So before that was what?

 I apologize for my ignorance of physics.  However, ignorance doesn't stop me from puzzling over the larger mysteries, such as the state of the universe at the moment of the Big Bang.  In fact, ignorance seems assist me in being puzzled.  So if you are knowledgeable in this area, you have my apology, and you might want to spend your time reading something more useful to you.  Nevertheless I will appreciate any comments.

In the universe entropy always increases, which is to say the universe gradually becomes more disordered, ultimately resulting in a state of maximum entropy or disorder in which nothing can happen.  Time has even been defined as taking its direction from increasing entropy, i.e. that time is the rate at which entropy increases.  

The point-universe at the moment of the Big Bang was in minimum entropy, or maximum order.  Since that moment. entropy and disorder have increased as we move slowly toward total disorganization.   At the end of the universe, it will become a "soup" of undifferentiated states of energy in which nothing can happen.  Time will have stopped since there can be no events. All the little fires will be out.  Like a giant firework display, the Universe will have happened. 

Prior to the Big Bang, what can be said of the nature of the universe?  Probably we can't use the concept "prior" since there would have been no time in existence.  Time requires events which it can discriminate between.  A famous physicist (whose name I can't recall) said that time was what kept everything from happening all at once.

At the moment of the Big Bang, an event occurred and thus time began.  We can't conceive of a prior universe existing without time.  "Prior" requires a preceding time.  Events require an increase in entropy, so there could be no events in a timeless universe.  We do know that the universe at the moment of the Big Bang must have been in a state of minimum entropy/maximum order.  

How did a state of maximum order occur, and how can it be described?  The Big Bang was an event, and therefore it happened within time and space.  How did that event happen prior to time? Once it has happened we can consider the order of events. But "before" the Big Bang nothing can exist. Time begins with the first event, the Big Bang.

To fall back into the supernatural and posit an agent who starts the Big Bang seems to me a cheap and superficial way of avoiding the problem.  The Big Bang is itself a causeless cause.  Since event history began with the Big Bang, it is pointless to assume a prior event.

Someone out there, please enlighten me.  I also recognize that it may be impossible to do that, but I will appreciate the attempt.

Leaves versus boats

There are two ways to look at how you live your life.  Both have  strengths and both have drawbacks.  As a psychotherapist, I always lean to the side of having more choices, but that's because of the life style I have chosen.  If you have not made a conscious and deliberate choice (yet) about your style of life, then you have chosen the one with fewer choices.

The latter approach (with fewer choices) I call the "leaves on the stream" style.  It is by far the most common life-style.  In it we simply respond to the circumstances that present themselves, like leaves floating  on a slow-moving stream.  The leaves go around the obstacles with little hindrance (most of the time) and float all the  way to the ocean, where they disappear into the boundless blue water.  Such a person doesn't make active choices about direction, but only responds to those problems that present themselves.  "Leaf" people (most of us) make temporary choices and handle problems with as little effort as possible.  They become the product of the choices that fall to them, and so they are living examples of how "temporary choices" can become our lives.

Leaf people study whatever their school offers them.   They get jobs and do them, some times very well.  They may or may not like what they  do, but doing what they might like is either not available or not possible.  They cope with the problems life presents to them, doing what they need to do to keep floating.  They marry, have children, grow old and die without a lot of  thought as to whether there were (or are) other possibilities.  In many or most cases their culture may not allow for alternatives or choice-making.  Circumstances can cause people to have few or no choice, and as a result they just have to keep plugging along, trying to find  as much satisfaction and pleasure in their lives as they can. There's a certain nobility in just keeping on, doing the job, handling the problems and not giving up.  The world depends a great deal on such people.

I call the other style "boats on the ocean".  People navigate the streams, setting courses and goals, and going there.  Choices are made on the basis of how well or how poorly they fit the chosen directions.  Lives are measured by how closely People approach their goals.  They don't become anything "by accident".  They will give up immediate pleasures and ease for the sake of long-range goals.  They focus part of their energy on solving problems that have not yet occurred.  Of course unexpected obstacles pop up, and they have to deal with them, but they return to their course as soon as possible.

Things change for  both groups in middle age.  The "leaf" style of person expects to have fewer problems and obstacles, because they expect life to get less demanding. They look forward to "taking it easy" and drifting comfortably into old age.  Sometimes they are uneasy about what they "might have missed" or what might have happened "if".  Sometimes they begin to feel that life has passed them by, that life has lived them and they have not lived it.  They may wonder who they have become, and may have little sense of uniqueness or individuality.   Sometimes their pervasive sense of aimlessness leads to boredom and tedious and depressing self-evaluation.  Their battle cry is "What's it all about, anyway?"  Sometimes they revert to their 20s in a futile attempt to start over, which results in the "middle-age crisis" accompanied by red sports cars and a new spouse.  This only delays the inevitable.

