essays etc.
latest: Beyond Civilized and Primitive, February 15
novel
Apocalypsopolis, book one
zines
Civilization Will Eat Itself, Superweed 1-4, best of
forums
Talk to each other.
misc.
advice,
links,
books, and more!
"People do not go to hell after death. The designers and builders of hell are human beings. The designs and buildings are almost completed. It is becoming difficult to add more hell."
- Tamo-san
essays etc.
latest: Beyond Civilized and Primitive, February 15
novel
Apocalypsopolis, book one
zines
Civilization Will Eat Itself, Superweed 1-4, best of
forums
Talk to each other.
misc.
advice,
links,
books, and more!
May 13. I made a big mistake in yesterday's post, but it's a common one: we talk about "intelligence" as if it has a single definition that we all agree on (don't even get me started on "love"), but if I tried to list definitions, I could get to fifty before I even slowed down. IQ tests, for example, mostly measure skill in detached manipulation of abstract symbols, which is completely different from a popular definition of intelligence, "the ability to learn." Learn what? In the fruit fly experiment, we assume they're learning habits, since we don't think fruit flies are capable of abstract thought. But as humans, we can learn on many levels, including habits, skills, and mental models. And then there's a difference between quickness of learning, quantity of learning, and depth of learning. And there's a difference between learning something new, and erasing something old and replacing it with something new -- which is not the same as the ability to perceive the need to replace an obsolete model with a new one. And that's not the same as the ability to act on the updated model.
To immediately recognize a difference between the map and the territory, correct the map, and adjust our behavior, is the key skill for mental-map-making creatures like humans. If we had it, almost everything wrong with the world would be fixed. But it's not measured by any intelligence test I've ever heard of, it may not be increasing, and it might not even be good to call it "intelligence." Aaron comments: "The real problem is an emotional/spiritual one. Our culture lives on denial like it lives on easy credit -- with a similar kind of crash coming."
I liked the fruit fly experiment because what it tested in fruit flies is somewhat close to what humans need: to observe a change in the world, like "the industrial lifestyle is causing a climate disaster," or "McCain is no longer a maverick," and to change our behavior accordingly. What worries me is that if we have a post-crash world that changes very slowly, there will be no evolutionary pressure on us to learn to adapt mentally to change. And until we learn to effortlessly update our mental models, or to not make mental models in the first place -- until we lose our brainpower or lose our blindness -- we're just going to keep going out of balance.
May 12. Scary article from last week: Lots of animals learn, but smarter isn't better. Scientists bred fruit flies to be very fast learners, but it turned out to be a disadvantage: the stupid fruit flies outcompeted the smart ones, and the smart ones regressed. This is scary because we have to assume that humans work the same way. We've been getting smarter over the last few centuries because the rapid pace of change has rewarded intelligence, but if the world changes to one that's more static, and also more physically difficult, humans will become stupid again. That's exactly what would happen after a hard crash. Even a primitivist utopia would be populated by even dimmer people than you see around you now (although they would seem smarter because their intelligence would be better matched with their activities). As I said in the last essay, the challenge before us is to build a society that is in constant flux, but that doesn't collapse. If we fail on either count, our meager gains in intelligence will be lost, domination systems will arise that exploit our slow learning, and the cycle will repeat.
May 12. Speculation is beginning about Obama's running mate, and I think he should totally pick a woman. It would do several things at once: re-energize his campaign, cut off any attempt by the Clintons to hijack the VP spot, heal the Democratic party, and win the votes of everyone who voted for Hillary because she's a woman, while alienating the people who voted for her because she's a cross between Joe Lieberman and Madonna. The Democratic party is better off without those voters -- they can go stink up the Republicans.
I've seen three women's names floated so far: Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, and Missouri senator Claire McCaskill. If he does pick a dude, I think Joe Biden would be ideal, not only because of his foreign policy credentials, but because he was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he's been running for President since 1984, so it's his turn.
