In Defense of Inequality

In Congress on the defense of inequality -- 

"This is not the proper occasion, but, if it were, it would not be difficult to trace the various devices by which the wealth of all civilized communities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what means so small a share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was produced, and so large a share given to the non-producing classes. The devices are almost innumerable, from the brute force and gross superstition of ancient times, to the subtle and artful fiscal contrivances of modern." ~Senator John Calhoun on the legitimacy of slavery, 1837

The senator's argument in favor of slavery is much like the current arguments in favor of unregulated business, unregulated wages, and unregulated trade.  Ethically, they're identical.  We've changed some laws since 1837, of course, but not the problem.  Nothing trickled down below the top 10%, and the rising tide only lifted the rich merchant ships.  Inequality continues in the developed world at the insistence of the privileged.  One wonders if we see what's in front of us.

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In the world's richest country, why would 20% of the children live in poverty?

Inaccessible to Modern Science

Science: we depend on it for answers.  Are there areas inaccessible to scientific inquiry?  If you ask a scientist, the answer is no.

So ask them what their favorite music might be and how they arrived at that preference.  And why.  Surprisingly, there's no scientific answer.  (Give it a try yourself, if you like.*)

Similarly, that freedom of speech which we so sincerely defend is scientifically unexplainable.  It suggests an underlying independence of thought which requires free choice and will, all of which are unsupportable concepts.  The deeper we delve into neuroscience, the more conclusive the argument that we are just programs running on a bio-computer.  No soul, nothing original, just processing data with predictable results.

There is agreement now in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams.

That's the best that hard science offers.

In 1924, Max Wertheimer gave a now-famous talk about Gestalt Theory, “Über Gestalttheorie.”  ('Gestalt' is a whole, greater than the sum of the parts, for those of us who might wonder.)  His interesting speculation, that when we pursue a scientific answer exclusively, it can leave us without the whole of what we were looking for.


*What's your favorite music?  Why?  How do you feel when you hear it?

1. It's a style I enjoy or a particular song or preformance. 
2. It really speaks to me, it transports me to ____.
3. So how do the mechanics of this music (but not that other music) transform my feelings? 
4. In my brain, do I hear and choose to enjoy this but not that?
5. Or is it an unconscious process?  A program running in my brain?  And another running in the brain of the composer and performers?
6. Neuroscience maps the brain activity, and science insists it's a bio-computer process, not a 'self'.
7. So I'm not an autonomous individual, just a helpless passenger in an automatic vehicle.  Hmmm.
8. Do my choices come from me or from the brain program?  Science says it's just neurons following specific processes, all deterministic.  All.  Composer, performer, listener, ... all.
9. So why my music preference?  According to modern science, I'm just an electro-bio-machine that follows its programming.  Apparently 'I' don't exist.  😃  And the jazz I like just randomly happened.

Modern science can disassemble and explain the parts, but it can, on occasion, miss the greater whole.  This is just one of hundreds of such examples.  Read the references for a beginning point.  It's a fascinating inquiry.  Do 'we' even exist?

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So, does 2+2=4?  Of course it does, but I'm not a number, and neither, I suspect, are you.

In case you were wondering ...

You'll notice in the graphic that the richer a country becomes, the greater their CO2 emissions per person. The richest 10% of folks produce about half of the CO2, and the rest of the world produces much less per person.

As we address quality of life issues worldwide, the increase in emissions for all is projected to rise to the common levels we see in the developed countries.

The remaining question is the degree of impact our CO2 emissions will have on the world climate system. While the debate continues, the evidence accumulates.  You might appreciate Modeling Sustainability by an objective group focused more on facts than interpretation.  Do your own research of the facts.

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False.  
Fake science.  A friend offered this

as a rebuttal.  😃  Lack of information,

lack of inquiry, lack of understanding.

False.
Mount Aetna does not produce 10,000 times more CO2 than all of mankind, despite the fake memes. All the world's volcanoes produce about 200 million tons of emissions each year which seems like a lot until you see that humans produce more than a hundred times that amount.  

Actual measurement: volcanoes vs. humans

An indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels, as measured by sampling stations around the world set up by the federally funded Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, have gone up consistently year after year regardless of whether or not there have been major volcanic eruptions in specific years. “If it were true that individual volcanic eruptions dominated human emissions and were causing the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, then these carbon dioxide records would be full of spikes—one for each eruption.  Instead, such records show a smooth and regular trend.” ~Coby Beck, writing for Grist.org.

