Peak Civilization

 Life sometimes imitates art in the most pathetic and scary of ways. The treasury is considering minting a trillion dollar platinum coin to avoid a government default. Back in 1998, the Simpsons ran an episode where the government had printed a trillion dollar bill as part of the Marshall plan, but it was stolen by Montgomery Burns en route to Europe. I'm not sure which idea is dumber. The two main discussion points around minting the coin are being able to forestall a default by raising money that will tide things over until Congress raises the debt limit. The second point is that this can be done without adding to the national debt or causing inflation. Huh? The government borrows money to run everything, so essentially, issuing a coin for currency will just be borrowing more money to cover the cost of that. While it's technically true that it wouldn't contribute to inflation, it would certainly contribute to the debt, but since the country has been monetizing debt for a...

 I saw this article today and thought it was both funny and scary - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/upshot/inflation-economy-analysis.html Even the article itself says that understanding how the economy works is still something of a "black box." This shouldn't inspire confidence in anyone that "things are under control." Apply the same analogy to brain surgery, airplane engines, or water quality monitoring - "Uhh, we don't really understand how these things work, but feel free to trust your life to them." I mean, it's not like we're talking about the system that everyone in the first world, and to a lesser degree, much of the third world, depends on. We don't know which direction prices are going, what money is really worth, and exactly how much rot there is in the whole thing, but trust us - we know what we're doing. As I outlined in my previous post, the reality is that we're living off the largess of past generations that ...

 People are looking at supply line issues as being an inconvenience. Go to your favorite store, find out they're out of Oreos or toilet paper. There are vague rumblings about Christmas being ruined this year, too, because there won't be many toys in stock. Eh, maybe celebrate the old-fashioned way by spending time doing things together as a family and getting drunk off the eggnog? The photos of ships sitting offshore is a little nice eye candy between the news reporting on the latest homicide-by-lawn sprinkler and a cute polar bear who thinks it's a kitten. What has not really been considered, even by people who write on the subject, is that supply chain issues have a cascading effect in a world that is run on funny money. Business is conducted through debt, both short and long term. People take on debt to buy materials to make products, to pay their employees, to ship things, pay for physical plants. Shipping companies have long-term loans on their ships, credit accounts f...

The Gavin Newsom recall should have been a whole lot closer than it was. If you take a roughly fifty percent approval rating, a forty percent disapproval rating, and split the ten percent undecided, it should have been something like a 55/45 split to keep/recall Newsom. Instead, it went around 64-36. Even the people who didn't approve of the job he was doing were apparently more than a little vexxed at the thought of having Larry Elder as the next governor of California. It's a little hard to blame them, too. Elder is a Trump sycophant who, like many other media figures on the right, seems to make his money from hitting the talk show circuit and reciting the typical talking points about Biden and company. Could the Republicans have won California? It's a good question, but I don't think it's going to be answered, because the Republicans do a great job of self-sabotage without appealing to the MAGA crowd. Elder became the front runner on the right because of that sup...

It has been something to watch the collective skull of the left burst open like a dead whale carcass over the possibility of Trump running in 2024. I don't think there has been a greater example of someone living rent-free in people's minds than that of Trump over the last five or so years. From the time he won the candidacy up through this weekend, it has been nonstop Trump. Trump the traitor, Trump the insurrectionist, Trump the sore loser, Trump the Russian candidate, and so on. If it weren't so far-fetched, people would probably be claiming that Trump invented covid to wipe out Democrats in major cities like New York. Trump was a has-been the moment he took office, and that hasn't changed since he left office. Outside of the trademark "Trump scowl" (which I think he ripped off from Ben Stiller in Zoolander), and trying to get exposure on cable news and any other place he can show up and press the flesh (insert your own jokes there), he is becoming complete...

There is always a sense of things coming to an end as autumn arrives. Leaves fall, plants die from the frost and cold, crickets call to each other with desperation, and birds migrate south. Harvests are collected, the last bounties of the growing season before all food becomes trucked from across the country or preserved. There are also all kinds of festivals and holidays, including Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Tom Rush sang a wonderful son about the approach of autumn as well. But September, the first month of fall, has also come with events that seem to leave a deep mark on the American mind. In two days, we'll be observing the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Anyone over a certain age today, perhaps 30 or so, will remember where they were when the planes hit the World Trade Center. If you are like most people, you initially thought that the first plane hitting the building might have been a pilot error or some other sort of accident. When the second plane hit, it was quite clear that ...

A quick Google search for "coronavirus dashboard" brings up some not-so-great news. Taken nationally, figures are nearly half of what they were at the peak, and three or so times what they were this time last year. Some places, especially the ones that are harder hit than last year, are seeing smaller rises, or even a steady pace of new infection. That was with Delta, and no one knows what Mu is going to do. Coronavirus mutation rates are significantly higher than previously thought, and vaccines and natural immunity seem to lose their effectiveness with each new variant. This makes sense, given that antibodies can recognize one virus structure and may be less effective at locking on to others. Keep the analogy simple, work a jigsaw puzzle sometime and have a piece that looks like it should fit, but doesn't quite really fit. You can push it down and sort of make it work, but you know it's not really right. Viruses and antibodies work sort of the same way. An antibody ...

