What I told my children about Santa Claus my shock you.

              Childhood is a special time in your life when wonder and awe are abundant and the world of make-believe overlaps the real world.  At least that’s what we’d like to think we remember childhood like.  We try to encourage that thought and any opportunity to prove that magic is real and not lost.

              Christmas is a dream come true for children.  It builds up with advent calendars and decorations around the house.  The smell of fresh Hershey kiss cookies and the visiting relatives fills the heart and the belly.  Lets not forget the presents.  For parents Christmas time is the exact opposite, it’s a time when you stress for making plans, organizing the house, purchasing gifts of equal or lesser value to those you will receive and trying to keep up with the Jones’ children’s gifts.  It’s exhausting.

              One thing that parents take solace in is the wonder and awe surrounding Santa Claus.  When children are young, there’s no conflict.  You take your kids to the mall, they sit on the big man’s lap and tell him what you want.  I love when he says he’ll see what he can do after looking at your face.  Inevitably your child comes home and asks the question, “Is Santa Claus real?”  It’s so cute and innocent. Everyone knows that lying to your children is wrong but there’s several things that go through your mind.  You want your children to be happy and innocent for as long as possible.  I think more importantly you don’t want your child to go around telling other children that Santa is not real.  You picture the sad crying faces of the other kids and the hawkish faces of the parents with exaggerated disappointment.

              During kindergarten keeping the tale going is pretty easy.  Children are only at the why stage.  Why does Santa give out presents?   Why does he use a sleigh?  Why do the elves work for free?  Why does he have to live in the North pole?  By first grade, children are introduced to the frustrating skill of deductive reasoning.  The questions become exponentially more difficult to navigate.  If Santa is so big how does he fit down a small chimney?  By second grade the gig is up because your answers sound more and more contrived.  What you don’t expect is the deluge of follow-up questions after you spill the beans.

(1)    Is the tooth fairy real?

(2)    Is the Easter bunny real?

(3)    Is Jesus real?  / Did Moses really part the red sea?

That last one hurts.  How do you explain to a child that you actively lied about something you knew not to be true and then expect them to believe you about something that involves faith?  There must be a better way.  I also thought it was ironic that he knows when you are sleeping and when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good too.  Isn’t that God? 

              Here’s what I did.  When they were young I took them to see Santa and take a picture.  When my oldest son asked me if Santa was real, I didn’t say yes or no.  I said Santa is make believe, it’s pretend for fun.  It’s like when you play outside and think you are really a super hero.  You don’t jump off the roof because you’ll get hurt but pretending it’s real doesn’t harm anyone.  I then said the best part of make believe is letting everyone else pretend it’s real at the same time.  That solves both problems, it lets my children enjoy the fun.  They still get presents and have fun and can take pictures with the big man and still believe that I am a parent of my word.

              I still made them an adorable online video using portable north pole with Santa saying their name and showing their pictures in book.  He then would give them some advice and show them a picture of the toy that they really wanted.  It's all in good fun!

Nationalism and Globalism

The great thing about history is you can always find bad examples to prove your point.  Not so much for globalism but more for nationalism. Nationalism as a concept comes around every few decades and the opponents of nationalism usually point to the single greatest bad example of all time for anything, NAZI. The National socialist party of Germany.  After a devastating loss in World War I and being stuck with the rebuilding costs it might seem inevitable that some leader would rise up and try to rebuild his country.  He also promoted Christianity early on before becoming what we all know he became.  Funny how socialists aren’t compared to Hitler. 

Nationalism scares us because we confuse it with a country bent on taking over its neighbors and waging war which is really imperialism.  Sometimes it’s masqueraded as isolationism.  We can’t just stick our head in the sand.  If we are landlocked country we have to deal with our neighbors or they’ll deal with us.  If we are a massive superpower we can’t allow dictators to do what they want.

Others are frightened of globalism, all those who are science fiction fans especially.  Who wants to read about utopia when you can read about dystopia. It’s either end of the world caused by the global elites or one run by them. 

It takes a village doesn’t it?  More like a street, a neighborhood.  Every family looks out for themselves, for their own interests.  Sometimes there are things that need to be done to protect everyone.  If there’s been a rash of robberies in the area, it’s in everybody’s best interest to keep an eye out.  Maybe there’s a new development across the street and you want to band together to stop it. So, it’s obvious that we need to work together.  This is why you have the United Nations whose predecessor was the League of Nations.  The Olympics and the International Space stations are shining example of multinational cooperation working almost without incident. 

If our little neighborhood needed to fund a project like bringing in a gas pipeline would every family be willing to chip in $5,000 or would they say Larry’s got a mansion at the end of the block, let him pay $15,000.  What if all the neighbors had already signed a deal allowing them to decide who gives what.  That’s the real and understandable fear behind globalism.  What if it’s in everybodies best interests to have the largest nations pay a tax to help the smallest nations.  What if most of the large nations said heck no except for ours? 

I remember when I was seven years old and I asked my Dad very naively, ‘Why can’t everyone in the world just have equal?  Why do some people have more and others have less?’

He said, “Our house has three rooms, your mom and I stay in one room, you have this room and your sister has the room next to yours.  Most families in the world all live in one room.  In order to make everything fair we’d have to give up your room and you can go live with your sister.”

