Time Does Not Exist

The other week there was this Big Mathematician on TV. He had a book published… no, not written for other Mathematicians, but one of those popular books meant to impress ordinary people. What caught my attention was that he was talking of the impossibilities of Artificial Intelligence, that “even cockroaches are smarter than robots”. Duh. For a phrase like that to mean what he intended it to mean, then it would have to be some kind of acknowledged truth that cockroaches are really very stupid. But they aren’t. Cockroaches are smart little devils. It would actually be a quite a complement to Artificial Intelligence if it were as smart as cockroaches.

So, already I was wondering about that guy.

He went on to say that Artificial Intelligence has trouble learning new skills, and that robots can only do what they are programmed to do. Again, I was dumbfounded. Even primitive programs have “If – Then” command structures. With “If – Then” structures running then the Program will run differently depending upon input data, that is, how it will go a new direction every time another “IF” gets triggered. So already at relatively low levels of programming we have computer programs operating independently from their Programmer, being data dependent. Again, I was wondering about this guy.

Then the TV interviewer asked the Author about Time Travel. “Oh, yeah, sure… it is only a matter of Time”… or some such statement. This guy was talking about repositioning in Time. Going back in Time. Going forward in Time… that is, faster than everybody else.

That was it. We had a certifiable Idiot!

There are things that every Philosopher Intellectual knows, but which most Mathematicians, in their Mathematician Caves, hide from, and that is that Absolutes do not exist. Why? Well, Absolutes are merely mathematical constructs – Imaginary Qualities. Take Infinity for instance. Mathematicians say that ‘Parallel Lines’ are defined as lines that meet in Infinity, that is, lines that never meet. They should just say ‘never’. By saying ‘Infinity’ they fool themselves into thinking there really is an Infinity out there. There isn’t. They made it up to illustrate a point. An imaginary point.

It’s the same for Eternity. Just because you can imagine it, or chart it, does not mean that it is really out there somewhere.

The same goes for Time. You see, time is just an imaginary thing we use to measure or perceive rate of motion. Something moves 10 meters per second, and so in ten seconds it moves 100 meters. That’s Time for you. It’s a function of Speed and Space. If nothing moved and if there were no Distance, then we would not need Time as a chartable axis.

So how could anybody possibly think Time had any independent existence subject to manipulation and transferal? Well, Mathematicians thinking mathematically. They chart Time so often that they fool themselves into thinking it is real. Infinity. Eternity. Time. Yes, they are all nouns and so they must exist. They whip up a new Chart, adding a Fifth or even Sixth Dimension, and because the Left Side of the Board equals the Right Side of the Board, they suppose it must all be Real. But, really, its just a Chart.

Drawing a Purple Unicorn does not mean Purple Unicorns are real. Charting Time does not make Time real either.

So, really, what we have is Now. Now is something we can be sure of. Yes, things move. Mental activity moves. We moved from a moment ago. We move into the next moment. The motion was real, but that Concept we used to chart the Rate of Motion – Time … well that is only a Heading on a Graph.

Oh, while I was able to thoroughly dismiss that Mathematician as a Complete Idiot… just imagine what I thought of the REALLY Stupid Media Interviewer.

Where do they find people stupid enough to be Journalists. Is there a Test they have to take and they can only be a Journalist if they FLUNK?

Debate and Who Wins and Who Loses

Ever since the Age of Reason, or even back to when Abelard faced Bernard at the Sorbonne, there has been the notion that the Winner of a debate would be he who had the most Reasonable Argument. Reason was supposed to win. Arguments were all about Reason.

That is what they said.

But all of the People saying such a thing were all being a bit disingenuous because, really, they all knew enough of Ancient Greek Literature and History to know that there has always been more than Reason involved in all such things. We knew about Sophists and Demagogues – people who made it their specialty to convince with Reason, or without it, to persuade according to the Interests of the Moment, appealing as much to prevalent tastes, likes and dislikes, and popular prejudices as to Reason.

Today we recognize them as lawyers, advertisers, politicians and Debaters.

Now, what they all have in common is that they are very results-oriented. Its all about Winning or Selling.

What if you only wanted to be reasonable?

You know, the thing about Reason is that it is self-evident. One knows how one does in a debate. And one knows whether the other guy has been reasonable or not. Now, sometimes it occurs that two people can be reasonable. It happens. One person has one set of facts that support one view of the Universe, while another person has another set of facts that present another view… a competing perspective of the Universe. In such a situation, well, both debaters have an opportunity to learn… to expand there view. Most importantly, there is not really a need for hostility or animosity.

I visited one Debate Page recently where I was told that I was lucky that another much better Debater rarely came to the Page as he would likely make my life miserable if he did. This made me wonder whether he was being spoken of in such a way because he was a particularly Reasonable or a particularly Obnoxious Debater.

Many people on the fringes of the Debate World suppose that animosity and hostility are intrinsic to the Debate. For them I suppose it is. It is like people going to Auto Races to see the crashes. But Auto Racing is not about crashing… yes, crashing is a mistake that often happens and it attracts much of the attention. But Racing is mostly about driving very fast. Likewise, Debates are about Reason, and thinking Fast. Its not really about ‘crashing’ and all the animosities that some people think are so essential.


I’ve been debating for years. My best debates have been rather cordial. Reasonable people discussing an issue.

How does hostility ever get involved anyway?

Oh, there is the matter of Group Dynamics and of certain personality types using Hostility and Aggression to maneuver for Group Alpha Status – Roaring, Foot Stomping and Chest Beating. You know, as much as we would wish to be able to universally ridicule such unreasonable behaviors, still, for many people such Dominance Behaviors carry more weight than a subtly expressed thread of logic. And, really, we must realize that it is very possibly much more likely that most people better understand Aggression and Dominance than they understand the intricacies of Reason.

It reminds me of a Story. A Village in India was being lead into Rebellion by some big ruffian who pretended to quote the Vedas, in support of all his outrages. A Vedic Scholar from the Provincial Capital thought that it would be easy enough to go to the Village and challenge the man. When he got there he discovered that the Fake Scholar held his Vedic Scroll upside-down. He thought it was quite decisive when he pointed this fact out to the Crowd, that they would immediately reject the phony, if it was so obvious that the man could not possibly really know how to read. However, it was not to prove quite so easy. You see, the People themselves also did not know how to read, and did not realize that it was such an important matter of whether a book was right-side up or not. So the Big Dumb Rebel just laughed and roared out to People that for anybody who can ‘really read’ it doesn’t matter which way a book happens to be. And for most of the people this made perfect sense. Guess who they believed?

The Scholar for the City lost. But he wasn’t wrong. Sometimes we just have to settle for not being wrong…. And then send in the Troops.

International Communism Will Be American

Yes, the irony of History will continue. We have all seen relatively recently that Russia and China, former Behemoths for International Communism, had abandoned their Planned Socialist Economies in the rush for Privatization and Capitalism. But what will surprise us even further is that America will impose on the Globe a totally Planned World Economy. This will happen when the Dollar plunges in value to practically nothing and America uses its Military Might to forestall the usual results of a national bankruptcy.

Actually, it all might have already occurred, last year, if the Banks had been left to fall. But the World jumped in and used their Dollar Reserves to shore up the American Banking System. The Crises which had been brought on by the excessive Debt that the Dollar had been carrying was thwarted by the World eagerly running in to give the Dollar even more Credit… to the tone of several trillions more dollars. It saved the day, but worsened the prospect. The Dollar had been structurally weak enough already.

Why did the World bail out America? Well, most of the World at the time had organized their Economies so that the difference between their success or failure rested upon sales to the American Consumer. Yes, theoretically anyway, they would probably have preferred to extend credit to their own citizens… to give their own people something for nothing… than to give all sorts of undeserved Credit to strange and thoroughly selfish and hateful Americans. But in Europe and Asia the people are shy of debt and feel safe with Savings… so they wouldn’t take a Credit Card if it was given to them… with all kinds of special introductory offers. So if the World needed a Consumer Market to bail it out, then that Consumer Market would have to be American. If the Americans are anything at all, then they are Expert Consumers!

But the International Community must have realized how idiotic it all was, to make their own Populations work like slaves so the American’s could get it all in the end… and not even paying for it, but getting everything On Credit. And who says the American’s would ever pay? The first Crisis was about American’s not paying their Mortgages. What if they decided to default on those Credit Cards!?

Anyway, its been a year. I suppose that the World must be coming to realize that they could just as easily support their own Consumers as American Consumers if only they look into the structural reasons why so many people feel they need to Save instead of Spend. With Social Security Protections, Effective Pension Plans and a Tradition of supporting Senior Retirement in Dignity, then the rest of the World could be as casual in their Spending as any American Consumer.

Also, the International Economies might begin to suspect that dealing with their own Consumers would be better for them than dealing with American Consumers simply because their own Currencies may be more reliable than continuing to accept Dollars that are watered down by so much Debt.

I don’t know what will spark off the next Crisis, precisely. But in trying to figure that out we need to understand what exactly it is that supports the value of the Dollar. There are several important supports for the Dollar. The most important factor is that the OPEC Oil Cartel has informally made the Dollar the exclusive medium of exchange for Oil. As long as OPEC continues to accept ONLY Dollars for Oil, then the Dollar is effectively on the Oil Standard, the same way currency used to be backed by Gold or Silver. Any scarcity of Oil will keep the value of the dollar up in turn. But that all depends upon OPEC. We need to wonder what OPEC gets for their Dollars and whether they will continue to be happy with the deal?

The OPEC Trillionaires don’t need to buy Oil from anybody. To receive any value for their Dollars they must resort to Equities and Properties priced in Dollars. As long as they can buy neat stuff priced in Dollars then they will be happy.

So we find that the Dollar ultimately depends upon the Perceived Value of Dollar priced Assets and Equities – American Real Estate and Stock Prices, Bonds, Military Hardware, Fancy Cars and Such. Hmmmmm. But isn’t all this relative to what can be bought with other World Currencies? What exactly is worth so much in America nowadays that can’t be bought with the Euro, or the Yen? Maybe the best thing going for America is that most Foreign Investors in American Products and Securities aren’t very well traveled in America, and don’t know how really shaky their investments are.

