The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

Reminds me of a comment from another time:

Imagine for a moment, then, that we're discussing an experiment involving microbes in a petri dish. The culture medium in the dish contains 5% of a simple sugar that the microbes can eat, and 95% of a more complex sugar they don't have the right enzymes to metabolize. We put a drop of fluid containing microbes into the dish, close the lid, and watch. Over the next few days, a colony of microbes spreads through the culture medium, feeding on the simple sugar.
Then a mutation happens, and one microbe starts producing an enzyme that lets it feed on the more abundant complex sugar. Drawing on this new food supply, the mutant microbe and its progeny spread rapidly, outcompeting the original strain, until finally the culture medium is full of mutant microbes. At this point, though, the growth of the microbes is within hailing distance of the limits of the supply of complex sugar. As we watch the microbes through our microscopes, we might begin to wonder whether they can produce a second mutation that will let them continue to thrive. Yet this obvious question misleads, because there is no third sugar in the culture medium for another mutation to exploit.
The point that has to be grasped here is as crucial as it is easy to miss. The mutation gave the microbes access to an existing supply of highly concentrated food; it didn't create the food out of thin air. If the complex sugar hadn't existed, the mutation would have yielded no benefit at all. As the complex sugar runs out, further mutations are possible - some microbes might end up living on microbial waste products; others might kill and eat other microbes; still others might develop some form of photosynthesis and start creating sugars from sunlight - but all these possibilities draw on resources much less concentrated and abundant than the complex sugar that made the first mutation succeed so spectacularly. Nothing available to the microbes will allow them to continue to flourish as they did in the heyday of the first mutation. -- John Michael Greeg, The innovation fallacy

Liu Xiaobo is on trial. The verdict is due on Dec 25th, 2009, when western media is on holiday so as to reduce international attention on the case.

Liu Xiaobo is a human rights activist and signatory of Charter 08, a groundbreaking manifesto requesting the modernization of the Chinese state. He is charged for “inciting subversion of state power.” Foreign officials support him and Charter 08, and criticize the trial; meanwhile the Chinese government decries diplomatic meddling. Liu Xiaobo faces 15 years in prison for wishing to improve the world.

But there is nothing to see there of course, move along. Your are celebrating Christmas tomorrow!

Recently: http://www.gilestro.tk/2009/lots-of-smoke-hardly-any-gun-do-climatologists-falsify-data/.

Simultaneously, found on the Independer:

Climate models, which is what the "scientists" use cannot produce evidence. They give a large number of "what if" scenarios. Picking one of these because it fits with the political message is snake-oil selling; not science.
Go check the meaning of "chaotic" in the mathematical sense. A dynamic, complex, chaotic system - Earth's climate - cannot be predicted with any certainty, because each element can undergo a small variation which can have a large effect on the whole. This means there are an infinite number of possible outcomes, none of which are any more certain than any other.
Further, climate models exclude two of the most important climate factors - behaviour of oceans and clouds - because computers lack the power to make the necessary calculations.
It is not possible to predict climate with any certainty at any point in the future.
To say scientists have produced evidence of what a 2C - or any other value - will do to the Earth's climate is nonsense.
The models are programmed with the assumption that CO2 can only have a strong positive forcing effect; which is not supported in the peer reviewed scientific literature.
The result of computer models which rely on an assumption cannot be used to prove that assumption.
In any case observation over the past 11 years shows the Earth's climate is not warming by the 0.2C per decade predicted by the IPCC - in fact it is cooling.
If you are interested in fact rather than fiction go here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/hadley-november/

The recent months have kept me more busy than usual with work, but meanwhile my position in a University has altogether increased my consumption of news items, both on paper and in bit arrangements. One would assume that the flurry of world events would call for a steady stream of comments from even the least energetic academic; that is, assuming also that said academic should not feel powerless and insignificant next to the intimidating momentum of mass inertia — or, in many cases, hysteria. And I do, more and more often as I get more informed.

Nonetheless, free speech and ideals are like sex performance: they tend to dwindle away when not used for extended periods of time.

So here we are. Today, I read that some sickos on the other side of the Atlantic call for censorship and some for burning the books — burning the f...ing books ! This is no national-socialist germany of the 30's, nor any kind of dystopian government policy attempting to keep its masses inert nor a new leader clearing its kingdom of impure thoughts.