The people in the "boat" category do very well if their goals were directions rather than specific accomplishments. Reaching a "goal" is a stopping point, and the directions as to where to proceed (if anywhere) after reaching it are not usually easy or available.  Having gone as far as you can go, you may find yourself in the same situation as the "leaf" people in middle age.  Having moved in your chosen direction, however, does not limit you to an arrival point.\ Directions are open-ended by their nature and not self-limiting.

It seems to me that  the "boat" style has  fewer built-in problems, but overall both life styles  can be quite comfortable for many years.  It's not the long fall that gets us, it's the sudden stop.

Mandatory alcohol detection for drivers

10,000 deaths a year and a million arrests for drunk driving.  You think that's important enough for us to stop it?  Do we do or do we don't want drivers on the road who are impaired by alcohol?  I'm not so concerned about the danger to them.  I am concerned with the danger they pose to others.

The technology is here now.  Using a built-in breathalizer that disables the ignition when alcohol is detected on EVERY new car sold in the US would go a long way to stop that. New technology involves a finger scan and would be even more effective.

There would need to be a stiff penalty for disabling the alcohol detector, such as lifetime revocation of driver's license and termination of all accident or liability insurance, for the first offense.  Second offense would need to be something like a lifetime sentence to a labor camp.

We could stop all those deaths and injuries if we chose to do it.  The added cost of the breathalyzer is minimal weighed against the deaths and damages incurred by drunken drivers.   Make the convicted drunk drivers pay for the installation in everyone else's car.  How about adding to the disabling of the ignition a red flashing light on the roof or automatic alert and tracking through gps?

There is no excuse for driving while impaired.  None.  We don't stop impaired driving  because it might inconvenience us sometimes.  Let's be honest. Enough already.  It is economic and human common sense to stop it now.

Free will and addiction

The issue of whether or not human beings are able to exercise free will is as old as philosophy itself.  Are we simply the product of the various impulses and hormonal floods and conditioned responses?  Or are we capable of making decisions that are independent of our early experiences and that are truly an expression of free will?

It is quite possible, even likely, according to recent psychological experiments, that we only have the illusion of free will.  It is possible that our bodies and brains make decisions before our conscious awareness even weighs in.  Some studies have found that our choices are made several seconds before our conscious awareness is even involved.

But one answer to this problem continues to arise:  the consequences of believing that we do not have free will, of believing that we do what we do as a result of the operation of psychological and neurochemical operations about which we have no say, are quite  unacceptable.  Such an outcome means that as individuals we are not responsible for our actions.  It means that we are only able to carry out mechanistically determined choices. It means that as individuals we "can't help ourselves", that we are not accountable, that we have no choice but to act as we do, and that therefore punishment or consequences are equally useless in governing human behavior, which under this rubric is simply not governable. 

People who claim to be addicts of one kind or another are claiming that their errant, illegal or inappropriate behaviors are not their responsibility.  They are asserting that they do not have the capacity to make choices other than the ones they make, to do drugs, to commit crimes, even to engage in sexual activities of various kinds.  To someone attempting to hold them answerable and accountable for their "addictive behaviors" they respond "I can't help it", which is the philosophical equivalent of "The devil made me do it." 

Even when others, including the law, their spouses or their victims (in some cases the same things) do hold them accountable, in their minds they are the victims of forces over which they believe they have no control.  Thus, they are also blameless victims, no matter the cost to others.  The hormones, the impulses, the fates themselves have determined the outcomes, and the "addict" is just another victim. 

It is useful to notice the circularity of the above argument, which can be summarized easily in the following statement:  "An irresistible impulse is an impulse one chooses not to resist".  How do you know an impulse was the result of an irresistible addiction? Because you didn't resist it.  Could you have resisted it? If you claim you could not, you claim it because you did not.  Have you ever had an impulse belonging to your addiction that you did resist?  Then you can resist it.  You can't have it both ways.  If the impulse is irresistible, there is nothing to resist and no point in trying.  If it can be resisted, then resist it.

With such logic you can do anything you like, claim that you didn't like it but couldn't  help it, and reap the benefits (such as they are) of being an irresponsible child who is at the same time immune from consequences and punishment.  The world in which "addicts" live is uncivilized, animalistic, brutal and exploitive.  How can it be otherwise? They "can't help it".

This is an unworkable model for a civilized world.  Quite apart from whether or not  addiction is a valid concept, a world in which people are not considered to be in control of and accountable for their actions is not one in which we would choose to live.  The proof of the above statement is easily tested by simply observing and evaluating the world in which addicts live.

