Institutionalized Racism and Affirmative Action

[To give some context for the topic I heard a story on NPR this morning about Brazil implementing race tribunals. That are required for every person getting a government job. They measure skin tone, hair texture, and even nose and lip size to determine if you meet the standards for “blackness” in order to qualify. In an attempt to solve the issue they have with lack of diversity they are implementing policy that reminds me of 20^th century eugenics or Nazism. That’s maybe a bit harsh, but man.]

When a government has rules and laws that are explicitly racist, Jim Crow laws and the like, it is important to speak against those and have them removed. Racism is wrong and should not be condoned by the government.

When there has been a history of racism and widespread discrimination I understand the desires and motivations to make things right. The desire to balance the scales and raise up the groups that were the victims of prejudice. In societies that have sought to do that affirmative action has not been an uncommon strategy. I do not think that affirmative action is a good strategy though. I don't think it is good for the repressed groups and I don't think it is good for the formerly oppressing groups and I don't think it is good for society as a whole.

The fundamental issue with racism is that at its core it prevents people from participating freely in society based on their intrinsic characteristics, regardless of their personal merit. It represses people because of generalized assumptions about that group regardless of the truth of the generalization or the deviation of individuals within that group. It penalizes individuals regardless of personal merit. It breaks up societal unity with fallacious and harmful "us vs them" narratives. It is all around a bad thing.

Unfortunately affirmative action does the same thing. It says some people are more deserving of acceptance or inclusion in various parts of society simply because they belong to a certain group. Again, ignoring personal achievement. It isn't as bad as your typical racism of course, getting into college because you were an oppressed minority is better than getting hung because of it. However, it continues the “us vs them” narrative and sidesteps personal merit. It has the same corrupt core even if it is more socially acceptable on the outside.

The reality is that there is still racism in this country. But the way to improve minorities’ situations and to improve race relations is to allow and enforce fair access for everyone. That way when an individual from a formerly oppressed group succeeds, everyone knows it is because they are talented and worthy of that success. It encourages others from that group to try and succeed and it proves to the racists and bigots that their perverse views are unfounded.

I recognize that affirmative action is used to try to improve the situation minorities find themselves in after years of being held down and prevented from participating fully in society. That is an important thing to do. We should recognize the hurts we inflict on each other and seek to resolve them. However, I think it can be done in a way that does not make it a specifically race based solution thereby extending the race divide. Oppressed groups have a significantly higher poverty rate. So by providing increased opportunities for improved education and overall economic mobility for the poor you are going to help those people overcome the difficult start they had.

The government should be truly color blind. By doing that you facilitate societal unity and encourage society to get to a place where race of any kind does not matter. No decision should be made, good or bad, based on race.

Representative Corruption

Most people have some idea that politicians, particularly members of the House and Senate are influenced by political donations. Wealthy people and corporations pay into their campaigns and in return get special treatment and consideration. This is not good for our republic.

Another means of corruption is through investments. Representatives can and do make political decisions based on how they will affect their financial investments. In fact, it is not illegal for them to participate in "insider trading" or shady real estate deals. So being some of the most influential people in the country puts them in positions to take advantage of this frequently, and legally.

So I have an idea. This is a law that would allow reasonable returns, because congressmen need retirements too, but frees them to make decisions based on what is good for the country and not their stock portfolios. When you enter the senate or house, you and your spouse would be required to divest all investment assets. So all stock, all real estate, all meaningful investments. The money raised would be put into a cash account held by the government. The account could be added to from your salaries during your tenure and would accrue some reasonable interest rate. Upon leaving office you would get all the money back as cash along with interest.

That way, because all investments were in a cash account, there would be no incentives to tilt the tables in favor of personal gain. It would serve two purposes. First, it would encourage representatives to focus on what they are supposed to be focusing on, representing. Secondly it would give congress a needed boost in perception. It would look less corrupt and transparent meaning their constituents would feel they could trust them more.

It wouldn't prevent all corruption. It would keep people from breaking the rules. But it would help and it would increase, even if only slightly, the governments perceived legitimacy which is critical for a republic.

Momento Mortis

I wrote a couple days ago about how being reminded of death plays an important role in our full appreciation of life. This is a sequel of sorts to that post. I wasn't expecting to have one, but circumstances decided differently.

Momento Mortis means "moment of death." I was driving home from work yesterday and saw a man jogging on the side of the road stop, rest his hands on his knees, and then keel over backwards. That is certainly not normal, but the fact that his head bounced off the road showed that he was not just tired. I immediately stopped and pulled over along with several other people. We all ran over to him and found him unresponsive. One guy wearing a brown shirt called 911 as we circled him asking if he was ok. He was completely unresponsive and after about 30 seconds of us getting there stopped breathing. Another guy wearing a green shirt checked his pulse and then started doing chest compressions.

It was a surreal experience. I would like to say I was engaged in the situation and did something useful, but I honestly just stood there. If there hadn't been other people around I probably would have gotten to the point of calling 911, but I don't know if I would have started CPR. I wasn't freaking out, but I wasn't reacting either.

