The Broken Window Fallacy

Hello Everyone!

I'd like to address a myth that I think has very serious consequences. Namely, the idea that war is good for the economy, that WWII brought the US out of the Great Depression while the New Deal was ineffective, and that wars like Vietnam and Iraq or the build up of weapons are the only way to prevent a big permanent economic downturn that will make the 1930's look like fun.

Now some cynics will respond "So what? If so many people are willing to support Vietnam or Iraq for money, they are so morally bankrupt that it's no good trying to convince them that their money is safe either way." Of course, there's a truth in that. But one thing I've learned not to underestimate is the power of uncertainty in keeping people from taking a clear cut position one way or another.

For example global warming deniers may not be keeping people from action so much by making them feel that there is nothing to worry about. They effect may be more about keeping people in a state where they are just not sure, and thus in a state of paralysis where they don't think, "OK this problem is real. What do I do about it? Should I start using public transit more or biking to work sometimes? And after that then what? How can I help carbon neutral energy get off the ground? What do I need to back politically?"

Similarly if people believe that various wars or build up are warding off some horrible economic depression, they might not so much be thinking "Yes! I support the war because I want to have more money." They may be looking around at who in their community might lose their job and then decide that they just don't know if opposing the Iraq War is the right thing to do. And indeed for most people that sort of uncertainty can create sort of fear of unknown consequences.
When people look at the differences between Vietnam and Iraq era protests, a lot has been made of the draft as a factor. However many people who protested the Vietnam War were in no real danger of being drafted. Could one overlooked factor be the differences in the economy? Could it be that the Vietnam War happened mostly during a prosperous period (though after the war came some nasty recessions), while Iraq has occurred during a miasma of recessions, economic uncertainty, various bubbles, and a sort of disconnected fear over both terrorism and the possible loss of one's job?

Usually the argument for war being good for the economy boils down to the fact that a certain amount of manufacturing goes into making weapons and hardware, manufacturing uniforms, and providing the war effort with other material needs. However, this assumption has been referred to by some, as "The Broken Window Fallacy". A concrete example of this error would be something like this:

A child throws a baseball or a brick into the window of a baker's shop. Therefore the baker has to spend $250 on a new window. This means that the window maker has made a $250 profit and now has money to spend at the dressmaker's, the candy maker's, the milkman's and perhaps other local businesses. Therefore the young vandal, has actually done the community a favor because going around breaking windows actually stimulates the economy.

But does it? Of course, the $250 that the baker spent replacing his broken windows is $250 that he can't spend on something else. He also might have saved the money, and in fact, a population where a lot of people have substantial savings has concrete benefits over one where everyone spends everything on a hand to mouth basis, as the credit bubble has demonstrated all too well.
And if all the neighborhood kids take a lesson and continue to break the baker's window he may put off or cancel a larger project to upgrade the bakery, which would lead to far more jobs than simply fixing a window.

Similarly the money spent on weapons and on the Iraq War, is also money that could be spent on a number of things whether by the government or by private citizens. The most popular suggestion is typically schools. But one major need in the US, is to fix the lagging infrastructure with regard to roads and water related things such as treatment plants or pipes. Other projects could theoretically include things such as promoting solar thermal power plants, building public transits, preventing erosion in the Midwestern United States, and other worthy projects.

Another thing that "everyone knows" in the myth that war is good for the economy is the notion that WWII brought the United States out of the Great Depression. Now that one may have succeeded at stopping Hitler, but it was not good for the US economy. In reality the Great Depression ended long before WWII and was significantly alleviated by The New Deal. During WWII, a different kind of economy took hold and with rigid price controls, rationing, shortages, increasingly state planned industry, and with a very large military to artificially suppress unemployment counts. Therefore most of the peacetime indicators of economic prosperity became misleading if not meaningless. Also after WWII, there was another recession in 1948-1949, before the DOW reached 1929 levels in 1953. So WWII may have defeated Adolf Hitler, but it did not have anything to do with ending the Great Depression.

What is the real agenda when people say that Roosevelt's programs did nothing to alleviate The Great Depression? Sometimes it's about a laissez faire ideology in which any government intervention is frowned on. But in the current American context, there is an inevitable pro-war subtext. Basically the message goes:

"Internal government actions are useless in the face of economic depressions. Only warfare and arms build-up can protect you from job loss and a life of poverty."

The threat/warning becomes inescapable. Wars are seen as not just a matter of defense, but a last ditch effort to avoid ending up sleeping on the streets, or ending up like the many Wall Street brokers who committed suicide or started selling apples because they lost everything.

But the broken window fallacy has implications for environmental destruction. Environmental activist David Suzuki once suggested that ruining public water was profitable because people would "have to" drink bottled. As it turns out bottled water is not much of a solution to ruined water. More importantly, you once again have the classic broken window scenario where the economic winners are obvious, but the losers may be harder to identify.

The moral here is not to give any false credit to naughty children who go around breaking windows, or naughtly leaders who go around invading other countries for no good reason.

Say Goodnight Readers!!

