…and may the teens be better than the oh-ohs.
Here’s JibJab’s 2009 summation-
Thanks Ber.
…and may the teens be better than the oh-ohs.
Here’s JibJab’s 2009 summation-
Thanks Ber.
A couple of nights ago I took advantage of Seattle’s art-house film scene to see Collapse, the movie featuring peak-oil doomsday-theorist Michael Ruppert. The film itself is pretty cheesy, constantly cutting away from the interview to use somewhat inappropriate stock footage to illustrate Ruppert’s points. For instance, Ruppert suggests that people all over the world have already started to riot in response to the recent economic difficulties (the film was made in March 2009), but it’s pretty clear that the riot footage is pulled from a wide variety of sources, many having nothing to do with those difficulties. There’s also a rather huge leap of logic connecting the real estate and derivatives bubble with peak oil concerns. While there may be evidence somewhere of such a connection, it is not presented in the film. Finally, Ruppert’s fundamental view of the economy-as-pyramid-scheme seems to overlook the obvious fact that the economy is not a closed system, but rather allows for new inputs from improved technology and – perhaps most importantly – social innovation. (As a side note, it also never fails to amaze me that folks who downgrade paper money as ultimately worthless nevertheless upgrade gold to the status of God Almighty, as if a relatively rare metal were somehow inherently valuable… my point being that all economic value is either directly related to satisfying biological needs, or else is a matter of mere convention).
But while it is easy to write Ruppert off as a paranoid conspiracy theorist, partly because he focuses so selectively on data that support the worst case scenarios for the near future, and partly because he self-servingly refuses to debate those at least as well-informed as he is, it’s hard to simply dismiss his impassioned insistence that we should work much more urgently to develop plausible alternatives to oil for energy production. The correlation between the onset of the petroleum economy and the 20th-century population explosion is enough to make you think quite seriously about the consequences of an inevitable future decline in oil production, with its apparently unavoidable effects on agriculture and transportation.
Here’s the trailer for Collapse-
Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas.
As Health (Insurance? Care?) reform (?) lurches forward like a headless chicken being shoved this way and that by a few senators from states with hardly any population (yeah, I’m talking ’bout you, Joe, and you, Ben), I’ve come to the conclusion that the Founders designed our system of government – or at least the Senate – as a sort of huge practical joke. What other explanation can there be?
Oh well. As our recent Defense Secretary Rumsfeld – himself quite an entertainer – might have put it, “You go to legislate with the Congress you have… not the Congress you might want or wish you had…”
Here’s a good example of writing (by Robert Lanza, M.D.) that combines pseudo-science with pseudo-philosophy (metaphysical speculations that, when put together in several paragraphs, form a long chain of near non sequiturs)-
One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas.
[Editorial comment: we learn at the end of this article that "biocentrism" was invented by Lanza, who, according to his (auto?)biographical note, "is considered one of the leading scientists in the world".]
There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling – the ‘Who am I?’- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn’t go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?
It goes on like this for a while (actually, it gets far worse). You can read it all here.
Kripke would be turning in his grave, if he were in his grave. Saul Kripke is, among other things, an inventor of “modal logic”, the logic of possibility and necessity. Such logic deals with counterfactual sentences like the first one of this paragraph. Translated into Kripke-speak (and putting aside the thorny issue of how to interpret metaphors), that sentence would be stating: “There is a possible world in which Kripke is turning in his grave”. And, on Kripke’s view, there is such a possible world just in case it is conceivable. Of course, there’s a lot of philosophical debate about which worlds are really conceivable or not, and on the question of whether conceivability is really the right test of a modal statement’s truth. But, unfortunately, some otherwise level-headed philosophers – such as David Lewis – have run with this semantic ball all the way to speculative-metaphysics-land, arguing that if modal statements make sense at all (and they do), then all possible worlds must exist just like the actual world exists (including physically)… consistent with the sort of multiverse theory Lanza is apparently imagining.
Now, not every multiverse physical theory needs to presuppose Lewis-style possible world semantics. Indeed, one which merely presupposes, as Lanza puts it, that “each of these possible observations correspond to a different universe” need not do so, as long as “different universe” can be interpreted merely as a possible world in Kripke’s sense of the expression. But notice that Lanza slides from this metaphysically ambiguous assertion to the further view that “There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe.” This, along with other remarks in Lanza’s article, reeks of modal realism (that is, Lewis-style modal semantics, as opposed to Kripke-style). Now, I have no a priori proof that a multiverse theory that presupposes modal realism is false. But, if such a theory is supposed to be scientific, it has to be confirmable or disconfirmable. And while a purely physical multiverse theory – one which doesn’t presuppose modal realism – might be confirmed empirically, by the observations it helps to predict and explain, no metaphysical view can be confirmed or disconfirmed in this way. The Kripke/Lewis debate ultimately boils down to differing linguistic or conceptual “intuitions”. So when writers like Lanza combine multiverse theory, modal realism, and the downright silly reduction of personal identity (or self-consciousness) to the “20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain” that is conserved after death, and implies that it is a scientific theory, I have to protest. In the last forty or so years, more silly pop-metaphysics has been produced by speculations based on quantum physics (and the uncertainty principle) than by anything else. And this is a prime example.
Note: this post was re-written in response to a comment made by Marshall Missner (see the comments section).
There seems to be a vengeful ghost in my Yahoo! Weather widget (which I keep on my “My Yahoo” home page). It keeps showing me the weather in Sundsvall Sweden and Sunnyvale CA in addition to Oshkosh. When I delete these locations, they arise from the dead next time I log in. This wouldn’t be so annoying, except for the fact that the weather in Oshkosh is invariably colder than the weather in Sweden, and of course MUCH colder than Sunnyvale. And to add injury to insult, we’re expecting 8-12 inches of snow in the next 36 hours.
Oh Ullr, why dost thou taunt me so?
Notice how green the grass still is… and this is December in central Wisconsin.
Amazingly, we managed to get through November without any measurable snow. Then it turned into December, and like clockwork, the temperature dipped into the low 20s and we got dusted. More is on its way.
Please note: we accept sympathy and even prayers (not to mention money for heating fuel). If you need a god to pray to, for this purpose I suggest Ullr – Norse God of Snow. However, my guess is that he’s more put upon by skiers praying for snow. I suppose that means you will have to pray with great fervor. Then at least you’ll be warm…
Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks
Okay, this may not be as funny as the Onion’s recent “Victim In Fatal Car Accident” skit, but we have some standards of taste and decency around here…