If you wrote a letter to your 12-year-old self, what would you say?

Don’t despair.
Your handwriting is illegible, and you may not believe me, but that wont matter in the future.
Just work on printing, people can read that, and you will get better at it.

Keep on reading, keep on listening to people, and keep on making your own assessments and doing your own tests of what you are learning.

You may not know how to spell many words now, and you will learn that with practice. Machines will be developed that can check your spelling as you write, and your spelling will get very much better as a result.

Keep on learning, keep on following whatever takes your interest, and keep notes of those intuitions that come to mind.

Don’t be afraid to try things, and don’t be afraid to be a lone voice – someone has to be first, and being first isn’t often very comfortable.

Keep going, and don’t give up.

Why do we ask the question “why”?

It seems to me that OM captured the essence of why ask why.

As OM says, curiosity has survival value, but only if tempered by enough fear to keep the curious alive – a delicate balancing game that evolution must play. And being evolution it only has to operate on average over time – thus we would expect the males to have more curiousity, and less fear, on average, than females (the evolutionary cost of losing a few males from a population being much lower than losing females), and the occasional male with little or no fear (not me, I’ve got enough fear for a regiment, and enough curiosity for 2).

Why ask why – to expand our understanding.
Why do that – because we can.
There are no limits on what can be understood, it is infinite.
There is no necessary end to the journey – it goes as long as the journeyer is prepared to continue.

1. What is the most used argument by people to not place windmills for clean energy?

That would depend very much on where the windmills were.
Here in NZ there are a group of common arguements against them:
They look ugly;
They make too much noise;
They kill too many birds.

2. Why does frequent buying on credit not attribute to the economy over a longer period of time?

One reason is that it adds to the price (typically by 20%), thus reducing the “efficiency” of the system.

3. Which form of energy production produces the highest radiation output when seen over a period of 2000 years?

Depends what form of radiation one is talking about.
If one includes Ifra Red radiation, then it is probably Solar.
If one includes only “hard” radiation, capable of causing genetic abnormalities, then it is probably coal, with the amount of radon and other substances released during the mining and leaching from the mines over time. Though natural gas could be a contender also. Again, it would depend a great deal on the particular source one is looking at, geology is highly variable.

4. Where does the moon come from?

It seems that the moon is the result of a collision between the early earth and another Mars sized planet, and the moon condensed from the material that splashed into orbit.
Interesting to note that the tides on the earth have been gradually dragging the moon further away (by an inch or so every year – with reflectors on the moon we can actually measure that movement away with earth based LASERs), but over the last 4 billion years that has moved it a long way. When it formed it was about one 16th the distance away that it is now, meaning that the tides on the early earth would have been over 300ft high, every 3 hours, and the day length on earth would have been about 6 hours.

5. Why do some 1st world countries have so significant more teenage pregnancies then others?

A mix of factors including culture and diet.

6. What is the simplest argument (and also one of the most scary in my opinion) why oil is NOT a fossilized fuel?

It is not thermodynamically possible to form saturated hyrdocarbons from unsaturated ones at the sorts of temperatures and pressures found in the top 5 km of the planet surface. Work by Russian chemists has shown that it is possible to form hydrocarbons at about 15km depth. At the temperatures and pressures found there it forms from limestones, so it is still a fossil fuel (as limestones have biological origin) but not in the normally accepted sense.

Once formed these substances can percolate to the surface and get trapped under impervious structures.

7. What is the main reason rainforests are being logged to this date?

The lack of land rights of the current inhabitants meaning that logging companies can get cheap access, and with the resulting profits buy political support.

8. What is the main argument generally accepted why there are no intelligent extraterrestrial life forms found to this date?

I don’t know about generally accepted.
To me there seem to be two classes of argument that seem possible, and there is no evidence currentlly to distinguish between them.

One set of hypotheses is that the origin of life is so difficult, and requires such special conditions, and so much chance, that it happens very rarely, and technologically capable life is even more rare.
Getting a collision big enough to form a moon, and start plate tectonics, seems to be rare (we have not observed plate tectonics on any other world as yet).
Getting life to form, and to sequester the CO2 from the atmosphere into limestone before runaway greenhouse effects evaporate all water seems to be the next major barrier.
A world without plate tectonics would become a world devoid of land, and hence unlikely to develop technology – it being very difficult to light a fire in water, and very difficult to do chemistry without fire.

The other class of suppositions is basically along the general theme that we are not yet sufficiently intelligent to be admitted to galactic society, and we live in what is essentially a galactic “nature reserve”; and galactic law does not allow outside interference in our affairs.

These are not mutually exclusive arguments – both or either or neither may be true.

9. Often people say that you can be at several places at the same time. Or that you can steer these effects with your thoughts. Why is this not true?

As yet we do not seem to be capable of doing anything with our thoughts other than influencing our bodies and the technology attached. Technology is improving, and we may be able to maintain awareness in multiple places in the future.