When the International Community finally begins to doubt the Dollar, the slide will occur relatively quickly. We will know the End is Near when OPEC announces a preference for some other International Currency instead of the Dollar.

Oh, and then there is the matter of China fixing their Exchange Rate onto the value of the Dollar – “pegging” their Currency to the Dollar… which America endlessly complains about, claiming that this keeps China’s currency artificially low helping their exports and increasing the Trade Deficit. But China will be able to follow the Dollar’s downward spiral only so far. We will know that the Dollar is close to being finished when China cuts loose from it, and ‘pegs’ its currency instead on Japanese or European Values.

Dollar reserves from around the World will be dumped into the Equity Markets that will not be able to digest them. There will be a hyper-Inflation in dollar based Stock Prices and Real-Estate as dollars are dumped half-heartedly anywhere that some residual value can be found. As Businesses collapse they will sell out to foreign owners and then use their Buyout Receipts to pay off their Banks in cheap Dollars, and then they will close out their accounts, effectively shutting down the Banks. After all, with Dollars being dumped so aggressively, even if every Debt is fully Repaid, there will be no Market left for any future loans. And the next time the Banks fall there will be nobody willing to jump in and shore them up. The World won’t be so taken by surprise next time, and will have another Plan besides extending more Credit to America.

Oh, and this reminds me that the very act of trying to support the Dollar Economy may lead to its collapse. If Foreign Reserves are used to buy up American Properties, Businesses, Real Estate, etc, all in an effort to establish some value in the Dollar, then it might set off a Political Reaction in America. America is after all a Democratic and Democracies cannot always be relied upon to be so fair and square, intelligent and civilized about things. Anyway, Legislation could be introduced and passed in the American Congress insisting upon American Ownership of American Properties and the restricted use of Dollars by Foreign Nationals. Such a law would sound great to many Americans but it would spark a Dollar Dump from every Currency Reserve in the World. People wouldn’t be able to dump out the ‘useless paper’ Dollarssadf fast enough.

A millions dollars would be great, right? But not if it couldn’t buy you a pack of cigarettes.

Well, can we guess what would happen if America were to treat this kind of Economic Catastrophe as simply a purely Economic Event? Confronted by a Collapsed Dollar, America would no longer be able to buy Energy in the International Energy Markets. Indeed, America would not even be able to use its own Domestic Energy Sources, as Private Owners would sell off their stores and stocks in exchange for either super-inflated quantities of Dollars (trying to stay ahead of the Hyper Inflation Curve) or they would sell their wares for International Currencies that are actually worth Money.

With its Energy Markets in total disarray then every other business in America will shut down. Workers will not show up for work if their contractual wages are effectively worthless. Oh, and so much of America depends upon people going to work. Food, Water, Power, and all the things that support the huge sprawling Metropolitan Areas and then reach out to support the Vast American Desert and Wasteland Communities – 98% of Americans live hundreds of miles away from any viable sources of food and water for the population densities being considered. If Truck Drivers and Rail Way Workers do not report to work on Monday Morning, and if the Check-Out Girls do not show up for their shifts at the Super Markets, then people die by Friday night. There is nothing more fragile than the Modern Economy. It keeps 300 Million people eating, drinking, warm and dry. We know what will happen if it grinds to a halt. During the Great Depression, America was still largely Agricultural… most people were farmers. A lot of people were able to fall back on the Land when the Economy collapsed. But the Next Big Catastrophe will hit an America that has become a Huge Concrete Jungle. Any Fall will be rock hard and fatale… for millions of people.

So, anyway, if America simply follows the Economic Rules, when its Economy finally collapses as it surely will, well, it will be devastating beyond words. Oh, and not just with passive starving and such. On the News I heard that for the last several years the American Ammunition Industries have not been able to keep up with the Demand for Rifle and Hand Gun bullets. The Gun Nuts are stocking up. The Gun Nuts suspect something! When they no longer have dollars to spend, we suspect what they will be using to get by. So we can estimate that Small Regional Wars for local resources might kill more than the Starvation and Exposure itself.

But we need to ask ourselves whether America would be willing to face all of this dreadful apocalypse while still retaining the largest and deadliest Military Apparatus in the World. America now has more weapons then the rest of the World put together. Indeed, it is more like TWICE the weapons of the rest of the World put together… if you don’t count Israel. So will the American’s continue to play by the old capitalist rules – Winner Take All, even after they have clearly lost the game? Or will the American Leadership find some pretense for establishing a Planned World Economy, just coincidentally in time to catch themselves before they fall in the Abyss.

If I were to guess, it would be that America will suddenly find the prospects for Global Warming to be totally unacceptable and will decide to implement and All Inclusive Plan for International Fuel Rationing… the Free Markets will be effectively shut down. Once Fuel is rationed, then everything else would need to be rationed in turn. Remember, the Price of everything in today’s world revolves upon Energy Costs. Leave Energy Costs undefined and suddenly nobody knows what anything is worth.

So that would leave us with Rationing. How many People are there and what do they need? Yes there can be a lot of corruption in the details, but in Theory it is not all that difficult. And people do not need to necessarily be Corrupt. And since it is the Computer Age, the quantitative figuring required for coming up with a Rationing Plan really would not be all that difficult. And Computers might prove less Corruptible than People. We do know that Computers drink less Vodka.

Anyway, there were Planned Economies before the Computer Age. And they got by. Now, just hit the Enter button. There is no reason to believe we could not do so much better Today.

Oh… how much would the rest of the World be dragged in? Could the Non-Dollar Economies remain Capitalist even if the Americans were to move in and monopolize the Energy Markets? I don’t think so. America would certainly cut into each Nation’s typical Energy allotments, and if prices were to be allowed their natural movement, they would all skyrocket, hitting the poor and middle classes hard enough that they would complain to see the Rich walk away with everything, however much they had to pay. Getting a lot of Stuff because one has a lot of Money would no longer seem as fair as it does today. And most of these Countries had some history of Socialism in their backgrounds and they all survived. Abandoning Capitalism would break very few hearts around the World.

You know, Karl Marx never supposed there would be some big violent Communist Revolution. Yes, many of his friends believed it and pushed for it (“You have nothing to lose but your chains!”), and after a while Old Karl stopped arguing quite so much with his friends on the issue. To ‘get along’ sometimes one has to just ‘go along ‘, and all of that… living by consensus is sometimes easier than always fight-fight-fighting with everybody all the time, no? But his views as an Intellectual and Historian remained about the same, and that was that Capitalism would end up concentrating almost all of the World’s Wealth into a relatively very few hands, and then there would be Some Problem and then the Government would merely step in and Take Over. Overnight a kind of Absolute Private Ownership of Everything would become a Public Ownership of Everything. The only change would be in Public Responsibility versus Private Responsibility.

Who can be trusted more? Public Magistrates or, well, admittedly selfish entrepreneurs? I know, I know, living under Selfish Entrepreneurs is FREEDOM, and how can we all live without that?

I suppose we will all simply have to do our best.

Aesthetics Versus Reason

On a certain Debating Page I had received some criticism that my essays were overlong, and it was suggested that I could serve my readers better if I were to simply list my ‘bullet points’ – a quick summation of my most important ideas and conclusions, without the bothersome arguments, and then my readers could quickly see whether or not they agreed with me.

Hmmmmm.

Gloss over the Arguments and get straight to the Conclusions.

That is not Reason. That is not really even debate. It is Aesthetics – appreciation based on appearances, impressions, feelings.

Its what lawyers, advertisers and politicians nowadays specialize in.

It is the guy at the Art Show who says that he ‘doesn’t know Art but he knows what he likes’. Really, he has a point. In regards to the Things that fall well within the Realm of Aesthetics – wall paintings, neck ties and what not – then not much more matters than simple ‘I-like-it’ or ‘I-don’t-like-it’ feelings and impressions.

But on a Debate Page…!?

The larger problem is that it is not just a problem here. Our entire Society is forgoing Thought in favor of Feeling. There is no longer any compelling duty toward Rationality. The Propaganda of the last Hundred Years has focused on building up Aesthetics and modeling a Public that could be manipulated solely on the basis of their tastes and emotional preferences.

Why would the Policy Masters prefer Aesthetics to Reason? Well, Reason is inexorable and inflexible. But tastes can be guided and influenced. Propaganda works best on Tastes, where it simply falls blunt upon Reason.

So, really, People need to STOP trusting their feelings when it comes to Public Policies and Complex Social Issues. They need to STOP evaluating Arguments on the basis of Aesthetic Appreciations. It needs to be understood that such Aesthetic Appreciations are not personal. They have been Systematically Implanted. Whether from Market Street, or Washington D.C. there have been ranks and files of Expert Manipulators whose Life Purposes it has been to establish Public Taste and Acceptable Opinion. And Reason has had very little to do with it.

So when it comes to First Impressions, there is practically no doubt at all that you will think, I mean FEEL, entirely as you have been conditioned to FEEL. This is why it is so necessary to THINK. This is why it is so necessary to formulate actual arguments for believing what you have no reason for believing, aside from your conditioned feelings.

Just ask yourself why it is that so many Debaters here resist any actual Debate? They see an Argument, and FEEL that they must disagree with it. Such a STRONG FEELING must be right. Such a STRONG FEELING couldn’t possibly be wrong. Could it?

The Ancient Greeks also believed that Strong Aesthetic Appeal could not be baseless… that Truth was Beauty and Beauty was Truth. But then they, like ourselves, found that what people thought to be Beautiful was by no means fixed, and that Tastes could be worked on, manipulated, shaped by public pressures and Speeches made by pretty faces and tall convincing men. It was found that people could be trained like dogs. And Civilization fell. Now the Greeks can’t build a good car.

Anyway, untrained Intellects should never decide Right from Wrong on the basis of their emotional preferences. Such tastes are not their own, but a sum total of their Social Conditioning, and can’t be reasonably trusted to serve their own best interests. They are not conditioning you for your own good, but for their own.