I immediately said I don’t want that.  Why not he asked.  It’s my room!  There’s two ways to take that.  Either I was selfish from the time I was seven or I had a right to my own property. I didn’t take it from anyone, my dad worked for a living.  I don’t expect globalism to immediately take away my third room.  Probably taxes such as carbon tax, export tax, visas, flight taxes, ect will be small at first.  As our country joins larger and larger free trade agreements however, regulations force businesses to give up their sovereignty for the greater good. 

Cooperation between countries should always be first and foremost in the benefit of the countries engaging in it.  Secondarily, it should make the ease of individual cooperation between two or more people’s easier and a minor tertiary concern be beneficial for all of mankind. 

If we were a multi planet species or we were in contact with some form of extra terrestrials then we would some sort of world government to protect us from our interests and we’d be arguing over globalism vs systemism, galacticism or universalism.  

Can Elections be Rigged?

Can US elections be rigged?

                When I was young I used to debate with my friends if “professional wrestling” was real or fake.  There were pro’s and con’s, we were convinced the wrestlers were giving their utmost to win but something was off.  The wrestlers did amazing stunts but at the same time the stories seemed to be too perfect and the matches seamless to the next storyline.  Eventually the major wrestling network WWF (now called WWE) admitted to having ‘scripted’ matches.  The moves were real and the athletes truly are doing amazing feats but the outcome is known.  This is what I visualize when someone says the word rigged. 

                Tammany Hall was a political organization created in 1786 which worked to help immigrants, mainly the Irish rise up in power and influence.  By the mid 1800’s it was a strong organization which muscled it’s way into political power in New York City.  It was notorious for graft and corruption and vote rigging.  Throughout American history there have been many instances of voter intimidation mainly in poor and minority communities which is why so many laws have been created.

                Could something like wide scale vote rigging or voter intimidation today happen?  Here are the outliers which don’t define the majority of our electoral system.

(1)    The presidential election of 2000 came down to Florida which subsequently came down to several counties where ballots had changed.  Some were punched twice or partially punched.  After a grueling battle, the electors in Florida were given to George Bush making him the president.

(2)    During the 2016 democratic nomination process, Hillary Clinton was ahead but mostly because of the non pledged (super) delegates.  New York was a critical primary that set her on a course for taking the nomination. Bernie Sanders name was left off of a couple counties which favored him.

(3)    Al Franken became the 60ths democratic senator in 2009 allowing a super majority democratic congress to emerge.  The race was won by several hundred ballots supposedly left in a pollsters car for a night.  Then the story was retracted and denounced. 

(4)    In 2008 black panthers staged some of their people outside majority white communities and engaged in intimidation carrying batons.  Initially there was a legal case but for some reason it was dropped by the new administration. 

Is it possible for a political machine, Democratic, Republican, Independent or foreign to throw an election?  Influence is one thing.  We know for sure that the media has an agenda and tends to favor one candidate over another. 

The election system is vulnerable to accidents, fraud and espionage.    

·         No ID required to vote.  Give your name and address.  For some reason having to show ID is racist and activist groups will fight any attempt to implement such a system.  A person could theoretically vote more than once, register themselves more than once and vote for people who either aren’t alive or have moved.  It would be hard to coordinate a large scale effort.

·         Voter Registration:  Groups like Acorn discredit the good work that people do to try to get as many new people to register and vote.  In the past workers for certain groups have admitted to helping people either lie to get registered or pushed to sign up as many applicants regardless of how new they were.  Also, they will usually assign them into the political party of their choosing.  That doesn’t mean the person must vote that way but it puts them on notice with the particular political party. 

·         Foreign Funding.  Many groups like moveOn.org, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Center for American Progress receive foreign funding and seek to influence united states elections.  This is technically probably still illegal but very easy to get around.  https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/foreign.php  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1237

·         Electronic voting.  It’s not that the machines are more likely to fail or be tampered with.  There are monitors from both political parties at each polling place and certainly when the votes are tampered.  However, we’ve seen 500 million yahoo accounts become hacked, servers of major political parties, and even Iranian centrifuges.  Could a worm be planted in machines previous to them being deployed. 

·         Vote Counting: In 2012 a Spanish company SYCTL bought the largest vote counting company in united states.  Why this was allowed was beyond me. Our votes after being tallied are sent to this server, routed possibly out of country, counted and then the results are sent back.  There is so much possibility for manipulation at every stage. Again if everybody's being hacked (for fun) why wouldn't this be at the top of some hacker or even state sponsors list? 

How do elections probably get won?

                I get asked often, can anybody’s mind be changed by what the candidates say or do in the last month before an election.  Everyone wants to capture a “49%” or “deplorables” moment on video.  It’s not that these moments change many minds but it’s all about motivation.  If you are demoralized you are less likely to vote and if you are charged up or better yet caught up in a frenzy of fear you will vote, lest they take away your X.  It’s about optics, how you and your surrogates use the various victories of your candidate and missteps of the other. 

                It’s also about the ground game.  How do you encourage people to vote.  How often do you barrage them with letters, advertisements, calls, poster bill boards.  If you can get them to sign up on your web site with prizes like meet the candidate for lunch (yeah right) they can then use your email or phone number to pester you into voting. 

                At the end of the day anything can happen. 

America's Class Structure

Often the country is classified as having three classes, the middle class, the poor, and the rich.  The rich are usually vilified as not paying their fair share even though they pay 80% of all taxes.  Everyone wants to give the middle class a tax break and help the most vulnerable (the poor).  As usual, things change over time and there are really six classes of people with as many as 13 sub groups.  Removed from this description is terms such as good and bad.  There are both in all the categories.  Even criminals have some good people who will go on to reform their lives and change society.  Following is a description devoid of ethical judgement. 