The issue is terribly simple: in a society where the right of “respect of family values” is fundamental but also individual, i.e. where every parent can decide on their own, without checks and balances, what is “best for their children”, even the intellectually challengend and religiously contaminated folk can initiate expensively time-consuming processes to discuss how to hide from children books which, ultimately, only disturb their parents.

We want parents to decide whether they want their children to have access to these books ... and we want the library's help in identifying [them through labeling and moving]," Maziarka said. "It's just common sense."

Slightly more enlightened discussions on the topic were quick to call for Godwin's support, albeit remarkably pointedly:

"All the books in the young-adult zone that deal with homosexuality are gay-affirming. That's not balance," she said.

Yeah and all the books in the History section are anti-Hitler.

And alas, since any ill-driven social tumult operates as a gravity well for the crazy and troublemakers, alternate parties quickly lowered the debate to the sewers of humanity.

But why bother to care about a local phenomenon that will likely quickly dissipate? After all, previous historical records of similar events are widely available, not to mention that fire has often been a convenient way to cleanse populations due to perceived social “issues.”

Why care? I would propose at least one reason: public disinterest in this story will be justified by utterances of the form “this is the country of free speech, the crazy have as much right to it as everyone else — although nobody will listen to them, or not for long”; meanwhile, even the casual herbalist or seasoned sociologist will notice that the seeds of intolerance are like those of mistrust and stupidity — of a thousand seeds cast in a fertile ground, only one needs to grow to cover the entire field with a vine of hatred. Social responsibility mandates the outmost care in unrooting the signs of decadence, or at least singling them out.

“It's just common sense.”

Looking at the world since 2001, according to WHO & other reports:

• >2,500,000,000 humans living with less than $2 per day (decreasing);
• 50,000,000-70,000,000 deaths per year, of which:
  • >7,000,000 deaths per year due to cancer (increasing)
  • >2,500,000 deaths per year due to HIV/AIDS (variable)
  • >1,000,000 deaths per year due to malaria (variable)
  • >1,000,000 deaths per year due to traffic accidents (variable)
  • >1,000,000 deaths per year due to natural accidents (flood, fire, drownings — variable)
  • >800,000 deaths per year due to suicide
  • >400,000 deaths per year due to nutritional deficiencies (increasing)
  • >150,000 deaths per year due to wars
• and then...
  • <300 deaths total due to mad cow disease (decreasing)
  • ~600 deaths (as of april 2009) due to swine flu (increasing)
  • ~750,000 deaths per year due to nazi holocaust (average between 1933 and 1945)

These numbers were dancing in my head as I was visiting Oświęcim and its surroundings. Hurray for relativity.

Today's conversation added to the list of concerns evolving around my mind at the moment:

• will China invade Siberia when oil becomes scarce? or Iran?
• what will be the form of the next conflict between Japan and China?
• who will end up controlling North Korea?
• why doesn't the ECB propose to invest in a deep and far-fetching solution for the American mortgage crisis? Why doesn't China propose either?
• How is the obligation to carry identity documents helping against “terrorism”?
• what will be the long term evolution of the current tendency of governments to alienate citizens into criminals and “protect” them against themselves?

Evidence shows clearly that we will not be able to eat fish in the future unless strong global policing action is taken now. We know already that future generations will never enjoy cod as a popular and usual dish. Still, even so-called “developed” countries make irrational political moves about fishing and short-sightedness combined with global disinterest runs rampant.

Overfishing is a canonical example of a tragedy of the commons. In other words, everyone is responsible, and nobody cares.

A topic I was debating the other day with a new colleague was: why should we care? Another I was debating longer ago with an older friend was: should we take responsibility for other people's actions and reduce our demand for fish to induce a decrease in production?

The conclusion was straightforward: any purely rational approach based on a fundamentally individualistic philosophy (where everyone should be only responsible for their own actions) dictates unsustainable behaviors. This is a logical conclusion, leaving choices to be made:

• not be rational: let God dictate what is “good for you,” possibly reducing your environmental footprint. Possibly effective, but unpredictable.
• empathize with fellow humans worldwide and time-wide (of the future), then take responsibility for other people's actions and act. Likely effective, but equally unlikely to happen within current morals and value systems.
• not do anything.