You need to make arguments for and against the most important propositions in your life and see on which side Reason sticks.

Don’t be surprised if you come up not feeling good about it. Reason will not often agree with your Social Engineering. Your consolation is that you can begin to realize you need to begin correcting all the Propaganda and Conditioning that has screwed up your head.

Legal Extortion Should Be Illegal

In America they estimate the 95% of civil lawsuits are settled before going to Trial. What exactly does that mean? Well, we do know that once a lawsuit is filed in America, that a person has already effectively lost, for whether the Lawsuit is ever decided in one’s favor or not, the legal charges for the necessary representation are exorbitant. And unlike in France where the losers must pay all legal expenses, in America everybody is required to pay their own way. Even if you Win, you lose. It is a country where it is completely obvious that the laws and legal procedures are completely at the behest and making of the lawyers themselves. The Legal System serves the Lawyers.

So whenever in America anybody is sued, the most sensible Legal Advise is to settle. It is cheaper and easier just to Pay. But there is a word for threatening people with trouble unless they should pay a sum of money, and that word is ‘extortion’. Well, extortion is ordinarily illegal, unless it is systematically implemented by judges and lawyers who are considered officers of the court. But whatever the legal status of extortion is, depending upon who it is that enacts it, it is definitely immoral. Whenever the Immoral is Legal, then it is Corrupt.

No Legal System should allow a case to be settled simply because there is some compelling interest to settle, because that is extortion pure and simple. Likewise, if any case is ever found to have been filed without substantial cause, then not only should all costs be assumed by whoever is at fault but there should also be criminal consequences. To use the Civil Law frivolously or for extortion or harassment should have the most sever penalties attached. Most importantly, such decisions should not be solely at the discretion of the Judges, as Judges are simply big lawyers, as much to be suspected of being a part of a corrupt system as the lawyers themselves. Juries should make such decisions.

Also, I should add, that at some point in Legal History the power of Justice went from the Juries to the Judges, with Judges now deciding everything. This is all wrong. If the People are to be made to suffer Jury Duty, then they should at least have a little bit of the satisfaction of wielding Absolute Power. The Jury should be able to order anything. Yes, the Jury should even be able to have the Judges tossed out or penalized. Right now there is nothing that keeps Judges in line.

No, I don’t really think that Juries should be made up of “people too stupid to get out of Jury Duty”, as they say. Juries should be made up of qualified people. What should qualify them can be put up to discussion, only they should not be lawyers or judges, that is, Juries should not be a part of the very system that we wish to correct. For instance, no Juror should ever be allowed to socialize in the same ‘Club’ as any lawyer or Judge. Indeed, it has been a horrible miscarriage that Judges and Lawyers have been allowed to fraternize socially with each other.

Indeed, it is probably sad that it does present us with a huge argument in favor of a Caste System and Social Untouchability, that is, that Society has an overriding need to assure that some Professions be beyond the influence of ordinary social and group influences. In our case we need to consider that Judges and Lawyers can never be expected to be impartial professionally if they live with the more pressing requirements of having to get along socially together at The Same Club. Also it is worrisome that most Judges and most Lawyers belong to the same Secret Society – the Free Masons. Again, we only wish we knew their true agenda, or who was giving the orders there. The only thing we really know is that Free Masons get the promotions and the advancements, All the Success in Life, where the Non-Masons must settle for the crumbs.

I honestly don’t believe that the Legal System can ever be reformed. Too many people are making too much money the way it is. Indeed, this brings to mind a study concerning how much Money the Italian Mafia was draining from Italy and Sicily. Yes, it was a hefty sum. But then we need to compare that to the amount of Money the Legal Institutions drain from American Society. It turns out that America pays more for its Lawyer and Judges then Italy pays out to its Crooks. Is anybody surprised? As bad as it is in Sicily, it’s a model of efficiency when compared to America at its best.

By the way, that reminds me of one of the most horribly Ethnic-Racist propagandas being tossed around in America, and that is the notion that various Ethnic Groups have “Organized Crime” Gangs that maintain ‘Protection Rackets’ and exploit their members with ‘extortion’. My God! It is exactly the opposite! These Groups come to America and are confronted by corrupt, indifferent, and ineffective Police Forces and Extortionate, slow and hit and miss Legal Systems. Their requirements for Security and Conflict Resolution still exist, and so they are forced out of necessity to create their own Community Security Organizations. They appoint their own Judges and Magistrates. And how does Mainstream America react? It is all labeled as Criminal Enterprise – Organized Crime! Is this a fair view of it, or is the Mainstream just lashing out to protect its turf?

Anyway, we should probably consider the good sense demonstrated by these Ethnic Groups, in contracting for their own Security needs. Whatever the occasional drawbacks of Private Security, their costs are a fraction of what the Mainstream pays for Judges, Lawyers, Jails, Prisons, Clerks, Guards, Police, cars, traffic tickets – America’s Police State costs a forture!

Just as Italy pays less to its Mafia than America does to its lawyers, so America could find that it also could decide on a Bargain. America should place a moratorium against its Civil Legal Systems. Freeze out those Judges and Lawyers who grow fat off of everybody else’s hard work. Private Security Consultants and Private Mediators could do the intended job, quickly, and much more cheaply. Our Communities would again become morally exemplary, whatever their purely legal status, and businessmen would once again become honest. Everybody respects the Men in the Black Suits and Sun Glasses. The Fruits of Justice become swift, certain, and best of all, affordable.

And we would have the satisfaction of knowing that we had stood up to those Judges and Lawyers who had taken the American Justice System, pillaged it and used it as a weapon against us.

Borrowing Term Papers Without Plagiarism

School Teachers from here and there have informed me that on several occasions a few of my Essays had been turned in as Student work. Well, that was naughty. You know, it would not have taken much work in order to turn them into an honest effort. Firstly, since it is so usual for people to disagree with me, I really can’t see that even the most blithely ignorant student would actually agree with me to such an extent that he could not imagine any area of dispute. But once a person is able to decide that he disagrees with me, then he basically has his own Essay. He can use my essay as a structural basis for his own, bringing up my points, even in the same order as they are presented, and then all he has to do himself is indicate how stupid they are.

But in a few instances the plagiarism of these students was uncovered because the subject matter of the Essay they had ‘borrowed’ was only tangentially related to their Assignment. This aroused the suspicion of the Teachers, enough for them to do a web search and to find me out. Really, the students involved could have side-stepped such trouble if they had only had the foresight to email me, or leave a Comment that they would appreciate it if I would take another shot at approximately the same Subject Matter, but from such and such a Point of View, that is, they should have given me their Assignment and then laid back to see what I would do with it. Once I was finished with it, then they could jump in themselves and disagree with everything I had to say. It would be as honest as the day is long. Many a Legitimate Paper has been written around a disagreement with other Scholarship.

And allow me to offer this hint, that the Facts of anything are always in flux. If you don’t like the other guy’s facts, then find facts of your own. In the Modern World lists of facts are collected in order to support various Agendas. If some argument seems too extreme or too convenient, but is supported by the “facts”, well, simply assume that the facts used to support it were rather specifically combed for and specially selected for their utility. There are likely other facts out there – shaded out, being hid behind some statistical corner, like the way they talk about the ‘Unemployment Rate’ instead of talking about the percentage of unemployed workers… they are really not the same thing at all. Anyway, simply use a few intelligent Computer Searches and you should be able to get your own list of argument friendly facts.

Yes, it is beginning to sound like some real work needs to go into your own Paper, no matter how much you honestly borrow from me or others. But it is all better than being flunked out for plagiarism. Teachers really have no other choice. Plagiarism is the High Crime in the Intellectual Scholarly World. Flunking you out for plagiarism is really the least they can do.

Growth Model Capitalism

The most important argument against pure capitalism would be that there would not be enough money available to cover for profits. For example, pretend for a moment we have one Global Economy with five or six major corporations. Each of these corporations have hired on their due percentage of the Global Population and what they pay out wages is basically the World’s Income – the money available for Consumerism. These Global Workers had received their wage in return for producing a product, but we can be sure that the Corporations figured that their pricing schedules would exceed their wage outputs. We all understand without having to be told that any profits would have to be in excess of what was paid out in wages. Okay, but in the Model just presented, where are the profits supposed to come from. The workers only have what they were paid. They can pay what they earned and not a penny more. So the only place where profits can come from is from the Wages paid out from the other Corporations, but only if their Products do not sell. In Pure Capitalism the Profits of some Companies equals the Losses to others. The Margin cuts both ways. In Pure Capitalism for there to be Winners there must also be Losers. Now, many would accept this in their stride, thinking that this is always how it has worked. Indeed, they might think that this is exactly how it DOES work. But not really. Not since a long time.

Long ago the Banks got very tired of 6 to 10 percent of business loans defaulting every quarter. The inherent losses built into Pure Capitalism were simply too difficult to clean up after. Dead bodies can be so messy and stinky. So the Banks did away with the Gold and Silver Standards where the amount of World Currency would be for the most part fixed at a given amount, and they set up Monetary Systems that were designed around mechanisms for injecting new currency into the Global Money Supply steadily and constantly. Every Corporation could make six percent profits every quarter because the money supply was being pumped up by six percent over the same time period. Yes, Corporations could still run into Losses, but not simply because of the inexorable Math of Pure Capitalism.

Oh, how would such money enter into the Money Supply? Typically all this extra money flows into the Economy from Projects funded by Corporate, Private or Government Debt. Here we can see that America’s Trade and Governmental Deficits are therefore somewhat Institutionalized. Governments and Economies that are not running Deficits are basically relying upon their Trade Exports to Countries that do.

But it does get complicated. There is Inflation to consider. Banks hate Inflation. Dear Money is paid back in Cheap Money. Inflation occurs when an increased money supply bumps up against a level supply of goods and services – prices go up. Production must increase along with the money supply in order to establish a non-inflationary equilibrium.

