| Friday,
September 11, 2009
What Technological Progress
I think what Taki was trying to get at was the radical
nature of the changes that have or have not taken place. The Kano Principle
divides innovations into three categories:
1. Delighters. If they are absent, we don't miss them
because we never expected them. If they are present, they surprise and
delight. This is what Dafydd ab Hugh calls the "Gosh Wow!" and others call "Sensawunda."
An example was color TV when it was new.
2. Intensifiers. These are more-is-better. Tuning
knobs to get rid of the "halo" around faces and keep the people from looking
green. Then the knobs migrated to the back of the set because they weren't
needed as often. Then they disappeared because they were not needed at all.
The garish colors of the first sets have given way to more realistic and
stable colors.
3. Dissatisfiers. If these are present, they merit a
shrug. So what? It's supposed to be that way. If they are absent, they
create dissatisfaction. There was a time when turning on a TV and actually
seeing a picture was Gosh Wow. Now it's damn well what we ought to see.
So you and Taki are both right. He says that there are
few Delighters popping up these days; you say that there are many improved
Intensifiers. The iphone is quantitatively better than the old Bell phone
and the Iliac; and sometimes quantity is a quality all its own. But Taki's
main point is that people of 1959 knew what computers were and they knew
what telephones were. And the satisfaction we have that they have gotten
better, smaller, faster, etc. is as nothing compared to the astonished
delight of having them at all. The teenager is in many ways progress over
the toddler; but the baby is a sudden delight.
My old history teacher, John Lukacs, said much the
same thing in a book of his, The Passing of the Modern Age (1970).
Paraphrasing from memory: Between 1870 and 1920, they daily lives of people
in the cities of the Western world changed more than they ever had before
... or after. To our grandfathers, telephones, radios, automobiles,
airplanes were an old hat. Today our airplanes have no propellers and our
radios have pictures, but this is less radical a change than the change from
the piano in the parlor and story-time around mother's easy chair to the
radio or the change from a world of no airplanes to a world of airplanes;
from horse-wagons to automobiles; from messenger boys to telephones.
I once did a chart of US Patents per 100,000 people
and noted that after 1920 it began to decline. What this might mean, I don't
know; but it could be the Heroic Age of progress is over, and now it's just
sodbusters and shopkeepers.
Mike Flynn
The simple comment remains Doc
Bussard's: we've done all the easy stuff.
Of course that also interacts
with the availability of new equipment and instruments. Faraday didn't need
an oscilloscope or cloud chamber. Hubble didn't need a modern computer. Now,
as we look into the Mach principle and search for gravitons we need all
kinds of instruments that no one dreamed possible when I was taking
university physics...
===============
Thirteen things that don't make sense
New Scientist: <http://tinyurl.com/ahbbbo>
Thirteen MORE things that don't
make sense
New Scientist: <http://tinyurl.com/mg8xa3>
-- Harry Erwin
===============
J. Bronowski - Knowledge or Certainty
The late Jacob Bronowski on the dangers of certainty
in human affairs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd3lanJHduQ
Would that every climatologist and advocate of
"change:, "reform" and "progress" might watch this regularly, and remember:
A perfect response to a certain public act of hubris displayed upon the
national stage this past Wednesday eventide.
" I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it
possible you may be mistaken." - Oliver Cromwell
Petronius
The trend seems to be in the
other direction.
===========
Combat Outpost - Afghanistan
You have to see this. Harrowing video
(WARNING - Strong Language in parts. They are, after
all, U. S. Marines under fire.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=a2hnXgrnlUQ&feature=channel
Forget the Big Stories from the Big Bases. In this
report from a small Marine outpost in the Afghanistan hills, you get a feel
for what it is like for the men on the ground in Afghanistan.
It looks more like World War One on the Western Front
than anything else. Right down to the trenches. The Marines in this outpost
are in the valley, and the Taliban in the hills.
Two quotes are important:
"You're the first reporter. in over eight months,
we've seen out here."
and:
Reporter - "Who's gaining ground here?
Marine - "They are."