May 10. So Barack Obama has finally passed Hillary Clinton in superdelegates. I was curious and used the CBS Delegate Scorecard to count the ordinary delegates through every stage of the campaign, and the results were surprising: Before Super Tuesday, Obama won 72-47. On Super Tuesday, Obama won 852-831. For the rest of February, in his big surge, Obama won 284-163. And in all contests since then, Obama has squeaked it out 379-375. Clinton will make that up and more with the West Virginia primary, but it's too late. I wonder if she could have won if she had let Obama be the front-runner in the media, and held her superdelegates and money in reserve.
May 10. Today I used that donation money to go see Iron Man. I was disappointed in its politics: Swarthy central Asian militiamen: evil; Shadowy government agency with "homeland" in the title: good; Military contractors: would be good except for one evil guy. Still, it was a lot of fun, the ending was great, and I had a nice bike ride.
May 9. Mostly good news today. First, I can't resist reposting this 2004 piece by Malcolm Gladwell on SUV's, so that I can gloat at their demise. This is my favorite bit:
SUV buyers said they liked the elevated driving position. But when, in focus groups, industry marketers probed further, they heard things that left them rolling their eyes... what consumers said was "If the vehicle is up high, it's easier to see if something is hiding underneath or lurking behind it."
And check this out! Someone has invented an easy home ethanol refiner:
"You just mix together water, sugar and yeast, and in a few hours, you start getting ethanol." The $9995 Micro Fueler can fill its own 35-gallon tank in about a week.
If this kind of machine gets affordable and popular, I see two unintended consequences: people will sell the alcohol for drinking, and sugars will get really expensive. And that will raise the price of junk food, and poor people will get less unhealthy and rich people will get fat, just like in the days before sugar subsidies.
Even better news (thanks Matt): Youngstown Ohio embraces shrinkage!
Now, in a radical move, the city is bulldozing abandoned buildings, tearing up blighted streets and converting entire blocks into open green spaces.... Already, delegations from smaller, post-industrial cities like Flint MI, Wheeling WV, and Dayton OH, have come to Youngstown to study the plan.
Ashley sends this related article about urban gardening in New York City.
And finally, one of the most exciting ideas I've seen, TechShop: for a monthly fee, anyone can get access to hundreds of light industrial tools, classes on how to use them, and a community of inventors and tinkerers. I think Ned Ludd himself would have liked this, and if I could have imagined it, I wouldn't have used "industrial" as a dirty word. Throughout history, machines have mostly been allied with Control, and many of them have built-in qualities that make that alliance inevitable, but many do not, and TechShop could be part of a movement to reinvent machines as allies of Life.
The other day the NY Times had an article about Steampunk, but you can tell they failed to understand it because they put it in the fashion section. The correct and more radical category is technology. If you look past the Victorian frippery, Steampunk is a technological ethic that trades the factory for the garage, standardization for uniqueness, and "progress" for a mix of tools from every age.
May 9. Thanks Cannon and EJ for $10 and $25 donations. Cannon requested I do something fun with it so maybe I'll go see Iron Man tomorrow.
May 8. This NY Times graphic is designed to show how much inflation there is in all the stuff Americans spend money on, but it's much more valuable in showing All The Stuff Americans Spend Money On. If you're interested in "dropping out" or just living more lightly or frugally, think about how many sections of the chart you could live without. As the depression deepens, people will have the option to save a ton of money just by sharing housing and cars, if they're willing. Also, do you notice the enormous expense that appears nowhere on the chart and reveals by its absence the political bias of the NY Times? Yep, payments on debt!
May 8. Barry Kauler, the heroic creator of Puppy Linux, has just finished a major new version that took almost seven months. Here are the release notes for Puppy "Dingo" 4.00. I spent yesterday upgrading -- it took extra long because I decided to switch from Firefox to Puppy's default browser, SeaMonkey. It's not as full-featured as Firefox, but it's quite good, and I was able to customize it to look nice and have the absolutely essential multi-site search box in the upper right.
And while I'm on the subject of personal tech-related stuff, I've also been hanging out on LyricWiki. If you've ever tried to look up song lyrics online, you might have noticed a problem: all the sites copy from all the other sites, so you can have the illusion of authoritative truth, with 20 pages in agreement, but there are huge errors and clearly nobody ever sat down and carefully checked the map against the territory. LyricWiki can fix this, and on Tuesday, after I cleaned up "That's About The Size Of It", I spent several hours adding seven missing songs to Beat Happening's Black Candy album.
