So, in one of my more self-indulgent moments, I was thinking about the whole origin of the universe thing, based on some of my discussions with supergoober and others, and I just started thinking about the actual "time" right before the Big Bang.
I use the quotes around time because it is highly probable that time did not really even exist. According to most theories, the universe was a infinitesimally small volume of energy heated to billions of degrees somewhat smaller than an electron in size, and uniformly energetic. The four fundamental forces were unified at that point, and the existence of "space" and "time" as we can currently conceive doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
You see, all of the dimensions that we know (plus a probable 6 or 18 others that we cannot perceive) were wrapped around each other and existed in that microscopic space. So even the question of measuring it and saying it "was the size of an electron" is somewhat specious. Since the dimensions were fundamentally different at that point, trying to establish a radius in something that fundamentally encompasses all of the spatial dimensions that we can conceive of is somewhat ridiculous. Space would be so turned in on itself, it would be like trying to measure to the edge of the universe right now. The problem is that you would have to take an infinitely curved path to get to that edge, because the dimensions did not behave as they do now (that is my personal contribution to the thought - I haven't heard anyone else say it, but I am sure that theoreticians must have raised this point somewhere). Even trying to question what was outside that energy at that time is not a great question. If there was something "outside" there is no way we could possibly come up with a description because it would be outside of all known experience. It would not even possess the dimensions of space that we hold so dear as absolutes (until you get close to light speed or on a subatomic scale).
But I digress... just millionths of a second after the Big Bang, gravity split off, and caused some of the expansion of the universe and dispersal of the energy (one of the reasons space has a fairly uniform temperature despite 13.7 billion years not being enough time for universal cooling to this extent). Very shortly thereafter, the strong and weak nuclear forces as well as electromagnetism come into existence and Hydrogen and Helium come into existence as a result. It takes much longer for other elements to form, because H and He must coalesce into stars so that nuclear fusion can happen (and incidentally, if the timing was any different, and the strong nuclear force was about 2% stronger, you can kiss the universe we know goodbye - Deuterium and Helium-5 or maybe Helium-6 becomes standard, stars do not form in the same way (if at all) and who knows what the hell the universe would be like, but we certainly wouldn't be here).
Anyway, this always makes me think of the whole life in outer space thing, and while I believe that it is a distinct possibility, the temporal distances (not the physical ones) are what seem to be the problem. Of course, physical distance is a problem, too. Let me put it this way - we have been humans (homo sapien) for 150,000 years. We have been a "civilised" species for about 12,000 years, and have been fairly mathematically advanced for about 3,000 years. We have been able to communicate via radio transmissions, etc for about 120ish years, and we might have another few thousand years as a species, say 100,000 years as an optimistic estimate. Since we are, by most accounts, recovering from a fifth major extinction event, any one of those previous eras could have made an intelligent life form as a dominant species. If another planet has a similar evolutionary pattern but was off of the creation of our planet by 100,000 years, they could have peaked and gone extinct far before we existed. Similarly, they could be occurring after us. The timescales are so huge, and the evolutionary scales are relatively quick (maybe 4 billion years from sludge to us, but that includes major extinction events). Suppose a planet doesn't have that first major extinction, evolves into an advanced civilization, then experiences that extinction (say, like sleestaks, for humorous comparison). We would not ever bridge the physical gulf to the suitable planet, and to then get there AT THE TIME that their civilization is comparable to ours would be statistically impossible. Just look at the slice of a 100,000 year peak period for an intelligent species (I just made that number up, but it seems like a reasonable amount -complicated intelligent species seem to have some self-destructive nature if we are any example - but maybe that is overly pessimistic - we've only been around at our current level for a very short amount of time, so that is why I am giving that time frame).
Suppose that the universe will last another 25ish billion years (another assumption, but reasonable for the rate of expansion and the point where energy may be diffuse enough to no longer support life as we know it). That means about a 40 billion life cycle of the universe, with a generous 100,000 year window for intelligent species. This amounts to a fraction of 1/400,000 of the time in the universe. Hoping that another species is intelligent in that correct window of time as well as within range of practical travel and technologically sufficient to communicate - a long shot at best. My point - don't bet on meeting ET outside of a theater any time soon.
But actually, that is not my only point. Many philosophers have posited that one only gains a soul through painful self-reflection and a growth of self-awareness. These two facts - the fact that we could need to engage in self reflection coupled with the fact that we feel compelled to explore the origins of the universe, led me to an unusual thought, one I think supergoober will like to muse on.
What if the whole existence of the universe is simply a struggle for self-awareness. That is, the sum total of all physical and natural laws of space and time is only an attempt for the universe to create something that can comprehend itself. Rather than individual self-awareness, it is a struggle for the actuality of the universe to comprehend itself. I know, it is kind of wacky, maybe something that many people contemplate while high, but since I have never been high and have missed out on those idiotic moments, I find this thought rather interesting.
What if the universe is on a quest to become self-aware, and we are just one of many possible divergent lines of "thought" for said universe? Like the different modes of reflection/religion/philosophy many of us muddle through as individuals in a quest for understanding of self and enlightenment, what if there are divergent strands of life (temporally and spatially forever separated) who are all engaged in the struggle to understand the universe because the ultimate goal of the universe is self-awareness.
So what happens if the universe does achieve this?
I don't know, but it is kind of cool to think about.
Hope I haven't bored you too much, and I will be writing about my Reno trip soon.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Boy Am I Pissed - And You Should Be Too!
So I was driving home from tutoring a student just now, and in between songs on LIVE 105, I jumped over to 560 AM, conservative talk radio in the area, to hear if anything interesting was being discussed (hold the laughter til later, interesting stuff does come up there, just like it comes up on 810 AM as well). Anyway, a guy named Brian Sussman (the host) was talking about the mortgage mess, and talking to a "conservative" woman caller who was lamenting the fact that she could not refinance her home due to the drop in value of her property because of the number of foreclosures in the area. By the way, the first bit isn't an nCr, but beware of GE.
Here's the story and I got really F___ING PISSED hearing it. She got a loan for her house with a rate that was 5-year fixed then shifting to adjustable with the intent on refi-ing the home before the loan shifted, and adding in a line of credit to cash in on the increase in value of her house. She claims to have done this before ("several times") and also claims that her husband was a die hard 30-year fixed guy who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the loan. With the number of foreclosures in her area, however, her property value went down, and now the adjustable rate is going to kick in, and she won't be able to afford it because as rates continue to adjust, her payment continues to go up. The host laments with her, she is a good person, and through no fault of her own she can't get out of this mess. She has talked to the bank to try and negotiate a fixed rate loan before the fixed term ends, but her home value is less than the loan value, and she has a history of refinancing and pulling more money out - something they deem as not fiscally sound. So despite her best efforts she won't be able to make the payments.
BOO-F***ING-HOO!!!!! I know that may sound harsh, but she knew exactly what she was getting into. She wanted to trade short term solvency for a long term risk. Any moron knows that no market goes infinitely, unerringly, unflinchingly upward. Yes, it is not her fault that the value of her house went down. It is her fault for taking that risk. She clearly assessed the risk, thought that it was worth it (she had done it before), and took it. She got shafted for making the wrong decision, and it is no ones fault but hers. She will have to deal with the vagaries of an adjustable rate. Tough shit. They are called consequences, some of us learned them when we figured out not to touch the stove when our moms said it was hot (touch it once, you're a skeptic, twice, you are a moron). And yes, my house value has decreased, almost to the point where I owe the actual value of the house, but I knew that was the risk, and I did not set up my loan so that this eventuality would hurt me. I took risks, accepted that fact, but tried to set myself up for long-term success at the cost of short-term comfort. I am unusual in that fact, but having an instant gratification society should not be rewarded with a bailout. If people were fooled into bad loans, fine, they should receive help. But I don't agree with you supergoober, in thinking that evil lenders fooled most consumers. Most consumers willingly colluded. They wanted to be fooled into thinking that their home was an eternal well-spring of free money. Anyone with even the most unsophisticated approach to mathematics can grasp the concept of "fixed payment for x years, the payments will change thereafter" or "this loan means you owe more to the bank each month (negatively amortized) and your house value better grow faster than that debt grows or you are screwed."
You don't have to read all the fine print or listen to all the fast words at the end of a loan add to know if something is too good to be true. Most of us know when stuff is too good to be true based on simple intuition - we then choose to look further or not on our own. If we chose to ignore the risk we find, to ignore the gut feeling in the first place, or to take the risk in a calculated fashion - that doesn't matter. If you signed your name to the contract, you took the risk - you are accountable. Welcome to the wonderful world of being an adult where a decision can haunt you for the rest of your life. We expect people to make good decisions about everything but their homes - let me give an analogy -
Suppose I am at a bar, looking for a date - this uber hot chick comes up to me and says to me that she wants to do all kinds of filthy things with me right then, just out behind the bar. It won't cost me anything, and she doesn't even want to know my name, and no one else will ever know, but she has no protection - she doesn't like it, it is not enough fun for her.
While this may sound fun to most men, even if they are married, most guys would know that they were taking a risk. They might still take it, but they wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with crabs, herpes, festering sores, drugged and mugged, or surprised by something extra s/he had below the belt.
The mortgages being offered had a very similar feel, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice it. Period. End of story. You made that bed, now lie in it mother-f***er, even if it is in a studio apartment instead of your palatial home that you over-extended for.
Warning: This next section will likely piss you off if you have different political ideas than I do. It is partisan (but not excessively so), and it attributes blame where I feel it is due. Read on, if you dare!!!!
(and if you wonder what party affiliations I have, let's just say I chose Red for my warning, not Blue. If you like Blue, you may not like what follows -but come, gentle reader, come into my lair)
So now we come down to it. I laid out in a previous blog what I thought was the cause - I will reiterate some of it and expand a bit. But more I will be going on to the idea of the bailout, the candidates, and some other stuff (yes, I know the grammar is bad, but for the sake of the flow of my thoughts, just go with it, and check out the label, GE, in the sidebar).
It can really be traced back to a bill in 1977, I forget the name, but it was a Jimmy Carter sponsored legislation that forced banks to make risky loans. It pushed them into loans with little collateral or down-payment and low temporarily fixed rates so that high-risk loans would be more common. The thought behind it was to allow more people access to housing and business loans so that people's lives would be better, and more people would have access to "the American Dream". A noble goal, but goals don't mean squat unless the plan you have will actually achieve that goal. They worked a bit - especially for small business loans that needed early capital with low payments that would show profit in a few years, but the track record of success is shaky.
What really happened was that people got locked into loans they couldn't afford, because they were convinced (by the government) that it was a good way to go. It caused a lot of risk for the consumers and the lenders, and a lot of people on both sides got screwed.
It got much, much worse under Bill Clinton in 1994. He and his attorney general and federal chairman got a lot of credit for freeing up a lot of capital by loosening up a lot of strictures on how loans could be made, and by exerting pressure on banks (especially Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) to assume more and more risky debt. He has no problem denying this - he took credit at the time, but claims a "lack of oversight" under the Bush administration led to the current crisis.
But there is a huge problem with that story (and this will really piss off all you Dubyah haters out there - keep in mind I have no love for the man, he hasn't done well on a lot of issues I hold dear, but he was spot on with this one). He was pushing for reform of Fannie and Freddie in 2003. His claim was that the risks that they were assuming were too great, and that they would ultimately collapse. While many may insult his intelligence, he does have an MBA, and that means a little knowledge of economics (and probably the ability to tell the negatives from the positives on an accounting ledger; I have grave doubts as to whether most politicians on either side possess this skill). McCain joined in on this in 2005.
Democrats were staunchly opposed to increasing regulations on the banking industry in general, and Freddie and Fannie in particular. In fact, Barney Frank said (about two years ago) that even if Freddie and Fannie were to fail, the market would quickly recover and there would not be much impact. Obama was opposed to fixing any of the regulations as well (and here I thought the Republicans were notorious deregulators - guess the Dems had to try their hand at it, too). In fact, most of the key opponents to the reforms were people who were getting largess in the form of campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie, mainly Dodd, Frank, and Obama.
Now, I know many of you think that it is not the time for the blame game, that we must put all that aside and fix the problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong, sorry you couldn't be more wrong. If a mechanic f***s up my car so bad that the engine falls out on the highway and I have to sue him, I don't go back to that guy to get my car fixed. But that is precisely what we are doing. Look at the two most outspoken figures on this $700 billion bailout - Frank and Dodd. Plus Obama is running on the fact that his policies are not George W. Bush's, but his policy of taking scads of dough from Fannie and ignoring them contributed big-time to this mess. Do I think he did it intentionally - of course not - but the lack of foresight involved in his decision-making is astounding.
Now to the bailout - McCain took time out to head back to the senate and *GASP* do his job, while Obama had that elitist statement of - I'll be there if they need me, right when someone calls me - that's not the exact quote, forgive me, I am working from memory. Was it politicking on McCain's part - maybe. Was it an unwise statement on Obama's part - almost certainly. Which one has more of the characteristics of a good leader - the guy who shows up because he knows it is the responsible thing to do, or the guy who waits for his boss to call him in to work to deal with a problem that he already knows about - you decide. Either way, they are both there now, and debating a $700 billion bailout. And this is where it gets dangerous.
Most Dems, and many Repubs, too, want a bill by tomorrow so they can go on break, campaign for the election by saying that they did something. It doesn't matter if the something was meaningless, it is just an election issue (like buying off voters with a "stimulus package"). The package as written had a bunch of fluff and riders about a whole bunch of crap, and also set up the buyout of not just homeowner debt, but also of credit card and auto loan debts.
We should not rush into this. The reaction needs to be swift, yes, but jumping off a cliff is swift - it just doesn't get us where we want (unless we want to be smashed to bits on rocks, and on my worst days, that seems a reasonable option). It needs to be measures and carefully planned. There are three main strategies I will detail below:
Here's the story and I got really F___ING PISSED hearing it. She got a loan for her house with a rate that was 5-year fixed then shifting to adjustable with the intent on refi-ing the home before the loan shifted, and adding in a line of credit to cash in on the increase in value of her house. She claims to have done this before ("several times") and also claims that her husband was a die hard 30-year fixed guy who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the loan. With the number of foreclosures in her area, however, her property value went down, and now the adjustable rate is going to kick in, and she won't be able to afford it because as rates continue to adjust, her payment continues to go up. The host laments with her, she is a good person, and through no fault of her own she can't get out of this mess. She has talked to the bank to try and negotiate a fixed rate loan before the fixed term ends, but her home value is less than the loan value, and she has a history of refinancing and pulling more money out - something they deem as not fiscally sound. So despite her best efforts she won't be able to make the payments.
BOO-F***ING-HOO!!!!! I know that may sound harsh, but she knew exactly what she was getting into. She wanted to trade short term solvency for a long term risk. Any moron knows that no market goes infinitely, unerringly, unflinchingly upward. Yes, it is not her fault that the value of her house went down. It is her fault for taking that risk. She clearly assessed the risk, thought that it was worth it (she had done it before), and took it. She got shafted for making the wrong decision, and it is no ones fault but hers. She will have to deal with the vagaries of an adjustable rate. Tough shit. They are called consequences, some of us learned them when we figured out not to touch the stove when our moms said it was hot (touch it once, you're a skeptic, twice, you are a moron). And yes, my house value has decreased, almost to the point where I owe the actual value of the house, but I knew that was the risk, and I did not set up my loan so that this eventuality would hurt me. I took risks, accepted that fact, but tried to set myself up for long-term success at the cost of short-term comfort. I am unusual in that fact, but having an instant gratification society should not be rewarded with a bailout. If people were fooled into bad loans, fine, they should receive help. But I don't agree with you supergoober, in thinking that evil lenders fooled most consumers. Most consumers willingly colluded. They wanted to be fooled into thinking that their home was an eternal well-spring of free money. Anyone with even the most unsophisticated approach to mathematics can grasp the concept of "fixed payment for x years, the payments will change thereafter" or "this loan means you owe more to the bank each month (negatively amortized) and your house value better grow faster than that debt grows or you are screwed."