Traditionally an increase in productivity could be achieved by increasing the work force. Nations encourage their birth rate or set in place policies friendly toward legal or even illegal immigration, which are equally beneficial as far as businesses are concerned. However, recently we have seen in all of the Advanced Economies that production can be increased by deploying the use of Automated Processes – Automated Robotics in the factories and Digital Intelligence in the Service Industries. Labor is being replaced by Capital Resources. I have read books that compare Automated Process to the way Free Labor had been replaced by Slave Labor in the Ancient World… just before the Collapse of Civilization.

It is almost completely certain, thought, that we will see the increasing use of Automated Processes in our Future. As every Region in the Global Economy becomes Advanced, as they call it, the Population Growth Rates will drop… it seems to be some kind of Law. What happens is that in Advanced Economies Women enter the Work Force in ever greater proportions, and apparently they feel they can work more comfortably if they are not pregnant or taking care of squalling infants. So Working Women stop giving birth, or at least fall short of numbers sufficient to generate Growth.

So it is that Female Labor presents this strange paradox to the Global Economy. It offered a huge boon to the Corporations at first, as women piled into the Work Force the Real Price of Labor plummeted, which in part explains why many Regions of the World may be a bit shy in endorsing Female Labor. If only giving Equal Rights to Women did not involve the effective cutting of Male Pay by 40%. But once Women have been thoroughly integrated into the Work Force they become just like men… demanding Living Wages (that they themselves were instrumental in depressing) and not having Babies, that is, drying up the Supply of future Cheap Labor.

Anyway, as the Price of Labor rises due to its contracting supply, the more it will be worth the expense of replacing that Labor with Automated Process. Then we need to consider that the cost of Automated Process decreases almost exponentially over time. As the Price of Labor goes up, the Cost of Process goes down. This transformation is now devolving in Japan, which at the moment has a more serious shortage of labor than anywhere else in the World, the highest wages, the strongest traditions of Industrialization, and the most serious prejudices against importing foreign labor to ease the strain of its inherent Labor Shortages. And perhaps most significantly, more than any other economy, they are extremely comfortable with digital technology. If anybody can design cheap and effective Automated Industrial and Service Processes, it is Japan. As Japan implements this Revolutionary Business Model of Replacing People with Machines, allowing them to totally reschedule their Costs and Pricing, then this very serious Competition will force every other economy in the World to follow suit. Even though these other economies may still have abundant Labor, still once the ‘tipping point’ has been crossed in regards to the Cost Effectiveness of Automated Process, then no Labor will be able to effectively compete, as even Subsistence Wages – just the bare minimum that could cover for an individual’s simplest food and shelter expenses – would amount to more than the Cost of the Process Machinery it would take to replace them.

At this point the Growth Model of Capitalism would no longer make much sense. Up to this point the growth in the Money Supply to provide profits was folded into the proportional growth in population. And even there the increase in Population needed to translate into there being more Workers and more Consumers. But if this Growth were to be cut short, then, well, Growth Capitalism becomes dysfunctional… unworkable.

But was ‘Growth’ ever really essential? Wasn’t pumping up the money supply was just a mechanism for assuring that everybody would effectively break even anyway? The System was created to give every Corporation a likely chance of a Pay Day without quite so many Bankruptcies along the way. Taxes were paid and Retirements were being funded. That is what Capitalism was achieving with its Growth Model. But, really, the same could be done with Break Even Planned Capitalism.

The advantage of Break Even Capitalism is that the World Population could be allowed to decline without creating the catastrophe that it would for the Growth Model of Capitalism. There are books being published nearly every day now by Economists who are intellectually stuck in the Last Century… the last Millennium … who are fretting about how to increase population and immigration even while the World’s resources are being pressed rather critically. How can we seriously plan for Growth when there is a shortage of nearly Everything. Every single one of the World’s Other Problems is screaming for Smaller, for Less, not for Growth, not for the traditional More More More. When dealing with all the horrible consequences of Global Warming, we need to build contraction into our Models. Growth would become just another word for Failure, for Doom. The sooner we implement Break Even Capitalism the better.

And it would not be very difficult. Already economists have grown rather comfortable with their ability to exactly manipulate the Money Supply. Branching out to controlling the other variables of the Economy would not be much of a practical or ethical leap for them to make. In for a penny, in for a pound. They are already doing the Job. They just need to do more of it.

Oh, there would be a problem with Distribution of Wealth throughout the World Economies. With Labor being replaced by Automated Process, what would be the mechanism used for providing people with their subsistence goods and services. We just can’t allow Billions of people to starve to death. Well, yes we could, but they would likely riot first. The lesson of History tells us that People do not go quietly into that Dark Night. If there cannot be Paychecks then there must be the “Bread and Circuses” made famous by the Policy Makers of Ancient Rome (who had replaced Free Labor by Slave Labor, if we will remember). Well, if people will not be given out their Money in exchange for Labor, then they must be given their Money for something. Why not give out Pay Checks in return for Social Compliance – for being Good. If People refrain from causing trouble, do what they are told, and follow all the Rules, well, they should be paid for it. For instance, on the news I had heard one expert explain that at least 60% of the Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan would go back home and bother their wives if only they had even a modest Pay Check. Sooner or later the Policy Makers of the World will see the Wisdom behind Universal Paychecks, and that Crime and Terror have not really been much more filling the Gap presented by chronic Under-Employment.

Yes, those wed to the notions of Traditional Capitalism will see it as a huge waste – Universal Paychecks and Pay for Compliance. They will argue that if people do not ‘comply’ then simply toss them into jail, as has been done, well, since the emergence of Capitalism, as a matter of fact. Before Capitalism, prisons had not been such an essential social institution. I suppose Capitalism needed Prisons as a contrast to the Factories… the factories only had to be just slightly better than the Prisons in order for the comparison to work. Capitalism’s ‘Carrot and the Stick’. So, today they would insist this same policy continue. Why spend money on ‘carrots’, that is, giving everybody a Check, when the same ‘stick’ as before can still be used to beat them – just wait for the disenfranchised workers to break some Property Crime and then toss their asses into Prison. Well, there are practical problems with such a System, as Criminals become hardened and more difficult over time, and costs rise as more and more Lawyers learn to feed off the System.

But perhaps the best argument for Pay for Compliance is that we effectively have about the same thing now, though on a smaller scale then we will soon enough require. We already have money being pushed out into the economy in exchange for virtually nothing. It is Defense Spending. We are building Billion Dollar Submarines and Mach 3 Fighter Planes to fight a War against Goat Herders in Afghanistan. That can’t be for real, can it? It can not be justified in any other way then by supposing that it is all a kind of Busy Work, a way of handing out Pay Checks. And it is a kind of Pay for Compliance in the sense that no segment of the Population is better behaved than the Defense Workers – those dedicated to the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction… another one of Life’s little paradoxes.

But we need to keep in mind that Weapons are potentially dangerous. I read a book last week by this little old man who actually believes that all these Weapons should be used so that America can do the only Logical Thing, and that is to Conquer the World. Bomb all the Capitals while we still have the means! Do unto Them before they do unto Us! Its all rather Nineteenth Century, and we could call it stupid except that it is being taken quite seriously in some quarters. And we need to remember that if America had elected George Bush Yesterday, who might they elect Tomorrow? The Danger of some Great Nut getting his hands on a virtually unlimited stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction is very real. And America has demonstrated that their Constitutionally configured Government is almost completely unable to block their President once Militarism and War is invoked. For Bush’s second term in Office, he was up against a Congress that was controlled by his Opposition. But it slowed him down not in the least! Yes, the Congress controls the Budget, but Weapons in a Stockpile have already been paid for. The Order to Launch is Free.

So Pay for Compliance would definitely be healthier and far less scary than ‘Pay for Useless but Dangerous Weapons that we all hope some other Future Nut from Texas won’t unleash upon the World”.

However, there might turn out to be some Industries which by their very nature do not lend themselves so much to Automated Process, where Labor could still play a role. Certainly Health Care can be expanded.

Sin and Redemption

The Christian Religion claims to be very necessary on the basis of its having access to a mechanism for purifying Souls so that they may enter into Heaven. What is supposed to be cleaned away is the sacramental guilt that attaches from Sins that the Soul has committed – sacramental guilt that would cause God to toss such contaminated Souls into Hell, or at least that could bar them from coming into His Very Presence.

The Blood of the Sacrifice of the murdered Christ was purported to be specifically empowered for pardoning such sacramental guilt. Now, we could suppose that if the All Powerful Blood of The Divine Man Son of God really had been involved, that it would have served us all much better if it had been used to dissolve Sin itself, that is, that Believers should actually become purified – that their Conversion would turn them into actual Righteous Human Beings. Instead they just get a Free Pass, but continue to Sin. Does that really help anything?

Well, practically speaking, it is a whole lot easier to claim that the Legal Repercussions of Sin can be erased then to say that Sin itself could be erased, especially when people could see clear as day when Sins continue to persist. About the Legal Status of Guilt, it is easier to maintain one’s case without actually having to demonstrate anything. The Preachers only have to insist that their prospective Members need to have Faith. Faith would make any implausibly sounding thing True.

Proponents of such easy Doctrines depend a great deal on people quickly accepting such teaching, no questions asked concerning why God would express his Grace in some silly and unimportant way, while allowing far worse conditions to continue. So it has been that more complete philosophers have never been very Religious in the traditional sense. They ask more questions than the Membership Drive Slogans have answers for.

But still, Christianity has been around a long time and so we need to wonder why nobody has asked, for the record, why God would be so concerned over the Guilt of Sin while totally ignoring Sin itself? If People would only become Good, then the Guilt from some Previous Condition could hardly be of much lasting importance. If a Person finally becomes good, then who cares about the bookkeeping? Indeed, should we wonder whether Guilt has any importance at all.
Well, yes, there is such a thing as guilt. If we can feel it, it exists, and so we do have to deal with it. Guilt manifests through Conscience. Yes, most of us (but certainly not all of us) have a Conscience, and so most of us cannot do intentional harm to others without feeling guilty about it. But such Conscientious pangs of Guilt are for our own Moral Benefit, and it is intended for our improvement, not for our Damnation. Religiously speaking, it would probably be better to have more Guilt, not less. Whatever keeps us on the Straight and Narrow is a good thing.

