Saturday, October 6, 2012
Why, America?
Want to know why guys like Obama get elected? Because people vote for the guy who will give them the most money. Our country is doomed, unless people vote for the guy who says "No I'm not going to give you money. I'm going to take away your welfare, and your social security, and your medicare, and your education grants, and everything else, and I'm going to make government about enforcing the law and protecting the citizens of the country from enemies." Because we don't have money. We borrow money. We print money. Think about it. If you are getting money from the government, but complain about the debt crisis, are you willing to give up whatever money the government is giving you to have a stable country? Or are you like the rest of the leeches in this country?
Am I saying I want higher taxes? Certainly not! But the reason taxes are on the rise is precisely because of all the other junk the government gives to people.
Along those lines: have you listened to the debates? The arguments seem to fall on the lines of: "This is what I give you..." and "This is what I won't take from you..."
My point is: democracy is a failed system when you no longer have a populace that actually cares about the greater good. Any system of government fails when those who make the decisions are not concerned with the greater good. In America, that extends to the people who vote, because they vote for their own short-term good, not the greater good. In a monarchy, it only takes one selfish sinner to mess the system up. In America, it takes a nation full of selfish sinners to mess the system up. Guess what: all government systems are fatally flawed -- they all have selfish sinners.
The only form of government that isn't flawed is a benevolent dictatorship with a perfect dictator... Only God can satisfy that position.
At least the American system was built with checks and balances. The problem is that the checks and balances have been bribed -- the congress is getting paid by the government, the supreme court is full of people who like the government, and the people are getting paid by the government.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Fire Near Lynchburg... Or Not
I work inside all day on Friday. So when a friend called me and asked if I knew anything about where all the smoke was coming from, I didn't know what she was talking about. But when I left work, sure enough, a bad smelling smoke was in the air.
So I did a little bit of googling, and this is what I found: it appears that the smoke is coming from a swamp fire in South Eastern VA, in a place called the Great Dismal Swamp, a wildlife refuge that crosses the VA-NC border. The fire started due to lightning, and was first reported last week Thursday (August 4th). It has grown to 5793 acres as of today. Looking at the Wikipedia article, the fire is burning about 5% of the swamp's acreage. A number of stats and an up-to-date article (as of today) are available here, including counts of personnel and equipment currently fighting the fire (230 people as of today).
The reason for the smoke in the Lynchburg area is a change in wind direction sometime within the last day or so. Recent reports of smoke in Halifax County have been tied to the fire, according to this article.
From the previous article I found out about this site, which has some original source (government) information on the fire. The best part is the map that shows the area of the swamp that is actually on fire.
However, the most impressive image, in my opinion, is this satellite photo showing the smoke visible from space. That photo appears to have been taken before the change in wind direction.
This is reminding me of a recurring thought whenever I hear of wildfires in the States--I read an article in high school that said that the "Smokey the Bear" policy on fires forests was actually leading to worse fires. The article said it is actually better to let small fires burn, because that clears out fuel that is otherwise left for larger fires. If the small fires are stamped out with German precision, the fuel just builds up, leading to larger, more widespread fires, than if the natural chain of events was allowed to follow a reasonable course. I don't know whether or not this Dismal Swamp fire is a result of the "Smoky the Bear" attitude, but I do wonder.
I tried a quick Google search on Smokey to see if that would lead me indirectly to the article I read in high school, or something similar, only to discover that even Wikipedia mentioned the concept in its article on Smokey. It appears that the article I read represents a trend over the last 10 to 20 years away from the old Smokey who said that any fire is a bad fire, to a new Smokey, focused more on preventing wildfires, than on ecologically good (and even necessary) small fires.
One of my intuitive evidences for agreeing with the idea that it is good to have small fires is that growing up in South Africa, I remember every winter there would be occasional "veld fires" that would burn up a few acres at a time and then die. It was not uncommon to drive around towards the end of the winter and see blackened fields all over the place. But we more frequently heard of wildfires in California and Australia in our local news than we heard of wildfires in South Africa. I think both of these things stem from the antithesis of the Smoky-the-Bear mindset. In South Africa, we would give fires a bit more room to do their business (within reason), and in the end we would have a number of small fires as opposed to one large fire. Again, I don't know the reality behind what I perceived, but that has contributed to my agreement with the less intense Smokey Bear concept.
