This week I discovered an online argument between people that got me thinking. The argument is over a logical train of thought to "prove" or "disprove" the existence of God. I tried my best to follow the contortions of logic put forward, but frankly I was overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by the arguments. The reason for the argument was of much greater interest, and I hope I can explain my views without causing undue offense to either sides.
The reason we argue is a deeply seated drive in the human psyche. To understand this we need to explore the structure and functions of the cognitive being we call Man.
The primary question we must ask, and examine our own beliefs around, is whether one believes (there is no proof) there is existence without physical life. Before you were born, did you exist? After you die, will you continue to exist?
The reason for this searching question is to determine if you believe in the existence of the core, the Spirit. Do you believe that, when all else is tripped away, you are a pure spirit, that exists, and can exist, in the absence of all the other elements that make you a person.
Regardless of your personal thoughts, let us, for the sake of my writing, assume there is an entity that identifies as You, the Spirit.
The Spirit You is most often encountered as your conscience. The little voice that urges you to do the right thing, rather than what your selfish side regards as right for you.
The next element of your make-up is a clearly defined and understood portion called the Ego. Freud described it, albeit in a slightly different way, and we are all acquainted with the definition. This is the part of your mind that turns everything it can to your benefit. According to the Ego, its all about You.
The Ego is a mechanism developed to manipulate your actions, the actions of others, and your environment, to give you the maximum chance of success. It is a survival mechanism, honed by evolution, that gives you the maximum chance of surviving and thriving, no matter what.
The conflict between one's Ego and Spirit requires choice. Choice makes us human, and sometimes leads to either acts of great selfishness or great selflessness. Enormous power and liberation can be found in understanding these dynamics and controlling them. Doing what you desire, rather than what your Ego desires, is maybe the ultimate act of "growing up".
Getting back to argument; arguments are often more about the proponents drive to be right, rather than truth. We see this in so many spheres. Arguments to arm militia, and start wars for the sake of peace. Alienating friends and family in order to prove to them that your way is right.
Religious beliefs are personal. Assuming one believes in God it should be about one's personal relationship with God. Unfortunately the Ego strikes in this area as much as in every other facet of life. The arguments seem to develop thus.
+ God Exists: I believe and accept. Proclaiming my beliefs and pointing the way to God is reasonable. Unfortunately my Ego steps in and I take it upon myself to formulate arguments showing how my beliefs are right, and better than your beliefs. I then adopt tactics to bully and coerce you to agree with me and fall into step with me.
- God Does Not Exist: I see no proof I can accept, and I am content with no belief or obligation to any Deity. Respect for the beliefs of others does not cost me anything. However, I now dance to my Ego's tune, and actively denigrate your beliefs in God, present numerous arguments to prove there is no God, and do anything I can to exploit cracks in your belief system.
I am RIGHT.
At this point one also needs to acknowledge that neither the Ego nor argument are intrinsically wrong or undesirable. The Ego is a very useful tool, as long as it remains a tool. Argument, if conducted respectfully and constructively, advance our understanding and leads to discovery. What is important is to remain vigilant and self-critical enough to recognize Ego driven behavior and seize back control. You are, after all, more than just a selfish narcissist.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The Green Shell Game
This morning I came across an article that tried to make the point that one's software had an impact on the power consumption of a server in a data center, and its rating on a Green Index. So by writing code in a less power hungry manner one could contribute to lower power usage, and therefore lower global carbon emissions. Interesting. So if we were to spend a lot of time and effort to convince the several million writers of server side software to keep this in mind we could, ostensibly, save a few tons of coal burning cross the myriad power stations around the globe.
Actually this struck me as being quite hilarious because it illustrates quite nicely how the melange of media and bloggers (guilty as charged) can muddy the waters.
Assuming human emission of carbon and climate change are an issue (something not everyone seems to agree on) let us look at relative causes.
Motor vehicles are significant, and people beat each other up about this regularly. However, driving an American monster truck is actually benign relative to some other causes.
Electricity usage by households has an impact, and efforts like Earth Hour try to bring this point home. However, switching off a couple of light bulbs may impact your power bill but is really quite small in the bigger scheme of things.
Industry has a much bigger role to play in power usage, but it is generally quite efficient since factories are run on tight financial budgets to increase profitability. In other words they can afford whatever techniques and technology will lower their costs.
Mines are power gluttons and will remain such while commodity prices are high. Public oversight has improved in this area in recent years and one hopes it will continue to.
A massive contributor is the wood fire, used by several billion people globally, to cook their meals. Some estimates put the impact of cooking fires at about half of our carbon footprint. There are many initiatives globally to teach and disseminate more efficient cooking technologies such as pyrolytic stoves.
Then there is the elephant in the room, the Mokita.
The production of oil and gas around the world is a massive industry, and a little known fact is that is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, carbon emitter of all. The practice of flaring gas is part and parcel of the production of oil, and one often punished with hefty fines if unbridled.
Flaring is permitted because it is necessary for various safety checks and procedures, to prevent pressure build up and emergency situations. Ideally gas released during drilling should be captured to either resell or re-inject into the ground.