You don't have to read all the fine print or listen to all the fast words at the end of a loan add to know if something is too good to be true. Most of us know when stuff is too good to be true based on simple intuition - we then choose to look further or not on our own. If we chose to ignore the risk we find, to ignore the gut feeling in the first place, or to take the risk in a calculated fashion - that doesn't matter. If you signed your name to the contract, you took the risk - you are accountable. Welcome to the wonderful world of being an adult where a decision can haunt you for the rest of your life. We expect people to make good decisions about everything but their homes - let me give an analogy -
Suppose I am at a bar, looking for a date - this uber hot chick comes up to me and says to me that she wants to do all kinds of filthy things with me right then, just out behind the bar. It won't cost me anything, and she doesn't even want to know my name, and no one else will ever know, but she has no protection - she doesn't like it, it is not enough fun for her.
While this may sound fun to most men, even if they are married, most guys would know that they were taking a risk. They might still take it, but they wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with crabs, herpes, festering sores, drugged and mugged, or surprised by something extra s/he had below the belt.
The mortgages being offered had a very similar feel, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice it. Period. End of story. You made that bed, now lie in it mother-f***er, even if it is in a studio apartment instead of your palatial home that you over-extended for.
Warning: This next section will likely piss you off if you have different political ideas than I do. It is partisan (but not excessively so), and it attributes blame where I feel it is due. Read on, if you dare!!!!
(and if you wonder what party affiliations I have, let's just say I chose Red for my warning, not Blue. If you like Blue, you may not like what follows -but come, gentle reader, come into my lair)
So now we come down to it. I laid out in a previous blog what I thought was the cause - I will reiterate some of it and expand a bit. But more I will be going on to the idea of the bailout, the candidates, and some other stuff (yes, I know the grammar is bad, but for the sake of the flow of my thoughts, just go with it, and check out the label, GE, in the sidebar).
It can really be traced back to a bill in 1977, I forget the name, but it was a Jimmy Carter sponsored legislation that forced banks to make risky loans. It pushed them into loans with little collateral or down-payment and low temporarily fixed rates so that high-risk loans would be more common. The thought behind it was to allow more people access to housing and business loans so that people's lives would be better, and more people would have access to "the American Dream". A noble goal, but goals don't mean squat unless the plan you have will actually achieve that goal. They worked a bit - especially for small business loans that needed early capital with low payments that would show profit in a few years, but the track record of success is shaky.
What really happened was that people got locked into loans they couldn't afford, because they were convinced (by the government) that it was a good way to go. It caused a lot of risk for the consumers and the lenders, and a lot of people on both sides got screwed.
It got much, much worse under Bill Clinton in 1994. He and his attorney general and federal chairman got a lot of credit for freeing up a lot of capital by loosening up a lot of strictures on how loans could be made, and by exerting pressure on banks (especially Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) to assume more and more risky debt. He has no problem denying this - he took credit at the time, but claims a "lack of oversight" under the Bush administration led to the current crisis.
But there is a huge problem with that story (and this will really piss off all you Dubyah haters out there - keep in mind I have no love for the man, he hasn't done well on a lot of issues I hold dear, but he was spot on with this one). He was pushing for reform of Fannie and Freddie in 2003. His claim was that the risks that they were assuming were too great, and that they would ultimately collapse. While many may insult his intelligence, he does have an MBA, and that means a little knowledge of economics (and probably the ability to tell the negatives from the positives on an accounting ledger; I have grave doubts as to whether most politicians on either side possess this skill). McCain joined in on this in 2005.
Democrats were staunchly opposed to increasing regulations on the banking industry in general, and Freddie and Fannie in particular. In fact, Barney Frank said (about two years ago) that even if Freddie and Fannie were to fail, the market would quickly recover and there would not be much impact. Obama was opposed to fixing any of the regulations as well (and here I thought the Republicans were notorious deregulators - guess the Dems had to try their hand at it, too). In fact, most of the key opponents to the reforms were people who were getting largess in the form of campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie, mainly Dodd, Frank, and Obama.
Now, I know many of you think that it is not the time for the blame game, that we must put all that aside and fix the problem. Wrong, wrong, wrong, sorry you couldn't be more wrong. If a mechanic f***s up my car so bad that the engine falls out on the highway and I have to sue him, I don't go back to that guy to get my car fixed. But that is precisely what we are doing. Look at the two most outspoken figures on this $700 billion bailout - Frank and Dodd. Plus Obama is running on the fact that his policies are not George W. Bush's, but his policy of taking scads of dough from Fannie and ignoring them contributed big-time to this mess. Do I think he did it intentionally - of course not - but the lack of foresight involved in his decision-making is astounding.
Now to the bailout - McCain took time out to head back to the senate and *GASP* do his job, while Obama had that elitist statement of - I'll be there if they need me, right when someone calls me - that's not the exact quote, forgive me, I am working from memory. Was it politicking on McCain's part - maybe. Was it an unwise statement on Obama's part - almost certainly. Which one has more of the characteristics of a good leader - the guy who shows up because he knows it is the responsible thing to do, or the guy who waits for his boss to call him in to work to deal with a problem that he already knows about - you decide. Either way, they are both there now, and debating a $700 billion bailout. And this is where it gets dangerous.
Most Dems, and many Repubs, too, want a bill by tomorrow so they can go on break, campaign for the election by saying that they did something. It doesn't matter if the something was meaningless, it is just an election issue (like buying off voters with a "stimulus package"). The package as written had a bunch of fluff and riders about a whole bunch of crap, and also set up the buyout of not just homeowner debt, but also of credit card and auto loan debts.
We should not rush into this. The reaction needs to be swift, yes, but jumping off a cliff is swift - it just doesn't get us where we want (unless we want to be smashed to bits on rocks, and on my worst days, that seems a reasonable option). It needs to be measures and carefully planned. There are three main strategies I will detail below:
- The current plan - throw a bunch of money at problem, hope problem goes away, get many votes, feel better, and bury head in sand. Needless to say, it ain't a good option as far as I'm concerned, and it is currently much vaunted by Democrats who want this as an anti-Bush election issue. Talk about politics as usual (I thought Obama was a candidate for change)
- Excessively conservative plan - try to inspire a bunch of free market investors to buy up bad loans (a la Warren Buffet) let them make scads of cash, hope that the free market fixes problem. Again, not a great option, no real reason to believe the new purchasers will be any more responsible than the old, encourages class warfare, sets up a real "rich get richer" scenario, just like the Dem inspired setup for the bailout.
- Balanced plan - Selectively buy out loans, let some foreclose and have the US act like a big-ass bank. Not bad, but has some ethical issues that make me flinch: most notably is do we really want the government to also own our mortgages? Yes, it will lead to the government making money on the bailout rather than pissing taxpayer dollars down a rat-hole, but I do not like the idea of the precedent of a government owning supposedly private property until you can pay of the loan - that sets up a really large risk for bad abuses of power. It might be the best of a bad bunch of ideas.
However, if you moderate the last idea with cutting capital gains tax, so people who have to sell and then move in to apartments don't get as huge a hit, plus lower corporate tax rates, you have a recipe for economic vibrancy. Since capital gains have never been indexed to inflation, there are huge amounts of invested capital that people will not sell if their gains have been largely inflationary - a tax on inflationary gain cuts into the original value of the investment, and just slams the brakes on an economy. It needs to be gotten rid of - the middle class will benefit immensely, as they pay the lion's share of it (contrary to popular opinion), or at least have the rate lowered and indexed to inflation.
Imagine if you got your COLA raise and it bumped you into the next tax bracket - you would be earning the same amount (definition of that type of wage increase) but being taxed at a higher rate. It was called bracket creep in the '70s, gotten rid of in '81 when the tax brackets were indexed to inflation, and yet we never did this with capital gains (which are really just a tax on money that you already paid taxes on, invested, and because your investment increased, you are taxed again - some people think that this is reasonable, I don't - that's just a philosophical difference that cannot be bridged for people on the opposite sides of the issue).
Okay, I feel a little better now, I guess finishing at 9:44 pm for the 1 hour and 31 minute rant helped. I am going to go lay down and watch poker on TV, to get in the mood for the tournament this weekend. More on that, later.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Supergoober's L5R Game
So supergoober ran a game on Saturday, and here is a brief recap of what happened:
Back in the City of Toshi Ranbo, the local fall harvest festival was beginning. Rumors of the defeat of the evil in the Valley of the Mists are beginning to trickle through the peasant population, and the mood surrounding the festival is decidedly upbeat. The harvest has been good so far, and a bounty of crops have yet to be gathered. But for two days, work is forgotten, and the city is filled with celebrating peasants and pleased but reserved Samurai, and everyone is enjoying the festivities. Taiko drummers, puppet shows, peasant song and dance all accompany the boisterous mood, and the sake and shochu are flowing freely.
And at the end of the festival, several heroes are invited to tell the story of the Valley of the Mists to an assembled throng. An awed hush silences the crowd when they realize that the mighty and renowned Mirumoto Shogu is the one to tell the story. Seeing him, with his friends Shinjiro the Ronin carpenter (man of many secrets), Tsuruchi Kasena, first swordsman of the Wasp Clan, and the noble and dedicated Matsu Tengu, the entire assembled throng swells with pride at the inspiring presence of these paragons of the virtues of bushido.
Mirumoto Shogo tells the inspiring story of how the virtues of bushido can overcome any evil, and shows the bonds that can be formed by adherents to the code of bushido by people otherwise separated by clan and class. Everyone from the lowest heimen to the noblest buke is moved by the story, and feels the unifying bond of being fellow travellers on the Celestial path to enlightenment, knowing that the Tao of Shinsei unites them all. In this rare moment, when people are feeling this unusual level of camaraderie with the people of Rokugan, an unusual occurrence disrupts the mood.
Shogo has finished, and people are quietly reflecting on his words, when a number of peasant runners deftly and silently move through the assembled crowd, and handing sealed messages to all of the magistrates in the crowd. One magistrate in particular, a scruffy-looking young man, just past his gempuku ceremony, looks at the seal on the message and notes that it bears the seal of Takezo Fuhito, the Imperial Governor of the area, and wastes no time in opening it.
It contains a simple summons, requiring the presence of all magistrates at the governor's estate at the beginning of the Hour of the Boar. He quickly folds the letter and tucks it into the sleeve of his kimono. Wistfully, longing for more of these peaceful moments, he looks over at his wife, an attractive young Scorpion samurai-ko named Bayushi Harue. Her gaze meets his, and she nods slightly towrds the note in his sleeve. Wordlessly, he bows to her and she bows back, and he slides away into the crowd and moves towards his destination. As he leaves, he catches a glimpse of his wife leaning over and talking to his mother, telling her of the need for him to attend to his duty.
At the meeting, Kurekita notices all of the magistrates who are gathered for the Autumn Festival and Winter Court are attending. Takezo Fuhito is there as well, and two large wooden bowls are sitting in front of him.
"As you all know," he begins, in his powerful and commanding voice, "the evil in the Valley of the Mists has been defeated. However, the evil had deep roots, and she had been drawing powers from Jigoku and the Shadowlands to establish her blight upon the lands of Rokugan. Now she is dead, and her will no longer binds the creatures to her - they are leaving the valley, and spilling out throughout the lands. Of course, this means that the danger has become more diffuse, and our lands and peasants are in jeopardy. Each of you has been assigned a town to protect, and will have a group of capable men and women assigned to you from various clans. It is your duty to protect the lands, the harvest, and the people from this evil, and may Shinsei preserve you."
He then rises, and walks out of room, leaving his attendants to begin pulling the pieces of parchment with Magistrates' names and towns to which they have been assigned, as well as the number of samurai assigned to them.
________
It finally got to Toku Kurekita, and he was assigned to the village of Haniko Ranbo, with 3 men to support him. Three chops were drawn out of the other bowl, and he heard the names - Isawa Hitoshi, an experienced Phoenix shugenja, known for his uncouth behavior with ladies, but also for his prowess in entreating the aid of the kami; Kasuga Rei, a diplomat and courtier from the Tortoise Clan, she of the clan favored by the Emperor; and little Ninjai, an all but unknown Ronin, who must have been forced to grow up quickly, given his age - listed as 10 - but yet, one who was still in this lottery for a reason.
Kurekita quickly penned three letters, which he sent off with runners, arranging to meet the others at a nearby inn, where he laid out the details of their assignment to his fellows. Not wanting to delay, they decided to travel at night so that they could be at Haniko Ranbo by sunrise.
As they left the inn, they were apparently not the only ones with this idea. The streets leaving Toshi Ranbo were knotted with small groups of samurai, carrying paper lanterns which cast an unusual pall over the faces of the men and women, all of whom bore looks of grim determination. As the procession snaked out of the city and down the hill, and spilt out onto several roads, it looked as if a cascade of lights was spilling over the countryside. Kurekita could not recall having ever seen anything quite like it - he could not help seeing the bobbing lanterns on the ends of spears and remembering the stories of lights that would lure unsuspecting people to their deaths at night. Of course it was just an old ghost story, but a part of him knew that these lights may well be leading them to their deaths in confrontations with the most horrifying spirits that Jigoku could conjure. Still it was his duty to die for the preservation of the empire, and he would if necessary, but like so many other Monkeys, he steeled his will for only success - death would come eventually, but it would come on his terms, and only when his duty was complete - the Monkey clan does not succumb to death.
Such were his thoughts as he left Toshi Ranbo, and he could not know the thoughts of his companions, though he could guess what Hitoshi was thinking as he repeatedly glanced at the outlined form of Kasuga Rei. Toku hoped that this distraction would not cause the Isawa trouble, but his reputation for overcoming long odds was comforting. Indeed, he noticed that, while Rei was not as beautiful as his wife, there was something mysterious and alluring about her. No wonder a man with weaknesses such as Hitoshi would notice her.
Rei, herself, was silent and stoic as she marched into the night. If she was thinking anything, then she did not betray it - and given her training as a courtier, Toku knew it would be foolish to try and discern further. Still, he was certain that she must know her affect on Hitoshi, and he hoped that she was not trying some courtier trick to advance her own position at the cost of the Isawa. That kind of action could get them all killed, but he would not expect her to be mindful of that, given her lack of experience on the battlefield.
And then there was little Ninjai - a boy of no more than 10, whose katana looked ridiculously oversized compared to his slight frame. He was near a trot to keep up with their pace, but did not seem to tire, and the ease of his movement and the casual way in which he carried himself spoke to a level of grace and experience that Kurekita could not quite fathom.
(Part 2 forthcoming)
Now-
As the group marched uneasily through the crisp autumn air, feeling the oncoming rush of winter with every breath into their lungs, the different groups of samurai gradually dispersed throughout the countryside, their lanterns flickering into the distance like so many fireflies fading in the night.
As Toku Kurekita assessed his group with the others, he noticed immediately how inexperienced they were by comparison - he saw proud Lion bushi - instructors for their clan schools; there were Crane duelists who had survived many duels, and Asako Shugenja well-versed in their supplications to the kami. The myriad of talents that graced the province for its protection spoke to the quality of samurai in the area, but the men and women he was assigned, including himself, seemed woefully inadequate to the task at hand. The kami would provide, he was sure, and what they did not provide, he was sure that he could make up for with zeal, if not with actual training.
Apparently, he was not the only one to notice the lack of experience in the group, as a tall Lion Samurai sidled up next to him and struck up a brief conversation.
"I am Akodo Nagano, assistant instructor at the Lion dojo in Toshi Ranbo. I have the honor of protecting a small village Northeast of here - Komitsu Ranbo. Should you need any assistance in your task, please send a runner, and I will respond as soon as duty permits," he stated brusquely, almost as though the lack of standard pleasantries caused him more pain than the idea of coming conflicts with the unholy beasts that were ravaging the land.
Toku, awed by the generosity and compassion of the noble man, paused briefly before responding with utmost sincerity, "I am touched deeply by your offer, and I will most assuredly contact you should the need arise. Our duty to this land and its people transcend pride, and I will not hesitate to subjugate mine should the occasion warrant it. Thank you, sir."
Almost before Toku had time to finish, the Lion was sliding away into the night - rejoining his compatriots as they journeyed to the town of Komitsu Ranbo. Isawa Hitoshi, having overheard the conversation, came up to him and whispered, "I mean you no disrespect, noble magistrate, but it is important to maintain the custom of declining a gift offered before assenting. I would feel great pain for you were you to disgrace yourself because of such a faux pas."
"I understand, Isawa Hitoshi, and were the situation not otherwise pressing, I would not hesitate to abide by our long standing traditions. But this is a desperate time, and I would rather bear the blemish on my pride than refuse a noble samurai expressing such compassion. I do appreciate your concern, and humbly thank you for pointing out my social miscue."
