Law vs. "Might Makes Right"

Suppose two people have a dispute and fail to reach a compromise. If there is a legal system where they live, they can go to court and let a judge decide. If the losing side fails to do what the judge orders, the police & others will see that it is enforced. This enforcement can include fines, imprisonment, and possibly injury or death depending on how vigorously the loser resists.

Take the same situation in a place that has no legal system. If two people have a dispute and fail to reach a compromise, they and their allies will fight it out until the weaker side gives up.

In both cases, might makes right. Although courts involve less bloodshed than feuding, the principle in both is the same. Courts are just a way to settle disputes with as little violence as possible. Courts aren't morally superior, just more efficient.

In a similar way, so many things get decided on the basis of popularity. Every election, Supreme Court decision, jury verdict, Nobel Prize, most wars- all were decided on the basis of which side had more supporters.

But if popularity is taken as the sole measure of what is right and wrong, this leads to the absurd idea that what is right merely depends on which side is the most popular.

This is the reason why it's important to find principles which are always true. If the principles on which the laws are based are right, the laws will be right. Otherwise, all that's left is might makes right.

The Impossible Math of Reducing CO2 Emissions

Current human emissions: 30 billion tons, which corresponds 2 ppm

So, 15 billion tons corresponds to about 1ppm CO2.

Increase in atmospheric CO2 predicted by UN over the next century if no action is taken: 468 ppm

468 ppm X 15 billion tons CO2/1 ppm = about 7 trillion tons CO2 will be emitted over the next hundred years.

This added CO2 will supposedly increase the global temperature by 7°F. But suppose we only wanted to stop 1°F rise. How hard would that be? Well, assuming there's a linear correlation, it would require that people emit 1 trillion fewer tons of CO2 over the next hundred years. That means:

-No CO2 emissions for 33 years, which require the world to return to a pre-industrial standard of living

-Half as many emissions for 66 years, which means returning to the energy use levels of 1940

OK, any other ideas? Well, here are 15 ideas, 8 of which need to be implemented to prevent a doubling of atmospheric CO2.

• Double fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 mpg.
• Decrease the number of car miles traveled by half.
• Use best efficiency practices in all residential and commercial buildings.
• Produce current coal-based electricity with twice today’s efficiency.
• Increase wind electricity capacity by 50 times relative to today, for a total of 2 million large windmills
• Replace 1400 coal electric plants with natural gas-powered facilities.
• Capture AND store emissions from 800 coal electric plants.
• CO2Produce hydrogen from coal at six times today’s rate AND store the captured.
• Capture carbon from 180 coal-to-synfuels plants AND store the CO2.
• Add double the current global nuclear capacity to replace coal-based electricity.
• Install 700 times the current capacity of solar electricity.
• Use 40,000 square kilometers of solar panels (or 4 million windmills) to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars.
• Increase ethanol production 50 times by creating biomass plantations with area equal to 1/6th of world cropland.
• Eliminate tropical deforestation AND double the current rate of new forest planting.
• Adopt conservation tillage in all agricultural soils worldwide.

There isn't a chance in hell of achieving even one of those goals.

Thankfully, climate change isn't a problem:

 

Good news, everyone! No link between cheese and heart disease!

There is no link between cheese consumption and heart disease:

 

Will People Colonize Mars?

All the technology needed to colonize Mars already exists, more or less. It would be extremely expensive, but not impossible. I think the more interesting question is whether people will want to colonize Mars.

Suppose Mars had the same climate as San Diego (breathable air, rain, etc.) and that the price of a one-way ticket was $500. Suppose also that you could spend the trip in suspended animation. Putting all this together, a trip to Mars would be comfortable and cheap, and you wouldn't need any special equipment to live there.

Even in this case, I still think very few people would make the trip. People generally don't migrate long distances unless they are forced to. The immigrants who came to the US were fleeing poverty, persecution, war, etc. By and large, they didn't move because they were feeling adventurous or wanted a change of scenery.

Secondly, people generally like living near other people- that's why most people live in cities. A person adventurous enough to go to San Diego Mars to get away from it all would be just as happy going to Alaska or some other sparsely populated place. I think the wilderness areas of Earth will fill up long before anyone starts venturing into space. If space travel becomes exponentially cheaper, I could see people visiting Mars and the moon the way people climb Mt. Everest, but that's about it.

It would be great if people started colonizing Mars, and I might even sign up if journey is not too arduous, but it looks very unlikely for now.

I think Bruce Sterling sums up the situation well:

"I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach."

For more depressing info about the difficulties of space travel, Charlie Stross has an excellent article.

How Life on Earth Will End

From wiki:

"During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will cause a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years, the level of CO
2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C₃ carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C₄ carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO
2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The die off of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth."

Interesting how too little CO2 in the atmosphere is what will eventually doom life on earth.

 

Another Anti-Authoritarian Collage

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" -Tacitus

"Laws are chains for the weak, cobwebs for the strong, and nets for the courts." - Proudhon, paraphrased

 

Useful Phrases in Enu Aba: A Constructed Language Primer

Enu Aba (easy language) is a mini conlang I invented recently.  It has 100 root words and 7 grammatical suffixes. This should make the language much easier to learn than English or even another systematic conlang like Esperanto. It does contain sounds like l, r, v, w, th, h, or s which are absent in many major natural languages and are difficult for people with speech impediments.

Useful Phrases in Enu Aba

Note on pronunciation: the letter "e" can pronounced either like in the English word  "bed" or as in the Spanish word "de", whichever is easier for the speaker. Similarly, it's OK to shorten "a" to the English unstressed vowel /ə/ if that letter comes at the end of the word.

Hello/Goodbye/Thanks/Peace- abe

Please/Sorry/Excuse me- omobona enekama (lit. my bad [action])

What is your name?- Omi okobona aba?

My name is...: Omobona aba...

How do you say ... in Enu Aba?- Omi aba bo ... ni Enu Aba?

It was nice talking with you- Bokami na oko obo oke.

I like it/I don't like it- Omo ma eku/Omo no ma eku

How many people are in your family?- Omi obe akukana ni okobona aku?

My hovercraft is full of eels- Ni omobona ebemona eke, obe akimona ebukana (lit: In my aerial boat, many aquatic snakes)

ebemona-aerial- lit: air + adjective suffix
akimona-aquatic- lit water +  adjective suffix

The suffixes when combined with the roots can make many different words:

Omo- I
Omobona- my, mine (bona is the possessive suffix)
Omokana- we, us      (kana is the plural suffix)
Omomona- private, personal (mona is the adjective suffix)
Omonanu- individualize, personalize (nanu is the noun/adj/adv-to-verb suffix)

oki- he/she
okibima- he
okibimabona- his
okiboma- she
okibomabona- her/hers

be- come
bemoka- attract (lit: to cause to come- moka is the causative suffix)
mu- learn
mumoka- to teach (lit: to cause to understand)
enu- easy, light, soften
enumoka- simplify, lighten, soften
ku- bone, death
kumoka- kill (lit: to cause death) kunanu (lit: to death, to [be] bones = to die)