Ughrit put his giant boots upon a table, which promptly collapsed. This did not improve his already foul mood. "Where is everyone?" he boomingly whined, "I thought this was finally going to be the one. A nice country pub in a pretty little village. That bloody peasant promised this was a nice place even when I said I'd cut his hands off if he was lying. I was going to put my feet up for a bit," Ughrit kicked the remains of the table in a moment of ironic pique, "have a chat with the locals, just settle down. But they've all buggered off. How am I supposed to become a landlord if the peasants all run off?
"I told you Ughwit, you are a bwigand, a mawauder, you inthpire fear and bwing mithewy upon all the world. A pwopieter of a wuthtic esthtablithment you are not." Akhbar had to stoop beneath the low ceiling, a red mark upon his forehead and the a beam still emitted maroon smoke were the results of an earlier unfortunate incident. Akhbar was not in any better of a mood than Ughrit. His head hurt, his robe was muddy, and he hadn't exploded anybody in over a week.
"I've heard all that Akhbar, over and over. But this is my dream. I need to make a change, do something different. But this is so frustrating. This is the fourth village now where everyone has taken everything before we have even arrived. You can't have a pub without people."
"Perhapth it wathn't so withe to have dwagged the whole willage to that firtht pub and then burned the whole plathe down when they weren't jowwy enough," said Akhbar in an 'I told you so' tone only possible between people who have known each for a very long time.
"It was a mistake Akhbar, a mistake. I got carried away. But everyone makes mistakes, people shouldn't hold that against you. If everyone ran off every time someone made a mistake everyone would just be running around all the time. They hate me. I'm never going to have a pub." Ughrit sat down on a sturdy bench, put his head in his hands and began to sob pathetically. In disgust Akhbar, turned, smashed his head on a beam, fell to the ground and crawled out the door. Shortly thereafter came the sounds of repeated crackling explosions and falling masonry.
Once Ughrit had cried himself out he got himself together, smashed a hole in the wall with his axe, and exited the pub. Outside his band of thugs, wastrels, psychopaths and arsonists were providing perhaps the densest quantity of milling that has ever been achieved.
"Alright lads, time for some brainstorming. This isn't working and it's pissing me off." The whole band shuddered and cringed at this news. "All these peasants just leave before we arrive, they even take the beer with them, and you can't have a pub without people and beer. Any ideas?"
"We could grab some people and chain them to the tables."
"How would they drink the beer then Tograt?"
"Um, we pour it down their throats?"
"Not much in the way of convivial atmosphere there Tograt."
"Oh, I don't know, sounds quite charming to me..."
"I have a cunning plan," said a small but particularly disturbing character while cleaning his fingernails with a very small knife.
"Alright, out with it then Hackduff," said Ughrit, "But it better be better than that last one, I couldn't get that stuff out of ears for weeks."
"There is an inn, known as The Inn. It is a mythical place set upon a hill at the crossroads between Hither and Yon and There to Elsewhere. It has always been, and always will. It is the womb of adventure, a place of music, merriment, plots, thievery, lechery and more. It is inconceivable that The Inn would be abandoned."
"Sounds good Hackduff, what's the catch?"
"Catch, oh Terrible One?" Replied Hackduff from his abject yet evil slouch.
"Yes Hackduff, the catch. There's always a catch with your plans and this time I would like to know about it before we start."
"Hmmm, well, The Inn is a large, shambling structure that possibly defies all known physical laws. The clientele is unpredictable, there may be anything from sorcerers to demons within its walls. At the very least it will be messy and people will get hurt."
"Sounds perfect. That should cheer Akhbar up as well. Right then, which way is this inn?"
Hackduff smiled, "Oh, any direction will do if we travel long enough."
Ughrit's course features, still red from his crying, split into a vast, toothy smile. It was horrifying. "Lads, let's saddle up. Free rein all the way there. We're on our holidays now."
Friday, March 16, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Mahatma Candy
Mahatma Candy was the first band in which I ever played. I've told the story before, basically I was doing the Portland hippie thing of hitting hand drums along with a guitarist (Dade, he's awesome) at a barbecue, and he ridiculously asked me to join a band he was starting. The band was Dade, (guitar/vocals) Lori (vocals), Angry Dave (guitar), and myself (percussion). We were a folk/rock band, basically playing rock songs on modern folk instruments. We became like family, closer than I have been to my own family.
I think the thing of which I am proudest is that we wrote songs. It is relatively easy to pick up some cover songs, and in most cases this is what an audience prefers. In Texas I have only seen one band that wrote any originals. If you want to be a working band then top forty songs from the last three decades is the way to go. But right from the beginning we wrote songs. It really was "we" writing the songs, a collaborative effort. Everyone contributed to the lyrics (this was my biggest contribution to the band), Dade and Dave wrote some intricate and beautiful guitar pieces, interweaving their music together so well that it almost sounds like a single musician with other-worldly ability, Lori crafted her own vocal melodies, and I slapped the rhythm down. It is harder to write songs than copy the work of others, but it feels to me so much more genuine, so much more rewarding.