The guy started breathing again after a minute or so of CPR, but then stopped again. The green shirt guy started CPR up again and kept it up until the ambulance got there. In contrast to my dazed response the EMTs EXPLODED out of the ambulance and swarmed the guy. They took over the CPR, ended up defibrillating him three times, got an IV in him and then whisked him off to the hospital.

We stayed around a bit longer to talk to the cops and eventually heard that he had survived. So thanks to the quick action of green and brown shirt guys the runner made it. So while it wasn't a "momento mortis" it certainly could have been.

The whole situation was a wake up call for me. This is the third time I have directly observed or been the first to a scene of an emergency. Thankfully all three times there were people nearby who knew what to do and the situations were resolved as well as could be expected. That might not always be the case though, and while I don't plan on becoming a doctor I don't want to be in a similar situation in the future and watch someone die because I didn't have a little bit of training. Because I just stood there watching ignorantly. I want to know what to do, and have the wherewithal to react.

I want to be ready.

Motivation is no Guarantee

 

It takes a lot of things to do amazing things. Motivation is often lauded for its import role in people succeeding. I don't really want to knock it at all. Motivation is critical. I'm sure you've heard stories of people who upon being told they couldn't do something took that critique and used it to fuel their life.

It isn't the only thing though. To be successful requires planning, resources, and more often then not favorable conditions outside of your control. Thankfully motivation helps get all those things right. But if you don't... there are over 200 highly motivated people frozen in various places up and down Mt. Everest.

Just saying...

Memento Mori

 

  

Momento Mori is a Latin expression meaning "remember that you have to die". It is often used to describe items used as reminders. Like the skull in the picture. From my limited reading it seems to have fallen out of vogue after the 18th century, but before then it was a common theme of art, philosophy, and interior decorating.

In our 1st world western environment we are rarely exposed to death. We all are still going to die, but most people only experience death at the occasional funeral. And even then it is done up and beautified to the point that it is almost unrecognizable. I think memento mori is even more important now than in the days of the black plague and frequent wars.

We need reminders of our mortality. We need to remember that we have expiration dates and time is precious. We think we have the luxury of time, but even if we have decades treating it lightly will run it out filled with useless trivialities.

I turned 30 this year. I have lived a good portion of the first half of my life already. I do not think I have wasted it, but I have not accomplished many of the things I want to. So I cannot afford to sit back and forget the rapidly dwindling time I have left.

We only get one shot at this thing called life. Make it count.

Looking It Up

We have had bikes for the oldest two kids for months now. I've had them out in front of our house playing on them several times, but no real progress was made towards them actually learning how to ride them. It is something I really want them to know how to do. A critical life skill in my opinion. But it just seemed overwhelming and beyond me most days. So for months nothing happened.

A thought crossed my mind that changed the situation. What if... just maybe... someone somewhere has taught there kids to ride bikes before? And maybe, just maybe, they posted some tips online to help other people? So I looked. And, you know, someone just happened to have done that. Step by step instructions by REI.

So I took the kids to the parking lot behind the middle school by our house and spent the afternoon going through the instructions so nicely laid out by REI. It took about three hours and the oldest is now ALMOST riding all on his own and the middle one is making good progress. It's not done, but I think one more afternoon will see the boy riding like a pro and probably two more for my daughter.

It isn't always this easy, but man, this turned out pretty well.

Kibbles

I have recently seen adds for breed specific dog foods. The idea being that they can formulate the nutritional balance just right for a specific breed to help it be healthier. It's a neat idea though I doubt I'd spend that much on dog food if I had one.

What I really want though are human kibbles. Perfectly formulated to deliver all the vitamins, nutrients, and such all balanced for optimal health. All done up in little bite size morsels that allow me to grab a scoop for lunch and go. No cooking required.

Portion sizes would be defined based on your normal calorie burn and if you wanted to gain or lose weight. Shopping would be simple. Just buy a 50lb bag and blamo, your set for food for the next couple weeks. Put it on routine order and never think about meal prep, planning, or budget again.

Realistically it couldn't replace all meals, but even if I ate it for half of my meals I would be happy. I looked all over the internet and there doesn't seem to be anything like it. I am very disappointed in the world at large for not having done this idea. I even found a lot of people talking about it. But nope. No dice.

A lot of people wouldn't like it. However, a lot of people would. It could also be super useful for emergency aid and disaster situations. Camping, space travel, and military rations would all be good use cases. Keep a 5lb bag of it in your car for emergencies.

I say that I haven't had an original thought in my life, and this is certainly not an exception. However, usually someone somewhere has actually implemented my ideas on some level.

Priorities

Everyone has priorities. We don't always know what they actually are though. We act on them based regardless however, so it is a good idea to figure them out. I've discussed the importance of them previously, but today I realized something I had missed. My priorities are not necessarily my wife's priorities.

You know, sometimes I say or write something and then look back at it and realize how dumb that sounds. So yeah, we are different people and we have different priorities. We haven't really talked about them and that is kinda bad. I'm sure it is a factor that has played into at least one of the disagreements we've had in our marriage.

