Author: Wayne Slingluff

Fire, Flood, Drought

“Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” In this era of massive technology, scientific hubris claims we can . Geo engineering concepts abound, from seeding the oceans, to sulfuric acid clouds and/or reducing certain gas emissions .

So far, it does seem the climate is more extreme. Bigger storms, major variations in “normal patterns.” Pretty clearly this is not simply “better weather reporting”. But equally, it is not immediately disastrous to everyone, nor an existential survival threat .

It may be humanity can change things. If not, some small fragment of our bloated numbers could probably survive anything. Famine and catastrophe first, of course .

But what does it mean to me and you? Obviously most of us should avoid building or living in river valleys or on sandy barrier Islands, among other adjustments. But personal changes are largely symbolic, especially if they are not normalized for everyone. 

Brushing my teeth more quickly or dashing in the shower do nothing unless everyone is forced to do so. Also what kind of car I drive or what I eat. Giant problems, unfortunately, require giant solutions. Feeling virtuous about my CO2 footprint is like feeling lucky when I throw a coin down a wishing well .

In the meantime, I better fix my leaky roof. 

Digital Dizzy

Digital technology surrounds us, and becomes more immersive by the day. As a person who had a (relatively) happy career programming computers in the good old days (ie until 2010 or so), I should enjoy the advances. 

Besides it’s silly to rant against so useful a tool. Might as well claim walking is better than one of those newfangled wheeled contraptions, memory is ruined by written words, or the pride of John Henry is lost to steam machinery. Digital aids are very useful .

I guess my main concern – outside of how radically they are changing society – is their fragile nature. An awful lot of things can make them fail in minor or catastrophic ways.

“Oh come on!” you yell – organic stuff, including especially people, fails all the time. Makes mistakes, dies. That is quite true .

The difference is that life is based on dealing with the unexpected. Organisms have embedded feedback and repair systems that work remarkably well. Adjustments to changing environments usually happen. Life seems almost impossible to create from scratch, but once started it is very hard to stop. Even people are tougher than we usually think .

But digital technology? Especially remote centralized AI? I wonder if it is too much, too soon, and all eggs in one fragile, dizzy basket .

Art Owner

As a would-be visual artist, I was always annoyed that once a painting was sold nothing remained to the creator. Music and film had “residuals”, books had copyrights. But once a painting was sold (or traded for a meal) the new owner had any right to its future earnings – even if it sold next year for millions of dollars .

Digital copying has evened that out, of course. Very little remains to most originators. Truthfully, even at its peak, most of the people helping the prime creator – backup musicians, studio assistance, even gallery owners – never reaped a future windfall .

Now the art market is entirely strange, where a banana taped to a wall can sell for 3 million. Some of this is simply potlatch behavior from the filthy rich “look what I can do”. Mostly, though, in certain areas – again among the wealthy – it is simply that demand is high everywhere, but supply of most tangible things is vast_ even gold and diamonds once precious. So anything in limited supply – actual painting from a known artist, Bitcoin, ancient automobiles – skyrockets in value .

Why? Mostly so those people can taunt each other with calls of “I have it and you can’t!”

Fortunately, for most artists, creation is its own reward. As, indeed, it must be .

Sun Worshipper

An old science fiction novel called the sun “lifegiver.” Obviously true, because without the sun (exactly as it is and has been) there would be no life on Earth, never would have been any life on Earth, never you or me. If it went away this afternoon forever none of us would last long .

Science simply confirms what is intuitively obvious. Solar mythology has existed throughout history and surely long before. Sun dictates our lives, better or worse. At sunset it is normal to evaluate the events of the day, at sunrise it is easy to rejoice .

The sun commands an austere respect. Its location and path cannot _ even in the most fevered visions – be changed with prayer or other magic. Asking it for rain is futile – better to beg clouds – even though without solar evaporation there would be no rain ever .

Now we are ” sophisticated.” We create light in darkness. We know the sun is “just” fusion energy. Some of us concentrate on more important things (like the internet) and ignore it except on special occasions .

A lot of the time, the sun helps me concentrate my exaltation in being conscious. I try not to take it – or anything else – for granted. It is a wonderful aspect of the universe on which to center. And it demands nothing more – or less – then that I be enchanted with being .

Lifegiver indeed .

Mercenary “Warriors” 

It’s a truism that the military always prepares for the last war. A new element is that our current leaders want to prepare for war as depicted in movies and video games. Manly men who can savagely destroy all opposition with increasingly massive personal weaponry .

Of course we’re not quite sure what the “last war” was for the US, but we didn’t seem to win it. On the other hand, the Ukraine conflict seems to prove that any tween in her city bedroom can wipe out a squad of bazooka toting cowboys with a remote drone strike .

And if a “real war” starts, both the cowboys and tween are one nuclear blast – delivered hypersonically – away from oblivion .

But manly men want jobs and the military life seems to fit a certain psychology. The problem is that building an elite group of well-paid volunteers (aka mercenaries) who follow politics – which seems to be the current goal of the administration – will surely lead _ as it always does (witness the Praetorians, Mamalukes, Janissaries) _ to that cadre getting rid of leaders they don’t like (i.e who don’t pay them enough .)

Obviously, I am hardly a fan of manly men syndrome. But personal squeamishness aside, I just think the idea is ineffective, historically inaccurate, stupid, and based on adolescent male fantasies .

Idiot Savant

The classic “idiot savant” is an individual whose brain is wired differently. Brilliant at something – math is a frequent example – but unable to shop for food. We have expanded the idea into “spectrum” to account for the fabulous complexity of human consciousness, but the idea remains useful .

Thus I imagine a new breed of idiot savant, less based on basic brain wiring (although of course genetics may be strongly involved), and more on shallow but focused training. Such a person can become rich and even powerful, but treats other people as if they did not exist – or rather exist only as other objects like rocks or bacteria. Because of such focus, that idiot may have undue influence on society. Like any other amoral cripple, that person may have disastrous effects on everyone else.

Unfortunately we have been educated to admire financial success more than social success. Making more dollars seems much more important than making people happy. We easily offer excuses for the worst behavior of billionaires .

Worst of all, we have let them advance to become rulers, where they fail miserably. 

Government is about people, not money. But the “idiot savants” never learn that fundamental truth .

Wrong Track

I appreciate democracy (if rights are guaranteed to the minority), and respect people’s opinions as much as I do my own. But I find polls on issues increasingly silly. A good example is one of the current favorites – “is this country on the right track or the wrong track?”.

In my experience, if asked how I feel about the world in general, on any given day my reply might vary considerably. Actually, it might change a good deal from hour to hour. And ” how do I feel” is at least a pretty firm question .

But ask me if I am on the “right track” or not and I would be pretty lost. The thing is, a track goes somewhere. So the first question implied is do I think there is a single destination like Chicago or am I just “heading west.” And am I sure that’s where or the way I want to go? 

The second problem is momentary detours with good reason. I want to get to Chicago but this train is heading for Pittsburgh. Is that bad? If it’s heading south to avoid a mountain range, is my journey going wrong? And trains? Tracks? Who uses tracks anymore anyway. So restrictive. 

But okay, all of that, bundle it up, maybe I can give an answer in personal terms. But a whole country,? Everyone? The vast future? This is a ridiculous and meaningless waste of time. 

But folks like to believe in something. At least asking about non-existent tracks is relatively harmless