Politics, Technology, Truth and Falsehood

Confessions of A budding Sci Fi novelist

2011-03-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

I love science fiction and I love politics. So I am writing a novel that will combine the two into a fun and engaging package. The journey has not been easy. Not in the slightest. The old roomers about Louis L'Amour writing a Western novel in a single day, with a type writer, on a busy new York street are the stuff of legend. Having tried to write a novel has made this story even less believable then before I tried such an enticing enterprise. The number of re-writes I have done so far are staggering, as inconsistencies are worked out.

Perhaps the biggest re-write came as a result of a deeply influential online philosopher, named Stefan Molyneux Of.... Freedomain Radio . No single change has provoked more alterations then how I would define the life choices of my main character. My main character started out as a James Bond type figure but with a wife in the same profession and some added background in communications and sciences. Fortunately my contact with Mr Molyneux and a sort of real world proof of concept in the Egyptian revolution combined together to make this original main character explode into a million pieces in my mind. I knew from that moment that my main character could not be a spy working for a government of any type. A "hero" loyally working as a government employee, as James Bond did, now, just seems grotesque and silly.

Having come in contact with Ayn Rand my most basic assumptions did not really change, in a bone deep way. This change in outlook, however flirtatious, is more fundamental. Limited government just isn't the stuff of my passionate political fantasies anymore as it was during my libertarian phase. Some vague budding sense of enlightened Anarchy, is definitely whispering seductively and touching me tenderly now. Letting this philosophical midnight tryst and change of lovers, bleed into the ink of my novel seems unavoidable.

My original main characters, just could not survive this change in myself. So an unassuming Canadian stay at home DAD, has slain my original government trained Muay Thai wielding, master spy. Now I remake the character into a former nano-tech researcher, determined to make the world as safe as he can for his young children... Caught up in a world still vulnerable to the catastrophic abuse of technology by violent adolescent governments... and a few "hidden and surprising outsiders" too.

Thanks Stefan Molyneux, for killing a main character, before I let it out into the light of a publisher for review. Slaying bad novel characters before they can darken the printed page must all be in a days work, for a good practitioner of the philosophical arts.

Inconsistency is a luxury Americans and the world can no longer afford.

2009-11-04T07:31:00.001-08:00

The humorist and political pundit Bill Whittle came up with some excellent commentary about the ACORN child prostitute scandal, which can be found at the website below.

Now here is my personal reply below. Sometimes conservatives are bad about inconsistency in applying the lessons of history to policy. Few people seem to think about history much, or the limitations of public spending when making policy. Be it as it may, the small mistakes of wise men are always more injurious then the same mistakes made by known fools. Here is my attempt at a correction in the video below. I apologize in advance if the video itself is not syncing properly with the sound.

Freedom's Next 20 years

2009-07-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

Fear is rampantly scrawled along the pages of our media from newspapers to websites. I am NOT the first to admit that the next decade will be a dangerous one for freedom. Lets sit down and take stock of recent events. Much has been written to put everyone face to face with the ugly troubles of the new world economy. A clear eyed appraisal of the worst that is likely to happen in the next 10-20 years, will allow all living now, to face up to the future with bravery and self possession. Before delving into what the facts of today mean for your freedom and money over the next 10 years, lets review where we are right now.

1.The United states has temporary become Japan, complete with zombie banks, massive government bailouts, government takeovers, higher marginal taxes, plunging property values, and rising unemployment. What is true of the United States is also effecting nearly every other democratic republic on this planet. You should not take my word for it but please don't use the governments numbers.

2.Without the high savings rate of Japan the United States must soon morph into a Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany hyper-inflationary style disaster. True recovery or a Japanese “lost decade” are highly unlikely for the United States. Fed Chairmans Alan Greenspan & Ben Bernanke, have created more money then has been printed in America in the previous 200 years before they took office . (no I am not joking, this is as real as your life gets) Ask yourself what the word TRILLION means next time you hear about the USA planning its finances.

Gold & Silver Investments from Conspiracy of the Rich on Vimeo.

3.Chinese and Russian governments are both hostile to human/property rights, real elections, or any checks and balances. Both illiberal autocracies are buying up massive quantities of oil, rare earth elements, to become rich in a post-dollar world. Much aid has been given by the worlds 2 “flagship autocracies” to small resource rich nations with very poor human rights records.

4.The entire world financial system is bloodied, with philosophically antagonistic autocracies playing creditor to “mixed economy” republics, stumbling under mountains of welfare state debt. The net creditors of the world have been attempting to create a new reserve currency based on precious metals and energy. Normally I would support such a measure, too bad China and Russia are unlikely to include convertibility of paper money into such metals. Some governments will grow richer while most individuals are fleeced via inflation.