It is because their irresponsible, impulse-ridden and animalistic world has to exist in the same world as that of the rest of us that the conflict between us exists.  Those of us who are responsible and answerable for our behaviors have to deal with those who do not, and the results for both groups is what amounts to war.  The citizens have to protect themselves against the lawless, but no less do the lawless have to protect themselves against us.

The only way for coexistence to occur is for physical separation.  The addicted and their suppliers need a place of their own that has limited intersection with ours.  They need some things civilization can supply and the humanitarian principles that characterize civilization requires we help them with those things, such as medicine and food.  There is nothing they can easily give us in return,  but their absence improves the situation for both groups and probably saves money for the civilized to boot. 

Let's give them an island.

A Modest Proposal for Texters

I can see clearly that the following proposals have little likelihood of being implemented.  Unless, of course, I am elected Emperor by acclamation.  Laugh, if you will, but it could happen.
     The intent of these proposals is to stop texting while driving.  Not slow it down or punish the texters, stop it. As with any other activity in which it is possible to kill others as well as one's self, decreasing the frequency is not really a good solution.  Stop it is what we must do.  Texters kill others.  I can tolerate their killing themselves, and preferably early in their lives, if possible prior to breeding.
     First:  Anyone convicted of texting while driving or caught while texting has the following sanctions:
Driver's licence suspended for 6 months for a first offense; Driver's license forfeited for life for a second offense.  But wait.  There's more.
     Second:  A "texter" will have his smartphone confiscated and impounded permanently.  Of course, there is nothing to stop a texter from buying another phone, and thus
     Third:  Their phone account is suspended for 3 months.  For a second offense they are prohibited from having a phone at all for 6 months;  for a third offense it is prohibited for life.
     For additional offenses the texter is placed under "house arrest", which means he or she wears an ankle bracelet with GPS and is limited to his/her home and employment for 1 year.  I believe that for these compulsively socially-addicted people this punishment would be very effective.
     Another suggestion I received was to require convicted texters to have their car marked in some appropriate way, such as a flashing red light on the roof, so that the rest of us can be aware of them and take appropriate precautions.

As Emperor I will be open to suggestions, and the more ingenious ones will be rewarded appropriately.

Whatever happened to the social contract?

Reading about the reluctance of otherwise intelligent (or at least educated) people to have their children vaccinated for measles and the like brought into highlight a major and increasing shift in our civilization.  Less and less do people recognize that the goodies we get are paid for by our willingness to carry out our part of the social contract.  These people act as if they were entitled to the benefits of civilization and owed nothing in return.

This is the exact equivalent of expecting running water and electricity without paying taxes.   But such benefits as roads and running water are only part of the social contract.  We owe each other certain considerations, even though they are not as specific and clear as city services.  Living in a group requires that we consider the rights of others and can expect them to consider ours. We make some laws to exact consequences when  basic rights are not respected.  We try not to step on someone's toes or touch strangers unnecessarily.  We try to keep our voices down in public space, such as theaters and busses. We understand that an article in a bag in someone's lap "belongs" to them and we expect not to touch it or take it.

Living together demands that we give up some freedoms in order to live with some comfort and consistent expectations.  In a word, we all owe each other.  Without that social contract life in close contact with others would be unbearable. that is, "nasty, brutish and short".

It seems clear that the social contract is weakening.  People live more and more as if there were no other people on the planet.  They talk loudly on their smart-phones about intensely personal things and they do so in public places.  They spit on the sidewalk, they pick their noses while driving their cars and talking on their phones, as if they were exempt from the requirements of the social contract.  They apparently do not realize how dependent they themselves are on that contract for any kind of  survival.  They apparently do not care about our mutual obligations, though they are quick enough (and loud enough) when people do not respect theirs.

The examples are, unfortunately, endless and apparently increasing in quantity and volume.  The refusal to allow their children to be vaccinated is an excellent example.  Younger people who have grown up without worries about infectious diseases don't seem to recognize that the reason they have not seen them is vaccination.  So they think of these illnesses as unimportant.  When somebody raises the question that it might be possible for vaccinations to cause an illness, they see that risk, no matter how small the data indicate that risk is, as easy to avoid.  No vaccination to their children.

They don't recognize that our protection from infectious illnesses is a group protection, depending on the vast majority of the members of the group being immune and thereby not carriers of an illness.  The non-vaccinators benefit from this protection without recognizing any corresponding obligation to the others in their groups.  Once the number of non-vaccinated  individuals reaches a certain percentage, the disease can and will spread.  Not recognizing the social contract and relying on the universe to continue to treat them as special will have its cost.

