A Few Opinions I Can't Actually Prove

Several years ago I retired from a profession in which one isn't supposed to claim something is true unless one can prove it. I don't mean just “convince other people,” either, I mean prove it without the use of histrionics, courtroom tricks, advertising gimmicks, etc.; prove it so thoroughly that all the experts in the field who examine the proof agree that the claim is correct, and do not, even on sober reflection, change their minds.

Unfortunately, that very demand for rigorous proof interferes with the ordinary life of us practitioners in the field, because from day to day we must form and act on opinions we're reasonably sure are correct, but which we can't prove “beyond all doubt.”

Today I shall share a few opinions that I'm certainly inclined to believe, but can't actually prove. (One is that I didn't lose all my readers in the first two paragraphs. Another is that, despite announcing in The Hell You Say #23 that, like almost everybody else a short time ago, I'm running for President, I'm not on anybody's short list as a possible Vice Presidential candidate. This saves me a difficult decision.)

But to get to some unproved opinions, here's a starter: I think that – around the world – most people still use computers for their original purposes, i.e. computation and communication, but in the USA , advertising and playing games are the main functions of electronic devices, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. As I indicated above, I can't prove this, and it may not be true, but I have seen evidence. As an example, just now when I Googled my third novel [let's seize this opportunity to mention its title: To Kill a Nudist], I found several places that sell it as an ebook, which is fine since that's how it first appeared, and two places (besides the publisher and the printer) that sell it in its print version – although one of them claimed it is unavailable, which it certainly is not­and a whole bunch of porn sites, presumably staffed by people who hope that the word “Nudist” in the book's title interests large numbers of people who regard nudity as a desirable sexual titillation but will drop out of their book search and pursue what these other merchants have to offer.

The evidence for the “playing games” part is so ubiquitous that I don't have to give an example of that. If you missed it, watch any child between the ages of five and twenty-five. You don't actually have to bump into all those porn sites if you don't want to, because your local bookstore can order To Kill a Nudist from the publisher for you (though they probably won't unless you insist – and unless you point out that it's listed in Bowker. By the way, another thing I haven't actually proved, but do believe, is that it's listed in Bowker. My publisher says it is, but I don't have access to look it up myself. Your bookstore does, however.) Oh, and the evidence that outside the US there is something going on besides game playing and advertising? That's a lot scantier, and I may come back to it someday. For now it's just something I think is true. It may not be true in certain countries, and I suspect, besides, that most of the porn sites I mentioned are foreign. I suspect it without entirely adequate proof, of course.

For something rather different, we move to Global Warming. I believe global warming is real, and dangerous, and is getting insufficient attention from the media (which, by the way, I believe is almost entirely conservative, not liberal) and from our US Federal Government. Basically, the reasons for my belief, which fall far short of rigorous proof, are that the vast majority of scientists who study the matter believe in global warming, that the people who first called our attention to it, quite a few years ago now, discovered with their computer modeling that we could expect more frequent and more extreme weather problems, including more and bigger hurricanes and other tropical storms, more and bigger tornadoes, greater regional variation in the amount of precipitation, actual cooling in some regions, more heat waves that last longer, extended droughts and increased flooding, rapid melting of polar ice caps, and similar phenomena, most of which appear to be happening today, and that governmental sources, claiming to be free from political influence, are back-pedaling by announcing that there's no reason to think that Myanmar floods or Katrina hurricanes are due to human effects. (These sources will probably soon remind us that climatic modelers didn't predict huge earthquakes.)

The media reported all those predictions when they were first made, but when they became “old hat,” they moved their attention to the skeptics. Since these are few and far between, there's enough time lapse from the publicity accorded one to the announcements of another that astonishingly many of them get coverage. Where I live, lots of people believe those skeptics, and not many can read the scientific data that contradicts them. Meantime, federal governmental announcements continue to concentrate on trying to reassure us that any bad meteorological effects are merely coincidental effects of natural cycles.

But, about mysteries: do I have any prejudices, i.e. opinions that aren't completely proven and that may possibly differ from yours, in that area? Of course. Here's one: I think the changing of the publishing industry from followers of a philosophy of publishing in such a way as to permit making money into a branch of the paper-shuffling world in which money is to be made by any means whatever, “even publishing” has had a pernicious effect on what gets published. Actually, the background situation is even worse than that: America now believes that money made by simply changing ownership of things, including publishing facilities, is more glorious than money made in any other way, and deserves a greater reward. While this view dominates our culture, books I want to read tend to remain unpublished, relegated to what insiders refer to as the “long tail” category, i.e. books read by fewer people than read the mighty – i.e. mightily advertised – blockbusters.

Which brings us to another of my unproved but much-clung-to convictions: the public really is getting dumber. Why do I think so? Read the so-called “classical” mysteries. They primarily appeal to the mind, furnishing intellectual stimulation as one attempts, however unlikely one's chances, to solve the puzzle ahead of the story's investigator. Today such books are unfashionable, having been largely replaced by stories that attempt to let us share in the intimate family moments of the investigator, i.e. books that bring us to emotional involvement. Coincidence? I think not: the publishers, seeking money, simply appeal to what they believe we are. Namely people who feel without thinking. Frequently these mysteries even draw on unpredictable psychic phenomena, about as anti-brain as stories can get. I have some biased opinions on what has brought this situation about, too, but I haven't yet reached the stage of believing them­not enough mere evidence, to say nothing of “foolproof proof.”say.