Satisfied, they both lapsed into silence again, and Toku was relieved that the Isawa was not solely concerned with the kami, but had his mind on honor and the code of bushido as well. As these musings were wandering through his tired mind, he noticed a light and voices up ahead on the road. The voices were hushed, and he caught just a glimpse of a light before it was covered again.
"Someone is on the road ahead, follow me," he hissed at his companions, then dashed up towards the noise. Before he had gotten more than a few steps, little Ninjai darted past all of them and streaked ahead, easily outpacing the full grown men and women with him. In the distance, Toku heard Ninjai's voice, calmly calling the people to a hault. Toku, Isawa, and Kasuga soon caught up.
Ninjai was there with an old peasant man who was obviously frightened and babbling, "They are dead, there is blood everywhere, we must get away..." and Toku saw the cart that they had bore two small children, a woman, several chickens, and some rice. Just the few things that they could gather before fleeing their home in terror.
"Old man, why are you straying from your home at night? This is not the way that decent folk should act," Toku questioned. "What is wrong?"
"Noble sir," the man replied nervously, "we had to flee. Our neighbors were killed by something terrible. I saw the bodies... they were torn to pieces. I cannot risk my families lives, so we fled... I am sorry, but I have no choice..." he finished, looking around as though he were waiting for the fiends of Jigoku to descend on him at any moment.
"Kasuga Rei, check these peasants for any signs of Taint. Ninjai and Isawa Hitoshi, keep them under guard. I must speak further with this man to remind him of his duties."
Toku motioned for the peasant to follow him, and began speaking to him quietly, "I understand your concern for your family, but you cannot abandon your duty to the land or its people. If all were to adopt this attitude, the land of Rokugan would be lost in but a day. I must insist that you abandon this foolish flight, and accompany us back to your home."
"I am sorry, sir. I understand that we all have duties, and mine is to my family first. I cannot let the evil take them..."
Toku interrupted, harshly, "Your first duty is to the Empire, not to your family. It is my duty to protect you, and yours to harvest the land that sustains all of us. If you choose to abandon your humanity and take up the path of an animal fleeing in fear, then I will be forced to take your life. It is not a duty I cherish, but if you persist in abandoning your duty and behaving like a frightened dog, I will have no choice. For your family's sake, do not kill yourelf in front of them by carrying on this foolishness. We will escort you back and protect you, and you will continue the harvest."
"Of course, we will," he said with a hitch in his voice, and his eyes were rapidly filling with tears, seeing death on one side and damnation on the other, and given no choice, he turned to his family and began laboring to turn the cart around. Toku began to help him, and Ninjai and Kasuga attempted to calm the children, who showed no evidence of the Taint, but had begun wailing in fear as the cart was turned back towards the village.
As they began the last part of the journey to Haniko Ranbo, with the faintest hints of light coloring the eastern sky, indicating dawn was about an hour ahead of them, Toku began to tell a story to the two wailing children in an effort to calm them. It was a tale of the peasants noble calling to toil in the land, and how the entire world depended on their passionate labor, and that the duty of a peasant reaps rich rewards on the celestial wheel. This was a tale the older one had heard before and he eventually calmed down, and listened with rapt attention, all the while trying to quiet his younger brother. Kasuga took out a zeni, and held it in her hand and did a number of dextrous manipulations that even Toku's trained eyes could not entirely follow, and this finally seemed to mollify the child. And finally, as the sun crested the horizon, they saw the fields of Haniko Ranbo in the distance.
Part III forthcoming soon.
Back in the City of Toshi Ranbo, the local fall harvest festival was beginning. Rumors of the defeat of the evil in the Valley of the Mists are beginning to trickle through the peasant population, and the mood surrounding the festival is decidedly upbeat. The harvest has been good so far, and a bounty of crops have yet to be gathered. But for two days, work is forgotten, and the city is filled with celebrating peasants and pleased but reserved Samurai, and everyone is enjoying the festivities. Taiko drummers, puppet shows, peasant song and dance all accompany the boisterous mood, and the sake and shochu are flowing freely.
And at the end of the festival, several heroes are invited to tell the story of the Valley of the Mists to an assembled throng. An awed hush silences the crowd when they realize that the mighty and renowned Mirumoto Shogu is the one to tell the story. Seeing him, with his friends Shinjiro the Ronin carpenter (man of many secrets), Tsuruchi Kasena, first swordsman of the Wasp Clan, and the noble and dedicated Matsu Tengu, the entire assembled throng swells with pride at the inspiring presence of these paragons of the virtues of bushido.
Mirumoto Shogo tells the inspiring story of how the virtues of bushido can overcome any evil, and shows the bonds that can be formed by adherents to the code of bushido by people otherwise separated by clan and class. Everyone from the lowest heimen to the noblest buke is moved by the story, and feels the unifying bond of being fellow travellers on the Celestial path to enlightenment, knowing that the Tao of Shinsei unites them all. In this rare moment, when people are feeling this unusual level of camaraderie with the people of Rokugan, an unusual occurrence disrupts the mood.
Shogo has finished, and people are quietly reflecting on his words, when a number of peasant runners deftly and silently move through the assembled crowd, and handing sealed messages to all of the magistrates in the crowd. One magistrate in particular, a scruffy-looking young man, just past his gempuku ceremony, looks at the seal on the message and notes that it bears the seal of Takezo Fuhito, the Imperial Governor of the area, and wastes no time in opening it.
It contains a simple summons, requiring the presence of all magistrates at the governor's estate at the beginning of the Hour of the Boar. He quickly folds the letter and tucks it into the sleeve of his kimono. Wistfully, longing for more of these peaceful moments, he looks over at his wife, an attractive young Scorpion samurai-ko named Bayushi Harue. Her gaze meets his, and she nods slightly towrds the note in his sleeve. Wordlessly, he bows to her and she bows back, and he slides away into the crowd and moves towards his destination. As he leaves, he catches a glimpse of his wife leaning over and talking to his mother, telling her of the need for him to attend to his duty.
At the meeting, Kurekita notices all of the magistrates who are gathered for the Autumn Festival and Winter Court are attending. Takezo Fuhito is there as well, and two large wooden bowls are sitting in front of him.
"As you all know," he begins, in his powerful and commanding voice, "the evil in the Valley of the Mists has been defeated. However, the evil had deep roots, and she had been drawing powers from Jigoku and the Shadowlands to establish her blight upon the lands of Rokugan. Now she is dead, and her will no longer binds the creatures to her - they are leaving the valley, and spilling out throughout the lands. Of course, this means that the danger has become more diffuse, and our lands and peasants are in jeopardy. Each of you has been assigned a town to protect, and will have a group of capable men and women assigned to you from various clans. It is your duty to protect the lands, the harvest, and the people from this evil, and may Shinsei preserve you."
He then rises, and walks out of room, leaving his attendants to begin pulling the pieces of parchment with Magistrates' names and towns to which they have been assigned, as well as the number of samurai assigned to them.
________
It finally got to Toku Kurekita, and he was assigned to the village of Haniko Ranbo, with 3 men to support him. Three chops were drawn out of the other bowl, and he heard the names - Isawa Hitoshi, an experienced Phoenix shugenja, known for his uncouth behavior with ladies, but also for his prowess in entreating the aid of the kami; Kasuga Rei, a diplomat and courtier from the Tortoise Clan, she of the clan favored by the Emperor; and little Ninjai, an all but unknown Ronin, who must have been forced to grow up quickly, given his age - listed as 10 - but yet, one who was still in this lottery for a reason.
Kurekita quickly penned three letters, which he sent off with runners, arranging to meet the others at a nearby inn, where he laid out the details of their assignment to his fellows. Not wanting to delay, they decided to travel at night so that they could be at Haniko Ranbo by sunrise.
As they left the inn, they were apparently not the only ones with this idea. The streets leaving Toshi Ranbo were knotted with small groups of samurai, carrying paper lanterns which cast an unusual pall over the faces of the men and women, all of whom bore looks of grim determination. As the procession snaked out of the city and down the hill, and spilt out onto several roads, it looked as if a cascade of lights was spilling over the countryside. Kurekita could not recall having ever seen anything quite like it - he could not help seeing the bobbing lanterns on the ends of spears and remembering the stories of lights that would lure unsuspecting people to their deaths at night. Of course it was just an old ghost story, but a part of him knew that these lights may well be leading them to their deaths in confrontations with the most horrifying spirits that Jigoku could conjure. Still it was his duty to die for the preservation of the empire, and he would if necessary, but like so many other Monkeys, he steeled his will for only success - death would come eventually, but it would come on his terms, and only when his duty was complete - the Monkey clan does not succumb to death.
Such were his thoughts as he left Toshi Ranbo, and he could not know the thoughts of his companions, though he could guess what Hitoshi was thinking as he repeatedly glanced at the outlined form of Kasuga Rei. Toku hoped that this distraction would not cause the Isawa trouble, but his reputation for overcoming long odds was comforting. Indeed, he noticed that, while Rei was not as beautiful as his wife, there was something mysterious and alluring about her. No wonder a man with weaknesses such as Hitoshi would notice her.
Rei, herself, was silent and stoic as she marched into the night. If she was thinking anything, then she did not betray it - and given her training as a courtier, Toku knew it would be foolish to try and discern further. Still, he was certain that she must know her affect on Hitoshi, and he hoped that she was not trying some courtier trick to advance her own position at the cost of the Isawa. That kind of action could get them all killed, but he would not expect her to be mindful of that, given her lack of experience on the battlefield.
And then there was little Ninjai - a boy of no more than 10, whose katana looked ridiculously oversized compared to his slight frame. He was near a trot to keep up with their pace, but did not seem to tire, and the ease of his movement and the casual way in which he carried himself spoke to a level of grace and experience that Kurekita could not quite fathom.
(Part 2 forthcoming)
Now-
As the group marched uneasily through the crisp autumn air, feeling the oncoming rush of winter with every breath into their lungs, the different groups of samurai gradually dispersed throughout the countryside, their lanterns flickering into the distance like so many fireflies fading in the night.
As Toku Kurekita assessed his group with the others, he noticed immediately how inexperienced they were by comparison - he saw proud Lion bushi - instructors for their clan schools; there were Crane duelists who had survived many duels, and Asako Shugenja well-versed in their supplications to the kami. The myriad of talents that graced the province for its protection spoke to the quality of samurai in the area, but the men and women he was assigned, including himself, seemed woefully inadequate to the task at hand. The kami would provide, he was sure, and what they did not provide, he was sure that he could make up for with zeal, if not with actual training.
Apparently, he was not the only one to notice the lack of experience in the group, as a tall Lion Samurai sidled up next to him and struck up a brief conversation.
"I am Akodo Nagano, assistant instructor at the Lion dojo in Toshi Ranbo. I have the honor of protecting a small village Northeast of here - Komitsu Ranbo. Should you need any assistance in your task, please send a runner, and I will respond as soon as duty permits," he stated brusquely, almost as though the lack of standard pleasantries caused him more pain than the idea of coming conflicts with the unholy beasts that were ravaging the land.
Toku, awed by the generosity and compassion of the noble man, paused briefly before responding with utmost sincerity, "I am touched deeply by your offer, and I will most assuredly contact you should the need arise. Our duty to this land and its people transcend pride, and I will not hesitate to subjugate mine should the occasion warrant it. Thank you, sir."
Almost before Toku had time to finish, the Lion was sliding away into the night - rejoining his compatriots as they journeyed to the town of Komitsu Ranbo. Isawa Hitoshi, having overheard the conversation, came up to him and whispered, "I mean you no disrespect, noble magistrate, but it is important to maintain the custom of declining a gift offered before assenting. I would feel great pain for you were you to disgrace yourself because of such a faux pas."
"I understand, Isawa Hitoshi, and were the situation not otherwise pressing, I would not hesitate to abide by our long standing traditions. But this is a desperate time, and I would rather bear the blemish on my pride than refuse a noble samurai expressing such compassion. I do appreciate your concern, and humbly thank you for pointing out my social miscue."
Satisfied, they both lapsed into silence again, and Toku was relieved that the Isawa was not solely concerned with the kami, but had his mind on honor and the code of bushido as well. As these musings were wandering through his tired mind, he noticed a light and voices up ahead on the road. The voices were hushed, and he caught just a glimpse of a light before it was covered again.
"Someone is on the road ahead, follow me," he hissed at his companions, then dashed up towards the noise. Before he had gotten more than a few steps, little Ninjai darted past all of them and streaked ahead, easily outpacing the full grown men and women with him. In the distance, Toku heard Ninjai's voice, calmly calling the people to a hault. Toku, Isawa, and Kasuga soon caught up.
Ninjai was there with an old peasant man who was obviously frightened and babbling, "They are dead, there is blood everywhere, we must get away..." and Toku saw the cart that they had bore two small children, a woman, several chickens, and some rice. Just the few things that they could gather before fleeing their home in terror.
"Old man, why are you straying from your home at night? This is not the way that decent folk should act," Toku questioned. "What is wrong?"
"Noble sir," the man replied nervously, "we had to flee. Our neighbors were killed by something terrible. I saw the bodies... they were torn to pieces. I cannot risk my families lives, so we fled... I am sorry, but I have no choice..." he finished, looking around as though he were waiting for the fiends of Jigoku to descend on him at any moment.
"Kasuga Rei, check these peasants for any signs of Taint. Ninjai and Isawa Hitoshi, keep them under guard. I must speak further with this man to remind him of his duties."
Toku motioned for the peasant to follow him, and began speaking to him quietly, "I understand your concern for your family, but you cannot abandon your duty to the land or its people. If all were to adopt this attitude, the land of Rokugan would be lost in but a day. I must insist that you abandon this foolish flight, and accompany us back to your home."
"I am sorry, sir. I understand that we all have duties, and mine is to my family first. I cannot let the evil take them..."
Toku interrupted, harshly, "Your first duty is to the Empire, not to your family. It is my duty to protect you, and yours to harvest the land that sustains all of us. If you choose to abandon your humanity and take up the path of an animal fleeing in fear, then I will be forced to take your life. It is not a duty I cherish, but if you persist in abandoning your duty and behaving like a frightened dog, I will have no choice. For your family's sake, do not kill yourelf in front of them by carrying on this foolishness. We will escort you back and protect you, and you will continue the harvest."
"Of course, we will," he said with a hitch in his voice, and his eyes were rapidly filling with tears, seeing death on one side and damnation on the other, and given no choice, he turned to his family and began laboring to turn the cart around. Toku began to help him, and Ninjai and Kasuga attempted to calm the children, who showed no evidence of the Taint, but had begun wailing in fear as the cart was turned back towards the village.
As they began the last part of the journey to Haniko Ranbo, with the faintest hints of light coloring the eastern sky, indicating dawn was about an hour ahead of them, Toku began to tell a story to the two wailing children in an effort to calm them. It was a tale of the peasants noble calling to toil in the land, and how the entire world depended on their passionate labor, and that the duty of a peasant reaps rich rewards on the celestial wheel. This was a tale the older one had heard before and he eventually calmed down, and listened with rapt attention, all the while trying to quiet his younger brother. Kasuga took out a zeni, and held it in her hand and did a number of dextrous manipulations that even Toku's trained eyes could not entirely follow, and this finally seemed to mollify the child. And finally, as the sun crested the horizon, they saw the fields of Haniko Ranbo in the distance.
Part III forthcoming soon.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Higgs Boson and Supersymmetry
Just to preface, for anyone out there who does not know me, I am not a theoretical physicist (that should be obvious as you read further), just an interested bystander who likes to read and think about topics in physics and cosmology. So forgive me if I sometime verge on the philosophical in the following passage; I am by no means an expert and little to no credence should be given to anything I say here.
That having been said, I have been following a little bit about the Large Hadron Collider, which should be online soon, investigating the existence (or not) of the "Higgs Boson". The Higgs Boson is a particle that is one part of a non-zero valued field (not coincidentally called the Higgs Field) in empty space. My understanding of this is that it is essentially a field that has an magnitude that exceeds that of surrounding space, essentially giving mass to all of the elementary particles. It is a proposed mechanism to get mass into the sub-sub-atomic structures. The problem with particle physics seems to be that we have discovered a bunch of massless particles that somehow combine to form particles that have mass (for example, electrons have a mass of 1/1836 of a proton, or about 9 x 10 to the negative 31 kg (that's a decimal point followed by thirty zeroes and a 9) a very small mass, but a mass nonetheless). The Higgs Boson was proposed, I think in the mid-1950's, as a way to account for mass in the theoretical mechanisms of particle physics, and pop-culture has dubbed it the "God Particle".