Petronius
The King of Afghanistan has
never been more than the Khan of Kabul. Attempts to unify the Afghanistanis
are always resisted. The country produces nothing we need. We want only that
it not harbor our enemies. There are a hell of a lot better ways to
accomplish that than occupation. The security of Pakistan is a far greater
national interest. Just to be sure I am clear, occupation of Pakistan is NOT
the proper way to accomplish this. Bombing people and killing their
relatives is seldom a good way to make friends and influence people.
Sometimes killing their enemies is a way to make friends, but note our
success in making friends with France by doing that.
For more on
this see below
==============
They knew
Dr. Pournelle,
I found this very interesting.
"You don't know my people. You don't know what we're
capable of. You don't know what you just started. But you're about to
learn."
THIS is how I'll remember 9/11, for a VERY long time
to come.
-- Paul Gordon"
To the contrary, I think that the perpetrators of 9-11
knew precisely what they were starting and got exactly what they wanted ie
for us to invade Muslim nations and rally people to their cause. They knew
it would take something the magnitude of 9-11. Instead of going directly
after the perpetrators and killing them, we toppled governments and set up
puppet regimes, just like they knew we would.
Who doesn't know who?
Matt Kirchner Houston, TX
P.S. I hope Mr Gordon realizes that most people have
already forgotten 9-11.
My advice was to build
monuments and invest in nuclear power plants and other domestic energy
sources; it would have been cheaper than the war. Of course no one listened.
The Bushes have always been suspicious of Reagan's people.
=====================
Blog post by Matt Rogers that is well worth reading.
This Capital Weather Gang blog entry is written with
considerable trepidation given the politically-charged atmosphere
surrounding human-induced global warming.
I am a meteorologist with a life-long weather
fascination. As I'm sure you know, meteorology is an inexact science due to
the large number of variables involved in predicting and understanding the
weather. I frequently say that weather forecasting is a humbling endeavor,
and I have learned to respect its challenges. From this perspective, you
might be able to better understand why I wince when hearing pronouncements
such as "the science is settled", "the debate is over", or even the "the
temperature in the 2050s is projected to be..." I realize that forecasting
climate and weather are different, but both involve a large number of moving
parts.
There are numerous reasons why I question the
consensus view on human-induced climate change covered extensively on this
blog by Andrew Freedman. But for this entry, I scaled them down to ten:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/
capitalweathergang/2009/09/a_
skeptical_perspective_on_glo.html
-- Robert K. Kawaratani
瓦谷ロバート孝一
============
On decorum during a Presidential address to a joint
session
Dr. Pournelle,
The need for decorum runs both ways. Recall what the
president said just prior to the outburst from the Congressman:
Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus
claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The
best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts,
but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with
the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if
it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform effort
will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m
proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
The president, in his imperial wisdom, called Sarah
Palin a liar (carefully not naming her, but we all know that's the
reference. He also demeaned those in opposition (like ME!!) by putting up a
straw to explain that we oppose it because we're some sort of evil. Now we
must choose between decorum or letting the truly evil win?
Can't afford much, but I'm sending Joe Wilson some
money.
-- Robin Juhl
=============
Health Care
Jerry,
From
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q3/view587.html: "The
system will entitle millions to have someone else pay their doctor bills.
Can we afford this?"
First off, I'm a Canadian, so that is the source of my
perspective on this. Consider someone asking you these questions:
The system will entitle millions to have someone else
pay for their highways. Can we afford this?
The system will entitle millions to have someone else
pay their firefighting bills. Can we afford this?
The system will entitle millions to have someone else
pay their search and rescue bills. Can we afford this?
The system will entitle millions to have someone else
pay their national defense bills. Can we afford this?
Certainly the Canadian system is not perfect, and I am
not advocating that the U.S. adopt it. It just seems strange that a basic
and decent level of health care is not considered a right. Of course, the
key is to properly define 'basic and decent'. For example, dental care is
not considered as health care in Canada - those without a dentel plan either
pay or do without, and for many that means they do without. I suspect there
are many U.S citizens who 'do without' for much more than dental care, and
who live with pain or discomfort because of it. And of course some die.
Greg French
Nova Scotia
The consequences of not being
able to afford roads is that we don't have roads. If we can't afford fire
fighting then towns and cities will burn. If we can't afford search and
rescue, people will drown or be lost in the woods. If we can't afford
national defense we will be unable to intervene in overseas adventures, and
if someone invades we will lose the war.