Here it is important to make the distinction between the artificial and opportunistic Religions with there manipulative doctrines, and the True Religions of Spiritual Intuitions and Psychological Truths. In view of the Real Religions of Spirituality, God does not bar Heaven on the basis of Guilt, but only because of the continued persistence in Sin.

This problem of persistence of Sin even in Salvation has not been addressed by the Protestant Churches. Sinners in a Perfect Heaven ring no Paradox Alarm for them. The Catholic Church had discerned the problem of Sin in Heaven long ago, and resolved the problem by positing the absolute necessity of a Purgatory, a region stretching out in front of and below Heaven, leading up gradually to Heaven, where the Sinful Tendencies of the Saved can be purged away, preparing them for Heaven.

Anyway, if the central problem of Salvation rests with actual Sinfulness, and not just with the Guilt of Sin, then our focus should be on Moral Reformation and the perfection of Righteousness. Yes, Paulist Christianity had foreseen this Argument and answered it with the insistence that Humanity is inherently Sinful (see Doctrine of Original Sin), Sinful by Nature, and absolutely unreformable by any Human Effort or Act of Will. Yes, Christianity holds out the possibility that by an Act of Divine Grace a Soul may be purified of even Sinful Inclination, but it is underscored repeatedly that such Grace comes only at the behest of God, and that no human willpower should be spent in attempting to overcome Sin – it would seems like an attempt to earn one’s own Salvation (which we are supposed to consider a bad thing). A Beleiver is supposed to entirely throw himself on the Mercy of Christ, and any self-effort could only be deemed as sourcing from Pride and the arrogant reliance upon Self. Really, it was an important issue. There was a Bishop named Pelagius who was tossed out of the Church for teaching that believers should make a good faith effort at moral reformation. The Official Church Teaching insists that Sinners should be happy that they are no longer held responsible for their Sins, and that the quest for Goodness should be abandoned as both futile and egotistical.

Yes, they can elaborate their Argument until it begins to seem quite persuasive when they point out that no person can ever ABSOLUTELY refrain from all sin – that Absolute Moral Perfection is beyond any Human possibility. Remember, that in such an argument the Christian is leaning heavily upon counting the Past – that the History and Record of Past Sins counts against a Soul. However, Metaphysically speaking, we need to wonder whether the Past should even be considered as something that Exists. The Past is past. It once happened but has no continued existence except as it is reflected or remembered. But can a Bar to Heaven be made of such flimsy stuff? So our Counter-Argument should be that the Past does not matter, that the qualities of the Soul are changeable and amorphous, and that at the moment the Soul becomes Good it has effectively transcended Evil, like black carbon being turned brilliantly red by a flame. Blackness is no longer a problem when the Soul become illuminated by Righteousness.

Also, remembering our good Heretical Bishop, our own Good Saint Pelagius, that it was his Argument against the impossibility of Perfect Righteousness that it was really not such a big deal. One only had to pay attention to one’s actions throughout the day. One only had to refrain from Sin. That is not really so demanding. Pelagius quite insisted without even the least tone of a boast that with a certain amount of practice one could expect to lead one’s life without crossing the moral lines. He simply did not see Sin as all that insurmountable. But, yes, he was an old man. It is easier for old men as I am willing to testify.

But part of it all is in how we define Sin. In order to strengthen their Argument about the irremediable Nature of Sin, they included every natural appetite under the heading of Sin. Doing intentional harm to others lost all priority and Sin became synonymous with sexuality and even eating and sleeping and talking a bit too much. In order to make a case for irremediable Sin, they made everything a Sin.

What straightened me out on the subject was I once had a Visitation of Angels, a few old scholarly Angels who came bringing their own chalk board and they rather diagramed out a more plausible theory of Sin then I had yet heard or imagined. By their telling, there are two main varieties of Sin – Black Sin and Red Sin. The Red Sins are Sins of the body and appetite. These Red Sins fall away at the Death of the Body and no longer have any influence on the Soul as long as the Soul is not overly attached to the habits and tastes for such Red Sins. Given the proper frame of mind and spiritual conditioning, the Soul rises above the Red Sins, as Death comes as a relief from the burdens of the Body. Black Sin, on the otherhand, is intentional Evil – crimes for profit or cruelty for the sake of status and power. These Black Sins contaminate and bore deeper into the Soul than simple body appetites – they are habits of Will and Intention, the kind of Evil that defines the demons.

Given this framework for pondering the difficulties of Sin, we can infer that the occasional challenge of regulating a stubborn appetite is not really much of a problem, as such appetites end with the body anyway. A certain amount of regret and repentance would be cure enough against any continued influence of fallen bodily appetites on the Transcendent Spiritual Being. The truly problematic Sins would be the Black Sins, the penchant one has for doing actual deliberate harm to others.

Oh, this suggests a worst problem for Christian Theology. While Sinners may at first be relieved only that their Guilt not be held against them, over time they begin to stop worrying about their Guilt at all – that inveterate Christians will eventually lose any sense of Guilt. If Jesus will forgive them, then why shouldn’t they likewise forgive themselves? I really believe that such casuistic and convenient thinking has brought us all the complexities of Institutionalized Sin brought to us by Protestant Christianity – Slavery, Rum Running, the Opium Trade, Exploitative Capitalism, Predatory Usury, and the dehumanizing Factory System. Ostensibly Religious People certainly could not do such things unless they firmly believe their guilt no longer matters, not even to themselves. The Catholics were largely saved from such abuses, because they believed that Salvation only earned them a pass to Purgatory, and that they would have to become Pure before they could enter Heaven, and so the earlier they started being Good the better it would be for them. So while Catholic Civilization was not perfect, we had to await the ‘Reformation’ before we saw such a blossoming of Intentional and Deliberate Sin as we saw with the rise of Protestantism – the Resurrection of Absolute Paulist Influence in Christianity… the Anti-Christ coming into his stride.

The True Purpose of Military Weapons

The True Purpose of Military Weapons

If one reads much concerning the political dynamics in Washington D.C. then it becomes crystal clear, at least apparently, that the reason they continue to make such heavy investments into military weapons systems is because there is a great deal of benefit going to the Weapons Contractors who profit directly from the purchases and because of the continued labor employment in the districts where the factories are located. Labor employment brings votes and the contractors kick back a great deal of their profits into campaign contributions. That explains everything.

No one actually intends to hurt anybody with all the bombs being churned out.

Then I read this remarkably stupid book by George Friedman “The Next Hundred Years”. He is supposed to be chief brain behind some private think tank organization that takes money from people and corporations for predicting future trends. Anyway, Mr. Friedman goes on and on about how influential America will remain in the next Century because of all of its weapons systems.

The arguments go like this, that the World will have to buy American because America has a huge Navy and could shut down everybody else’s trade routes. Buy American or have your Capital reduced to rubble. Huh!?

Is he honestly saying that unless America gets its way about every little thing, then America will start sinking international shipping and carpet bomb civilian populations!? That is what it looks like. The guy WANTS to pull the trigger! That is what he thinks all that stuff was built for.

The guy has a best seller. The guy takes money to predict this crap. People believe him. You know how dangerous that is? But what if he is RIGHT!?

This is why it is so very wrong to build weapons systems for the wrong reasons. Not everybody understands that it is only about the money, the payoffs, the jobs. There are little Jewish men, writing best sellers, who honestly suppose navy ships should be out sending Chinese Supertankers to the bottom unless they finally agree to adjusting their exchange rate.

Meanwhile, the rest of the World should seriously go into a panic and demand that the United States cut way back on its deployable weapons systems. After all, if that little Jewish man is even half correct, then America’s collecting such an array of weapons is tantamount to a Declaration of War against the Entire World.

If it was wrong when the Nazis tried to conquer the World. If it was wrong when the Russians tried to conquer the World. Well what makes it right when the American’s are putting aside 40% of their Gross National Product every year toward the prospect of conquering and enslaving the rest of the World.

All of the Books about the Military Industrial Complex and the Corruption of Building Weapons Systems just for the Kick-Backs and the Congressional District Jobs, well, that all could have been MISDIRECTION. What if America really intends to use all these Weapons!? Maybe the Little Jewish man is right?

The World needs to step up and demand clarification on this Issue. Why IS America building enough Weapons to conquer the World?

And it can only get worst. The World should initiate a Trade Sanctions now against America. There could be a worst President in Office than Obama. If America wants to ‘pull the trigger’ then it is better now then later, as the stockpiles only grow and grow. But, maybe, just maybe, by forcing the Issue some sanity can come into play. Maybe American’s will finally decide that if they REALLY don’t want to conquer the World, then it is silly to pay 40% of their GNP every year for the weapons it would take to do it. All while they wring their hands and cry that they can’t afford Doctors and Nurses like every other half way advanced nation.

Pros and Cons of Alcohol Abuse

They say alcohol is a suppressant and it is quite ordinary to hear of the famous little old men and ladies going to bed with a ‘night cap’ to swiftly put them off to slumber. Well, it is all quite misleading. Yes, alcohol slows down this and that in the body and so it is classified as a suppressant. And about the ‘night cap’ thing, I simply suppose this is all a massive lie – a society-wide conspiracy to cover up or euphemize the huge scale of prevalent alcoholism going on. There are no little old men or little old ladies who take just one drink before sleep. There are millions of little old men and little old ladies who get drunk and pass out.

But even ‘passing out’ presents a bit of a problem. They’ve done studies concerning chronic drinkers, whether bonafide alcoholics or not, and have found that alcohol actually contributes a great deal toward insomnia. You know, if you actually observe people’s drinking habits, you would not need so many Scientific Studies to point out what is clear enough already. People who drink stay up to do it. Then compare the sleeping hours of people who don’t drink versus the sleeping hours of people who do. People who don’t drink eventually get tired at night and then they go to bed, and sleep like babies (only an expression as real babies sleep rather fitfully). But a drunk will take another drink and stay up, and then another and then another.

If the Night Cappers have a secret, it is that they keep only a single bottle on hand at a time. They finish their bottle and can’t find another, and so off to sleep they go. Yes, this is why we attribute such behaviors to little old men and little old women. Such capacity for effective planning is a sure sign of the Wisdom that only comes with Age.