Here's the problem, though; we haven't ever seen one (not that we could, but we haven't ever seen traces of one). This causes an inordinate amount of problems in theoretical physics, and many physicists refer to it as the "God-damned Particle" out of frustration. The LHC could solve this problem, or create a much bigger one. If they fail to discover any Higgs Bosons, it doesn't mean they don't exist, it is very hard to prove non-existence, but it still runs counter to all commonly accepted particle physics. In fact, there are many physicists attempting work on alternate models to explain why stuff works the way it does - why things have mass, how CP-symmetry can be violated in weak nuclear interactions, but seemingly can't in strong nuclear interactions. If we don't find this little particle, the physics world may be in for a mighty upheaval.
All of this seems to go hand in hand with our existence in what is called a "fine-tuned" universe. This is one of the larger problems that cosmology has to face. It seems like life can only exist in a very narrow range of physical constants for the universe - the so-called fine tuning. Outside a very narrow range of constants (like the gravitational constant for instance, g is about 6.674 time ten to the negative 11th power Newton-meter squared per kilogram squared (it pisses me of that I can't plug in Microsoft equation editor or Math type into this blog!!!!) - if this constant were very slightly different from this value, the possibility for the universe to exist as it does and support life falls of to zero very quickly). Similarly, if the strong nuclear force were about 2% stronger, we would have deuterium and helium be much more common than hydrogen, altering the fundamental nature of stars.
Here's the problem - all of that is unobservable. Since we only exist in this universe, with these physical constants the assumption is that we will never be able to observe those "other universes" because they do not fit with our existence. So there existence is largely disregarded by modern physics - if it is unobservable, it is essentially irrelevant (but oh so very interesting to think about); the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for us means that we can only observe it. Other non-tuned universes may exist with there own unique forms of life, but we will never interact and never know if each other exists.
So even though the probability of everything aligning right to create the universe where and when we exist is tremendously small,since we exist it must have happened (and there are philosophers who say this proves that God exists, fine tuning the universe for us, and others that maintain that, given enough random universe attempts, the one we are in will invariably occur).
So now on to the nature of infinity, and I realize I have strayed dramatically off topic. The belief in the infinite is odd to say the least. The existence of the number zero throws a lot of messy concepts into our lives, ones which most of us choose to completely ignore. Right now, we have a conceptualization of "zero" - I have 0 dollars in my pocket right now - but what does that imply. Introduce zero into mathematics, and you can almost immediately find infinity cropping up - try dividing by zero. Conventionally, we are told that it is impossible, but that presents another problem - why should there exist one and only one number, for which this operation is non-viable? As you get close to dividing by zero (say by dividing by .1, or .01, or .001) the numbers get bigger and bigger (10, 100, and 1000, respectively). A simple progression shows that the closer one gets to dividing by zero, the closer one gets to infinity (or negative infinity, if you divide by the negative numbers). So, by extension, if you do divide by zero, you do get infinity. And here is where the concept gets really weird.
If any constant divided by zero is infinity, then zero times infinity could lead to any constant. Now that is a problem. If both zero and infinity exist in actual fact, not just in our heads, and the universes are truly infinite (the one physicists study is not, despite popular opinion) then we have an infinite number of trials for any event, and even things with a zero probability will happen eventually (because infinity times 0 is a finite number). That has some really weird implications - a universe where every possible outcome must eventually be represented must mean that there are an infinite number of universes, an infinite number in which you do and don't exist (or exist and don't exist simultaneously - try thinking about that for a while, that has a 0 probability, but with enough trials should still occur). All because of our pesky insistence on the belief in zero. If you want a slightly more tangible look at this, just think about the number pi - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (about 3.14159265358979...). We all accept that it is irrational -it goes on forever, never terminating and never establishing a repeating pattern. If it truly is an infinite string of numbers, then it follows that every other possible numeric sequence is contained in it. You should be able to find a pattern, at some point that lists the whole numbers in order (...12345678910111213...) from 0 to infinity. If it truly is infinite, this should happen at some point. But how could infinity be contained in infinity? We already have another theoretical example of this in basic geometry (and my high school teacher got pissed at me when I broached this topic with him in class 22 years ago). A ray is like a line except that it has an initial point and extends infinitely in one direction. If that is the case, then you could pick any point on the ray, declare that as the new initial point of a new ray in the same direction, and voile, you have a segment of finite length with a ray of infinite length. And if you do that repeatedly, you could get an infinite amount of discreet segments of finite length, plus a ray of infinite length, from the same initial ray that was just of infinite length! Cool, huh?
None of which has any bearing whatsoever on the fact that I should be out purchasing a WebKin for my cousin for her birthday right now, but I suppose I can take comfort that in some other existence I have already done that (of course in another one, I have killed and eaten my cousins, and in another we are non-sentient jelly-like blobs who have never conceived of these little devices). So more later, and sorry I never got to super-symmetry and other things like electron model theoretical constructs, as was my original intention.
End of line...
(so now you know what I think about when I'm bored, supergoober)
That having been said, I have been following a little bit about the Large Hadron Collider, which should be online soon, investigating the existence (or not) of the "Higgs Boson". The Higgs Boson is a particle that is one part of a non-zero valued field (not coincidentally called the Higgs Field) in empty space. My understanding of this is that it is essentially a field that has an magnitude that exceeds that of surrounding space, essentially giving mass to all of the elementary particles. It is a proposed mechanism to get mass into the sub-sub-atomic structures. The problem with particle physics seems to be that we have discovered a bunch of massless particles that somehow combine to form particles that have mass (for example, electrons have a mass of 1/1836 of a proton, or about 9 x 10 to the negative 31 kg (that's a decimal point followed by thirty zeroes and a 9) a very small mass, but a mass nonetheless). The Higgs Boson was proposed, I think in the mid-1950's, as a way to account for mass in the theoretical mechanisms of particle physics, and pop-culture has dubbed it the "God Particle".
Here's the problem, though; we haven't ever seen one (not that we could, but we haven't ever seen traces of one). This causes an inordinate amount of problems in theoretical physics, and many physicists refer to it as the "God-damned Particle" out of frustration. The LHC could solve this problem, or create a much bigger one. If they fail to discover any Higgs Bosons, it doesn't mean they don't exist, it is very hard to prove non-existence, but it still runs counter to all commonly accepted particle physics. In fact, there are many physicists attempting work on alternate models to explain why stuff works the way it does - why things have mass, how CP-symmetry can be violated in weak nuclear interactions, but seemingly can't in strong nuclear interactions. If we don't find this little particle, the physics world may be in for a mighty upheaval.
All of this seems to go hand in hand with our existence in what is called a "fine-tuned" universe. This is one of the larger problems that cosmology has to face. It seems like life can only exist in a very narrow range of physical constants for the universe - the so-called fine tuning. Outside a very narrow range of constants (like the gravitational constant for instance, g is about 6.674 time ten to the negative 11th power Newton-meter squared per kilogram squared (it pisses me of that I can't plug in Microsoft equation editor or Math type into this blog!!!!) - if this constant were very slightly different from this value, the possibility for the universe to exist as it does and support life falls of to zero very quickly). Similarly, if the strong nuclear force were about 2% stronger, we would have deuterium and helium be much more common than hydrogen, altering the fundamental nature of stars.
Here's the problem - all of that is unobservable. Since we only exist in this universe, with these physical constants the assumption is that we will never be able to observe those "other universes" because they do not fit with our existence. So there existence is largely disregarded by modern physics - if it is unobservable, it is essentially irrelevant (but oh so very interesting to think about); the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for us means that we can only observe it. Other non-tuned universes may exist with there own unique forms of life, but we will never interact and never know if each other exists.
So even though the probability of everything aligning right to create the universe where and when we exist is tremendously small,since we exist it must have happened (and there are philosophers who say this proves that God exists, fine tuning the universe for us, and others that maintain that, given enough random universe attempts, the one we are in will invariably occur).
So now on to the nature of infinity, and I realize I have strayed dramatically off topic. The belief in the infinite is odd to say the least. The existence of the number zero throws a lot of messy concepts into our lives, ones which most of us choose to completely ignore. Right now, we have a conceptualization of "zero" - I have 0 dollars in my pocket right now - but what does that imply. Introduce zero into mathematics, and you can almost immediately find infinity cropping up - try dividing by zero. Conventionally, we are told that it is impossible, but that presents another problem - why should there exist one and only one number, for which this operation is non-viable? As you get close to dividing by zero (say by dividing by .1, or .01, or .001) the numbers get bigger and bigger (10, 100, and 1000, respectively). A simple progression shows that the closer one gets to dividing by zero, the closer one gets to infinity (or negative infinity, if you divide by the negative numbers). So, by extension, if you do divide by zero, you do get infinity. And here is where the concept gets really weird.
If any constant divided by zero is infinity, then zero times infinity could lead to any constant. Now that is a problem. If both zero and infinity exist in actual fact, not just in our heads, and the universes are truly infinite (the one physicists study is not, despite popular opinion) then we have an infinite number of trials for any event, and even things with a zero probability will happen eventually (because infinity times 0 is a finite number). That has some really weird implications - a universe where every possible outcome must eventually be represented must mean that there are an infinite number of universes, an infinite number in which you do and don't exist (or exist and don't exist simultaneously - try thinking about that for a while, that has a 0 probability, but with enough trials should still occur). All because of our pesky insistence on the belief in zero. If you want a slightly more tangible look at this, just think about the number pi - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (about 3.14159265358979...). We all accept that it is irrational -it goes on forever, never terminating and never establishing a repeating pattern. If it truly is an infinite string of numbers, then it follows that every other possible numeric sequence is contained in it. You should be able to find a pattern, at some point that lists the whole numbers in order (...12345678910111213...) from 0 to infinity. If it truly is infinite, this should happen at some point. But how could infinity be contained in infinity? We already have another theoretical example of this in basic geometry (and my high school teacher got pissed at me when I broached this topic with him in class 22 years ago). A ray is like a line except that it has an initial point and extends infinitely in one direction. If that is the case, then you could pick any point on the ray, declare that as the new initial point of a new ray in the same direction, and voile, you have a segment of finite length with a ray of infinite length. And if you do that repeatedly, you could get an infinite amount of discreet segments of finite length, plus a ray of infinite length, from the same initial ray that was just of infinite length! Cool, huh?
None of which has any bearing whatsoever on the fact that I should be out purchasing a WebKin for my cousin for her birthday right now, but I suppose I can take comfort that in some other existence I have already done that (of course in another one, I have killed and eaten my cousins, and in another we are non-sentient jelly-like blobs who have never conceived of these little devices). So more later, and sorry I never got to super-symmetry and other things like electron model theoretical constructs, as was my original intention.
End of line...
(so now you know what I think about when I'm bored, supergoober)
Friday, September 19, 2008
It's Been Done Before
So, why not by me? Yep, I am going to endeavor to come up with AD&D character versions of the candidates and their veeps. Of course, you know what political side of the fence I am on, but I bear no great love for either candidate, but I will admit my bias and say that Obama probably gets the shorter end of the stick (I don't know this for a fact, yet; I only have a rough idea of what I am going to say).
But before that, does anyone else think that Barack Obama bears more than a passing resemblance to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson? Check out the photos below:
Now, I don't know about you, but I might be a little more inspired to vote an Obama ticket if he threw McCain on an announcer's table (maybe on the FOX News Channel), shouted, "DO YOU SMELL WHAT BARACK IS COOKIN'?!", and tore off one of his suit sleeves to do the people's elbow from the ring out onto the aforementioned announcer's table - nothing like slappin' the beat-down on a near crippled elderly man to make me wanna vote for ya!!
I am using the good old 1978 version of the Players Handbook (does it bug anyone else that there should be an apostrophe on that?) and I have included the full name of the characteristic for those of you not up on the abbreviations from the old days. I also included the Comeliness characteristic that was introduced in Unearthed Arcana, I think around 1985, the year that I helped thediscourser in rolling up Barbarians in the Campus Ministry office at our Catholic High School (I think the image of him picking up 9d6, jiggling them around, dropping them on the table, all whilst giggling "I love the new way of rolling up barbarians!" is permanently emblazoned in my memory). So without further ado, here is my feeble attempt at nerd humor, with a good dose of political bias (I guess it is a minor plus that I at least admit the bias):
Barack Obama, 4th Level Human Illusionist (18th Level)
Strength: 9
Intelligence: 11 (19)
Wisdom: 6
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 0
Charisma: 6 (21)
Comeliness: 13
Hit Points: 12 (120)
Like many other magic-users, Barack has conjured himself a familiar through which he focuses much of his powers. The characteristics in parentheses are when his familiar is present. His familiar is an arcane creature that is shrouded in mystery and known only as "the teleprompter". When this familiar is incapacitated or removed from his presence, Barrack immediately falters, losing most of his intelligence, charisma, and illusionist abilities. He has taken great care to keep this familiar protected at all times to prevent his opponents from gaining any advantage. This is the ultimate price any magic-user must pay when trying a quick route to power.
In addition to all other illusionist spells, he can cast Change Self (Level 1), Hypnotic Pattern (Level 2), and Misdirection (Level 2) at will as long as his teleprompter is present. His favored tactic is to cast Mass Suggestion (Level 6) to convince crowds to turn against his foes, so that he can maintain the decorum of a candidate for change. He also will cast Emotion (Level 4) in attempts to persuade people to join an irrational position. Unbeknownst to him, "The Teleprompter" has cast a permanent Alter Reality (Level 7) spell on him so that he believes that he has already won the election.
He wears magical robes tailored by the finest craftsmen of the land, these enable all but the most cutting of attacks to slide right off of him, giving him an effective Armor Class of -2. This is increased to -10 if media persons are nearby, somehow his armor draws power from them. The only exception is if members of FOX News are nearby, who somehow drain the armor of its power, giving him an effective AC of 10, so even the least credible attack by FOX News somehow manages to influence their viewers to view Barack negatively (though, admittedly, this is fairly easy given most FOX viewers party affiliations).
In addition, he has several high level multi-classed fighter/CEO hirelings, particularly Jim Johnson, though it is unclear who is actually the hireling in this relationship.
____________________________________________
John McCain, Level 14 fighter, split-classed to a Level 3 politician
Strength: 6
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 11
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 0
Charisma: 12 (6 with Democrats, 6 with Republicans, the 12 applies only to those with no party affiliation)
Comeliness: 9
Hit Points: 6
After a long career as a fighter, as well as a number of crippling injuries, John McCain attempted to split-class into a career politician. While he has remained a politician for many years, he has been unable to gain much experience due to pandering to the media, and attempts to placate both sides, as well as receiving significant experience penalties for his repeated switching of alignment from Chaotic Good Liberal to Lawful Evil Conservative. He has recently switched to True Neutral Moderate, though one can never tell how long he may maintain one alignment. Many have theorized that he must have had a Change Alignment curse at some point that is still in effect. As a result, his charisma is extremely low against people committed to any political alignment - they simply do not trust him.
As Politician is a sub-class of Thief, he does have all thief abilities, but he is not very good at any of them, with the exception of the Hide in Shadows ability, something he does with a 99% chance of success. He is so good, in fact, that he can give a speech under full glare of the media, complete with recording devices, and no one can really say that anything he did was memorable. In fact, they are hard pressed to remember anything about him, and forget it all unless they are constantly bombarded with recorded messages of him. He does have the Pickpocket ability, and though he is not particularly good at hiding its use, he has convinced himself of the necessity of picking the pockets of most Americans. He has also recently demonstrated the thief Backstabbing ability (ask Lieberman about the Palin vice presidential pick).
He is still technically in the Republican Thieves Guild (though many in that Guild steadfastly maintain that he should join the Democratic Thieves Guild instead). His preferred weapon is the garrote, which he repeatedly uses on himself - it no longer does damage to him, but it does cause his speech to be nearly inaudible and in large part unintelligible. He has no henchmen or hirelings, as none of them consider him a dependable enough individual to whom they could throw their allegiance.
His one special ability is that he can use, once per week, the 3rd Level clerical spell, Animate Dead. He typically uses this to lend a semblance of life to the Republican Party, and, though it seldom has a lasting effect, he continues to use this power regularly. He also labors under a curse, caused by his frequent collusions with Feingold and Kennedy. The effect of this curse is that whenever the collusions are brought up in conversation, the spell Transmute Rock to Mud is cast on his Conservative Base, causing it to erode rapidly.