10. What are the three assumptions you need to make in order to proof the existence of god?

There is only one – that god exists.

It does not appear to be logically possible to either prove or disprove the existence of god with absolute certainty.
It does seem possible to say that it is highly unlikely that there is a god – and to accept such a matter as being beyond reasonable doubt – but not proved in any absolute sense.

A knowledge of biocehmistry makes it difficult to imagine any sort of intelligent design in life – there is simply so much evidence of random genetic drift over billions of years.

What do you think purpose in life means?

For me, “purpose in life” means something I choose.
For me currently there are many purposes:
Care of my family;
Care for my community;
Care for humanity;
Care for the ecosystems of life on this planet;
Developing and promoting systems for all of the above;
Having as much fun as possible within the above.

For me, the notion of purpose in life as something externally given (something not of my choice) makes no sense.

Where do you go to retreat?

The idea of retreat no longer really applies to me.
It is more the idea of balance.
I love being with my family, in my home.
I love to play golf.
I love to go for a walk in the mountains.
I love to stand at the kitchen window and watch the ocean and the ocean life.

So I attempt to balance my life with all of these things.

Do you regard yourself as having a big vocabulary? If so, how did it get to be that way? If not, what do you think of people with big vocabularies?

Yes
I read a lot.
I am interested in most things, certainly all sciences and philosophies and history.
I am not afraid to ask questions, when I am uncertain of anything.

[followed by]

Hi Torch

Many great points in what you say, and one point that I strongly disagree with – when you say that people who have not extended their vocab to embrace the world vocab have not accomplished much.

To me there are multiple dimensions in which language can be used.
One dimension is communication between people, and that is a very powerful and very useful way to use language.
Another dimension is the use of language internally to create and to order understanding and patterns.
There are other dimensions.
Some people specialise in one dimension over others.
Sometimes, if someone creates a really powerful idea, it is enough that they can communicate it to one other person, if that other person can then take it and communicate it to many others.

Language can be a tool of creation, and well as communication.
Both aspects are important.

[followed by]

In so far as communication is possible, and in so far as we communicate, then we do influence.

In so far as our opinions influence our actions, our opinions matter.

In so far as any of us, have any intention to create anything different from the probable, almost certain future, then the sorts of beliefs we have are important, and communication is important, and so is the creativity that allows us to envisage something other than “the probable, almost certain, future”.

Weekend World Programme: The World Debate: 2012 Reinventing Capitalism?

I was a little disappointed that no one was seriously examining the systemic issues with capitalism, and with the concept of money.

The deepest issue seems to be the disjunct between human value and monetary value. Both value judgements are made by individuals, and monetary value seems to be essentially human value multiplied by scarcity. Thus things with high human value, and zero scarcity, end up with zero monetary value (like oxygen in the air as an example).

This means that there is zero systemic incentive within monetary systems to create the sort of abundance of essential goods and services that most people desire.

Related to this is the issue of the pursuit of money in and of itself.

When money is used simply as a tool to promote the exchange of goods and services it has undoubted utilty for human beings; but when money becomes a goal in and of itself, then the game becomes about optimising money, and not about optimising goods and services.

The optimum amount of money can be generated by generating an optimum perception (or reality) of scarcity. Various groups use all sorts of media, political, and legal mechanisms to create such perceptions.

Thus, rather than the game being about creating abundance and satisfying the needs of every human being, it becomes about creating barriers and monopolies that generate scarcities and the opportunity for secure profits.

These issues are explored a little on my blogsite www.tedhowardnz.wordpress.com/money and an alternative approach is explored on www.solnx.org

If we create systems that guarantee abundance of all the necessities (essentially making them free), then capitalism is free to play its games above that essential minimum.

The harsh mathematical reality is that no capitalist system will ever, in and of itself, meet the needs of everyone – it simply is not incentivised to produce that sort of abundance.

[followed by]

I don’t characterise it as a declaration of war, I simply see it as ignorance.

I am convinved that most people will and do act in their own best interests as they perceive them; but unfortunately most are ignorant of the longer term consequences of their actions.

When those 1% see that it really is genuinely in their own long term best interests to ensure the welfare of the other 99%, then it will happen.

And the process of making distinctions must logically follow the same general form – starting with a simple binary distinction (like light/dark, hot cold) then moving to more gradations (like the colours ROY G BIV) and then on to an infinity. That process takes time. Some people get hung up on binaries (good/bad, right/wrong, etc) – getting people past them and into infinity is a bit of an art.

What humbles you?

Most things.
Life.
The amazing complexity of my body, or of a single cell.
The mechanisms of biochemistry.
The night sky, and contemplating the enormous distances and energies involved in those tiny points of light.
The fact of my consciousness, derived by a series of recursive processes of evolution by natural selection across several different domains.
Other people, and how they respond to the trials of life.
Infinity, Mandelbrot sets, and a host of other mathematical constructs.
The vastness of time of space.