5.Sovereign Wealth funds, state owned companies, and massive bailouts are pushing private enterprises to the margins of economic life in many countries. Governments are creating their own coercive monopolies funded from bottomless wells of newly printed money. Clearly freedom could be smothered under the “invisible foot” of government funding and regulations. A nightmare world where America becomes as socialist as France and China backtracks to full state ownership of any large enterprise. World economic growth and output is likely to suffer badly as it always has, when governments start choosing winners and losers. Prepare for more scarcity.

So with all that bad news, is their any hope for a future that includes freedom and its necessary roots in the soil of free enterprise? My answer is yes, more then ever. I am not saying the next ten years will be a sunny picnic, but a closer look at history shows opportunities and even hope. Make no mistake that massive numbers of individuals will have to relearn the art of private independence/interdependence, re-impose limits on their governments run wild, rewrite regulations to be simple and understandable to all (not just legal/finance professionals) and effectively resist every malignantly insecure politician or military commander, yearning lustfully to impose tyranny in an uncertain world.

Real Free markets could return, after an absence of 96 years.

Beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud-- PJ O'Rourke

Brief video history of humanities republics.

The world has not had anything resembling a fully free market anywhere on the globe since 1776- 1913. Those politicians, bureaucrats, and “corporatacracies” who think a new socialist future are of advantage to themselves, are becoming overconfident. Overconfidence is the norm when trends favor your views. Advocates of free markets, had been correctly warned by Francis Fukuyama, that differing cultural perceptions about skill, luck and who to trust, would limit capitalism's triumph after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many central banks, subsidized corporate giants and politicians have been posing as advocates of free markets for nearly a century, while the actions of each suggest far different values.

Now lustful autocrats are puffing their chests out, despite credible evidence that the controlled parts of mixed economies caused the massive failures we see today. One of the best examples of governmental overconfidence goes as follows: Ian Bremmer the president of the Eurasian group, was recently asked this loaded question by a Chinese senior level official: “Now that the free market model has failed , tell me what you think the appropriate role is for the state in the economy?” Questions like this pre-suppose that we were living in anything remotely resembling a laissez faire market to begin with. Worst of all is that this Chinese official probably believes that the free market model has indeed failed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Don't get me wrong the years 1989 - 2000 were better years for libertarians then any we have seen in the last 50 some years. Trends were swinging very slowly back to free markets and men. However it must be stated that the “deregulation” of the 90's was mainly for the well connected rich and consisted of.... Massive amounts of printed regulation, that few would or could ever become expert in according to a search of financial terms at the US governments archives and records department. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi As bad as US regulations are most other nations have much more excessive regulation then we do.

*Tax loopholes that can only be found with the help of very highly paid professionals. Salaried employees lost their ability to plan their taxes in the 40's and the middle class lost most of their tax planing privileges after the 1980's S&L crisis, as Robert Kirosaki (see vid above) has explained in the best selling “Rich Dad” book series. Tax codes in most advanced countries slap the young upstart capitalist with heavy taxes while the large companies have learned to avoid such extortion via high priced professionals and creative accounting. It seems reasonable to demand this state of affairs be abolished or reversed. Small and mid sized private enterprises are being crushed underfoot by the partnership of mega-corporations and politicians.

*It was natural for Alan Greenspan to predict an “Age of Turbulence” (the title of his book), his Federal Reserve was still acting as a senior counterfeiting and price fixing committee in the open, with full legal sanction, and Greenspan largely responsible for the “turbulence” he himself predicted. All banks were forced to give uneconomic loans via years of negative real interest rates, (rates lower then the rate of inflation). The only profit center left for banks was transaction fees. A powerful perverse incentive for every financier, to have the highest transaction volumes/leverage possible and leave the obvious coming defaults to sleepy taxpayers. Bad management, even by the low standards of a Central Bank has been the 9 decade status quo. (Note modern central banks are a criminal organization, illegal under a proper reading of article 1 section 10 of the US Constitution, or any other law preventing price fixing or counterfeiting)

*At this time the US Fed and the Bureau of Labor Statistics were spitting out inaccurate (or possibly fraudulent) data on which the investment community was basing its decisions. (as explained and demonstrated by John William at shadowstats.com.) Bad numbers have a similar effect to outright socialism, as information is short circuited by disinformation.

*Despite a brief drive to balance the federal budget after the 1994 “House Republican surge” the same congressmen were back to pork-barrel spending by early in the year 2000. Politicians who want free markets but also want pork to buy votes, are more of a threat then those who are forthrightly against economic freedom. Politicians like Hugo Chavez or Ted Kennedy are clearly eligible for the insanity/stupidity defense but the house republicans have absolutely no excuse for that chapter of history.

Those parts of the economy thoroughly controlled by government supported corporate cartels, succeeded in wrecking the system of finance that reputable business needs to plan for the future and pay their staff. Is this the same era that the mainstream media, and government officials world wide, so bizarrely describe as free market and capitalist? In what alternative universe can any of the corrupted situations above be included in the words, “free market captalism”?