The band ended over ten years ago ( I don't count the failed and weird attempt to continue the band after the heart and soul left) and while I still consider everyone involved my friend, time, distance and circumstance has moved us apart. Very recently Dade sent me a link to some of our original songs and I listened to them for the first time in years. I was expecting a flawed, amateur, but willing result. There is no-one who can pick out an error like the person responsible for it, but I was enormously pleased to find out I underestimated that band. Listening to the pieces again I am humbled by the talent of the people I happened to find, and proud of what we achieved. If you want to know where and why I started playing music, go take a listen.
Writing songs, or good songs, comes from emotion. That emotion can be almost anything, but I personally think it impossible to write a good song that doesn't come from your own personality. One of the songs on that list is called Sleep Sighs. I wrote the lyrics in my usual manner (rhyming couplets a la Shelley) and the actual musicians in the band set it to music. At least I think that's how it happened, we sometimes wrote music first, and then the lyrics. I had forgotten that this song even existed until I heard it again. It speaks to me of what was emerging in me at the time, the beginning of my bipolar experiences. It speaks of sadness that came to me when I was alone, without any reference point, with no particular cause. But it also speaks of a knowledge that I was going to feel better, and that pretty soon I would feel full of joy and beauty. I didn't know it at the time, but my songwriting knew more about me than I did.
I think the thing of which I am proudest is that we wrote songs. It is relatively easy to pick up some cover songs, and in most cases this is what an audience prefers. In Texas I have only seen one band that wrote any originals. If you want to be a working band then top forty songs from the last three decades is the way to go. But right from the beginning we wrote songs. It really was "we" writing the songs, a collaborative effort. Everyone contributed to the lyrics (this was my biggest contribution to the band), Dade and Dave wrote some intricate and beautiful guitar pieces, interweaving their music together so well that it almost sounds like a single musician with other-worldly ability, Lori crafted her own vocal melodies, and I slapped the rhythm down. It is harder to write songs than copy the work of others, but it feels to me so much more genuine, so much more rewarding.
The band ended over ten years ago ( I don't count the failed and weird attempt to continue the band after the heart and soul left) and while I still consider everyone involved my friend, time, distance and circumstance has moved us apart. Very recently Dade sent me a link to some of our original songs and I listened to them for the first time in years. I was expecting a flawed, amateur, but willing result. There is no-one who can pick out an error like the person responsible for it, but I was enormously pleased to find out I underestimated that band. Listening to the pieces again I am humbled by the talent of the people I happened to find, and proud of what we achieved. If you want to know where and why I started playing music, go take a listen.
Writing songs, or good songs, comes from emotion. That emotion can be almost anything, but I personally think it impossible to write a good song that doesn't come from your own personality. One of the songs on that list is called Sleep Sighs. I wrote the lyrics in my usual manner (rhyming couplets a la Shelley) and the actual musicians in the band set it to music. At least I think that's how it happened, we sometimes wrote music first, and then the lyrics. I had forgotten that this song even existed until I heard it again. It speaks to me of what was emerging in me at the time, the beginning of my bipolar experiences. It speaks of sadness that came to me when I was alone, without any reference point, with no particular cause. But it also speaks of a knowledge that I was going to feel better, and that pretty soon I would feel full of joy and beauty. I didn't know it at the time, but my songwriting knew more about me than I did.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Texas Drought
There is not much, if anything, that I hold sacred, but the closest things are books and trees. I know why I hold books sacred, they are founts of wisdom and entertainment. They are a friend, a piece of humanity that will never reject you, solace in loneliness. I don't know why I hold trees sacred. Perhaps it is growing up in a place in which humanity has carved out its place in a giant forest. Perhaps it is that they are the oldest living things that one encounters. Perhaps it is because they are usually the tallest thing around us. It doesn't really matter, but a living tree is a wonder, a dying tree is a sadness, and the killing of a tree is sacrilege. By the two houses I have owned I have planted a tree, a magnolia and a mexican lemon tree, and I will plant a tree by every house I own until I die.
When most people think of the landscape of Texas they think of bleached grass, scrub, a sparsely populated vastness. There is a hell of a lot of that. Texas is slightly bigger than France, the largest country in western Europe, and that landscape does predominate. However, I was surprised to find that Houston is in a (normally) very green area. It gets more rain per year than Portland, OR or the UK, places famous for their rain, but mostly in thunderstorms or the remains of tropical storms. Houston has trees, in my area the most common is the loblolly pine. Tall trees that are presently dumping vast amounts of pollen.
Last year, as I am sure most of you know, there was a major drought throughout Texas. It was actually the worst single season of drought in Texas since rainfall measurements started to be taken. In 2011 Houston had under 15 inches of rain in contrast to the average 54 inches. All around us we saw the death of the natural world. All around were dead and dying trees. Lawns browned and died. Streams dried up. Dust swirled in parks. As I would walk my dog in the autumn I would here the crash of falling trees, every day. The result? In the first picture every single one of those tall, straight pines is dead.
