Elsewhere…

I’ve started blogging elsewhere, mostly because I just feel like it. Update your RSS / bookmarks, if you’re so inclined.

Merry Christmas!

For real this time:

Sweet Potato Hummus

Browsing around for new hummus ideas, I came across a few recipes for sweet potato hummus. It sounded good, but I was skeptical of the ideas I found, which used both chickpeas and sweet potato. I tend to prefer simpler flavors, so I came up with a recipe that only uses sweet potatoes. This hummus is amazingly fluffy. The tahini shines through more than it does with traditional hummus, and I spiced it up a bit with garam masala. The trick to this hummus is to blend it while the sweet potatoes are piping hot. The heat helps the tahini and olive oil emulsify in a really lovely way.

Sweet Potato Hummus

3 cups peeled, diced, and steamed sweet potato (yams are fine, as are frozen and microwaved sweet potatoes)
1/3 cup roasted tahini
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon salt

Blend the sweet potatoes while they are very hot. Add in the tahini and blend. Add in the olive oil and blend. Add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Refrigerate until cool.

Almond Lingonberry Muffins

I bought a jar of lingonberry jam at IKEA, and I literally went through it over a weekend. Oops! I used up part of the jam in these awesome muffins. The citrus and almond complements the lingonberry quite nicely!

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup greek yogurt
juice and zest of one large orange
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup lingonberry jam
1/2 cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease the muffin tins.

Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together.

Whisk the eggs and brown sugar together until smooth. Add the yogurt, orange juice, orange zest, oil, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Whisk again to blend.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until there are no lumps. Make sure not to over mix.

Place the muffin batter in each muffin tin so that the tins are about 1/2 full. Drop a teaspoon or so of jam in each muffin tin. Spoon over remaining batter.

Sprinkle the almonds and sugar over the muffins.

Bake for 22-25 minutes, until the muffins are golden brown. Remove from oven and cool before serving.

Norwegian Oats

Rolled oats + Greek yogurt + sliced almonds + lingonberry jam = worth putting up with neck tattoos at the Round Rock IKEA

Banana Pound Bread

Now that I’m not vegan anymore (yup, it’s true), I love experimenting with baking even more. Everything comes together easily with eggs. Imagine that!

I thought up this recipe because I wanted something light yet rich. I included greek yogurt to add some decadence, and I used oat flour to make it whole grain without being heavy. I love the result… it tastes a lot like a pound cake, without a ton of fat.

Banana Pound Bread

1 1/2 cups oat flour (you can achieve this by grinding up oats)
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of butter
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Cream together the brown sugar and butter. Add in the eggs and stir until well incorporated. Stir in the banana, greek yogurt, and vanilla. Set aside.

Stir the oat flour, baking powder, and salt together. Combine the flour mixture with the wet mixture. Pour into a greased bread pan.

Bake at 350F for 60 minutes. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

It Wouldn’t Be Christmas Without Krampus!

Merry Christmas!

Do We Need to Believe in Free Will in Order to Behave Ethically?

It’s fascinating that belief systems from Christianity to Objectivism are so centered around the idea of free will. A recent study suggests that strong general support for free will is at least somewhat cross cultural. I can’t think of a group of people (besides philosophers / psychologists / scientists) who don’t believe in free will.

I’ve wondered for some time if there is an evolutionary basis for the concept of free will. As we learn more about how our genes, childhoods, and social surroundings effect us, it’s amazing we take free will seriously at all.

Is there something about believing in free will that makes you more moral? A couple new studies seem to suggest that hearing anti-free will quotes makes people behave less ethically. In fact, if you are read an anti-free will statement, you’re more likely to spice up a bland food lover’s food with more hot sauce than you otherwise would. Ouch!

The only critique I have with these studies is that they only presented hard determinism as an alternative to free will, not compatibilism. In fact, compatibilism seemed to be confused with free will at times. I bet that hearing about hard determinism is a lot more likely to make people act unethically than simply hearing anti-free will statements. I would like to see a study contrasting the effects of learning about hard determinism with the effects of learning about compatibilism.

Are Ethicists More Unethical?

I recently ran across a study that pretty convincingly showed that ethicists steal more books. I don’t know if I was really all that surprised to read this. Is it hilarious? Yes. Is it completely shocking? Not really.

Personal ethics are quite complex and likely to be very situational. I assume that our ethics change from moment to moment and from place to place. Even if you are a very ethical (or very unethical) person, there are many factors influencing your ethical choices. It stands to reason that simply studying ethics could change ethical behavior.

I could see a few scenarios that could lead to ethicists stealing more books than ordinary philosophers. It’s possible that ethicists feel like they are doing important work – work so important that they don’t need to be bothered with returning a library book. Psychologists call this phenomenon “moral credentialing.”

It’s also possible that studying ethics makes ethics seem more academic and less personally relevant. I find that the more studying I do in psychology, the less concerned I am with my own personal psychology. And if I do notice my own psychological reactions, I tend to view them through a more analytical lens. Maybe ethicists view their own ethical choices from a more analytical perspective. If so, that probably removes some of the guilt associated with committing unethical acts.

A final thought I had was that unethical people may be drawn toward studying ethics. It’s folk wisdom that people with psychological problems (either personally or in their family) are drawn toward psychology. Although I don’t know of any studies that back this up, it seems anecdotally true. It is plausible that something similar happens in the field of ethics. I can imagine people who were confused about their own ethical choices studying ethics. In this case, it’s unclear whether studying ethics is influencing ethicists in either a positive or negative way. It’s possible that studying ethics has absolutely no effect on ethical behavior and that all differences between ethicists and non-ethicists are due to self-selection.

I don’t know how to study the ethical choices of ethicists before and after they study ethics, but it would be interesting to do research in that area. It does seem like ethicists are more unethical than non-ethicist philosophers, at least when it comes to theft of library books. However, correlation is not causation, and it can’t yet be determined that studying ethics results in unethical behavior. Either way, the library book study doesn’t look good for the field of ethics. Either people drawn to ethics are already unethical, or studying the subject makes them unethical. Or both. Ouch.

Back in Boston

We took a two year break from Boston trips, and I think it did us some good. I love Boston, and it felt great to be back. In some ways, I really felt reconnected to the city, and it was almost like falling in love with it all over again. Without any obligations for once, we were free to do anything we wanted, and as a result, I think we had our best trip ever.

Boston seems to be changing, and I’d say for the better. It’s a lot more modern than it used to be, and I think it seems less conservative / provincial. For example, I am noticing a lot more openly gay couples than before. Oh and so many dogs! I love seeing dogs everywhere, especially places where they’re not supposed to be like the T.

I also didn’t really feel much of a recessionary vibe in Boston and Cambridge, which makes sense. I think that this recession is still very zip code based, so while the affluent parts of Boston may be hit, they sure don’t feel like someplace like Portland, OR. Cambridge feels even more removed from the rest of the country than it used to. The average IQ there has to be a standard deviation away from the average IQ in some parts of Texas. Pretty amazing.

My only small complaint about Boston is that it’s in the middle of this huge Red Sox bubble. I lived in Boston in 1997, and I can say without a doubt that a lot of the fandom is very fair-weather based. Not the biggest deal, but there’s a bit of a Disney / Vegas frenzy that I rather avoid.

Overall, I feel like this trip definitely sparked a bit of a change in how I feel about Austin. While there are some things I love (like Tex-mex and funky Austinites), I really miss the more serious, intellectual atmosphere of the Northeast. I miss good Chinese food and people wearing suits. I even miss the winter, and that’s really saying something!

Needless to say, I hope I’m back in Boston soon!