Odd-lot stuff

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֎ The use of extracted Phosphorus by humans is becoming a serious issue. Every living thing in nature uses Phosphorus to survive but it is in a chemically bound form that exists in nature. It is part of bones, part of plant material, part of rock, part of every known plant and animal.

As early as the 1600s humans learned to concentrate Phosphorus using various forms of composting. Today huge chemical factories extract Phosphorus so pure it bursts into flame if not kept under water. The Phosphorus is rebound with inert fillers which become the second number in garden fertilizers. Agriculture worldwide uses concentrated Phosphorus to grow more productive products. Unfortunately, farming is the source of major amounts of Phosphorus draining into bodies of water.

Nature is not used to having free Phosphorus any more than we are used to having free health care. Extracted, free-form Phosphorus is what causes algae bloom in water and was chemically severe enough to shut down public water drawn from the Great Lakes.

֎ From the other end of the climate change field, local fishing companies along the Atlantic Ocean are being threatened by wind towers. It seems private equity has invested in wind farms and has the money and political power to disregard concerns about local fishing industries. Wind tower property would be off limits to fishing.

֎ A new definition for ‘public health’: Federal Trade Commission announced that it had fined prescription discount site and telehealth provider GoodRx $1.5 million for sharing customer data with Google, Facebook and other firms, then in March hit online therapy provider BetterHelp with a $7.8 million levy for sharing customer data.

֎ Finally, why mariner knows Mother Earth will win the global warming war. From NPR:

“Red States Are Trying To Fight The World On Climate

By Maggie Koerth

State Rep. Jeff Hoverson didn’t want anyone getting in the way of using fossil fuels in North Dakota. Not the United Nations. Not international nonprofits. Certainly not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So he made a law to stop them. In March, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill that Hoverson co-authored with a state senator. It’s short, sweet and to the point: “A climate control-related regulation of an international organization, either directly through the organization or indirectly through law or regulation, is not enforceable on this state.”

Hoverson told me he isn’t sure what that will mean the next time the federal government wants to sign a climate treaty. Frankly, he’d prefer the feds not have that kind of power, anyway. But while his law stands out for the scope of its ambitions, it’s not exactly an outlier in its spirit. Across the country, bills pushing back against climate policy have been a trend this legislative session, with multiple states proposing — and passing — laws that would undermine efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

Ancient Mariner

 

At the front edge

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In case you needed to know, an ant can live up to five years if lucky but the average life span is less than one month.

Recent subjects from the thinking class are that we are amid a protracted inversion of political parties where eventually republicans will endorse discretionary spending for health and other needs and the haughty, wealthy college graduates will become conservatives. This has happened twice in the history of the US but in today’s multitude of conflagrations, it is hard to find a stable place to stand from which to gain perspective.

In the past, legislative manipulation was used to protect special interests. Today, the government is a full-blown plutocracy where the special interests run the government. Another difference is the presence of social media, which can raise angry armies in a few days. The third difference is the international confusion; today, the oceans don’t help isolate the US politic – take Tik-Tok for example.

Interfering with the pace of political change is the current societal transition from the boomers through the retiring millennials to the zee generation.

It used to be a war was a war. Today, there are about 12 major independent wars happening at once and the US is involved in most of them.

As followers of the news know, each of the items listed above is disruptive to a united party, and the social issues of abortion, drugs and sexual variability haven’t been counted. Nor has the biggest player, planet Earth, been considered – we may not have the money for two different parties.

Another think-tank issue is that there is a good chance Florida and Louisiana will not be around in fifty years, nor the Caribbean islands. The scientific fact is that all the new water will move to the Equator more than it will to other parts of the planet. The Earth is a large spinning ball; water will be subject to centrifugal force, sending it to the farthest location from the center of the Earth – near the Equator.

Well, it’s Spring. Get the bike out and pedal around for a while. Gardens are starting to show a lot of color and the breeze is finally warm.

Ancient Mariner

Are humans and the biosphere still in the Pleistocene?

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Traces of Homo genes have been found that existed more than 600,000 years ago but the variation that represents the beginning of humans as we would define them today (Homo sapiens) appeared about 300,000 years ago.

Here is a picture of our Great Grandfather:

Homo heidelbergensis

 

 

 

300,000 years ago is before the Industrial Revolution. It is before the invention of the wheel. It is before the idea of government. It is before rafts. It is before American slavery. It is before George Washington. It is before Texas and New York. It is even so far back that Henry Louis Gates Junior can’t trace ancestors on his “Finding Your Roots” show.

The point is this: We are 99.9 percent the same creature that walked around buck naked in the Pleistocene. The .1 percent that continued to evolve was the ability to have abstract thoughts – thoughts and imaginings that weren’t real. To this day our limbic system is confused and can’t tell what is real. There is no physiological chemistry designed to respond to railroad trains.