Here is the pile of dead trees from just my local park. A sad, sad sight. To give a sense of scale, in the bottom picture, to the right you can see my eighty pound dog halfway along the pile. The two pictures are two different sides to a square.
Last year, as I am sure most of you know, there was a major drought throughout Texas. It was actually the worst single season of drought in Texas since rainfall measurements started to be taken. In 2011 Houston had under 15 inches of rain in contrast to the average 54 inches. All around us we saw the death of the natural world. All around were dead and dying trees. Lawns browned and died. Streams dried up. Dust swirled in parks. As I would walk my dog in the autumn I would here the crash of falling trees, every day. The result? In the first picture every single one of those tall, straight pines is dead.
Here is the pile of dead trees from just my local park. A sad, sad sight. To give a sense of scale, in the bottom picture, to the right you can see my eighty pound dog halfway along the pile. The two pictures are two different sides to a square.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Subtlety of Moods
Over the years I have slowly discovered some things about moods. The first is that moods color every part of your thinking. How you remember the past, what you predict for the future, how you feel right now. They change your understanding of the motivations of others. They change how you relate to others. They change your motivation, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, who you think you are.
The thing about moods is that often you don't realize that you are in one. Your behavior seems to you to be entirely reasonable based on the situation, and because moods affect how you view the past and the future it feels as though things have always been like this. This can be true even in very extreme moods, like depression or euphoria. When you are depressed it feels like there is no hope for the future, and your past is a tale of woe. If you are euphoric then everything is beautiful and wonderful and nothing matters but right now. I find this difference in time scale both interesting and informative, misery is about the future and the past while happiness is about right now.
I come to this subject from perhaps a weird direction. I have been taking effective medication for my bipolar disorder since late July of last year. While my mood has not been monotonal, it has been within a particular range, wobbling gently between a calm happiness and a mildly ruffled mundanity. Sometime in December this went down a bit, so that I asked my psychiatrist for an increase in dose in order to get back to consistent calm happiness. Unfortunately, at the same time the drug company decided to end their payment assistance program, meaning that the new dosage would cost me about $150 a month as a co-pay (after insurance). There is a generic medication, and the co-pay for the same dosage is about $3, and so I naturally wanted to switch.
My psychiatrist had previously said that "generics don't work" and explained the situation with generic medications in the USA as he understood them. For a start the requirements were set by a group of three men in Washington. The requirements set by the FDA are essentially that there must be the same active ingredient released into the bloodstream within 80-125 percent of the original amount. For my dose of 300mg this means that the range of legal dosage is between 240mg and 375mg, a range of nearly half the actual dosage. According to the FDA the actual variation is usually far smaller than this, and I see no reason to think they are lying. However, according to my psychiatrist, the actual number of people in the FDA checking to see if the standards are maintained is pitifully small, not enough to actually ensure this is true. Moreover, the penalties if caught are not an adequate incentive to ensure standards are maintained. Just in January of this year a company found to have not only not checked dosages themselves, but also used illegal production techniques and lied to the FDA about their actions. Their penalty? A suspension of production until standards were met, and the establishment of an outside auditor to ensure this happened. According to my psychiatrist a study was performed that found the average dosage in generics was 40% of the brand name medication.
Anyway, with this generic drug, in an increased dosage (from 200 to 300mg), my symptoms have worsened. I have had times of increased tiredness, an afternoon of twitchy excitement, and today I realized that I had a sense of world-weariness. The 300mg of the generic is working less well than 200mg of the brand name, but it is still working. I have an appointment next week and will ask for the greatest increase in dosage the psychiatrist will allow. Apparently my experience with this drug (lamotrigine) is not unique.
Now I need to tie all of this together. I had not really noticed a large change in mood during the last three months. I knew there were some more symptoms, and I knew I wasn't at my happiest, but I thought that was about it. After today's realization I started reviewing the last three months and started noticing some things. I realize that I had felt that I was under a curse living in Texas, basically that anything that could go wrong would go wrong. I realized that three months ago I was writing regular blogs, studying spanish for an hour a day, and playing music regularly. 13 posts in both November and December, 8 in January, 4 in February. I now force myself just to study spanish a bit, think that I haven't learned anything, and often go several days between actually studying. I have played music twice in three weeks.
Clearly there has been a pattern here of reduced mood, reduced motivation, reduced energy. The thing is that I did not notice. Mood is the most immediate thing in our consciousness. It colors everything, informs everything. However, its very omnipresence means that it can be invisible. Slow changes are unnoticed. Sudden changes are attributed automatically to circumstances. I believe that our moods are the most important things in our lives, but they are subtle and hide in plain sight.
The thing about moods is that often you don't realize that you are in one. Your behavior seems to you to be entirely reasonable based on the situation, and because moods affect how you view the past and the future it feels as though things have always been like this. This can be true even in very extreme moods, like depression or euphoria. When you are depressed it feels like there is no hope for the future, and your past is a tale of woe. If you are euphoric then everything is beautiful and wonderful and nothing matters but right now. I find this difference in time scale both interesting and informative, misery is about the future and the past while happiness is about right now.