The same idea applies to the social contract.  As the number of "entitled people" who consider themselves excused from  obligations to others reaches a certain percentage, society will collapse rapidly as the percentage of entitled grows.  No obligations  to others?  Just look out for what I want and the hell with the rest of you? Civilization is  not unlike a herd immunity which protects against savagery and other uncivilized behavior.  When enough members are no longer immune to savagery, the herd loses its protection and civilization (like health) will fail.

Uncle Charley Visits The Cemetary

"It's Memorial Day," Uncle Charley said as he ambled up the walk.

"I know," I said. "None of my family is buried in the local cemetary, so I haven't been out there."

"Well, I was out there this morning," Charley sat down on the glider across from me, and poured himself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher.

"Hi, Charley," my wife said from the house. "Help yourself to a glass of tea."

"Thanks, Elaine. I just did."

"I know," she answered.

Charley grinned. "She knows me pretty good, all right".

"Yep," I said. "You been out to the cemetary?"

"Uh-huh. Got me to thinking."

"What a surprise," I commented.

"You know those places are getting flat crowded," he said after a pause. "I had a thought that could save space."

"Cremation?"

"Nah, too many people want to have a marker. You probly want a statue of yerself on a horse, and you ain't the only one."

"So what's your idea?"

"I had a couple, acshully. See, I was driving over here and on the way I saw a big old machine boring a hole in somebody's front yard so's they could put in a big tree. And this thought come to me: why not dig burial holes like that, like you would for a tree or a telephone pole, and then just put the body in feet first?"

I laughed. "It would save room, huh?"

"It would, it would! No question. And with the machine it wouldn't take all that long, either. Just dig the hole, 8 foot deep and 2 and 1/2 foot wide, and in you go. You could put the body in, like, a plastic cigar tube, only the right size, of course, and then to keep it secure pour in a foot or so of concrete and set a plaque in the top of it."

"You got this all worked out, haven't you?"

"I figured out that you could put 8 or more people in the same space that one takes now. Would be a bunch cheaper, too."

"Wouldn't it be crowded? Hard to find your relative in the group?"

"I thought about that, and I had another great idea."

"I'm afraid to ask", I said

"What would be the problem in putting a solar-powered gadget into the concrete, and have it have a little memory chip and a proximity-detector in it? Then when somebody walked by, the chip would say whatever the deceased wanted said. Could be just sayin' his name, or maybe a little poem or somethin' like that. Then a walk in the cemetary could be positively entertaining!"

After I stopped laughing, a thought occurred to me. "Charley, I know you've already thought of something. What do you want your solar-powered tombstone to say?"

"Oh, it might say 'Hi, Harry', 'cause I think you're the only one likely to drop by. Or it could say 'Come back later when I'm not so busy', or 'Ouch, yer steppin' on my head'". Maybe it could have a selection of things to say and pick 'em at random."

I was actually getting interested in his idea. "If you encased the whole works in clear acrylic, the weather wouldn't deteriorate it... it could last for many years."

Charley put his glass down. "I can imagine a time when going to the cemetary would be a downright entertaining and exciting event. As long as it wasn't a one-way trip."

Uncle Charley Visits the High School

Charley started before we were even out of the driveway.

"You mind if I talk to you about something while we're going to the hardware store?"

"Nope," I said. "I always enjoy our talks".

"Well, some things I think are probably not safe to say in public, so I figure, you're a relative, so what choice you got?"

"True enough," I grinned.

"OK, here's what started me thinking. I read in the paper not long ago that somethin' more than 9% of the kids in high school here in town have been threatened or assaulted with a gun, knife or bat within the last 12 months. And more than 5% admitted having brought a weapon to school."

"That's pretty bad," I admitted. "It was sometimes bad when I was in high school, right after the invention of the wheel, but I guess it's worse now."

"You got no idea," he said soberly. "I decided I wanted to see what it's like for the kids, so I arranged to stand around in the halls between classes and after school, and I just watched and listened."

"And?" i asked.

"I tell you what," he said angrily, "if people acted like that in the mall, we'd never put up with it. I heard young men and women using 4-letter words loudly, I saw the boys bullying each other, pushing and shoving. I saw young women being sexually groped and harassed. One guy grabbed this young, maybe 15 year old girl, and his buddy grabbed her breasts, and they walked off laughing. There was a teacher there too, did nothing."

"That's terrible," I said.

"What's terrible is that we grown-ups don't do anything to stop that crap. We make laws to protect us grown-ups from that kinda thing, and we enforce them, but not in the high schools! Those kids live in a jungle where the biggest apes get to do whatever they want!"

"That's bad. How can kids learn anything in a situation like that?"

"Grown-up teachers stand and watch without doing anything because they're afraid of the consequences, not only from the kids but from their parents, and they know they won't get any protection from their administrators."

"I think the threat of lawsuit paralyzes them to some degree," I said.

