Showing posts with label Thought Experiments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thought Experiments. Show all posts
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A Future Lesson
This is a 34 minute film so WAY beyond the atgtention span of most people. But it is also a great history and future lesson.
http://agonist.org/don/20120218/there_is_a_tomorrow
Saturday, October 29, 2011
An Overextended Government
“Of the two factors, aging is the more important,” the CBO said in a June report. With 10,000 Americans turning 62 every day, the ranks of Social Security recipients are projected to almost double to 97 million by 2035'.
Is the problem with the Debt/deficit one of too many people in the US? Too many of us living too long?
'A record 49 percent of Americans live in a household where someone receives at least one type of government benefit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And 63 percent of all federal spending this year will consist of checks written to individuals for which the government receives currently no services, the White House budget office estimates. That’s up from 46 percent in 1975 and 18 percent in 1940'.
'With the unemployment rate stuck at about 9 percent for 30 consecutive months, demand for unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid has soared'.
'The number of Americans receiving food stamps alone is up 72 percent over the past five years, to a record 45.3 million. Their annual cost, projected this year to reach $80 billion, tops the yearly budgets of most federal agencies'.
'More than 2 million Americans who have served in one of the theaters have begun claiming promised health-care and education benefits'.
'“None of this adds up,” said Conrad (D- ND). “One of the biggest obstacles to doing what has to be done is public opinion.”
From : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-28/americans-hooked-on-government-as-record-number-get-benefits.html
Yeah. If all those pesky people weren't alive.
This is the 'ten foot poll' question.
If the resources to help people are running out or overextended, do we expand the revenues into these programs?
Maybe cut back on the programs and rely on charity. But with 49% receiving some type of Government check, can the other 51% be THAT charitable?
Does compassion enter into an economic equation on balancing the budget?
Privatize Social Security and the quality of life/standard of living drops like a rock. Seniors eating Top Ramen and crackers, afraid to spend money because they don't know how long tghey will live so need to keep all the money they have.
Or maybe senoirs working until they are 70, 75, 80, 85. Would you want your parents working that long?
Do you want to work that long?
The 'golden years' of keep on punching a time clock.
Ditto Medicare. Do away with it and have only a for profit medical system and if some gets sick and especially with a major illness or accident, they will have to start weighing if they should die or hold on.
Especially if they have a spouse. A prolonged illness could drain the savings and leave the surviving spouse destitute.
We either pay a system forward, medical, financial security to assure a quality of life, a standard of living or we shift the duty/burden to charity or we say 'it sucks to get old in America'.
And the same is true with our Country's physical infrastructure. We either pay it forward, maintaining and building more roads, airports, bridges, schools so that our children have the opportunity or we watch our children watch most of the rest of the World as they are passed by because other Countries DID invest in their infrastructure.
Just putting America back to work. Taking a trillion dollars and creating jobs building/repairing schools, roads, bridges and waterways, putting/hiring teachers, police and firemen/women. People witgh paychecks spending money they earned instead of taking money from the Government. And by spending money, creating demand for productsd and services and thus creating jobs in the private sector. Soon, instead of the Government having to pay unemployment, medicaid, they are getting revenue in the form of income and other taxes.
But that isn't going to happen in an election year.
Instead we just get to watch the Country fall apart.
An overextended Government or too many people?
Is the problem with the Debt/deficit one of too many people in the US? Too many of us living too long?
'A record 49 percent of Americans live in a household where someone receives at least one type of government benefit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And 63 percent of all federal spending this year will consist of checks written to individuals for which the government receives currently no services, the White House budget office estimates. That’s up from 46 percent in 1975 and 18 percent in 1940'.
'With the unemployment rate stuck at about 9 percent for 30 consecutive months, demand for unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid has soared'.
'The number of Americans receiving food stamps alone is up 72 percent over the past five years, to a record 45.3 million. Their annual cost, projected this year to reach $80 billion, tops the yearly budgets of most federal agencies'.
'More than 2 million Americans who have served in one of the theaters have begun claiming promised health-care and education benefits'.
'“None of this adds up,” said Conrad (D- ND). “One of the biggest obstacles to doing what has to be done is public opinion.”
From : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-28/americans-hooked-on-government-as-record-number-get-benefits.html
Yeah. If all those pesky people weren't alive.
This is the 'ten foot poll' question.
If the resources to help people are running out or overextended, do we expand the revenues into these programs?
Maybe cut back on the programs and rely on charity. But with 49% receiving some type of Government check, can the other 51% be THAT charitable?
Does compassion enter into an economic equation on balancing the budget?
Privatize Social Security and the quality of life/standard of living drops like a rock. Seniors eating Top Ramen and crackers, afraid to spend money because they don't know how long tghey will live so need to keep all the money they have.
Or maybe senoirs working until they are 70, 75, 80, 85. Would you want your parents working that long?
Do you want to work that long?
The 'golden years' of keep on punching a time clock.