Interestingly, CO₂ levels and climate have been closely linked for thousands of years, and now we're contributing more than the volcanoes. Much more.  See the USGS.gov report.

Fifty Million Tons

Fifty million tons of warm tropical sea water would make a spectacular gift, especially if it included sea life.  That's the gift the Kuroshio current gives Japan.  Every second.

Fifty million tons of warm water arrive every second in the seas surrounding Japan, bringing warmth and rain and fertile grounds for sea life.  The current makes the region viable for agriculture and limits the severity of winters, much like the Gulf Stream that provides warmth to the eastern U.S and to the U.K.

Did you know such currents are tied to climate?  And they vary from year to year. Imagine the complex physics of such a machine. Equatorial warmth, rising and expanding water, deeper waters drawn upward, planetary rotation distributing the upwelling, flow toward cooler climes where, as temperature falls, increasing density causes descent to the depths, and the cycle repeats.  El Niño and La Niña are complex weather patterns resulting from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.  They affect continental weather patterns and the deep ocean current cycles as well.

Dead coral reef, bleached by increasing ocean acidity and warming waters.

Sea life and biomass go with the flow, great quantities of gases are absorbed and processed, and the chemistry of the sea water fluctuates over the millennia.

Recent changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide are contributing to the ocean's dramatic acidification.  A third or so of our fossil fuel CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans; that's around 10 billion tons per year added to the ocean chemistry.  The changing aquatic environment is killing the coral reefs, and not slowly. The current rate of change is now 100 times faster than any changes in ocean acidity in the last 20 million years, raising questions of whether all marine life can adapt to the changes.  The scope of impact is under continuing study.

The severity of the issue has prompted suggestions of deliberate climate engineering as a mitigation.  What machine might we engineer that could process 50 million tons of water per second and deal with 10,000 million tons of CO2 each year?  Curious?  Take a look for yourself.

Ref. Ref. Ref.

A Christmas Surprise

From a Facebook post remembering the occasion, a hundred years later ...

Christmas 1914

In the trenches of the war to end all wars, soldiers from both sides stopped fighting.  It was their own idea, not their commander's.  French, British, and German soldiers ventured across the no-man's-land.  

At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man’s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs all along the western front. There is even a documented occasion of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 came five months after the outbreak of war in Europe and was perhaps the last example of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated - future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by officers’ threats of disciplinary action - but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers’ humanity endured. 

The truce lasted just from Christmas, 1914, to New Year's Day, 1915; then the soldiers were ordered back to their trenches.  A century later, most folks still understand the soldier's willingness to set aside their differences, but apparently the farther up the ladder you go, the harder it is to remember such things.

"We are all the same, though political ideologies and beliefs may try to tear us apart. These soldiers had a duty to fight for their country, whether Germany or the United States, but that didn't stop them from extending the hand of brotherhood across the battlefield, coming together in a time of war. In that moment, allegiances did not matter, only the kindness every soldier had in their heart not just for their comrades, but every soldier that day. May we remember, whatever we choose to believe politically or religiously, that first and foremost the person who you are looking at is just like you. Politics may drive us apart, but that should not stop us from coming together. Let's come together.  Merry Christmas!" ~FB comment by a young security officer

Christmas Future -- Change or Fail

If we don’t change, we'll be irrelevant. 

That's a troubling truth for both liberals and conservatives.  It's only funny if you're not a party loyalist.

The future includes knowns and unknowns.  Like it or not, things will change with only limited predictability.  Principles and truth will remain unchanged, but how we fulfill them will have to adapt.  

• Justice and freedom from oppression
• Freedom of speech, of faith, of assembly
• Life, liberty, and equal protection under the law

Each will remain clearly true, right, and appropriate, but our pursuit of each will have to evolve.

Remember the civil rights era?  Once segregation ended, we thought discrimination would disappear, but it didn't; it just relocated.  We also thought racism would die out.
  
Instead, we see class distinctions and increasing inequality. We see violent fundamentalists, religious intolerance, and an emerging oligarchy ... and each poses a challenge to a rational society.

Inequality has become brutal. The law (policy, regulation, trade practices) favors the wealthy and influential. The bottom 90% has made little progress in the last five decades, and many have lost ground. Economic mobility has declined. Wages have declined. Impressive GDP gains have gone exclusively to the wealthiest 10%.

In the public realm, we're divided. It has crippled Congress and precipitated a number of major problems. Public approval is lower today than at any point in my lifetime. From generation to generation, we have progressively less confidence in institutions including church.       Why might that be?

