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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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| I disagree with the headline here. But of course that meant I clicked on it and read the article, so I guess it was effective. We Live By a Unit of Time That Doesn’t Make Sense  The seven-day week has survived for millennia, despite attempts to make it less chaotic. Days, months, and years all make sense as units of time—they match up, at least roughly, with the revolutions of Earth, the moon, and the sun. Days? Sure. Though don't get me started on the difference between a solar day and a sidereal day. (Seriously, don't.) Years? Absolutely. Though I'd argue that ending/starting the year when we do makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's not set to align with anything real and measurable, such as the solstice or perihelion. Months? No. A lunar month is roughly 29.5 days long. Some calendar months are 31 days (and of course February is blessedly shorter). If months made sense, they'd be 29 or 30 days and they wouldn't fill up a solar year. See Hebrew calendar for an example. As for the week? Weeks, however, are much weirder and clunkier. A duration of seven days doesn’t align with any natural cycles or fit cleanly into months or years. False. Or, at least, not exactly true. Because, as I noted, a lunar month is 29.5 days, there is roughly one week between major moon phases: new, first quarter (which is actually a half moon, which confused the hell out of Kid Me), full, last quarter. No, it's obviously not exact, but it's way more useful than our completely artificial "months." Also, 52*7 = 364. Again, not an exact match for a 365-day year, but damn close. Good enough, even. A better match than calendar months to lunar months. And though the week has been deeply significant to Jews, Christians, and Muslims for centuries, people in many parts of the world happily made do without it, or any other cycles of a similar length, until roughly 150 years ago. Matter of definition, I think. Again, "people in many parts of the world" still often measured time by lunar phases, which as I noted above, are roughly 1 week long. For better or worse (I lean toward "worse"), the international standard calendar is the Gregorian, which is essentially Christian (by way of Roman) in origin, so if weeks are important to Christianity (largely, but not entirely, due to the whole Genesis thing), weeks are what the calendar has. But again, Jews use a different calendar, a combination of lunar and solar (which is why Jewish holidays tend to wander compared to our Gregorian system) and from what I've gathered, the Muslim calendar is entirely lunar. I say the above not to take sides or come down on religion, but to point out that a lot of articles about the calendar, like this one, seem to start from the unstated assumption that the Gregorian calendar is the One True Calendar, which it is not. Being the international standard merely helps us to communicate, especially with global commerce being what it is. As an analogy, consider the international standard for time: UTC, formerly called Greenwich Mean Time because England happened to be enough of a powerful world force at the time to set the "zero" meridian (Greenwich is basically part of Greater London). But it could be anywhere, and still work. UTC does have one advantage: its inverse, the 180 degree meridian, passes through very few land masses (and yet they still fuck with the International Date Line because humans are weird). Still, it's completely and entirely arbitrary. Had world history gone differently, the zero meridian could have passed through Paris, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, the Washington Monument, the Jabal al-Nur near Mecca, or the southern tip of Chile. For the purposes of timekeeping, what matters is that there is a standard, not what the standard is. So it is with the year. But unlike the year, there is no reason to prefer a certain meridian, apart from history and convention. With the year, you could at least start/end it on a solstice, equinox, or apsis. Now the seven-day week is a global standard—and has come to dominate our sense of where we stand in the flow of time, according to David Henkin, a historian at UC Berkeley. His new book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are, traces the evolution—and analyzes the curious staying power—of what he lovingly refers to as “a recalcitrant calendar unit.” Sounds like a book I'd actually like to read. And I know I say this every time, but for anyone new here: this is a writing site, so I'm not going to dismiss a source just because it's a thinly-veiled ad for a book. The week as we know it—a repeating cycle that has seven distinct days and divides work from rest—has been around for about 2,000 years, since ancient Roman times. The Roman week itself blended two separate precedents: One was the Jewish (and later, Christian) Sabbath, which occurred every seven days. The other was a rotation of seven days tracked by timekeepers in the Mediterranean; each day was associated with one of seven celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, and five planets). I actually have no quibble with this part; it tracks with what I already know. But I will add that "five planets" isn't arbitrary; one can see five planets with the unaided eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. While the planet just past Saturn, which shall remain nameless here to forestall the inevitable juvenile puns, is sometimes barely visible to people with excellent eyesight, it wasn't recognized as a planet until the age of telescope astronomy. Also, the discoverer, William Herschel, wanted to name it George. I'm not kidding. Incidentally, the element uranium was named after that planet, as it was identified just a few years later. So again, if history had gone slightly differently, we'd all be talking about georgium reactors. But as usual, I digress. We were talking about the week. The week has kept its shape since then, but Henkin argues that it has taken on new power in the past 200 years as it has become a tool for coordinating social and commercial plans with ever-widening circles of acquaintances and strangers. And that's the real kicker here: the week is simply useful. If I know there's a new Star Trek episode every Thursday, I can plan for it. Fortunately, we're no longer tied to broadcast television schedules, so I can watch it whenever I feel like it, but it, like most shows, follows a weekly release schedule. The rest of the article is a brief interview between the article's writer and the author of the book; it's short and worth reading, but you'll have to go to the site to read it (it might help to open the link in a private window if your browser has that option). And because it's been a while since I talked about this, here's my second-favorite calendar reform proposal, the Tranquility Calendar .My favorite is the one I'm working on that actually returns the year to alignment with solstices and equinoxes, but it has the disadvantage of being damn hard to keep track of, and I still haven't figured out how to handle months. But hey, that's what computers are for, right? |