Yet again free markets are taking the blame for the sins of politicians and the monopolists that couldn't endure, without constant bailouts, congressional pork, murky central bank secrecy and various other forms of malicious mischief. Markets did not fall off a cliff on their own. Free markets were pushed off.

All market shakeouts before the creation of the Federal Reserve, were swift with fast recoveries. Until governments allowed central banks to do things EXTREMELY illegal for private citizens to do, economic breakdown was reserved for long wars with worthy opponents. Government officials created the deflation and (future) inflation we suffer and will continue to suffer under. Politicians are our employees and the current crop are poor performers. Direct your anger at the political incumbents who caused all this by voting for the challenger every single year. Voting for third parties if your in a state that never votes your way, is also a very good idea.

Its harder to lie to citizens with good memories

The malaise of the 70's was another era when the causes (Keynesian economics) and the effects (rampant inflation, bankrupt governments, third world revolt) could almost be seen side by side. Despite separation in time between friendly political legislation and unfriendly disaster, the public slowly became dimly aware of excess government as a problem to be solved.

Moving forward to 2009, search engines like google.com are making the memories of citizens superhuman and uncensored. Opportunistic politicians will not be able to confuse or mis-match cause and effect with the Internet open to all and youtube clips of Ron Paul + various Austrian school economists, warning us of the future we now live in, so many years ahead of time. Even in China hackers have so compromised the “green dam firewall” the government is considering abandoning the project. Likely the Chinese government will try summary executions next, but if executions worked, the Mongol Khanates and the wicked dark ages version of the Catholic Church, would have maintained world empire and prevented protestant movements.

Any technology or institution that increases public memory about what politicians said years ago, is not good for politicians, not good for socialism, but helpful to free debate. The possibility of genuine freedom movements in China or Russia or at very least massive continuing social unrest inside the BRIC nations (minus India) could give the free world some maneuvering room. Successful censorship in the Neo Feudal China/Russia would allow the west + asian tigers/India to remain far ahead of any autocracy in terms of information technology. I wouldn't bet on successful censorship in the long run however. Youth is a restless condition, especially in politics.

United States economic collapse and China's choices

When powerful commonwealths (like the United States) fall, navigating the power vacuum and maintaining freedom will be both difficult and dangerous. The fall and aftermath of the Soviet Unions fall gives us many clues of the shape of things to come.

Russia from 1989 through most of the 90's was for a brief period a “non-power” in world politics. Sadly its true that the coming hyperinflation in America is likely to paralyze the US military and economy for between 4 to 10 years. China will likely take the oil rich Spratly islands, send more military units to Africa/South/Latin America, step up aid to other autocracies and the republic Taiwan is of course doomed without the assistance of the US fleet. China will use violence more often to solve its problems while the US Armed Services are mothballed for lack of funds. Russia for its part will hold Europe in a sort of “energy ransom” while biting off tiny chunks of its “near abroad” as opportunity allows.

However this is likely as far as China/Russia can go. Thailand, Australia, S.Korea, Japan and India together, surely have enough power to curb Politburo adventurism. I expect America will sell some of its advanced armaments/techniques to the aforementioned, to generate “hard currency”, much as the Russians did in the Soviet Union's immediate aftermath. The difference is that republics faced with hemming in China/Russia, could end up with better military tech then China, on a unit for unit basis. No single country however (with a possible exception of India), will have anything like China's military size or ability to replace losses in a large scale “proxy war” style situation. Its inevitable that China will use more force on pacific and African nations when the American Security umbrella collapses. However Chinese expansionism might not be as successful as many strategists fear.

Military theorists speculate that missile technology is already making surface ships obsolete, but in submarines the United States (and by extension any ally who can purchase a few Los Angeles class boats) will have a very large advantage in any undeclared conventional warfare, on or under the high seas.(similar to the quasi war between America and France in 1789-1800) China might become the largest operational navy in the pacific, but its ability to resupply surface forces or land troops on any island is still at the mercy of American designed undersea and stealth air assets. Expect occasional small scale sea engagements (reported as mishaps) as China tests the extent of its control of the sea lanes until the Asian tigers + India and Australia become determined to better coordinate their response, to the emerging power.

China may do less muscle flexing during American financial paralysis then we might fear. Chinese culture is autocratic, but not inherently expansionist. More reliable then the “good intentions” of the worlds last remaining Politburo, is the fortunate un-intended aftermath of the communist parties one child policy. Simply put, China like Japan is running out of young military age men and women to use as pawns of the state. Much of Chinas land army is mainly trained/equipped to quell internal rebellion, suppress ethnic minorities and ensure that rural western Chinese do not migrate to the cities in numbers larger then eastern city governments can absorb.