Everyone has some sort of idea of collapse in their heads, at least if they have given it any thought at all. Mad Max, Blade Runner, whatever. Back in the 1800s, people were ruminating over collapse with the idea of the world having too many people and not enough resources. Anyone familiar with the "doomer" movement can probably give a workable explanation of Jevon's Paradox, for example, or Malthusianism. Now, people worry with good reason about global warming and what effects it is going to have on our lives and our planet. At the root of this is the maxim of "something that can't go on forever, won't." A great deal of time and effort is spent convincing the American people otherwise - after all, no one is going to win an election or keep customers by pointing out that our current civilization is unsustainable in its present form. Systems essentially collapse from two causes, with a caveat - either something the system depends on is no longer available...

Joe Rogan is now sick with covid, joining a list of higher-profile opponents of covid vaccinations and other mitigation efforts. Lately, it seems like people who oppose masking and vaxxing are now looking up at the sky through six feet of dirt. While there's probably a delicious conspiracy theory in there, the reality more likely is that these folks mingle (even if not single) and don't really take the whole thing seriously. It's a little bit like crying wolf in reverse - say that there's no problem, then look confused when the wolf eats you. It just is a continuation of the recent American tendency to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that comes out of the mouth of someone you're supposed to dislike. Let's face it - the two major political poles in this nation have already seceded from each other. While it's not a physical or formal secession, it's definitely a mental one. There is no accepting the "wrong" opinion and remaining within your...

The tragic and unprecedented devastation and loss of life from the remnants of Ida skirting over the northeast has been sobering to watch. Basements with water pouring in, cars up to the doors in flooded streets, boats rescuing people from second floors in Pennsylvania. The images are start and dramatic, with people struggling to survive in the middle of a disaster, but the news will go on after this and not dive into the underlying issues. Simply put, things like this should not be happening in a healthy, modern civilization, with is eyes on the future. Too bad we're anything but that anymore. From the "peak" perspective, the region has been suffering shortfalls for some time now. The Report Card for America's Infrastructure rates New York at a C-. The wear and tear on cars from driving on city streets is around $650 a year. There are concerns about drinking water safety, and now this. Hurricane Sandy dumped tons of rain on New York back in 2012 and flooded it exten...

I detest when people like high school teachers and random lecturers try to torture meaning out of pop or rock music that doesn't exist. U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" seems to be a particular magnet for that kind of mental abuse. Corrosion of Conformity's "Voting with a bullet" is probably used in some social studies classes somewhere, and the title of the song reminded me of some lectures I've heard in the past. The main thesis in these lectures was that the vote is a legal surrogate for physical violence. If you stop and think about it, voting is essentially saying that people want to adopt a majority position, with the implication of forcing the minority to adopt the position of the majority. They don't want to play ball? Prison, exile, or death. The (in)famous joke about democracy is that it's two wolves and a sheep arguing what to have for dinner. Of course, take it a step farther, and you have two wolves argui...

I've always been addicted to watch news coverage on hurricanes. There's probably some deep-seated psychological reason for that and Freudians are free to comment. Maybe it's because I love the coastal regions of the country, or it's the sheer raw power these storms have, or the sense foreboding doom I've had when having to evacuate ahead of them before. Maybe it's just the entertainment value of people on the Weather Channel wearing snazzy jackets and trying not to be knocked down. On the not-so-fun back side of that is seeing the misery and damage inflicted and collecting supplies and donations to send down to people who have been affected by them. My favorite moment was Geraldo Rivera being bowled over while covering Hurricane Ike, and also the saddest moment seeing the Balinese Room destroyed. The contrast between the two hurricanes is interesting. Katrina dumped more rain, while Ida had significantly higher wind speeds. On a preliminary level, it seems like ...

I'm not really sure what's been going on with Biden lately, but I don't see a single bit of the spark he used to have years ago. Go back to the Obama years and Joe was pretty much a firebrand, whatever you thought of his politics. I never saw the appeal to him as a candidate or politician, as he has essentially been nothing but a careerist schmoozer most of his life, not that it makes him any different from anyone else in Washington who has been around for decades. Knowledge of how to govern and good civics really has nothing to do with pressing the flesh and winning votes. Sometimes they overlap, but not often. I get the desire to so badly see Trump booted from office that running the person with name recognition and deep pockets and connections, whatever his weaknesses, seemed like the most desirable move. I don't have a lot to say about Trump as a president, because I don't think there was a lot there. Lots of bluster and bragging, not a lot to back it up, and a ...