Today's learning is when you are working closely with someone you should probably figure out what their priorities are and share yours so you can figure out how to get them to align.

I'm going to go do that now...

The National Debt - Part 2

Yesterday I proposed we eliminate the national debt for our semiquincentennial (250th) birthday. That gives us 10 years. What would we need to do to do that? It's a huge undertaking. First, let's naively assume there were no major economic downturns and none of the actions we take cause economic repercussions that make us fail... you know, simple stuff.

I just want to see what the numbers would look like. To start, here are the numbers:

US Debt: $19.5 trillion
Deficit: $480 billion/year
Interest Payments: $413 billion/year (side note: I just realized we are basically borrowing our interest payment)
Approximate Interest Rate: 2.12% (side note: if this goes up much we'd be screwed too)

Well, the first thing would be we HAVE to cut $480 billion from the budget so we don't make the debt bigger. To get the debt to $0 in 2026 though we would need to cut the budget by an additional $2.2 trillion. Let's make the assumption that the economy and therefore government revenue grows at 2% a year. We would have to cut the federal budget from $3.7 trillion down to $1.8 trillion. A total cut of $1.9 trillion or 51% of the current budget.

That is... a lot. What would we have to get rid of to be able to do it? Here is a link with cool pie charts where I got my information [link].



Well, first let's look at mandatory spending. We'd have to cut of Social Security/Unemployment/Labor spending by 65% ($812 billion). Then we'd have to cut Medicare and health spending by 65% for another $640 billion. Cut half of "Other" ($29 billion), and that gets us a total of $1.48 trillion, which is most, but still not all of the cuts we'd need. Mandatory spending is 2/3 of spending though so that is the biggest chunk.

Moving on to discretionary spending, if we cut education ($73 billion), Medicare and health ($66 billion), Housing and Community ($63 billion), Social Security/Unemployment/Labor ($29 billion), and cut military spending by 25% that would get us to our budget of $1.8 trillion.

It is possible... Maybe not a good idea, and I suspect it would violate the "doesn't screw up the economy" assumption from the beginning, but those are the numbers we would be looking at. Again, I realize this plan is terrible and unfeasible. However, this is the kind of discussion we have to start having if we are going to avoid certain global economic melt down. If we spent 15 years we could do it with only 28% cut in Social security and Medicare. We just have to discuss it.

Economic belt tightening must happen as soon as possible and in a reasonable controlled, but significant way or we are toast.

The National Debt

The United States is in debt. We owe a little over $19.5 trillion dollars today. That is a lot of money, but is it a big deal? Well to put it into perspective the entire production of the US economy or Gross National Product (GDP) per year is estimated to be $18.5 trillion dollars for this year. That puts our debt at 105% of our GDP. That's a lot. However, the whole economic output of the US isn't what the government's income is. Total federal government tax receipts for last year was $3.3 trillion dollars. That means the government's debt load is 590% of it's yearly revenue. That is a bit more. Another bit of information is that the government spent $3.7 trillion last year creating a deficit of $438 billion.

Those are big numbers that look scary, but are hard to really understand. Let's scale them to an average household income. The US median income for 2015 was $51,939. Let's lay out the numbers.

If the US were an average family:
Income: $51,939 per year
Debt: $306,912
Debt Added: $7000 per year

That is not a recipe for financial solvency. It is a terrible situation in fact. Most people in that situation would be looking at bankruptcy. Unfortunately the US probably doesn't have that option. The reason being that we are so big if we tried to do that the world economy would collapse. It would be a very bad day for everyone.

So what do we do? If we do nothing and continue on this course the world economy will collapse anyway. Eventually the payments will get so big we won't be able to handle them. We are currently only paying interest and even then it is 12.7% of the entire government revenues. Maybe we can keep it up for a while, but not forever. So again, what do we do?

Pay it off. Let's nominate Dave Ramsey as the Secretary of the Treasury and put a plan in place to get the country out of debt. Let's make a goal to be out of debt in time for our country's 250th birthday in 2026. Let it be our moon shot.

P.S. To give you scale, the national debt evens out to be $61,147 per PERSON or $167,798 per HOUSEHOLD.

If You Know What I Mean

"Love trumps hate!"

Yeah! That's great!...

Wait, do I know what you mean? I mean, does love actually trump hate? Love of what? Country? You? Your policies?

What are people hating? The other guy? Ice cream Sundays? Bigotry?

Do we want love to win in this situation? I'm confused.

"Make America great again!"

Woohoo! Preach it!...

Oh dear... not again. Is it not great? What happened to the greatness? How are you going to do it? What exactly is greatness? Great for who?

There is nothing wrong with slogans. They are shiny and attractive and give a theme to campaigns. But they don't actually say much. It might seem like they do, but in their vagueness it allows the meaning to come from the reader's ideals. So it fits each person's perspective and world view perfectly. The audience fits what they want to hear over the framework and then think "omg they totally GET it".