              Let’s start at the top.  The Elites consist of all the countries leaders, the president, the senators, representatives and governors.  All the CEO’s of major companies make up the elites.  This group is often referred to the top 1%. They control the majority of the wealth of the country and make virtually all the decisions that affect our lives.  Within this group is a sub group, an even smaller group, possibly the .01% who are the titans.  The titans are the mega billionaires who work behind the scenes to affect policy at the highest levels.  This would be the Buffet’s and the Koch’s who make it seem like they’re nice people trying to help but really their serving their own business interests.  Some are captains of industry who change our lives like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.  Others were placed in positions of power who run a large company into the ground and leave with a golden parachute.  The latter ought to be vilified and the former lauded.  Another aspect of the titans is that they have no problem with higher taxes because their money is not taxable.  Warren Buffet for example earns 60 million a year and is worth 60 billion.  If we did the math we would realize that he did not work for a thousand years.  He has no problem paying ten percent more on 60 million while he pays nothing on 60 billion because it's his assets that make up his wealth not his income. 

              The next group is the prosperous.  These are the “rich” who usually wind up paying the majority of the tax because they can’t hide their money like the Elites. They are also a diverse group.  Small business owners and entrepreneur are the engine of growth for our economy.  60% of all new jobs are created by small businesses.   Very small businesses owners tend to not have corporation and therefore fund their activities directly from their own personal finances.  A small change in tax policy could wind up taking money from their businesses.  It’s important to understand that taxing the rich is such a blanket statement that doesn’t really address who should pay more.  Athletes and movies stars drive an enormous amount of economic activity and therefore are well paid.  I don’t know what hedge fund managers really do but they also make a ton of money.   Hedge fund managers get paid in dividends which are taxed at a lower rate (currently 20% as opposed to 39.6% for the top income levels). 

              Most of us are in the working class formerly known as the middle class.  As of 2016 there are 157 million Americans (just under 50%) employed or seeking work.  These are adults who are in the public work force.  In this group there are two sub groups, though not distinctly identified.  There are those who work and pay a positive tax rate and those who work and pay a negative tax rate.  Everyone pays things like sales tax and state tax but the working non tax payers either don’t pay federal taxes or get more money back at tax time than the money they paid.  For example, an individual with a family might work and pay $1500 of federal tax.  They go to a tax preparer who applies all refundable tax credits and get back often times as much as $6,000 back.  They also get food stamps, Medicaid, subsidies, free phones, ect.  This is not to say they don’t struggle, many do.  Still, their work which is hard to measure produces more economic activity than the what they receive from the government. 

              Next we have the dependents, the non-working.  The non-working as of 2016 are 94 million strong (about 30%).  The labor participation rate rose from 1960 to 1990, peaked for fifteen years and has been going down ever since.  In the 1960’s many women were home makers, stay at home mom’s, or caretakers as you would identify them.  My mom also stayed home and raised us, she only had a part time job as my sister and I became older.  Their work is not to be undervalued, it is so critical to take care of children.  Children now a days are taken care of either by a school or by a grandparents just as much as by a parent.  Women more and more entered the work force from 1960 to the turn of the century which is why the labor participation rate rose.  Now because of all the government subsidies more people can afford to stay home.  People retire and live longer which is another factor in the rising non-working class.  After a lifetime of working no one begrudges a senior from enjoying themselves and today in a way that no older generation has ever been able to enjoy their latter years.  I do wonder at people who retire from a union job at 55 and live to 95.  How can a system sustain this?  The last sub group is the idle.  These are the people who have given up looking for work.  Maybe they stay home with older kids who don’t need attention.  Maybe they pan handle, maybe they squeak out enough government benefits and enough non taxed income to squeeze by.  Many have injuries that prevent them from working in their chosen profession but they are all capable of doing something.  They just don’t. 

              The next group definitely depends on society for survival.  They are the helpless.  For one reason or another they really are incapable of working.  The first sub group is the incapable, these are the severely disabled.  So many tens of millions of people are labeled as handicapped which is important to give them the help they need but they are capable of working.  They can still be productive individually but society must help them and we should.  Children of course are a drain on our resources but critical to our future.  The Amish have a saying: a child under seven is a drain, between seven and fourteen they balance out and after fourteen they are an asset.  If only that were true.  It seems like children are a drain till they get their first full time job in their twenties.

              The last group definitely drains from society with providing absolutely no tangible benefits.  A person doesn’t always walk around being a criminal unless they’re a gang member.  Maybe they’re a drug addict, maybe they’ve robbed or stolen.  I would say no one is irredeemable.  Those in jail may seem like they’re not harming society but society is paying at least 20,000 per year to house, clothe, feed and secure them.  There are 3 million in jail in this country (1%).  How many more are freed criminals, I can only site the statistic of 1.4 million in gangs. 

              I always strive for maximum clarity when identifying how things are and how they could be better.  If we take the 47% of Working Americans who pay taxes that leaves us with 73 million Americans who are financially taking care of 318 million. This is a tall order when 23% of Americans are taking care of the bills for the other 77%.  If this trend continues we will surely see economic troubles abound. 

Is the Internet Alive?