So I did a little bit of googling, and this is what I found: it appears that the smoke is coming from a swamp fire in South Eastern VA, in a place called the Great Dismal Swamp, a wildlife refuge that crosses the VA-NC border. The fire started due to lightning, and was first reported last week Thursday (August 4th). It has grown to 5793 acres as of today. Looking at the Wikipedia article, the fire is burning about 5% of the swamp's acreage. A number of stats and an up-to-date article (as of today) are available here, including counts of personnel and equipment currently fighting the fire (230 people as of today).
The reason for the smoke in the Lynchburg area is a change in wind direction sometime within the last day or so. Recent reports of smoke in Halifax County have been tied to the fire, according to this article.
From the previous article I found out about this site, which has some original source (government) information on the fire. The best part is the map that shows the area of the swamp that is actually on fire.
However, the most impressive image, in my opinion, is this satellite photo showing the smoke visible from space. That photo appears to have been taken before the change in wind direction.
This is reminding me of a recurring thought whenever I hear of wildfires in the States--I read an article in high school that said that the "Smokey the Bear" policy on fires forests was actually leading to worse fires. The article said it is actually better to let small fires burn, because that clears out fuel that is otherwise left for larger fires. If the small fires are stamped out with German precision, the fuel just builds up, leading to larger, more widespread fires, than if the natural chain of events was allowed to follow a reasonable course. I don't know whether or not this Dismal Swamp fire is a result of the "Smoky the Bear" attitude, but I do wonder.
I tried a quick Google search on Smokey to see if that would lead me indirectly to the article I read in high school, or something similar, only to discover that even Wikipedia mentioned the concept in its article on Smokey. It appears that the article I read represents a trend over the last 10 to 20 years away from the old Smokey who said that any fire is a bad fire, to a new Smokey, focused more on preventing wildfires, than on ecologically good (and even necessary) small fires.
One of my intuitive evidences for agreeing with the idea that it is good to have small fires is that growing up in South Africa, I remember every winter there would be occasional "veld fires" that would burn up a few acres at a time and then die. It was not uncommon to drive around towards the end of the winter and see blackened fields all over the place. But we more frequently heard of wildfires in California and Australia in our local news than we heard of wildfires in South Africa. I think both of these things stem from the antithesis of the Smoky-the-Bear mindset. In South Africa, we would give fires a bit more room to do their business (within reason), and in the end we would have a number of small fires as opposed to one large fire. Again, I don't know the reality behind what I perceived, but that has contributed to my agreement with the less intense Smokey Bear concept.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Photo of the Day: Automatic Caution Door
Another example of confusing signs is one I used to see frequently, "School Bus Stop Ahead." I still have not been able to figure out if that means, "A School-Bus Bus-Stop is ahead;" "School Bus may be around, therefore you may need to Stop Ahead;" or, "There is a School, where there is a Bus Stop, ahead." It is rather confusing to me--the search for brevity has left meaning lurking in the shadows.
I wonder if these confusing signs are actually effective. Is the loss of meaning really catastrophic? Or is it possible that the strangeness of the wording is actually a working component of the sign? It could be argued that the sign loses effectiveness by obscuring the meaning. Because the sign is potentially confusing (or even just amusing), it loses its power to warn. However, I think it may also be possible that the strange wording contributes to the effectiveness of the sign by making the reader think about it. The fact that you are thinking about the oddness of an "Automatic Caution Door" actually draws your attention to the sign, and makes you more aware that there is an automatic door in front of you. With the human tendency to take things for granted, it may be that a sign that said, "Caution, Automatic Door," would pass through our minds unnoticed, because there would be no awkward grammar to catch our attention. A normal sign would fail to warn us at all, whereas an awkward sign would catch our attention, and while a processing delay may be experienced, at least the message is being processed. Since humans tend to ignore things they become accustomed to, an awkwardly worded sign may be more effective, because it confronts us with its strangeness at every opportunity.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Photo of the Day: Oily Rainbow
My thought about this picture is not the oil but the rainbow. I came out of church on a gloomy, rainy day to see that the oil from my car, mingled with water running down hill, had created this mini-rainbow. And the thought that struck me today when I saw this photo is that God provided for rainbows even in situations like this, where the oil leaking signifies a need for a somewhat expensive repair job. The rainbow has, since it's Divine instantiation, been a symbol of hope, a symbol of the peace that comes after the storm. It is precisely because it is a Divinely created symbol that it symbolizes such hope. God is the one who brings us through the storms of life. He is the One who gave Noah the plans for the ark, He is the One who kept the Ark safe, and He is the one who brought it in the end to dry ground, where He gave the rainbow symbol. In the same way it is God who carries us through the difficulties we all must face in life, and the rainbow in the oil leak is just another reminder of this concept. The rainbow in my situation is hope that some day soon, thanks to God's provision, I will get that fixed and I will no longer have a car that smokes.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Pennies
I have often heard people express disgust at the idea of picking up pennies from the ground. I have never had an attitude of disgust towards the practice. My reasoning for being someone who will gladly pick up pennies (often pennies that others do not wish to pick up) is as follows.