Contrast this to America with little net demographic change (thanks to young immigrants) and India with an explosion of the young military age population. “China will grow old before it grows rich” according to investment demographer Harry S Dent.(who's recent book I recommend) A combination of military deterrence, careful diplomacy and a proper settlement of debts could convince China to to act responsibly. What is true of China is far worse for Russia, as the male population has an average lifespan of 59&1/2 years and falling.

The economic/military future of the world is fairly manageable, so long as America avoids becoming an autocracy, during its (likely) future period of total currency collapse. What shape American politics will take during or after a hyperinflation are largely unpredictable. The historical landscape however is littered with the bodies of democracies, republics, empires and tyrannies who tried to redistribute funds or fight economic crisis with the excessive printing of money. The American Empire is likely doomed but the Constitution and individual freedom world wide, may re-emerge stronger then ever. Unpleasant lessons of history will be forcefully refreshed in the minds of sleepy citizens. If free peoples can preserve representative forms of government in the next 10 years, the next 20 years could see some truly beautiful times for those born today, yearning to genuinely breath free.

Debunking the Doomsayers

2008-08-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

Note-- This article was originally a response to an article also written on blog spot entitled, "Sorry no Gas". What I love about this article is another limitation on the human mind I call "Lack of informed imagination". Inventors are rarely afflicted by this. Unfortunately most bureaucrats and those in job that perpetually look into the past are loaded down with a lack of imagination. The author of "Sorry no Gas" is one of the better examples of this breed and thus I give him credit for good writing. What he says would even be true if suddenly all the scientists were to simply stop discovering and inventors stopped inventing. Fortunately for humanity scientist and inventors still gain great wealth and social prestige from doing what they are doing (at least in the capitalist west). What you should take away from this article is the fact that inventors will be needed to create a future with more knowledge and fewer limitations then we are accustomed to today. A slowdown in technological progress could be disastrous for us in this future of limited oil.

Most signs of progress seems to be increasing in pace as information is exchanged among researchers. The only real worry of mine is the falling standards of education we are seeing world wide. Smart motivated children are the fuel on which humanities future is built. Humans would largely perish from the Earth without children who out preform their elders in the art of discovery. Anything that slows down technical progress should be looked at through this lens. The current population on earth would not be possible minus what we have invented so far.

With that in mind, read the article "Sorry no Gas" then read my responses and the research behind it (provided below).

***********************************************************************************

The doom and gloom crowd forgets one very important fact about resource depletion. We are entering the era of genetic and nano engineering. As resources become more scare, nano robots building everything from raw meat to skyscrapers from scratch, could keep humanity ahead of the depleting oil. The line between machine and organism is going to become quite blurred in the next 20-40 years. Never underestimate science (or a better word perhaps is intelligent individuals armed with good info) to ultimately defeat every big resource shortage that comes our way. Resource depletion can only destory major sections of the human population, IF progress in Nano and Genetic engineering is slowed down by narrow minded traditionalists. (which is not to say some safety features should not be built into this emerging tech to avoid disaster).

Amazing new things are on the horizon that will make peak oil seem as alarmist as coal shortages in the 19th century appear to modern eyes now. Solar panels that grow them selfs after a technician programs the cells to do so. That is just a sampling of the sort of tech we as humans are going to be accustomed to. Fifty years ago somebody who said that humans could communicate at the speed of light, sending ideas and money across contentments would have been dismissed as a science fiction writer. Today we are now using the internet. That tiny fraction of geniuses that lifted humanity out of the dark ages will also lift humanity out of the sort of inefficiency and physical want we are again experiencing. The moldy over bureaucratized United States dominion is masquerading as some form of resource apocalypse. The fact is when you look at the price of oil in terms of gold grams instead of dollars the actual scarcity of of oil measured in the market price.... has not even budged! (The chart below is courtesy of www.goldmoney.com or www.runtogold.com

Look at the chart and assume that oil will be really expensive in another 20 year even when valued in a currency that does not depreciate such as gold or silver, even if that is not the case at the moment. Still I am rather hopeful because human beings are not in fact animals but rather a transitional form away from blind biological machinery toward greater intellect.
Unlike animals: Humans can remake the physical world by unlocking many of the physical laws that make the universe function. Human intelligence would have eventually come up with industrial civilization even with no hydro carbons in the ground. It may have taken longer to get to the tipping point, but humans would have reached it. My only cause for concern is the lingering animal instincts that humans display when put under serious survival pressure.