From the time of the Greeks we have been fascinated with automated machinery and the ability to break free of its intended purpose.  The very word automaton is Greek in origin.  Talos was an artificial man of bronze, others Greek mythology stories included automated machines or statues that spoke.  During the middle ages actual statues with moving parts were created.  The fear was always that some evil spirit would inhabit them.  Either by divine power or magic the machines could be made to do harmful things.  In other words, a mind of their own but really more a mind of their creator.  Of note is a story from Arabian Nights which detailed lost technologies that were advanced enough to have dancing marionettes without strings and a robot horse.

                This started to be seen as an actual tangible reality when the first computers were invented.  I’m sure he’s not the first but Isaac Asimov’s 1950 book I, Robot is the best example of defining intelligent thinking robots.  A self-contained mechanical person with as much intelligence or more than a human being.  How could such a being be controlled was the central theme behind the three laws of robotics coined by Asimov. 

                With technological change comes change in the central theme of an artificial intelligence.  The Internet was in its early stages when the focus changed from a singular contained intelligence to a distributed intelligence.  Now, with such an intelligence if it was a single entity contained in a building it could access information and processing power all over the world.  Or it could actually be a distributed intelligence.  Terminator popularized the idea of Skynet.  Terminator I & II focused on a mainframe or data center contained in an underground bunker which was put in control of our nuclear arsenal.  Terminator III further enhanced the idea that Skynet did not exist in one place but was distributed through a series of viruses or malicious computer programs. 

                Standing away from the Armageddon scenarios there is always a confusion between life, intelligence and self-awareness and a directed will.  A bacterium is alive because it employees the eight life processes which are (1) Nutrition (2) Transport (3) Synthesis (4) Growth (5) Excretion (6) Respiration (7) Regulation and (8) Reproduction.  A virus (the organic kind) is questionable.  The main thing is they cannot reproduce on their own.  They have to have a host cell do it for them.  An intelligent lifeform in its simplest form can think for itself.  Is an ant intelligent or is it just following a program?  Ants know how to avoid danger. Mice obviously can reason and think, though they are not self-aware.  Monkeys are self-aware and they have a will to a degree.  Without getting into a large debate they are about as close to being a self-aware intelligent being like ourselves as you get on this planet.  Is the internet alive in the most basic sense? 

                What is the internet?  Is it the physical computers and transmission lines?  In that respect no, the internet can clearly not perform many of the functions of a lifeform.  Or is it the handling and processing of data and the maintenance of the network? 

1. The internet needs energy in the form of electricity to operate.  What would happen if we shut down the entire internet?  Could we just turn everything back on?  Would it work like nothing happened or is it a flow?  Electricity is its nutrition.
2. It transports information, that’s its primary job. 
3. Synthesis is a tough one, to combine two products into something else.  It does package and unpackage data packets.  We talk about the seven or five layers of protocols,
4. It obviously grows in size every year, we humans do the work.  Mainframes can control data stores and memory usage. 
5. It deletes old data and packets that failed to send or were sent to a bogus address.    
6. It takes in and it pushes out data every millisecond.
7. It regulates packet flow 
8. It does not reproduce to my knowledge.  Though the internet is a series of inter connected networks.  More than likely it does not really reproduce but it can split itself and reconnect.

      In addition it does defend itself against viruses.  I would say the Internet is as close to a living being as we can get.  I do not believe in spontaneous self awareness or intelligence.  If I had to choose a lifeform that the Internet most closely represents it would be an amoeba.

                

My Summer Project

Actually I started in the spring renovating the unused upstairs bedroom.  It had wood paneling and white ceiling tiles.  A heavy oak sliding door which took three men to open reminded me of the saying, "The 80's just called, they want their room back."  I did a full gut job, new insulation, new floor, sheet rock, paint and molding.  Also, the electrical was two wire which I modernized on a new breaker.  No big deal right?  It's done every day.  The sliding door on the other hand I'm very proud that I was able to make it an automated sliding door.

Materials

1. Linear Actuator from OpenBuilds.  I bought the motor from them as well ~$120
2. Linear Motor Driver from Microcenter.  ~$10
3. Arduino board ~$20
4. Case and power supply.  I bought an adjustable voltage transformer that output 1.7Amps, current is VERY important on stepper motors.  ~$25
5. Some rubber gaskets and mild soundproofing.  ~$20.  This step is so critical because this thing can be loud!  It can rattle the structure if it's not insulated.  
6. Led's and arduino light sensors.  This is used to stop the door.  

Design Considerations

In doing research I noticed a lot of people did it with pneumatic actuators.  The problem was I needed a 30" stroke which is impossibly expensive if you can even find it.  $300 just for the actuator, then you need a pump and it has to stay pressurized.  The advantage is it's quicker.  This works better when you have two smaller sliding doors on either side and you can use both.  This door I could get it to open in minimum of 5 seconds.  After that the gears would slip and the door would sometimes get stuck.  I optimized the code to ramp up slow.  I have the stepper motor perform about 120% of what it needs to open or close the door and the sensor will stop it when it reaches the end.  If the door is completely open, meaning it's blocking the closet (pocket) side sensor it will close otherwise it will always open.  If it's half open and you press the button, it will open further.  

The door slides right into the closet space.  The mirror door leads into the closet.

Climate Change vs Environmentalism

                The truth of the matter is the climate on this planet is changing.  It has been changing from the time when it was formed and it will continue to change until the Sun eventually grows into a red giant and swallows the planet. 

                There are generally two schools of thought on the topic.  One says we’re all going to die unless we do something drastic now and the other says it’s all a hoax.  If you are willing to listen to non-technical politicians and lawyers discuss the topic why not a scientifically trained engineer who has studied the topic?