"It ain't just the lawyers or the scared school administration. The parents of those kids are no better than the kids, and they raise hell at the top of their lungs when somebody wants to make their little angels mind their manners and obey the law," Charley said.

"Maybe we ought to punish the parents if their children misbehave."

"Well, since we don't protect the kids, I guess they figured out that they gotta protect themselves. So that's why they're takin' weapons to school."

"Maybe we should put more police in the hallways" I suggested.

"Nah, our police have enough to do as it is. Maybe we should train and deputize a bunch of grandparents and give them the power to arrest people for breaking the law. I mean, there are plenty of laws against assault and sexual harassment already. We just need to make the kids realize that they have to obey the law like adults or face real consequences."

"I guess right now we're just teaching them the law doesn't protect them. No wonder so many grow up without respect for police or the law in general," I said.

"I think some of those kids need to get arrested and answer to a judge. Hitting somebody isn't a form of play. It's a damn assault. There needs to be consequences, and all the kids need to see that there is a law that can protect them and that they can respect." Charley said. "Doing nothing about wickedness is how it succeeds."

"That's what my grandma would have said."

"Mine too," Charley said. "But my grandpa just mighta gone down to the school and done something about it".

Uncle Charley and the Styrofoam Reef

Uncle Charley handed me a beer as I sat down beside him on the front porch glider. I thanked him and settled down comfortably.

"Charley," I said, "I got a problem with my lawn".

"I don't want to hear yer lawn problem right now. We got a lot worse one I been thinking about. I'm older'n you and prolly gonna die first so I get priority".

"OK, what's your problem?" I asked, possibly a little peevishly.

"I been thinking about packaging. All that stuff we end up with after we're finished with whatever was inside... makes a lot of trash."

"Sure it does," I said. "So what?"

"So what? I'll tell you so what! You know who pays for getting rid of that stuff? We do! You know who ought to pay for getting rid of it? The company that put that stuff on." He paused and took a sip from his beer.

"It's worse than that," he said thoughtfully. "Some of that packaging never really goes away. I'm not talking about paper sacks or carboard boxes. We can burn 'em or we can put 'em in a land fill, and in a few hunderd years they'll just be part of the soil. But that styrofoam, that's a whole different story. That stuff never goes away. In ten thousand years we'll have beaches made of it."

"What do you think we should do?"

"How about this? What if manufacturers had to pay for the cost of making their packaging biodegradable?"

"You mean burn it?"

"Nah, ya poop-fer-brains. That only solves one problem while making a worse one. We got to find a way to make it a bad deal for manufacturers, and one they can't just ignore or take our a stupid ad like usual. I mean hit 'em in the pocket book. Make them pay for what it costs."

"They'll just pass the cost on to us", I said dubiously.

"Sure, Harry. But here's the real kicker. If I got to choose whether to buy a hamburger in a styrofoam box for ten bucks or the same hamburger in a paper box for 5 bucks, what do you think I'll pick?"

"Huh." I said, thinking about it. "You'd force the manufacturers to price their product including the cost of actually getting rid of the packaging. Not just the cost of the packaging, which is pretty cheap, getting rid of it appropriately. That's smart. It just might work".

"Even if it only kinda works, it's better than having the Great North American Reef in the Gulf of Mexico made 2 miles high of styrofoam."

"You got a point," I said.

Chats with Uncle Charley II

Charley came by to see me again the other day. It being a nice day, we set out in back on the porch.

"I been thinking," he began. "You work out there in the mental health, don't you?"

"You know I do", I said.

"Lots of people out there have some kind of mental disability?"

"Yes, some do. Many of them live pretty normal lives."

"But some of 'em feel too bad to work?"

"Yes, I guess you could say that. Medications don't work on everybody."

"Give me an example," he said.

"O.K. People with a bipolar disorder have mood swings that make them unable to function or think clearly some of the time. It's hard to hold a job when for 3 weeks every couple of months you can't be at work."

"I understand that," he said. "So they get some money to help them survive?"

"Yes. Not much money, and just barely enough to survive."

"But part of the time they can function, right? What do they do then?"

"Watch TV, I guess, take care of their kids."

"What do they give back?"

"We have to help those who really can't help themselves."

"Yep, I know. But you guys spend a lot of time helping them get the disability money. Why can't the state come up with jobs, even limited jobs, that they can do during the times they're able? There's a lot of wasted hours out there with people that're really able at times, and they could be doing something."

"I suppose you're right," I answered.

"What's the matter? That too much trouble? You rather just hand them the money? Listen, Harry, you oughta know, there's nothing worse for people than knowing they're useless. And you make that worse when they got a lot of time on their hands to think."

"I suppose you're right."