The question is can humanity overcome some of its age old superstitions? For instance many humans were killing cats in mid-evil Europe because they were believed to be witches in animal form. This placed no population check upon the rats that actually carried the black plague. Is this superstition so different from todays objections to bio medical research, that will keep us ahead of resource depletion? Another example would be how the repressiveness of governmental/educational institutions in most of the world keeps human potential unrealized. If enough of the old tradition and ignorance can be stripped away, the young will solve problems their elders could only despair over. It happens over and over through history. Physical limits on growth only become a problem when the growth of human knowledge slows down too much. Oil is only irreplaceable to a mindset that has no room for what has yet to be invented. Solar, nuclear and many other forms of power are in their pre-modle T phase if you liken them to a automobile development. Such early beginnings will seem primitive against what will be developed in even so short a time as 10 years.

Admittedly their is some cause for gloom in the short term. This recent "recession of democracy" is in large part due to resource depletion. On the plus side is that outer space has plenty of room to allow humans to truly matter in the cosmic sense.(instead of being a biological also ran, waiting for the next big asteroid impact) Governments that give inventors a dis-incentive to ply their mankind saving trade, is the real threat that gives "resource depletion" a chance to catch up to a spry humanity, that has outpaced poverty with knowledge for some time now. While many doom sayers are right to warn of a partial breakdown of society (particularly in the third world) and correctly point out how hard oil is to replace. Where these gloomy bureaucrats go wrong is the when they value human enginunity so lightly against the troubles we face now. Every 50-60 years their is a crisis of civilization. This crisis is called the "Kondratieff Winter"

Terra formation of Mars and other suitable worlds, asteroids, and other heavenly bodies made habitable by technology will likely make population problems on earth as quaint a problem as in-breeding is to a modern resident of any major city. Even with the primitive tech we have enough technology to form a major self supporting outpost on Mars or even a tiny city is not out of the question (and less impractical then you might imagine).

Before the technology catches up to us their will be the normal interval of war and strife. (muted by nuclear weapons this time around but longer lasting to be sure then WWII). Huge changes are afoot but none of them are likely to be very palatable. Our next 20 years are likely to be harder then our previous 20 years. Precious metals will likely kill fiat money and technology will be put to very sinister ends. Through it all humanity will survive and that tiny subset of humanity that invents new industries, will likely have saved us once again. No need for the doom and gloom in the long run but likely the first fifth of the 21'st century will be unhappy to be sure.

Sincerely Gordon Angelino (Raptoreyes)

Sources

(Nano technology)

Nano by Ed Regis (accessible to a non technical individual)

Engines of Creation by K Eric Drexler.(recommended only for engineers)

(Terra forming)

Entering Space by Robert Zubrin

Look up NASA's "Mars Direct" plan in early stage implementation now!

2008-08-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Just a video you should see. The visuals are from mapsofwar.com and the music is from "The World is not Enough" a James Bond Movie. Putting that song and those maps together imparts a great deal of perspective. I made two versions of this map. The second version to come soon.

Disgruntled at the Gas Pump? Blame politicians chaseing easy tax collections.

2008-06-19T02:25:00.000-07:00

Yet again the free market proves that it is wiser than government officials. Here we see the market giving us a golden opportunity to preview future trends. Fueling the current price spike in oil, is the high cost of bringing new oil rigs into production, politico-economic chaos in the OPEC countries, growth of India/China, Middle East warfare, and of course the malicious currency devaluation inherent to any Fiat Money system. That all these mismanaged forces, came together at nearly the same point in history to cause an oil bubble, is quite extraordinary but hardly unexpected. Hopefully this mostly government induced turmoil, has caused a few of you to ask what your options are?

Some politicians talk about nuclear power, coal and drilling local oil wells. This talk is understandable, since such old energy technologies are very easy to tax. Such oil/nuclear facilities cannot be moved, when they fall under heavy taxation. For over 70 years the government has given heavy subsidies to coal oil and nuclear infrastructure projects. By contrast solar, wind and geothermal power operate best when dispersed. These nascent power sources have received very few subsidies, compared to more centralized power sources, that governments can slap with predatory taxes. Additionally: from the politician's point of view, coal oil and nuclear are also indispensable to military belligerency.

Perhaps the biggest long-term culprit in our current energy crisis, is the fact that governments have pushed industrialization faster than unfettered markets would have developed. For example, you can check the slow growth of industrialization in the 19th century guided by classical (laissez-faire) economics. Then look at the speed of industrialization in the violent government centered 20th century. Indeed the most controlled of the world economies the "beloved" Soviet Union, which remained the unchallenged darling of "intellectuals and statist planners"(looters in suits) world wide, had one of the dirtiest environments imaginable. The current Russian semi-autocracy that was built upon the bones of the old Soviet Union, still has one of the lowest energy efficiency ratings in the industrialized world. Contrast Russia's performance with the United States Great Britain or Switzerland, which despite high automobile use, have much greater efficiencies, at all levels of energy use and production. It is for that reason that we should allow the market to function free of interference.

For many years we've been lied to by governments, both foreign and domestic, simply because the politicians time horizon is on the order of 10-15 years. The majority of politicians need never face up to the messes they made while in office.