In response to a critical post by “Logic”

Hi Logic

Quite the contrary.

Monetary value and human value are clearly two different things.
Certainly humans make monetary valuation choices.
One simple way to conceptualise it is to think of the distinction as money being human value multiplied by scarcity.
Oxygen provides a sort of limiting case (always useful to clarify a demonstration). Oxygen has great human value – if someone puts plastic-wrap over your face, or puts your head under water, that value becomes very obvious very quick. Yet oxygen is so abundant that there is no scarcity, and thus most people would be very reluctant to pay for the air they breath.

Thus there is no inbuilt economic incentive to maintain that abundance. We create laws against air pollution in an attempt to make up for that systemic failure.

Your logic about creation of abundance works only to a point.
Money incentivises people to produce so long as they can make a profit.
There is zero monetary incentive to make anything as abundant as oxygen.
So the distinction here appears to be about the various possible meanings of “abundance”.
Your definition seems to stop at the point that people can make a profit, whereas mine stops at the point that all human need is satisfied. The difference is significant if one is near the bottom of the income scale (though insignificant to those near the top).

The cost of medical care is something I have had some recent experience of. 4 years ago I had a melanoma on my temple. 2 years ago it metastasised, and although surgeons removed most of the left side of my neck and face, and all the lymph nodes they could find, it had spread deeper and more widely, and was in my liver, and in other tissue. At that point I was told by the medical establishment that there was nothing known to medical science that could alter the probability of my survival, which was given as 50% chance of living 5 months and a 2% chance of making 2 years.
I did a lot of research myself, and adopted a set of low cost strategies, mainly around diet, and am still here, and according to my last set of scans, tumour free. All my oncologist was allowed to say was “whatever you are doing, keep on doing it”.
If he recommends what I did to anyone else, he faces sanction and dismissal.
That is the system that the monetary incentive structure has created.

I am, by training a biochemist and ecologist, with a good grounding in mathematics (statistics and probability) and 40 years of developing computer software – so I have the skill base to do my own evaluation of published data. Few have that. Way over 90% of what is on the internet is factually incorrect – merely unsubstantiated opinion. So it takes a bit of sorting through.

I have published all of my medical history, and all of what I did, and why, on my blog-site for others to evaluate.

My chair makes few demands of me.
The facts of my biological origin make many demands of me – I need to have food, shelter, water. My enquiring mind demands access to communication and information and transportation.
These things are not yet free.
To get them I must currently engage in economic activity.
It is technically and conceptually possible to create systems that delivered those things in such abundance that they are free – yet there is no systemic incentive within our current political and economic system to do so (in fact there are substantial incentives to prevent it happening).

Understanding that does require making some clear distinctions – like the first distinction above – between economic value and human value.

I am optimistic that the future may be at least as powerful and secure as I think possible – and I have quite a powerful ability to envisage possibilities.

[followed by]

@Logic
It is not as simple as you state.
If we were simply talking about money as a tool to empower the matching of goods and services, then your logic would be mostly accurate.
That is not our reality.
We now have systems that are designed purely around money – independent of any goods and services.
It is in these systems that we have systemic issues.
Now that people are able to pursue money, in and of itself, independent of any good or service, there is a massive incentive to optimise the production of money (in and of itself, as independent as possible from goods or services).
Thus we see the production of laws which may have rhetoric around them speaking of “public good” aspects, but when you look closely at there systemic effects, it is about providing barriers that protect profits.

This is a systemic issue.

It is easy to see how we have gotten into this situation.
Small and medium producers have seen that the regulations imposed by government are a barrier to them doing sensible business, so when politicians talk about removing regulation those voters identify the regulations that are a problem to them. What tends to happen in reality is that when regulations are removed, it is regulations that had inhibited the accumulation of money, and regulations that promote money (mostly on a short term horizon).

The financial incentive to make things more plentiful only extends to the limit of profitability.
Many people have little ability to make money, therefore little money to spend, therefore a great many unmet needs.

Life is easy for me – I make an hourly rate that is ten time the average for my town – so I am one of the fortunate few.

In this town there are many people who want to work, who cannot find paid employment. Most of the jobs that are here are very low paying (because of the excess of labour over jobs).

There is no financial incentive to meet the needs of most of these people, because most of them have little or no money – they are surviving, just.

The incentives for those who employ labour is to keep the pool of unemployed at a level that keeps wages low, thus seemingly reducing costs and increasing profit – except that if the trend takes off, then demand dies, and we enter recession.

There are a great many issues with money.

“What are your impressions of Australia, whether you have visited or not?”?

I kinda like Terry Pratchet’s view in XXXX – a land where everything is venemous, except some of the sheep
And Kiwis and Ausies have this love hate thing

My brother has lived there for 40 years, and my daughter is going to move there soon.
I like the place, and I like NZ more.