                The earth goes through cycles, macro warming and macro cooling cycles. Every twenty to one hundred thousand years there is an ice age where large portions of the ice caps melt and travel down.  This is obviously catastrophically destructive.  The best evidence we have is that we are going through a macro warming phase after having been through a macro cooling phase or mini ice age in the middle ages. 

What is the data we have?

                For the last sixty years worldwide digital and accurate analog thermometers have been keeping track of land and sea temperatures.  Combined with fifty years of weather and temperature satellites we have an unprecedented amount of accurate data for a miniscule portion of time.  Beyond that we have about two hundred years of less accurate written temperature readings from ship and cities.  We have measurements of tides for the last hundred years.  Finally, we have ice records which show temperature in the arctic regions for up to one hundred thousand years.  This gives an indication of temperature in that time but only for that region. 

How has the climate changed?

                Often times you will see a very dramatic chart starting from the 1880 and continuing on to 2010.  The graph will clearly show a steady and precipitous rise in temperature.  See figure 1.  Sometimes it is overlaid with CO’s levels which rise in a more consistent manner.  There is no explanation for the period from 1940 to 1980 when no rise in temperature is seen.  Sometimes the explanation is the heat is hidden.  If you extend the graph further back to the early 1800’s you will see the temperature has risen even more.  The absolute temperature change is 1 degrees Celsius.  Imagine you were standing outside one day and the temperature was 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  The next day the humidity and sunlight were exactly the same but the temperature was 72 degree f.  Could you tell the difference?  The CO’2 has gone up from 300 ppm to 380 ppm a whopping 26%.  PPM stand for parts per million.  Let’s say I had 10,000 balls which represented the atmosphere.  Approximately 8,000 would be nitrogen, 1900 would be oxygen, 996 would be assorted gases and 4 would be carbon dioxide.  4!  It used to be 3.  Sea levels have risen 4 inches in the last century and currently are experiencing a rise of .13 inches per year.  .13 inches is about what you cut off on your finger nails when they get too long.  I’m just trying to put everything in perspective.  Finally, the size of the arctic ice in the north is shrinking while the ice in Antarctica is growing though by not as much as the north is shrinking.  We are in a macro warming phase. 

              

Are we the cause?

                It is widely publicized that 98% of climate scientists believe in climate change.  98% or maybe 100% of climate journals discuss macro warming in their journal entries because this is the most easily measurable and provable part of climate change.  The cause of global warming has to do with several factors, sun spot activity, volcanic activity, and atmospheric makeup.  When we speak about global temperatures we are specifically discussing surface temperature. The core of the Earth is at a much higher temperature; volcanic activity releases that temperature.  The sun goes through an eleven-year cycle where sun activity increases and decreases.  There might be larger solar cycles and there are also core ejections which can interfere with modern day electronics.  The sun is a factor in global temperatures.  Another factor might be the measurement itself.  If we measure temperatures in cities and cities become denser that might skew the measurement.  Finally, the cause that you all hear about carbon dioxide.  As discussed before carbon dioxide has gone up by a large amount percentage wise but still makes up such a small miniscule part of our atmosphere.  Scientific measurement would show how much carbon dioxide equates to how much heat but that’s now what they do.  Scientists or more likely business analysts show how carbon dioxide levels have risen in much the same way as temperature levels.  In the image below, it looks pretty dramatic.  I would say we are probably a contributing factor. 

Are we in danger?

                Here is where science leaves the road and the politics of fear take over.  We hear from politicians that we are already at 1degrees and if we get to 2 degrees we are all in danger of mass floods, hurricanes and death and disease of all kind.  Armageddon is just around the corner but don’t worry we have a solution, just let us tax you for everything you do and all will be alright.  The catastrophic scenarios are not based out of sci-fi, they are based off of computer programs that have tried to model the climate for the last fifty years.  Computers can process data in the way that you tell them to process data.  Think about hurricanes, when they show a hurricane, they show several possible paths.  When dealing with a specific storm and specific data computes can predict one of four possible scenarios each off by hundreds of miles and usually one of them is correct.  One means, it will hit your city and cause billions of dollars of damage and another means it veers off harmlessly into the ocean.  Now imagine a computer program trying to predicts all the weather, storms, temperatures for the entire world.  Even a super computer cannot accurately predict what will happen, it can only give you possibilities.  Savvy and possibly politically motivated leaders in the scientific community’s cherry pick these scenarios to give us the most devastating possibility. 

                I can’t help but laugh every time there’s a snow storm or hurricane and we are again told of the devastating effects of climate change. Has there never been a storm before?  Are the storms worse now?  I don’t know if anyone can answer that.  I do know that storms cause more monetary damage and less bodily damage then they used to. 

                I think the biggest source of danger is the governments State of Fear. 

What should we do about it?

                The government uses two tracks to get people in a frenzy over this topic.  The first is to discuss the devastating effects such as storms, flooding, draught, famine and pestilence.  The second is then to guilt you into it by saying we need to think about the next generations coming after us.  Here is where I disagree the most with the climate alarmists.  They want to tax your energy and production use.  Either directly by a carbon tax or indirectly via cap and trade.  This is what I call a lose, lose, lose scenario.  Consumers lose right away because they have to pay more for less.  Then businesses, especially those in manufacturing leave the country and the economy loses.  Those businesses set up shop in third world countries who don’t care about the environment and they pollute more than ever.  The environment loses.  The only winners are the politicians who get money and the third world dictators who are paid off.  Can you imagine giving money to small backwards countries to pay them back for the injuries of modernizing the world?  Climate Justice at its finest! 