However markets that experience very little regulation have a tendency to unveil the truth in dramatic ways. Small and medium-sized private investors must live with the consequences their decisions far beyond the politician's term in office.

The free market was trying to warn us of our dependence on a single energy source for quite some time now. Price spikes in energy every 30 years are abnormal. With all the subsidies, resource wars, rampant currency inflation, and outright theft practiced by governments, it's often hard to hear what the energy markets, have been trying to tell us. For the first time ever, oil well north of the $135/barrel price range, may give the world a preview of possibilities to come. Unfortunately the voters in many countries have often sided with politicians to shoot the messenger, rather than deal with the message. Let's hope that this most recent oil price spike proves to be an exception to the sad historical trend. The energy futures markets are trying to tell us the painful truth and its past time we listened.

H Ross Perot and the Dark ages = Black Death .... Industrial Age = "Black Debt"

2008-06-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

In the dark ages there was the Black death caused by bubonic plague. This germ single-handedly cleaned out most of the population of Europe. Lacking any knowledge at this time of viruses, Europeans thought that they were cursed by God and the Devil or whatever. Progress truly is wonderful but it's not utopian.

Fast forward to the present time and we now must deal with a left over the of the industrial age which James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees Mogg refer to as "the black debt". Thankfully the "black debt" is not going to make corpses of you and all your neighbors, but it could make us poor as church mice. ( or worse residents of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe). You see, politicians thought that they could have a society where no one would ever experience true loss and they (the politicians) would get reelected for making sure no one ever lost. The social system is referred to as the "welfare state", and is the dominant social system of the Western world. (for the last 40 years at least).

I imagine the welfare state is a lot like smoking some potent drug. You experience euphoria at never really having to work hard, because the politician plays the role of thief and steals on your behalf. Unfortunately reality has a tendency to reassert itself. I am reminded of the last line spoken in the movie Gandhi with Ben Kingsley. "Think of it, every single tyrant that ever lived, is overthrown". Unfortunately it takes defective social systems a lot longer to pass away than individual tyrants. The Soviet Union passed away being a muscular "male" type of tyranny, but it took more than one leader and one generation to remove it, because it had a self consistent ideology backing it. Now the "female" version of repression where everybody's cared for lavishly at the expense of those who actually produce things of value, is experiencing its first shutters of death...

The shutters are being felt first in the United States. The United States is not the most generous welfare state, but it does have the most inefficient costly and expensive welfare state. In business the high-cost producer will usually disappear rather quickly. Governments however having guns and jails, can delay the inevitable lot longer. Surely the United States government has set the standard and the record for making more promises that can ever keep. The inflation eating your bank account to the tune of 12% a year according http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data is just one the symptoms of this.

Now we are in 2008 and who should come out of the woodwork but a voice from our early 90s past. You guessed it H.Ross Perot is back dazzling us with charts and graphs. I think the poor guy means well, but he tends to start with a bad case of tunnel vision. So I wrote this guy a letter in the comments section of his website. I rather think I did it because of catharsis, rather than an actual expectation that one of his people would read it.

If you want to give H. Ross Perot your two cents, I would watch his presentation here... http://perotcharts.com/home/ and then give your reply here... http://perotcharts.com/contact-us/

Here is my response to that colorful millionaire from Texas........

Dear H.Ross Perot and esteemed members his Financial Team

This site fails to include one of the larger problems that exists outside of federal spending. While federal government debt is at record levels it is only one piece of a larger picture. When you add in household debt and debt incurred by all Americans the number stands at a staggering 57 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Increasing tax revenues may have to be done, but the question is "who will pay"? Most Americans are hip deep in debt to begin with and finance their lifestyles this way. Accepting a decrease in lifestyle from one generation to the next has apparently been unpalatable. Both the WWII generation and the baby boom generation after it has attempted to pass the debts it incurred, on to the next generation, via control over the guns and jails (otherwise known as government redistribution programs or the "welfare state").

To Ross Perot and his financial team. I will substantiate my complaints via the following links. This list is by no means meant to be exhaustive concerning the amount of study I have done on total societal debt. After providing you and your team some quick sources I do URGE you to do a more detailed study of the numbers, I will give you now.

Note that abstracts will be provided just above each source. I will give my opinion of the importance of each article as a component of our "black debt".

Let us begin.