The consequences of not being
able to afford something generally dictate the urgency of raising taxes or
cutting less vital spending so that we can afford it. I don't understand the
purpose of the questions. Canada gets along without much in the way of
national defense. Had the US taken my advice on invading Iraq we would have
spent a lot less than the cost of the war on developing domestic energy
supplies including nuclear plants. We'd almost certainly have enough to
invest in some kind of $250 deductible health care policy for nearly
everyone in the country while lowering tax rates -- and we might or might
not have avoided the current depression.
But we cannot now afford to
bash down the curbs and put in ramps for the handicapped. So we don't do
that.
There are many desirable
things we can't afford. There are many other things government can do and
perhaps we can afford but which may not be the right thing to do.
The proposed system adds
millions of people including illegal aliens to those who are entitled to
have someone else pay their medical bills. Can we afford this? And,
the question not addressed, should we put this obligation on those who will
have to pay? If so, under what principle? I am prepared to believe there may
be such a principle, but perhaps it ought to be stated?
And see below
==
Firemen and Healthcare
Dr. Pournelle,
Your rhetorical question in the View on Thursday is
right on the mark:
Apparently we are not all entitled to having the curbs
bashed in and ramped, nor even to deployment of all the fire protection
services we already have in place. Perhaps this is a different principle
from health care?
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/
2009/Q3/view587.html#healthwaste
If we insist on regarding healthcare as a right, we
will continue to have problems. Neither can we frame the issue in terms of
compassion, for neither political rights nor human suffering know bounds.
The provision of healthcare is clearly dependent upon our ability to pay,
individually or collectively. A true right, like the right to confront one's
accuser, is not a matter of money, but rather if an accusation is made and a
trial is to be conducted, you simply place the accused and accuser together
in the same forum. All the elements already exist, one must simply do what
is required. Healthcare, on the other hand, requires a lot of time and
expense to train doctors and prepare equipment, and is thus dependent upon
external factors that may or may not be conducive to the service in question
even existing.
Healthcare is indeed like police and fire services, it
has become a predicate of civil society, and we require its provision to
function. By way of example one might consider the cost of lost work in a
manufacturing enterprise such as the one that employs me. We institute
mandatory programs of simple stretches and exercises for assembly line
workers because it helps to prevent lost time due to repetitive motion
injuries. This is clearly for the benefit of the entire enterprise,
especially since we are self-insured. The question about healthcare ought to
be: how do we provide healthcare in such a way as to preserve the advantages
of our society such as personal freedom and relatively free markets while
expanding care to cover the polity more completely. This not a matter of
rights, but rather of the common good.
If seen in this manner, we could establish reasonable
limits, just as the fire department is not normally liable if your house
does in fact burn down, nor the police liable if they fail to prevent the
burglary in your home. Policemen and firemen do indeed try very hard to
prevent these things, but perfection is neither possible nor expected. The
purpose of healthcare is really to preserve order in society, and seen in
this fashion the guiding virtue is not justice, but prudence, which is in
part the art of the possible.
-- Benjamin I. Espen
As an investment in public
order this may well be justified; but that is not the debate I have seen.
==============
Fossil fuel: Now without the
fossils,
Jerry
Fossil fuel, now without the fossils:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/10/fossil_fuel/
"More bad news for the Peak Oil doomsday cult. Russian
boffins say they have proved that fossil fuels can be created synthetically
by replicating the high pressure, high temperature conditions found in the
upper parts of the Earth's crust . . . Under conditions of the upper mantle
of the Earth's Crust, methane reacts to produce ethane, propane and butane.
It means fossils aren't needed to produce oil and gas."
Dig deeper. Hmm. Reminds me of a preacher or two.
Ed
I met Tommy Gold at AAAS
meetings and I was impressed with his arguments, as was Dr. Possony. Neither
of us are geophysicists. I have always thought that the biological "fossil
fuel" theory of the origins of petroleum were a bit deficient in evidence.
Of course Gold's theories were also mostly theoretical. If this is
experimental evidence for a non-biotic origin of oil that's good news.
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