What if we were ethical?

By “we” I mean my tribes, kind or ilk: American, white, Christian, male, middle class.

By “ethical” I mean just, honest, respectful, restrained, considerate, kind, not criminal.

I want us (me and my tribes) to be more ethical.  I get a thrill when I see or hear of ethical acts and virtue rewarded.  I feel shame when I consider the people I have failed or abused and when I consider the crimes that my tribes have committed – against non-white foreigners, against non-white American citizens, against foreign peoples, against non-Christians.

We are much more sensitive to harm to our tribe (Pearl Harbor, 9/11) than to harm done by us to other tribes – genocide of native Americans, theft of Mexican territories, abuse of southern neighbors.  Until recently, conquest and exploitation were noble pursuits.

Today I want to consider the counterfactual reality, if America had avoided its many post-war crimes.  What if we had not bombed and poisoned Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and their neighbors?  What if we had not interfered in the struggles of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Lybia, etc?  I believe that those actions prevented their maturation, corrupted our leaders and sullied our reputation.  All of our post-war leaders are guilty of this, including my favorites.  I can not see how those crimes have improved our lives.

These foreign actions appear to have been directed by mega-rich arms dealers for their profit.  Greed is insatiable.

The counterfactual is, of course, the impossible, since events of one moment follow inevitably from those of the preceding moment.  Yet I wish otherwise.  I wish we were ethical.

Then there is the question of my generation's over-exploitation of resources and envirionmental destruction, including global warming.  Can we treat future generations more ethically?

Antijackknife/Antispinout Module

  We have designed a system that disables a semi-truck’s front-wheel brakes while the tractor is skidding sideward and steered in the direction of skid, allowing the front wheels to roll freely and restore alignment of the tractor with its trajectory.  Braking responds to the brake peddle normally when skidding stops or steering ceaces to be in the direction of skid.

The system consists of a control module mounted on the steering column and an effector valve in each front-brake hose, these with appropriate wiring.  The control module is equipped with a steering-direction sensor, a lateral-acceleration sensor and a relay.  The sensors pass current from the brake-light circuit to the relay trigger when inertia and steering are both rightward or when inertia and steering are both leftward.  The relay when so triggered passes current from the key-on circuit to both effector valves (left front and right front).  The activated valves block their respective brake hoses and deflate respective front-brake chambers.

We believe the module can be manufactured for less than $100 and installed for less than $200 and that it could sell for more than $500, considering the anxiety and danger associated with jackknifes and spinouts.  It is possible that the antijackknife/antispinout system can use the ABS valves.  Otherwise it would require a dedicated three-way valve on each front brake hose.

We welcome inquiries from possible manufacturers at:

Mary Norberg 

Product Licensing Agent 

Pacific World Marketing, LLC. 

50 Sand Creek Rd.  Suite 210 

Brentwood, CA 94513 

T. 925.634.1140 

F. 925.634.1149 

Ingrid Regen: ingrid@dimp.com

Sam Regen:  bogus_id@comcast.net

Brian Hoffman: brian.hoffman.123@gmail.com

Population Collapse and Spiritual Suffering

  By several measures, the earth is overpopulated.  In just 200 years, we have run through most of the easily extractable fossil fuels and metal ores, we have decimated numerous animal species, and we have polluted the atmosphere and waters beyond the tipping point where global warming became self accelerating, resulting in run-away global warming, widespread aridification and flooding storms.  The Amazon is drying up and southeast USA suffered epic floods last week.

Lately several factors have conspired to inhibit population growth of advanced nations.  Significant are women’s education, women’s employment and social media.  Numerous experts find the fertility deficit regrettable.  Economists warn that declining fertility results in too few working citizens to support the retired citizens, financially and practically.  Social security will go broke and caretakers will not suffice.  Also important is the social pathology associated with mating failure.  Finally, neighborhoods, even cities with abandoned homes quickly become socially dangerous bankruptcy hot spots.

In my opinion, the ecological benefits of reduced population justify the unavoidable suffering associated with it.  I challenge fellow julepers to imagine ways to minimize that suffering.  Here are some random thoughts:

1)  Social Centers scattered liberally among neighborhoods.  These would be spaces to facilitate innocent interactions among neighbors – board games, music making, dancing, theater.

