Nature simply does not care what we believe.
www.gyromantic.com
A personal commentary • »If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.« --Spinoza
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
I am an atheist. Have been nearly all my life. And I am one of those who, faced with the old saw that an agnostic is little more than an atheist who lacks the courage of his convictions, I gave it some thought. A personal God, that created and cares for the universe, answers prayer, keeps everything virtuous, etc. Well, nah. Don't see any evidence for that; literally none at all. Pretty sure that isn't the way it is, so I'll commit. Agnostic, no; atheist. But I make a distinction between religion, which to me is a belief in some supernatural agency like this, and spirituality, which does not, necessarily. An atheist is not required to be narrow minded, and to exclude consideration of the magisterium that is normally relegated to religion, just because of semantics. Indeed, an honest examination of one's circumstances, Aristotle's considered life, requires it.
For a time I studied, and gained a lot from, traditional Buddhism. Still think of myself as a Buddhist, albeit a secular Buddhist. There are basic truths, some spiritual and some actually objective psychological truths, in Buddhist thought. The idea that (at least most) suffering is caused by attachment to the delusion of "self" and the happiness of one's own being. That wisdom is not knowledge, per se, but a realistic view, almost literally, seeing what existence really is. And that from such seeing necessarily flow compassion, lovingkindness, and a clear eyed understanding that one's own happiness is not something you gain by grasping at it, but, just the opposite, that well being of ones's self comes from caring for others and seeking well being of others.
When Buddhist teachers I associated with started talking about having "faith" in "holy beings," at first I thought of them as merely metaphorical paradigms for states of mind that are beneficial to seek to emulate. But after a while, I came to see it more as just the usual regression to norm: people have a strong tendency to seek out comfort and reassurance that the universe is not cold and indifferent, but actually caring and reassuring, filled with superior beings that look after us, answer prayers, etc. But, to me, this is a mistaken view. What Buddhists refer to as "precious human life" is precisely that quality that enables us to honestly perceive, and create realistic mental models of the way things are. So we have to be honest. Clear-eyed. The Buddha himself cautioned his followers not to believe what they were taught, perhaps out of respect for their teachers or the tradition they arose out of; but to believe what they perceived themselves, from their own practice of the proven effective and practical techniques of clearing the mind and really seeing what exists and is real. And, while I can imagine that some people honestly see the world as filled with supernatural, caring entities that help us in our hours of need, I don't. I see the universe as beyond humanity; essentially indifferent; existing on a scale so vast that our existence is of scant importance. The universal compassion, lovingkindness, joy, and balance of view that make up human wisdom are qualities of mind, not of existence beyond ourselves. It is these things that constitute what we call meaning of life; we should not, and will fail if we try to, find meaning in the cosmos, in the externality of our existence. The meaning of our existence is in our own mind, in our own ability to summon virtue, love, compassion, and other states of mind that make human life transcendent and significant. These things are not supernatural. But neither are they external, created by some intelligence outside ourselves. They are, in fact, our essence, our unique existence, available to us if we use our innate ability to develop genuine awareness, also called wisdom, to allow us to perceive the truth about ourselves, and not to wallow in delusion. We, our minds, our being, is what gives the universe meaning. I don't try to tell other people what they should believe, but, well, everyone of course prefers their own view of things, and mine is that the universe is contingent. Life arises from nonlife, over time so vast we cannot imagine it, and, through processes which are not supernatural but which we, as limited and finite beings, do not fully understand… here we are. We don't need a magical mystery religion to have a profound and abiding sense of the mystery and wonder of existence, and to have a genuinely spiritual outlook.
