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I will be putting together a formal response in a few days.
You see, my life is starting over again since my family arrived
from the states. Since the computer is at work, and I now have to
return home at reasonable hours, I am limited in keyboard time.
The boys are whining for their computer at home (they are electronically
deprived for the moment). Things will not return to normal until
that comes and the home internet connection is installed.
If my grammar is sounding a little strange, it is because
I have been listening to people who learned English as a second
laguage (good for them!) for three weeks now. (Again I find myself
dangling--I have been listening for three weeks, they have been
learning for several years.) This is not good, instead of learning
lithuanian, I am unlearning English.
An interesting ironic fact--there is no "th" sound in the
Lithuanian language. They call their country Lietuva. Do the English
call the country LiTHuania just to be annoying?
A quick thought about the meme to get us through the S-curve.
The golden rule meme was born of the biologically beneficial rules
of tit-for-tat and kin selection. It has served society well for
several thousand years. As we reach, or pass through, the S-curve
inflection, I predict that the meme that will survive to serve society
the best is "do what's best for our grandchildren".
I will have to think a bit about the appropriate metal to
name this rule with. I still have to learn you a bit more about
oil economics.
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I'm quite used to people telling me I'm wrong without ever explaining
why. You are not the first to tell me I'm wrong about oil pricing
but I have yet to see any justification for any alternative view.
Supply and demand is what matters, over the short term. Long term
reserve levels have no effect. Reserve levels are determined by
how much oil there is and how much can be found at an economic rate.
What is an economic rate depends on the short term price, by determining
how much oil is sought, how badly and by how much effort (i.e. energy
i.e. oil) they are prepared to expend to get it.
Total possible reserves are finite, total possible demand is not.
Reserves will never go up, only down. The only thing that goes up
is the proportion of total reserves that are known. The time will
come when the demand is running as high as ever and there are no
more reserves to be found. Maybe then the price will be affected
by the reserve levels in the sense that the owners of the reserves
will want to limit production as much as they can to keep the price
high without cutting total revenue levels. But that will not work
in a free market with more than one player owning parts of the reserves,
market forces will not allow the price to be kept "artificially"
high. My guess is that the last litre of oil will not end up in
a museum, or even be recognised as such. Three or four wells and
refineries will be producing in the last hour of the age of oil.
By then there will be some kind of substitution project going on,
but I still think that it will be the end of cheap energy.
I don't think that thinking about our grandchildren will be enough,
we have to look to the long term, grandchildren live in the short
to medium term. This is typical short sighted thinking of a citizen
of a country who thinks 1860 is ancient history. If we only thought
about our grandchildren where would our forests be? I remember a
tale, I don't know where from exactly, I think it was a College
at Oxford or something similar, they needed to replace the main
oaks beams and they couldn't begin to imagine where they could find
the timbers, then they asked the man in charge of the college property.
He said it would not be a problem. He knew exactly where to find
them, where they had been growing for the last 400 years precisely
for that purpose. Thinking in the long term, we need far more of
it. Modern bankers get uptight about waiting for wheat to come up,
never mind oaks.
A metal for your rule? I have no suggestions other than to look
at the periodic table, a good place to find metals.
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Your original question was: Do you think there is any link
between the oil price and the level of global known reserves? Or
is production in the current and next quarter the most important
factor? I responded that the level of known reserves stays
relatively constant. Sure, actual reserves are limited, but
more of theses actual reserves become known every year as
petroleum engineers and geologists verify their existence and Exxon
(poor Exxon, they take so much abuse : ) puts them on their books
and then has to start paying taxes on them as assets. Therefore,
since known reserves stays constant, they have little effect on
oil prices--for now. Eventually, (50, 100, or 200 years or so, unless
some new motherload is discovered in the Antarctic or those Swedes
find an "unlimited" supply of deep natural gas) the known reserves
will dwindle and they will have a significant effect on price.
The fact is, there currently is adequate production to meet
any current demand. Probably because supply has always met demand,
long term prices have been relatively constant when inflation is
considered (the next question to ask is what effect has oil had
on the rate of inflation--I'll have to think about that. Actually
I did think about it a few years ago and will have to dredge it
out).