Ditto Medicare. Do away with it and have only a for profit medical system and if some gets sick and especially with a major illness or accident, they will have to start weighing if they should die or hold on.
Especially if they have a spouse. A prolonged illness could drain the savings and leave the surviving spouse destitute.
We either pay a system forward, medical, financial security to assure a quality of life, a standard of living or we shift the duty/burden to charity or we say 'it sucks to get old in America'.
And the same is true with our Country's physical infrastructure. We either pay it forward, maintaining and building more roads, airports, bridges, schools so that our children have the opportunity or we watch our children watch most of the rest of the World as they are passed by because other Countries DID invest in their infrastructure.
Just putting America back to work. Taking a trillion dollars and creating jobs building/repairing schools, roads, bridges and waterways, putting/hiring teachers, police and firemen/women. People witgh paychecks spending money they earned instead of taking money from the Government. And by spending money, creating demand for productsd and services and thus creating jobs in the private sector. Soon, instead of the Government having to pay unemployment, medicaid, they are getting revenue in the form of income and other taxes.
But that isn't going to happen in an election year.
Instead we just get to watch the Country fall apart.
An overextended Government or too many people?
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
A couple of thought experiments.
Move beyond one religion is 'right' or one is 'wrong'. I follow the Path of Buddha, which is NOT to say that I am or it is better but rather in a way of explaining that as I practice my belief, I accept that others believe in God, so God exsists. I don't have to believe in the God that others do but I can accept it.
A thought experiment for another day. Perhaps that is a 'flaw' in not religion but how it is practiced. Some cannot or will not accept that others can or should believe differently. More then likely just a 'flaw' in us as humans and not in religion in general. But isn't/shouldn't that be a basic teaching in religion? Kind of the 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'? Or is it 'get them before they get you'. I keep getting confused.
Anyway.......I accept that Jesus is the Son of God and sent for Mankind's salvation. But, and HERE'S my thought experiment - why was he sent to the Middle East?
Why not Asia? The raising populations of what would be Japan, China, India. In fact this area had a much greater population then the Middle East.
Or how about Africa? The soon to be 'birthplace' of Islam? Why not put in place an alternative to the future teachings?
Or how about Central or South America? As a counter to the Gods worshiped in the Mayan and Aztec cultures?
Or why not to the nomadic tribes of North America? Now what a fretile ground THIS would have been to establish and eventually spread the teachings of Jesus. And what a different World it would be when Columbus sailed and discovered this.
Perhaps the 1000 years of repression of the Dark Ages would not have occured if Jesus had not been in the Middle East. (More thoughts experiments) Perhaps religion would not have had such a strong growth and such a tight hold on life itself, smothering all discovery (And still more).
So why was Jesus 'sent' to the Middle East rather then some other place? Were they not 'worthy' or was the Middle East deemed more necessary?
And another........
Are we, the human race, running out of purpose?
We began millions of years ago as hunters and gatherers. Survival of the fittest. A purpose. But as communities. Not individuals. We quickly understood, if we wanted to survive, that our strength was in numbers. We gathered together for protection, support, stability.
That was our purpose. To survive and then explore. Both in the immediate World around us and then outward.
And from pre-industrial revolution survival and exploration came post industrial revolution and with that, the advancement of the quality of life. Large advances in education, health care, standards of living. Quality and quanity of food, water and shelter. We understood that we would only be as strong as our weakest link.
Links who's numbers drasticly increased with the post revolution population boom.
Although individuals have used and abused the power we often held in our greater numbers, the drive of humans was always been for the greater good. Advancing our 'Civilization'. The quality of our lives.
But have we gone from 'hunters and gatherers' to 'greedy hoarders'?
A so very few hold so much wealth and power. But for what purpose?
I'm not talking about the 'redistribution of wealth' but our short and long term purpose as a Civilization. Not a 'spiritual' purpose but the 'nuts and bolts' purpose. Building 'Civilizations' for all not 'Empires' for the elite.
For millennium our, humans, purpose was to explore and conquer the World. This was our home and to survive we needed to know it and dominate it.
And having done that, we then began to concentrate on the quality of life. Using the vast resources of the Planet and the vast resources of a growing work force.
And now after that? - what is our purpose?
The thrist of knowledge is still there but in an ever shrinking World of known and unknown. And the ever shrinking World of smaller public revenues vs. spending those on war, security, intelligence - NOT on advancing knowledge or quality of life.
The ever shrinking World of the 'have's' and the growing World of the 'have not's'.
Do we now favor hording and profit over the advancement for the greater good?
That great line from Star trek II: THe Wrath Of Khan, when Spock after saving the ship tells Kirk 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'.
That WAS humanity but is it still?
Again looking around as so few hold so much. Has their 'World' become the survival of the fittest at the expense of the rest of us? Is their power and domination for the good of themselves or the good of humanity? As we pollute the planet, our only 'home' or stand helpless as millions slowly starve. Millions and millions have no access to clean water, basic health care, basic education.
Has our 'purpose' become so narrow, so defined so directed by so few that it is driven by the selfish greed of hoarding?