For all the bluster of how mankind has conquered nature and tamed the earth, the natural world always likes to call mankind's bluff. For one, we haven't exactly figured out how to stop hurricanes (though I hear dropping a nuclear bomb into the eye of a hurricane was proposed by Trump...why not have a radioactive hurricane instead of just a normal one?). Every time one scoots across the Gulf, oil production is impacted and it makes life pretty miserable for people. Then there's the forest fires. While we don't have a record going this year, they're always dangerous and terrifying. Then there's earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, wild animals, plagues of locusts, and who knows what kinds of disease just lurking in a swamp or jungle someplace. Again, we're pretty much unable to stop all of these things and can only mitigate them. Civilization has largely figured out what to do with all of these, even if they can't be stopped. The problem arises when civilizat...

In Texas, there is a leader of anti-covid protests who is near death.  I feel sorry for his family and three (soon to be four) kids who will grow up without a father, but how exactly do we as a civilization deal with this mindset? People can talk about passing laws, but laws only work as long as people feel they should be obeyed. Why do 99 percent of people not murder each other? Even without laws doing so, they would feel it's morally wrong. Why do so many people use drugs, even though it's illegal? Because they don't feel like it's not hurting anyone else and is their choice, and so on. We have always tossed around the idea of the common good or public good. At some point, we need to decide which side of the street to drive on and tell horrible parents they can't raise their kids any longer. We have laws against pollution for this reason. And so on. In this case, we had regulations for how to mitigate the spread of covid. These regulations were developed by people...

 Mel Tappan, in his classic and hopelessly dated book "Survival Guns" outlined how most people of the time thought about "survival weapons." They generally said the perfect weapon was a .22 rifle, a black powder muzzle loader, a bow and arrow, or a .30-30 level action. Of course, Tappan went into gun porn for the rest of the book, as we all know that firearms can be used to plow a field, cure infections, and keep people warm in cold weather. For that matter, any "preparedness" magazine usually comes with at least two or three gun reviews or something like that. While I don't have much to do with the prepper culture, the assumption there always seems to be that a basement full of beans and toilet paper will be more than enough to get someone through a crisis and emerge on the other side, back to the mall and work.  People can be wiser, and recognize that if the lights go off, it will likely be a long time before they ever come back on. Planning for this...

 Probably to no one's surprise, there have been terror attacks in Kabul. Well, maybe to the surprise of people who haven't paid attention to the last half century of events in the region. Although, it is interesting to see that there was at least one suicide bombing. You'd think that with the Taliban being firmly in control, having won the war, that tactics like that would be falling out of favor. Unless, you know, someone might've gotten a bomb dropped on their family and just really, really doesn't like the U.S. military. Civilization is always a battle between chaos and order, and the effectiveness of a civilization in maintaining a balance on the side of order is a marker of how healthy it is. This isn't to say that order is always a great thing, as it can be expressed through tyranny just as easily as it can be through civic well-being. However, it takes a pretty rotten government to make chaos seem like a good alternative. Maybe a bad government is better ...

 The preponderance of evidence for global warming - let's not use the PR-friendly term of "climate change" is overwhelming. One quick Google search for "global warming" brings up plenty of pages with news and evidence showing the data and the effects of global warming. Rain in the mountains of Greenland, extreme drought in the west and other parts of the globe, shrinking ice. Oh, and the actual measurements done by those pesky scientists who have shown a steady rise in temperatures over the past few decades. Oops. So, when people wake up to snow on the ground and say that global warming isn't really, they might want to get out weather records and look to see that snowfall amounts have diminished as well. And yet, around half the people in America say that global warming isn't real or it's a natural process or it's a scam pushed by the elites to impoverish everyone and make themselves richer. Given that the elites seem to be doing just fine and sc...

Biden should realize that nobody's buying what he's selling. When even CNN is dumping all over a Democratic politician, that politician should realize they have a real problem on their hands. Of course, it's even worse for Biden, as he ran on a platform of restoring trust that had been lost during Trump's presidency, of experience, and bringing normalcy back to the White House. The contradictions of the last few days and an unwillingness to speak consistently on Afghanistan really isn't helping him. It's not quite as tone-deaf as Bush the Lesser's skit of looking for WMDs under his desk, but it's getting there. Government as an institution, particularly in a democratic nation, requires an implicit recognition of the social contract by both sides. For the most part, it boils down to "don't let us starve and don't shoot us for random reasons and we'll put up with being oppressed and build your palaces." Even earthly paradises like Nor...

 The esteemed Jane Jacobs, who had a pretty good handle on what was wrong with people, wrote about what failing cultures had in common. A biggie was that people quit thinking in terms of "logos," that being knowledge and reason, and started thinking in terms of "mythos," which were basically half-baked ideas based on what people thought they remembered about the past. Another good observation she had was how "elites" backed into a corner double down on what got them backed into the corner in the first place. All of it is a sign of people running out of ideas. Can't make the crops grow, everyone is starving? Just sacrifice some people to the moon god or hang some witches! That'll fix everything. The unwashed rabble getting restless and angry because the nobles are screwing them good and hard? Don't reform anything, go oppress that unwashed rabble and throw bigger parties! That'll fix everything. Running out of ideas is the same as running ou...