Reselling gas is viable, but often drilling is performed where there are no pipelines to transport the gas to market. It is not regarded as economically viable to store the gas in tanks and transport those.
Re-injecting gas is also a way to extend the life of an oilfield. Oil does not occur in convenient subterranean lakes, but exists between rocks, soil and other material underground. The pressure of the gas in the same substrates is what drives the oil, like water through a sponge, to where it enters the pipe drilled down into the ground and emerges as a mix of oil, ground water and gas. Once the gas pressure falls below a certain point the oil stops flowing. At this point, with the technology we have, we have probably extracted no more than 25% of the oil in the ground. By re-injecting the gas we get to extract more oil.
However, the greed of men being what it is, the theory and the practice differ significantly. Satellite images show enormous patches of light in oil drilling areas at night, brought about by the flaring of gas 24/7, 365 days of the year. The oil companies are simply too busy producing black gold and do not have the inclination to extend the lifetimes of their wells (there is always another oilfield to exploit) or produce energy more efficiently.
In countries like Nigeria there are millions living with no electricity, using life threatening and carbon spewing wood fires, all around oil wells flaring enormous quantities of gas every day. It simply is not economically or politically expedient to give these people free energy to use, despite the riches flowing from the very soil they were born on. The Nigerian oil fields are the brightest spots seen from space in Africa. In Russia (Siberia) people are given cheap energy, but the same bright patches are seen along the Arctic wastes where few people live. Other oil rich areas around the world all exhibit the same tell-tale lights.
So next time you experience angst and guilt over your failure to write efficient code, drive anything that uses more gasoline than a Tesla, or leave your phone charger on even if you aren't charging your phone, ask yourself why gas flares are so absent in the media and government debate on the subject.
More reading here on how this is handled in the USA.
Actually this struck me as being quite hilarious because it illustrates quite nicely how the melange of media and bloggers (guilty as charged) can muddy the waters.
Assuming human emission of carbon and climate change are an issue (something not everyone seems to agree on) let us look at relative causes.
Motor vehicles are significant, and people beat each other up about this regularly. However, driving an American monster truck is actually benign relative to some other causes.
Electricity usage by households has an impact, and efforts like Earth Hour try to bring this point home. However, switching off a couple of light bulbs may impact your power bill but is really quite small in the bigger scheme of things.
Industry has a much bigger role to play in power usage, but it is generally quite efficient since factories are run on tight financial budgets to increase profitability. In other words they can afford whatever techniques and technology will lower their costs.
Mines are power gluttons and will remain such while commodity prices are high. Public oversight has improved in this area in recent years and one hopes it will continue to.
A massive contributor is the wood fire, used by several billion people globally, to cook their meals. Some estimates put the impact of cooking fires at about half of our carbon footprint. There are many initiatives globally to teach and disseminate more efficient cooking technologies such as pyrolytic stoves.
Then there is the elephant in the room, the Mokita.
The production of oil and gas around the world is a massive industry, and a little known fact is that is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, carbon emitter of all. The practice of flaring gas is part and parcel of the production of oil, and one often punished with hefty fines if unbridled.
Flaring is permitted because it is necessary for various safety checks and procedures, to prevent pressure build up and emergency situations. Ideally gas released during drilling should be captured to either resell or re-inject into the ground.
Reselling gas is viable, but often drilling is performed where there are no pipelines to transport the gas to market. It is not regarded as economically viable to store the gas in tanks and transport those.
Re-injecting gas is also a way to extend the life of an oilfield. Oil does not occur in convenient subterranean lakes, but exists between rocks, soil and other material underground. The pressure of the gas in the same substrates is what drives the oil, like water through a sponge, to where it enters the pipe drilled down into the ground and emerges as a mix of oil, ground water and gas. Once the gas pressure falls below a certain point the oil stops flowing. At this point, with the technology we have, we have probably extracted no more than 25% of the oil in the ground. By re-injecting the gas we get to extract more oil.
However, the greed of men being what it is, the theory and the practice differ significantly. Satellite images show enormous patches of light in oil drilling areas at night, brought about by the flaring of gas 24/7, 365 days of the year. The oil companies are simply too busy producing black gold and do not have the inclination to extend the lifetimes of their wells (there is always another oilfield to exploit) or produce energy more efficiently.
In countries like Nigeria there are millions living with no electricity, using life threatening and carbon spewing wood fires, all around oil wells flaring enormous quantities of gas every day. It simply is not economically or politically expedient to give these people free energy to use, despite the riches flowing from the very soil they were born on. The Nigerian oil fields are the brightest spots seen from space in Africa. In Russia (Siberia) people are given cheap energy, but the same bright patches are seen along the Arctic wastes where few people live. Other oil rich areas around the world all exhibit the same tell-tale lights.
So next time you experience angst and guilt over your failure to write efficient code, drive anything that uses more gasoline than a Tesla, or leave your phone charger on even if you aren't charging your phone, ask yourself why gas flares are so absent in the media and government debate on the subject.
