Category Archives: Musings

These times they are a-changin

Posted on by
Reply

֎ Americans retiring now are going it alone: They’re the first generation to rely on private savings instead of pensions to navigate the financial unknown of retirement.

֎ Private Equity has moved into health services. Their objective isn’t health, its profit. They said so themselves. Here’s an example: The term is ‘noncompete’.  It’s a clause in a doctor’s contract that says they cannot practice medicine outside their own facility; if they leave, they cannot care for prior patients.

֎ School districts in Nevada, Iowa, Virginia, California and other states are embracing “equitable grading,” which minimizes the importance of daily homework and focuses on final projects and tests. In short, to be fair to students with and without smartphones or computers, with or without after-school jobs and bussed or walking home. More emphasis will be put on in-class performance.

֎ The average American is roughly six times more likely to die in the coming year than his counterpart in Switzerland. American infants are less likely to turn 5, American teenagers are less likely to turn 30, and American 30-somethings are less likely to survive to retirement. Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens have doubled in the past 10 years, reaching the highest level of gun violence against children recorded this century.

֎ College professors are using ChatGTP to write recommendations on behalf of students. Faculty writes loads of these every year, in support of applications for internships, fellowships, industry jobs, graduate school, university posts.

֎ This one is not new but perhaps we should take note. A man or woman with conviction is a hard person to change. Tell them you disagree and they turn away. Show them facts or figures and they question your sources. Appeal to logic and they fail to see your point … Suppose that they are presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that their belief is wrong: what will happen? They will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of their beliefs than ever before.

Some things never change – about ourselves.

Ancient Mariner

At the front edge

Posted on by
Reply

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?

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
1

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

Western Europe

Posted on by
Reply

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 –

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

New signs

Posted on by
Reply

Bottom up power: [Politico] “The country’s 900 or so rural electric cooperatives serve remote rural customers and are member-driven, -owned and -controlled. Their nonprofit status has made it hard to make investments in low-carbon energy; unlike investor-owned utilities, they can’t go into debt or sell shares to pay for a solar farm. But getting them off of fossil fuels is essential to meeting climate goals.

Already five co-ops have either left or announced they will leave a major G&T (generation and transmission) called Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which covers parts of four Western states.”

This tendency is happening in Europe as well. Despite all the ‘effort’ to stop using fossil fuel, oil companies are making record profits. Even Biden is allowing a new oil-drilling operation in Alaska – talk about plutocracy!

Mariner often writes about collective cultures. Collectivism includes concepts like extended families, local government, local cooperatives, community rules for equality of life, etc. To one degree or another, terms for collectives include cooperative, clan, communist, commune, tribe and many other terms denoting a localized group. The image below captures the general spirit:

Just being a small group does not automatically grant goodness. There are many small groups bent on anything but sharing and survival of all – NIMBY is one of countless examples that demonstrate the conflict between collectivism and the imposing needs of a much larger population.

Having learned from many sources over many years, mariner knows Homo sapiens is a tribal species, along with most of its primate ancestors. In past posts, he has cited authors who said things like “The maximum number of individuals that can be familiar to a human is 150”, “The further a person gets from a direct relationship with the environment, the more abusive the relationship becomes” and recently, “I’m first if its fair for everyone”.

When he studies the development of western nations, and the unimaginable wealth that suddenly appeared on the American continents, mariner is reminded of a group of hoodlums during a riot who break into a store and steal all its goods. Such tactics work for the hoodlums if there is plenty to go around. Western Capitalism is the fastest way to reorganize wealth.

Today, however, there is not enough to go around. Capitalism has an idiosyncrasy that doesn’t work anymore: Grow or die.

Because the West has achieved such wonders and accomplishments – especially when the achievements provide convenience, collective terminology is not popular and its advantages often are discounted. It is this resistance that makes it good news to mariner that there is a breakaway of self-owned electric companies from large conglomerates. There are other appropriate concepts of management that will work better in these challenging times. Bigger may not be better.

There are many more sociological points of interest but mariner can become boring.