The most important article is this one below. as it encompasses the totality of the debt. Implicit in the article: not all tax payers can afford much of an increase in taxes. The change in American lifestyles will have to be massive to have the sort of money in the till needed to fix this crisis.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-05-18-Redink_N.htm?csp=34

The monetary conditions that enabled this debt must also be dealt with. In my opinion the fiat money system in INHERENTLY CORRUPT as it has insufficient checks and balances, to punish unwise government/large corporate expenditures. While the fiat money system was necessary during WWII, it should have been abolished LONG AGO. The first people that use the money in a fiat system get the full value and those who use it much later on, have much of the value depleted via inflation (especially working class people as wages are raised LAST in inflation cycles). In addition we all should come to the agreement that FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING be prohibited. Such a banking system meets all dictionary definitions of fraud! Credit crisis is the only possible long term result of dishonest money.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/18/cnrbs118.xml

Not all foreign debt is created equal in its capacity to cause financial destruction. Energy debt to foreigners in my opinion must be curtailed even at the high upfront costs inherent to building new infrastructure. Simply put the US will continue to get involved in "oil state wars" until the addiction to foreign oil is broken. Wind and solar along with some good energy storage engineering would be sufficient to break much of this addiction as this all apply's to electricity consumption. New ethanol technology and fuel cells, will likely solve transportation woes. The costs upfront would be very high but a TOTAL BARGAIN compared to the 3 trillion we have spend just 4 years into IRAQ alone. (add in what we spend to reign in other Rogue States/double dealing allies and you save more by making America independent of unstable third world supply. People will pay ANY PRICE to keep the light, heat and transportation going.

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/4.08/parity.html
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/6.08/genepax.html
www.sunpower.com
www.firstsolar.com

Well Ross that is all I have to say. Your numbers are woefully incomplete unless you include debt generated outside governmental structures as part of the national debt. Never the less I greatly APPLAUD your website and a movement toward austerity in government spending. Such a movement will require a Thomas Jefferson style commitment to freedom via limited government.(re-read the Federalist papers if you could) I only hope that more of the adult population sees a return to the Constitutional principals of government, as a necessary change. Time is running out.

Sincerely Mr Angelino

The first rule of human brains!

2008-06-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Rule 1 "New" brain regions help create peace and plenty. "Old" brain regions take control of war, strife and stress. Old brain regions are easyer to access then new regions.

When I talk about an old brain region I am talking about one we share basically share with reptiles or mammals. By new brain regions I am obviously referring to the cerebral cortex that handles the cognitive arts and separates us from creatures that have only the first two older types of brain. Even the brightest dolphins, and chimps are simply not in the human league when it comes to intelligence. Never the less these two older brains sit just underneath the cortex and cause trouble from time to time.

Different parts of the human brain become dominant, based upon the stressors or lack of them in the background environment. Or to put it in plain English: the majority of humans beings do predictable things. Now we have Magnetic Imaging Resonance scanners (MRI) that can tell which parts of the brain light up under any given experience. While there are differences on how male and female brains process data, it's still very easy to predict which part of the brain will light up when you're under stress or paranoid, as opposed to when you're playing with a pet or baby. Peering inside the brain while it's working has revolutionized our understanding of what parts become dominant, when and sometimes ?why?.

Long before MRI techniques, politicians have pressed peoples mental buttons, for often nefarious reasons. For simplicity sake the human brain can be divided up into its reptile, mammal, and cerebral cortex brains. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that separates us from the animals and makes us such geniuses, able to truly understand and manipulate our environment. The mammal brain allows us to empathize and experience emotion. The reptile brain controls our fight or flight response and voluntary muscles. Politicians love the mammal and especially reptile brains, because they can make large number of people do predictable things or vote in predictable ways.

To find out more about how the human brain works. I would strongly recommend the book Evil Genes by Dr. Barbara Oakley Ph.D. Why? Well she is the sort of person who is able to speak in plain English and tell good stories, despite being a P.h.D. Best of all she is refreshingly free of comforting political orthodoxy so fashionable in academic circles. (having first hand prolonged experience with evil will do that to a person.)

If you cannot understand irrational evil, you will not understand politics and the politicians that cash in on it all.

http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/159102580X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213863576&sr=8-1

Angelino's rules of "slacker" organization

2008-06-19T01:05:00.001-07:00

#2 Angelino's rules of "slacker" organization

Hello Intrepid Reader

You may call me Angelino which in Italian means "little boy angel".

It won't take you long before you realize I'm not a left brained person. However I promise I will occasionally use left brained people (friends as it turns out) to correct the grammar, spelling, and other organizational errors, which the process of creativity labels peer drudgery. Keeping a few things in mind, concerning how I structure my posts, will help the reader get much more out of them.

Technology politics truth and falsehood all stem from the same source. Take a moment to guess. No no no don't try to read ahead, close your eyes for a moment and guess. Make your guess, write it down on the piece of paper (to prevent your mind playing tricks on you). Once you're ready continue to the next paragraph.