For the short term, you are right, rate of production in
the current and next quarter is a very important factor in the price
of oil. However, that is even long term thinking. A major factor
is when the refiners and wholesalers ask "how much product do I
have in my tanks today?" Most of the upward spikes in prices
of crude and products occur when the tanks happen to be empty. Tanks
get empty due to a lot of reasons, such as a blast of cold weather,
a slight upturn in prices that causes wholesalers to sell their
current stocks before they can be replaced, etc. Downward spikes
happen when their is a *glut* i.e. the tanks are full--today.
There is still easy oil out there. When the price
spiked back in the early 70s, people (Jimmy Carter at least) started
looking at the more difficult oil such as shale oil. However, what
happened was that people started producing from the existing fields
and got their windfalls. Things settled down with the increase in
production from such places as the North Sea and Alaska (and Indonesia
and Nigeria etc.).
My unjustified optimism tells me that the replacement energy
source will be well developed by the time the fossil fuels get severely
depleted. Maybe the new source will be children (my grandchildren?),
fueled with genetically modified rice, peddling lots of little bicycles.
They will be kept entertained by playing interactive computer games
with each other.
Ok, I'll compromise, first it will be grandchildren, then
great-grand children ... then great^n grandchildren whose future
we will have to look out for. Maybe the rule should be named after
a radioactive element since they have "daughters".
Hey, my house in northwest Pennsylvania (yes, I lived just
a few miles north of your buddy from Butler Pa--coincidence???)
was built in the 1860's. It is fashionable in the states to buy
one of those ancient beasts and fix it up, and my wife is into recycling.
The fashion in Lithuania is new, new, new. Actually, around here
at least, there are not many structures older than 1860. Probably
has something to do with being a major thoroghfare during two world
wars (and many other minor skirmishes).
Next -- why it's okay for rock stars to make lots of money.
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Your answer has failed to reassure me much. Oil reserves might
well last for a few hundred years, but I doubt that. Energy use
is growing with the population and with the spread of energy-intensive
culture. I can see the oil running out in my children's lifetime.
You seem to have a naive faith in "progress" to come up with what
we need to solve our problems. I cannot see alternative energy sources
being put into place in anything like the way or the amount that
we will need. And as to the prospect of an endless supply of gas,
presumably methane, the prospects for the escalation of the greenhouse
effect fill me with dread. The only gas that is safe to burn on
this planet is hydrogen. We will have to address ways to take excess
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere somehow unless we are prepared
to simply let our environment make great shifts around us. The chances
of any such changes being beneficial are very unlikely.
Nuclear energy is dead, killed by a combination of early naive
faith and later paranoia. Fusion is always two or three decades
away, like there is always jam tomorrow. My teachers were very confident
that my classmates would see it before we were 40, well there is
three years to go, I don't see it somehow. Just because a problem
is too awful to contemplate we shouldn't ignore it.
I expect to be entertained by your defence of rock stars earnings.
I have no reason to expect that your being from Pennsylvania as
well as Rob is anything other than a coincidence, except perhaps
that your state does at least allow its children to use their brains
and look beyond the immediate horizon.
Do you have any objections to me sticking this stuff on the site?
Do you have any privacy conventions you want to suggest?
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With the current pace of research in teleomers and other
factors in ageing, your children's lifetime may be quite longer
than you think.
Yes, the oil will eventually run out. Before then, however,
the economic incentives for their more efficient and cleaner use
and for alternative sources will increase. This will justify the
extensive amount of research required. If I were a researcher, I
would be looking at a way to extract the hydrogen from the methane
and use it as fuel. This is easy. The trick is to take the remaining
carbon and simultaneously and efficiently convert it to some "miracle"
(small m) polymer that has all the construction properties of wood.
Did you tag me with the "F" word? I wouldn't call it faith.
I would call it a rational observation that considered the past
accomplishments of technology in a free market system. I am simply
extrapolating off the current trend of advances (which, you may
observe, are also escalating at an exponential rate).