I come to this subject from perhaps a weird direction. I have been taking effective medication for my bipolar disorder since late July of last year. While my mood has not been monotonal, it has been within a particular range, wobbling gently between a calm happiness and a mildly ruffled mundanity. Sometime in December this went down a bit, so that I asked my psychiatrist for an increase in dose in order to get back to consistent calm happiness. Unfortunately, at the same time the drug company decided to end their payment assistance program, meaning that the new dosage would cost me about $150 a month as a co-pay (after insurance). There is a generic medication, and the co-pay for the same dosage is about $3, and so I naturally wanted to switch.
My psychiatrist had previously said that "generics don't work" and explained the situation with generic medications in the USA as he understood them. For a start the requirements were set by a group of three men in Washington. The requirements set by the FDA are essentially that there must be the same active ingredient released into the bloodstream within 80-125 percent of the original amount. For my dose of 300mg this means that the range of legal dosage is between 240mg and 375mg, a range of nearly half the actual dosage. According to the FDA the actual variation is usually far smaller than this, and I see no reason to think they are lying. However, according to my psychiatrist, the actual number of people in the FDA checking to see if the standards are maintained is pitifully small, not enough to actually ensure this is true. Moreover, the penalties if caught are not an adequate incentive to ensure standards are maintained. Just in January of this year a company found to have not only not checked dosages themselves, but also used illegal production techniques and lied to the FDA about their actions. Their penalty? A suspension of production until standards were met, and the establishment of an outside auditor to ensure this happened. According to my psychiatrist a study was performed that found the average dosage in generics was 40% of the brand name medication.
Anyway, with this generic drug, in an increased dosage (from 200 to 300mg), my symptoms have worsened. I have had times of increased tiredness, an afternoon of twitchy excitement, and today I realized that I had a sense of world-weariness. The 300mg of the generic is working less well than 200mg of the brand name, but it is still working. I have an appointment next week and will ask for the greatest increase in dosage the psychiatrist will allow. Apparently my experience with this drug (lamotrigine) is not unique.
Now I need to tie all of this together. I had not really noticed a large change in mood during the last three months. I knew there were some more symptoms, and I knew I wasn't at my happiest, but I thought that was about it. After today's realization I started reviewing the last three months and started noticing some things. I realize that I had felt that I was under a curse living in Texas, basically that anything that could go wrong would go wrong. I realized that three months ago I was writing regular blogs, studying spanish for an hour a day, and playing music regularly. 13 posts in both November and December, 8 in January, 4 in February. I now force myself just to study spanish a bit, think that I haven't learned anything, and often go several days between actually studying. I have played music twice in three weeks.
Clearly there has been a pattern here of reduced mood, reduced motivation, reduced energy. The thing is that I did not notice. Mood is the most immediate thing in our consciousness. It colors everything, informs everything. However, its very omnipresence means that it can be invisible. Slow changes are unnoticed. Sudden changes are attributed automatically to circumstances. I believe that our moods are the most important things in our lives, but they are subtle and hide in plain sight.
The Other Side
In my battle for optimism it can seem somewhat one-sided. I have an opinion and I express it. However, there are certainly a good number of people who have a very different opinion indeed. There are intelligent, informed people who are extremely pessimistic about the future. On any subject it is important to view both sides, and most importantly the middle, to the question. Today I want to give the other side the floor, but of course I will argue against it.
This is a talk by an independent writer and activist Paul Gilding in which he asserts that we have "reached peak everything." "Peak everything" is taken from the concept of "peak oil", in which it asserted that we have reached the maximum amount of oil from which we can take from the ground at an economically viable cost. As we take oil from the ground we take it from the easiest places first, and the overall amount of oil goes down. Demand for energy, specifically oil, is increasing at a rapid pace and so with increased expense to produce oil, increased demand, and a reduced supply, eventually a global economic system fueled by oil becomes untenable. The result is global economic collapse. This concept is expanded by Gilding to include water resources, agricultural land, the resources of the oceans, and so on. The idea is that we are right at the position where our resources for food, water, and energy are at their maximum level and we are on the verge of collapse. He doesn't say that the collapse of civilization is a certainty, only that to avoid this we need to change right now from the concept of an every expanding economy to a contracting economy that concentrates on supplying the basics.
I think he is absolutely right if you make certain assumptions. The assumptions are that technological changes will not happen fast enough, or reach an adequate scale in time to make a difference. Basically, if we keep doing what we are doing now there will be a series of catastrophes, economic collapse, large scale war, famine, environmental collapse. Even if we make some technological changes that improve efficiency, if they don't happen rapidly enough we will still be doomed, just a bit later. He is absolutely right.
Why then do I disagree with his prediction? Well, I think technology will move quickly enough to avoid these problems, the population will stabilize, and there are actually enough resources to avoid these problems.
