Tag Archives: Japan

PAD 2/2/13 – Think Global, Act Local

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“”Think global, act local.” Write a post connecting a global issue to a personal one.”

This platitude is something you hear bandied about by people trying to pose as activists in the first world. They use this phrase too much to try to sway people who are really not interested in changing what they are doing. Life is comfortable in the way we are living it, imposing our comforts on the entire world is actually what is working to damage it. We hop in our cars which is damaging the climate. We pay taxes to a government that is besotted with war, so in that way, we are washing our hands in a fountain of blood. We are against cruelty to animals but eat agricorp chicken, beef, and pork. The fact that we are cruel to the ugly animals and kind to the cute ones is a hilarious batch of double-think.

We think that by imposing our will on the world, a world that doesn’t share our cultural background or our religion or customs is somehow not going to end in a blaze of destruction and ill-will returned to us in spades? It would be far better to let the world develop all by itself without the mighty hand of the American Empire. We can handily defend our borders, Canada is affectionately inert and Mexico has been providing us with slave labor for so very long that we should actually be sending them little thank you cards. Illegal immigration is the pot calling the kettle black. All we need to do is defend our waters and leave the rest of the world to fend for itself.

This isolationist policy spits in the face of globalism and it doesn’t matter if you are for it or against it, it’s going to be the only option left to us very soon. How much money does it take to fund American interventionism across the planet? How much money do we spend on our bullshit wars? We defend places that no longer hold interest for us. We defend Japan, the Philippines, Germany, the DMZ in Korea. We perpetrate a hopeless war of irrelevant stupidity in Iraq and Afghanistan against foes that may or may not be there. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, what you think is right or wrong to do in a time of war. Eventually we will just RUN OUT OF MONEY and then what? What happens when there is nothing left, no more money to be had. When our debts overwhelm us? Will we die by the sword or by trillions of tiny little paper cuts? It’s folly to think that we can buck the trend that has been established for thousands upon thousands of years. Empires come and go and they last for about 250 years before they start to erode away. America is 237 years old. We’ve got 13 good years left to us, and we’ll be slated to die of natural causes in 2026. We can of course kick the can down the road, but to do so we will need to stop being foolish with money. For as long as America has existed, we’ve been at war almost constantly. What has it gotten us? A broken world that resents us. We will eventually run out of money which will mean we will have to abandon our designs on “The New American Century” and give up aspirations on an eternal American Empire. It’s just not going to happen. It would be better to admit this sooner rather than later. Dispose of war, leave these regions for good and let the people there sort out their own affairs. Leave Korea for the Chinese and Japanese to puzzle out. Germany and the Philippines no longer require our presence, they are doing just as well without us as with us. Call back all our overseas troops and concentrate our budgets on matters of home and hearth.

Either we can do this sooner, when it’s comfortable for us to do so, or we could wait and then run out of money. I’m sure our military will continue to serve as proud Americans after their paychecks stop coming. It’ll be really quite nasty when we can’t send food to them and they have to start fending for themselves. Alas, that’s the choice we have before us. Either we can retract or we can let what we’ve sent abroad starve. It’s just a matter of time.

PAD 1/22/2013 – Mastery

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“If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick?”

I find this to be a problematic post to work on. I don’t think mastery in just one skill is a very good idea. It’s been my experience that when people elect to become a master of a skill that some other skill has to suffer to admit room for the extra material for the one you’ve selected. I think that in a life there is a kind of zero-sum-game going on with skills. I see this quite often, especially at work. I’ve seen many examples of PhD-level educated people unable to conduct themselves with common sense that other people take for granted. I’ve always used the example from when I was going to SUNY Buffalo. I attended a class where the professor, a doctorate professor, could not operate a basic rubber wedge doorstop. So I don’t think that mastery is something that people should necessarily pursue. I am far more fond of stretching yourself to familiarity with other skills and I’m a huge fan of “fake it until you make it”. As I grow older I discover that the only thing that can really buy you any level of familiarity (or mastery perhaps) is just experience and learning. My aversion to pursuing mastery doesn’t mean I am against learning, just the opposite. I think that when people stop pursuing new things, when they stop learning, that’s when we start to die. The death accumulates around us slowly, we know it will eventually claim us, but in cultures where people are very long lived, like Japan, people live for a very long time because they are important and valued and that helps keep someone fresh and running. When you stop running, you’ll be less apt to run and then you’ll slow down – eventually ripe for death to pluck. So, avoiding mastery for exploration is what I think leads to the happiest and longest life you can lead. Try something new, be something new. There is a great quote from Voltaire which illustrates what I’m saying:

If we do not find anything pleasant, at least we will find something new.

Chainfire

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It all started with a comic exchange about the fetish that some southerners have to mowing their lawn. That they do so in conditions that make sitting on a rain-soaked lump of steel during an electrical storm appear to be exclamations to evolution to come and weed them out of the gene pool. It struck me that these people could be riding along, get hit by lightning and then the tractor they are sitting on could explode and shoot a gout of flaming gasoline onto their house setting that on fire.

That started the idea that I’ve had for a long time. That there exists situations where the worst possible thing could actually ignite a chain of comically bad consequences. One of my favorites starts with a teeny Earthquake and then proceeds to lead to one path for the Apocalypse. It all starts with a 9.5 Earthquake under New Madrid, Missouri. That of course annihilates New Madrid (see ya) and the energy released causes the San Andreas to finally let go, which would of course need to be more than a 10 on the Richter scale. That pushes the western ridge of California into the Pacific, and pretty much all of California is annihilated (oops, bye bye) and of course the lateral shift would push a huge mass of water out and that would initiate a real Tsunami, so Midway and Hawaii would see maybe a little rise in water level, but Japan… oh… bye bye. The energy released for both faults going off so close together causes Mt. Hood to erupt (bye Oregon) and the differential in magma + the earth ringing like a bell from both events sets off the Yellowstone supervolcano. It’s 600,000 year store of pressure is released, perhaps 15 on the Richter scale opens up something fantastic right under Yellowstone. So immediately we’ve lost California, Missouri, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Hawaii might be under seawater, and Japan would definitely also be lost. The supervolcano rages for maybe a month, shooting millions of tons of ash and pyroclastic material high into the atmosphere. The Jet Stream takes all this fine particulate material and pushes it all the way out to Newfoundland. The dimming of sunlight causes an epic crop failure, the pyroclastic grit causes all dwellings in the precipitation path to collapse from the weight and then as people drive around with the grit in the air they destroy all the mechanical modes of conveyance through abrasion and failure leaving us in scattered communities only bridged by people willing to walk outside. Without a rebreather-kit the grit would likely lead to widespread development of Mesothelioma in anything that breathed the air. The United States practically starves to death, the US Economy collapses, which then sets off China as their currency collapses (debt based on the full faith of  a place that no longer exists, really) and that would affect every other world economy, leading to an extinction-level event. Practically the only really safe people would be aboard the ISS. As of today, that would be six people left.

Dear Dr. Hawking, it’s a damn shame nobody is listening to you. I hope the people up in the ISS have a woman and a way back down, up there. 🙂