The same can be said for many catchy phrases and one liners. They sound amazing, profound, and intelligent, but often they are simply shiny verbiage. In the end, we need to be aware when we have flowery bombs of vagueness dropped on us so we can dig deeper and not lose sight of the truly important things we should be paying attention to.

Discomfort is Uncomfortable

Discomfort is Uncomfortable. I usually try to avoid it. Unfortunately that is not the best strategy in a lot of situations.

Just because I'm embarrassed doesn't mean I should stop talking. I have valuable things to say.

Just because I'm overwhelmed doesn't mean I should stop pushing. The work must get done.

Just because the conversation is awkward doesn't mean it isn't important. They deserve to know.

Just because I am afraid doesn't mean I should run away. Success requires risk.

Just because it's hard doesn't mean I should stop.

There will always be pain in life. I can experience the pain now by pushing through the discomfort in pursuit of a higher goal or I can feel the pain later through regret and failure.

The choice is mine.

The choice is yours.

Gary Johnson

The presidential election has brought a lot of people to at least look outside of their party on both sides to see if there is anyone worth voting for. The most popular being the Libertarian candidate for president Gary Johnson.

While I do lean on the smaller government end of the spectrum libertarianism is a little beyond my political position. So normally I wouldn't really look at their candidate, but of course this isn't a normal election year. All that being said I looked up Mr. Johnson to see if he might be a beam of light in an otherwise dark race.

He didn't start off well. The first thing I found was his interview where he failed to know what Aleppo was. That wasn't encouraging, but hey, sometimes you just study the wrong stuff and get asked questions you should know the answer to, but just don't... Then I read his opinion on abortion. I realize some people are pro-abortion, but advocating legal abortion while personally being pro-life is one of the most intellectually inconsistent positions you can have.

Now, both of those things are bad, but everyone has a couple issues here and there where you don't completely agree. So then I went on to read about his position on immigration. In short, he says if we fix the process for bringing in legal immigrants that would fix our illegal immigration issue and border security wouldn't work anyway so let's not waste the money. At this point I am really questioning his understanding of the way the world works. Especially given the fact that he was the governor of New Mexico. Sure we should reform immigration, but bad people do like to come into our country on occasion and maybe we should try to stop that.

The death knell though was this article. In it he talks about religious liberty in a way that blows my mind. You really should read it. There is too much to give a concise review. It's terrible. I think the worst bit, and the bit that made me seriously question the "libertarian" label he carries is the statement "it is the [federal] governments job to prevent discrimination in all cases." I'm not a big fan of discrimination and all, but for a libertarian to make a statement like that is beyond the pale.

So, I am sorry Mr. Johnson. You will not be getting my vote. I'd rather vote for Trump to keep Hillary out than vote for you and your terribly half baked policy stances and general ignorance.

Governmental Legitimacy

While the reality of a situation is important, the perceived reality often plays a bigger role in how things play out. There is no better example of this than in whether or not a government is considered legitimate or not.

We live in a republic. That means we vote to put people in place who then make decisions for us. Often through a process of they themselves voting. However, most people perceive the United States to be more of a democracy. This is an important distinction. Because when we vote for the president we are actually not voting for the president. We are, on a state by state basis, offering a suggestion to our Senators and Congressmen on who to vote for.

The way the president is actually elected is by the elected members of the legislative branch voting for the president. That means there are 535 votes that actually count. The vote that happens in every state usually works where the candidate with the most votes from the people gets voted for by that states representatives in a winner takes all style. However, there is  no law stating that the representatives actually have to vote in any particular way. So it is possible that on election day the popular vote could be completely ignored and the Senate and Congress could just elect whoever they wanted to. Running or no. That would be unprecedented, but it would it would in no way be illegal.


A more likely scenario, and one that actually happened in 2000 in the election between George Bush and Al Gore is where the popular vote went for Gore, but the electoral college went for Bush. This was because of the unevenness of each states population and the number of representatives they have.

Regardless of how it happens though the electoral college offers many ways for "the people's choice" to not win. That is an issue. It is fine as far as being a legitimate way that republics run, but people don't see it that way. So why muddy the issue? Scrub the electoral college and just go with the popular vote. Then there is no risk of widespread unhappiness due to the "wrong" candidate winning. Even if it is perfectly above board and by the book. The government is only as legitimate as people think it is.

I Hope it Works

Today we went on a field trip. We drove to DC, took the metro into town, spent hours exploring the air and space museum, ate lunch from a food truck, rode the metro back, and drove home with almost instantly sleeping kids. It was a packed day.

On the face of it it sounds like an awesome day, and there were a lot of high points. The question I had though at the end was is this getting through? We spent the majority of the time in the museum directing attention, corralling stragglers, and generally failing to explain the coolness/importance of the things we were looking at. There were some very frustrating moments to be honest.

I realize I might be taking it all a bit too seriously given our kids ages, but I really wonder, at the end of the day, when we were riding the metro back to the car, what were they taking with them? What did they learn? Were seeds sown that will grow into a desire for exploration? Will it inspire learning?

I hope so. I guess the final take aways from our contributions as parents are rarely seen until years later, and even maybe not then. But I wish I could see it now.