I have no problems, in fact I would be honored, if you would
stick this stuff on your site. I envy and admire your dedication
to it. The site is an excellent example of a free flow of thoughts
and ideas not restrained by any artificial boundaries. As far as
privacy--just call me Mark for now.
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I do think that accusing you of faith is a valid point. Extrapolating
trends is not always justified. Consider the extrapolation of an
inflating bubble or falling apple. The path of bullets can be easily
extrapolated, deceleration due to friction, falling due to gravity,
except that very often somebody gets in the way of the neat tidy
sums, and ends up experiencing the rapid deceleration in a different
form.
I see modern life as being very similar to a young man driving
way too fast through a city. If we extrapolate the trends of the
immediate past he gets faster and has more thrills. If we use common
sense we can see that there are many other less attractive possible
outcomes. I am not suggesting that we stop driving, only that we
slow down a bit and take care, especially as we are all in the same
car, it isn't our car, and nobody knows if it is as well maintained
as we are assuming.
Naturally I would like the idea of constant advances in human technological
ability keeping ahead of all the major problems we face. I broadly
subscribed to that view myself for over 30 years. But there has
been very little evidence of our ability to really fix problems
by taking tough decisions.
Probably one of the best illustrations for your optimistic case
is the end of the London pea-soupers. Hollywood still shows London
as constantly foggy. In the Victorian era it was, this continued
through the twentieth century too. London is in a wide shallow river
valley, with a temperature inversion caused by an area of high pressure
the smoke of London (London is still colloquially called "the smoke"
by many pseudo-cockneys) is held in as surely as by a magpie's nest
in your chimney. The result? Thick blankets of smog that killed
people by the thousand.
After the worst pollution-induced death toll in history Parliament
passed The Clean Air Act (195?). This limited the number of places
that could burn coal. Many parts of the country became "smokeless
zones" where only treated coal, smokeless fuel, could be burned.
Death tolls dropped, pollution was reduced, buildings stopped getting
black. That is the best case I can think of for the optimistic view,
but it doesn't reassure me. It worked because a technological fix
was possible, because alternative fuels were available and because
national action was sufficient. Nobody really had to make any great
sacrifice. OK, you couldn't burn any old coal at home, you could
still have an open fire, the fuel just cost a bit more. This was
a cheap fix, not too risky, not too difficult. With mortuaries overflowing
with corpses in the capital city in front of the lenses of the popular
press achieving a political consensus was not too difficult.
Comparing the London pea-soupers to global warming is like comparing
a zit to AIDS.
Thousands of people deny that there is a problem, few people have
any proposals, consensus on a plan seems very unlikely to be achieved.
London still has problems with air pollution, especially when there
are temperature inversions, now the enemy is photo-chemical smog,
low level ozone, particulates and oxides of nitrogen. Private transport
rather than industry and domestic heating are causing the problems.
I like your ideas about creating hydrogen fuel from methane. I
hope it comes to pass. But really the best way to create hydrogen
is from water, that way a truly sustainable system can be created.
I suppose you are aware of the myriad conspiracy theories that say
water powered cars have been invented but the oil industry stamps
on them? Utter nonsense. If such a thing were technically and economically
possible, which it couldn't be, the last thing an inventor should
do is announce it in America, go to somewhere that is reliant on
imported energy, somewhere that has the technology and inventive
genius to develop it fully, somewhere called Japan.
Any system based on hydrogen from water obviously needs an original
energy source to split the water molecule. To be sustainable that
really needs to be direct or indirect solar energy, or tidal energy.
To extract that energy requires massive plant, to build that plant
needs massive amounts of energy, that's why we must start doing
it soon, while we still have lots of cheap energy.
Hydrogen should be the fuel of the future. We haven't yet got the
infrastructure to distribute it but then we didn't have gas stations,
car mechanics or video libraries before we needed them either.
If we did start to extract hydrogen from methane on an industrial
scale we would be left with a very large amount of cheap fine carbon.
By-products of industry often provide raw materials for new developments,
just think about what we owe to coal tar. It will almost certainly
find uses that we cannot begin to speculate about. Just think about
lasers, they waited for a couple of decades before we found that
modern life was impossible without them.