Things will continue changing. Law, government, church, school, community, and culture ... each will become irrelevant or even harmful unless they adapt and mature. For our part, it's our choice, isn't it. How might we ourselves change and help with the journey toward freedom, justice, and equality?
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For liberals and conservatives, both were effectively brushed aside in the recent election. Both are stunned by their inability to control their supposed constituencies.

Millennials, you'll note, are more interested in relationship and forgiveness than judgmentalism and stagnant traditions.  The prosperity gospel was an embarrassment. They want a faith connected to real life

Many Christian leaders today say the Millennial values and critiques have nothing to do with Jesus, who, according to them was all about avoiding damnation by a loving God.

Really? So all those healings of the sick, confronting hypocritical religious leaders, love your neighbor, and forgive your enemies stuff wasn’t the point. No wonder Millennials are leaving.

Perhaps there's more to life than politics and power, wealth and winning.  Merry Christmas.  💖 Really.

Informed Decisions

'Politicians discussing global warming'
~a statue in Berlin

When asked his approach regarding, "the whole issue of climate change, the Paris agreement, how you’ll approach it," President-elect Trump said, “the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98,” adding, “you know, you can make lots of cases for different views.” ~22 Nov 16

We hope for a willingness to learn in this administration and in ourselves.

Meanwhile, how do we as friends handle the discussion?  Can we labor together through the facts and opinions without becoming adversaries?

The graphic below shows long-term global trends from multiple studies, data sets, and international science organizations.

New to the public forum, ocean heat content adds an additional perspective.  Around 90% of the heat accumulated from global warming resides in the oceans.  Changes affect several systems including the path and extent of surface and deep-ocean currents, rate of flow, El Niña and La Niña, and global weather patterns.  A favorite subject of mine for a few decades, this is perhaps the centerpiece of change impact.

This figure shows changes in ocean heat content between 1955 and 2015.
Ocean heat content is measured in joules, a unit of energy, and compared
against the 1971–2000 average, which is set at zero for reference.
Choosing a different baseline period would not change the shape of the
data over time. The lines were independently calculated using different
methods by government agencies in three countries: the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Australia’s Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and Japan
Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute (MRI/JMA).
For reference, an increase of 1 unit on this graph (1 x 1022 joules) is
equal to approximately 18 times the total amount of energy used by all
the people on Earth in a year. (Ref)

Data sources: CSIRO, 2016 (Ref); MRI/JMA, 2016 (Ref); NOAA, 2016 (Ref)

The tropical Pacific (8.2% of the earth's surface area) is a major player in absorbing the accumulating heat.  That regional surface segment will contain absorbed heat for a while, but recent trends show that the Pacific rather suddenly passed significant heat content to the Indian Ocean, which has seen an unprecedented rise in temperature over the past decade.  The Indian Ocean increase is equal to about 70% of the heat absorbed by the atmosphere in the last decade.

The analysis builds on a series of papers that track the causes for what’s been dubbed the 'hiatus' or the global warming slowdown, a period over the past 15 years that has seen surface temperatures rise slower than they did the previous decade.

Shifts in Pacific tradewinds appear to have helped temporarily store heat in the upper level of the ocean.  Since 2003, upper ocean heat content has actually been slowly decreasing in the tropical Pacific with a commensurate increase in the Indian Ocean.  A similar anomaly occurred, perhaps briefly, in a small segment of the north Atlantic as annual current volume fell 30%.  Total heat accumulation continues, and ocean currents appear to respond to the change in balances.  

UPDATE 7 MAY 17: The administration told countries around the world  in writing last week that the United States is reconsidering its existing climate change rules and that it will not consider new ones that could hurt the economy or impact energy production at home.

We're so much smarter than our ancestors ...

We do indeed have different information. We know how to Google, but we'd likely starve without a grocery store.

Increasingly dense population appears to have been the foundation for most if not all significant human advancements. Explosive growth in industry, technology, science, and art can all be traced back to a tip-over point of population and proximity, where interconnectedness sparks collaboration and idea generation, where innovations are preserved across generations and geography, and skills can be shared.

Intellect and mental capacity are perhaps unchanged in the last 20,000 years or more.  We have no compelling science to the contrary.  Tools and art and complex cultures emerged long ago, but only in the more densely populated areas.  More sparsely populated areas, even though occupied by the same humans, waited until they also reached that density before joining the high-speed development path. Europe and western Asia were exploding with cultural growth while eastern and southern Asia followed much later.

It appears that significant advances in most categories require us to live close and work together, to talk and exchange ideas, and to make our way forward together.  If we're spread too sparsely across the landscape, new ideas tend to disappear before they can take root in the culture.