| Well, might as well dive right in on this one. Massive rant ahead. If you're not in the mood, skip to the bottom for a one-sentence movie review. Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope It’s easy to despair at the climate crisis, or to decide it’s already too late – but it’s not. Here’s how to keep the fight alive Oh, it's already too late, and has been for some time. But I'm not despairing; oh, no. I'm going to enjoy every bit of our skid to the edge as best I can. It’s the end of the age of fossil fuel, but if the fossil-fuel corporations have their way the ending will be delayed as long as possible, with as much carbon burned as possible. If the rest of us prevail, we will radically reduce our use of those fuels by 2030, and almost entirely by 2050. We will meet climate change with real change, and defeat the fossil-fuel industry in the next nine years. Hahahaha. Oh, wait, you're serious. HAHAHAHAHA We must remake the world, and we can remake it better. The Covid-19 pandemic is proof that if we take a crisis seriously, we can change how we live, almost overnight, dramatically, globally, digging up great piles of money from nowhere, like the $3tn the US initially threw at the pandemic. The pandemic that's still going strong? The one that continues to muck up travel, gatherings, businesses, and politics? The one that is still tearing apart families and threatens to start a civil war? The one that would have been over by now if more people took it seriously? That pandemic? No. If the covfefe pandemic is proof of anything, it is that if there is a crisis, half of the US (and roughly the same fraction in other countries) will not only not take it seriously, but many of them will actively work to undo what the rest of us are trying to do to fix it. The only way to deal with climate change is for all of us to rally together, and if the last two years have shown us anything, it's that this will never, ever happen. I know all the reports like to say "It's bad, but there's still hope," but I think they're only doing that to keep us from panicking in the streets and rising tides. I'm under no such restriction. In summary, we are doomed. The emotional toll of the climate crisis has become an urgent crisis of its own. It’s best met, I believe, by both being well grounded in the facts, and working towards achieving a decent future – and by acknowledging there are grounds for fear, anxiety and depression in both the looming possibilities and in institutional inaction. And that's the other thing, and I can't emphasize this enough: Stop putting the onus on us. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that bit of linguistic whimsy even when prophesying doom.) Anything you do will no more stop the inevitable than pulling a bucketful of salt water out of the ocean will keep the tide from rising. It's utterly insignificant. Oh, sure, if everyone pitched in, maybe there would be a noticeable change, but, again: that will never happen, and any attempt to make it happen through laws or mandates will be met with the same sort of mulish arrogant ignorance as the measures we're taking against covfefe. For every bucket we pull out, they will pour two back in, and piss in the ocean after them for good measure. What's left if it's not up to us as individuals? Making companies do the work. Do you think that will happen? No. We'll end up with the same sort of shit that we've seen before: there's a lot of talk, a lot of bluster, a lot of we-need-to-do-something, and then they proudly announce something like they did when they announced that all toilets must be low-flow. So they eagerly roll out the new porcelain thrones, and what happens? Exactly diddly and squat, because while a flush uses half the water as before, you have to flush two or three times so your shit isn't floating around in the bowl. Net gain: something between jack shit and negative numbers. All of this will happen again. So there's the actual Top Ten List, which, because this is The Guardian and not Cracked, is in ascending order. 1. Feed your feelings on facts Oh yeah, that's going to happen. One of the curious things about the climate crisis is that the uninformed are often more grim and fatalistic than the experts in the field – the scientists, organisers and policymakers who are deep in the data and the politics. Too many people like to spread their despair, saying: “It’s too late” and “There’s nothing we can do”. It's too late and there's nothing meaningful we can do. 2. Pay attention to what’s already happening Oh, I am. One of the victories of climate activism – and consequences of dire climate events – is that a lot more people are concerned about climate than they were even a few years years ago, from ordinary citizens to powerful politicians. Oh, they're concerned. How nice. Local measures can seem insignificant, but often they scale up. For example, a few years ago the Californian city of Berkeley decided to ban the installation of gas appliances in new buildings. And this is a perfect example of doing jack diddly squat. Drive through Oklahoma or North Dakota at night. Or if you can't bring yourself to do that (I wouldn't blame you), I don't know, find pictures or something. They're fracking for fossil fuels there. At night, you can see fires all over the fields. What are these fires? They're flaring off natural gas, a byproduct of petroleum extraction, because they can't sell it fast enough. It's being wasted at the source. They can burn it there, or they can pump it to my house and I'll use it to keep myself warm and cook my dinner. Also, you can pry my gas stove from my warm, dead hands. Also also, what's the fracking point of banning gas, only to force the use of centralized power plants that run on who knows what? Maybe green, maybe not. Probably not. (Oh, sure, solar panels, if you happen to live in a place that sees enough of the accursed daystar and can put in a battery bank to run at night.) And then, especially in places like California and Texas, the power goes out at the most inopportune times, usually when you have the most need for electrcity. One of the reasons I have gas appliances is so I can use them in a power outage. And then I installed a generator to get me through such times. It runs on, guess what, natural gas. If we stopped using petroleum right now, natural gas would still be there. When we've sucked the last drop of crude from the lower crust, natural gas will still be there. No, it's not sustainable in the long term, but it's better than many alternatives until we invent, I don't know, the Mr. Fusion or something. Yes, it produces carbon dioxide when burned. There are far worse sources for that to deal with. Banning gas