If you guessed the human brain you are correct. Politics technology truth and falsehood cannot be understand outside of an understanding of the human brain. Human thought and imagination are limitless, but put people under stress and certain "bottlenecks" occur in how people think. Without stress there would be no politics and no technology. All of the articles you see below will begin and end with the human brain. Many of the oldest reprinted articles are articles about the human brain while most of the technology and politics articles are new. Human brains are very old structures, trying to deal with all these new things, in the environments around them. After 30 some years of watching human brains at work I can tell you that the human brain has a talent for using old answers to new problems. The human element is the one consistent feature in a mental landscape that has been completely remade by technology. While humans can sometimes transcend their limitations, doing that takes effort and most human beings are even more lazy than I.

Expect to see articles that talk about how new technology will influence how people react to old situations in the future. Inventors are truly a class apart among human beings as they are the only ones that really change events. History will repeat itself a lot more without the march of technology and indeed the historical record bears this out. So take a moment to thank the inventors you read about in your history books. They're the only ones that freed you up from living the "nasty brutish and short" life, which people lacking access to technological inventions, take for granted. Making educated guesses about how human beings use or abuse new technology, is great fun. Technology is good for history because it cuts down on the tedious repetition.

In The Beginning

2008-06-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Politics Technology Truth and Falsehood... an Introduction

Perhaps one of the oldest stories passed down from oral tradition comes from Africa. Its original name was "Water, Fire, Truth, and Falsehood." I have not heard this story since grade school. Yet despite the fading of memory, the story goes something like this....

Long ago, Fire, Water, Truth, and Falsehood lived together in one large house. Although all were polite toward each other, they kept their distance. Truth and Falsehood sat on opposite sides of the room. Fire constantly leapt out of Water’s path.
One day they went hunting together. They found a large number of cattle and began driving them home to their village. “Let us share these cattle equally,” said Truth as they traveled across the grasslands. “This is the fair way to divide our captives.”
No one disagreed with Truth except Falsehood. Falsehood wanted more than an equal share but kept quiet about it for the moment. As the four hunters traveled back to the village, Falsehood went secretly to Water and whispered,”You are more powerful than Fire. Destroy Fire and then there will be more cattle for each of us!”
Water flowed over Fire, bubbling and steaming until Fire was gone. Water meandered along, cheerfully thinking about more cattle for itself.
Falsehood, meanwhile, whispered to Truth. “look! See for yourself! Water has killed Fire! Let us leave Water,m who has cruelly destroyed our warmhearted friend. We must take the cattle high in the mountains to graze.”
As Truth and Falsehood traveled up the mountain, Water tried to follow. But the mountain was too steep, and Water could not flow upwards. Water washed down upon itself, splashing and swirling around rocks as it tumbled down the slope. Look and see! Water is still tumbling down the mountainside to this day.
Truth and Falsehood arrived at the mountaintop. Falsehood turned to Truth and said in a loud voice, “I am more powerful than you! You will be my servant. I am your master. All the cattle belong to me!”
Truth rose up and spoke out, “I will not be your servant!”
They battled and battled. Finally they brought the argument to Wind to decide who was master.
Wind didn’t know. Wind blew all over the world to ask people whether Truth or Falsehood was more powerful. Some people said, “A single word of Falsehood can completely destroy Truth.” Others insisted, “Like a small candle in the dark, Truth can change every situation.”
Wind finally returned to the mountain and said, “I have seen that Falsehood is very powerful. But it can rule only where Truth has stopped struggling to be heard.”
And it has been that way ever since.

Excerpted from Heather Forest’s Wisdom Tales from Around the World (World Storytelling), August House, 1996.

I thought it only fitting that a blog about technology and politics would use as its founding story a fable out of Africa. You see, modern humans originated from Africa and migrated everywhere else. Every other part of the globe was colonized from that claw rift of Tanzania. From there, we took our Palaeolithic habits of thought with us. Despite many technological revolutions and extraordinary genetic drift, despite the extraordinary distances that humanity traveled and extraordinary tools that we've created, the human mind is still a Stone Age design. Expecting human beings to become perfectly moral, now that we have better technology and better education, is both utopian and naïve.

Let's lay down some limitations that plague the Stone Age brain, in this Information Age. Human brains have difficulty coping with a number of things they have to learn in modern times, in order to become successful. Genetic change is very slow. While human beings are extraordinary, the "hardware" (brain cells) that our "software" (consciousness) is based on, is struggling with novel 21st century demands .

Before talking about technology or politics, it's really useful to talk about the human brain and its splendors living alongside its embarrassing limitations. Always remember that human software is unbelievably adaptive, but is limited by the hardware that it runs on. That hardware is our bodies. Predicting future trends or headline making events, tends to require a non-politically correct view of how human beings, actually think. In subsequent articles I will go through the limitations of the human brain, as reference material for all the things I comment on later. I will intersperse these articles with current events in politics.

Writing out the less glamorous aspects of human thought, will give us the earliest tools we need to craft institutions, which save us from our own worst instincts.

*****For those of you who read my old blog (before it's hosts disappeared)... You will find many of the articles about the human brain are repeats, for the benefit of new readers.****