Off By One

Aaron mentioned TED to me some time ago as an interesting place to go for talks about the world; technology, science, economics, politics.

I finally got around to checking it out, and I have to admit, there’s a lot there.

It’s a time-consumer, no question, with the video talks running to 20 minutes each, so you might not get to see all of it at a shot, but I’m convinced it’s worthwhile. Right now I’m watching a talk on the application of economics to explaining AIDS in Africa, and there’s more like that.

Check it out.

You know, I feel sorry for the iconoclasts of the world; it’s not easy to convince people that their particular brand of fixed idealism is a bad approach, and the more religious the adherence the harder it is to combat.

This particular line of thought comes about while reading an essay by Freeman Dyson entitled Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society, wherein Mr. Dyson discusses some of his own personal heresies vis-a-vis global warming. Although he makes coherent arguments, he is doomed from the start not by flaws in his arguments, nor by the unimpeachable truth of the ideas he’s criticizing, but instead he’s doomed to forever tilt at windmills on this subject because — like religion and political orientation — belief in climate change, for or against, is based not on reason but on faith.

So, I feel sorry for Freeman Dyson. I feel sorry for Bjorn Lomborg. I feel sorry for Al Gore (although for different reasons — he’s part of the solution here, and part of the problem there) and for Richard Dawkins and James Randi.

Dependency.

More specifically, I’m unconvinced that it’s for the best to depend on others for the necessities and desires of life any more than is absolutely necessary.

As an example, obviously only one data point, take the Greyhound strike that is going on right now. This is a case where, because the users of the service are dependent on the providers in a very clear, often-inextricable fashion, the providers of the service have been able to cause them no end of grief by withholding service.

Make no mistake; I believe that the other component of this is that those that provide a service are freely allowed to decline to continue to provide it, for whatever reason they choose. I don’t have to agree with the reason, just with the right to perform the action.

This acceptance, however, leads me to my main point, which is that depending on others for services is a dangerous game; you are gambling that they’ll never choose to revoke that service, despite the fact that threatening to do so at times when the service is most needed to you results in immense potential gains for them. It’s unlikely in normal relations: One’s friends rarely say “Oh, you need a ride? Sorry, I’m not giving rides anymore… for free.” This doesn’t hold with people for whom you are just another inconveniencecustomer, however.

So, think twice before you make choices that increase your dependency on third parties that do not have an interest in your wellbeing. I do.

The view from the plane on the way into San Jose airport is one that made me wish I had a camera. There’s something … amazing about the vast swathes of light sprayed across the black, slashed here and there with the deeper darkness of the bays and inlets that litter this part of the coast.

I couldn’t help but think; I’d give anything to see the earth from space. That’s my fondest dream, my deepest single desire. That being said, I don’t know that it’s comparable to the beauty of a strip of light that stretches a significant fraction of the length of a continent, a monument to both excess and achievement that changes the dark face of the world in a way that I would be able to see, even from the vantage I crave.

The earth from space would be beauty, but it would be a mindless, undirected beauty. The cityscape, the glowing spray of seeds spread across the coast beneath my plane, is a beauty that springs from the minds and hands of men, and more than any natural thing it puts poetry in my heart.

(Note: No actual poetry was produced in the writing of this post. Count yourselves fortunate.)

Why am I so easy to anger, these days?

I mean… I know what makes me angry, but I don’t know why I get so mad at it.

It’s frustrating, and more than a bit embarassing, sometimes. Often.