Recently, he has been attempting to split-class again into the Druid class. This has been largely unsuccessful, because even though he steadfastly maintains belief in environmental causes, his former Lawful Evil Conservative alignment has prohibited him from becoming a Druid (we all know Druids are supposed to be True Neutral).
It is also believed that he has minor psionic ability; he has no offensive abilities, but has the defensive ability Mind Blank. He also has the minor ability Empathy, but seldom, if ever, uses it.
________________________________________
Note that BOTH candidates receive a 0 for Constitution, because that is about how much respect and knowledge I believe that each of them actually have for the document (is that cynical enough for you, supergoober?). Right now, I am tired. I will probably ridicule the vice presidential candidates tomorrow.
But before that, does anyone else think that Barack Obama bears more than a passing resemblance to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson? Check out the photos below:
Now, I don't know about you, but I might be a little more inspired to vote an Obama ticket if he threw McCain on an announcer's table (maybe on the FOX News Channel), shouted, "DO YOU SMELL WHAT BARACK IS COOKIN'?!", and tore off one of his suit sleeves to do the people's elbow from the ring out onto the aforementioned announcer's table - nothing like slappin' the beat-down on a near crippled elderly man to make me wanna vote for ya!!
I am using the good old 1978 version of the Players Handbook (does it bug anyone else that there should be an apostrophe on that?) and I have included the full name of the characteristic for those of you not up on the abbreviations from the old days. I also included the Comeliness characteristic that was introduced in Unearthed Arcana, I think around 1985, the year that I helped thediscourser in rolling up Barbarians in the Campus Ministry office at our Catholic High School (I think the image of him picking up 9d6, jiggling them around, dropping them on the table, all whilst giggling "I love the new way of rolling up barbarians!" is permanently emblazoned in my memory). So without further ado, here is my feeble attempt at nerd humor, with a good dose of political bias (I guess it is a minor plus that I at least admit the bias):
Barack Obama, 4th Level Human Illusionist (18th Level)
Strength: 9
Intelligence: 11 (19)
Wisdom: 6
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 0
Charisma: 6 (21)
Comeliness: 13
Hit Points: 12 (120)
Like many other magic-users, Barack has conjured himself a familiar through which he focuses much of his powers. The characteristics in parentheses are when his familiar is present. His familiar is an arcane creature that is shrouded in mystery and known only as "the teleprompter". When this familiar is incapacitated or removed from his presence, Barrack immediately falters, losing most of his intelligence, charisma, and illusionist abilities. He has taken great care to keep this familiar protected at all times to prevent his opponents from gaining any advantage. This is the ultimate price any magic-user must pay when trying a quick route to power.
In addition to all other illusionist spells, he can cast Change Self (Level 1), Hypnotic Pattern (Level 2), and Misdirection (Level 2) at will as long as his teleprompter is present. His favored tactic is to cast Mass Suggestion (Level 6) to convince crowds to turn against his foes, so that he can maintain the decorum of a candidate for change. He also will cast Emotion (Level 4) in attempts to persuade people to join an irrational position. Unbeknownst to him, "The Teleprompter" has cast a permanent Alter Reality (Level 7) spell on him so that he believes that he has already won the election.
He wears magical robes tailored by the finest craftsmen of the land, these enable all but the most cutting of attacks to slide right off of him, giving him an effective Armor Class of -2. This is increased to -10 if media persons are nearby, somehow his armor draws power from them. The only exception is if members of FOX News are nearby, who somehow drain the armor of its power, giving him an effective AC of 10, so even the least credible attack by FOX News somehow manages to influence their viewers to view Barack negatively (though, admittedly, this is fairly easy given most FOX viewers party affiliations).
In addition, he has several high level multi-classed fighter/CEO hirelings, particularly Jim Johnson, though it is unclear who is actually the hireling in this relationship.
____________________________________________
John McCain, Level 14 fighter, split-classed to a Level 3 politician
Strength: 6
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 11
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 0
Charisma: 12 (6 with Democrats, 6 with Republicans, the 12 applies only to those with no party affiliation)
Comeliness: 9
Hit Points: 6
After a long career as a fighter, as well as a number of crippling injuries, John McCain attempted to split-class into a career politician. While he has remained a politician for many years, he has been unable to gain much experience due to pandering to the media, and attempts to placate both sides, as well as receiving significant experience penalties for his repeated switching of alignment from Chaotic Good Liberal to Lawful Evil Conservative. He has recently switched to True Neutral Moderate, though one can never tell how long he may maintain one alignment. Many have theorized that he must have had a Change Alignment curse at some point that is still in effect. As a result, his charisma is extremely low against people committed to any political alignment - they simply do not trust him.
As Politician is a sub-class of Thief, he does have all thief abilities, but he is not very good at any of them, with the exception of the Hide in Shadows ability, something he does with a 99% chance of success. He is so good, in fact, that he can give a speech under full glare of the media, complete with recording devices, and no one can really say that anything he did was memorable. In fact, they are hard pressed to remember anything about him, and forget it all unless they are constantly bombarded with recorded messages of him. He does have the Pickpocket ability, and though he is not particularly good at hiding its use, he has convinced himself of the necessity of picking the pockets of most Americans. He has also recently demonstrated the thief Backstabbing ability (ask Lieberman about the Palin vice presidential pick).
He is still technically in the Republican Thieves Guild (though many in that Guild steadfastly maintain that he should join the Democratic Thieves Guild instead). His preferred weapon is the garrote, which he repeatedly uses on himself - it no longer does damage to him, but it does cause his speech to be nearly inaudible and in large part unintelligible. He has no henchmen or hirelings, as none of them consider him a dependable enough individual to whom they could throw their allegiance.
His one special ability is that he can use, once per week, the 3rd Level clerical spell, Animate Dead. He typically uses this to lend a semblance of life to the Republican Party, and, though it seldom has a lasting effect, he continues to use this power regularly. He also labors under a curse, caused by his frequent collusions with Feingold and Kennedy. The effect of this curse is that whenever the collusions are brought up in conversation, the spell Transmute Rock to Mud is cast on his Conservative Base, causing it to erode rapidly.
Recently, he has been attempting to split-class again into the Druid class. This has been largely unsuccessful, because even though he steadfastly maintains belief in environmental causes, his former Lawful Evil Conservative alignment has prohibited him from becoming a Druid (we all know Druids are supposed to be True Neutral).
It is also believed that he has minor psionic ability; he has no offensive abilities, but has the defensive ability Mind Blank. He also has the minor ability Empathy, but seldom, if ever, uses it.
________________________________________
Note that BOTH candidates receive a 0 for Constitution, because that is about how much respect and knowledge I believe that each of them actually have for the document (is that cynical enough for you, supergoober?). Right now, I am tired. I will probably ridicule the vice presidential candidates tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
On The Lighter Side
Okay, enough of the philosophical and historically analytical crap. I just wanted to mention a few really funny shows that seem to have me as the entirety of their intended demographic. The fact that they remained on the air for a reasonable amount of time I find somewhat reassuring - while it crushes my sense of self-worth by confirming that I am not as unique as I think I am, it also provides some solace in knowing that I am not alone ;)
But seriously, here is a list of several really funny shows, in no particular order, that you will love if you are into all things nerdish:
But seriously, here is a list of several really funny shows, in no particular order, that you will love if you are into all things nerdish:
- Spaced - a British comedy about a small group of youngish (late 20s) people who just don't fit in. Written by and starring the same guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead (in fact one of the episodes inspired the movie) it aired for two seasons 1999 and 2000. How can you go wrong with verbal sparring between two characters trying to say the most hurtful things to each other interspersed with clips of Tekken 2 - Nina Williams and Paul Phoenix fighting - whenever one scores a verbal barb, they cut to a scene of their respective character pulling off a combo - "Daisy Wins"
- Sealab 2021 - so many nerdy references it is unreal - coupled with a stellar voice cast, and funny plots, with a touch of the fourth wall breaking "meta" aspects as well. Add in the fact that you might have watched the original as a young tyke, and you have a winner.
- South Park - the most mainstream show on my list, but still filled with Star Trek references and plays on all sides of politics, this is the show for the person who is simultaneously sophisticated and crude, who likes subtle political/social commentary as well as jokes about people crapping out of their mouths - to quote Homer Simpson "It works on so many levels"
- The Tick - whether live action or animated, the greatness of this show cannot be denied. Spoof every heroic convention, and add in a pinch of realism to boot - the combination is amazing.
- Red Dwarf - Take every sci-fi idea and turn it inside out, and you've got this show. Brilliantly written and acted, I have not seen an episode that I haven't enjoyed. If you disagree, Mr. Flibble and I will sentence you to two hours W.O.O. (With Out Oxygen)
That's it for now, I just stuck to the comedies, but who knows, maybe a more comprehensive list is forthcoming. You owe it to yourself to watch these, and if you know me, I own them all and could loan them to you - I don't own every South Park or Red Dwarf yet, however.
Either way, if you are a nerd, you owe it to yourself to watch these. Either netflix 'em, download 'em, or buy 'em (and I would recommend the last to support the poor schmoes who write this wonderful stuff for us), but whatever you do, watch them. If you don't, then you might as well turn in you Blue Blazer Regular ID card, and start watching Star Trek Next Generation (I could think of no worse punishment, except, perhaps, watching Star Trek: Voyager)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A Failed Monetary Policy
So, in between work and tutoring, I was rereading the rules to the 5th edition of Warhammer 40K, and listening to the news in the background, when I heard one of the most inane blurbs from Hillary Clinton. I don't know who was interviewing her, but her response to the "financial crisis" was twofold. I didn't have time to write as I heard it so I filed it in a mental inventory with the Obama quote I mentioned a few days ago, and decided that tonight was the night.
Hillary said something to the effect of their should be a freeze on interest rates and a moratorium on foreclosures. Now either this perspective represents profound naivete about our fiscal system (which I doubt), or it is designed to garner accolades for her and her party because clearly she cares about the little guy (far more likely). Whether or not she meant it, I felt that I could devote a paragraph or two to destroying this extremely foolish notion.
First, if we institute a government freeze on interest rates, how exactly do we think that will impact struggling financial markets - gee, do you think it will cause the businesses to stop lending money, even to each other. Perhaps, because you will not be able to make money on your investment. Effectively, that move would freeze capital in the US, and we don't actually control the worldwide lending market, so nothing would force them to freeze. Patently stupid. Nuff said.
The profoundly idiotic statement about a moratorium on foreclosures simply hurt my brain. On an emotional level, this sounds great - people won't lose their houses, good for them. Pardon me for sounding cruel, but if you over-extended yourself to get into a house and you screwed up in doing that, deal with it. Yes, it sucks, but you should have known the risks going in. Beyond that, if you do put this kind of moratorium in, why would anyone pay their mortgage at all? If a bank can't foreclose, and you can't lose your house, why bother to pay the money back at all? That kind of moratorium would be catastrophic - and I am pretty sure Hillary is smart enough to know that, but she is also savvy enough to know that such a good-hearted statement will never be questioned, so politically it is a brilliant move, and if she were actually running for office it may have garnered her a few votes.
But to go back to a couple of days ago, when Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were "taken over" by the government (something of a misstatement, as they were already privately owned government agencies - a weird kind of hybrid that was probably doomed to failure from the start), I heard Obama say that it was time that we "...crack down on reckless borrowers and help homeowners..."
It is my fervent hope that in a moment of confusion, he switched up a couple of words. I am sure that he must have meant reckless lenders, not reckless borrowers. Probably an honest misstatement because people in politics talk a lot, and it is not uncommon for all of them to slip a word now and again. In fact, we make too much of these subtle slips in most cases. Obviously, one cannot simultaneously crack down on reckless borrowers and help homeowners because they are one and the same. But even if he did mean lenders, he still shows a fundamental misunderstanding of a failed monetary policy that has been in place for about 15 years. Not to mention the fact that he would be rewarding inappropriate risks - helping people with houses they should have never bought while screwing over people like theGM, who has saved money to get in to a house when the timing was right. If this bailout happens in full, then housing prices will remain artificially high, and the market will have to correct later. In other words, this bailout would forestall the inevitable, and make the next crisis even worse because of the feeling that the government should bail us out of any foolish action.
A brief explanation of the history of the failed policy. It does go back to Bill Clinton, and, no, I am not using him as a scapegoat - I saw this coming a long time ago, and it is an inevitable result of the way that he addressed the economy.
But first, a brief aside. My view of the economy is this. It is, because of the fundamental relationship that our government has with the people (that is we are allowed independence, property rights, etc.), the most vibrant and long-term stable economy in the history of the modern world. One could make the argument that Rome was more stable for longer, but they relied on conquest and slavery. Our economic vitality springs from freedom and opportunity, and while we had a slave economy for a long time, we did not experience true economic expansion until the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century. But economies are cyclical - there will be periods of high and low points (for the mathematically minded, it is like a sinusoidal graph that has a positively sloped line as its axis rather than a horizontal axis). The best thing that government can do is adopt policies that slightly alter the course of the economy in a positive long term trend. This requires careful analysis and long-term perspectives. However, being that politicians are up for elections regularly, these incremental positive changes are not sexy enough to garner votes (wonder why fiscal conservatives don't often win reelections? - there's a big part of the reason). We demand (foolishly) immediate action, immediate recovery, and no possible impact on our behavior from standard economic fluctuations. In fact, we are so spoiled by the strength of the country for the last 28 years that many of us cannot remember true economic hardship - try bracket creep, 15-25% inflation, 23%+ home loan rates, gas prices that hit about $1 per gallon when the median income was $15,000 per year (by comparison, $4 a gallon with a median of about $55,000 now, gas prices are slightly worse now than they were then, but they are not coupled with crippling inflation, COLA raises putting you into a higher tax bracket thus reducing your total worth, and ridiculous interest rates bordering on usury). Welcome to the late seventies, and that was not the worst economic time the country has ever had.
But back to my main point, the fact that our failed money policy does stem from the early nineties. Bush (92) was presiding over an economic slowdown that was inevitable after the rampant growth of the late eighties, and the resonating phrase from the Clinton vs. Bush election was "It's the economy, stupid" (ah, for the days when politics was civil, eh supergoober). That and we had such quotes as "I will focus on the economy like a laser beam", and after his election, "I have worked harder than I ever have before, but I cannot find a way to get a middle class tax cut" (despite his election promise). Anyway, idiotic campaign slogans aside, because you all know my political affiliations, I couldn't resist a few pot shots, his solution for a lagging economy was a soft money policy.
Basically a soft money policy is one where you free up a lot of capital by keeping interest rates low and encouraging borrowing. This was a key part in keeping the economic growth going in the nineties, and this policy, plus another one, led to a couple of major economic downturns that we alleviated by engaging further in soft money policies. I do not put all the blame on Clinton for this. Yes it was his policy, but many Republicans in the post 1994 elected Congress did nothing to stop the shifting of regulations on lending industries. This was probably due to two reasons - deregulation is near and dear to fiscal conservatives, and they mistook what was happening for deregulation, and they probably knew the short term economic gains would result in them looking good. So they steered clear of the issue entirely, and let it happen. This does make them at least partly to blame.
