| Wednesday,
Subject: On job exports
Jerry -
Really enjoyed your article <http://pages.citebite.com/k1s5i0f7b5utu>
.
I, however, don't you understand how much worse it
really is. The capitalist cheerleaders are not merely undermining the
cultural and legal structures that support markets. They are actually making
true many of Karl Marx's own predictions.
Mass immigration basically reproduces all of the
conditions of a Marxist reserve labor force. This labor force is an army of
unemployed people that capitalists can dip into to keep exisiting wages low
(Remember, Marx was a classical economist who understood that businessmen
are, among other things, relentless cost cutters.) Marx predicted that the
instability and poverty that such a system created would eventually anger
the workers who would revolt and then push aside the entire rotten system.
Marx, of course, was wrong. Empirically, the period in
which he wrote was marked with rising real wages. Theoretically, his error
was assuming that capitalism exploited the proletariat when, in reality, it
created the proletariat. In pre-capitalist days, a worker would need to
either move to a wealthier household to become a servant or he would need to
inherit the land and tools if he was going to survive. If he could not do
this, then he either starved to death or he was never born in the first
place. Capitalism so improved the productivity of labor that it became
possible for an average person to sell nothing but his time. This led to a
population explosion unprecedented in history. Marx took for granted that
all these new people were just there, when, in reality, they were allowed to
live. Thus, Marx's predictions were wrong.
Today, with global markets, there are billions of
unemployed people that capitalists can now dip into to keep real wages low.
Thus, the American standard of living is being dissipated.
If I were a cynical socialist, then I would engineer
this situation so that I could see socialism win. If I were a cynical
socialist who understood that he might actually be a loser in such a system,
then I would have to go to great lengths to ensure that my position is not
dissipated. Just imagine the kind of sociopaths America would end up getting
ruled by if both of these conditions are met.
More generally, America needs to go back to its
traditional economic history and reject the newfound liberal economic
history that has taken hold.
Mark Pokorni Chicago, IL
When I say things like that I get mail
from economists who tell me I just haven't read Ricardo...
========
"I set up my own record label called Blueberry Pie and
just got the music out there."
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/
article-23392052-details/Essex+songbird+is+Top+
of+the+iPods+with+her+homemade+album/article.do
Roland Dobbins
We can expect to see a lot more of this
kind of thing. The recording industry monopoly is broken. Of course most
recording artists hate, despise, and detest their publishers, generally with
good reason.
=========
Tax Treatment of Players in Second Life and World of
Warcraft.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/
2007/04/tax_treatment_o.html
- Roland Dobbins
Some people clearly have too much time on
their hands...
========
Subject: Climate change
Jerry: This link (from Technocrat):
<http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0704/S00023.htm>
“Similar cores through polar ice reveal,
contrary to received wisdom, that past temperature changes were followed
- not preceded, but followed - by changes in the atmospheric content of
carbon dioxide. Yet the public now believes strongly that increasing
human carbon dioxide emissions will cause runaway warming; it is surely
a strange cause of climate change that naturally postdates its supposed
effect?
“Am I the first scientist to have observed
these climate patterns? Of course not. That climate changes frequently,
rapidly and sometimes unpredictably has been conventional knowledge
among earth environmental scientists since the early days of ocean
drilling in the 1970s.
“Yet we do not read about natural climate
change in the everyday news. Instead, newspapers, radio and television
stations bludgeon us with a merciless stream of human-caused
global-warming alarmism, egged on by a self-interested gaggle of
journalists, environmental lobbyists, scientific and business groups,
church leaders and politicians, all of whom preach that we must ‘stop
climate change’ by reducing human CO2 emissions."
Personally, my own observation of global "warming" is
that (in Minneapolis) we've suffered through 10 days of weather that is ~20
degrees colder than average, and today we've had 3 inches of snow. I'm in
favor of global warming, I just wish I could get some!
Chris
"Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all
its students."-- Hector Berlioz
We should have entered a new Ice Age with
glaciation, with Seattle and Chicago under half a mile of ice and glaciers
reaching almost to Olympia and Cairo, all of New England under ice, about
5,000 years ago. The astronomical parameters are there. We have been spared
that for some reason or another.
So now we are terrified of longer growing
seasons in Alberta. Perhaps we should be, but I would rather have a few
degrees of warming than half a mile of ice over Seattle and Tacoma.
And coincidentally:
Subject: Solar Constant and climate change.
This may shed some light on the discussion of the
solar constant and the sun's contribution to global warming.
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html
"Some say that as much as 1/3 of the global warming
may be the result of an increase in solar energy."
Also, I recommend William Ruddiman's book "Plows,
Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate "
http://www.amazon.com/Plows-Plagues-Petroleum-Control-
Climate/dp/0691121648/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9886325-
6059804?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176303128
&sr=8-1/jerrypournellcha
The book is a popular presentation of his ideas and
doesn't get very nitty-gritty but Ruddiman does give a pretty good overview
of his take on the evidence. Ruddiman thinks we are overdue for an ice age
based on earth's current orbit. His theory is that human forced climate
change has been ongoing since agriculture was developed. With about half of
warming due to clearing of forest for fields and the development of rice
paddies (methane emissions). He thinks several historical cooling trends
correlate fairly well with reforestation due to plagues (little ice age
following the black plague and extended by the population crash after
European diseases entered the Americas). While he is certain that industrial
green house gases make up a lot of the change he does not shy from the
uncertainties in the arguments being presented.
Here's some links to info about and a paper by
Ruddiman.
http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/ruddiman.shtml
http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf
While not completely convinced by Ruddiman I do think
his work is a good example of alternative thinking within the climate
community and also a good example of the large degree of uncertainty
involved.