Which brings me to Thanksgiving. The "thanks" in Thanksgiving are traditionally thought of as thanks to… God. We thank thee, God, from whom all blessings flow, and all that. So what meaning does gratitude have for an atheist? It's a good question. We atheists have to face and address the natural human inclination to feel grateful. And I do. Very much so. My theory is this. We humans have evolved, over the depth of time, a highly developed ability to construct reasonably accurate models of reality. Of course, we easily delude ourselves, but we are much better at this than other animals, and it has led us to the civilization we have, because we would not have it but for our ability to figure out how systems work. Including the whole shebang, the cosmos. Not that we have final answers, but we have more knowledge and ideas about it than any other living things we know of. And what we learn, from personal experience as well as systematic investigation, is that the universe is contingent; that the laws of physics, particularly entropy, make the success that is the enterprise of life on Earth remarkable in so many ways, and unlikely in so many ways, that it is a genuine marvel that we are here, and that we are able to sustain ourselves and live in any degree of harmony at all with the other living systems of our world. And this makes us feel, if we are paying attention, very, very fortunate. Which is, I think, a pretty good definition of gratitude. We don't have to posit the existence of a personal God, or believe in anything supernatural, to be suffused with a powerful feeling of gratitude to be alive, and to be able to experience existence, in a vast cosmos of which we are only a tiny flicker.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
If you don't know what all four of those cases stand for, look them up, because every citizen should know in detail just how and when the Supreme Court took our rights away, step by step.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/…/supreme-court-history-intervi…
Supreme Court History includes John Robert's memo how to bypass court by enacting statutes with provisions removing judicial review.
There's a great deal of discussion among Democrats these days about taxes. It is clear that Republicans are LIARS when it comes to taxes, as they basically just want to transfer wealth to the top and don't care a whit about long term debt, OR about investing in our nation's future. As the Trump Tax Giveaway to the Superrich proves.
One of the proposed progressive taxes Centrist Democrats object to is the idea of a securities transaction tax. Such Democrats have, over the past 30 years or so, largely bought into Republican economic theories, but it's time to return to an earlier view that realistic taxation is, as Justice Brandeis put it, "the price of civilization." First point. Proposed transaction taxes are TINY, and would probably be structured to not apply to IRAs and 401(k)s. But apart from that, the average investor would pay at most a few hundred dollars per year. MOST developed countries have these kinds of taxes, and in many cases higher than what is proposed here.
But, secondly, this is an example of a tax that's actually designed to disincentivize economically destructive behavior, namely large scale short term trading, which is basically gaming markets to take the equivalent of rents from the top, as opposed to the rational and original purpose of securities markets, which is to raise capital. Investors who are primarily interested in investing in successful businesses to build capital value and participate in a production economy tend to buy and hold stocks, rather than trade them short term, and this is better for the economy. Such investors would be little affected by a small transaction tax, and if it were deemed to be an issue, it would be a simple matter to exclude the first $1000 or even $5000 of tax, which would then mean that the tax would apply ONLY to people and institutions who are engaging in relatively massive short term trading. It is perfectly legitimate and actually a positive good to discourage this behavior, as it does not contribute to growth in the economy but only serves to transfer of wealth from production upward to the very richest.
Even with these considerations, which are an example of the use of tax policy to regulate the economy as opposed to raising revenue, it is estimated that the tax would in fact raise a fair amount of much needed revenue. Which brings me to a third point. WE NEED TAXES which fall more on wealthier people in this country. Wealthy people, even moderately wealthy people, NEED TO PAY MORE IN TAXES. This includes me, although I don't qualify as wealthy, just reasonably comfortable.