May 7. I've got a lot of stuff backed up so I'm going to try not to linger on any particular subject. Thanks Erki for asking a question about my 100 things about me page and thereby reminding me that I hadn't updated it in more than two years. Yesterday I went through and changed some things, mostly minor, like I use baking soda every time I brush my teeth now, and the hottest Hollywood actress is no longer Rose McGowan (who looks awful now) but the ineffable Zooey Deschanel.
Also, when I reread the Sesame Street bit, I remembered that I've been meaning to track down my favorite Sesame Street cartoon, which I hadn't seen in 35 years. I remembered it started with a white cylindrical object being moved by an ant, and it zoomed out to bigger and bigger things, including a zoo, until finally at the largest scale it circled around and became the little thing again. Well, I found it! Its strict title is Infinity and it's better known as That's About The Size Of It. Those links go to two different copies on YouTube, with clearer sound in the first. It's even better than I remembered, with the end/beginning circle done in a subtle way, and the song is wonderful. Yesterday I watched it about twenty times!
May 7. Interesting link from Anne, Nightwalking. In some ways this is the opposite of the kind of fringe writing I like, authors like John Keel or Rupert Sheldrake who write with great care and precision about stuff that's not conventionally explainable. This guy writes with sloppiness and wild credulity about mostly explainable stuff, and he makes some mistakes, including the myth that vitamin A will improve your night vision, which is only true if you're deficient. But there are also some good ideas, and his main thesis is exciting: you can get into an altered state of consciousness by walking around continually focusing your attention on your peripheral vision, especially if you do it at night.
May 6. Sally sends this awesome and depressing article from Orion magazine about the invention of consumerism by evil elites in the 1920's. Our American habit of buying and buying and never being satisfied did not arise naturally, but was the calculated result of years of propaganda. Also, the reason we have a 40 hour work week and not a 30 hour work week is that people like Edward Bernays, who was probably the Antichrist, thought that leisure time would make the masses too hard to control.
May 6. Yesterday I said I hoped it would be my last Obama/Clinton post, but I was lying. I love the subject because it cuts to the heart of what's wrong with America. Obama has a reputation as a straight talker, but really he's only taking tiny cautious steps away from pandering and toward talking to Americans like intelligent adults. He's the first leading presidential candidate to even move in that direction since Jimmy Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" speech, and there's room to go a lot farther. And this is what infuriates me about Clinton. When Obama surged in February, she knew she had to make some changes, and she had all the room in the world to run to the smart side of him, the honest side, the courageous side, and the left side. Polls on the issues have shown that the Democratic candidate closest to the American people -- not just Democratic voters but the average of everyone -- is Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich is mainstream and every other candidate is on the right!
If Hillary Clinton had said, "We're going to immediately pull out of Iraq, and make a non-profit single-payer health care plan that's so good we don't even have to ask whether it's mandatory, and pay for it by cutting the military and taxing the hell out the super-rich, and bring the federal minimum wage up to what it was in 1968 adjusted for inflation, and go to a 30 hour work week, and cap all interest at the rate banks use to loan money to each other, and totally redo the farm bill to help small farmers and not big agribusiness," I would have gone to the legislative district convention and switched from Obama to Clinton.
Instead she lied, pandered, and ran to the right. And the depressing thing is, it's working! Since March 4 she has won 288 delegates to Obama's 280. What is wrong with people? My best guess is, Clinton has learned how to tap into the most evil primal emotions, just like Bush and Hitler, and put people in a hypnotic mental state where they're focused on a leader who never apologizes and an external enemy, and they actually become hostile to careful thinking and expansion of their consciousness. She says "my daddy taught me to shoot" and nobody notices that she was one of only 16 senators who voted to allow the government to confiscate legally owned firearms during an emergency.
You know, maybe they should confiscate our guns if we're so fucking stupid. Humans as a species have to learn to transcend the anti-intellectual-war-tribe mental state, to make it a tiny part of who we are that we can get into and out of as easily as blinking our eyes. In Tolkien terms, we have to evolve from orcs to elves. And if it takes us a million years to do it, then life on this planet is going to suck for a million years.