Why do I think technology will move quickly enough to avoid these problems? The first is that the most likely population predictions for the Earth suggest a maximum population. Many actually predict a slight decrease after this point. These predictions range from 9 billion to 11 billion. The absolute highest population prediction for the Earth by 2100 is 14 billion, double what it is today. The absolute lowest is 5.5 billion, a substantial reduction. This means, at a maximum we will need to double food production over the next 100 years.
The second is that there is no shortage of materials. In terms of energy the world is very far from a closed system. The sun pumps vast amounts of energy into the Earth's system, 7000 times our present energy consumption. In terms of water the planet is covered in it. In terms of minerals the world is a giant rock. The difficulty in supplying even the most pessimistic population predictions with a modern lifestyle isn't in the scarcity of resources, it is in altering these resources to forms in which they can be used.
The third is the history of predictions and what has actually happened. The most famous scientific doomsday prophet is Thomas Robert Malthus. His theory was simple, population growth is exponential and food production growth is arithmetic. At some point mass starvation will inevitably result. Such maximum populations have repeatedly been predicted, one as recently as the 1970's predicted that 7 billion was the maximum sustainable number. What has actually happened is that the increase in food production has massively outstripped population growth. Since Malthus Europe's population has increased by four times, and its population produces a substantial food surplus. It may surprise you to know that India has a food production surplus (but not anything like a fair distribution).
In terms of energy, wind energy is already competitive with coal energy (where wind can be used). By 2020 the Economist estimates that solar power will be about 10 cents/kilowatt hour to coal's present 7 cents/kilowatt hour, and going down 5-8% a year. There is also all the attempts to produce fuel from plants that I have discussed. As fossil fuels increase in price, alternate fuels reduce their price, thus driving demand for alternate forms of energy.
In terms of water there is already a small de-salinisation device that requires 1kw/hour to produce 1000 gallons of drinking water. With present technology a 10ft x 10ft solar panel produces 1kw/hr. It is certain that these numbers will go down. The deserts of Arabia may be the next fresh water producing area on Earth, the next great global resource?
So, Paul Gilding is exactly right about the terrible things that will happen if we continue to exploit the resources of the planet at our present rate, in largely the same way. The data supports his position, and that position is terrifying in the face of the steps we have not taken to avoid future catastrophe. However, such predictions have been made over and over again by intelligent, informed people. The numbers have been right over and over again. But the actual results have been the opposite of those reasonable predictions. Technology has a 100% record of avoiding worldwide catastrophe since Malthus, and actually things keep getting better. We all know the various methods that could be used in theory to prevent these problems, and there is a worldwide, concerted effort by the largest number of scientists and engineers to ever exist to put theory into practice.
I think it is a wonderful thing that people like Paul Gilding exist. There is great danger in complacency. If we do nothing we are truly doomed. People like him provide fantastic motivation for research, design, individual action, environmental campaigns. I think he is wrong, but in an extremely useful way.
This talk is in direct conflict with the talk I linked to in my previous post. I don't know if anyone watches these videos from this blog. I have not received a comment about them from any viewer of the blog online or in person. As a result I hope that I summarizing these fascinating talks adequately. I will keep promoting these talks from TED, so just get used to it.
This is a talk by an independent writer and activist Paul Gilding in which he asserts that we have "reached peak everything." "Peak everything" is taken from the concept of "peak oil", in which it asserted that we have reached the maximum amount of oil from which we can take from the ground at an economically viable cost. As we take oil from the ground we take it from the easiest places first, and the overall amount of oil goes down. Demand for energy, specifically oil, is increasing at a rapid pace and so with increased expense to produce oil, increased demand, and a reduced supply, eventually a global economic system fueled by oil becomes untenable. The result is global economic collapse. This concept is expanded by Gilding to include water resources, agricultural land, the resources of the oceans, and so on. The idea is that we are right at the position where our resources for food, water, and energy are at their maximum level and we are on the verge of collapse. He doesn't say that the collapse of civilization is a certainty, only that to avoid this we need to change right now from the concept of an every expanding economy to a contracting economy that concentrates on supplying the basics.
I think he is absolutely right if you make certain assumptions. The assumptions are that technological changes will not happen fast enough, or reach an adequate scale in time to make a difference. Basically, if we keep doing what we are doing now there will be a series of catastrophes, economic collapse, large scale war, famine, environmental collapse. Even if we make some technological changes that improve efficiency, if they don't happen rapidly enough we will still be doomed, just a bit later. He is absolutely right.
Why then do I disagree with his prediction? Well, I think technology will move quickly enough to avoid these problems, the population will stabilize, and there are actually enough resources to avoid these problems.
Why do I think technology will move quickly enough to avoid these problems? The first is that the most likely population predictions for the Earth suggest a maximum population. Many actually predict a slight decrease after this point. These predictions range from 9 billion to 11 billion. The absolute highest population prediction for the Earth by 2100 is 14 billion, double what it is today. The absolute lowest is 5.5 billion, a substantial reduction. This means, at a maximum we will need to double food production over the next 100 years.