Have we stopped 'paying it forward'?
Are we 'Hallow Men'?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15029924
Not with a bang but a whimper?
Have we run out of purpose? Or has our 'purpose' changed form the 'greater good' to the 'selfish need', the 'NEW' survival of the fittest?
Will this be our last millennium?
Do we need an answer and NOW to the 'Ten Foot Pole Question?'
The Hollow Men
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when 5
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass 10
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost 15
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom 20
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are 25
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom 30
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves 35
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land 40
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this 45
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss 50
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley 55
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river 60
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom 65
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear 70
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act 75
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion 80
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm 85
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow 90
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends 95
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
From : http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm
A thought experiment for another day. Perhaps that is a 'flaw' in not religion but how it is practiced. Some cannot or will not accept that others can or should believe differently. More then likely just a 'flaw' in us as humans and not in religion in general. But isn't/shouldn't that be a basic teaching in religion? Kind of the 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'? Or is it 'get them before they get you'. I keep getting confused.
Anyway.......I accept that Jesus is the Son of God and sent for Mankind's salvation. But, and HERE'S my thought experiment - why was he sent to the Middle East?
Why not Asia? The raising populations of what would be Japan, China, India. In fact this area had a much greater population then the Middle East.
Or how about Africa? The soon to be 'birthplace' of Islam? Why not put in place an alternative to the future teachings?
Or how about Central or South America? As a counter to the Gods worshiped in the Mayan and Aztec cultures?
Or why not to the nomadic tribes of North America? Now what a fretile ground THIS would have been to establish and eventually spread the teachings of Jesus. And what a different World it would be when Columbus sailed and discovered this.
Perhaps the 1000 years of repression of the Dark Ages would not have occured if Jesus had not been in the Middle East. (More thoughts experiments) Perhaps religion would not have had such a strong growth and such a tight hold on life itself, smothering all discovery (And still more).
So why was Jesus 'sent' to the Middle East rather then some other place? Were they not 'worthy' or was the Middle East deemed more necessary?
And another........
Are we, the human race, running out of purpose?
We began millions of years ago as hunters and gatherers. Survival of the fittest. A purpose. But as communities. Not individuals. We quickly understood, if we wanted to survive, that our strength was in numbers. We gathered together for protection, support, stability.
That was our purpose. To survive and then explore. Both in the immediate World around us and then outward.
And from pre-industrial revolution survival and exploration came post industrial revolution and with that, the advancement of the quality of life. Large advances in education, health care, standards of living. Quality and quanity of food, water and shelter. We understood that we would only be as strong as our weakest link.
Links who's numbers drasticly increased with the post revolution population boom.
Although individuals have used and abused the power we often held in our greater numbers, the drive of humans was always been for the greater good. Advancing our 'Civilization'. The quality of our lives.
But have we gone from 'hunters and gatherers' to 'greedy hoarders'?
A so very few hold so much wealth and power. But for what purpose?
I'm not talking about the 'redistribution of wealth' but our short and long term purpose as a Civilization. Not a 'spiritual' purpose but the 'nuts and bolts' purpose. Building 'Civilizations' for all not 'Empires' for the elite.
For millennium our, humans, purpose was to explore and conquer the World. This was our home and to survive we needed to know it and dominate it.
And having done that, we then began to concentrate on the quality of life. Using the vast resources of the Planet and the vast resources of a growing work force.
And now after that? - what is our purpose?
The thrist of knowledge is still there but in an ever shrinking World of known and unknown. And the ever shrinking World of smaller public revenues vs. spending those on war, security, intelligence - NOT on advancing knowledge or quality of life.
The ever shrinking World of the 'have's' and the growing World of the 'have not's'.
Do we now favor hording and profit over the advancement for the greater good?
That great line from Star trek II: THe Wrath Of Khan, when Spock after saving the ship tells Kirk 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'.
That WAS humanity but is it still?
Again looking around as so few hold so much. Has their 'World' become the survival of the fittest at the expense of the rest of us? Is their power and domination for the good of themselves or the good of humanity? As we pollute the planet, our only 'home' or stand helpless as millions slowly starve. Millions and millions have no access to clean water, basic health care, basic education.
Has our 'purpose' become so narrow, so defined so directed by so few that it is driven by the selfish greed of hoarding?
Have we stopped 'paying it forward'?
Are we 'Hallow Men'?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15029924
Not with a bang but a whimper?
Have we run out of purpose? Or has our 'purpose' changed form the 'greater good' to the 'selfish need', the 'NEW' survival of the fittest?
Will this be our last millennium?
Do we need an answer and NOW to the 'Ten Foot Pole Question?'
The Hollow Men
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when 5
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass 10
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost 15
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom 20
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are 25
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom 30
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves 35
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land 40
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this 45
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss 50
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley 55
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river 60
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom 65
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear 70
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act 75
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion 80
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm 85
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow 90
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends 95
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
From : http://www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)