So we do nothing then?

                Drill baby drill right?  No!  Fossil fuels pollute the atmosphere.  Wait, didn’t I just say CO’2 was no big deal?  Burning fossil fuels produce a lot more than CO’2.  They produce nitrox oxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and particulate matter.  You can’t breathe that stuff in.  It’s the environment we should be concerned with, not the climate.  Have you seen the smog in many cities around the world?  That’s not carbon dioxide, that’s the other bi products of manufacturing. 

                In America and other modern countries, we are already doing a lot.  We have strict controls on emissions, we have mufflers on cars and we have scrubbers on power plants.  We should be pushing for more alternative energy.  I’ve heard it said that making a solar panel releases more carbon than it ever saves.  You know what?  I don’t care because carbon dioxide is not the main problem we face.  We should be pushing hard to put solar on every roof and have massive wind farms.  This is a win, win, win solution.  More energy at cheaper costs is a win for the consumer.  More local jobs installing, building, repairing and maintaining these installations is a win for the economy.  Less emissions into our atmosphere is a win for the environment, not to mention our health.  Currently, solar and wind account for 1% of our electricity u se.  With a lot of hard work, this might become 10% in ten years.  It’s not going to be quick and it’s not going to be done by the ‘world.’  It has to be done by us and it has to be in our own best interest.

                I have another solution.  Why not force all cars in America to eventually be plug in electric hybrids?  This means, a battery which powers a motor and a small gasoline engine to produce electricity for longer trips.  Put solar panels on top and you have the most efficient transportation machine possible.  I’ve heard the detractions.  You need to generate electricity from fossil fuels and then transmit and store it.  You lose about 50 to 60% of the energy doing that.  In a combustion engine you lose 80%.  A combustion engine needs to be small, light, and in expensive.  Efficiency is not even a tertiary concern. On the other hand, a power plant that uses oil driven generators care about efficiency and cost.  Weight and size are not a concern.  Furthermore, an electric car is a platform that can be fueled any way possible.  Solar on a car doesn’t generate much, possibly 1-2 KWH per day.  This might get you the first five miles home for free after a day at work where your car is sitting in a sunny parking lot for nine hours. 

There are solutions that help the environment, retain our national sovereignty and increase our economy.   

A Connected World

           Take a moment to think of the four most important inventions in human history.  Whatever you may consider, be it gunpowder, the automobile engine or roads, they are all products of one these four inventions. 

            The first invention is a point of contention because it cannot by definition be recorded.  It’s what makes us different than the animals.  Many animals can communicate, mostly danger, food, and dominance.  Higher level animals can communicate and display emotions of sadness, morning, affection and anger.  Only humans have complex speech.  Only we can discuss events that happened in the past, only we have specific names for people and places.  Only we communicate more than thoughts, we communicate ideas.   Some apes have been taught sign language so it’s possible they could harness the power of complex speech but so far a large scale experiment has not been done.  I know many animals can craft housing like beavers but never did two beavers discuss what another beaver who lived fifty years ago came up with and improve upon it.  Complex speech transforms a pack of beings into a tribe, a village, or even a kingdom. 

            Yelü Chucai, a confusion scholar said, “While empires can be conquered by horseback they cannot be ruled by horseback.”  This phrase refers to military rule but I would extend it to ruling an empire by sending and receiving messages via horseback.  Trying to explain to a chieftain why you needed writing might prove difficult.  The written word, which cannot be altered is so powerful.  It makes laws, history, banking and book making available.  Despite all the tangential inventions that predicate or follow from writing it’s the books that are important.  Jesus’s message of peace and a personal relationship with the All Mighty could be spread around the world only through the Bible.  Thoughts and ideas could be spread.  Creating a book was still a costly and arduous task.  However, without it the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Archimedes to name a few would not have survived.  Boiling it down, writing allowed the creation of empires and the persistence of knowledge. 

            There are several world changing inventions that were created in China but didn’t reach their ultimate potential until the Europeans got hold of them.  As an aside gunpowder was created first in China but not until it was combined with metallurgy to form muskets and cannons did it change the political and military landscape.  The same is with the printing press, first invented in China to create either religious or other spiritual teachings.  After some research China actually created a printing press with moveable type, first with wooden blocks and then with ceramic ones.  By the 12^th century some machines were made with metallic movable type parts.  The problem was that it was still a labor intensive process.  It was in Europe that the mechanized printing press was created.  It still had to be driven / cranked but it was semi-automated.  It wasn’t just used for religious, news and government purposes it was used for science, architecture, and math.  At the time of the end of the middle ages some science was in conflict with the Catholic Church which was stifling invention.  Once you could mass produce books, the person could be killed but not the idea.  The European style printing press transformed the middle ages into the renaissance.  Nothing would ever be the same.  It’s all about transmission and persistence of ideas and information.

            Before concluding the fourth major civilization changing invention we need to talk about the disconnected world.  In the ancient world (before 0 BC) the world was isolated to the following regions, South Africa, North Africa & the middle east, Europe, Asia, North America and South America.  There were probably many other smaller regions but the general idea is there was no communication, little or no travel and no information spreading.  In concurrence with the renaissance brought upon by the mechanical printing press the world became connected.   Would Columbus have sailed to America in 1492 if the printing press had not been commissioned by the Catholic Church in 1440?  Perhaps, but the pace of invention would not have continued.  The world slowly and surely became less disconnected as the centuries past.  By the 20^th century, getting anywhere in the world could be achieved within a day or two.  Communication became instantiations.  All of these flow from the ideas found, recorded, and disseminated by books.  Even when I went to college in the late 1990’s (dated) I learned primarily by books. 