"Damn right I'm right. That's a work resource out there that needs to be useful and productive, and we don't go to the trouble to find stuff for them to do. Being disabled don't mean dumb. Some a them are real smart They can do editing or research or look things up for people. Even the slower ones can stuff envelopes or be elected to Congress."

"Thanks, Uncle Charley. You always give me something to think about".

"Devil finds work for idle hands, kid. See ya."

Chats with Uncle Charley I

Sometimes I drop in to talk things over with Uncle Charley. He's pretty opinionated, and his opinions are certainly not in the mainstream of mid-American thought, but on the other hand, the perspective is frequently enlightening. Recently he read my blog article "No Help for Self-Inflicted Wounds", and he dropped by to give me his opinion. (He doesn't like to respond directly on the blog).

"There's nothing the matter with your idea of withholding payments for medical expenses for some half-wit driving his motorcycle into a bridge-abutment without wearing helmets and body armor. You just don't think it through far enough." His smile was a wicked one.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked, girding myself for something outrageous.

"Well, it's clear you think the human race might be better if the arrogant and stupid were allowed to take themselves out. But the number of people driving motorcycles AND who are able to become parents ain't that large. So, I got this thought..."

"And?"

"You probly want to set the bar a little lower. For instance, what if you issued all of the teenagers, and I mean every one of them, issued all of 'em a motorcycle and made it against the law to use a helmet?"

I was a little stunned, so my response was probably not very effective. "Huh?" I said.

"You want to get all them dummards to sort themselves out before they breed, you see. The ones who make it to 21 alive and mobile deserve to stay in the gene pool".

"Charley," I said. "You're not going to keep the smart ones alive, just the physically able and the lucky!"

"Yer stillnot thinking it through. The smart ones and the rebels will see that they need to disobey the law and wear their helmets anyway."

"I have some real doubts as to whether you could get that to pass," I answered.

"Course it wouldn't pass. Everybody thinks their own idiot child deserves to breed. Specially legislators. But it's always been survival of the fittest. We're not looking at fairness or punishment here, just self-weeding. And being lucky is also a good thing to keep in the human race".

"I wouldn't want to be the person who proposes your modest proposal," I said.

"Well, there's plenty of people who are dumb enough to do it, and we probly already elected them to something or other. Anyhow, good luck with your blog thingie".

"Thanks," I said. "Come by again".

"You can count on it".

The People Hive vs. Us Others

Visiting a step-daughter in the hospital with her first baby, I'm watching the relatives and friends come and go in the room. Most of them are using their phones to text and twitter and send photos to each other. And, gradually, I begin to get a sense of a huge web of people connected electronically to each other, not communicating ideas but rather the personal trivia of our lives, back and forth, constantly affirming that they are here connected with us, all the time. All the time.

There is a group awareness developing more and more. It's almost as if the members of this huge web don't really exist as separate, independent people any more. Their very identities are tied up with what other people know about them, what experiences they share, their immediate perceptions of the world. I think of this group awareness as like that of a hive of bees, all independently operating but at the same time linked to one another and part of a group awareness that is not self-conscious. This "hive" awareness has somewhat tenuous boundaries of varying intensity, and is also linked to other hives of interlinked people.

The hives haven't been around long enough for us to know about their life-cycles, beginnings and ends (if they ever end). The hive members can't even consider not being linked up every moment, communicating with one another. Their communications are not really about what they're having for dinner or who is going out with who. They seem for the most part to be really simple affirmations of presence and existence. As such the content of their messages can be almost anything. People tweet to each other while in the bathroom, having sex, walking.. privacy doesn't matter when you are a hive member. Hive members tell each other and show each other EVERYTHING, and this unwillingness to have boundaries and privacy helps create the hive awareness and the blending of selves. I get the impression sometimes that hive members are all simply afraid to be alone and disconnected.

And some of us are individual bees, flying along and minding our own business, increasingly on the outside of the growing hives who know all about each other but who are hardly aware of the presence of us singletons. We don't belong. We don't share. We cherish our privacy and our boundaries, while the hives around us blend more and more with one another. Perhaps the hives will themselves develop an identity and boundaries of sorts, even a sort of limited self awareness. If one thinks of the members of the hive as nerve cells and the cell phones as axons and dendrites, it's clear that right now there is little difference between the structure of a solitary brain and the hive brain. The hive can even look out through the eyes of the cell phone and perceive things as well as hear them.

I hope the hive doesn't decide there is no room in the world for solitaries.

"Going Green" Is Not a Solution

Pollution is rampant everywhere. Condoms float down a stream, remnants of anti-cholesterol medication flood down the Mississippi. Millions of gallons of pollutants kill the life in the lakes. The simple lack of oxygen in the Mississippi results in a "dead zone" in the ocean of hundreds of square miles. Organizations form to fight these and many, many other problems, but they are not addressing the real problem but rather the symptoms of the underlying problem.