I have just read the report on my search engine. It looks like
you have been checking me out to see if you get a mention. Have
patience, I'm working on it.
Search Activity Report
Date #
2000-09-04 6
2000-09-05 1
2000-09-06 4
2000-09-07 1
2000-09-08 1
2000-09-09 0
2000-09-10 1
Top Search Phrases
# Phrase
2 mark
2 curve
2 selfplex
1 illusion
1 opec
1 vhs
1 grand
1 grandchildren
1 abortion
1 billy
1 whats new
Isn't technology wonderful? Usually.
Who the hell is billy?
I'll be posting some stuff today. Two days off in a row, almost
like a normal person.
Looking through my Sent Items file for my e-mails to you has made
me feel quite ashamed, there is an inordinately large amount of
stuff there, will I ever get a life?
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You end "It's
OUR Money!" with: It is not their money, it's ours! We earn
it, they take it. It is time we took it back.
"We earn, they take it"???? I believe the way it works is
"We earn money and distribute it to whomever we please". Fortunately
for some, they please more than others, and they walk off with the
big bucks. This is true whether it is a rock star, a movie star,
a sport star, or the inventor of "The Wonder Widget". In each of
these cases capital has been concentrated and an industry has been
created. Chances are the $20,000,000 is not stuffed into some really
big mattress. Chances are, there are agents, cooks,
house builders, car manufacturers (Ferrari--whatever), clothing
designers and manufacturers, oil refiners, appliance salesmen, etc,
each getting a share of the $20,000,000. Your buddy the taxman is
probably getting a good cut too so he can pave a few roads and buy
a few schoolbooks. In other words, the wealth is getting redistributed.
Say the $20 mil is sitting in the bank or in the hands of
a stockbroker. In this case the banker is deciding where this capital
should be distributed, whether to help someone buy a house, car,
or to help the inventor of the Wonder Widget expand his operations.
By the way, this expansion of operations will put 10 people to work,
seven for construction and three permanently. In other words, the
wealth is getting redistributed. In the process, by paying only
$1, each of those 20,000,000 individuals bought a little bit of
happiness for themselves.
The difference is in who has control of the redistribution
of wealth. Should it be in the hands of pessimistic bureaucrats
who believe that anyone who dreams is deluding himself--or in the
hands of exceptional individuals who know how to realize their dreams?
Society has discovered that it is prudent to tax individuals
a certain amount in order to provide certain services and infrastructure.
Over-taxing just to prove a point has been shown to be wasteful
and inefficient.
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I will probably have another go at re-writing this page again.
It is not perfect, far from it.
It's not their money.
What I mean by that is that they don't deserve it, they haven't
done enough to deserve it.
We earn it.
That bit is understandable, the vast majority of people have to
work hard to earn their modest incomes.
They take it.
They don't really deserve the huge income but they take it, sometimes
with a feeling of guilt, often with toadying people about them telling
them how good they are to make it easier for them.
It is time we took it back.
As they don't deserve it and we, the state, have plenty of better
uses for the money I say we should take the surplus. The surplus
that is generated by the exceptional size of the market rather
than the exceptional talent of the people concerned.
The wealth gets redistributed anyway so why worry? Poor
argument. Why worry about the earnings of gangsters? They probably
help employ all those people at the Uzi factory and the cement works,
they have kids to feed don't they? Burglar alarms, security guards,
drug rehab. specialists all get employment out of crime. And as
for insurance companies...Immoral earnings if ever I saw them. ;-)
The fact is that all money re-circulates, the money of the poor
re-circulates faster as well as being spent on things which are
necessities rather than luxuries. A large proportion of the income
of the super-rich is squandered in ways that provide no justifiable
enjoyment, conspicuous consumption, little different to the cartoon
image of the plutocrat lighting his cigar with a flaming banknote.
Mink beds, gold plated cars, swimming pools in houses they never
visit.
You talk about my buddy the taxman. The taxman is everybody; the
justice system, the welfare system, the transport system, the education
system, the health system (in civilized countries anyway). We are
all recipients of benefits from the tax take. Tax money is not stolen
from its rightful owners. In democratic countries at least it is
taken according to agreed rules and spent according to agreed priorities.