How much time does it take to pick up a penny? If we estimate that it takes 2 seconds to pick up a penny, that means one has earned 1 cent in 2 seconds. Someone working for minimum wage earns 7.25 an hour. If you divide that by 60, you get 12.1 (approximately) cents per minute. They only earn one cent every 5 seconds. To look at it another way, picking up a penny in 2 seconds is the equivalent of 30 cents a minute, or $18 an hour. So if you take the extra 2 seconds it takes to pick up a penny, you are, for those two seconds, earning $18 an hour. Granted, it's only two seconds of work, whereas even a minimum wage job will give you hopefully at least 20 hours a week. But I would imagine you wouldn't slight the idea of earning $18 an hour for at least a small sliver of your life.
So next time you see a penny on the ground, I hope you consider picking it up and earning $18 an hour.
How much time does it take to pick up a penny? If we estimate that it takes 2 seconds to pick up a penny, that means one has earned 1 cent in 2 seconds. Someone working for minimum wage earns 7.25 an hour. If you divide that by 60, you get 12.1 (approximately) cents per minute. They only earn one cent every 5 seconds. To look at it another way, picking up a penny in 2 seconds is the equivalent of 30 cents a minute, or $18 an hour. So if you take the extra 2 seconds it takes to pick up a penny, you are, for those two seconds, earning $18 an hour. Granted, it's only two seconds of work, whereas even a minimum wage job will give you hopefully at least 20 hours a week. But I would imagine you wouldn't slight the idea of earning $18 an hour for at least a small sliver of your life.
So next time you see a penny on the ground, I hope you consider picking it up and earning $18 an hour.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Caveman Economics Part III: Needs and Wants.
This post is Part III of the Caveman Economics series. You can view the other posts in this series here.
Work is the fundamental principle of economics. Energy and time place a cost on any work done by a person. Whether or not a task is considered worth that cost depends upon it’s perceived value or importance. That perceived value is tied tightly to a person’s concept of needs and wants. Needs and wants is the first concept I remember learning about in economics. It is a concept that probably every human being understands--there are certain things you need to survive, and certain things you want, even though your survival does not depend on them.
Needs are those things upon which your survival depends. They are relatively limited, and are universal to all humans. Everyone needs food and water, shelter of some sort, and clothing of some sort. However, needs are not entitlements--the fact that we need food and water does not mean we deserve them. We need them to survive, and therefore must provide them for ourselves. Let us go back to the Caveman Economics approach. Imagine you are a caveman alone on a deserted island. There is no government that will step in to help you. You are the one responsible to do the work needed to keep yourself alive. You need food, so you need to find berries or fruits so that you can eat. You need shelter, so you explore your island and find a cave that protects you from the elements. Needs may be limited, but they require work to fulfill.
The above paragraph does raise the question of the person who cannot provide for himself. There are many in this world who cannot survive on their own--children, many elderly, and many disabled. These people survive either on the provision of others, or they die. This may sound cold, but it is a fact of life--needs would not be needs if they were not necessary for life. Hopefully, this harsh reality should motivate us to help others who cannot fend for themselves, either through teaching them and enabling them to fend for themselves, or merely providing for them if they are unable to be taught. For example, a child can be taught to fend for himself. As he grows older, that teaching will translate into actual ability, and hopefully some day the child will be completely self sufficient. However, an aging parent is likely losing the ability to survive. This person doesn’t need to be taught how to survive. He needs to be cared for and provided for. Since needs are not entitlements, no one is automatically going to provide for those unable to provide for themselves. Someone has to step up and do the work.