Ancient Mariner

Shazam, he’s back

Posted on by
Reply

Mariner’s blog has been out of service for a few weeks. The reader hasn’t needed him to know the world is the same. He read an article yesterday that drew compassion: More and more migrants are attempting to enter the United States via Canada into Vermont during the dead of winter. Many carry small children heavily wrapped in blankets, tromping through deep snow and temperatures below zero. There was a photograph of a bare footprint in the snow. The article centered on two parents and their two children frozen to death just yards from the border.

Statistically speaking, if you have time to read this blog, had a meal today and a bed tonight, consider yourself wealthy.

Now that the pandemic restrictions on rent increases and evictions is over, the rush is on as record numbers of renters are being evicted. Losing a home is one of the fastest ways for a stable family to be trashed financially, emotionally, and too often, permanently.

Mariner had the thought that, given the resistance of NIMBIES and profit-oriented investors who don’t want to build low profit housing, perhaps the United States (along with a future Congress) might emulate what Britain did after the Second World War: build whole neighborhoods of small home row houses.

The housing market today is so screwed up it will never stabilize enough to be a viable resource for homeless families.

֎ Many years ago in an old textbook, mariner read about the tectonic movement on Earth that was to split an eastern chunk of Africa away from the continent along the Rift Valley. This item has become current news today as a new crack formed. Don’t worry, though, it is moving apart at just a couple of millimeters per year.

֎ Hasn’t it been a terrible Spring? Flooding on the West Coast, Snow in the North, storms in the South. Here along the fortieth parallel, the weather remains bitter cold with an abundance of precipitation. Mariner picked a bad year to reorganize his gardens; tree and brush trimming, building new vegetable beds and suffering prolonged winter damage by rabbits has delayed his Springtime efforts.

It felt good, however, to be in the shed planting vegetable seeds under the grow lights and planting a climbing rose against the outside wall. It is time, folks, to stretch the joints, exercise the muscles with ‘real’ work and get some gumption going – or you may be older than you think!

It is good to have the blog up again but don’t expect a torrent of postings. The world hasn’t change since the last post.

Ancient Mariner

 

Climate Change w/o politics

Posted on by
Reply

Many of us have taken note of the population shift away from industrial, high populated areas and a move toward more rural areas especially in the southern states, e.g., Texas and Florida. These shifts are understandable for dozens of economic reasons and the lifestyle freedom of working from home. Even a dislike for freezing temperatures is enough motivation.

This migration involves serious personal investment to purchase homes, change careers and adapt to new social norms. Considering this investment in light of serious climate change by 2050 has made mariner curious about the actual details of climate change and whether this present migration is wise. This post is based on the projections provided by sources like NOAA, NASA, ProPublica, Climate.gov and several journals that cover this subject.

Most sources agree that 2050 is a significant year to witness disruptive changes in weather that will affect half the agricultural capacity in the U.S. and draw a clear line across the nation where life below the line will be difficult and above the line will be habitable with minimal stress. That line, without much deviation, is 40°N – a line through Philadelphia, Columbus, Burlington ( Iowa), Denver and Sacramento. Today in 2023, that line, with significant deviation in latitude, travels along the borders of North Carolina/South Carolina, southern Tennessee, drops into north Texas and encompasses the entire southwest until the coast of southern California. By 2100, the 40° line will have moved to the US/Canadian border.

Looking below the fortieth parallel it is true that high temperature is an obvious cause of discomfort for both creatures and plants and by 2050 daily temperatures will be in the nineties for much of the year. But the real disruption is caused by a combination of heat and humidity. At 95° with 100% humidity, human life cannot be sustained. Today, there are very few places where this is the case; we are accustomed to much lower humidity in the nation’s hot spots.

The science behind the unsustainability is the dysfunction of the lungs combined with heat stroke. If mariner moved to Mississippi today, bought a house and other amenities like solar panels, by 2050, 27 years from now he would have to move again. What about a young family with 30-year old parents and 3 children? The climate won’t wait until 2050 and then Boom! everything will change. The fact is the weather already is changing – rapidly.

All politics aside and ignoring other aspects of global warming, perhaps the migration to the south should give it further thought.

Ancient Mariner