It is very easy to imagine that you deserve the money and should
not let the taxman take it, but it is also very easy to talk about
problems and say that something should be done. Something is being
done, and tax is how it is being done. It could always be done better,
there will never be the final tax reform or spending change.
Do we distribute our money to whoever we please? Really?
When I buy a new computer (ha!) am I really deciding to give money
to Bill Gates because I think he deserves it? No. Anymore than my
customers deliberately buy from me to give me commission, well maybe
it happens sometimes, but not very often. We don't give money to
Jim Carey or Lionel Richie or Lennox Lewis, we buy what they produce,
we consume their services. Sometimes we are glad that they get the
money, sometimes it pisses us off, usually we never give it a thought.
Has over taxation been proved to be a problem? Details please.
Remember that my proposal is for a global tax regime. I admit that
a 100% tax band in one country will not work very well. People will
do a lot to avoid it, their accountants will say that they are doing
the right thing. My accountant told me I was doing the right thing
when I avoided paying almost enough tax to pay his fees. Accountants
are good at that kind of bullshit, it keeps them in work. The idea
of lining them all up against the mythical wall when the revolution
comes is a thought I have to fight on a regular basis.
I am musing about a theory of money. It only exists when it is
spent. I'll have to work on it a bit, but it has some promise.
Exceptional individuals who know how to realize their ambitions?
Superficially attractive thought, but I am sure I need not bother
to list a few names of people who have and had exceptional personal
qualities and ambitions whom you would rather not have been born
at all. Top of my list for the Terminator treatment would be a certain
Thomas Midgley. To invent one major scourge of the environment is
bad enough, this chap had the drive and ambition to come up with
two (CFCs and lead tetra-ethyl). There is sometimes a lot to be
said for underachievement.
50% of what I write I don't mean, but I usually
don't know which 50%. :-)
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Hope to have time to respond in full one of
these days (this life business is always getting in the way).
Billy is the Reverend Billy C. Wirtz. He is
the Pastor of the Church of the White Go-go boot from Chromosome,
North Carolina. Either you have heard some of his records or he
reads your web site (or you both plagiarize the same person). He
too makes references to that dyslexic atheist (who wonders whether
there is a dog) and the fact that sacred cows make the best burgers.
Needless to say, look for his records if you haven't already heard
them (he has two or three), because the humor is right up your alley.
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Billy whosit, never heard of him. Neither of those
remarks you mention are my original work, I can't remember where
or when I acquired them. Well, actually I do know that the burger
one is quite new, but the dyslexic insomniac agnostic is older,
I think at least a couple of years older. I guess the burger meme
came via one of Billy's fans but the other one is older, if Billy
was involved in infecting me it was only a re-infection. Have you
seen the Letters to Mark? I am having a bit of trouble with the
search engine, I want to get it to re-spider my site but I can't
get to the right page to request it. I didn't really expect you
to have been responsible for Billy as well as the other searches.
The moment I saw that list I thought "That's what's-his-name! From
Lietuva." I have a terrible memory for names, not really an asset
for a salesman, but then I am a only a salesman by default.
My daughter asked me today "Daddy, what did you want
to be when you were a little boy? What did you want to do when you
grew up?" I didn't have a clue, I still don't. I wanted to be a
daddy.
I first put "I have a terrible memory for species"
but I don't know whether you will understand the reference. Does
the name Zaphod Beeblebrox mean anything to you?
FOUND IT! Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
[Abbie Hoffman]
Quoted in "Over 200 Short Infectious Memes" somewhere
in cyberspace.
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Your story about the 400 year old oak beams
had the sound of urban legend. I found the following site:
http://cornholio.new.ox.ac.uk/NC/Trivia/Oaks/
The oaks were not specifically planted for the
college. Planting the trees were simply a good long-term business
decision. This takes a little of the egde off your point.
I took a quick scan of Letters to Mark. (I thought
it should be titled "Letters from Mark", but I'm biased. Anyway
it's your site and you get to do it your way.) I feel like I am
now "somebody".