Wants are those things you desire, but things you could physically survive without. Wants are pretty much unlimited (unless you have developed an amazing level of contentment) and can differ vastly among humans. We all have desires, and those desires are not universal--I may want things you abhor. Whatever the desires, the satisfaction of one want leads you to want something greater than the previous want. If you survive as a caveman for long enough, after a while you may begin to get really good at catching squirrels. However, squirrel meat every night is going to get boring. While it may once have been something you really wanted (since your need for food was met with berries), now catching squirrels is something you do with your eyes closed. You want something more. But in order to chase something meatier than a squirrel, you are going to have to work harder. Even something as seemingly basic as higher quality food, if it is not necessary for survival, can become a want. Wants also require work to fulfill, and greater wants require more work to fulfill than lesser wants..
Needs and wants alike require work to fulfill. However, thanks to the unlimited nature of wants, and the fact that our time and energy with which we can work to fulfill those wants is limited, we have to choose. That is the essence of the Economic Problem, which will be Part 4 of this series.
Work is the fundamental principle of economics. Energy and time place a cost on any work done by a person. Whether or not a task is considered worth that cost depends upon it’s perceived value or importance. That perceived value is tied tightly to a person’s concept of needs and wants. Needs and wants is the first concept I remember learning about in economics. It is a concept that probably every human being understands--there are certain things you need to survive, and certain things you want, even though your survival does not depend on them.
Needs are those things upon which your survival depends. They are relatively limited, and are universal to all humans. Everyone needs food and water, shelter of some sort, and clothing of some sort. However, needs are not entitlements--the fact that we need food and water does not mean we deserve them. We need them to survive, and therefore must provide them for ourselves. Let us go back to the Caveman Economics approach. Imagine you are a caveman alone on a deserted island. There is no government that will step in to help you. You are the one responsible to do the work needed to keep yourself alive. You need food, so you need to find berries or fruits so that you can eat. You need shelter, so you explore your island and find a cave that protects you from the elements. Needs may be limited, but they require work to fulfill.
The above paragraph does raise the question of the person who cannot provide for himself. There are many in this world who cannot survive on their own--children, many elderly, and many disabled. These people survive either on the provision of others, or they die. This may sound cold, but it is a fact of life--needs would not be needs if they were not necessary for life. Hopefully, this harsh reality should motivate us to help others who cannot fend for themselves, either through teaching them and enabling them to fend for themselves, or merely providing for them if they are unable to be taught. For example, a child can be taught to fend for himself. As he grows older, that teaching will translate into actual ability, and hopefully some day the child will be completely self sufficient. However, an aging parent is likely losing the ability to survive. This person doesn’t need to be taught how to survive. He needs to be cared for and provided for. Since needs are not entitlements, no one is automatically going to provide for those unable to provide for themselves. Someone has to step up and do the work.
Wants are those things you desire, but things you could physically survive without. Wants are pretty much unlimited (unless you have developed an amazing level of contentment) and can differ vastly among humans. We all have desires, and those desires are not universal--I may want things you abhor. Whatever the desires, the satisfaction of one want leads you to want something greater than the previous want. If you survive as a caveman for long enough, after a while you may begin to get really good at catching squirrels. However, squirrel meat every night is going to get boring. While it may once have been something you really wanted (since your need for food was met with berries), now catching squirrels is something you do with your eyes closed. You want something more. But in order to chase something meatier than a squirrel, you are going to have to work harder. Even something as seemingly basic as higher quality food, if it is not necessary for survival, can become a want. Wants also require work to fulfill, and greater wants require more work to fulfill than lesser wants..
Needs and wants alike require work to fulfill. However, thanks to the unlimited nature of wants, and the fact that our time and energy with which we can work to fulfill those wants is limited, we have to choose. That is the essence of the Economic Problem, which will be Part 4 of this series.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Diary of a Blogger: Day 7
About a week ago I was reading an interview by Jesse Gardner with blogger Tim Challies, who has been blogging daily since 2003. The thought struck me that I might like to try blogging every day. I decided I would give it a try--write one blog post every day for the rest of the year. Thus far I’m a week in. It hasn't gotten too exciting yet, but it has been interesting.
I have had a blog for over a year now, and I have always had ideas of things to post on it. However, I was rarely able to take the time to work on an idea that I had until I felt ready to post it. Now, I know I have to post something, so I am finally putting pen to paper on ideas I have had for over a year. I have found this phenomenon to be the most interesting part of blogging daily. Nothing else has worked to get me blogging. It has never been for lack of ideas--I just never made the time to do it. Now I have an outlet for what I have wanted to write, because I know I have to write something.