The second is that there is no shortage of materials. In terms of energy the world is very far from a closed system. The sun pumps vast amounts of energy into the Earth's system, 7000 times our present energy consumption. In terms of water the planet is covered in it. In terms of minerals the world is a giant rock. The difficulty in supplying even the most pessimistic population predictions with a modern lifestyle isn't in the scarcity of resources, it is in altering these resources to forms in which they can be used.
The third is the history of predictions and what has actually happened. The most famous scientific doomsday prophet is Thomas Robert Malthus. His theory was simple, population growth is exponential and food production growth is arithmetic. At some point mass starvation will inevitably result. Such maximum populations have repeatedly been predicted, one as recently as the 1970's predicted that 7 billion was the maximum sustainable number. What has actually happened is that the increase in food production has massively outstripped population growth. Since Malthus Europe's population has increased by four times, and its population produces a substantial food surplus. It may surprise you to know that India has a food production surplus (but not anything like a fair distribution).
In terms of energy, wind energy is already competitive with coal energy (where wind can be used). By 2020 the Economist estimates that solar power will be about 10 cents/kilowatt hour to coal's present 7 cents/kilowatt hour, and going down 5-8% a year. There is also all the attempts to produce fuel from plants that I have discussed. As fossil fuels increase in price, alternate fuels reduce their price, thus driving demand for alternate forms of energy.
In terms of water there is already a small de-salinisation device that requires 1kw/hour to produce 1000 gallons of drinking water. With present technology a 10ft x 10ft solar panel produces 1kw/hr. It is certain that these numbers will go down. The deserts of Arabia may be the next fresh water producing area on Earth, the next great global resource?
So, Paul Gilding is exactly right about the terrible things that will happen if we continue to exploit the resources of the planet at our present rate, in largely the same way. The data supports his position, and that position is terrifying in the face of the steps we have not taken to avoid future catastrophe. However, such predictions have been made over and over again by intelligent, informed people. The numbers have been right over and over again. But the actual results have been the opposite of those reasonable predictions. Technology has a 100% record of avoiding worldwide catastrophe since Malthus, and actually things keep getting better. We all know the various methods that could be used in theory to prevent these problems, and there is a worldwide, concerted effort by the largest number of scientists and engineers to ever exist to put theory into practice.
I think it is a wonderful thing that people like Paul Gilding exist. There is great danger in complacency. If we do nothing we are truly doomed. People like him provide fantastic motivation for research, design, individual action, environmental campaigns. I think he is wrong, but in an extremely useful way.
This talk is in direct conflict with the talk I linked to in my previous post. I don't know if anyone watches these videos from this blog. I have not received a comment about them from any viewer of the blog online or in person. As a result I hope that I summarizing these fascinating talks adequately. I will keep promoting these talks from TED, so just get used to it.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Back-up on Optimism
In my late teens, as I started to develop a sense of what the world was in a greater sense than my immediate concerns, I thought of myself as an unemotional, pessimistic person. I thought that people were not very bright, easily manipulated, unthinking sheep. I, of course, was a rational person without those characteristics. I had evaluated my goals for life, and they were for me to be happy. I had little concern for others and expected to use other people, not in a deliberately harmful way, but for my own gain. Basically I expected to be a sociopath, but not one that took pleasure in other people's pain. I believe these people are far more common than most of us presently think.
Then I got (this seems a terrible verb for this process, but I can't think of a better one) a girlfriend, my first of a surprisingly short list, seven in all in 24 years. I was interested and excited, but not emotionally attached. Then I left for the United States of America, but on that last day she cried and cried in obvious pain at my leaving. It hurt. The emotional pain of someone else caused me emotional pain, and that changed my world. I developed empathy and the idea that the feelings of other people were worthwhile. Moreover, the feelings of people are intimately connected. How we feel, to a very large extent, depends on how those around us feel. All along I had known that the most important thing is how we feel.
In my late teens I was neither particularly happy or particularly sad. I would say that the most powerful emotional state was fear. Fear of humiliation, fear of violence, fear of authority. I spent a lot of time alone, in my room or going for long walks, living in my imagination. As I turned eighteen the darkness appeared. I started to feel hopeless and sad from time to time. Romantically sad, in the manner of poets and teenage idols. In my mid-twenties a long-term girlfriend, a relationship of over four years, left me for another man. Not through a fault of my own but through alternate interest, novelty, and the fact that he was also a very nice person. During this period I started to work with the developmentally disabled and the mentally ill. If you want an education in the acceptance of people, this is an excellent method.
The next few years were spent either very alone, or in a vibrant social group, and with intelligent, beautiful girlfriends scarred by their past. I was not particularly attached, but content in their presence. They had good qualities, and bad qualities, and the good qualities made me happy and I accepted the bad qualities. I helped to make them happy until their self-destruction took over, and I wasn't particularly hurt when that self-destruction included me. I expected it. This was the first time I started having moments of transcendent joy, times of pure beauty which I attributed to my study of eastern religion/philosophy. To a large extent I still think that is true, but something else was starting within me.