My son doesn't ask me what I wanted to be when
I grow up. He askes me *when* I'm gonna grow up. Then I ask him
to define grow up.
I'll take a smart ass guess that Ol' Zaphrod
is from The Hitch-hikers guide. I read the book in 1981 or 2. Lot
of brain cells under the bridge (not a Billy quote).
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If you wrote more than me then maybe you could claim star billing.
So I have been duped by an urban legend you think?
It's possible. I am fallible and gullible. Some stories are simply
too good to pry into too much. At least when somebody bursts my
bubble I admit it. Shot down in flames again.
The point of my story may have been blunted to a degree
but the fact remains that real long term forward planning needs
to go beyond just the next generation or two, for some plans 70
years is too short.
So you were a latecomer to The Hitchhiker's Guide.
I am one of the first generation infected with that meme. I heard
the original radio plays in the mid seventies. It has had quite
an effect on me, providing lots of quotes, allusions and ways of
looking and laughing at the world. It has also infected a lot of
other people too. Andreas my
19 year old friend from Vienna is a big fan, it helped him learn
English, and partially explains why he is the way he is.
I don't know how to take the bit about being somebody
now you are on my site. I often feel that I am nobody. I like what
the Internet has done for me, helped me boost my self respect and
profile.
I first thought about calling it something like The
Book of Mark, Epistles from Mark or something like that. But then
I checked it out, no references to God, belief or atheism in your
writing. Is that significant? Are you agreeing to differ and avoiding
the issue? If so, that's fine by me, I am not obsessed. I have lots
of other things to talk about, as you have probably noticed. But
just for the record, so I don't inadvertently insult you it would
be handy to know what kind of religious faith or beliefs you may
have and if you want to avoid discussing the subject further.
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Is it quantity or quality of the writing that
should determine star billing?
Questioning a story for its "urbanlegendarity"
is a skill similar I think to the one that helps you find petrified
wood or Indian arrowheads in the stream bed you are walking in (to
give some American examples--do you have petrified wood in Merry
Ol' England?). You can walk for years on the same path and not see
them. Then one day you walk with a new friend who starts picking
up these interesting rocks. You notice their special patterns and
then you start seeing these rocks everywhere also. Our brains are
definitely good at pattern recognition--to the point where we detect
patterns that aren't really there.
Then there is problem of who do you believe--the
legend or the debunker. This comes down to what you would call faith.
My definition of faith involves a belief so strong that rational
arguments will not change it. Your definition is less stringent--a
belief that involves speculation. I would call that a hypothesis.
It's been a long time since I was infected with
the HHG (Hitchhiker's
Guide) virus. What I remember about it was that it turned
everything you thought you knew upside-down. As a result, you questioned
more of everything around you (see above).
In an attempt to be consistent.... I have yet
to hear a rational argument for the existence of god that is stronger
than any rational arguments against. Of course a lot depends on
the definition of god. I have a hypothesis that there is more out
there than we are presently aware of (I know I'm really going out
on a limb with that one : ), but the best rational arguments that
I have heard so far favor the existence of a threshold beyond which
the human brain can comprehend or that experiments can reveal. Therefore,
if the definition of god is "the explanation for the unexplainable",
then I believe in god. (That's a pretty wimpy definition though.)
However, like you, I am open to rational arguments on this and other
subjects (in other words I have no faith in this belief).
Saw the northern lights for the first time last
night. (One benfit of living in a flat country at this latitude.)
It wasn't a spectacular apparition, but it was the northern lights
and it was the first time I ever saw them. So, if the definition
of "grown up" means "having seen the Northern Lights", then I am
now grown up. However, that would mean though that my 11 year-old
is also grown up. (How's that for a non-sequitor.)