is even less useful than mandating low-flow toilets. It makes it look like you're doing something, but given the voluminous waste burned off at the source, it's actually making things worse. Pant. Pant. Pant. Okay, look. I'm not going to copy the rest of their points. Read them for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. They might be different from mine; I don't know. And that's fine. But I have, indeed, given up. I can do that. Not that I'm going to go be deliberately wasteful or anything, but I will be damned if I inconvenience myself for an impossible cause. Hell, one of the reasons I never wanted kids is because I saw this writing on the wall thirty years ago, which is when we should have started doing something, but didn't. And I didn't want to bring someone else into a decaying world. My carbon footprint ends with me, and it won't be long now. But I am done. Unless we all work together, ain't nothing gonna happen, and the last two years have made it abundantly clear that we will never be able to work together. This is still the best damn slide into oblivion of any culture ever, and I'm just going to ride this sucker down with a grin on my face, a beer in my fist, and the hot wind in my hair.   One-Sentence Movie Review: House of Gucci Even the brilliant performances of Adam Driver (who miraculously manages to keep his shirt on the entire movie), Lady Gaga (who doesn't), Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, Salma Hayek, and Lady Gaga's breasts were not enough to keep the plot from being choppy or the story from being way longer than it needed to be; still, it's worth seeing for those performances, excellent camera work, and a soundtrack that features, among other things, an Italian cover of a Monkees song. Rating: 4/5 |
| Few things in life feel better than nuclear revenge. So today's link is about the lengths (or heights) some people will go to for it. I mean, sure, it's nice to be able to forgive sometimes, too. But other times, you need to drive the point home that you're not a pushover. Most of these are spite houses / fences, but there are a few other cases of extreme -- and mostly legal and nondestructive -- payback as well. I won't go through all of them; you'll have to check out the link. 4. Stuart Semple's Black 3.0 This one's one of my favorites, mostly because I find feuds in the art world extremely amusing, and also because I want an outfit, preferably including a trenchcoat, made of the blackest black that ever blacked. The color war began when artist Sir Anish Kapoor acquired the exclusive rights to the world’s blackest substance at the time, Vantablack—and refused to share it with the artistic community. By all accounts, Kapoor acts like a massive douche. He's the artist (and I'm not denying he's a talented artist) responsible for The Bean in Chicago. Since he's apparently gotten used to people calling it The Bean (or maybe he just backed off on public hatred of the name so people would leave him alone), we'll have to come up with another annoying nickname for it.Enter British artist Stuart Semple, who, angered at Kapoor’s selfishness, created the “pinkest pink” and made it available for anyone to use … except Kapoor. Purchasers were obliged to agree to a statement that read: “By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.” Like I said. Art feuds. 18. A Spiteful Christmas Display When you're on the front lines in the War on Christmas... 19. The Hollensbury Spite House Constructed in 1830, what’s now known as the Hollensbury Spite House is just 7 feet wide and contains 350 square feet in its two stories, or “about as much space as a large outdoor billboard,” according to the Washington Post. I haven't seen this particular building, but 350 square feet in Alexandria? It's probably worth about 3 million dollars. 22. Castle of Spite For when you're extremely wealthy AND hostile. Anyway, most of these are interesting for one reason or another -- family drama, libertarians vs. City Hall, thwarted romance... all the stuff worthy of stories. I guess that to err is human, to forgive is divine, and to create something out of spite is deeply satisfying. |
| Maybe you thought you could stop thinking about "gratitude" because Thanksgiving is over. I'm no stranger to knocking out strings of words on a given topic in a few minutes. Hell, I do it every night. This reads like that. Only, presumably, these authors are getting paid, and I'm not. Is there anything more innocuous than gratitude? Puppies, maybe? It’s one of the few values endorsed by solemn religious leaders and vapid lifestyle gurus alike. I'm going to start using the phrase "weaponized adjectives" to describe this sort of blatant editorializing. Unlike other virtues, which require going against instinct (e.g., you feel afraid, but decide to act with courage anyway), with gratitude, you simply lean into it; something good happens, you feel good, and you need only recognize that warm and fuzzy sensation. No, if something good happens, I wait for the other shoe to drop. Yet there’s more to gratitude than commonly countenanced — higher and harder shades of it to reach for beyond its elementary-level start. “Advanced” gratitude retains delight in someone’s admirable qualities and small acts of service . . . even after the novel and noticeable becomes the ordinary and expected. If you say so. If elementary gratitude is instinctual; advanced gratitude is effortful. Whereas one is merely felt, the other is expressed. Some people say that we only appreciate the things that we have to work for. I happen to disagree. I appreciate more the things that are handed to me, because they're so hard to replace. If, in the kindergarten class of gratitude, the warm fuzzies of thankfulness are for the heart-lightening benefit of the individual alone, in post-graduate gratitude, they are used as a spur towards being better, doing better, giving back. And that's fine, but it doesn't go far enough. The next level, as far as I'm concerned at least, is being grateful not just for the good things that happen, but for the shitty things. I'll call this "transcendent" gratitude, so I can weaponize that adjective, and because that's the only thing I can think of beyond "advanced" in the limited time I have to do this entry. Say a tree falls on your house. That sucks, right? Especially if you're in it at the time. But if you survive, transcendent gratitude is being thankful for the opportunity to step outside your comfort zone, learn new things, figure out how to make an insurance claim, navigate the emergency room for the concussion it gave you, and how to get someone to fix it as quickly as possible -- all valuable life experiences. Or you loan a friend $5000. She doesn't pay it back. You should be grateful for that life lesson: don't lend money to friends -- or pick better friends -- or never trust her again. Or, in my case, all three. Or your car breaks down on US 50 in Nevada, with no cell service, 110F+ temperatures, and no help within 200 miles. Be grateful for the opportunity to practice all the skills you've prepared for just such an occasion. Now. I'm not saying I practice transcendental gratitude, at least not on a regular basis. Frankly, I'd rather give up and bitch about it. But bad shit happens, inevitably, and you can either bitch about it and give up, or be grateful for the learning experience. And see? I can knock out a monologue about gratitude in less than a half hour, too. |