Cause and effect?  Since the 17th century, we've seen population increase 1000% at an accelerating rate.  In that time, we've seen stunning change in culture, in science, and in industry.  The rate of change appears to follow the rate of population change as well.

Question:  Did the emerging science create the population growth with improvements in agriculture, education, and health?  Or did the interactions of an increasingly dense population create the opportunity for such development?  👀 Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?
Next question:  How much of the resulting change is helpful and how much is not?  Have we overpopulated some areas?
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So rather than evolutionary advances in brain power with some branches of humanity being smarter than others, it is more likely to be just population growth and proximity that trigger the rapid development we observe.  See a summary of the issue in a new study by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal Science.*

"Ironically, our finding that successful innovation depends less on how smart you are than how connected you are seems as relevant today as it was 90,000 years ago."

A lesson for today? Of course. Stay connected and involved in social discourse, understand what's changing, or ... perhaps be left behind. That's the difficulty faced today by government, church, educational systems, and ideologies.  Truth is unchangeable, of course, but everything else will inevitably change.  That's the difficulty we face as individuals; how do we participate in the inevitable changes we and our children will face?

Tomorrow will not be like yesterday.  They've been telling us that for a long time.**
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An interesting development; indigenous populations often resist the incursion of the developed world; native Americans (North and South, particularly Brazil), aboriginal Australians, etc.  Why might that be the case?  Are they uninformed or deliberately opposed on principle?

Ref: High population density triggers cultural explosions*
Ref: Late Pleistocene climate change and the global expansion of anatomically modern humans
Ref: Adam Powell, Stephen Shennan, and Mark G. Thomas. Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior, Science, 2009; 324 (5932): 1298 DOI: 10.1126/science.1170165
Ref: World Population Growth and Change
Ref: Change Bringers**

This of course is a particularly controversial subject.  😀
And for an additional perspective, if everyone lived as close together as they do in Manhattan, the entire world's population would fit on half the island of Madagascar with room to spare.  And beaches.

The Path of Tradition

Truth is unchanging.  Everything else changes.

About Christians and Conservatives:  some Christians today are perhaps off the traditional path.  The church has a long history of decrying the exploitation of the poor and supporting union movements.  (See Rerum Novarm)
G.K. Chesterton’s writing about the rich often hits Occupy Wall Street levels -- “The rich man is bribed… that is why he is rich.”

Conservatives today, however, insist that poverty be explained as a moral failure.

Success as the product of moral superiority is the so-called Protestant ethic, but it is also, as Nietzsche noted, the “ethic of the hangman.”  The poor are considered culpable so that they can be punished - like today’s inadequate minimum wage or the public shaming of those on welfare.  

Jesus was neither conservative nor capitalist, interestingly, and the story of Lazarus and the rich man is a horror story appropriate for today's discussions.

There's a much better way.  Of course.  That's the good news part.

What comes first?

He wasn't talking about someone's sheep and goats, of course. Just an illustration

to make a point, like that other one about the camel and needle's eye.

Why would he say things like that?

"I will be a swift witness against … those who cheat the worker of his wages, who oppress widows and the fatherless, against … those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not honor me, says the Lord of hosts." Malachi 3:5.

You have to feed and care for the horse that pulls the plow, of course, but apparently you don't have to pay employees a living wage. One in five of our own children live in poverty, though we are the wealthiest country in the world. The unfortunate among us are held back, and refugees are turned away at the door though they flee for their lives.

As individuals, how do we face the real world and the issues of conscience brought on by honestly doing so?

The priority in our culture is to live like the world's wealthiest 10%, as that seems to be the common choice.  Many, perhaps surprisingly, will see a better way and will choose to bring a few others along as they make their way forward.

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It's always a joy to see how many discover the good path, the good news.

So how about a magnificent life and purpose --

What does it take?  First comes a change of heart (of ethic) perhaps, and shaking off our culture-based priorities.  Then, lend a hand for however long it takes to make a difference; for years, if needed.  Through school and perhaps college, through troublesome times, through the last years.  Such a heart includes family and friends and others in the effort, does it not?

In the larger context of community and country, how might we make a better place for others?

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I certainly don't have all the answers.

I was surprised to find that much

of what I thought I might do

was unneeded. Most folks

I met on the far side of the
world asked for nothing. They
enjoyed just being friends, a little
encouragement, and perhaps a connection
 to the larger world.  I had to ask how I might
be a helpful friend.

It's a long journey, and more fun than just sitting at the top of the food chain.  And there's always more to learn.