May 5. I hope this will be my last post on Obama vs Clinton. A lot of people argue that Obama and Clinton are the same, but this is based on two false assumptions: that the president is absolute dictator, and that once in office, candidates do exactly what they said they would do when they were campaigning. The reason Obama and Clinton appear so close on policy is that the requirement for what you have to say on the teevee to get the Democratic nomination is now as tight as the eye of a needle. But what they would do in office is fundamentally different.
Clinton is a relentless fighter, but she's not good at working with people, she's not good at adapting, her campaign has shown she's not a good manager, and she's not even good at winning her fights. Her Senate career has been balancing symbolic gestures on social issues with full-on neoconservatism on foreign policy. We are entering a depression, and when the strikes and riots start, Clinton's first instinct will not be to work with strikers and rioters, but fight them (us). She is owned by lobbyists and will take her actions from the interests of lobbyists and take her words from pollsters and focus groups. And worst of all, while she is doing all this, everyone will think of her as a pushy liberal, and we'll get a huge right wing backlash in 2012, just like we got in 2000 after the first Clinton presidency.
Barack Obama is a good listener, an excellent manager, and has done more in two years in the Senate than Clinton has done in six. He has spoken again and again about bottom-up change and transparency, and he is largely owned by the 1.5 million individual donors who have financed his campaign. When the depression hits, Obama is far more likely than Clinton to work with the uppity rabble. He is setting himself up as a tool that we can use to change the system (and we have to, for his presidency to be effective). On foreign policy, he is less likely to attack Iran, and more likely to make peace with the rest of the world in an age where continuing to fight would be catastrophic.
On health care reform, no matter who wins, we're up shit creek. I'll post on that some other time. And here are a ton of links I've posted before about why I like Obama and not Clinton:
Judge Obama by His Laws ... 37 Bills Written or Co-Sponsored by Barack Obama ... I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype ... An hour and a half with Barack Obama ... Samantha Power on why she joined Obama ... Andrew Sullivan on Why Obama Matters ... and A former Clinton supporter can't believe he's standing up for Obama.
Behind Obama and Clinton: Who's whispering in their ears says a lot ... Hillary Clinton on International Law ... The Curious Myth of Hillary Clinton's Senate Effectiveness ... We forget what it was really like under the Clintons ... The Clintons and Monsanto ... Hillary Clinton and the Fellowship (and more details on the Fellowship) ... and Bill Clinton's Madness: A Consequence of Heart-Bypass Surgery Brain Damage.
May 4. Hillary Clinton's Kentucky Derby horse finishes second and is euthanized! It's an incredible metaphor, but I'm not so confident about the presidential race. Underestimating the intelligence of voters is actually working better for Clinton among Democrats than it worked for Giuliani among Republicans, and she's been gaining in Indiana and North Carolina. I fear that she could do better than expected in the next few weeks, pass Obama in the popular vote and the polls, and get enough momentum to deal her way in at the convention, especially if Al Gore takes her side. I find it troubling that Howard Dean is talking about "electability," language which generally hurts whichever candidate is in the lead because Democrats are cowards.
May 3. Tom sends a link about how to make bike panniers from four gallon plastic buckets. This is the kind of thing we're going to have to get good at when imported manufactured items get really expensive. But for now, especially if you have a job, this is the time to buy stuff before the dollar really collapses. Especially tools and things you can't make yourself.
Tom also asks for details on my tupperware pitcher front bike rack. That link goes to a photo I just took. The metal bands are those thingies, I don't know what they're called but you see them around stuff on basement ceilings and you can get them at hardware stores. The bottom bands are held on merely by their own tension and the nubs on the front fork -- which not all front forks have. The upper bands are held on with thick glue, wrapped by tape, wrapped by wires. Those bolts on the bottom (covered with plastic tubing) are also necessary to support the weight. I chose tupperware pitchers because they're the perfect size to hold two-liter water bottles, and I wanted to put water up front to equalize the weight on long trips. But if you do that, you need some padding on the bottom or else tiny rocks will get in there and puncture your bottles. The perspective on the photo is weird because the bike is currently upside down on the back porch for cleaning and tune-up.
May 2. Minor new post on landblog.