Choose your future.

In a blog entry a professional photographer from Colorado wonders how same-sex weddings impact his business. The author crams his foot in his mouth very effectively:

Put aside for a moment your own values. Would it hurt or help your business to photograph same-sex commitment ceremonies or weddings?

Regardless of the issue at hand, the storm of comments that followed on MeFi attracted my attention by the sheer number of fallacies and ill-chosen analogies:

• “Should a KKK photographer refuse or accept to photograph black commitment ceremonies or weddings?”
• “Should a black photographer refuse or accept to photograph KKK commitment ceremonies or weddings?”
• “Should a vegetarian photographer have the right to refuse to photograph a wedding reception where fois gras is served?”

Some comments sent me giggling, but I admit my patience was not enough to read past this insightful thought: “Should they have to choose between pissing off God and pissing off a potential client?”

Ethics and businesses? With religion in the middle? Makes me giggle. and sad.

In 1793, as it just overtook power in France, the new government decided to open the tombs of the French kings in Saint-Denis and throw a thousand years of history into a pit as a celebration of their victory.

In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the two gigantic Buddhas of Bamyan, erasing 1400 years of historical significance with a few kilograms of plastic.

Now I wonder; why putting so much effort in erasing their own past, if their position in their present time was accepted, justifiable and welcome?

Today the read box from irrepressible.info was quoting a paragraph from the Iranian Gay & Lesbian Healthcare Providers Association; this prompted me to discover more about this group, and I read some of their articles.

In one of them the following sentence rung a bell:

My family, like most Iranian families, centered on worrying about people's judgment. I learned from my family that my purpose of life was to earn people's respect by becoming educated and successful. Provoking envy in people meant I was on the right track. — Dr. Payam Ghassemlou

This idea disturbs me, for it describes accurately some of the feelings I have now about the way I was educated — although I have no (known) Iranian origins.

This accurate match does not seem to fit with the idea that the driving line of thought behind my education was socialism, not Islam. So I was told.

Or does it?

There are several ways to describe socialism; the following is relevant:

Socialism as a political system of communal ownership: a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles — Microsoft Encarta

This raises the question of who decides what is equity and fairness. If I understand correctly, that would be the very same people who decide how to redistribute the wealth. Threfore, assuming that attribution of wealth to a person is decided not based on their innate capabilities but rather by their perception by society as a group, the way to attract (more) wealth to a specific person is to ensure that they are judged positively by society.

There we are. Islamism and socialism as backgrounds for family life have different goals, but some of their effects on the education of the young are the same — namely, preventing the blooming of children when it doesn't lead to "success" as defined by society.

I once thought that all families were doing that. How naive.

Yesterday evening I had a lively discussion with two colleague from work, about the cultural differences between the Netherlands and North America. It boils down to two ideas:

• the perceived freedom in the Netherlands is merely a superficial by-product of the blissful indifference of the average Dutch citizen towards other humans. There, do as you will, for nobody cares.
• in North America, especially the USA, freedom is more a matter of national pride. It's protected, and relationships between people are taken very seriously. Conflicts and inequality are routinely accepted as a necessary evil without which freedom would be put at risk.

The apparent cultural difference is arguable, but many seem to recognize the underlying concepts when traveling on both sides of the ocean.

And then, nobody cares on this side of the ocean anyway. They do as they will, we don't care.

Of toch?

I remember one of the great achievements worldwide during the past few hundred years. I believe it's called “human rights.” If I recall correctly, a consensus has built historically that regardless of any superficial disagreements, care should be taken to respect this common civilization framework - that “people are born equal in dignity and rights,” rights including “liberty, security, protection of the law,” etc, etc. Nothing new here, most countries agreed a while ago.

Well, it seems that some cultures have troubles grasping these simple concepts.

I learn today that black people can be lynched in the land of freedom without any form of justice. I was nauseous when I read that, but hardly surprised.

And regardless of this specific point-time event, poor people still don't deserve to be healthy. Afterall, if they don't earn money what are they worth?

French people like to say that they know better. That this would not happen in their country. Well, for sure, locking up black and poor people in overcrowded prisons where they eventually die forgotten is an easy workaround. Hiding the dust under the mat is just as shameful as throwing it right in the eyes of human rights.

Oh well, now I'm feeling depressed.