If you remember, people were taking out loans and investing them in companies that were shoddily defined and somehow had to do with the "INTERNET". This was perceived as a guaranteed money-maker, and I was even saying then, as I was in college, that the whole situation reminded me of the twenties, when people took out loans to invest in companies that existed only on paper - and we all know what happened next in that little situation, just a small worldwide depression that only WWII pulled us out of (nope, I don't credit FDR, that's for another blog). Anyway, we had this big crash, and soft money helped us out of that, rates were still low, people could borrow to cover their losses and were encouraged to do so by shifting regulations to encourage riskier and riskier loans. People were using the money to invest in the stock market as well, because even if the stocks for Internet companies took a huge hit, other stocks were still good. Except:
In 1996, (I believe the year is correct, I am doing all of this from memory, yes I am online and I could look it up, but I just don't feel like it. You do some damn work and fact check for me - do you expect me to do everything for you?!) another piece of Clinton era legislation came into being - I don't recall the name, but I remember exactly what it did. It capped executive salaries at $1,000,000 per year. It did this indirectly by disallowing any greater salary to be written off as a business expense. I know some of you think that this is a "fair" thing, why should anyone make that much, but there were a couple of exceptions, oddly enough for major contributors to the Democratic Party. The two businesses that were exempt from this were sports organizations and film companies. Punish those dirty CEOs who are running companies that actually provide goods and services for the country, but give a little kickback to your contributors. This was not the first dalliance the country has had with wage controls (an earlier one with Dwight D. Eisenhower, a republican, resulted in our current health care insurance system instead of the old fee-for-service model, basically freezing wages for a given job, a company still wants to attract the best people; to do so it starts to offer "benefits" that are not actual wages, but insurances, and, voile, modern health insurance - wage controls can do a lot to f*** things up). Anyway, companies wanted to keep compensating valuable people, so rather than give more money, totally impractical under the new tax structure, they started offering more and more stock options. The CEOs, CFOs, etc. had already had an interest in keeping stock prices up, but now their compensation was directly tied to the value of the stock. That is a recipe for disaster - whereas before, a high stock price meant more capital influx to the business along with a better image in national and international trading, now it meant how much you were worth personally. That is a pretty extreme temptation - imagine realizing that if you just skewed some numbers a little bit, fudged a bit of data here and there, gave a bit of a rosy forecast where it wasn't really appropriate, and your personal value would skyrocket. That is a temptation that not too many businessmen could pass up, especially because there seemed to be no consequences. Other employees got stock options, too - if the stock went up everyone would gain - the investors, the workers, the management. It would be a difficult temptation to resist - it didn't seem illegal or too unethical, and everyone benefited, so why not. Obviously, Bill Clinton is not to blame for their specific actions, but clearly those actions would not have been taken had that fundamental shift in compensation not taken place. It's like placing a huge pile of candy in front of someone with an impulse control problem and then wondering why they gorged themselves sick.
So we get a major market crash as stocks readjust to realistic levels. The best bet would have been to let it alone, let the market readjust, and sort itself out. A historic example of this - 1987, October, we had the single biggest loss in a day in the stock market ever. Larger than the crash in 1929, if memory serves correctly. What was Reagan's decision - do nothing. Let the market rebound on its own, the economy on that level will take care of itself. Of course, there was a hue and cry about this apparently ludicrous policy, but it worked. We did not go into a long term recession, and the market worked itself out. Instead, however, we furthered the soft money policy, loosening up restrictions on lending even more, putting regulations in that force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make riskier loans. This was about the time that negatively amortized loans were getting big, and there was a big push in the housing sector.
It seemed like the next big thing - housing prices always go up long term, and typically outpace inflation. If you could get into a home with a low interest rate loan, then do it. With the negative amortization phenomenon, you actually paid less than you owed each month, so the principal of the loan kept growing. Your house value had to increase faster than your loan value did so you could turn over the house and move to a better house, having generated a tidy profit just by living in the house. Again, it seems like a good move unless you realize that house values do not steadily increase, they increase in a jagged line with periodic peaks and troughs. With a traditional loan and don payment structure, this is not a problem, you can weather any market inconsistencies. But with a lot of adjustable rate negatively amortized loans being packaged a few years ago, the current crash was eminently predictable. In fact, I mentioned to several different people a few years ago that I figured the market was due for a shakeup because of that (I know I talked about this with my wife, with supergoober as he bought his house, with themightymook as he helped me refinance, and with many others - probably theGM and NTT'SBrain as well).
Funny thing, however is that George W. Bush was trying to put in regulations on lending to reduce this policy in September of 2003. He did use this policy to try and help an economic recovery post 9/11, but his tax policy helped out with that as well (more on that later, but if you want info now, just do a google search on "The Laffer Curve" for the basics of tax policy and economic growth - while it is a gross oversimplification, it gives a light mathematical perspective and a common sense underpinning to economics - this curve is inordinately more complex under a "progressive" tax structure like we have now - detractors say that tax revenues grow with GDP, but ignore the fact that the policy itself can impact the GDP - more on that later). Anyway, Bush has long been trying to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back into some semblance of reality, but this has been continually stymied in the last five years or so by the likes of Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd. Interestingly enough, the larger portion of the lobbying largess from these companies has gone to Democrats this election cycle (but only slightly, 53%, and the last election cycle saw Republicans getting 53% - both sides have their hands in the cookie jar), and Obama used a former CEO of Fannie Mae to vet vice presidential candidates, but what is really interesting is the chart below, listing the order from highest to lowest recipients of contributions:
Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008
Recipient Office Party/State "Cash Monee Son" ;)
1. Dodd, Christopher J Senate D-CT $133,900
2. Kerry, John Senate D-MA $111,000
3. Obama, Barack Senate D-IL $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary Senate D-NY $75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E House D-PA $65,500
6. Bennett, Robert F Senate R-UT $61,499
7. Johnson, Tim Senate D-SD $61,000
8. Conrad, Kent Senate D-ND $58,991
9. Davis, Tom House R-VA $55,499
10. Bond, Christopher S Senate R-MO $55,400
11. Bachus, Spencer House R-AL $55,300
12. Shelby, Richard C Senate R-AL $55,000
13. Emanuel, Rahm House D-IL $51,750
14. Reed, Jack Senate D-RI $50,750
15. Carper, Tom Senate D-DE $44,389
16. Frank, Barney House D-MA $40,100
17. Maloney, Carolyn B House D-NY $38,750
18. Bean, Melissa House D-IL $37,249
19. Blunt, Roy House R-MO $36,500
20. Pryce, Deborah House R-OH $34,750
21. Miller, Gary House R-CA $33,000
22. Pelosi, Nancy House D-CA $32,750
23. Reynolds, Tom House R-NY $32,700
24. Hoyer, Steny H House D-MD $30,500
25. Hooley, Darlene House D-OR $28,750
Includes contributions from PACs and individuals in the 2008 cycle. Totals based on data downloaded from the Federal Election Commission on June 30, 2008. Data retrieved by me from http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html. So sue me, I guess I went ahead and did some of the research for you.
What I find interesting is that perrenial insider, Chris Dodd, senator since 1980, has aquired about $134,000 in donations over 20 years ($6,700 a year average), Hilary Clinton had $75,550 in 8 years (just over $8,400 a year average), while Barak Obama had $106,000 in 4 years ($26,500 a year average).
Hmm... I guess he has more experience than I realized (sorry, couldn't resist the cheap shot). Anyway, he obviously did have an interest in making sure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could keep doing whatever the hell they wanted - they kept contributing to him, you don't throw around that kind of cash for no reason. I just wanted to make the point that before someone starts pointing the finger of blame at whose fault it is that we are in the curent "crisis" (which I don't really see as a crisis, if you hadn't already divined that) we should actually try to remember things that have lead up to current events - remarkable how the past can be a lens through which we can observe the present and the future - at least until 2012 when the Mayans predicted the world would end. We are all dead in 4 years anyway, so who cares (BTW this is a huge joke - all you Mayan believers out there, tell me why you believe their prediction of the end, but not their description of the beginning - 15,000 years ago, with no evolution - just another creation myth - but it does use the same calender, so if the one is true, shouldn't the other be as well?)
That's it, this took me 2 + hours to write, much longer than I wanted, and I am sure that my wife is wondering why the hell I am taking so long to come to bed. Another early day tomorrow, so see you later.
Hillary said something to the effect of their should be a freeze on interest rates and a moratorium on foreclosures. Now either this perspective represents profound naivete about our fiscal system (which I doubt), or it is designed to garner accolades for her and her party because clearly she cares about the little guy (far more likely). Whether or not she meant it, I felt that I could devote a paragraph or two to destroying this extremely foolish notion.
First, if we institute a government freeze on interest rates, how exactly do we think that will impact struggling financial markets - gee, do you think it will cause the businesses to stop lending money, even to each other. Perhaps, because you will not be able to make money on your investment. Effectively, that move would freeze capital in the US, and we don't actually control the worldwide lending market, so nothing would force them to freeze. Patently stupid. Nuff said.
The profoundly idiotic statement about a moratorium on foreclosures simply hurt my brain. On an emotional level, this sounds great - people won't lose their houses, good for them. Pardon me for sounding cruel, but if you over-extended yourself to get into a house and you screwed up in doing that, deal with it. Yes, it sucks, but you should have known the risks going in. Beyond that, if you do put this kind of moratorium in, why would anyone pay their mortgage at all? If a bank can't foreclose, and you can't lose your house, why bother to pay the money back at all? That kind of moratorium would be catastrophic - and I am pretty sure Hillary is smart enough to know that, but she is also savvy enough to know that such a good-hearted statement will never be questioned, so politically it is a brilliant move, and if she were actually running for office it may have garnered her a few votes.
But to go back to a couple of days ago, when Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were "taken over" by the government (something of a misstatement, as they were already privately owned government agencies - a weird kind of hybrid that was probably doomed to failure from the start), I heard Obama say that it was time that we "...crack down on reckless borrowers and help homeowners..."
It is my fervent hope that in a moment of confusion, he switched up a couple of words. I am sure that he must have meant reckless lenders, not reckless borrowers. Probably an honest misstatement because people in politics talk a lot, and it is not uncommon for all of them to slip a word now and again. In fact, we make too much of these subtle slips in most cases. Obviously, one cannot simultaneously crack down on reckless borrowers and help homeowners because they are one and the same. But even if he did mean lenders, he still shows a fundamental misunderstanding of a failed monetary policy that has been in place for about 15 years. Not to mention the fact that he would be rewarding inappropriate risks - helping people with houses they should have never bought while screwing over people like theGM, who has saved money to get in to a house when the timing was right. If this bailout happens in full, then housing prices will remain artificially high, and the market will have to correct later. In other words, this bailout would forestall the inevitable, and make the next crisis even worse because of the feeling that the government should bail us out of any foolish action.
A brief explanation of the history of the failed policy. It does go back to Bill Clinton, and, no, I am not using him as a scapegoat - I saw this coming a long time ago, and it is an inevitable result of the way that he addressed the economy.
But first, a brief aside. My view of the economy is this. It is, because of the fundamental relationship that our government has with the people (that is we are allowed independence, property rights, etc.), the most vibrant and long-term stable economy in the history of the modern world. One could make the argument that Rome was more stable for longer, but they relied on conquest and slavery. Our economic vitality springs from freedom and opportunity, and while we had a slave economy for a long time, we did not experience true economic expansion until the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century. But economies are cyclical - there will be periods of high and low points (for the mathematically minded, it is like a sinusoidal graph that has a positively sloped line as its axis rather than a horizontal axis). The best thing that government can do is adopt policies that slightly alter the course of the economy in a positive long term trend. This requires careful analysis and long-term perspectives. However, being that politicians are up for elections regularly, these incremental positive changes are not sexy enough to garner votes (wonder why fiscal conservatives don't often win reelections? - there's a big part of the reason). We demand (foolishly) immediate action, immediate recovery, and no possible impact on our behavior from standard economic fluctuations. In fact, we are so spoiled by the strength of the country for the last 28 years that many of us cannot remember true economic hardship - try bracket creep, 15-25% inflation, 23%+ home loan rates, gas prices that hit about $1 per gallon when the median income was $15,000 per year (by comparison, $4 a gallon with a median of about $55,000 now, gas prices are slightly worse now than they were then, but they are not coupled with crippling inflation, COLA raises putting you into a higher tax bracket thus reducing your total worth, and ridiculous interest rates bordering on usury). Welcome to the late seventies, and that was not the worst economic time the country has ever had.
But back to my main point, the fact that our failed money policy does stem from the early nineties. Bush (92) was presiding over an economic slowdown that was inevitable after the rampant growth of the late eighties, and the resonating phrase from the Clinton vs. Bush election was "It's the economy, stupid" (ah, for the days when politics was civil, eh supergoober). That and we had such quotes as "I will focus on the economy like a laser beam", and after his election, "I have worked harder than I ever have before, but I cannot find a way to get a middle class tax cut" (despite his election promise). Anyway, idiotic campaign slogans aside, because you all know my political affiliations, I couldn't resist a few pot shots, his solution for a lagging economy was a soft money policy.
Basically a soft money policy is one where you free up a lot of capital by keeping interest rates low and encouraging borrowing. This was a key part in keeping the economic growth going in the nineties, and this policy, plus another one, led to a couple of major economic downturns that we alleviated by engaging further in soft money policies. I do not put all the blame on Clinton for this. Yes it was his policy, but many Republicans in the post 1994 elected Congress did nothing to stop the shifting of regulations on lending industries. This was probably due to two reasons - deregulation is near and dear to fiscal conservatives, and they mistook what was happening for deregulation, and they probably knew the short term economic gains would result in them looking good. So they steered clear of the issue entirely, and let it happen. This does make them at least partly to blame.
If you remember, people were taking out loans and investing them in companies that were shoddily defined and somehow had to do with the "INTERNET". This was perceived as a guaranteed money-maker, and I was even saying then, as I was in college, that the whole situation reminded me of the twenties, when people took out loans to invest in companies that existed only on paper - and we all know what happened next in that little situation, just a small worldwide depression that only WWII pulled us out of (nope, I don't credit FDR, that's for another blog). Anyway, we had this big crash, and soft money helped us out of that, rates were still low, people could borrow to cover their losses and were encouraged to do so by shifting regulations to encourage riskier and riskier loans. People were using the money to invest in the stock market as well, because even if the stocks for Internet companies took a huge hit, other stocks were still good. Except:
In 1996, (I believe the year is correct, I am doing all of this from memory, yes I am online and I could look it up, but I just don't feel like it. You do some damn work and fact check for me - do you expect me to do everything for you?!) another piece of Clinton era legislation came into being - I don't recall the name, but I remember exactly what it did. It capped executive salaries at $1,000,000 per year. It did this indirectly by disallowing any greater salary to be written off as a business expense. I know some of you think that this is a "fair" thing, why should anyone make that much, but there were a couple of exceptions, oddly enough for major contributors to the Democratic Party. The two businesses that were exempt from this were sports organizations and film companies. Punish those dirty CEOs who are running companies that actually provide goods and services for the country, but give a little kickback to your contributors. This was not the first dalliance the country has had with wage controls (an earlier one with Dwight D. Eisenhower, a republican, resulted in our current health care insurance system instead of the old fee-for-service model, basically freezing wages for a given job, a company still wants to attract the best people; to do so it starts to offer "benefits" that are not actual wages, but insurances, and, voile, modern health insurance - wage controls can do a lot to f*** things up). Anyway, companies wanted to keep compensating valuable people, so rather than give more money, totally impractical under the new tax structure, they started offering more and more stock options. The CEOs, CFOs, etc. had already had an interest in keeping stock prices up, but now their compensation was directly tied to the value of the stock. That is a recipe for disaster - whereas before, a high stock price meant more capital influx to the business along with a better image in national and international trading, now it meant how much you were worth personally. That is a pretty extreme temptation - imagine realizing that if you just skewed some numbers a little bit, fudged a bit of data here and there, gave a bit of a rosy forecast where it wasn't really appropriate, and your personal value would skyrocket. That is a temptation that not too many businessmen could pass up, especially because there seemed to be no consequences. Other employees got stock options, too - if the stock went up everyone would gain - the investors, the workers, the management. It would be a difficult temptation to resist - it didn't seem illegal or too unethical, and everyone benefited, so why not. Obviously, Bill Clinton is not to blame for their specific actions, but clearly those actions would not have been taken had that fundamental shift in compensation not taken place. It's like placing a huge pile of candy in front of someone with an impulse control problem and then wondering why they gorged themselves sick.
So we get a major market crash as stocks readjust to realistic levels. The best bet would have been to let it alone, let the market readjust, and sort itself out. A historic example of this - 1987, October, we had the single biggest loss in a day in the stock market ever. Larger than the crash in 1929, if memory serves correctly. What was Reagan's decision - do nothing. Let the market rebound on its own, the economy on that level will take care of itself. Of course, there was a hue and cry about this apparently ludicrous policy, but it worked. We did not go into a long term recession, and the market worked itself out. Instead, however, we furthered the soft money policy, loosening up restrictions on lending even more, putting regulations in that force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make riskier loans. This was about the time that negatively amortized loans were getting big, and there was a big push in the housing sector.