How did Homo sapiens relate to the environment? It’s a difficult question to answer. For a long time, Pleistocene folks were classified as herbivores who survived primarily by eating roots and grasses that are still around today. However, recent discoveries at one site showed plenty of bones. Most of the animal bones came from gazelles. Among the other remains were hartebeests, wildebeests, zebras, buffalo, porcupines, hares, tortoises, freshwater mollusks, snakes and ostrich eggshells.

It is unlikely that early man kept gazelles and buffalo in body-sized cages as modern man does. Our ancestors had to chase them down. That is why the limbic system is confused by railroad trains. An interesting footnote to this paragraph is that only 20 percent of water-sourced food remains from averages posted just 50 years ago. Something is happening that is different from the last 300,000 years. Further, arable land is disappearing due to many things from population to industrial consumption to climate change.

Speaking of climate change, it is not coincidental that Homo sapiens has been able to populate the planet in the blink of an eye – given evolutionary timelines. Generally speaking, the planet has been tough on life since the beginning. Consider an ice age that lasted millions of years and in modern times can run 200,000 years without blinking an eye. Volcanic eruptions are another phenomenon that raises its disturbances every so many thousand years. But fortunately, scientists have noted a very still, cooperative and generous period for the last 300,000 years.

But now there is foreboding activity. It is true that modern Pleistocene man has trashed the climate, biosphere and has driven the animal kingdom to extinction – that’s the result of abstract thinking. But Homo is not the only driver of change. Most of the methane comes from deep in the Earth, from a time before rafts were invented. Further, volcanoes seemed disturbed by an unbalanced spinning of the Earth’s core. Scientists already have proven that the planet has entered a stage where the polarity will switch – something that happens over many years but can be disruptive. Will polar bears and penguins have to switch places?

Let’s not add any significance to Donald but doesn’t he look like an old Homo heidelbergensis? Then, so does mariner’s Great Aunt Denise.

Good Luck Zees!

Ancient Mariner

Your next book to read

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Several days ago mariner’s wife brought home a book from the library she thought might interest him. Like many in today’s world, he often feels reading is not part of the world of speed and instant opinion. Reading is ‘old fashioned’. Use Google instead; use twitter instead; use Wikipedia instead. Let FOX tell us, or maybe MSNBC.

Also like many, learning that the book had 353 pages and 50 more pages of reference and commentary, mariner let the book lay on the end table by his chair for a week. Finally, though, he had a pause one evening with nothing else to do so he began reading the book.

Wow. This book is to the troublesome times of the twenty-first century as the Holy Bible is to the first century. The author is amazingly apolitical in his presentation. In fact, it is written in a smooth readable style that will leave the reader with something to think about when the book is set aside.

The author, Philip Bump, has written a view of today’s world through the phenomenon of generational change. It a story of America reflecting the individual worlds that confronted the Boomers, (born 1946-54) then the Xers (1965-79), then the Millennials (1980-90s) and now the Gen Zs (1990s-2010s). As you read it, you easily will discover yourself among the descriptions of your generation.

Philip’s statistical analysis is broadly based and incorporates the work of other sociologists studying the world as we know it – and knew it. He offers no solace for us until the Boomers get out of the way. Unfortunately, about that time all the Millennials will retire, causing a serious rift in economics. The author puts a lot on the Gen Zs, who must invent a new and different future for America.

Reading the descriptions of the generations and their idiosyncrasies will entertain you and you can’t help saying, “Yes, that’s the way it was.” This is indeed a Bible for your bookshelf. No TV program can match it.

“The Aftermath – the Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future Power of America” by Philip Bump, Viking Press, ISBN 9780593489697.

Buy it. Then you will know why nothing makes sense.

Ancient Mariner

Meet a friend of mine

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Mariner invites you to watch a short video about artificial intelligence:

Watch now – https://truepic.com/revel/

The news item from which mariner copied this video also mentioned an AI version of Barack Obama doctored in the same way as Nina; His image was doctored to say words he never said.

This issue also made it to TV news because its capabilities may replace 40 percent of newscasters. The video is encrypted with a content certification standard called the C2PA. The technical-sounding name is just the acronym of the group behind it, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. The C2PA standard is backed by a set of tech giants, including Adobe, Arm, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic.

Recently people have made fun of Zuckerberg’s metaverse with its artificial three-dimensional world and how it would control viewers’ options, that is, more a control of commerce than anything else. The chiding of this ‘other world’ has dropped quickly and has been replaced by a fear of our real world disappearing.