At this stage I am not really worried about the people reading the blog. My main motivation is for my own personal development. After reading the Challies interview, ideas that had been floating around in my head for a few months came together. I suddenly saw blogging as being a way to do three things. The first is to develop my mind. I expressed in a previous post that I was disturbed by what I perceived to be the effects of social networking--shallowness. I see blogging as a way to develop my mind in the opposite direction. The second thing is discipline. I saw in blogging an opportunity to develop discipline through doing something daily that is public, something where people will ask me, “Why no post today?” The third thing is writing. I have read before (it was a post by Jesse Gardner, actually) that he found that practicing writing was the key to being able to write well. Combine that with the ideas put forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, that practice is one of the keys to success at something, and you get what I am thinking--blogging every day gives me the opportunity to practice writing and thinking as never before, and practice it in such a way that it bears some sort of fruit.
I don’t know if I will make it all the way to the end of this year. The rest of the year is a long time, and the hard part--the fall semester--is yet to begin. That may well kill my blogging. But I hope it doesn’t. I see blogging as a chance to practice doing a specific thing daily. That is a skill that applies to many other things in my life that I need to improve on by doing them daily. So keep checking back here at the Alien Thinker. Caveman Economics is the main series I am working on currently, so you should see those posts come out every few days. Other than that, I have a bunch of ideas for different themes up my sleeve. A couple have already appeared, such as the “Photo of the Day,” or “Song of the Day,” but I also hope to do reviews of books when I finish reading them (or thoughts as I read them). One theme I am particularly excited about is my (hopefully) soon-to-be-launched “Electronics Dissassembly” theme, where I blog about my experiences while taking apart, and maybe putting back together, an old electronic device (complete with gory photos of dismembered circuit boards...). Also, keep your eyes open for the occasional poem or other fictional work--Adventures in Flandendale would be my most recent one (although I do like Lyrical Lemonade--over on my literary blog. I don’t plan to continue posting there, at least not for now).
I have had a blog for over a year now, and I have always had ideas of things to post on it. However, I was rarely able to take the time to work on an idea that I had until I felt ready to post it. Now, I know I have to post something, so I am finally putting pen to paper on ideas I have had for over a year. I have found this phenomenon to be the most interesting part of blogging daily. Nothing else has worked to get me blogging. It has never been for lack of ideas--I just never made the time to do it. Now I have an outlet for what I have wanted to write, because I know I have to write something.
At this stage I am not really worried about the people reading the blog. My main motivation is for my own personal development. After reading the Challies interview, ideas that had been floating around in my head for a few months came together. I suddenly saw blogging as being a way to do three things. The first is to develop my mind. I expressed in a previous post that I was disturbed by what I perceived to be the effects of social networking--shallowness. I see blogging as a way to develop my mind in the opposite direction. The second thing is discipline. I saw in blogging an opportunity to develop discipline through doing something daily that is public, something where people will ask me, “Why no post today?” The third thing is writing. I have read before (it was a post by Jesse Gardner, actually) that he found that practicing writing was the key to being able to write well. Combine that with the ideas put forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, that practice is one of the keys to success at something, and you get what I am thinking--blogging every day gives me the opportunity to practice writing and thinking as never before, and practice it in such a way that it bears some sort of fruit.
I don’t know if I will make it all the way to the end of this year. The rest of the year is a long time, and the hard part--the fall semester--is yet to begin. That may well kill my blogging. But I hope it doesn’t. I see blogging as a chance to practice doing a specific thing daily. That is a skill that applies to many other things in my life that I need to improve on by doing them daily. So keep checking back here at the Alien Thinker. Caveman Economics is the main series I am working on currently, so you should see those posts come out every few days. Other than that, I have a bunch of ideas for different themes up my sleeve. A couple have already appeared, such as the “Photo of the Day,” or “Song of the Day,” but I also hope to do reviews of books when I finish reading them (or thoughts as I read them). One theme I am particularly excited about is my (hopefully) soon-to-be-launched “Electronics Dissassembly” theme, where I blog about my experiences while taking apart, and maybe putting back together, an old electronic device (complete with gory photos of dismembered circuit boards...). Also, keep your eyes open for the occasional poem or other fictional work--Adventures in Flandendale would be my most recent one (although I do like Lyrical Lemonade--over on my literary blog. I don’t plan to continue posting there, at least not for now).
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