| Yesterday, I managed to score a vaccine booster on a walk-in. Consequently, my arm is sore and I don't much feel like typing. So of course this one comes up at random. Now, I could cheat and just link to something fluffy instead, but no, I'll just present the link and try to keep my comments short. Oh, I don't know, I thought the chemistry between Kirk and Picard in that movie was... oh, you mean like the demographic concept. Never mind. The discovery that you can make money marketing merchandise to teen-agers dates from the early nineteen-forties, which is also when the term “youth culture” first appeared in print. There was a reason that those things happened when they did: high school. Back in 1910, most young people worked; only fourteen per cent of fourteen- to seventeen-year-olds were still in school. In 1940, though, that proportion was seventy-three per cent. A social space had opened up between dependency and adulthood, and a new demographic was born: “youth.” Contrary to The New Yorker's usual meandering style, the lede is actually useful and relevant. I think some people might be under the impression that high school has always been a big thing, that the way things are now is generally the way they've always been, at least since the Industrial Revolution. Why is it relevant? Because the concept of naming generational cohorts is primarily a marketing tool. The rate of high-school attendance kept growing. By 1955, eighty-four per cent of high-school-age Americans were in school. (The figure for Western Europe was sixteen per cent.) Then, between 1956 and 1969, college enrollment in the United States more than doubled, and “youth” grew from a four-year demographic to an eight-year one. Incidentally, a part of me rebels against the categorization of teenagers as "young adults" (again, for the purpose of marketing). I see "young adult," and I think very late teens, early 20s. But apparently they mean like 13 year olds. This only leads to more confusion. But I digress. To keep this market churning, and to give the consulting industry something to sell to firms trying to understand (i.e., increase the productivity of) their younger workers, we have invented a concept that allows “youth culture” to be redefined periodically. This is the concept of the generation. Like I said. And I've been trying to say stuff like this for years, to not much effect, mostly because I don't have the bones to express it properly. That's why TNY writers get paid and I don't, I guess. The new idea was that people born within a given period, usually thirty years, belong to a single generation. There is no sound basis in biology or anything else for this claim, but it gave European scientists and intellectuals a way to make sense of something they were obsessed with, social and cultural change. What causes change? Can we predict it? Can we prevent it? Maybe the reason societies change is that people change, every thirty years. Change, as I've noted, is generally a continuum. Though of course that continuum is punctuated by defining events. The theory also seems to require that a person born in 1965, the first year of Generation X, must have different values, tastes, and life experiences from a person born in 1964, the last year of the baby-boom generation (1946-64). Which I've been freakin' saying. Anyway, the article is long but worth a read if you care about this sort of thing. I try not to, but it's hard when all I see around me are assumptions made based on highly questionable generational stereotypes. Fortunately, as a Gen-Xer, I can turn to the rallying cry of my cohort: "Meh. Whatever." |
| I just wanted to share this link at some point, and today's the day it came up. I've always loved astronomy, and I found this informative. Also, it's timely right now, because there's a comet that you might consider viewing, if you don't mind the cold. How to Find the Best Stuff in the Night Sky From Absolutely Anywhere A beginner’s guide to admiring stars, planets, and satellites—no mountaintop or fancy gear required. My utter hatred of being cold is one thing that kept me from pursuing professional astronomy. As you'll see in this article, sky watching is better when you're cold, dry, and high up. I can handle dry and elevated. Cold repels me. There was a night many years ago when most of the planets were visible in just one quadrant of the sky. Just after sunset, one could view (if I recall correctly) every classical planet except Mars, between the horizon and the zenith. We went up to the Blue Ridge to get a nice view. And we froze our asses off, but got to see Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings through a telescope. You’ll also want to figure out what’s going on with the lunar cycle, because the moon can either improve or obscure your view, depending on what you want to see. If you’re looking for the Milky Way, for instance, or faint, distant objects, your best bet is to wait for a moonless night. If you’re planning to look for something on the moon itself, though, you probably want to do so when it’s full. I'm going to quibble a bit about this one. When the moon is full, some of the central features can get washed out, because they're not casting shadows. It's like high noon here on Earth -- short shadows, which can make it difficult to see contours. There's a lot to see when the moon is in an intermediate phase, especially around the terminator. Without a telescope, the lunar terminator looks like a smooth curve (or line if it happens to be a half-moon). Thorough even binoculars, though, you start to make out details: some crater floors darken before the rims, and mountain tops can be visible even on the dark side. This page explains it better, and with helpful images.I don't really need to quote more of the article; it really is a good beginner's guide if you're even slightly interested in astronomy. Click through to the links for more information; there are apps there that can really help in locating night sky objects. I once spent a week up in the Rockies (cold, dry, high) with a professional astronomer, and we saw some really cool stuff. That was expensive, but as the article notes, you don't have to travel to get some nice views. One more personal note: when the eye doctor was talking about new lenses for my eyes (actual eye lenses, not glasses), he said something like, "...and with this kind, you can change focus to near or far, but the downside is that small lights can get halos around them. This isn't usually a problem unless your hobby is astronomy." Me: "Well, actually..." Still, the advantages of these lenses outweigh the disadvantages. I'll still probably be able to see stars and planets better than I do right now (I see blurry fireworks instead of lights). But it's likely my stargazing days are behind me. That's okay; I've seen what I can see. The only thing left on my list is viewing the planet Mercury. I have never seen it and known it for sure. It's possible that I mistook it for a star, as it tends to be near the horizon and small. The other visible planets are really obvious, once you know what you're looking for. So with this, it's my hope that more people will look up at night sometimes. There really is nothing else like it. |