As usual, no constraints have been placed on the technology sector. Politicians who are older than 25 have no idea what the social ramifications are; neither do representatives from rural jurisdictions. As with many other important issues like gun control and health care, American governments care more about abortion and sexual variability.

Perhaps we are only days away from that time when there will be no nation to which we can escape, no Shangri-La. After all, privacy is nonexistent on the internet and cameras, the likes of Siri, and DNA trapping will find us anywhere.

Even if mariner retreats to his two-ponies and cart, satellites will know which shirt he is wearing and what brand feed he uses to feed the ponies, and what road he is on. Now, he won’t even know what’s happening when he watches the ‘evening news’. Fortunately, he can still use cash.

Dictators used to require armies and strong enforcement rules. Now all a dictator needs is a cartoon artist with a computer; citizens will think they are living in a democracy.

Ancient Mariner

Going to the circus

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Get out your balloons and confetti! It’s “Arrest Donald” Day. And, frankly, that’s just about all of its real political/legal value. Still, let’s enjoy the day that proved Donald actually can be arrested.

The crime exists only in New York and is a fineable offense. Whatever the amount, the Donald campaign income quadrupled that amount as a result of the lawsuit.

But the salubrious season isn’t over. Recent evidence has shown that Donald deliberately ignored government requests to return boxes of classified documents and further, that he had ulterior motives.

This is a federal crime, not just in New York. This is a crime that has shadows of conspiracy – remember his first campaign and the rumors of Putin aid? Remember he had Russian fund raisers laundering contributions through third parties? In the worst scenario, Donald may be charged with serious charges of conspiracy against the United States. Such crimes are not just a matter of fines.

So let’s party today, maybe have a brew with fellow celebrators.

Ancient Mariner

Western Europe

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As a metaphor, consider Western Europe, from Norway and Iceland in the north to Sardinia and Crete in the south and Turkey, though Asian, as a warm-blooded creature. The various nations are organs. The interlocking economy is blood. The European Union is bones. The NATO Alliance is muscle. Democracy is its persona.

Aren’t metaphors wonderful? When looking at an inclusive map, Western Europe looks like some creature sitting on its rear haunches (Spain) and has large perked ears (Norway/Sweden). With just this one metaphor we have a general understanding of Western European politics.

Let’s give Western Europe a health check. England is a pain like a persistent kidney stone. France has gall stones. Germany is the heart (but only as a pump). Poland has migraines. The nine Eastern perimeter nations plus Croatia suffer both from Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s. Ukraine has fourth stage cancer. Czech Republic and Hungary are neurotic. Turkey has a bowel issue.

Climate change is fostering a blood disorder affecting the entire creature. Portugal, especially, has severe dehydration. Ukraine’s cancer is affecting circulation across the entirety of Western Europe.

Mariner suspects the US Congress does not offer Medicare for most of these disorders – only cancer treatments for Ukraine. Western Europe’s democratic persona has begun to have inflammatory issues.

Well, doctor, what’s your prognosis? Metaphoric language only.

Ancient Mariner

Part 2 math –

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Mariner forgot to include his own example of quantum physics versus Einsteinian physics, which he believes describes more clearly the difference in definition between the two than Schrodinger’s cat:

You are driving on an interstate highway. The highway is not busy. For the moment, you are the only car you see on the entire visible highway – in front or in back and none on the other side.

Question one: At the moment, are you the fastest car or the slowest? Yes.

Finally, a car appears down the road in front of you. Are you fastest or slowest?

Second question: About this sudden event where a car becomes part of your reality, it appeared on your highway as a definable car, at the same clock time and the same measurable distance (Einstein).

However, Quantum says, “No, not so fast”. The car just didn’t assemble itself out of nothing the moment you saw it; what events caused the car to appear at that moment?

For example, did the car turn on the highway just over the hill or has it been on the road for two days coming from New Jersey? How did the driver come to be in the car at that moment? Why is it a Subaru? Why is it on that highway? What time did it depart so that you would experience it at that moment?

Quantum’s point being that nothing exists in an absolute state, in a precisely definable moment or at an absolute distance. In other words, mass, time, and space are not finite.

The closest human realization that mariner can conjure is when you suddenly meet an old friend at a surprising place. You say “Can you imagine the odds of us meeting?” Quantum can.

Ancient Mariner

A bit of mathematics

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Most phenomena lay beyond the existential reasoning of the mind. Those who want to explore this other world must learn the magic of mathematics. Here are a few samples that reveal logical conclusions beyond subconscious reasoning:

1 – Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, “Do you want to pick door No. 2?” Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

Mathematical probability: Before any doors are opened you have a 1 in 3 chance of winning [ P= 1/3 ]. After the host opens door 3 which has a goat, the chance for winning the car with your current choice still is 1/3 because although the goat is revealed – the number of doors has not changed. The probability that the car is behind the chosen door still is 1/3 but the unopened door now has a 2/3 chance of winning because door three is known. The solution is that switching has a 2/3 chance of winning – so switch.