On Hiring Humans

I have had the opportunity in my career to apply for a relatively high number of jobs. In that time I have learned that there are generally two categories that can be used to describe employers.

The first category is employers that hire robots. These employers request input for a job. Good little robots fill out forms and submit documents and fill out all the spots with the little red asterisk, meaning required, and they all are required. Once the little robot has now entered a request for employment and it will be processed in the time it takes to process it. Some time later the employer informs the robot that its presence is required for a series of inspections. The inspections are designed to find all the flaws in the robot in order to determine if the good compliant robot is sufficiently functional to be allowed to join the glorious utopia the employer has so painstakingly built. Since the employer is fiscally responsible they want to pay as little for the robot as possible. So they insist on a complete record of previous purchases of the robot in order to not over pay. The good little compliant robot then is generously given the opportunity to join the ranks of many other little robots and lives happily forever after.

The second category, which unfortunately is the smaller one, is composed of employers who hire humans. They accept resumes by hand sometimes and engage with the people in the hiring process letting them know what is going on. They recognize that the people they are reviewing are reviewing them just as much and do their best have a work environment that attracts people. When interviewing they respect the candidate realizing that they are hiring them for their talents, not despite their faults. They know that in the connected world we live in people know how much they are worth so they strive to treat them with respect and offer them competitive salaries and benefits for the position they are hiring for.

It is often quite unpleasant to get a job as a robot when you are a human.

Follow Your Passion or Not

We hear almost every day talented, famous, and successful people tell us in acceptance speeches, interviews, and how-to's tell us to follow our passions. "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." All these people are successful, and they almost universally cite following their passions as the key to their success. How can that be wrong?

It's wrong like this. The Maryland lottery sells millions of dollars every week in lottery tickets. All total $1.908 billion in tickets were purchased in 2015. Of that $1.135 billion went to prizes. If you went and asked those people who won big what their advice would be, I bet to a person they would say, "you won't win if you don't play". However, on average you are only going to win $0.59 for every dollar you spend on the lottery. Realistically it's even less than that because a big chunk of the money goes to a few big winners where there is a astonishingly small probability you will be. Playing the lottery is a losing proposition.

"Follow your passion" is the same thing. Looking at the winners tricks you into thinking that is the key to winning in life. But for your average person that is more than likely poor if no terrible advice. Here is what actually determines success.

1. You are interested in a thing. If you have no interest in something it is hard to have any motivation to do it. This isn't passion though. It can be a low level interest. Just enough to get you by. It's hard to do something well if you hate it.
2. You are good at the thing. If you aren't good at something, no matter how passionate you really shouldn't try to make it a vocation. The world is a big place and there are lots of people who are good at it. So they will overshadow you.
3. There is a market for the thing. You love to do the thing, you are good at doing the thing, but no one cares enough to pay for you doing it. That's not a recipe for success. If there isn't anyone willing to pay you are good to have a bad time.

So find that accountant job that is kinda boring but pays the bills. Be a receptionist because there is honest work to be done. Do you best and grow in that field. Practice your underwater basket weaving in the evenings and weekends and enjoy it. Share your passion with your friends. Life a good life. Maybe someday it will find that perfect niche and blow up, but it probably won't. That's ok. We aren't all going to be super stars, but we can all be content and enjoy our passions in the corner of the world we are in.

Rule of Law

The rule of law is incredibly important. It is the very foundation upon which our nation was built. When the United States was founded it was in reaction to the rule of man. The king was not listening to the colonies and was oppressing them so when they were deciding upon the structure of the nation they wanted to permanently avoid the abuses they had experienced. The only way to ensure that was to not have a person as the highest authority. Thus the constitution was born. The constitution is the highest authority in the land. It cannot be overruled. It can be changed, and has been 27 times, but it is still the final authority.

Every law we have flows from the authority of the constitution. Including the concept that the law is the ruling factor not man. We do have judges to interpret laws, but their authority is very limited even if they do not like the law in question they still have to follow it. Since not everyone likes all the laws we have we have methods and processes for adding or changing or removing laws in order to adapt our legal system as necessary.

Unfortunately there seems to be a growing trend towards people wanting to ignore the law. Not in a "breaking the law" kind of way, but more ignoring it. Here is an article about President Obama systematically ignoring laws that he doesn't like. It is a bit old, but it illustrates the point. More recently we have the example of Hillary Clinton ignoring the rules and laws dictating the handling of secure information as well as general government business communication, and the FBI choosing to ignore her infractions.

There is a wider issue of government leaders, particularly on the left, taking an "ends justifies the means" strategy when it comes to advancing their agendas. Even if I agreed with their end goals I would still be upset. They are undermining the foundation of our democracy. Our government was built with systems in place to change things. USE THEM. If you can't get the changes you want then argue your case. Be more persuasive. And maybe, just maybe you will still fail because most people don't agree. It's called democracy.