| Long-ish article today, but I don't have a lot of commentary on it. Fun fact I just learned recently: "Tycoon" is a word of Japanese origin. I'm sure that was common knowledge, but I didn't know it until a week or so ago. Anyway, the article. When standing before one of these towering creatures, such as the T. rex skeleton named Sue in Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, it is surprisingly difficult to distinguish which features are ancient and which ones are modern, where prehistory ends and imagination begins. It is impossible for readers of Jim Butcher to do so without shouting "Polka will never die!" If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the Dresden Files. The first dinosaur discoveries consisted of only a few bones and a handful of teeth. Before long, more complete skeletons began to be found, but the individual pieces were usually scattered about in a jumbled mess of material. My hypothesis, which is mine, is that dragons are dinosaurs. What I mean by that is, long ago, people stumbled upon dinosaur bones and, having no concept of deep time or evolution, concluded that they must be from some enormous living beast. Hence, dragons. The story scientists composed from similar bones may be more factual, but dragons are a part of the collective consciousness too. And that, I think, is part of what the article is about. I'm not going to quote much more from it, and I don't fully agree with it, but I found it to be a fascinating way to look at science, discovery, capitalism, and the stories we tell ourselves. |
| Another Cracked link today (I feel the need to warn people because I've heard reports that the site acts weirdly with some browsers, but I haven't experienced such a thing myself). Anyway, the topic for today is conspiracy "theories." I put "theories" in quotes because what most people think a theory is, isn't actually a theory. The common definition can be summed up as "guess." The scientific definition is a body of research that holds together and can be used to make predictions. The theory of gravity, for example, is remarkably good at predicting orbits and trajectories. Quantum theory is even more accurate. Neither of these are guesses; they're the result of centuries (gravity) or at least decades (quantum) of study, research, and experimentation. But for the sake of my failing eyesight, I'll leave off the quotes from now on. We all know what a conspiracy theory is. I just wanted to emphasize that not a single one of them is a true theory in the scientific sense. Now, I love hearing a good conspiracy theory. Who wouldn't want to hear about a secret Pentagon spaceship piloted exclusively by Sasquatches? (Short answer: they're leaving Earth because humans invented camera phones.) Why would they do that when they already have the ability to appear horribly blurred in every photo taken of them? And yet, I have a real problem with conspiracy theorists. For me, it’s sorta like Star Trek: love the stories, can’t stand the fan club. I get this. And just like any form of entertainment, I’ve noticed quite a few plot holes, and I have some questions. Because this is Cracked, get ready for a countdown. 8. “Just … Why?” Well, let’s throw that question right back at the conspiracy theorists: Why? What reasons do you have to believe these things? The best scientists are a lot like children (only better educated and slightly less prone to painting the walls with pasta): they never stop asking "Why?" A parent might stop the endless barrage of whys by saying something like, "Because that's just the way it is." Scientists, if they have parents, don't listen to that answer. Conspiracy theorists, however, have already decided the way things are and try to fit everything else to that. Accepting the ugly truth might go against their most deep-seated beliefs, so instead they latch on to a comfortable lie. And I get this, too. I don't think many people are entirely immune to it. For instance, I insist that I'm single because no one has figured out just how awesome I am, instead of me being fat, ugly, and sarcastic. 7. “Is This About You Being Right, Or Do You Just Wanna Make Other People Appear Wrong?” The further down the internet rabbit hole these people go, the more they uncover supposedly privileged information the infamous “they” don’t want anyone to know about, and that leads them to believe that they now know more than even the world’s foremost experts on the subject. But worse than that, it also makes them cocky enough to pick a fight with everyone they encounter online. And now, we witness the Dunning-Kruger Effect evolving into a Debate-Me-Bro. One of the core problems resulting from worldwide communication is that it's not as important to stand out in your own community, school, team, whatever -- you are now competing for attention with 7,899,999,999 other people (approximately). People want -- no, need -- to feel special. One way to do this in a crowded world is to decide you've figured out The Answer to something. Usually, you're wrong, but you'll never admit it. And no, I'm not immune to this fallacy, either. 6. “OK … What Are You Selling?” There is now a fourth reason conspiracy theories are so prevalent lately: It’s become a hugely profitable business model. The doomsayers used to be relegated to dark web bulletin boards and self-published manifestos, but now many of them have gone mainstream and built their own media empires. If it feels like conspiracy theories are getting crazier every day, it’s because they’re designed that way for a reason. Outrageous, inflammatory rhetoric generates clicks, and clicks boost ad revenue. Then the algorithms kick in and start suggesting similar content. Lather, rinse, repeat, and don’t forget to like, comment, share, subscribe, check out our Patreon, and buy our merch! Even a cynic like me often falls into the trap of thinking that people are usually sincere with their statements. We forget that, sometimes, people are only sincere about one thing: wanting money. This is kind of related to #7 above, the "standing out" part. 5. “You’ve Never Been In A Group Project, Have You?” Every human being is fallible, and if you think you’re an exception to that rule … there’s your flaw. Regardless of your talent, your training, or your confidence, there is always a chance you could mess something up. When multiple people work together, one person’s strengths might balance out some of the others' weaknesses, but everyone involved brings with them their own unique potential to completely screw the pooch. That is true of any group project, be it in a classroom or the workplace, and if the tiniest speck of shit hits the fan, people will hear about it … but that strangely never seems to happen in a conspiracy theory, does it? This brings up another issue that I don't think the writer covered. It's especially relevant to government conspiracy theories. The same people who are absolutely certain, in their own minds, that the government is capable of engineering vast projects (like, say, faking the moon landing) in near-total secrecy hold, simultaneously, the belief that everyone in the government is absolutely incompetent. This is the pinnacle of cognitive dissonance. 