I started to have variations in my mood beyond the norm. I started to have days that I called "fey" where I intensely wanted to feel. I was driven in a wild way to extreme exercise, public performance, drinking and laughing in a grandiose manner. I also started getting the feelings of darkness, of real pain, an inexplicable moments of exhaustion. This fitted in well with my friends at the time, who were wedded to novelty, strangeness, creativity, fun. I started to play music at this time, which suited me very well. As I became more extreme in my moods, the people I knew became more sedate, more settled. Both my dark moments and my wild moments became hard to deal with and those eventually friends abandoned me. Punching yourself in the darkness is not a way to keep friends. Keep it secret, keep it safe. It now seems odd to me that no-one ever asked me if I was alright, or needed some help.
During this time, and over the next decade I was fortunate enough to find new friends, and a woman who became my wife. But I also was becoming more and more prone to depression, and I started to work in a place in which awful things happened which hurt me quite badly. However, within that experience I also found people that were just happy. They truly lived, saw the best in things, and found life to be a wonder. My bipolar steadily got worse, culminating last year in a truly spectacular range of emotions too great for a person to take.
Why have I written my life story in a post entitled "Back-up on Optimism?" It is because I want people to understand that I have experienced pessimism. I have experienced dark times. I have been treated badly by people, been lonely, been unemployed, been poor. I have seen political scandals, greed, disregard for life, suicide, hatred, and misery. But I am an optimist. I think this is the best time to be alive ever, and it is getting better. Not only is it getting better, but it is getting better at an astonishing rate, faster and faster.
If there is anything that my writing on this blog has been about, it has been about trying to convince people of this fact. I want to convince people for two reasons. I really think this is true, and truth matters. However, we are all also interconnected in terms of our attitudes, beliefs, and emotional states. Optimism is a better way to live. It makes you happier. This happiness spreads. This attitude spreads. But people need to be convinced in the first place to spread this feeling and attitude. So, here is Peter Diamandis, speaking at a TED conference, about a future of abundance, saying the same things as I have been saying, but from a position of success rather than a position on a couch.
Then I got (this seems a terrible verb for this process, but I can't think of a better one) a girlfriend, my first of a surprisingly short list, seven in all in 24 years. I was interested and excited, but not emotionally attached. Then I left for the United States of America, but on that last day she cried and cried in obvious pain at my leaving. It hurt. The emotional pain of someone else caused me emotional pain, and that changed my world. I developed empathy and the idea that the feelings of other people were worthwhile. Moreover, the feelings of people are intimately connected. How we feel, to a very large extent, depends on how those around us feel. All along I had known that the most important thing is how we feel.
In my late teens I was neither particularly happy or particularly sad. I would say that the most powerful emotional state was fear. Fear of humiliation, fear of violence, fear of authority. I spent a lot of time alone, in my room or going for long walks, living in my imagination. As I turned eighteen the darkness appeared. I started to feel hopeless and sad from time to time. Romantically sad, in the manner of poets and teenage idols. In my mid-twenties a long-term girlfriend, a relationship of over four years, left me for another man. Not through a fault of my own but through alternate interest, novelty, and the fact that he was also a very nice person. During this period I started to work with the developmentally disabled and the mentally ill. If you want an education in the acceptance of people, this is an excellent method.
The next few years were spent either very alone, or in a vibrant social group, and with intelligent, beautiful girlfriends scarred by their past. I was not particularly attached, but content in their presence. They had good qualities, and bad qualities, and the good qualities made me happy and I accepted the bad qualities. I helped to make them happy until their self-destruction took over, and I wasn't particularly hurt when that self-destruction included me. I expected it. This was the first time I started having moments of transcendent joy, times of pure beauty which I attributed to my study of eastern religion/philosophy. To a large extent I still think that is true, but something else was starting within me.
I started to have variations in my mood beyond the norm. I started to have days that I called "fey" where I intensely wanted to feel. I was driven in a wild way to extreme exercise, public performance, drinking and laughing in a grandiose manner. I also started getting the feelings of darkness, of real pain, an inexplicable moments of exhaustion. This fitted in well with my friends at the time, who were wedded to novelty, strangeness, creativity, fun. I started to play music at this time, which suited me very well. As I became more extreme in my moods, the people I knew became more sedate, more settled. Both my dark moments and my wild moments became hard to deal with and those eventually friends abandoned me. Punching yourself in the darkness is not a way to keep friends. Keep it secret, keep it safe. It now seems odd to me that no-one ever asked me if I was alright, or needed some help.
During this time, and over the next decade I was fortunate enough to find new friends, and a woman who became my wife. But I also was becoming more and more prone to depression, and I started to work in a place in which awful things happened which hurt me quite badly. However, within that experience I also found people that were just happy. They truly lived, saw the best in things, and found life to be a wonder. My bipolar steadily got worse, culminating last year in a truly spectacular range of emotions too great for a person to take.
Why have I written my life story in a post entitled "Back-up on Optimism?" It is because I want people to understand that I have experienced pessimism. I have experienced dark times. I have been treated badly by people, been lonely, been unemployed, been poor. I have seen political scandals, greed, disregard for life, suicide, hatred, and misery. But I am an optimist. I think this is the best time to be alive ever, and it is getting better. Not only is it getting better, but it is getting better at an astonishing rate, faster and faster.