The real problem is that there are too many people. Lacking natural limits on our reproduction or population, there is no upper limit to the number of human beings we are capable of breeding and who survive to breed again. In animal populations without sufficient predators (like wild horses) disease is the limiting factor, and comes about when the density of the animal population is sufficiently high to allow rapid passage of viruses or other disease-causing bacteria. Animals inadvertently cause conditions that stop their over-abundance. Except for humans. On some level we know that either we will limit our reproduction or at some point a "swine flu" will appear that will limit things for us. We will fight that, but ultimately there are just too many people.

There will come a point where all of us just breathing out will cause an excess of carbon dioxide. How much methane can we produce ourselves and not be the cause of the problems? How many people can pee antibiotics into the water before everything dies? It's not plastics that are the problem. It's us. We can fight nature a long time, but ultimately we have to limit ourselves or the planet won't survive. The earth may limit us if we don't take the responsibility.

In addition, judging from the papers, many people having children should not be having children. The children are abused and molested and grow up to repeat their parents offenses. When are we going to require WORLD-WIDE training and licensing for parents and compulsory sterilization for those who will not or cannot pass the examination?

Earned Votes

It's easy to understand why we have a representative democracy, rather than a true one. Reading and understanding the laws governing the United States is a full time job, and then some. We have had to delegate this task to others and pay them to spend all of their time trying to digest and understand the laws as they are proposed. It's really impossible, of course. In fact, our representatives have a full-time paid staff to help them understand the laws; the staff read and make summaries, which is a great deal to accomplish.

Things are changing, now, however, with the advent of the internet and increasing access to all the information anytime anywhere. It is conceivable that within the next few years we might be able to move in the direction of a true democracy, with each of us in our homes reading and voting on local and national issues.

Do we want to do this? I am imagining a country run by the masses of people, the majority of whom have no interest in national issues, nor the competence to understand them. Many can't reat, of course, but the real obstacle is lack of interest and will to take such an active stance. Another objection is the amount of time required as well as the complexity of the material. The sheer volume of words is overwhelming. Possibly the most damaging objection to a true democracy is that there is no ready place for bargaining.

On the other hand perhaps that last objection is really an advantage. Would it be a bad thing if each item proposed for vote had to stand on its own merits? Does pork-barrel bargaining really benefit the country?

Moreover, the laws would have to be written in a simple and precise way. Perhaps only the practical intent and application of the law would be all that is needed. However, there could be no unrelated amendments attached, which is how bargaining worked its way into the legislature. Each proposed law would have to be limited to a single subject, and written with a fair and brief explanation of its effects.

This presupposes that we all as voters would be capable of understanding the proposed legislation and its consequences, and I am not convinced that more than 30 or 40% of the public is actually capable. At the risk of sounding elitist, many of the people that I know and with whom I am friendly are not interested, willing and/or able.

So what about leaving voting to those who are 1) interested, 2) literate, and 3) able? Suppose that votes had to be earned through examination? In that past, literacy examinations for voters were simply a way of excluding certain classes of citizens who were not encouraged to be schooled and literate. However, those days are long past, and now it seems clear that anyone who wants to learn to read and write can do so. I don't want people voting who cannot understand what it is they are voting for.

And I don't want people voting on how to spend our money who don't pay taxes. Our motto should be "No representation without taxation!" It's easy for a welfare recipient to vote for more welfare; he/she doesn't have to pay for it. An important qualification for a voting card should be that the person pays taxes and earns a living if not disabled. Perhaps additional votes could be earned or awarded for community services. For instance, it's conceivable that combat veterans could earn an extra vote; perhaps the extra vote could be limited to areas in which the person has demonstrated especial knowledge or ability.

We might end up with an electorate who are knowledgable, honest, thoughtful and literate, who have earned the right to have an opinion and whose money finances the government. Scarey thought, isn't it. Do we think that a genuine democracy could actually work?

Licensing parenthood II

In our culture, having babies seems to many people an inalienable right. Reproductive freedom is a given. Considering that raising children is the single most important job in the world, we seem to have no qualms about allowing everyone to raise them and in any quantity they desire.

We require people to get a license in order to drive. To get the license they have to show basic competence to know and understand the rules of the road as well as the physical competence to manage a car. But to have a baby all that is required is the urge and the opportunity. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, if you like the present situation. Just ask a DHS worker.

Might it not be a good idea to require people to get a license to have a child? It’s easy to see some advantages to such a proposal. We could require people to show minimal financial ability; we could require skills training, as we do for driver’s licenses. We could require refresher courses to cover various stages in a growing child’s life.

