots will perform suicidal acts for their belief yet anyone outside that religious group will very likely say they are still wrong.

So ideally truth should never come from sources that rely on poorly established authority, or on an experience that is only available to certain groups, or on any other source with poorly defined provenance.

Its also important to avoid a biased world view or a set of unsubstantiated premises. Many religious people start with the requirement that their god exists. And contrary to what many of them say, the rational worldview doesn’t start with the idea that god doesn’t exist, it starts with the idea that we should look at the evidence before we decide. There is no good evidence to support the existence of a god so that idea is rejected, but this is not done as a premise, that’s the critical difference.

The answer in my opinion is empiricism. The particular definition I’m referring to is the idea of a cycle of hypothesising, testing and observing, which is a major component of the modern scientific method.

If anyone doubts this idea I would ask this: if something really is true (even if it is originally derived from a revealed or subjective source) then shouldn’t there be some way to test it through experiment and observation? Some people will say “no” (God can’t be measured, my belief is spiritual, etc) but I would then ask them if their belief has any effect on the physical world. If it does then it can be tested, if it doesn’t then it doesn’t exist (even a spiritual experience affects the subject’s brain in some way).

Step 3. If we accept that an experiment can be performed to support or to reject a hypothesis we also need to accept that there could be other observations which disagree. This is because some experiments are badly designed or badly executed, sometimes the people doing them might have a bias, and sometimes the phenomenon being studied gives variable results because of statistical variations (maybe an experiment just happened by chance to measure something when it was particularly high or low).

So its necessary to look at the big picture. For example, someone determined to believe faith healing works can find studies showing its efficacy, but the overall experimental literature shows no good evidence that it works at all.

So experiments need to be repeatable. It would be preferable if anyone could repeat them, but given that many require expert knowledge or specialised equipment its acceptable if any other expert in the area can. This means that individual bias can be eliminated – even if it still doesn’t negate vast global conspiracies!

Step 4. We need to accept that no one, no matter how intelligent or well informed, can be an expert on any more than one or two subjects. That’s because we have advanced so far, especially in science, that its just impossible to keep up with the skills and knowledge necessary to be an expert.

So its necessary to accept the consensus of experts in most cases. I don’t necessarily think we should blindly believe everything experts tell us for two reasons: first, experts are sometimes wrong or even biased in some way; and second, its sometimes hard to tell who the real experts are.

There are plenty of good tools on the internet (and elsewhere) which allow study of every side of any issue. Anyone can use these to look at the facts. I do agree that the scientific consensus shouldn’t just be followed blindly buit should be given greater credibility than most other sources because it does reflect the majority view of experts.

So let’s use this methodology to examine a contentious issue. Let’s choose… creationism! Creationists (or at least the literal creationists do) claim the universe is about 6000 years old. Let’s see how that theory survives a critical examination by applying the steps above…

Step 1. The origin of the universe is in the past and we can never be 100% sure about what happened but let’s just look at the best evidence and take that as the (interim) truth on the subject.

Step 2. Reading the Bible will tell us how old the universe is according to its authors (whoever they were) but we could choose a different book and get a different answer. We also shouldn’t trust a book with an unknown provenance. So its more sensible to observe and test to see what answer we get for this question.

Step 3. So let’s do the tests. For hundreds of years the results have been accumulating from many areas of knowledge. Without exception they show an old Earth. There’s one experiment anyone can do if they have a little bit of equipment – at least in theory. That’s determining the speed of light and the distance to stars (demonstrating the light has travelled for far longer than creationism allows). I don’t have the space to list the steps here but that might be the subject for a future blog entry.

Step 4. If we can’t do the tests (and most people can’t) we should accept the expert consensus. Its so overwhelming that its stupid (yes, I stand by that word) to believe otherwise. Every branch of science agrees. It would take a conspiracy of far greater in scope than one involving all evolutionist or even all scientists to maintain it. The world is much older than 6000 years. There is no (reasonable) doubt.

So creationism has been rejected. The “controversy” the creationists have tried to create doesn’t exist because, although we should never accept anything completely, the age of the universe being much more than 6000 years is so close to an undeniable fact that it might as well be one.

Taken back to basics crazy beliefs like creationism all just self-destruct!

Battle Lost?

The facts haven’t changed and the evidence seems to be getting more compelling but I think the battle to have serious action taken to prevent significant climate change has been lost. Public and political opinion often isn’t based on facts and the facts of climate science are particularly subtle because they involve many statistical phenomena, complex interrelationships between causes and effects, and very little certainty.

Yes, even the experts cannot be completely certain about the models, the theories, or the likely pace and exact direction of climate change. Plus there are the embarrassing errors and less than ideal behaviour of some climate scientists (I’m talking about the IPCC’s incorrect claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 and the rather naive and unfortunate emails hacked at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia).

None of this affects the big picture of climate change and the sensible option is still to try to minimise the production of gases which cause warming, but these problems have given the warming deniers the material they need to push their political agenda on a public who were already uncertain about the process.

I debate with several people who are global warming deniers (I refuse to call them skeptics because they don’t share any of the characteristics of the skeptical groups I am involved with) and none of them have a good case to support their beliefs. The material they produce is inconsistent, unsupported, and (worst of all) politically motivated.

One of my opponents is a supporter of the prominent GW denier, Christopher Monckton. Monckton would have little credibility amongst most groups because he has no expertise in climate science or in science at all, and has a clear political bias. He is a former journalist and a political adviser to British ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Many on the right admire Thatcher while most on the left despise her, but whatever your opinion her political adviser would have been very conservative and not exactly science oriented.

But if a person is determined to listen to someone, even if they have almost no credibility, then there’s not a lot you can do about it. I can quote scientific reports from the world’s leading experts backed up by real data and my opposition prefers to believe a PowerPoint presentation with cherry-picked data, invalid political conclusions, and false accusations which have been disproved years ago.

As is often the case in these situations, the more ignorant your opposition is the harder it is to debate with them. Its like trying to debate the merits of string theory with a 4 year old at a kindergarten: they just don’t know enough to realise they’re wrong.

Of course, no rant against my ignorant opponents would be complete without a mention of creationism. All the above also applies to creationism (and other forms of absurd religious belief). They are also motivated by a philosophy which often specifically avoids pursuing the truth: religion (instead of politics which is usually the underlying problem with GW). And they also debate at a ridiculously childish and illogical level which is harder to argue against than someone debating at a similar level to myself.

If global warming does result in the disasters which have been predicted (and I hope it doesn’t although most of the evidence indicates it will) then all the deniers will know they’re wrong. But then it will be too late – maybe it is already. Self-interest and greed have always beaten doing what’s right. Its sad but true.