It seemed like the next big thing - housing prices always go up long term, and typically outpace inflation. If you could get into a home with a low interest rate loan, then do it. With the negative amortization phenomenon, you actually paid less than you owed each month, so the principal of the loan kept growing. Your house value had to increase faster than your loan value did so you could turn over the house and move to a better house, having generated a tidy profit just by living in the house. Again, it seems like a good move unless you realize that house values do not steadily increase, they increase in a jagged line with periodic peaks and troughs. With a traditional loan and don payment structure, this is not a problem, you can weather any market inconsistencies. But with a lot of adjustable rate negatively amortized loans being packaged a few years ago, the current crash was eminently predictable. In fact, I mentioned to several different people a few years ago that I figured the market was due for a shakeup because of that (I know I talked about this with my wife, with supergoober as he bought his house, with themightymook as he helped me refinance, and with many others - probably theGM and NTT'SBrain as well).
Funny thing, however is that George W. Bush was trying to put in regulations on lending to reduce this policy in September of 2003. He did use this policy to try and help an economic recovery post 9/11, but his tax policy helped out with that as well (more on that later, but if you want info now, just do a google search on "The Laffer Curve" for the basics of tax policy and economic growth - while it is a gross oversimplification, it gives a light mathematical perspective and a common sense underpinning to economics - this curve is inordinately more complex under a "progressive" tax structure like we have now - detractors say that tax revenues grow with GDP, but ignore the fact that the policy itself can impact the GDP - more on that later). Anyway, Bush has long been trying to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back into some semblance of reality, but this has been continually stymied in the last five years or so by the likes of Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd. Interestingly enough, the larger portion of the lobbying largess from these companies has gone to Democrats this election cycle (but only slightly, 53%, and the last election cycle saw Republicans getting 53% - both sides have their hands in the cookie jar), and Obama used a former CEO of Fannie Mae to vet vice presidential candidates, but what is really interesting is the chart below, listing the order from highest to lowest recipients of contributions:
Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008
Recipient Office Party/State "Cash Monee Son" ;)
1. Dodd, Christopher J Senate D-CT $133,900
2. Kerry, John Senate D-MA $111,000
3. Obama, Barack Senate D-IL $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary Senate D-NY $75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E House D-PA $65,500
6. Bennett, Robert F Senate R-UT $61,499
7. Johnson, Tim Senate D-SD $61,000
8. Conrad, Kent Senate D-ND $58,991
9. Davis, Tom House R-VA $55,499
10. Bond, Christopher S Senate R-MO $55,400
11. Bachus, Spencer House R-AL $55,300
12. Shelby, Richard C Senate R-AL $55,000
13. Emanuel, Rahm House D-IL $51,750
14. Reed, Jack Senate D-RI $50,750
15. Carper, Tom Senate D-DE $44,389
16. Frank, Barney House D-MA $40,100
17. Maloney, Carolyn B House D-NY $38,750
18. Bean, Melissa House D-IL $37,249
19. Blunt, Roy House R-MO $36,500
20. Pryce, Deborah House R-OH $34,750
21. Miller, Gary House R-CA $33,000
22. Pelosi, Nancy House D-CA $32,750
23. Reynolds, Tom House R-NY $32,700
24. Hoyer, Steny H House D-MD $30,500
25. Hooley, Darlene House D-OR $28,750
Includes contributions from PACs and individuals in the 2008 cycle. Totals based on data downloaded from the Federal Election Commission on June 30, 2008. Data retrieved by me from http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html. So sue me, I guess I went ahead and did some of the research for you.
What I find interesting is that perrenial insider, Chris Dodd, senator since 1980, has aquired about $134,000 in donations over 20 years ($6,700 a year average), Hilary Clinton had $75,550 in 8 years (just over $8,400 a year average), while Barak Obama had $106,000 in 4 years ($26,500 a year average).
Hmm... I guess he has more experience than I realized (sorry, couldn't resist the cheap shot). Anyway, he obviously did have an interest in making sure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could keep doing whatever the hell they wanted - they kept contributing to him, you don't throw around that kind of cash for no reason. I just wanted to make the point that before someone starts pointing the finger of blame at whose fault it is that we are in the curent "crisis" (which I don't really see as a crisis, if you hadn't already divined that) we should actually try to remember things that have lead up to current events - remarkable how the past can be a lens through which we can observe the present and the future - at least until 2012 when the Mayans predicted the world would end. We are all dead in 4 years anyway, so who cares (BTW this is a huge joke - all you Mayan believers out there, tell me why you believe their prediction of the end, but not their description of the beginning - 15,000 years ago, with no evolution - just another creation myth - but it does use the same calender, so if the one is true, shouldn't the other be as well?)
That's it, this took me 2 + hours to write, much longer than I wanted, and I am sure that my wife is wondering why the hell I am taking so long to come to bed. Another early day tomorrow, so see you later.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Family Guy vs. The Simpsons: The Philosophy of Comedy
WARNING, WARNING:
So I had just finished working out, and I was in the bathtub, relaxing with some soothing jets and reading a piece on satire and the nature of comedy (thrilling reading, I know, but I was enjoying it, and I'm sure you needed the mental image of me soaking in a bathtub), when I started thinking about the nature of comedy in the Simpsons and in Family Guy, and why I really enjoy one but not the other (I am a Simpsons guy, for those of you who don't know that - all my friends reading this already know that, but in case some forlorn wanderer happens on to this because they have nothing better to do than read the rant of a pathetic loser attempting to intellectualize comedy, now you know that I am a Simpsons guy). So here it is:
I have already mentioned on a number of occasions, that I enjoy the plot driven nature of both the Simpsons and South Park, and Family Guy, while it does have plots, after a fashion, they always seem disjointed almost to the point of nonexistence. It really seems to be comedy for the ADD era, where no one has to actually string two cohesive thoughts together, and if one scene doesn't connect with the next, well, so what.
I'm not saying that this is bad, I just don't like it. I can fully appreciate why, after a long day of work, someone might enjoy comedy that requires little to no effort to engage in. That is fine if you end your day drained or stressed out from work. In general, I have the good fortune of this not being the situation - I usually end the day on a high, having really enjoyed my work, so I do not usually need something to numb my mind from the horrors of another dreary day in my dreary life, to stem the creeping tide of dread that I am, minute by minute, slowly approaching my inevitable demise. So, on that level, I have little to no appreciation of Family Guy. Again, I am being a bit flippant, but the point is, Family Guy is a great stress alleviating show.
But when I try to analyze the nature of the comedy in both shows, it comes down to one key element: incongruity. The juxtaposition of two or more contradictory positions, statements, images, etc. is just funny. But here is the problem: satire requires a level of interaction with the incongruity that is demanding, while absurdity just invites you to laugh without consequence. For me, absurdity is generally insufficient - it will generate a chuckle, but seldom much more, and I don't appreciate it, because absurdity is easy.
Example: "supergoober, do you remember that time in sixth grade when you and Gloria Steinem put on that nude tap dance routine?"
Totally absurd, image-wise it is mildly funny, and it is the level at which Family Guy jokes are written. It isn't hard to write this - just think of random unrelated events and force them into a relationship. "discourser, remember when you dressed in an evening gown and did that lounge act with Michelle Pfieffer?" Totally ridiculous, Discourser in an evening gown with Pfieffer a la "The Fabulous Baker Boys", and even that has a movie reference that is more intellectual than most Family Guy jokes.
The Simpsons, on the other hand, has some of this humor, but actually engages in the subtle repartee of satire - this takes actual craft and care, and results in my being humorously engaged long-term (to the point where I remember and recite quotes, to the eternal chagrin of all those in close association with me, who fear that my geek level may rub off on them and decrease their play).
Homer: "Oh my God, I got so swept up in the scapegoating and fun of Prop 24, I never stopped to think it might hurt someone I really cared about... You know what Apu? ... I am really, really gonna miss you."
That quote was from Much Apu About Nothing (I'm not sure that it is exact, but I am sure it is damned close), parodying the Prop 209 debate in California about services for illegal immigrants, and it works on a lot of levels. There are many quotes that I could break down this way, but this one leaped to mind. It works simultaneously on several levels ("The ball, his groin, it works on so many levels," Homer), first being the incongruity of supporting an idea and then being struck with the reality of that idea hurting someone about whom you care. The reason the joke works is that we are expecting, from a normal human being in a normal situation, a heartfelt apology for the misunderstanding. Instead, we get a direct opposite of that; the heartfelt sentiment at the consequences of a belief does not deny that belief. It brings us to a point where we actually feel better because we know what we are thinking is the right and good thing to do, and we laugh at the absurdity and foolishness of Homer. But beyond that, it works as a political satire for the California events, and it calls out other connections. The connection between scapegoating and fun is at once horrifying and true. The absurdity of admitting that out loud coupled with the knowledge that the fundamental reason that people do bad things is that they are easy and/or they feel good. This is at once self-revelatory and funny. For all of this, however, our expectations depend on a common sense of interpersonal relationships that Homer must contradict. It works because we have already filled in the scene in our head, and the startling and inappropriate nature of Homer's comments catch us of guard and we laugh. We laugh because we know there is a truth he is expressing aloud that we are all ashamed of, as we have all felt like that to some degree at one point or another, but we laugh all the more because we know that we were right in thinking the right way the scene should play out for "decent people"and this excuses us from the shame of having that statement touch a malfeasance at the core of our being.
Because we all have Homer moments; moments where we are in touch with our more base nature, and we have shame at those moments, we know we can aspire to something better, and it is funny to see someone who doesn't share that aspiration, to be constantly surprised by how low he can sink, and to be validated that we are good because we are constantly thinking about what he should have said before he said the awful thing that made us laugh. That is a really hard thing to write, and when it's done well, it is brilliant.
I am getting tired now - it is 11:48 pm, and I am waking up at 5:15 am ish tomorrow to go in to school. I'll post more on some other equally uninteresting topic later.
Told you I would suck any semblance of humor out of it.
- The following blog contains distinctly unfunny content.
- It attempts to over-intellectualize comedy, thus stripping any actual humor from the comedic
- It grossly mistreats comedy in a philosophical way, again laying waste to any humor by reducing it to a idealized formula.
So I had just finished working out, and I was in the bathtub, relaxing with some soothing jets and reading a piece on satire and the nature of comedy (thrilling reading, I know, but I was enjoying it, and I'm sure you needed the mental image of me soaking in a bathtub), when I started thinking about the nature of comedy in the Simpsons and in Family Guy, and why I really enjoy one but not the other (I am a Simpsons guy, for those of you who don't know that - all my friends reading this already know that, but in case some forlorn wanderer happens on to this because they have nothing better to do than read the rant of a pathetic loser attempting to intellectualize comedy, now you know that I am a Simpsons guy). So here it is:
I have already mentioned on a number of occasions, that I enjoy the plot driven nature of both the Simpsons and South Park, and Family Guy, while it does have plots, after a fashion, they always seem disjointed almost to the point of nonexistence. It really seems to be comedy for the ADD era, where no one has to actually string two cohesive thoughts together, and if one scene doesn't connect with the next, well, so what.
I'm not saying that this is bad, I just don't like it. I can fully appreciate why, after a long day of work, someone might enjoy comedy that requires little to no effort to engage in. That is fine if you end your day drained or stressed out from work. In general, I have the good fortune of this not being the situation - I usually end the day on a high, having really enjoyed my work, so I do not usually need something to numb my mind from the horrors of another dreary day in my dreary life, to stem the creeping tide of dread that I am, minute by minute, slowly approaching my inevitable demise. So, on that level, I have little to no appreciation of Family Guy. Again, I am being a bit flippant, but the point is, Family Guy is a great stress alleviating show.
But when I try to analyze the nature of the comedy in both shows, it comes down to one key element: incongruity. The juxtaposition of two or more contradictory positions, statements, images, etc. is just funny. But here is the problem: satire requires a level of interaction with the incongruity that is demanding, while absurdity just invites you to laugh without consequence. For me, absurdity is generally insufficient - it will generate a chuckle, but seldom much more, and I don't appreciate it, because absurdity is easy.
Example: "supergoober, do you remember that time in sixth grade when you and Gloria Steinem put on that nude tap dance routine?"
Totally absurd, image-wise it is mildly funny, and it is the level at which Family Guy jokes are written. It isn't hard to write this - just think of random unrelated events and force them into a relationship. "discourser, remember when you dressed in an evening gown and did that lounge act with Michelle Pfieffer?" Totally ridiculous, Discourser in an evening gown with Pfieffer a la "The Fabulous Baker Boys", and even that has a movie reference that is more intellectual than most Family Guy jokes.
The Simpsons, on the other hand, has some of this humor, but actually engages in the subtle repartee of satire - this takes actual craft and care, and results in my being humorously engaged long-term (to the point where I remember and recite quotes, to the eternal chagrin of all those in close association with me, who fear that my geek level may rub off on them and decrease their play).
Homer: "Oh my God, I got so swept up in the scapegoating and fun of Prop 24, I never stopped to think it might hurt someone I really cared about... You know what Apu? ... I am really, really gonna miss you."
That quote was from Much Apu About Nothing (I'm not sure that it is exact, but I am sure it is damned close), parodying the Prop 209 debate in California about services for illegal immigrants, and it works on a lot of levels. There are many quotes that I could break down this way, but this one leaped to mind. It works simultaneously on several levels ("The ball, his groin, it works on so many levels," Homer), first being the incongruity of supporting an idea and then being struck with the reality of that idea hurting someone about whom you care. The reason the joke works is that we are expecting, from a normal human being in a normal situation, a heartfelt apology for the misunderstanding. Instead, we get a direct opposite of that; the heartfelt sentiment at the consequences of a belief does not deny that belief. It brings us to a point where we actually feel better because we know what we are thinking is the right and good thing to do, and we laugh at the absurdity and foolishness of Homer. But beyond that, it works as a political satire for the California events, and it calls out other connections. The connection between scapegoating and fun is at once horrifying and true. The absurdity of admitting that out loud coupled with the knowledge that the fundamental reason that people do bad things is that they are easy and/or they feel good. This is at once self-revelatory and funny. For all of this, however, our expectations depend on a common sense of interpersonal relationships that Homer must contradict. It works because we have already filled in the scene in our head, and the startling and inappropriate nature of Homer's comments catch us of guard and we laugh. We laugh because we know there is a truth he is expressing aloud that we are all ashamed of, as we have all felt like that to some degree at one point or another, but we laugh all the more because we know that we were right in thinking the right way the scene should play out for "decent people"and this excuses us from the shame of having that statement touch a malfeasance at the core of our being.
Because we all have Homer moments; moments where we are in touch with our more base nature, and we have shame at those moments, we know we can aspire to something better, and it is funny to see someone who doesn't share that aspiration, to be constantly surprised by how low he can sink, and to be validated that we are good because we are constantly thinking about what he should have said before he said the awful thing that made us laugh. That is a really hard thing to write, and when it's done well, it is brilliant.
I am getting tired now - it is 11:48 pm, and I am waking up at 5:15 am ish tomorrow to go in to school. I'll post more on some other equally uninteresting topic later.
Told you I would suck any semblance of humor out of it.
A Silly Little Reflection
So, I heard something on the radio at around 6 pm last Friday, and it has been rolling around inside my head ever since. This has been the first time I have really had to pause and write about it - just too many other things, both important and unimportant, going on to sit down and write for the five minutes it will take to bring this up.
So, as I said, it was about 6 pm, I had just finished a game of Infinity at Gamescape in San Francisco, and I was on my way home. I had the radio on, I was driving (but I wasn't runnin' down a dream at that moment, oh fans of Tom Petty), and one of those hourly news breaks came on. It made a mention of the new divider for the Golden Gate Bridge, and how it would still be quite some time before it would be completed, mainly because they still had to file an environmental impact report before they could proceed with the project. This has pissed me off ever since hearing it.
Don't get me wrong - there are times when these reports provide valuable information and can guide our decision making process, but for the most part they have devolved from their original intent into a hodgepodge of delays and bank account paddings for various agencies and interest groups. I could even tolerate that, if it was a necessity (like we were planning on paving over the only environment of an endangered species for no good reason) and we needed the information, but really!
What kind of environmental impact is a movable divider going to have on an environment that is not in the slightest bit natural to begin with? Could someone help me out here? Are there birds or bugs whose flight patterns will be affected? If so, I would suggest that the cars whizzing by might just have a greater impact on those species. Is the device used to lay out the divider and move it inordinately polluting? What the f*** kind of impact could this report have?! What significant environmental knowledge will we gain from this study?!