4. “Couldn’t They Accomplish The Same Goal Without Being So Cartoonishly Evil?” No one is gonna give a shit unless the stakes are ludicrously high and there are tons of A-list celebrities involved. If you were to tell people that there’s a cabal of Satanic child sex traffickers harvesting their victims’ adrenal glands to make psychedelic drugs, you’d get laughed out of that pitch meeting. But if you say Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey are attached to the project, that will get you some press. That’s why theories like QAnon make no damn sense. They wouldn’t have to go to that much trouble. If Oprah really was a Satanist, she wouldn’t need to hide it. She could just select The Necronomicon for her book club, and two weeks later soccer moms everywhere would be sacrificing virgins. I wrote a short story a while back about the scary influence Oprah has (or at least had; I don't keep up with that stuff). This is not a conspiracy theory; this is based on observational evidence. So yeah, drop in a celebrity or two and your idiotic ideas get spread around more widely. 3. “Does That Technology Even Exist?” One of the weirdest tropes in conspiracy theories is when they involve the use of outrageous technology that even Roland Emmerich would think is lazy writing, and that guy’s next movie is about the moon falling. I think that movie's already out by now. I wouldn't know. It's just about the stupidest thing involving the moon since the fake landing conspiracy theory. Speaking of which, the technology needed to fake that shit in 1969 would have been way more expensive and difficult to achieve than actually, you know, sending dudes to the moon. Not to mention the number of people involved; see above. 2. “How Do You Make A Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich?” ... actually, I'm afraid you're going to have to go to the link to read this one. It will make sense, I promise. 1. “What Happens If You’re Right?” The one thing that all great conspiracy theories have in common is they all seem to be perpetually stuck in the middle act of the movie. The bad guys and their motivations have been established. We sorta have an idea of the magnitude of the threat we’re facing. If the story even has a hero, they're really not doing a great job saving the day so far. But let’s just assume the theories are correct and cut straight to the climactic showdown. Who do you think is gonna win? Also this. Taking the government conspiracy theories as an example, if you're right and they're secretly engaging in mind-control, what exactly do you think is going to happen? Hell, if you're right, and you're spreading such a conspiracy, you've already disappeared, quietly, and they've put a robot or clone in your place to walk back the shit you said. As the old saying goes, perhaps the greatest conspiracy is there is no conspiracy. That said, there have definitely been conspiracies. Like Tuskegee or the Roswell Incident - which was a cover-up, though not for space aliens but for secret US technology. So yes, sometimes there really is a conspiracy.But that doesn't mean that your pet theory holds any water. Or maybe -- just maybe -- They seed these conspiracy theories themselves to hide the real truth, which is that we're being farmed by lizard people from Hollow Earth. If you throw enough falsehoods out there, the truth will be concealed like a wolf wearing wool.. |
| I'm more than a little hung over right now, so I'm not going to have much commentary on this article. But read it anyway. It's a Cracked link, and I think it says a lot about the state of internet media right now that a dick joke site that evolved out of a juvenile magazine gets shit more right than more "serious" publications. "But Waltz, you're all about science! How can you post such a thing?" Well, like I said, it's worth reading. No one disbelieves science, but we’re all selective in our embrace of it. I “believe” in science, but I still consume alcohol and junk food, which science says are terrible for me. Doing something that's objectively bad for you isn't the same thing as doing things that are objectively bad for other people. For example, I don't care if you smoke. But lots of people care if you smoke in a crowded restaurant. Some “believers” in science believe in rather unscientific propositions, from the imminent triumph of transhumanism to Elon Musk not being full of shit. Transhumanism (feel free to look it up; I can't be arsed right now) is fantasy couched in scientific terms. Kind of like scientology. Here's the money shot, though: Science—actual science—isn’t something you believe in. Inertia and friction don’t need your belief to keep existing. A scientific theory, tested by an experiment, will either produce or fail to produce evidence, regardless of what you hope or believe will happen. If you actually believe in science, you should welcome reasonable questions and criticism and skepticism, because that’s how science moves forward. As I've noted before, science is often wrong. That's part of the deal. It's a feature, not a bug. Unlike with religion, you don't get "infallible" diktats intoned from on high; all you get is support or negation of your hypothesis. I'm okay with that. Everyone should be okay with that, but I get that some people aren't, and they want certainty. But there's no such thing as certainty. In the early days of COVID we were told not to wear masks. I gotta call this one out because a lot of the moron brigade loves to trot this out whenever the subject comes up. Yes, they told us not to wear masks. This wasn't because masks are ineffective, though (they are not). It was not because "science" said it wasn't transmissible by aerosol (it did not). It was because there weren't enough masks. It wasn't a scientific decision but a pragmatic one. Remember how people hoarded toilet paper back then? Imagine how much worse it would be with a run on something that people generally didn't use at the time. You have to take human stupidity and greed into account, or things get even worse. There’s a tendency to let “belief” in science slide into scientism, the idea that the scientific lens is always the best way of looking at the world and that scientists could, in theory, solve all of our political and ethical problems if we just got those dumb politicians and philosophers out of the way. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but philosophy and science are entirely separate ways to approach knowledge. And yet, philosophy has to be grounded in science... and science must be guided by philosophy. As an example of the latter, think of animal testing. We consider many forms of research on animals to be immoral. But that's a philosophical matter. Science itself is not moral, immoral, or amoral. It's also not a collection of facts; rather, it's an approach. I watched a thoroughly mediocre science fiction show on Amazon a while back. As part of the plot, a journalist and a scientist walk into a bar (yes, that could be a setup for a joke). The bar is having Trivia Night. The scientist is portrayed as absolutely confident that he will win the trivia contest, and he and the journalist bet each other. Thing is, scientists are 1) not automatically more intelligent than anyone else; 2) generally focused on one or two narrow fields of study and 3) entirely too immersed in said study to know, or care, who played Steve on Soaps of our Lives or who was the second-string wide receiver for the Raiders in 1997. The show's writers fell into a common trap: conflating intelligence with knowledge. All else being equal, I'd put all the money on the journalist in a trivia contest against a scientist. At best, that leads to bizarre assumptions about how knowledge works, like how the media loved to have Stephen Hawking—a theoretical physicist and cosmologist—issue ominous warnings about the threat of AI, aliens, and imminent human extinction. Hawking has been an ex-Hawking for a while now, and yet I still see articles about his prognostications. Yes, he was brilliant. No, none of his "warnings" should carry any more weight than that of your average science fiction writer. Even the smartest people in the world have their biases. People have to be engaged on an emotional level, regardless of how unpleasant that task can be, because otherwise we’re ignoring how they reached this point. To me, that's not just unpleasant, but absolutely disgusting. Still, on a basic level, I understand that it's impossible to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Okay, I guess I had more commentary on the article than I expected, hangover or not. Believe it or not, there's a lot more I'd like to say. I'm not going to, though. In case it's not obvious, however, I'm not saying "ignore science." Far from it. Neither is the writer. But I think we all need to watch the movie on a wider screen. |
| Well, look at that. Two touchy subjects in as many days. Before I get started, though, a brief rant: I just had to delete no fewer than 10 emails with a subject line beginning: "Tis the season..." This has got to stop. Yes, I let some businesses send me email because I actually, you know, do business with them. This might change if they can't come up with a more creative way to try to suck money out of people than overused, trite, cliché and lazy lines from annoying earworm Christmas carols. So it looks like I'm going to have to set up a filter like I did with Mother's Day: Anything with that subject goes directly to trash, unread and unnoticed. Sick of this shit. Anyway... I describe it as "touchy" because, often, population issues can be racist dogwhistles. As in "OMG not enough white people are having kids." I'm just going to state up front here that this is not how I'm using it, as if that's something I'd have to state. The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low in 2020 — just as it did in 2019, and 2018. Although the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have accelerated this decline, the drop has been underway for years. I gotta say, I was bracing myself for simpering "lockdown baby boom" stories, but as usual with my cynicism, I'm just glad I was wrong about that. When the fertility rate falls below replacement level, the population grows older and shrinks, which can slow economic growth and strain government budgets. Today’s babies are tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers: They’ll not only staff the hospitals and nursing homes we’ll use in old age but also sustain the economy by funding our pensions when we retire, paying the taxes that finance Social Security, Medicare, and many other government programs we’ll rely on, and buying the homes and stocks we invested in to build our savings. Maybe stop thinking about it as a fertility problem and start retooling the economy so it's not a fucking Ponzi scheme? In fact, low fertility poses some advantages: easing ecological pressures, preventing overcrowding and reducing the infrastructure costs that come with a growing population. Our economy isn't currently built to allow for a decrease in population. It's set up so that there must always be more and more people. And yet, this is unsustainable; the population cannot grow infinitely. Nor, as the article goes on to point out, is a continuous decrease in population sustainable in the long run. Averaging out to a steady state, that is, one where births and deaths are roughly equal, would be ideal... though we'd argue endlessly over where that level should be. Personally, I'd put it at maybe half of the current 8 billion (the article is mainly about US population, but I tend to take a more global perspective). There were fewer humans than that on Earth when I was born. But others will disagree with the number. So be it. Every time I mention that the population could be lower, though (mostly because every single environmental problem we face would be at least partly improved if there were fewer people), I get, "So why don't you start by killing yourself?" I wish I could understand the mindset behind that. But I don't. I'm not talking about removing people who are already here; I'm talking about not bringing more people into an overcrowded, overheated world. I mean, I understand that someone would want me gone, but for that reason? I simply don't get it. Later in the article, they talk about some ways to reduce the economic impact from having a smaller population. Then: Taken together, these findings suggest that we could ease the problems of a low-fertility society if we’re willing to invest in children’s education and better support women in the workforce. Welp, we're boned, in that case. Others point out that the problems of low fertility may get thornier when the overall size of the population begins to shrink. “What happens to mortgages in a country where real estate depreciates like a used car because the population is falling and we need fewer and fewer houses all the time? We’re totally unprepared for that,” said Lyman