We have before us a truly desperate situation, where we must rebuild nearly our entire energy and transportation infrastructure in a fairly short period of time (because of deferred maintenance in part, but mainly to address the Climate Emergency). We must also revamp our medical care system to ensure that everyone is covered, because it is our national shame that alone among the wealthy nations of the world we have failed to do this, and there simply is no valid reason why we should not. Further, we must make up for a longstanding funding deficit for education and basic research. To name just a few key things. The enterprise of American civilization has been choked by greed and hoarding at the top, and it is time to come together as a people and make the decision to use more of our resources and economic strength as a nation to ensure not only our survival but our character as a country of social mobility and a robust middle class into the future. Much of this will come from policy reform, but some of it must come from MORE INVESTMENT. The ONLY way to do that is to increase spending on these critical factors. Given the Climate Emergency, it is no exaggeration to say that we need to mobilize in a way equivalent to the mobilization of World War 2, and sooner, rather than later. This cannot be done for nothing... everyone must contribute. But from those who have been rewarded with outsize, even excessive wealth, more must be asked. And from those who have modestly more, modestly more must be asked. It is time for us to ACCEPT THIS REALITY, and even embrace it, for it is the only path forward that makes any sense long term.
First, the article fails to make a clear distinction between reasonable estimates of the probability that we will discover extraterrestrial LIFE, which could mean only microbial life with a non-terrestrial origin, at some point in the relatively near future (seems quite plausible), vs. the likelihood that we will encounter or find actual evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The latter divides into evidence of relatively nearby intelligent civilizations somewhat more advanced or comparable to our own vs. evidence of very distant extremely advanced civilizations. Such very advanced civilizations would likely be detectable across extragalactic distances. Any realistic estimate of the probability of finding intelligent life requires a full examination of the logic and evidence involved in the so-called Fermi Paradox, which this article entirely ignores.
I have discussed these issues on my blog, www.gyromantic.com (search for Fermi Paradox). The gist is that there are very good logical reasons to conclude that intelligent life is exceedingly rare in the universe. So rare, in fact, that the chances of detecting or encountering another civilization close enough to make even centuries-long dialog times possible are vanishingly small. I see no reason to think that we are "alone" in the universe (chiefly because the universe is so very large that anything that can possibly happen likely will have happened, and repeatedly). But I see EVERY reason to suppose that advanced civilizations are so rare, and so distant from one another, that for all intents and purposes they are on their own, and must make their own way, independent of others in the same general situation, in a vast, dark, and mostly empty cosmos.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
His first full term was spent trading in his political capital to address a healthcare system that was refusing to care for sick people because greed. He also did the little things like helping to pull us out of the worst recession since the depression and kill OBL. So, yeah, I forgive him for acting in good faith at those moments in history when the world needed the GOP to step up and act like adults. The GOP did the exact opposite and that is the real story here. Literally nobody new the depths they would go to sabotage Obama. The fact they are still getting away with is all the more infuriating.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
I watch... but don't necessarily entirely buy into... futurist Isaac Arthur's youTube channel videos on things like the Fermi Paradox, megastructures in space, far future space development and colonization, etc. He's a very far-seeing thinker, and tackles with surprising lucidity some of the objections to the sillier notions of many who long and dream for the lost "future" of OUR recent past (if that makes sense). (For example, he's a pretty extreme Fermi Paradoxer (as am I), concluding from the facts already known that advanced civilizations are NECSSARILY quite rare in the universe, Exhibit A being the logic (which I've delved into at length on gyromantic.com) that unless nuclear war or the Climate Catastrophe kill us off, WE will likely colonize our entire galaxy and beyond in a million years or so; coupled with "Deep Time," (the universe has been much as it is now for a long, long time, at least 6 or 7 billion years), QED there haven't been a lot of beings like us on the cosmic stage and aren't any close by now, or they'd already be here, and flying saucerites peace, they aren't).
Anyway, a point I want to make is that we as a species have to start thinking in terms of much broader and more adventurous solutions to the problems of our existence. The Climate Catastrophe can not be solved with just minor tweaks to the global market system and continued nonsensical regional conflict. Either we get it together and form the "Federation," and engineer our way out of this crisis, or we, too, will be an also-ran that doesn't warrant a blip on the Fermi filter scale. RIP Earth.