One last example, and probably the worst I have seen. The supreme court in Obergefell v Hodges ruled that state level bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional. They declared that there was a constitutional right for same sex marriage. Now, regardless of my opinion of whether or not that was a good ruling in the sense that same sex marriage should be allowed it was totally reprehensible on the basis that the constitution does not discuss marriage let alone homosexuality. So the idea that they could strike down state constitutional amendments on such weak grounds is mind boggling. I will close with this excerpt from Justice Scalia's dissent on the ruling.

“[I]t is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create ‘liberties’ that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

Energy - Part 4: Solar (Again)

Yesterday I said that my ideal energy system would involve 100% on location solar production. Let me outline a little more why I say that.

1. Solar works well as a distributed system, meaning you don't lose efficiency having everyone generate their own power. In fact you can gain efficiency. Due to losses in the electric grid 8-15% of  electricity generated at any power plant is lost.
2. Distributed systems can be more robust than systems that rely on large central hubs (power plants) to operate. There are a lot of potential threats to large power grids. From weather, natural disasters, to hacking, and terrorism large and spread out infrastructure presents a big target for disruption.
3. Because of the nature of the technology solar is relatively low maintenance. Especially when compared to big power plants like coal or nuclear. Solar panel efficiency does degrade over time, but unless some external physical damage occurs they don't require regular maintenance except maybe cleaning.
4. Solar panels don't require fuel. You put them up and the work. No fuel prices to complain about going up. No mining operations to provide a continuous supply of sunshine. This means that solar becoming more accepted and used does not translate into a bigger negative environmental impact.
5. Solar panel operation doesn't produce waste. You don't have to find someplace to stick all the used up photons. It just makes electricity.
6. It really provides for a democratization of energy production. Maintaining neighborhood electrical networks is probably a good thing in order to provide electricity in case someone's system has a problem, but keeping the power generation very local allows individuals to have a much bigger say.
7. Very related to 6 if all power generation was local, and electric transportation was the norm the energy industry would be more or less out of business. There would be solar panel companies, but the energy industry would be mostly out of the business of supply/distribution/disposal. I don't have anything inherently against big business, but the fewer big powerful interests there are the better assuming we don't need them.
8. By eliminating the need for big electrical distribution infrastructure we won't have the ugly power lines all over and building new neighborhoods and communities will become cheaper because there is less overhead required.

We are not close to this being practical or happening. Solar is only ~2% of domestic electricity production. So we will probably rely on other sources for quite a while. I want the transition to happen, but it needs to happen in a natural way as the technology becomes more mature. I think the worst thing would be for the government to try to force a shift to solar. Good technology naturally takes hold and expands. We have a market driven economy. Let it sort out the timing and what the solar economy should look like.

Energy - Part 3: Solar

As far as straight production solar is about the purest form of energy production there is. There is no fuel, there is no waste, there is no conversion process. The sun shines and boom, electricity. It's simple and clean. Unfortunately, it only works when the sun is shining. Also, historically it has been very expensive, but the price has been dropping rapidly. Here is a graph of the cost of photo voltaic solar cells (PV) in $ per watt.



The price has dramatically dropped over the past forty years and continues to drop by double digit percentages per year. In some markets solar energy is cheaper than traditional coal and natural gas power, and as the price of solar continues to drop it will outstrip them in more and more markets.

The issue of solar down time means that it will probably be a long time before solar can be the sole power source for an energy market. However, there are more and more products for storing energy that could in time provide enough capacity for a lot of solar only applications. Big name players are getting into the market including Lockheed Martin and Tesla.

I like solar because of it's simplicity. You put up a solar array and get power. There is no refuling or waste management and you get the same efficiency with a massive solar plant as you do with one panel all else being equal. This allows for distributed power production which cuts down on transmission losses as well as providing a more robust system in the case of disasters. If I have solar panels on my roof my house will still have power even if the grid is down. And if I have an electric car I can charge my car myself. No oil infrastructure needed. In my mind a 100% electric economy powered by solar is the ideal. But that is a long way off.

Energy - Part 2: Thorium Reactors

After World War II the United States government poured a lot of money into developing nuclear power. As is the case with most new technology there were several methods being developed. We are familiar with Uranium reactors. They are the reactors used world wide. The other technology being developed at that time was a nuclear reactor based on Thorium-232. Due to a number of factors, one of which was the ability to use Uranium reactors to make materials for nuclear weapons, the Thorium reactor research was fully canceled in 1973. Another reason was light water uranium reactors worked well in submarines.

Uranium reactors can work well, but they have several major issues. They operate under pressure, so if something happens to the pressure containment vessels you get an explosion of radioactive material. Chernobyl and Fukushima are examples of this happening. Modern reactor designs have a lot of protections against this happening, but it is still a risk. Secondly, nuclear reactors operate by turning Uranium into Plutonium. Which you can make bombs out of. Now, if you want nuclear bombs that is great, but if you don't and you don't want anyone else to either that creates a new problem to manage.

Thorium reactors operate differently. They use liquid fuel instead of solid. They are not water cooled so there is not pressurized water ready to cause massive hydrogen explosions. This leads to a number of advantages for Thorium reactors.

