Income Inequality

While touring socialist and formerly communist countries, the most important thing that I learned from our guides (that they learned from recently declassified secret documents) is that 1% of their population, specifically the party higher-ups, ended up with half of the country's wealth...an income inequality exactly as in capitalist countries.

The real difference is that in capitalist countries inequality happens through mostly legal means while in socialist and in communist countries through illegal means. 

Income inequality is not a problem to be fixed; it's a reflection of human nature. There are always people who figure out how to make any system work in their favor.  No matter what rules apply, no matter what laws are written, some people will find ways to get more than their neighbors get.  The choice between capitalism and socialism / communism is whether inequality will be achieved legally or illegally.  It will always be achieved.

Climate change

Climate change is society's apocalypse du jour.

In the Middle Ages, it was The Rapture - come to Jesus or you will perish in flames.

In the 1950's, it was nuclear war - come to capitalism or you will perish in radiation.

Now, it is Climate Change - come to Paris Accord or you will perish in rising oceans.

What is really going on is that many people do not have effective ways of coping with their own anxieties.  By buying into the apocalypse du jour, they get a specific, certain answer to their anxiety.  "Just buy a Tesla and you'll be saved."

Yawn.  Some of us are fine with anxiety.

Consciousness and sleepwalking

Contemporary discussions of consciousness are dreadful.  People are so confused.  Let’s break it down.

How can you tell when someone is sleepwalking?  It’s subtle.  You need to compare their eye movements and breathing to what they exhibit when you know that they are conscious.

How can you tell when you are sleepwalking?  That’s easy.  You can’t.  You have no awareness of those intervals in your life.

How can you tell when your dog is sleepwalking?  That’s easy.  You can’t.  There is no behavior they exhibit that distinguishes sleepwalking behavior from normal behavior.

How can you tell when a mosquito is sleepwalking?  Again, you can’t.  It seems so obvious that beetles, worms, and all small creatures are not conscious.  They progress through their entire existence without the sort of conscious awareness that is confusingly natural to homo sapiens.

So, when we rank species on some arbitrary scale of simple to complex, at what rank do we draw a line and say that species above the line are conscious and those below the line are never conscious?

Perhaps all creatures, save homo sapiens, are sleepwalking?  What subtle clues do other species exhibit that distinguish their conscious moments from their sleepwalking moments?  Some assert that self-recognition is proof of consciousness.  Is self-recognition proof of non-sleepwalking, or can sleepwalkers recognize themselves?

I await proof that any species other than homo sapiens is conscious.

AI is to Humanity as Humanity is to Termites

I am dismayed by the number of articles published lately that present the end of humanity at the hands of beings with Artificial Intelligence.  The common hypothesis is that their advanced intellect will discover humanity's unworthiness and terminate our species, for the good of the planet.  How stupid.
Try this analogy instead.  Humans look at the thousands of termite mounds dotting an African savannah, say, and wonder: "how could creatures with such puny brains construct rock-hard, air-conditioned houses so many hundreds of times taller than the creatures themselves using only particles of dirt?"  Now travel to the year 2200 and notice that AI beings regard Manhattan's buildings and wonder "how could creatures with such puny brains construct rock-hard, air-conditioned houses so many hundred of times taller than the creatures themselves using only particles of dirt?"
Yes, beings of superior intellect will spend almost no time noticing humans.  Only if we start invading their homes and threaten to collapse them will they take notice and poison everyone in the vicinity.  Humans will retreat and learn to keep their distance.

Apple vs. FBI

The conflict between Apple and the FBI over creating a backdoor on all iPhones so law enforcement can always peek inside is an issue that an engineer has no trouble solving.  Simply give everyone in the government (FBI, NSA, CIA, IRS, DOD, White House, etc. -- all 40 million) a new phone with a backdoor and give everyone who works for Apple the key.  If nothing bad happens during the next 12 months, then let the FBI have its way.

Religion = Placebo

While traveling in India, I often found myself in a crowd where, on the right, someone was performing an astrological ritual, and on the left, someone was performing a superstitious ritual, and in front, someone was performing a religious ritual.  It become so obvious that they are all the same thing, and done for the same reason.  Astrology, superstition, and religion are all placebos.  There is no reason why they should provide any benefit, yet people are addicted to them, because the "placebo effect" is real.  Anyone who believes that performing a ritual will somehow help does create a positive mental attitude in themselves, and a positive attitude does help them.

(Now I need to figure out why astrology and superstition do not make people want to murder others, but religion does.)

Culture clashes - nothing new

https://www.flickr.com/photos/drwtwilner

Traveling in France, our guides were mostly Ph.D. students in European art, architecture, or history, and they gave us three comparisons that we had not acquired from previous trips to Europe.

1. The French Revolution (of 1789-99) has less in common with USA's revolution of 1776 than it has in common with Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966.  The great extent to which the revolutionaries destroyed cultural artifacts was tragic.

2. The Hundred Years's War (1337-1453) has a lot in common with today's Sunni vs. Shiite wars, or ISIS vs. everybody.  (So, one tactic that the USA could take with respect to ISIS is: wait 120 years for it to burn out.)

3. When we visited Notre Dame, Chartres, and various other cathedrals that included reliquaries, the guides used the very same language that we encountered in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.  "This is the {relic/stone} that we parade through the village when disease is present."  "This is the {relic/stone} that we parade through the village when enemies are threatening."  No spiritual progress in 50,000 years.  (So, one tactic that the USA could take with respect to religious fundamentalism is: wait 50,000 years and see if anything changes.)