Anyway, what is it about a ‘suppressant’ that can keep people awake? It seems paradoxical, and it is. It is not really fully explainable in simple logical terms. There must be more about the bio-chemistry than simply being a ‘suppressant’. But in just examining the behaviors involved, it seems like Drinking mimics ‘something to do’. It seems like Drunks actually think that they are doing something when they are sitting around getting drunk. It’s an activity. And it is difficult to walk away from. Ask an ordinary drinker how many times a year he sees the sun coming up before having gone to sleep. In most cases drinkers are saved when the supply of alcohol simply runs out, as in the case of the careful Night Cappers. Bars close. The keg goes empty. The party planners had only bought 8 cases of beer… thinking that would be plenty for the entire weekend and not just Friday night. In cases where limitless alcohol has been stored up… when Miller goes on sale just after a big payday… then it is usual enough to set off on an entire binge, that is, days of drinking end on end. Not only sleeping is suppressed but even food is neglected… and I don’t know why. I suppose drunks begin to feel too queasy and nervous to eat.

Some Supermarkets have regulations in place to sell no alcohol in the early morning hours, for exactly the purpose of interrupting binge drinking long enough to allow the drinkers to go home and get to sleep. You see, binge drinking always depends on being able to reach for the next drink. Without the next drink, a drinker will pass out. It is not drinking that puts people to sleep. It is the interruption of drinking that puts people to sleep.

Well, that covers the Cons of drinking. What about the Pros.

What could possibly be good about drinking.

Well, it keeps one awake.

Churchhill stayed awake during the entirety of World War Two… oh, and World War One too while he was at it… stopping Hitler, and the Kaiser, almost single-handedly, by basically staying drunk the entire time. Roosevelt too. I don’t think he had a sober moment in his last ten years. No one did during the Thirties and Forties. The Golden Age of Drunks. Watch any Black and White Movie. Do they ever put down the Drinks and the Cigarettes? You would think it might have impaired their judgment a bit. Duh!? Well it did!? The Depression! The Wars! Does that all seem like sober behavior to you? The Whole World was Drunk and out of its mind!

Oh, drinking also aids with ‘Writer’s Block’ or at least with that part of writer’s block where the writer gets tired and decides to turn in for the night. Alcoholic Writers simply take another drink and power on through.

Who was it? F. Scott Fitzgerald or Deshiell Hammet who couldn’t finish a screen play for a big Studio Movie until they put him on an intravenous alcohol drip. For a whole week. But the Movie stayed on schedule!

We can all understand how a Writer might begin to be backed into a corner by a deadline and then need the ability to work straight through for a few days and nights. Nowadays we would think of solutions in terms of cocaine or methamphetamine, that is ‘Stimulants’, but when one thinks in regards to the quality of the actual end product, the Writing, then alcohol does much less damage to the written word than the hyper-activity stimulants. Writing is not like driving a truck. Yes, there is more surliness and sarcasm in a drunk’s writing than if he were sober, but so much of that can be mistaken for wit. However, a speed freak will be positively arrogant, even megalomaniacal. There cannot even be a passable pretence for intellectual integrity from the Speed Freak. They write like Lawyers!

Indeed, many a student working on some final Term Paper would be well advised to consider alcohol as an alternative to methamphetamine, if he needs something to keep him awake. The trick is to pace oneself, to stay just under the threshold of actually being able to detect one’s own inebriation. Just enough to stay awake and maybe you might still be able to get an ‘A’.

However, don’t get the wrong idea. I do not advocate the positive use of alcohol. I am only saying that the abuse of alcohol is better than the abuse of methamphetamines.

You see, at the point in which one begins to hope for a perfect product in one’s writing, then alcohol really does need to be dispensed with. One needs to plan far enough ahead so that writing during the days is sufficient. There is a subtle but damaging tone that inevitably creeps in when drinking. Yes, it looks almost indistinguishable from clever wit, but at a certain point in the development of one’s writing, even clever wit is a silly trick that one should make the effort to transcend. One should aim at presenting Wisdom in the Sublime…. Which you can’t do when you are shitfaced.

Misconceptions about Serfdom

I had thought Malcolm Gladwell (“Tipping Point”) was a more careful author, but in his recent book “Outliers” he started droning on about how Asian Rice Peasants were so much more productive than the old European Serfs because they weren’t coerced like slaves and they only had to hand over a fixed percentage of their produce for their tenancies instead of being mercilessly beaten every day and having all their produce taken from them as were the poor miserable Serfs.

Well, it was obvious that Mr. Gladwell had researched Rice Farming, as he seemed to know something about it. But about Serfdom, he felt it enough to go along with all of the old middle class bourgeois propaganda on the issue. He did not think he had to inform us about it, because obviously we already know everything we are supposed to know about it. Only none of it is right. Maybe old Max was not intentionally lying. Maybe he thought it enough to rely on what his 7th Grade Teacher had taught him. And she was only teaching what the books had to say. Once propaganda is in print, it tends to stay there.

Facts be known, the Serfs were much as Malcolm Gladwell had described the Asian Rice Peasants. They owed the Lord of the Manor a fixed amount of their produce each year. And the amount of this turnover was fixed by tradition. Century after Century went by and the amount owed to the Lord of the Manor never went up, even when methods of cultivation doubled and then tripled the productivity of the land. By dawn of the Revolution the Serfs had enough produce to spare over their own needs that they were doing fairly well on the cash markets. In all respects they looked exactly the same as any small respectable Farmer. Because that is what they were.

So what is the argument that the Serfs were virtual slaves? Well, for some perspective on this issue, consider that the most horrible thing that the Serfs endlessly complained about was the Tradition of Corvée, that is, for several day, yes, just several days, for each year the Serfs had to report to the manor ready and willing to do some collective work for improving the roads, mending the common fences, and just doing whatever it took to keep up the general infrastructure of the neighborhood. A few days. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I guess people just need something to bitch about or they simply ain’t happy. Outside of that there were no complaints. Sounds like a pretty good deal compared to what we ordinarily would think of as ‘slavery’, if that was the only complaint they could come up with.

Yes, there were restrictions, but the same restrictions that applied to the Lord of the Manor. The Land could not be subdivided. With both Serf and Lord, only the oldest son could inherit, and they would necessarily get the whole package. Second and third sons could join the Church, become Monks, join some Army or go to the Towns and Cities to look for work. The whole Feudal System encouraged a kind of Population Awareness, and the Church was greatly benefited by having such a steady source of fresh personnel, as were the Armies, which was probably something of a mixed blessing.

The Propaganda of History bemoans the ‘fact’ that the Serfs were “bound to the land”. Yes, if absolute entitlement and ownership should ever be expressed in such terms. When we buy a house, do we call it being ‘bound’. Do the Family Farmers in America or France call it ‘being bound to their farms’? Indeed, it was even stronger, that is, better, than ordinary ownership. Nowadays our Society has a number of mechanisms for throwing people out of the homes and taking their property – foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Serf had no such worry. The Serf had a traditional and irrevocable claim to his Land. That History has been fooled into describing that as some kind of a heinous burden, well, that is precisely how Propaganda is supposed to work. Using language to tell lies.

But why all the lies? Well, when the Bourgeois Middle Classes during the Age of Revolution (still going on) went after the Lords to steal their land or take it on the cheap, it would do them little good unless they also went after the Serfs, for, after all, it was the Serfs who actually held deed to the land in question. Of course, the Bourgeois Classes could have felt free to dispossess the Lords and deal with the Serfs respecting the same Traditional Centuries old Contracts and Customary Agreements. But the Middle Classes were keen businessmen (then as now) and realized that they could find Labor far more cheaply than what the Serfs were effectively working for. It was all about who they could screw the worst, even if they could not put it in exactly those same terms.

Why else so much concern over “Liberating the Serfs” expressed throughout every Capital of Europe, after the Bourgeois Revolutions had taken hold. There was no concern for the City Workers. No concern for anybody or anything… except tossing the Serfs off their land under the guise of liberating them.

But it was all Centuries ago. Couldn’t we start telling the Truth about it by now? Yet the old propaganda persists. Having Hereditary Ownership of so much of the European Landmass was a terrible injustice to the Serfs, and kicking them out of their homes was the best thing for them. Hurray for the Modern World and the Selfless Bighearted Middle Classes… and the hope that they don’t start murdering us on our sleep.

Rule of Law Meaningless as Judges Interfer

Yes, the Principle of Rule by Law was always perhaps well intended. Stop the bad guys without being all arbitrary about it. Yes, there was always the shortcoming that not all Immoral Possibilities could ever have been foreseen by the strict letter of the Law, and so any lexicon of Laws would necessarily come up short, with cracks between the boards. Legal Systems would always have their Loopholes. Hmmm, but maybe that was the real intent of Rule by Law… that the Lawyers had from the very beginning foreseen the business opportunities in loop-holing Laws. But actually my idea with this essay is to point out that while Rule by Law may have been a Noble Experiment, we should all concede now, at this point in our Collective Experience, that it was all futile and does not work when put into practice. You see, whatever the wording of a particular Law might be, the rules of Judicial Review now state that a Law is whatever the Judges say they are. Black is white if that is that the Judge happens to say. But is that what we meant be Rule of Law?

So we do not have Rule by Law, do we? We have Rule by Judges.

Take the American Supreme Court. When all the Judges are considering the same Law set before them, all in the same language, they divide exactly down Party Lines. It must be entirely obvious that the actual Laws involved no longer matter, but it has all become the province of Judges to decide in regards to their own political convenience. You know, if we wanted politicians to decide these things, well, we already have plenty of them. Judges are just hugely redundant pay checks. More fuss than they are worth.

You know, the American Constitution contains no specific quote giving such super powers to the Judges that they now assume is theirs by some divine right … making themselves the most powerful all deciding Branch of Government. Again that was the Judges themselves deciding what the Law meant. They used Judicial Interpretation to self appoint themselves. Really, they can say that the Constitution means anything they want it to. That is the problem. As soon as it means anything these men say it does, then it has become meaningless. That may be unfortunate, but it is just the way it is.