More reading here on how this is handled in the USA.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
So the universe as we know it is under threat. However, not from terrorists, cyber-terrorists, nazis, communists, anarchists, jihadists, zealots, fundamentalists, crusaders, racists, imperialists, or any of the other -ists out there. We are under threat from central bankers, global banking groups, large banks, investment banks, hedge funds, market speculators - in short big finance. Their tools? Manipulation of markets, laws, monetary policy, and stock markets.
Since the first bankers issued paper money to a king unable to control his spending, the partnership between bankers and the state has been the same. Milking the consumer like a cow through the mechanisms of interest and tax works better today than ever. The stock-in-trade homilies used to justify the practice in the face of massive foreclosures is remarkably similar to the NRA following's statement that "people kill people, not guns". The finance community are quick to point out that most people can handle their credit in a "responsible" way. Outlawing rampant credit is therefore like banning guns. It will step all over someone's constitutional right to wreaking havoc.
So if, like guns, we just had a world awash in low-hurdle credit, we could expect the regular creation of soup-kitchen queues (like we now expect regular massacres at schools), but now the game has gone to a new level.
In much the same way as the super powers instigated an arms race that ended up in a strong potential for worldwide nuclear destruction, the financial superpowers have now created a monster which can sink us all into a post-apocalyptic hell. The printing of money for Quantitive Easing combined with the gargantuan greed of players in the economic stratosphere that is banking and financial markets has become a self-perpetuating hurricane which will leave ordinary people unable to function or partake in the essential elements that make us modern humans.
When the financial systems implode - and they will - how will electricity, food, gasoline, water, and services be delivered? If a company cannot be paid - because the monetary unit ceases to have any meaning and the customers have no way of obtaining it anyway - how can the company continue to function and sell its wares? There simply is no standardized bartering mechanism to replace money. A utility company with 5 million customers will not be able to negotiate a swap of skills, time, produce or anything else the customers may be able to offer in lieu of money.
There seems to be a dearth of meaningful solutions. There isn't enough gold to make a dent in the money in circulation, so there is no returning to that standard. Despite democracy the politicians seem too deep in the pockets of big finance to be effective. The best they can come up with is printing more money, raising taxes, protecting banks, and blaming forces they do not understand.
Here's an idea:
If a man pays you with a check, and it bounces, you won't accept it the next time. If the government (read Fed) expects you to accept its check (US Dollars) but by the time you use it (cash it) the money is worth less than when you sold your time/product/skill/asset, it means the check bounced, if only partially. The finance ecosystem predicates its greed and existence on the acceptance, by ordinary people, of its monetary instrument. If that instrument is no longer accepted, they will begin to realize they are broke and need to get a real job (which produces).
Will you be ready to stand up to big finance and their gorilla (government) when they come calling to "ask" nicely that you continue to accept their checks?
Since the first bankers issued paper money to a king unable to control his spending, the partnership between bankers and the state has been the same. Milking the consumer like a cow through the mechanisms of interest and tax works better today than ever. The stock-in-trade homilies used to justify the practice in the face of massive foreclosures is remarkably similar to the NRA following's statement that "people kill people, not guns". The finance community are quick to point out that most people can handle their credit in a "responsible" way. Outlawing rampant credit is therefore like banning guns. It will step all over someone's constitutional right to wreaking havoc.
So if, like guns, we just had a world awash in low-hurdle credit, we could expect the regular creation of soup-kitchen queues (like we now expect regular massacres at schools), but now the game has gone to a new level.
In much the same way as the super powers instigated an arms race that ended up in a strong potential for worldwide nuclear destruction, the financial superpowers have now created a monster which can sink us all into a post-apocalyptic hell. The printing of money for Quantitive Easing combined with the gargantuan greed of players in the economic stratosphere that is banking and financial markets has become a self-perpetuating hurricane which will leave ordinary people unable to function or partake in the essential elements that make us modern humans.
When the financial systems implode - and they will - how will electricity, food, gasoline, water, and services be delivered? If a company cannot be paid - because the monetary unit ceases to have any meaning and the customers have no way of obtaining it anyway - how can the company continue to function and sell its wares? There simply is no standardized bartering mechanism to replace money. A utility company with 5 million customers will not be able to negotiate a swap of skills, time, produce or anything else the customers may be able to offer in lieu of money.
There seems to be a dearth of meaningful solutions. There isn't enough gold to make a dent in the money in circulation, so there is no returning to that standard. Despite democracy the politicians seem too deep in the pockets of big finance to be effective. The best they can come up with is printing more money, raising taxes, protecting banks, and blaming forces they do not understand.
Here's an idea:
If a man pays you with a check, and it bounces, you won't accept it the next time. If the government (read Fed) expects you to accept its check (US Dollars) but by the time you use it (cash it) the money is worth less than when you sold your time/product/skill/asset, it means the check bounced, if only partially. The finance ecosystem predicates its greed and existence on the acceptance, by ordinary people, of its monetary instrument. If that instrument is no longer accepted, they will begin to realize they are broke and need to get a real job (which produces).
Will you be ready to stand up to big finance and their gorilla (government) when they come calling to "ask" nicely that you continue to accept their checks?
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