Curious

I'm a little surprised that nobody has yet tried to combine this with this.

Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too

There's all sorts of stuff I could write about: I just got back from Halifax; I've been to two scientific conferences in the last 2 weeks; the gardens (there are two this year) are in and growing; there are countless other things in my head right now.

But there's something that's been bugging me for a while, and the way the markets are behaving right now has reminded me. It's like, deep down inside, people are terrified that the current system is broken, but they don't really know what to do about it because there is no alternative, so they're just swinging their money around panicky willy-nilly.

All the while, the so-called experts are saying that everything is fine, the system is on the mend. Nothing was wrong with the foundations of the old system, it was only some dead wood that needed removing. So go ahead and invest in banks and manufacturing and all those other things which led to the economic catastrophe. The experts can see the future and it is good.

But wait, aren't these the same experts who spent 6 months telling everyone that the financial meltdown wasn't their fault because "no one could have predicted it"? Ah, so, don't blame you for the crisis because you don't have a crystal ball, but listen to you now because you can forsee the recovery?

Well, which one is it, guys? Can you predict the future or not? Evidence suggests not.

Like a Better Me

I haven't been writing here as much as I'd like lately. There are a number of reasons for that. First off, I'm hellabusy being a born-again student; grad school is exactly like I remember my older friends/colleagues describing it. Secondly, a lot of my creative thinking drifts very quickly in the rant category these days and I'd like to spare my readers too much of that. And finally, sometimes I have trouble expressing my ideas in ways that are understood by people who don't spend all their time inside my head*.

So imagine my delight when I came across a very well thought out piece which expresses many of my very own feelings in crisp, compelling prose. It is actually the introduction to a book which I have now reserved at the Toronto Public Library. If I had to summarize the article, it would be a phrase I started using sometime shortly before the housing bubble burst: home ownership is the new serfdom. But that is a very cursory summary, indeed.

I found the article by trying to learn more about a particular guest blogger on boing boing after being taken in by some of his posts. He puts very elegant words to some pretty complicated thoughts I've had: it's like reading what I would write if I were a better me. Which sounds a bit vain, but really, if you stumbled across an author like that, wouldn't you bask in your discovery for a little while?

Set aside a good chunk of time before clicking the link: the article is a bit long, but I think it's well worth sticking with. I strongly encourage you to read it, if only so that some of my rants sound a little less insane and baseless the next time we speak. And maybe it will stir in you some of the same thoughts and feelings it did in me.

Introduction to Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back.


* As a solipsist, I know that everyone spends all their time inside my head. Unfortunately, not everyone else knows that.

Part of the Precipitate

I came up with a plan, last week, to solve both the economic crisis and the climate change crisis. Climate change is caused by an imbalance between the energy coming into the earth-atmosphere system and the energy exiting that same system. Almost all of the energy coming into the system is in the form of light from the sun. Almost all of the energy exiting the system is radiation, the amount of which is dependent on the temperature of the earth-atmosphere system.

At present there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been for a very long time. CO2 effectively blocks some of the radiation that is trying to leave the system: there is now more energy coming in than there is going out. The result is that the temperature of the earth-atmosphere system will go up, shedding more energy in the form of radiation.

If the problem will correct itself as the temperature of the system changes, who cares? Well, there are a few important things to consider:

1. We keep adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere which means the temperature has to increase at an even higher rate to keep up.
   
2. As the temperature of the system increases, more water will evaporate, which will block radiation from leaving the system, which will increase the temperature, which will cause more water to evaporate.
   
3. Coral reefs are sensitive to temperature. If we let the temperature rise too quickly we could find that 70% of our planet's surface is covered by septic tank rather than ocean.
   

The way I see it, if things stay the way they are, we will turn the whole planet into a giant cesspool.

Solutions to this imbalance come in two flavours: decrease radiation entering the system; increase radiation leaving the system. Actually all of the currently proposed solutions that I know of are of the first flavour. So why, thought I, aren't there any of the second flavour?

My proposed solution is this: We build an enormous geothermal power plant. Normally this would result in no net change in the radiation of the system. But, what if we use the electricity generated by this system to power a giant laser which is tuned to the atmospheric window? Bam, we have now increased the amount of energy leaving the planet. And, since building a giant laser and a massive geothermal generation facility is no mean feat, we will have to employ thousands of labourers, thus sovling the world's current economic woes.

No plan is perfect, of course. Drawbacks of this plan include a defacto no-fly zone in the beam of the laser (I propose we place the laser in an area with a high seagull or pidgeon population) and the possibility that we will accidentally hit a distant planet, thus precipitating an interplanetary war thousands of years in the future. But really, that is some future generation's problem.

You Got Yourself Into This Mess...

I grew up in the land of consequences. When I was about 8 years old, my grandmother was taking drink orders for us kids at Christmas dinner. Being my smart-ass, 8 year old self, I asked for rye and water. So she brought me a (very small) glass of rye and water. I told her I was only joking, but she refused to bring me anything else until I finished it. And so I learned two very valuable lessons: 8 year olds don't like the taste of rye, and be careful what you wish for.

I think I kind of lucked out with my parents. A lot of people think they should be glad for all the times their parents were there for them, and I sure am (or I would be if I could think of any... kidding!).

What I am more grateful for is the times they weren't there for me. I'm talking about the times they said things like “you got yourself into this mess, get yourself out of it.” Because I learned that I could get myself out of those messes. I learned that screwing up wasn't the end of the world and that I was capable of a lot more than I thought. That life goes on. And I got to learn these things as a kid. Becasue of coddling by their parents, these are lessons a lot of people my age are only starting to learn for themselves and let me tell you, learning is a lot harder as you get older.

During those times, I'm sure I felt like I'd been abandoned, that my parents were jerks. I suspect it was as hard, if not harder, for my parents to watch me struggle than it would have been for them to step in. They were motivated, however, by wanting me to succeed later in life, ie, to get me out of their house.

I sort of feel like this is all a good analogy for the current market woes. People asked for capitalism, and by gum, that's what they got. Virtually unbridled, unregulated access to markets. And what did they do with it? They blew it. They took out loans they couldn't afford; they loaned money to people who couldn't afford it. They lied to each other; and they invested in things about which they knew not. People wanted capitalism but they didn't want to shoulder the responsibility and do their due diligence.

So now what does everyone expect? For mom and dad, AKA the government, to bail them out. Well, you know what I say? You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out of it.

Of course, the government doesn't have the same motivation my parents did. The government wants to keep people under their roof. Because that's where they can control them. And think of it this way: which is going to garner more votes now? The quick, easy solution that falls apart after 10 years or less? or the long, hard, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps solution which results in a much more sustainable economy where everyone gets a shot at being happy?

It's too bad, because I think now might be a good chance for the economy to learn that it's not the end of the world if the government doesn't bail you out. The way I see it is this: the price of capitalism is personal responsibility for all transactions. People didn't pony up and I suspect that what we get next will carry a much heavier price tag: freedom.