1. They have an "strong negative temperature coefficient of reactivity." That means that the hotter the reactor gets the worse it is a running a nuclear reaction. That means that you can't overheat the reactor because if you do it begins to shut itself down. Additionally the designs developed have a salt plug that if the reactor gets too hot will automatically melt the plug and drain the fuel out into a storage tank shutting the reactor down completely. In the reactor built in the 50's the researchers would allow the reactor to overheat every Friday afternoon so the reactor would shut down for the weekend.
2. The molten fluorides used in the reactor are chemically stable and impervious to radiation. That means there is no decay due to burning or decomposition. There are no violent explosions upon contact with water or air that Uranium reactor's sodium coolant has to deal with.
3. As I said before, LFTRs operate at low pressures. Equivalent to the pressures experienced in a home water system. So no pressure explosions.
4. They are easy to control. In solid fuel reactors Xenon-135 builds up in the fuel and makes control difficult. Molten fuel reactors allow the Xenon to escape eliminating the issue.
5. Thorium reactors have very high heat capacities and the coolant and fuel are inseparable. So a large quantity of coolant will accompany any leak if one develops. Also, if an accident does happen the heat capacity can handle significant heat fluctuations.
6. The inevitable nuclear waste that comes from the Thorium process degrades to a safe level in 300 years. That's a long time, but compared to 24,000 years for Uranium reactor waste it's not long at all. The second part of that is the overall quantity of waste produced is massively less making disposal significantly easier. 
7. Making a nuclear bomb out of Thorium is basically impossible making the risk of nuclear proliferation very low.
8. Finally, Thorium is EVERYWHERE. You have thorium in your yard. Mines dump tons of the stuff as unused byproducts of their mining operations. And once you have it you don't have to do any special refining to get it ready to use. You just dump it in. Compared to the very involved processes required for Uranium that's a good deal.

All that being said, we really should develop Thorium reactors. The safety and simplicity of Thorium really should be examined. Especially given the extremely low environmental impact.

Energy - Part 1

In my previous post about environmentalism I focused on the second half of the Genesis 1:27-31 command about the earth and animals. The first half offers the counter balance to it. "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" - Genesis 1:27a. A major part of being able to fill the earth is being able to produce the resources necessary sustain an earth filling population (what that is is a topic for another day).

If we fail to produce enough resources for a planet full of people to live at a reasonable standard of living we have not fulfilled the command. So we have to balance the need to produce large quantities of resources for all these people as well as maintaining an environment that affords an opportunity for these same people to live healthy and pleasant lives.

Going to my post yesterday I wanted to break out some of the points and explore them a little more deeply. To give myself the opportunity to learn more about each of these topics.

A major element in sustaining a global population is energy. Energy allows us to make light, to be comfortable (warm/cool), to move things (shipping), to build things, to make things. A society's ability to produce, distribute, and use energy is one of the biggest factors in a society's ability to prosper and enjoy a higher standard of living.

The graph below shows the breakdown of energy sources used here in the US as of 2014.




The next graph here shows where that energy is used in our economy.




Each of these energy sources has a cost both in dollars and cents and in environmental impact it it's production, distribution, and end use. Here is a link comparing the cost of a number of energy production methods.


I'll try to explore the environmental impact of each of them next.

The Genesis of Environmentalism - Part 2

Since I've been thinking about how I would manage the environment if it were up to me I am realizing that I am pretty under-informed in a lot of areas to be able to really make a thorough plan. As such I am going to offer a plan that probably has a lot of holes and is under-informed. It will at least give me a framework for future thought though.

Energy
Based on previous posts I do not think global warming or climate change is an issue significant enough to warrant particular attention. As such the CO2 content of any particular energy source doesn't matter to me. Despite that, alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, and tidal energy are increasingly becoming economical and offer opportunities to diversify our energy supply. Solar particularly seems to have the potential for being a very low impact energy source. In general the less land you have to mess up to use a resource the better I like it. The fewer and smaller messes you make the easier it is to clean them up.

Nuclear is another opportunity that has been significantly neglected. Newer reactor designs avoid many of the issues that led to the nuclear tragedies of the past. We don't see them because the number of new reactors built is so low. Increasing our nuclear capacity seems like a great opportunity.

Another aspect of nuclear is thorium reactors. I really should do a post on them, but in short they could hold the keys to wide spread nuclear power without a lot of the environmental downsides that uranium mining has.

Water
There are a lot of water issues in a lot of places around the world. Between lack of clean water and rapidly depleting aquifers there is a lot of risk. I think all water sources should be managed to avoid irrevocable damage. This comes at the risk of acute water shortages. However, with the advent of modern desalination plants that seems to be a decreasingly severe issue. All water used, particularly for commercial purposes should be sustainable. If that means industries have to leave certain areas or scale down their operations then so be it. Destroying regional water supplies is not good stewardship of our resources.

Food
There are certainly challenges with food. There are a lot of people in the world who do not have good food sources. However, a lot of the issues of hunger are issues of logistics not of supply. Many poor/starving regions are such because of corruption and poor management by the local governments which is not a supply issue.