But I'm not betting against our species. We have many faults, but we have proven ourselves the most inventive of creatures THIS world has ever produced, and I have a very strong belief that the Earth is truly extraordinary. Not one in a million, not one in a billion, one in many tens of billions if not even more. We're the lottery winner. We can survive and thrive, and become much more than we have ever been before. But only if we overcome our petty greed and rivalry and come together to solve our greatest yet global crisis, which, in case you haven't fully accepted it yet, is UPON US. Now.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
I've now heard two interviews with David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming. (Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes's Why is this Happening? podcasts). Not cheery. Terrifying. We are on the very cusp of the rest of the century, during which the Climate Catastrophe will impinge on every facet of our lives, and, if we fail to act very soon, will make life very very nasty for hundreds of millions before those who come after us will have been forced to take real action to make the Earth livable. And no one will be immune. It's become increasingly clear that we're not just talking about sea level rise. The consequences of the Climate Catastrophe will have mostly very negative effects, and they will affect every human being on Earth to some degree, and be devastating or even fatal for a huge number. And some of that effect is already unavoidable.
Here's an eye opener, which I admit I did not know. Since Al Gore wrote his first book, 30 years ago, in other words, SINCE we as a species knew what we were doing to our planet, more than half the fossil carbon ever emitted into the atmosphere has been emitted. In 1989 the climate was still stable (relatively), and a forthright and serious effort to address the problem would have been quite feasible. Now, the UN goal of keeping warming under 2° C by 2100 is all but impossible, and that means severe economic and physical disruption is unavoidable. And no one talks about going beyond 2° ... or what happens after 2100. The consequences of continuing to do nothing will be literally fatal. At 8°, all clouds will permanently disappear, which would cause an additional 8° of warming almost immediately. The Earth has not had 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere in millions of years... long before there were humans. The last time the Earth's average temperature was 4°C above the baseline, there were palm trees in the arctic, and even our great ape ancestors had not yet evolved.
This is an important book. Everyone should read it. Complacency is the enemy, and we can no longer afford it. It will literally kill us if we don't shake it off and get busy. To paraphrase Wallace-Wells, we didn't fight WW2 out of optimism. We mobilized and transformed our economy out of FEAR. And that kind of fear is what will cause us to mobilize against the Crisis too. But it is not just us, in America. Already (and this is completely changed since the turn of the century too), the US is producing only 15% of the fossil carbon being added each year to the atmosphere. China and India together account for over half. This is a global problem, and the solution must be global. The enemy is not other nations, it is our own folly; our own unwillingness to make the changes necessary to avoid catastrophe. Time is running out, and the longer we wait, the harder and more terrible will be the journey back.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
Nature simply does not care what we believe.
William Barr will be confirmed. And every self-respecting Democrat should, and most will, vote no. They should've read the transcript of the confirmation hearing for William Saxbe, Nixon's 4th AG. Rachel Maddow did a whole segment on it. They actually had Jaworski (now it would be Mueller) IN THE ROOM, and swore both of them in and got them to say they would not interfere or accept interference in the ongoing investigation or block any release of information to the Congress or the public. Instead, we got mealy mouthed wiggle room non-answers.
Of course the HUGE difference is that Democrats controlled the Senate in 1974, and they don't now.
The GOOD news is that I really think this thing has gotten so out of hand that a fairly significant cohort of Senate Republicans are starting to realize that Trump is doomed, and at some point they will have to make their break. They're just so timid and self-interested that they won't do it until they feel safe that it won't backfire on them. But I definitely got the impression that Barr EXPECTS a devastating report from Mueller, and that he realizes it's not in HIS best interests to try to go to the mat for Trump, because there will be no winning that fight. The facts are there, and they will come out. Trump will not finish his term as president. I didn't think this 6 months ago, or even two months ago, but now I think this outcome is considerably more likely than not. When the undeniable facts reach a certain critical mass, it'll be like a point of repose for a rock on a slope. That point is reached, the rock slides down the slope.
www.gyromantic.com
A personal commentary • »If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.« --Spinoza