            The final life changing invention was the internet.  The internet like all other inventions were precipitated by many other inventions like the computer, monitors, Ethernet, and routers.  The internet reduces the time to communicate and save ideas to zero.  It connects the whole world but in a specific way.  It is the final product of the word (spoken, written, produced, transmitted).  There is no quicker way to send ideas, pictures, and now video.  The internet is still only 20 years old.  It’s just started and it’s already transformed banking, books, news, politics, science, commerce and every other aspect of our life.  Yes, it was aided by smartphones and tablets but it is the all connected interface that will change the world irrevocably.  The internet will create a global social conscious form. 

            There is not much more progress in the physical location of people and goods.  Logistics will continue to optimize the transport of goods and people but until we get the Star Trek Transporter we will not be able to get people or goods around the planet faster.  There is only one track for progress, the dissemination of ideas via the internet.  Or is there?

            Before continuing onto the final connected world I would like to point out another competing track, 3D printing.  It’s still a novelist game but made for the masses what’s the difference between a transported good and a created good?  Unless of course if it takes just as long to print as it does to ship.  The only thing that could progress a connected world which is viable is a connected mind.  I’m not talking about being psychic but let’s explore scientific advancement.  The brain cannot transmit electrical energy over distances but the electrical energy can be transmitted approximately 1cm past the skull.  A passive reader or MRI machine can pick up brain waves.  We have used these noninvasive techniques to control a robotic arm.  This research is still in it’s infancy.  It’s still like the internet in the late 70’s.  Imagine a technology that along with mental training that could transmit ideas and commands.  Psychic like control could be emanated by individuals.  I always thought of sending truly private conversations to people I chose.  This would need an ear piece that could receive directed messages.  So far this would be nothing more than an extension of social like media.  The next leap is only in the imagination.  If you could connect our brains together in maybe a trance like state where the logical side of the brain was still awake it could be combined to form the best super computer ever.  The biggest challenge is how to transmit ideas to a brain?  Aside from the five senses how can we implant ideas?  A scary prospect. 

            This dual track combined with the internet and big data would bring us a truly connected world.

The Arc of Government

         Throughout the entirety of history governments have sought to rule absolutely over their people whether by monarchy or by party rule.  This is an obvious and necessary response.  How best to protect yourself against an outside force but by unifying. 

Take a single village in the midst of the wilderness, say they are self-sufficient.  They grow their own crops, make their own clothes, cut trees for shelter and even take what little metal they have to make for tools and weapons.  If each family is left to themselves, they will argue over small matters and the village will be torn.  They need some judge at least to keep the peace, someone impartial who can institute some law.  At this stage they are safe from themselves but who is the watcher to keep watch over marauding invaders.  Even if such a watcher exists who will muster the villagers to fight, who has trained them, who can lead them?  A well trained village can possibly defend against a band of marauders but not a coalition of tribes or an army.  How can two dozen well-armed, well trained men defend their village against a hundred or hundreds of Vikings?  This means a fiefdom, or kingdom must arise. Coalitions are notoriously week in dealing with coordinated attacks. 

The arc of history is always towards big government for the purpose of defense but big government gets confused and thinks it exists for its own purpose, for the purpose of opulence of the state.  Moreover, since the time of Plato’s Republic government has sought to institute its citizens and make them vassals of the state.  Give them enough education but not too much, enough vigor but not too much, a family but only subservient to the state. 

America was the first country to break this model.  A ragtag revolution orchestrated by the rich elite who in times past would take a deal and sell out the people either weren’t given the proper compensation or had some spirit.  Benedict Arnold was not an abnormality but the norm caught in a sea of change.  I do not wish to excuse his treachery, for he pretended to be revolutionary only to return to the Crown.  When America was finally free of England and more importantly it’s taxes it could have very easily chosen to become a monarchy of its own.  I do marvel at the story, however fabled, that George Washington was offered the title of President for Life and chose to be cast to an elected term office.  The first words of the constitution are, “We the people”.  The first ten amendments called the Bill of Rights gives rights to individuals.  Rights are by definition those which we already have and government can only protect.    We already have the right to speak, write, worship as we wish, to travel and be secure and to pick up a weapon to defend ourselves.  Government, does not give us as rights the entitlement to others property or service without just or unjust compensation but only that to which we already are endowed by our creator.   America was unique in that it sought not to create an all-powerful government but one that could simply protect the country at large from foreign invasion. 

The major change happened seventy-five years later when an industrial society clashed with an agricultural society.  These two societies were at the fracturing point when a leader decided to push them over the edge by enforcing a law ending institutional slavery.  The civil war was not about slavery but about dominance, dominance of Washington over the states.  It has led to the ever declining states’ rights. At the time it was necessary, if there was two America’s one could be attacked and invaded and the other would stand idly by.  Necessity forced unity’s hand.   Again, in world war one and the depression that followed we needed to unify.  We were forced out of necessity to grow Washington.  Washington grew not just for defense but for standards, and the growth of economy.  All good things, the department of Agriculture used to offer suggestions for all farmers spreading the good practices of others but now offers handouts not to grow crops.  As an aside, communication is the great advancer, a farmer’s family can live for many generations on one plot of land never improving the crop or harvest.  Out of many such lands only one in a dozen or a gross might come up with a small improvement.  The more that improvement can be shared, measured and standardized can all benefit.  Again, this is what government has the potential to do well.  It does not need to harbor a secret for its own capital advancement.  Let the reader not be mistaken that I advocate government in all forms but government like all entities has its place and if it does its job well it makes all better and if it does its job poorly most suffer. 