On the production side, there are a lot of concerns about GMOs and mono-cultures (large regions of only one crop). The key to all of these subjects is sustainability. Just because we have done it for 20, 40, 60 years doesn't mean we can do it for the next 500. I don't know enough to say much more, but I feel like there are risks that we are not addressing very thoroughly.

Forests
Trees are very important for filtering air as well as creating the all important oxygen we need to breath. They also provide habitat for wildlife and places for recreation. We should manage them well in order to provide the most benefit we can from them. Determine how big they should be to best provide the resources and services possible.

A concerted effort to preserve and recreate old growth forests is an important thing as well. They bring unique habitats as well as other ecological benefits that baby forests don't manage.

Air
Every human and animal breaths air. We need it to be clean. It I think the US has done a pretty good job of cleaning our air up over the past decades since the passage of the clean air act in 1963. One thing that we can do to further improve though is increasing adoption of electric vehicles. Cars and trucks are one of the largest sources of air pollution worldwide. So a significant switch to electric motors could significantly increase air quality.

Recycling
I've talked about Sweden's amazing recycling and waste use system. Increasing our ability to reprocess used materials allows us to make mining for materials more sustainable.

There is probably a lot more, but these are what I thought of. The main theme I want to follow is all interactions with the environment should be characterized by their sustainability. Whether that comes from processes that don't do damage in the first place or from clean up after the fact we should strive to leave the pieces of the world we use nicer than we found them. In the long run it will give us a nicer world to live in as well as increase our ability to produce the resources needed to do everything else we want to.

The Genesis of Environmentalism - Part 1

Go read Genesis 1:26-31. In verse 28 G-d gives the first command to humans. "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." He follows that up by giving us all the plants of the earth for food. That was before Adam and Eve fell. That was before G-d said to stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So, given it was G-d's first command it seems like it was important. Our G-d given job description as humans is to "subdue" the earth and to have "dominion" over all living things. That puts us in charge of managing the earth. We are responsible for it. The interesting thing about being us being the managers of earth is that I feel like it puts us in an odd middle spot between the two standard ideological positions.

Position 1: "Environmentalism"
Environmentalism generally takes the stance, in varying levels of extreme, that the earth must be preserved and that we as humans are impinging on it's ideal human free state.

Position 2: "Consumerism"
I'm using the term consumerism a little out of it's normal usage, but the idea is similar and related. The earth is big and rich and we should use it as much as we want. We are so little how could we screw it up?

Both positions are very much out of line with the Genesis command. On the first, G-d gave us dominion which means sovereignty or control. That means that we are expected to use and change nature. Not hide ourselves from it. On the second side, when coupled with the rest of scripture the idea of dominion implies good stewardship which requires reasoned management and preservation of resources. So needlessly making messes and not cleaning them up is antithetical to the authority given in the command.

Tomorrow I will explore what it SHOULD look like. At least in my opinion.

Kids Are Great

Kids are great. They afford so many opportunities to learn and grow as a parent. Their mere existence offers ample opportunities to point out my hypocrisy. Like the other day with interrupting. They point out deficiencies in my patience. They help me overcome my over attachment to physical possessions. They point out many of my flaws and help me recognize my deficiencies. They help increase my tolerance for bodily fluids. They give me excuses to run around like a goof. They help me fully explore all the levels of sleep deprivation. They are the cutest things ever.

I'm glad I have kids.

Value

Value can be a very slippery thing. Some things seem to have clear inherent value. Food for example. It is obvious what is is good for and why people want it. So if I am hungry and there is only one choice of food, even if it is $50 for some plane baked potatoes I am going to buy them. Why? Because I am hungry. However, as soon as you begin to offer options and price variations the value of any particular option becomes much more hazy.

At that point each food choice competes with the others for what looks like it aligns with my priorities the most. What looks the like it tastes the best. What is cheapest. What is the healthiest. What reminds me of my mama's cooking the most. What I can eat while I am driving. What will impress my friends. In the end the value isn't intrinsic to any characteristics of the product. What finally matters is how closely you are led to believe the product fits with your values. And not your "values" that you would necessarily give if asked, but your true values.

So look at what you buy. Think about what your consumption says about you. It will be honest. I hope you like what you see.

Basic Manners

It is easy to take some things for granted. Like knowing how to walk around things when you want to get to the other side of the room. Or how to put food in your mouth without getting it in your hair, on your forehead, or all over the floor. We all learned those lessons at some point, but it was so long ago we have forgotten.

Having kids affords the opportunity to be reminded that these things are learned behavior. It also reminds me about some other things. Like, not interrupting people. I went on a walk this evening with all three kids and I am not sure anyone finished a sentence. I spent most of the walk just getting them to take turns talking. It was a mad house (walk).

It made me realize I should be a little more careful about interrupting people myself. I'm thankfully not as bad as three little kids, but I know I do do it.

So thank G-d for kids who remind me with comical overstatement to have basic manners and to not be so proud that I forget that I haven't always known where my mouth was.