***
Gangsters
A while back I realized that gangsters aren't
people who break the law, they are people who live by different
laws within our borders. Their government is more like a monarchy
or a dictatorship, but they have councils and local governments
within the mob "state". They have ethical standards that aren't
very different than that of a conventional government. We would
interpret their form of taxation as extortion, but many would say
that "conventional" taxation is also a form of extortion. (Instead
of payup or I'll break your thumbs, it's payup or I'll take your
home away.) Our government and society must bear some costs to deal
with their government (the burglar alarms, security guards, drug
rehab. specialists you talk about), but compare these costs with
the huge armies and sophisticated weaponry we must maintain to deal
with other governments.
I remember from some of Dawkins' books that
the existence of "cheaters" is evolutionarily stabile--meaning if
you can get the same benefit with little or no cost, you will survive.
Your "One World Government" will presumably have to deal with cheaters.
I suppose one memetically intense way of doing this would be with
the gruesome public (live death on the internet!) executions.
I have heard (but have no data to back up),
that there is less crime (fewer cheaters) under communist governments.
Is this because cheaters are punished in an extreme way, or because
the memes for cheating were suppressed by restrictions on the press?
Yes, the poor probably spend a higher proportion
of their meager earnings on necessities such as food and shelter.
A portion of these meager earnings, however, was generated by the
spending and industries created by the very (greater than $500,000
per year) rich. As the "do what's best for your great^n grandchild"
meme becomes more and more popular, the very rich will be less extravagant
and more practical with their earnings. Maybe it'll start when they
demand that their mink beds be manufactured under humane conditions
(for both the workers and the manner of slaughtering the poor mink
:-).
If Thomas Midgley didn't come up with CFC and
TEL, someone else would have. They are materials whose time had
come. Now it is time for them to go.
Try to envision your future society. It must
be sustainable, and it will employ technology. We can't unlearn
technology. It will evolve on its own along with the other memes
in its environment.
***
I searched deja for other posts you might have
made and discovered that you are quite the troll of religious news
groups. I thought of bugging you about it but was afraid you might
be offended. Having read Trawling for Souls I guess not!
I especially like the analogy of playing the
newsgroups like a musical instrument that has been finely tuned
for 2000 years. Striking the chords just to hear what type of new
melody they will bring. Good luck looking for new chords. You realize,
however, that you are helping them evolve new defense mechanisms.
Seems to me you are trying to stack the deck
in favor of the "Willett's
Wagerer" of some other planet.
(Wow, I almost made it through an entire letter
without using parentheses.)
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Gangsters
There is a word that I really hate in current usage
in my area. Tax.
"Don't leave that bike their mate, somebody will
tax it."
The moral equivalence of theft and taxation must be
resisted. Gangsters and politicians are not the same breed. Civilization
is better than the alternatives. Civilization is safer for all,
more comfortable, more just. Civilization really needs legitimate
government, that is best achieved through democratic representation.
It is not perfect, it could never be perfect:-
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect
or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is
the worst form of Government except all those other forms
that have been tried from time to time.”
Winston S Churchill, 1947
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That sums it up nicely.
I agree with your point about cheaters. The bigger
the body the less scruples the parasites have. Few men would steal
from their mother's purse as easily as they would evade taxation.
A world government would be that much easier to rob with a clear
conscience, the burden would be spread so thin. So maybe you are
right to suggest that more high profile disincentives would be required.
Naturally I would be happier with less draconian
measures than public execution. But in principle I have no objection
to your suggestion, but only if it could be shown to be the best
way of dealing with the problem. I am not a psychopath like Lenin
or Hitler, violence is not my tool of choice. I am not squeamish
about violence either, there are circumstances in which state sanctioned
killing is the best option. Many of the sad losers your home countrymen
have locked up on death row would be better off dead. To understand
why somebody is a social cripple is not the same thing as forgiving
them or excusing them. I think the cause of justice is not served
by the large numbers of lawyers that the justice system encourages.
Once a person has been found guilty of a crime serious
enough to warrant the possibility of the death penalty then their
past is a closed book, what matters is their future. If they are
damaged and dangerous a rapid and humane execution is a release.