2)  Community gardens and garden-support clubs.

3)  ? ? ?

Restraint needed

Catastrophes for our grandchildren because their predecessors (we) could not decide rationally to restrain their (our) appetites and share with descendants:

1)  Fossil fuels will be largely depleted and total energy supply will be insufficient for modern conveniences, like transportation, indoor comfort, mechanized farming.

2)  The atmosphere will have enough CO2 to render much land and water inhospitable to humans and human-supporting life: Too hot and too acidic.

3)  The demands of data storage (exponentially growing cloud: Google, YouTube, AI, smartphone, blockchain) will overwhelm energy-supply systems (fuels, grid).

4)  Excessive information technology will dominate the human experience, resulting in ennui, envy,  loneliness, meaninglessness and procreative insufficiency.  

5)  Tribalism (ethnic, religious) will result in more barbaric conflicts as the environment degrades.

Of these mega-trends, the only desirable one is procreative insufficiency, sad though it may be – desirable only in that it will diminish the energy shortage.

Strategic Food Reserves

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Humanitarian_Trust

Virtually every scientist knows that our civilization is on the edge of massive harvest failures.  We can’t predict when and where failures will happen, but we know that continued global warming will render large areas too hot or dry or flood prone for their historical crops and livestock.  Yet we have no strategic food reserves.  We abandoned such safety measures in favor of price manipulation back in the 1990's.

        Hopefully, farm practices can adjust to gradual changes in climate, but there will always be periods of mismatch and low production.

I believe that we should have an international convention to identify areas of Antarctica where vast numbers of grain-filled shipping containers sealed with nitrogen gas can be parked without upsetting local flora and fauna.  The convention could supervise rational allocation of container-parking spaces among participating nations.

Nations owning the reserves would be able to use them to satisfy their own needs and to sell or lend them to other nations – those with fertility rates below three babies per mother.  The reserves should not be sold to nations with higher fertility rates.

We could experience a temporary crop failure due to global warming and the opposite.  For example, a large volcanic eruption or a large asteroid collision could bring on a year or more of dark and cool summers.  A large solar storm could disable much of our communications and control apparatus at a critical time.  And then there is the threat of nuclear winter.

It is irresponsible not to have a generous strategic food reserve.  Any significant food shortage will result in a breakdown of social order the likes of which cannot be imagined.

The distribution of fertility rates is presented in the following map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Total_Fertility_Rate_Map_by_Country.svg

Sad Truth

It’s worse than inconvenient.  It’s devastating and inevitable.  Our quest for satisfaction is rapidly depleting the resources needed for our descendants to satisfy needs, desires, comforts, etc.  Our institutions (religions, governments, schools) reflect our primitive tribal instincts and so cannot respond rationally.  Astrophysical and geological events will destroy us even if we could respond rationally.

Given these facts: What matters?  What should we care about?  What should we do with our temporary existence?  I would argue that suffering matters, that we should care about and try to minimize unnecessary suffering.  That would be worthwhile.

Most suffering is out of our control.  Wild sentient animals suffer much of the time with hunger, fear, exposure, disease, parasites, injury, etc.  Western societies generally recognize a duty to treat domesticated animals humanely.  Modern medicine is advanced though poorly distributed.  But we haven’t figured out how to prevent crime and war.  We harm each other unnecessarily and often regrettably.  We don’t have the institutions to address the suffering coming our way due to over consumption and resource depletion.  Every effort to address this problem is met with political opposition.  The promise of tax breaks prevails over reason.  No political system and no religious movement promises better outcomes.

We need a new institution built with new technology.

15 Recommendations:

 

1  Respect truth

2  Revere justice

3  Relieve suffering (famine, disease, injury)

4  Restrain primal urges (greed, fear, tribalism, procreation)

5  Resist mischief (it's usually regretted)

6  Regard beauty

7  Remain curious

8  Restore balance

9  Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Repair, Recycle stuff

10  Reject social media

11  Stay inventive

12  Save nature

13  Share burdens and benefits

14  Seek meaning

15  Sing sentimental songs

This list attempts to identify satisfying life choices that support civilization.  What have I missed?  What doesn't belong?