              The great depression led to the most sweeping socialism the county had known.  Not shortly before, the federal reserve and the income tax had been established, no coincidence of course.  What better way to centralize government and therefore money than a good old fashion crushing debt crisis?  The country recovered and by World War II the country was in full government debt fueled capitalistic swing.  Every great invention for the next fifty years came from that war.  Truly the greatest and most terrible war mankind had ever experienced. 

              Despite the Orwellian scare of Big Brother, He turned out to be kinder and gentler. He pushed us to stop smoking, recycle and use mass transportation.  States were supposed to be independent if not sovereign counterweights against the all imposing federal state.  Chip by chip, they lost their prowess.  Now, they can do little more than tax and create imposing layers of bureaucracy.  Generally speaking, governors maintain the roads and regulate interstate taxation.  I can’t think of another viable function of state government.  They doll out money to schools which they collect from taxes, similar to the model for the rest of their functions.  Towns with mayors who used to do this job have disappeared and replaced by townships who have “supervisors” who collect the garbage and perform other mundane activities.  Police are regulated by the counties and their “executives”.  Rampant inflation is given euphemistic names like quantitative easing.  Our recorded inflation is close to zero but taxes, medical, food, fuel and any service that requires human labor increases by ten percent a year.  On the plus side we can buy a plethora of electronic gaming devices for the same price today as twenty years ago not indexed for inflation.  This, the experts say offsets real inflation as though you could eat your ipad.

              Our economy is not bad though.  Highly skilled workers have and continue to do well to provide for themselves.  Money changers, I mean bankers, continue to do outstandingly well.  Low skilled entrepreneurs also do well, those owning small shops or trucks that sell food and sweets.  Medium and low skilled workers have it difficult.  The government likewise has been ‘compelled’ to help.  Programs that were meant to provide an extra “supplemental” bit of food to extremely impoverished families now provide a generous amount to 20% of all US households.  Still, it is not enough to cover the entire food bill so the indignant protest.  The most laughable thing is the call for a living wage.  Everyone should have a living wage by earning it.  Paying someone more than the labor they deserve means someone else must get less, and the accountant in the middle will always take a cut.  Then, as in all economic systems inflation will rebalance the equation and the low skilled workers at the bottom with the false sense of security will again scream for more.  Fair or not fair, right or wrong but in every case government grows.  Our economy has a GDP of 14 trillion dollars, a federal budget of 4 trillion and if you add up all the state budgets I would assume another 2-3 trillion.  Then throw in all the top corporations and you have an economy which is 60 to 70 percent controlled by just 1-2 % of the country.  It might at this point sound like I am advocating a group like we are the 99% but I am not.  Those groups ARE the 1% because they all call for bigger government. 

              Shocking changes to the government would not make things better so the only way to go is bigger and more expansive government.  It’s coming to the point and will come to the point where there is no where left to grow.  You can’t have a federal government control 80% of all commerce because then you have straight communism.  I might be wrong about that number, maybe it’s 75%, maybe 85% but at some point there is no more economy.  Like in Venezuela which was only surviving due to high oil prices.  When the prices collapsed so did the society.  What we have is a list of bad choices.  From bad to worse, shrink the government which is painful to everyone and usually is not followed until conclusion like staying on a diet.  Second and much worse would be slashing government down to the proper size quickly.  It could be carried out without losing focus but would be extremely disruptive.  Thirdly, let government grow until it is a defacto socialistic state.  That is the easiest and the deadliest choice.  I suppose conquering foreign lands would be an option but we don’t have the stomach for it.  If we were to say (and I’m not advocating this) take over Mexico and Canada we would grow our assets faster than our budget.  Again, this would be a communist move because that’s how communism survives, by spreading.  

There is another way to go which is even worse than the current litany of bad choices.  We could push the globalist agenda.  It starts from the noble cause of a more connected and interconnected world. A global economy that can produce and design anywhere and everywhere supposedly benefiting everyone.  Whether the merits of free trade are more beneficial to the wealthy nations or to the poor I leave for another article to dive into.  What comes beyond that which we have already seen is corporations without borders, and states without sovereignty.  Internationalist groups and terrorist groups cross borders as they please.  Proper nations control less than they think.  Their leaders can be influenced with money, their elections manipulated by out of state entities.  People of the world so to speak.  This is the moment at which we are at where the leaders of our country influenced by foreign funded groups try to push elections in other countries towards desired paths.  Who’s desired path?  The people of that country, the people of our country, the leaders of our countries or the special interests who have power and influence over our leaders while holding allegiance to no one?

Finally, what comes at the end is a one world government.  It doesn’t need armies if it can use countries armies as its tentacles.  It doesn’t need currencies if there is only one.  Is a one world government a good thing or a bad thing.  Well, that depends.  If there were other planetary systems with strong economies and powerful militaries then like the village in the beginning of the story we would need to unite to stand up for Earth’s common good.  But without an external threat any world governing body will naturally become corrupt and bloated and counterproductive. 

Here comes the new world order, same as the old world order.