I really would like an answer to any of these questions, this is not rhetorical. I fear that I am having such a visceral reaction to the idea of it, that I may not be noticing something obvious. To me, it just seems like one of many ways that are priorities are skewed in this day and age. Why expedite the saving of lives from head-on crashes, there is a superfluous report that must be filed. Why put up a suicide barrier or a net for minimal cost, we should definitely sacrifice the mentally ill who have fixated on the bridge just so that we can have our iconic landmark always looking the same - besides, stopping them would be violating their liberties. Don't they have the right to choose whether to love or die?
It just seems that we are really not paying attention to things that should be actual priorities; I know that I have, in the past, made a case for fairly ridiculous applications of the law for the sake of consistency, and I suppose that the argument for the environmental report could be similar: if we allow them to slide on this, then soon more and more will be allowed to get around this rule and then the rule will have no effect. The old "slippery slope" argument - and while it can be valid, I would argue that we have already slipped down that particular Slip-n-Slide for environmental impact reports - they do nothing to save species or help the environment, they are just there to keep a bunch of bureaucrats employed at the state, local, and federal level. (Just wait til I start my rant on the ESA of 1973 - another day, another day, how many times have I written that and not gotten to it, but I really will try, promise)
And just to add insult to injury, I think that I will make some mention of the person who responded to my last blog, ed darrell of Millard Filmore's Bathtub. I appreciate his attempt to inform, but he went about it entirely the wrong way. He picked out one small statement that was factually inaccurate in my last blog (that is debatable, but my assertion wasn't entirely correct, I will cop to that - sorry, heat of passion in writing, and I didn't fact check everything - it wasn't the point of that little rant, anyway) and then he conveniently ignored every other statement that I made that he could not easily refute. Instead, he implied that I was ignorant and claimed the moral high ground of science.
Just a couple of things here - nothing undercuts a discussion like implying one person or the other is stupid. He may have felt that I was misinformed; he could have stated that politely, rather than adopting a haughty and smarmy tone. Perhaps I misinterpreted and am over-reacting, but that was how it seemed to me. Ed is a history teacher, and I am not going to hold that against him. Just because one is not a "scientist" doesn't mean that one has no right to make comments on science. He does, and may be well-informed. However, he fell into something that I am shocked a history teacher would fall into.
You see, history is always written by the winners. Assuming that every shred of historical "fact" has not been colored by this is naive. I am not saying that history is false, or untrustworthy, but I am saying that it is open to interpretation and should be examined with a skeptics, the same way any good science should be. Simply falling back on "the EPA must be right" or "virtually all scientist except a couple of kooks" as an assertion is ridiculous (quick note - these are not direct quotes from Ed, but paraphrasing his assertions - I am not putting words in his mouth - look at how he responded to the September 11, 2008 blog here: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4180701337873637099&postID=1997712873844578555). This misses the entire point of a good history education - do not just look at one source of history. If you read Carson's book, her religious fervor is obvious,her rhetoric is extreme, and her science is cherry-picked. Many, many people (reputable people, not just shlubs like me online) actually have documented that. Denying that there could be anything political in science is ridiculous. Science has always had politics in it, simply because there are people involved. The politics in science has become more extreme since our societal model shifted from privately to publicly funded science (I am not saying that this shift is bad, just mentioning that a side effect of the shift is increased politicization).
Scientists are people, too, and, like every industry, not all of them are geniuses or on the right side of the bell curve or any other super-intelligent moniker you would like to apply. Some just gutted it out through college and got there degree, and kept going. Here's my analogy (it happens to be a lot like one that Voltaire used in Candide to criticize Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds" argument - forgive me, but it does convey my point as well):
Suppose that there is a master carpenter. He is a genius, and has some of the most inventive designs and masterful wood-working the world has ever seen. He takes on a number of apprentices, all of whom are smart and capable themselves, but none of whom are quite of his caliber. They are all intelligent and gifted enough to recognize their master's genius, but not quite enough so to reach that level of innovation themselves. However, they have a great deal of pride because of his selection of them, and feel that because of their exposure to such genius, they must be special to. So they embark on fruitful lives and careers doing a superb job copying him and paying him tribute, but never rally innovate, themselves. In fact, they do not even always grasp the subtlety of what their master is doing, so they often fail spectacularly, but spin things into their favor by invoking the power of their master's name, or referring to themselves as geniuses, or as specialists - people who the commoners could not possibly ever understand. Of course, they never grow, never really achieve greatness, but they become renowned, and they choose a caliber of student even lower than themselves (they could not jeopardize their self-esteem by choosing a more talented student who might shame them), and instill in those students the same sort of religious fervor.
Now just substitute science for carpentry and we can see how genius gets diluted. For ever one brilliant physicist like Einstein or Fermi, there are dozens if not hundreds of others who simply engage in mental masturbation to prove to each other how smart they are (because they are deathly afraid that they may not be as smart as they think). To think that science would somehow escape this oh-so-very pervasive aspect of the human condition is patently absurd. Of course I do not expect that we should chuck out all science - that is absolutely ludicrous. We should, however, approach science as good scientists - biased skeptics (it is too much to hope to actually be unbiased, but we strive for that) who recognize their biases and try to minimize the impact of those biases by looking at as much of the data and drawing appropriate conclusions.
The problem with science is that it tends to be self-fulfilling. If you have a model of the world, an ecosystem, or the universe, you tend to look for evidence that supports that model and exclude evidence that doesn't. This is why particle physicists are still looking for a gravity particle and will never find one. For their model to work, it must exist, but all indications point to the fact that it doesn't. Rather than accept this fact and modify the theory accordingly, they just blindly keep pursuing idiocy. If you think I am being harsh or unrealistic, I got this from a conversation with a doctor of physics who did research and published his dissertation working at a particle accelerator in Switzerland, I believe. He spoke three languages, had an excellent command of particle physics and mathematics (and, incidentally, bathed too infrequently and was a lousy teacher), and had a near religious zeal about particle physics. He said that the gravity particle was the holy grail of his field, and he confessed that they would probably never find it because it probably didn't exist, but the model worked better with that piece of information in it.
I am not saying all science is like this, but because it is a human endeavor, we tend to want to validate the perspectives of those we admire. This is why there is so much conflicting science out there, and that is okay. We just need to sift through the debris from time to time, and do are best to sort it all out. For ed darrell to think that because he has some scientific data that backs up some of his perspective is fine, but to believe that he is guaranteed right because he has a line on absolute truth is the same perspective as the fundamentalist Christian ideals that I was mentioning in the last blog. Ironic that he proved the point of that last blog by responding in that way, and if he is reading this as well, I hope it will give him pause before he starts spreading his brand of truth.
Always remember, history is written by the winners. On occasion, those winners may be self-conscious enough to admit wrongdoing a hundred years down the line (as the US has for a few things), but we can't always count on that. Just because we feel more sophisticated than the Greeks or the Romans, doesn't mean that we can avoid bias in history or in science. In fact much of contemporary historical studies focus on disentangling historic fact from fiction (which, in its own way can verge on the rewriting of history as well, if you are not careful about your biases).
So what hope does this give us as a species? Not much, I guess, if you are a pessimist. I am in a somewhat more optimistic mood right now, so I guess that I would say that this perspective is what has lead us through cycles of repression of information and revolution (not necessarily violent, just revolutions of thought in these cases), and, ultimately, it is these cycles that have lead to our intellectual growth as a species. This offers little comfort to the individual, but, as a whole, we seem to have done pretty well advancing ourselves using this flaw punctuated with bursts of intellect and intuition. In many ways, one could argue that the repressive nature of the second and third generation "craftsmen" are what challenges men and women to rebellious ideas that can lead to earth-shaking discoveries.
Or maybe I am just full of crap.
So, as I said, it was about 6 pm, I had just finished a game of Infinity at Gamescape in San Francisco, and I was on my way home. I had the radio on, I was driving (but I wasn't runnin' down a dream at that moment, oh fans of Tom Petty), and one of those hourly news breaks came on. It made a mention of the new divider for the Golden Gate Bridge, and how it would still be quite some time before it would be completed, mainly because they still had to file an environmental impact report before they could proceed with the project. This has pissed me off ever since hearing it.
Don't get me wrong - there are times when these reports provide valuable information and can guide our decision making process, but for the most part they have devolved from their original intent into a hodgepodge of delays and bank account paddings for various agencies and interest groups. I could even tolerate that, if it was a necessity (like we were planning on paving over the only environment of an endangered species for no good reason) and we needed the information, but really!
What kind of environmental impact is a movable divider going to have on an environment that is not in the slightest bit natural to begin with? Could someone help me out here? Are there birds or bugs whose flight patterns will be affected? If so, I would suggest that the cars whizzing by might just have a greater impact on those species. Is the device used to lay out the divider and move it inordinately polluting? What the f*** kind of impact could this report have?! What significant environmental knowledge will we gain from this study?!
I really would like an answer to any of these questions, this is not rhetorical. I fear that I am having such a visceral reaction to the idea of it, that I may not be noticing something obvious. To me, it just seems like one of many ways that are priorities are skewed in this day and age. Why expedite the saving of lives from head-on crashes, there is a superfluous report that must be filed. Why put up a suicide barrier or a net for minimal cost, we should definitely sacrifice the mentally ill who have fixated on the bridge just so that we can have our iconic landmark always looking the same - besides, stopping them would be violating their liberties. Don't they have the right to choose whether to love or die?
It just seems that we are really not paying attention to things that should be actual priorities; I know that I have, in the past, made a case for fairly ridiculous applications of the law for the sake of consistency, and I suppose that the argument for the environmental report could be similar: if we allow them to slide on this, then soon more and more will be allowed to get around this rule and then the rule will have no effect. The old "slippery slope" argument - and while it can be valid, I would argue that we have already slipped down that particular Slip-n-Slide for environmental impact reports - they do nothing to save species or help the environment, they are just there to keep a bunch of bureaucrats employed at the state, local, and federal level. (Just wait til I start my rant on the ESA of 1973 - another day, another day, how many times have I written that and not gotten to it, but I really will try, promise)
And just to add insult to injury, I think that I will make some mention of the person who responded to my last blog, ed darrell of Millard Filmore's Bathtub. I appreciate his attempt to inform, but he went about it entirely the wrong way. He picked out one small statement that was factually inaccurate in my last blog (that is debatable, but my assertion wasn't entirely correct, I will cop to that - sorry, heat of passion in writing, and I didn't fact check everything - it wasn't the point of that little rant, anyway) and then he conveniently ignored every other statement that I made that he could not easily refute. Instead, he implied that I was ignorant and claimed the moral high ground of science.
Just a couple of things here - nothing undercuts a discussion like implying one person or the other is stupid. He may have felt that I was misinformed; he could have stated that politely, rather than adopting a haughty and smarmy tone. Perhaps I misinterpreted and am over-reacting, but that was how it seemed to me. Ed is a history teacher, and I am not going to hold that against him. Just because one is not a "scientist" doesn't mean that one has no right to make comments on science. He does, and may be well-informed. However, he fell into something that I am shocked a history teacher would fall into.
You see, history is always written by the winners. Assuming that every shred of historical "fact" has not been colored by this is naive. I am not saying that history is false, or untrustworthy, but I am saying that it is open to interpretation and should be examined with a skeptics, the same way any good science should be. Simply falling back on "the EPA must be right" or "virtually all scientist except a couple of kooks" as an assertion is ridiculous (quick note - these are not direct quotes from Ed, but paraphrasing his assertions - I am not putting words in his mouth - look at how he responded to the September 11, 2008 blog here: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4180701337873637099&postID=1997712873844578555). This misses the entire point of a good history education - do not just look at one source of history. If you read Carson's book, her religious fervor is obvious,her rhetoric is extreme, and her science is cherry-picked. Many, many people (reputable people, not just shlubs like me online) actually have documented that. Denying that there could be anything political in science is ridiculous. Science has always had politics in it, simply because there are people involved. The politics in science has become more extreme since our societal model shifted from privately to publicly funded science (I am not saying that this shift is bad, just mentioning that a side effect of the shift is increased politicization).
Scientists are people, too, and, like every industry, not all of them are geniuses or on the right side of the bell curve or any other super-intelligent moniker you would like to apply. Some just gutted it out through college and got there degree, and kept going. Here's my analogy (it happens to be a lot like one that Voltaire used in Candide to criticize Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds" argument - forgive me, but it does convey my point as well):
Suppose that there is a master carpenter. He is a genius, and has some of the most inventive designs and masterful wood-working the world has ever seen. He takes on a number of apprentices, all of whom are smart and capable themselves, but none of whom are quite of his caliber. They are all intelligent and gifted enough to recognize their master's genius, but not quite enough so to reach that level of innovation themselves. However, they have a great deal of pride because of his selection of them, and feel that because of their exposure to such genius, they must be special to. So they embark on fruitful lives and careers doing a superb job copying him and paying him tribute, but never rally innovate, themselves. In fact, they do not even always grasp the subtlety of what their master is doing, so they often fail spectacularly, but spin things into their favor by invoking the power of their master's name, or referring to themselves as geniuses, or as specialists - people who the commoners could not possibly ever understand. Of course, they never grow, never really achieve greatness, but they become renowned, and they choose a caliber of student even lower than themselves (they could not jeopardize their self-esteem by choosing a more talented student who might shame them), and instill in those students the same sort of religious fervor.
Now just substitute science for carpentry and we can see how genius gets diluted. For ever one brilliant physicist like Einstein or Fermi, there are dozens if not hundreds of others who simply engage in mental masturbation to prove to each other how smart they are (because they are deathly afraid that they may not be as smart as they think). To think that science would somehow escape this oh-so-very pervasive aspect of the human condition is patently absurd. Of course I do not expect that we should chuck out all science - that is absolutely ludicrous. We should, however, approach science as good scientists - biased skeptics (it is too much to hope to actually be unbiased, but we strive for that) who recognize their biases and try to minimize the impact of those biases by looking at as much of the data and drawing appropriate conclusions.
The problem with science is that it tends to be self-fulfilling. If you have a model of the world, an ecosystem, or the universe, you tend to look for evidence that supports that model and exclude evidence that doesn't. This is why particle physicists are still looking for a gravity particle and will never find one. For their model to work, it must exist, but all indications point to the fact that it doesn't. Rather than accept this fact and modify the theory accordingly, they just blindly keep pursuing idiocy. If you think I am being harsh or unrealistic, I got this from a conversation with a doctor of physics who did research and published his dissertation working at a particle accelerator in Switzerland, I believe. He spoke three languages, had an excellent command of particle physics and mathematics (and, incidentally, bathed too infrequently and was a lousy teacher), and had a near religious zeal about particle physics. He said that the gravity particle was the holy grail of his field, and he confessed that they would probably never find it because it probably didn't exist, but the model worked better with that piece of information in it.
I am not saying all science is like this, but because it is a human endeavor, we tend to want to validate the perspectives of those we admire. This is why there is so much conflicting science out there, and that is okay. We just need to sift through the debris from time to time, and do are best to sort it all out. For ed darrell to think that because he has some scientific data that backs up some of his perspective is fine, but to believe that he is guaranteed right because he has a line on absolute truth is the same perspective as the fundamentalist Christian ideals that I was mentioning in the last blog. Ironic that he proved the point of that last blog by responding in that way, and if he is reading this as well, I hope it will give him pause before he starts spreading his brand of truth.
Always remember, history is written by the winners. On occasion, those winners may be self-conscious enough to admit wrongdoing a hundred years down the line (as the US has for a few things), but we can't always count on that. Just because we feel more sophisticated than the Greeks or the Romans, doesn't mean that we can avoid bias in history or in science. In fact much of contemporary historical studies focus on disentangling historic fact from fiction (which, in its own way can verge on the rewriting of history as well, if you are not careful about your biases).
So what hope does this give us as a species? Not much, I guess, if you are a pessimist. I am in a somewhat more optimistic mood right now, so I guess that I would say that this perspective is what has lead us through cycles of repression of information and revolution (not necessarily violent, just revolutions of thought in these cases), and, ultimately, it is these cycles that have lead to our intellectual growth as a species. This offers little comfort to the individual, but, as a whole, we seem to have done pretty well advancing ourselves using this flaw punctuated with bursts of intellect and intuition. In many ways, one could argue that the repressive nature of the second and third generation "craftsmen" are what challenges men and women to rebellious ideas that can lead to earth-shaking discoveries.
Or maybe I am just full of crap.
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