Low intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean disqualification (except in the extremely low range). After all, half the people in the world are below average in IQ. On the other hand, any parent has to have the capacity to understand and abide by basic parenting principles. The only grounds for disqualification for a parenting license would those behaviors or qualities that render a person demonstrably unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection and supervision for a child. Current recreational drug use or excessive alcohol abuse are obvious disqualifiers, as is a history of violence or abuse of others. If future research shows other clear connections between adult behavior and mistreatment of children, such behaviors might well also become disqualifiers.

A serious problem is how to deal with the children that are born to unlicensed parents or to parents who have become disqualified. Obviously we can’t put the parents in jail because they have to care for the child. We can’t abandon the child, either. Clearly we will still need foster homes, although to a considerably lesser degree.

Perhaps a better solution is to add some chemical to the water supply, that would render all of us temporarily or permanently sterile. On receiving a license to have a child, we could be given the antidote to the sterility medication. Essentially (in principle) children would thereby only be born to those qualified to have them.

Not only could you set at least a minimum standard for competency to have and raise children, limits on numbers of children could easily be established and enforced. It’s pretty obvious that overpopulation will lead to absolute disasters in the long run.

While this sounds a little extreme, especially for those of us who object to too much government oversight, it’s our government and our oversight. The situation is plainly out of hand, and the children who are raised by incompetent, uneducated and inadequate parents are the ones who are first to be hurt. We pay the balance of the costs, so we should have some say about what we are willing to pay for.

Another Modest Proposal

People are living longer, and they have more medical bills. This is generally a good thing, especially for older people like me. However, the funds for the available medical help are limited, and there are many instances in which people are denied medical help that might save their lives because there are simply insufficient funds.

I object to using public funds to provide medical assistance to people who don't deserve it. It seems to me that when people engage in behavior which they know will cause illness or death, they should not be covered for medical expenses by Medicare. Examples are easy: Smokers should not be covered for illnesses that are the direct result of smoking, such as emphysema or lung cancer. Motorcyclists who ride without helmets should not be covered for head injuries sufferred in a motorcycle accident. Drug abusers should not receive coverage for drug-related illnesses. And so on.

I don't object to people being irresponsible. I object to being required to subsidize the medical problems caused by their irresponsibility. I object to responsible people being denied medical services because the money that those services would cost have been spent on people who voluntarily undertook the risks of their behavior.

We are going to have to deny some medical services because of fund shortages anyway. I am only proposing that we handle this proactively and decide that we can't afford to subsidize self-destructive habits and hobbies.

Roads, bridges, gasoline

We have low gasoline taxes, high road use, heavy gas-guzzler cars, driving 3 or 4 blocks to get something, no real bicycle/motor-scooter traffic. In Italy and Switzerland (and probably in other EC countries too) the roads and bridges are maintained through a gasoline tax. They have been paying $4 to $6 per gallon for a number of years, while we were paying $1.50 (those days are gone forever). Our roads were paid for with allocations from other taxes.

What if a tax were placed on our gasoline, the funds earmarked for the roads and bridges? If the tax were high enough, say $6 per gallon or even higher, several things would happen which need to happen. 1) We'd drive the gas-guzzlers a lot less. That means lighter cars, more efficient engines with lower horsepower. Like we need 300 hp to drive to the supermarket. 2) We'd use the roads a lot less, with a lot less weight so there would be much less damage and wear to the roads. 3) We'd start using motorscooters and bicycles, and we'd make it safer for such vehicles to go places. In my town riding to work on a bicycle makes you a target for jerky teen-agers (of all ages) with their pickup trucks and huge tires. People would learn to start treating scooters and bicyclists with courtesy. 4) The roads would last longer and take less maintenance, and the bridges could be upgraded without a lot of additional tax money. 5) There would be a real incentive to develop alternative fuel sources, electrical cars, and so on. 6) There would be a real incentive to develop a mass transit system and train system that really works. 7) The air pollution and dependency on foreign oil would decrease, and we might actually find ourselves NOT going to war in oil-rich countries (undoubtedly a coincidence, given the prevalence of WMD). 8) If the gasoline tax were truly earmarked and restricted, our beloved politicians would have less opportunity to spend it inappropriately.

What we have now is laughable, especially in comparison with what is available in other countries. In Oklahoma City, for instance, there IS NO TRAIN GOING NORTH to cities like Wichita or Kansas City. The train that runs the 160 mile trip to Dallas (from Oklahoma City) takes over 5 hours to get there, because it stops and waits at every town. The trains are no good because there is no incentive to use them; because they are inconvenient and poorly managed there is no incentive to improve them.

Am I missing something, or is this a good idea that other countries already thought of?