2 – Albert Einstein is famous for defining the universe as a relationship between mass, time and space. To the human mind, this still seems adequate (frankly it is) but the mathematics of quantum physics say space does not exist, solid subatomic particles do not exist as little billiard balls of energy and more abstractly, all subatomic activity occurs simultaneously regardless of ‘space’ – even 1 billion light-years away.

An experiment was performed a few years ago where the photons from two different stars were aimed at a device which needed two in-place photons to interact simultaneously. Using the star energy, the device acted as expected. This is tantamount to a magician letting you pull a card from his deck and it is matched simultaneously by a deck on the Sun.

The famous layman’s example is Shrodinger’s cat: A closed box is presented to you with a cat inside. Is the cat dead or alive? The answer is yes. This is kept simple by recognizing that whatever led to the state of the cat, time, space or distance, it is irrelevant to your instant experience. A time-distant event will appear instantly when the box is opened. If the cat is dead, did it die recently or a long time ago? Doesn’t matter to you; as far as you’re concerned the fact that it died happened when you opened the box because otherwise it would have been alive.

Don’t ask for the equations. Dozens of books laden with formulas have been written.

3 – This mathematical exercise will provide some relevant information for your real-time brain. Since 2018, 111 children have been murdered in the United States. Population has questionable stability in many nations including the United States. Will killing 111 children affect the future population of the US?

Yes. Using Bayesian probabilities, in 2060, there will be approximately 308 less people in the United States than if no children were murdered. [formulas in ‘the signal and the noise’ by Nate Silver, 2012 Penguin Press] basic formula:

The formulas have several sources on the internet if you want to play with them.

Ancient Mariner

Cracks in the dam

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In a recent post, it was suggested that the current state of affairs, probably a global phenomenon, was a conflict between collective communities and top-down governance. The conflict occurs as differences in lifestyle or circumstance becomes confrontational. Donald’s entire public strategy has been based on the subtle disrespect of the labor class by an educated, advantaged, and socially successful society – now assigned the moniker ‘woke’.

In that recent post, two examples were offered: NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and Native Americans, two smaller societies (collectives) who have direct conflict with the broader objectives of top-down governance. ProPublica, a highly regarded investigative news source, has provided a sense of the seriousness for the Native Americans. An excerpt is reprinted below:

“In May, Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica reported on how the federal government’s neglect of an old and struggling hatchery system had put tribal fishing rights in jeopardy. The news organizations’ analysis showed that the outlook for fish survival was so poor that the hatchery system was at risk of collapsing under the strain of climate change, unable to produce meaningful levels of fish.

The federal government has announced plans to increase funding for the Columbia River Basin’s salmon hatcheries, the often-crumbling facilities that maintain the river’s dwindling salmon populations. But tribes and state agencies say the influx of funds is only a fraction of what is needed.

The Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency that’s required to pay for salmon recovery using proceeds from selling power generated by hydroelectric dams, is putting an additional $50 million toward repairs at hatcheries operated by tribes and states. The agency also plans to increase annual funding for hatchery upkeep from $500,000 to $2.7 million.”

 A good example of ProPublica’s investigative reporting forcing a top-down organization to pay attention to a collective need.

Collectives come in all sizes and shapes. Consider Puerto Rico, a financially collapsed territory of the US. Except for a few charitable organizations, the best the island has received is Trump’s toilet paper. Climate change without financial stability may make the island uninhabitable. What? More immigrants?

Consider the MAGA people, Donald’s confused army. They are belligerent, destructive, do not accept government in any form, and, after more than five decades of social disrespect defined by lack of a college degree, the deliberate shutdown of labor unions, and an income that, by the standards in 1980 means they have less spending power today than in 1980 – inflation applied – is it any wonder that open rebellion has occurred?

Consider several major religious organizations, including the Roman Catholic Church among many protestant churches from Baptist to Methodist, who are suffering splintered Christian principles because of top-down edicts forcibly describing faith, purpose and the opportunity for personal grace. Left to defend for themselves in a disruptive, socially disrespectful society, devotion has become political rather than spiritual; prejudice has become a defense of righteousness that is otherwise unavailable.

Consider the slums. Pages upon pages could be written describing permanent despair, homelessness, poor health, no collective GDP because there are no stores or industry, and violence between people that can be matched only by the collapse in the mouse population studies from the 1960s.

Yes, cracks in the dam of society. It will take time; it will take generational shifts economically, culturally and sadly, militarily. Without exception, history says there will be war.

Ancient Mariner