Their crime puts them in the hands of the justice system, what made
them commit their crime is only relevant to the extent that it sheds
light on the chances of them re-offending. The requirement of a
scheme of punishment and deterrence suggests that too rapid execution
is a bad idea. Many criminals are inclined to kill themselves rather
than give themselves up, therefore death is not a deterrence to
them; trial, conviction and imprisonment is. The massive cost of
keeping prisoners in prison is counter-balanced by the massive costs
of routine appeal. How can this circle be squared? My suggestion
is a sentence of a year to die. A fixed period of imprisonment prior
to execution, a fixed schedule for appeals.
The verdict of guilty in a capital case would not
mean the automatic application of any pre-determined sentence. A
sentence review board should determine whether justice is best served
by a short sentence, a long one, a determinate sentence or an indeterminate
one or the fixed schedule of one year in prison before execution.
As to the mechanics of execution there are only two methods that
I consider are worth contemplating. The first is the traditional
British technique of the drop hanging. As the first chime of the
bell of the appointed hour rang out the cell door would open, the
hangman would take the condemned prisoner into the next room, place
a bag over his head, secure his hands and feet, place a noose around
his neck attached to length of rope calculated to be exactly long
enough for the weight of the prisoner. The length would be long
enough to ensure that the neck was instantly broken but not so long
as it ripped the head off. The prisoner would not hear the last
chime. Death would be instantaneous, the prisoner would be barely
conscious of the drop before death occurred. The other technique
is that used by the Soviet Union and George Orwell's Ministry of
Love; the military calibre pistol bullet in the back of the head
as the prisoner is taken along a corridor. Efficient and no mock
ceremony involved.
The pseudo-clinical methods of the electric chair,
lethal injection or gas chamber are barbaric and obscene.
Fewer cheaters under communism? Quite likely. One
explanation is that under a communist regime the cheaters would
stand out.
"Comrade, your papers say you are a factory operative, so
how come you have a dacha, three mistresses and a Zil limousine?
I know we are living in a worker's paradise but I think this requires
some explaining, these large quiet gentlemen here will be asking
you some questions shortly."
I expect that is how it worked, it would also work
in a similar way under my proposals, except I wouldn't beat the
cheaters up during the questioning. Now in Russia there are no questions
asked. You are a businessman, end of explanation.
Pattern Recognition
I agree entirely about pattern recognition. Our brains
are tuned to certain things which we recognize. A robot has to be
programed to do it, we are hard wired for it and then practice makes
perfect. Have you ever watched a dry leaf blowing along and your
brain locked onto it as if it was an animal moving? Look up into
the sky at night and you see patterns. I used to see Orion's belt
until I read about the theory that the Egyptians saw it as his penis,
now all I see is a penis of parsec proportions. ( I predict that
now so will you.) It is amazing what can be read into three dots
against a black background.
Wimpy definition of god.
Yes, I am rather unconvinced by your concept of god.
I think I understand a lot about the lack of our knowledge. For
a start our senses are very far from perfect. We are unaware of
the infra red, the ultra violet, infra-sound, ultra-sound. We have
very little sense of gravity or electricity or magnetism or time.
Compared to dogs our world of substance detection is pitifully inadequate.
We can't think in chemistry. Our brains only rationalize forwards
in time.
I have no explanation as to why when I look at women's
breasts or buttocks from a distance there seems to be a statistically
significant reaction in the form of them covering them up. And yet
at the same time the same women manage to remain sane while they
are surrounded by large numbers of men mentally raping them, that
is probably because they are used to it.
The universe is stranger than I imagine, and quite
possibly stranger than I could imagine. But on the whole I find
it a reasonable place to live.
Northern Lights.
I envy you. Naturally I have seen many
photographs but I long to see the real thing, even if it is
tame compared to a firework show. From this part of the world you
can see them about an hour every year or so, cloud permitting. So
really the clouds are to blame more than the latitude, clear nights
seem as rare as the aurora.
New College Oaks
I rarely have to climb down as much as this. That
is certainly the story I remembered, but I cannot remember the source.
Was it by any chance in one of the books we have both read, or on
some memetics website? Was Richard Dawkins the vector? I know it
came from a "friendly" source, one I was prepared to open myself
to.
Memory is very much a vector based phenomenon rather
than a bitmap. We reconstruct our memories rather than replay them.
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