Stone, a demographer and research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, a conservative-leaning think tank. Oh no! The price of housing may decline! More people might actually be able to afford to have a place to live! Homelessness might decrease! The horror!!! And countries like the U.S., Canada and Australia rely on net immigration as well — and could probably continue doing so for decades if they choose to embrace it. Here's the thing about immigration (and now I'm shifting focus back to the US alone): When a kid is born, they are completely useless for about 20 years, sucking up resources while contributing nothing. Oh, sure, to the parents they're precious (sometimes), though it's not like the old days when you could put 'em to work on the farm. But from society's perspective, you invest in them for 20 years in the hope that they'll eventually become "productive." And sometimes they don't. An adult immigrant, however, can hit the ground running and contribute to the economy right away. To me the choice is clear: immigration is preferable from an economic standpoint. The only way it wouldn't be is if you're concerned about race or some nebulously-defined "culture" (In America? Come on) that's going to change over time anyway. |
| It's December now (ugh) and my participation in 30DBC last month gave me a chance to restock my Blog Fodder folder. I've got enough now for this month, and then some... assuming I'm able to blog every day this month. If I can just make it to the 13th, that will be two years of blogging every day. As my first surgery isn't until the 16th, that should be possible, though my vision has deteriorated to the point where it's hard to see what I'm typing. So if I do make it, it is likely that there will be more typos than usual. For now, though, randomly picked from the Fodder Folder, a rare (for me) hot-button issue to kick off the month: Joey Holz recalled first hearing complaints about a labor shortage last year when he called to donate convalescent plasma at a clinic near Fort Myers, Florida. Okay, I know what plasma is (it's not the same thing as the plasma I talked about a few days ago in "Life, The Universe, and Everything" ), but "convalescent plasma" is new to me. Apparently it's used as treatment for the 'rona -- blood plasma from people who survived their encounter with the virus. I mean, I knew they were using antibody treatments, but that's the first time I encountered that particular phrase. Great; I love learning new things, even though it turns out that does jack shit .However, that really has nothing to do with the story. Have the writers at Business Insider been taking lessons from The New Yorker? "The guy went on this rant about how he can't find help and he can't keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks," Holz told Insider. "And I'm like, 'Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That's weird.'" As a former business owner, I would like to cordially invite any business owner to try to live off of stimulus checks and see if it makes you want to never work again. Hell, I'll even make it "stimulus checks plus your lowest-paid former worker's unemployment benefits." Over the next several months, the 37-year-old watched as a growing chorus of businesses said they couldn't find anyone to hire because of government stimulus money. I'm reminded of an old proverb: If you run into an asshole, you've run into an asshole. If everyone you run into is an asshole, you're the asshole. These business owners are assholes. He said he found it hard to believe that government money was keeping people out of the labor force, especially when the end of expanded federal unemployment benefits did not seem to trigger a surge in employment. All expanded benefits ended in September, but 26 states – including Florida – ended them early in June and July. "If this extra money that everyone's supposedly living off of stopped in June and it's now September, obviously, that's not what's stopping them," he said. Yeah, I remember some of these assholes going, "Boy, when the government turns off the firehose, them workers are gonna come begging." Well, the firegardenhose is turned off, and that didn't happen. Two weeks and 28 applications later, he had just nine email responses, one follow-up phone call, and one interview with a construction company that advertised a full-time job focused on site cleanup paying $10 an hour. When I was a kid, $10 an hour was above poverty level. This was about the same time when Cokes were a quarter each. Now? Now, it's a fucking joke. But Holz said the construction company instead tried to offer Florida's minimum wage of $8.65 to start, even though the wage was scheduled to increase to $10 an hour on September 30. He added that it wanted full-time availability, while scheduling only part time until Holz gained seniority. And that's an even funnier joke. I've been seeing a lot of reports of bait-and-switch like this, too: companies advertising like $20 an hour but then after the interview you find out that it's actually like $12 until some nebulous future time when you're off probation or whatever. Maybe. If they're not lying about that, too. In a Facebook post on September 29, which went viral on Twitter and Reddit as well, Holz said, "58 applications says y'all aren't desperate for workers, you just miss your slaves." Truer words cannot be written. By the end of September, Holz had sent out 60 applications, received 16 email responses, four follow-up phone calls, and the solitary interview. There might be any number of reasons for this, and it's hardly a scientific study (despite the inclusion of pie charts). But the guy in the story understands the limitations of his "experiment:" Holz acknowledged that his results may not be representative of the larger labor challenges in the country, since his search was local and targeted the most vocal critics of stimulus spending. Honestly, I'm just surprised that an outlet like Business Insider ran an article like this one instead of kissing business owner ass. And now, of course, people are freaking out about inflation. I don't want to delve too deeply into that quagmire, because I'm not actually an economist -- and even if I were, economists can't agree on inflation policies, either. The economic system, like the weather, is inherently chaotic: unpredictable past a certain point, and subject to wild swings based on the tiniest of inputs. But I will say this: anyone who didn't expect some inflation was fooling themselves. One other thing I'll say, though. I've been waiting for this. For too long, employers have had the bulk of the power in the working world. They got to dictate working conditions, salaries, benefits... all of which have been deteriorating for some time. I've been hoping to see more bargaining power returned to the employees and potential employees, and I feel like it's finally happening. In other words... |
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