We need to realize that if our Culture has grown so corrupt that the language of the law would be ignored, circumvented, twisted and exploited for career and profit, then we should admit that for the lack of anything better we need to go back to Rule by Men. At least men can be appointed by some responsible process. And there would even be some advantages. No more Legalisms and Loopholes. Moral Considerations would apply. Bad people could be convicted for being bad people. It would be so much better than what we are doing now.

So let us do away with Judges and lets start electing Sheriffs to set things right. If we are worried about abuses, we could still have Juries, but with the improvement of not having to follow any Judges Divine Instructions.

Tenured Research or No Research

One of the greatest and most effective institutions developed by Western Civilization is Tenured Professorship in the Universities. What Tenure means is that a Tenured Professor has a life lock on his Job. No one can fire a Tenured Professor. The effect of this is that Tenured Professors can act with complete Intellectual and Scientific Integrity.

But nowadays the Corporate Culture is making an end run around the University System of Research and setting up their own Scientific Research Companies. The difference is that the Corporations specifically stipulate that their Research Managers NOT BE TENURED. Indeed, there is so little integrity within Corporate Science that they make absolutely no secret that Job Security is directly connected to producing Stipulated Targeted Results – the Data will go the way the Company wants or everyone gets fired.

Corporate Research Grants are all issued on this same premise, that results come back pleasing to the Company or no further Grants are issued.

Why do we allow this pretence to continue masquerading as Science.

All Non-Tenured Research should simply be shut down. Every Non-Tenured Study should be thrown out. Yes, yes, yes, the Corporations can counterfeit perfectly acceptable looking Studies. They hirer Researchers who know what Valid Studies are supposed to look like. So Corporate Research will appear valid enough. Double Blind Controlled Studies are fine. Peer Review is fine. But these procedural safeguards can do nothing to prevent the simple fudging of Data. But when everybody’s Employment depends upon targeted results with Data leaning for the Company and not against it, then we can only be left to believe that secretly, covertly, and not even necessarily because any actual illicit instructions are given, that the Researchers will fix a point here and fix a point there, so they can all keep their Jobs. The only Procedural Safeguard that can be applied is to completely duplicate the Study and see if the results repeat, but the Corporation feel quite secure that nobody would wish to spend the money and commit the resources to go to such an extent, especially since anybody with that kind of Money probably belongs to their same Country Club.

So Tenure is the only practical answer. Unless there is Tenure, we cannot assume there is any Integrity in Science for Profit.

Oh, the same goes for Private Forensic Laboratories – those that contract out to Police Departments and Prosecutor Offices. You see, it has actually happened that when Evidence Laboratories had returned Findings indicating that certain Criminal Suspects were actually cleared of any wrongdoing, the Laboratories contract’s were dropped… they were fired… “blackballed” with the word going out for no Law Enforcement Agency to ever contract with that Lab ever again. Then the Prosecutors would go out and sign on new Labs who would understand that they would do what they were paid to do… certify evidence that could convict the indicated Suspects. Oh, the Prosecutors even argue that this is Ethical, since the Defense Attorneys are perfectly free to go out and get their own Lab Results (describing a system where we can no longer believe anybody, since Science shines the same subject equally White and Black depending upon who pays the bills). So all Forensic Labs used to process Evidence need to be Tenured. Contracts can not in any way be Results Oriented… not without some Contracting Officer going to jail for Corruption.

So, yes, anyway, Corporations and Civil Government should not be allowed to practice Science without Tenure. But the sad thing is that even the Universities are beginning to drop the Institution of Tenure. They have noticed that the Non-Tenured Employees and Contractors from the Corporate World are so much more pliable then their own Tenured Professors who are nice enough until they are Tenured, but then get so arrogant and stubborn about everything afterward. They quite forget that such is rather the point. But in this Age of Specialization, University Administrators are, well, administrators, and their only concern is that their own jobs be made easy. Understanding the Meaning of Life and their Role in Civilization, well, that had never been part of their Specialty – courses like that were merely elective while they focused mostly on their Business Administration track… where the money’s at. Anyway, these Deans and University Administrators, since they are told that they are the Bosses of the Colleges, they can’t understand why everything can’t go the way they dictate they should. The Professors work for them, don’t they? and ought to do what they are told. Tenure just makes them unruly.

The Conservative Mindset is Adolescent

First, to save time, lets set out a few assumptions, firstly, that liberalism equates to Civilization – large cooperative social organizations, while conservative ideology equates to Barbarism where, for the lack of sufficient social guarantees for life and property, habits of individual initiative are culturally acquired which mostly aim at settling all disputes through violence.

Because Civilization has less conflict, the populations are permitted to age to something of an adult maturity. Barbarism, on the other hand, favors the young. A man is at his athletic peak at the age of 24, and after that it is all downhill. In a society where physical prowess is a Man’s Measure, then we cannot expect many of the active leaders to be much older than 24.

The Size of Social Organizations also fits into our figuring. I’ve recently read some book which states that the optimum size of a group, where everyone knows each other and where everybody is understood to have a place in the scheme of things, is about 150 people. When groups get above that number, then they subdivide into effective castes and classes, proletariats and elites. Civilizations, being much more populated than Barbarisms, would certainly evolve these much more specific and specialized Groupings. The Police and Security Castes would be on the watch for young aggressive males and through the application of numerical superiority, would be able to pacify these youngsters with not much danger of harm to themselves. Barbaric Communities, on the other hand, especially the smaller Communities, would be under the complete mercy of any especially big and stupid boy… unless some should get together and kill him while he sleeps.

So it is a certain amount of justified paranoia exists within the small barbaric communities. Rank and Property are acquired through force, but the exercise of force would engender resentment which would in turn engender an insidious sub-current of treachery. The Leaders would have to learn to sleep with one eye open, or not sleep at all… which would go a long ways toward making them even more crazy. We could expect to see young leaders who would lash out not only at overt challenges to their superiority, but also launch pre-emptive assaults on those who are suspected of not being entirely loyal and supportive. This would be an awful lot to think about even by the Old and the Wise, but we need to remember that most of the players in the Barbaric System are mere teenagers.

When we think of Barbarism, we should realize that the perfect model example of such a thing is the modern Urban Youth Gang. Defending Territory, posing Honor, chest-beating their Loyalties, but really an awful mess of dissention and conflict. They would have to be, just to make some kind of room for the personal ambitions of those growing up within the Gang. Allow me some space below to explain.

I have often contemplated Personality Types. I have noticed vaguely that out of every group of about a hundred people, one can find every sort of person that one needs, and about in the correct proportions that one needs them. There will be at least one True Healer. There will be one person who HATES cats, that is able to sense the presence of lions or tigers without needing to see or hear them… just know that they are there. This treat goes WAY back to Humanity’s earliest days, when we were still fresh out of the Trees and still probably had residual tails, and had to be very afraid of Cats, whatever their size. There will be one good Shaman, a few good Musicians and Storytellers, there will be a number of good selfless hunters, a number of caring women, etc. etc. The ordinary Mix of People is typically about just right. But what about Leaders? Out of a hundred or a hundred and fifty people in a primary social group, how many would be competing for the Leadership Role? And there would necessarily be more than one. Nature must see the competitive component in that classification and provide for it. So we see in many of the social and herding species that there is a struggle for Alpha Dominance as Redundant Leaders vie for power. Yes, most of the adolescent males would be happy to recognize that they are slightly too small to seriously compete for power, and would support whoever emerges as The King of the Mountain. However, there would always arrive the tall and big boys who had yet never lost a fight. These are the children that destabilize the Barbaric System. Nothing is ever settled… not for very long. Every year a few new boys hit their Growth Spurt and the consequential power shifts come into play. Life for these kids is definitely Nasty, Brutish, and Short.

Oh, by the way, nowadays there are so many Leadership Seminars, with so much advice about how to establish oneself as a Leader. They always leave out the most basic point… to kill off all of the competition.

Anyway, That is Barbarism. As much as we might now be frowning upon it, we still must accept the dark realization that such a Life builds into Culture, Traditions and Life Expectations. And Cultures persist. People from the Nomadic Steppes of Eurasia and Africa, the Hill people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Iberian Peninsula, indeed anywhere that has not had a strong Civilizing Influence for at least 4 or 5 hundred years – in all of these Cultures much of the Behaviors and Expectations are formed up around these, well, adolescent, Barbaric Dynamics of Social Grouping and Aggression.

It goes a long ways toward explaining the problem that has always mystified the Liberal, and that is how otherwise intelligent adult Conservatives can be so, well, ‘stupid’? Basically it is because they come from Cultures that had never grown up.

War On Terror War On Crime

War On Terror War On Crime

War has ordinarily been understood to describe hostilities between Nations. Combatants acted with the endorsement of their Country, and it was insisted that they be identified by uniform. Being out of uniform in a combat zone was considered sufficient grounds to be summarily hanged. If Civilians wished to warrant the protections of the Rules of War, then they had to follow their own share of these rules. Simply stated, Civilians were not to participate in the conflict, not even as ‘Resistance Fighters’. Likewise, soldiers could not slip their uniforms and go off and hide, not unless they were careful never to be caught, as their own Side would hang them as deserters, or the Other Side would hang them as spies.

So if War is to be defined by hostilities between States conducted by uniformed personnel, then what is to be made of Wars against, well, private organizations and individuals whose only concession toward wearing uniforms is use ammo belts for carrying their ammo? One would think that the ordinary laws would apply where Mighty Nations were merely going after individuals and, well, Militias, that is Social Clubs with guns. Weapons charges could be pressed against these offenders. There could be conspiracy to murder charges. Treason. Found on foreign soil without the correct travel documents, then these people could even be tried and then hanged for espionage. No one really has to declare ‘War’ against these rag-tags.