If there is anything that my writing on this blog has been about, it has been about trying to convince people of this fact. I want to convince people for two reasons. I really think this is true, and truth matters. However, we are all also interconnected in terms of our attitudes, beliefs, and emotional states. Optimism is a better way to live. It makes you happier. This happiness spreads. This attitude spreads. But people need to be convinced in the first place to spread this feeling and attitude. So, here is Peter Diamandis, speaking at a TED conference, about a future of abundance, saying the same things as I have been saying, but from a position of success rather than a position on a couch.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Unspoken Pressure
There you are, away from home. Perhaps you are on a walk. Perhaps you are on public transportation. perhaps you are shopping. Whatever you are, there is a pressure growing, a pressure you cannot talk about, a secret terror growing within.
You start making contingency plans, what you might do if the worst truly happens. There isn't a good answer, but there are some truly horrifying possibilities. You look around for surcease, but there is nothing out there. You are alone with the pressure.
The pressure builds. You try to ignore it. You try to deny that this is really happening. You just need to fight it, keep it secret, no-one must know.
You start to wonder if you are the only one who ever feels this pressure? After all, it is never mentioned. Is there something wrong with you? It builds and builds, roiling away in your innards. You can feel it in your gut and nothing else matters.
Finally it reaches the point where the question is unavoidable. This is your only hope. The only possibility of avoiding the worst case scenario. The question.
"Is that a fart?"
So much rides on the question. For a start, there's a very good chance that you will ride on the answer. If the answer is "no" there can be no greater public humiliation. There is no greater social faux pas then to carry around with you a stench. The odor of the outcast, the misfit, the irredeemable social failure.
But what if the answer is "yes"? How do you find out? Perhaps the answer is both "yes" and "no". How do you go about finding the answer?
You will find out soon enough. Even with the heroic struggle you are undergoing, time is running out. Something must be done, and quickly. It is almost time to put those contingency plans into effect. Either the answer is "yes", or you need to find an alley, a dark corner of a parking garage, a place thick with foliage. it is time for the experiment.
This will take an act of supreme muscle control. The mind is keenly focused. You become unaware of the world around you. There is just you and the task at hand.
With all the precision you can manage, the valve is released just a tiny fraction. The evaluation is immediate and intense. Ah! What glory! All the gods and angels have taken mercy!
But the roiling pressure continues. You are not out of the woods yet, and the woods may yet beckon. The experiment is repeated, with just a tiny quantum leap of increased relaxation. This is working. Everything is going to be all right. Just be careful. Don't reach for the stars and you won't fall like a shooting star.
Wait! Holy .....! OK, calm down. Got that just in time. OK, OK. Just calm down now. Things are better. Just keep that back straight and make sure that gait is as stiff as a guardsman at Buckingham Palace.
The porcelain altar awaits with an open heart, ready to take you into its warm, loving embrace.
You start making contingency plans, what you might do if the worst truly happens. There isn't a good answer, but there are some truly horrifying possibilities. You look around for surcease, but there is nothing out there. You are alone with the pressure.
The pressure builds. You try to ignore it. You try to deny that this is really happening. You just need to fight it, keep it secret, no-one must know.
You start to wonder if you are the only one who ever feels this pressure? After all, it is never mentioned. Is there something wrong with you? It builds and builds, roiling away in your innards. You can feel it in your gut and nothing else matters.
Finally it reaches the point where the question is unavoidable. This is your only hope. The only possibility of avoiding the worst case scenario. The question.
"Is that a fart?"
So much rides on the question. For a start, there's a very good chance that you will ride on the answer. If the answer is "no" there can be no greater public humiliation. There is no greater social faux pas then to carry around with you a stench. The odor of the outcast, the misfit, the irredeemable social failure.
But what if the answer is "yes"? How do you find out? Perhaps the answer is both "yes" and "no". How do you go about finding the answer?
You will find out soon enough. Even with the heroic struggle you are undergoing, time is running out. Something must be done, and quickly. It is almost time to put those contingency plans into effect. Either the answer is "yes", or you need to find an alley, a dark corner of a parking garage, a place thick with foliage. it is time for the experiment.
This will take an act of supreme muscle control. The mind is keenly focused. You become unaware of the world around you. There is just you and the task at hand.
With all the precision you can manage, the valve is released just a tiny fraction. The evaluation is immediate and intense. Ah! What glory! All the gods and angels have taken mercy!
But the roiling pressure continues. You are not out of the woods yet, and the woods may yet beckon. The experiment is repeated, with just a tiny quantum leap of increased relaxation. This is working. Everything is going to be all right. Just be careful. Don't reach for the stars and you won't fall like a shooting star.
Wait! Holy .....! OK, calm down. Got that just in time. OK, OK. Just calm down now. Things are better. Just keep that back straight and make sure that gait is as stiff as a guardsman at Buckingham Palace.
The porcelain altar awaits with an open heart, ready to take you into its warm, loving embrace.
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