I need to confer the Mrs. about subscribing as I
really want that primer. I'm looking forward to the upcoming new books.
Sincerely,
Brian R.
That was of course the theme of Fallen
Angels. Throw another log on the fire...
=========
Subject: The Fad Wheel in K-12 Education Makes Another
Circle
It seems that the large comprehensive high school,
which was all the rage 40 years ago, is now out of style and the small high
school is the coming thing again, Dr. Pournelle
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9485120
"Forty years ago, former Harvard President
James Bryant Conant argued that it made no sense to have thousands of
small secondary schools. He pushed for the consolidation of those
schools into big ones -- like Northwestern High School in Baltimore..."
"Baltimore schools CEO Charlene Boston says
the district is moving in another direction. Soon, she says, there will
be no more "zoned [comprehensive] schools." Instead, she says, Baltimore
students will be able to choose their school, "understanding that they
can go to the school that will help them implement their career options
and choices."
"One argument for the comprehensive high
school was economic: Those big educational shopping malls were supposed
to cut back on administrative costs. That would allow them to offer
Advanced Placement courses, a football team and arts programs, all under
one roof.
"But big schools created new problems: the
violence and intimidation that come when thousands of teenagers are
bunched together. Nettie Legters of Johns Hopkins University says
smaller schools actually reduce overhead.
"In a large high school, you're going to
have more security guards, more coaches," she notes. She says smaller
schools tend to be safer, so they need fewer staffers devoted to keeping
order."
Everything old is new again... Or, if you want to know
just how limited the repertoire of the organ grinder's box is, just walk
along with him for awhile.
I do wonder how school districts which have become
wedded to complex bus routes for student transportation will deal
effectively with the results when students from each neighborhood are
scattered all over the district. Maybe they will issue passes on the city's
mass transit system and shut down the school system's transportation
business.
Charles Brumbelow
========
Subj: A Quiet Step Forward for the Rule of Law
http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/200741101543.aspx
=Arguably, Col. Mark Martins runs the most
multifaceted, pressure-packed and press-scrutinized law practice in the
Middle East. ... However, Martins, his staff and civilian legal personnel
serving with other U.S. agencies in Iraq have an even more complex and, in
my view, more critical assignment. These legal experts are helping Iraq's
nascent democratic government implement the Rule of Law. ...=
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
========
Subject: Voodoo Sciences and
Funding
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/310821_quantum09.html
I relation to your comments regarding voodoo sciences
and funding here's a data point.
John Cramer can't get funding for a measly 20 grand.
""I guess you could say we're now living on borrowed
time," wryly joked John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington.
"All we need to keep going is maybe $20,000, but nobody seems that
interested in funding this project."
It's a project that aims to do a conceptually simple
bench-top test for evidence of something Albert Einstein called "spooky
action at a distance." The test involves using a crystal to split a photon,
a light particle, into two reduced-energy photons that -- through careful
manipulation -- Cramer thinks could reveal a flash of time traveling
backward."
Brian R.
========
Subject: Government just gets fatter and fatter
Jerry
I read this
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2048268,00.html
and immediately thought of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
"The joy Paul C Light gets from bureaucracy is like
that a coroner might feel, were it possible to dissect a live body, yet have
that body suffer no pain. Professor Light has been teasing apart one body in
particular: the US government."
He's compiled a list of administrative positions, the
longest title being "Chief of staff to the associate deputy assistant
secretary". Light's conclusion: "Congress and presidents behave as if new
layers of management and more managers at each layer somehow improve
accountability and performance".
Best wishes
Paul Dove
=========
Subject: Space solar power -
Dr. Pournelle,
I just wanted to quickly point out an article I saw
today on space.com regarding space solar power.
<http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070411_tech_wed.html>
Apparently you're not the only one who thinks it is a
good idea. I do find their estimate of 20 years before the deployment of the
first system a bit pessimistic. I expect an x-prize for space solar power
could speed this up quite a bit.
Regards,
Mike Smith
Sure. Two billion dollars to the first
company to send one megawatt of power 95% of the time from space for one
year ought to do it.
==
Pentagon Considering Study on Space-Based Solar Power
(Buffy Willow)
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Dr. Pournelle,
Despair is a sin, as you often remind us. Yet there is
hope:
The Pentagon’s National Security Space Office (NSSO)
may begin a study in the near future on the possibility of using satellites
to collect solar energy for use on Earth, according to Defense Department
officials. <http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070411_tech_wed.html>
Robin K. Juhl
========
Subject: Beware the wrath of the legions
Jerry
Although they have not yet progressed to wrath, here
are the first rumblings of the legions in dissent:
http://www.appealforredress.org/
Well, it's not as if you haven't been warning anyone
who would listen.
The Atlantic Monthly has an interview with a man who
does not believe the soldiers have a right to their dissent. I didn't read
that part, but the introduction is a nice short summary:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704u/military-politics
Ed
========
Subject: Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm>
"Dr Solanki is presenting a paper on the
reconstruction of past solar activity at Cool Stars, Stellar Systems And The
Sun, a conference in Hamburg, Germany.
He says that the reconstruction shows the Maunder
Minimum and the other minima that are known in the past thousand years.
But the most striking feature, he says, is that
looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has
been during the past 60 years. "
Joe
Which may or may not have some explanatory
value. But who investigates these things?
========
Subject: Military thinktank sees dark future,
Jerry
A UK military thinktank sees a dark future in the
"reverse colonization" of Europe:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/11/admiral_nostradamus_parry/
". . . the Barbary corsairs might soon prowl the
Mediterranean once again . . . "
It's nice to see someone is taking notice.
Ed
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