But look at the advantages of declaring War! When the Laws apply, then there needs to be some good faith efforts made to arrest the suspects, and almost any ‘collateral damage’ or extraneous casualties would be cause for serious inquiry, demotions and even prosecutions against the offending police officers. But in “War” then suddenly it is okay to target individuals with missile bombs from unmanned airplanes circling miles above. Cars full of people are targeted if they think one important person might be among them. Complete Weddings or Funerals are bombed, destroying entire families, if they suspect their might be one bad Guest. Huge body counts are logged in without inquiry as long as they are all reported as being ‘terrorists’ or ‘combatants’…even when there are dead women and children! No evidence is ever required. And since it is War, all the facts are typically classified anyway. Everything worth knowing becomes “Secret” and so can’t be spoken of. Continuously we hear on the News of the Americans or the Israelis being perfectly willing to submit themselves to Open Public Inquiries except for those pesky concerns for National Security. Now you can only make those kind of dodges if one is at ‘War’. If only Law Enforcement had the same Powers and the same release from any effective regulation or constraint!

Imagine a War on Crime on the same scale as the War on Terror. There would be no more expensive Trials or costly prisons to maintain. Simply drop bombs on all of the suspects.

Oh, wait. In the War on Terrorism they DO in fact take prisoners. They don’t kill everybody… not immediately anyway. Some they keep alive in order to extract information and I suppose they keep others alive in order to encourage the rest to likewise surrender. Its always been part of Military Wisdom to give one’s enemy some other choice besides fighting valiantly to the death. Leave an open line of retreat, or publicize an almost luxurious concern for the welfare and comfort of prisoners, then many a pitched and costly battle can be avoided. Bravery aside, a great many military objectives are willingly traded away if it will make the battles easier and less deadly for the Victors. And so it is with Crime. Retreats are left open, that is, slick lawyers are provided that nearly always provide escape for the Criminals that would otherwise be the most dangerous. And for the rank and file of the common criminals, cozy prisons are promised to those who lay down their arms instead of standing to fight.

Of course, we then have Enemies and Criminals coming back to fight another day.

The problem is probably with Human Soldiers and Human Police with their Human Weaknesses and vulnerabilities. After all, we need to keep in mind that a job is just a job. Soldiers and Cops would naturally hesitate to put themselves into constant danger, and would of course arrive at methods and procedures that would prioritize their own wellbeing, even if such means also served to insulate their enemies from any decisive disposition of their Fate. Given such huge procedural limitations, there can never be any really decisive Battle, where the retreats are all blocked off and the enemy annihilated to the last man…with them shooting back the entire time!

Oh, it is cynical to say so, but maybe both Cops and Soldiers care enough for their own Job Security that they will never seek out any Absolute Victory. They do not want War to end. They do not want Crime to end. It is perhaps like the way that the CIA never captures Bin Laden, so that it can never be argued that the War on Terror has come to an end. They keep the conflict going so they will always have a Job to go to each morning.

The answer to our problem here may consist in automated information gathering, and robotic weapons systems. Identify the enemy. Tag them. Then destroy them. If Human Beings are not assigned the dangerous job of going after the criminals or the enemy, then there is no opportunity for them to shirk their duties in trade for their safety and comfort. Machines would truck on to the end. And Machines never worry about Unemployment.

Yes, they are even now beginning to implement some first stirring of an Automated Weapons System, but it is still so, well, traditional and military – crude and blunt. Huge bombs are used. Its all quite ridiculous’, considering the scale that is used versus the scale that is actually required. One does not need hundreds of pound of high explosives to kill a man. A 22 caliber bullet can kill a man. A micro-dart tipped with a nerve toxin can kill a man. The same Drone Planes that now release hundred pound bombs to wipe out complete cars and even buildings in order to get one or two guys, well, these same Drone Planes could release relatively tiny gliders or electric motor model airplanes that could carry simple small-caliber guns or dart shooters that need to be able to fire just one or two shots. These little machines gliding in with the sun behind their backs would be virtually invisible during the day. At night they would be entirely indetectable. They could deliver their deadly sting and then fly back up to latch themselves back upon the Mother Ship. The missile bombs they now use cost tens of thousands of dollars and can be used only once, and innocents more often then not are killed along the way. The Little Sting Model Planes would be cheap, clean and reusable. In a few hours I could draw up plans to build such a thing using common ‘on the shelf’ commercial electronics. And I am not even Japanese!

Just think about it… how much Crime or Terror would we really have to deal with if Criminals and Terrorists could be made to perfectly understand that no retreat would be left for them, no lawyers provided, and no surrenders accepted. Just set up the Algorithm for the Auto-weapons, load up the little machines with their precision bullets or poison darts and turn them loose. They would work even better and be even cheaper to produce if they did not have to be built with an OFF button. Then we would have nothing else to do but await the Golden Age of Universal Peace and Honesty.

As long as you are not a Criminal or a Terrorist you would have nothing to fear.

Plan To Save the Warming World

So many of the current arguments concerned with Global Warming, as they call it, involve reducing the output of human-generated carbon gases, and other ‘green-house’ gases so that the warming trends will level off before they hit catastrophic proportions. The problem here is that our only prospect forward is being given to us from the eyes of Science which do not look forward at all. Science only looks back at the wake created by our technological world. Science tries to extrapolate where we are going by looking back at where we have been. Yes, it can give us an approximation, a direction. But they have had a problem estimating speed, particularly acceleration. Then there is the matter of all of the time consuming double and triple checking. When they are finally sure enough to predict something, it has already happened!

We read in the Newspapers all the time that the Scientists are surprised by the most recent disappearances of glaciers or arctic ices. It is all moving much faster than Science can track it.

On a personal level, I have had repeated dreams of being in a car that suddenly speeds up so fast that it rushes past turns that I had hoped to make. The speed becomes so great that any deviation from a straight line threatens to put the car totally out of control. This is the present condition of Science and the World. Looking back, they still see technology and industrialization at a manageable pace, but if they were to turn forward, they would see that all of the systematic inertias, momentums and accelerations are already driving the World toward what is almost certainly an inevitable fate. The worst consequences of Global Warming, we should begin to admit to ourselves, are certainly in our near Future.

So should we continue to try to steer back around, to somehow magically re-arrive at a World of the Seventeenth Century, or should we rather look ahead and try to plan for what we can make of our World if we just go straight and try to make the best of it.

First, what is going to happen? Well, the ice caps are going to melt, and very soon… sooner than predicted just as everything has been happening sooner than has been predicted. Also, Weather patterns will change. Southern deserts will expand while there will be a certain Greening of the North. This will be great for Russia and Canada and so don’t expect them to be of much help to the rest of us. They probably couldn’t be happier with their prospects.

But what can we do, the rest of the World? Well, with the Seas rising because of all that melted ice, we will have a lot of water in the Oceans to deal with. And with all of the new deserts, there will be a great need for water on Land.

Hmmmmmm. Are we seeing a trend here?

What we need to consider is not so much averting Global Warming, as engineering the World in order to deal with its consequences. We need to convert salty sea waters into fresh waters and then move it inland. The task is both difficult and easy at the same time. Getting water inland would be a monumentally arduous task, but once it is inland and made an integral part of the environment, in new Rain Forest Growth, and geographical Rain Basins, then it will stay put. Rain Forests, if not chopped down, are largely self-perpetuating. Rain Forests lock in and maintain huge amounts of water and moisture. And trees can store a great deal of carbon.

Can enough water be moved inland to offset the catastrophic rise in the sea levels. Well, yes, if large enough amounts of water can be stored in almost every available space. But even then, it would be wise to build sea walls around important Urban Lowland Areas while all the necessary inland water reservoirs and Rain Basins can be established. These Sea Walls would be a kind of ‘double edged sword’ against the rising seas. You see, these Continental Sea Walls can be made from materials dredged up from the bottom of the Oceans, thus making the Oceans deeper in the process, and if the Oceans can be made to be deeper, then obviously they will not be able to rise quite as high as they would have otherwise.

Much use can be made of water filtration machinery and pipelines. Also, it is ridiculous to allow fresh water rivers to simply empty into the oceans. Once water is fresh, it should be kept fresh. River estuaries should be dammed up and the fresh water should be piped back into reservoirs or the new Rain Forests.

Perhaps more significantly, a great deal of Fresh Water can be generated by actively influencing Coastal Weather patterns that bring storm systems inland. For instance, here’s an idea – hundreds of square miles of black heat-absorbing black foil can be floated out on coastal waters, that would flash evaporate sea water into the atmosphere whenever the sun poked out to shine even for a moment, and the water vapor would rise up to form clouds that would float inland and eventually come down as fresh water rains. Then the streams could be stanched, collected and moved inland.

Perhaps saltwater could directly piped inland, even by hundreds of miles. Then the raw salt water could be run into wide and shallow black bottomed pools, designed to collect the sun’s heat, so again we would have the effect of evaporation and down range rain storms of fresh water. Yes, and so while pipelines will do a great deal of the work in transporting water, we need not underestimate our ability to use the Weather itself to desalinate water and then to transport it, simply by taking advantage of which way the Wind Blows.

Probably the greatest impediment to any effective action is World Democracy, that is, the institutional limitations within the Democratic Decision Making Processes. Whatever the propaganda might be about the Will of the People, and Checks and Balances, actually, the way Democracy really works, when we tabulate all the end results, is to advance the causes of the various Special Interest Groups – to institutionalize and stratify the Wealth of Groups that are wealthy already. Democracy is the Inertia that the Rich apply to keep themselves Rich. Of course, the problem here is that all of the Vested Interests that now exist CAUSED the Global Warming in the first place. There are Billions of Dollars of Oil and Carbon Money available for bribing a World full of Politicians, of every political stripe… they all take bribes… they call it “Campaigning”. But now, this very minute, when we need the entire World to be moving at dizzy speeds toward a Universal Plan for Global Water Engineering, there is not a single penny of Vested Interest money to back up any of it.

I honestly expect that nothing will be done. In fact, as the disasters progress along, there will probably rise up a group of new Special Interests that can make money off of all the tragedies and losses. Politics of the Warm Tomorrow might rise and fall on the Will of the Fat and Thriving Mortuary Industry.

We’ve probably already missed our Turn. And I can’t see anybody willing to spend the money it would take to make a Warm World we can live in.