New Currents in Evolutionary Thought and Prehistory

Come gather round primates, where'er you roam.
And admit that the waters around you have grown.
And accept that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
And if the time to you is worth saving.
Then you better starting swimming or you'll sink like a stone.
For the times they are a changing.

Come Socio-biologists, please here the call.
Don't stand in the doorways, don't block up the hall.
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled.
There's a battle outside and it's raging.
It will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.
For the times they are a changing.

Hello everbody!

This was a little song I made up, in honor of some of the new ideas about human evolution that are just starting to be taken seriously. 200 years ago Charles Darwin published the book "Origin of the Species" which suggested that humans were closely related to African Apes, which was at the time a controversial idea. And generally the view that the differences between humans and apes such as chimps and bonobos came from leaving the trees for the Savannahs, has been unchallenged by scientists (as opposed to those who reject evolution, of course). Many versions of this theory, take the view that warfare is the result of aggressive violent instincts that were shaped on the Savannahs, commonly known as the "killer ape" theory. This has deeply informed the conventional wisdom of our time. Indeed, a generation before Darwin came the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz who said that war was simply politics by other means, or a Darwinian struggle for resources. A view further reinforced by Marx.

And yet, a number of newer ideas seem to being gaining credibility. Perhaps the most significant recent event was at the 2009 TED Conference where Elaine Morgan discussed the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Namely the idea that human beings are different from chimps and bonobos because of time spent living a semi aquatic lifestyle.

See video here.

One interesting point about Alistair Hardy: During the time he was keeping quiet about his aquatic ape theory, he worked at Oxford and knew JRR Tolkien. Therefore, it has been speculated that this theory was the inspiration for the creature Gollum, who after all was described as coming from the "river folk" who were the ancestors of the Hobbits in the Third Age.

Of course, it's hard to know for certain where science will go in the future. But TED has a long reputation as a spring board from the margins to the mainstream, for ideas. And the case has been made that so much that has been assumed about human evolution for decades is under question. It appears that humans did not evolve on the Savannah's and the idea that our ancestors might have had a semi-aquatic phase, at the very least raises some important questions. Another important question is whether our ancestors were more like the chimpanzee or more like the bonobo. Until the 1990's a surprising number of people with degrees in biology had never even heard of a bonobo, and chimps got all the press as our closest living relatives. As bonobos began to get more attention in part because of primatologist Frans de Waal, some observers wondered why they had been ignored for so long.

Then there are other theories about human evolution that are starting to enter the margins. Perhaps the most surprising was the book "Blood Rites" by Barbara Ehrenreich where she begins with humanity's history as a prey animal in order to investigate the root cases of war. In this book she talks about the evolution of blood sacrifice as both ritual and warfare over the millenia. But other ideas question what exactly we may know about:

1) The relationships between modern humans and Neandrathals.
2) Whether prehistoric societies truly resembled the hunter gatherer groups we see today.
3) When humans started making textiles.
4) How far back civilization actually goes.
5) When and how agriculture and domestic animals evolved.

Many of these areas started with assumptions that were made in the 19th century, but where new evidence has put the conventional wisdom under question.

Above all the answers to these questions may be full of surprises.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Water Saving Tip #5: Learn to Recognize Bad Solutions

Hello Everyone!

As I look through the talk about global water issues, one thing never fails to stand out: Bad solutions. Solutions that are so stupid, that one doesn't know where to begin in pointing out their flaws.

In 2007, much of the Southeastern US experienced the worst drought in decades. And it goes without saying that most of these states are not known for being quick to adopt water conservation measure, water recycling and such. However Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue had an idea: Pray for rain. Or more specifically to hold prayer meetings on the steps of the State Capitol. Of course, this wouldn't have necessarily bad such a terrible idea. If the Governor had done his praying in a manner that didn't violate the First Amendment. And if he had actually added some practical measures to the plan. For example environmentalists had long pushed for a limit on drilling new wells, and the state government didn't do it.

Another example of bad water saving strategies came in a chapter of Anita Roddick's book "Troubled Waters" where in the final chapter she describes the following four ideas "creative and noble" attempts to overcome water shortages.

1) A family in the US bought a king sized water bed which contains 1,500 liters of drinking water in the case of any temporary shortages.
2) Many residents of Warsaw shower during the evenings, because water rates are lower during those hours.
3) People in Kunming China put metal boxes with locks on their outdoor taps to prevent water theft.
4) Hungarian farmers raise pigs and goats instead of cows because the former require less water.

Do these solutions make any sense to you? What's wrong with any of these pictures? Personally, I would describe these solutions.

1) Stupid: So the family buys a king sized water bed and plans to use it in the event of shortages? For one thing a water bed is an energy hog which is not good for the water situation either directly or indirectly. Don't they know that there are cheaper, more earthquake proof, and more practical ways to have an emergency water supply? Or that a shortage time might not be the best time to dismantle one's bed? Or that if they have to leave home with it, carrying the bed wouldn't make things easier?

2) Irrelevant: If Warsaw residents shower at night for a lower rate they are probably saving money. I've heard of it being done in other places including the US at various times. Admirable frugality, but ultimately little to do with even conserving water let alone coping with serious shortages.

3) Sad: If people in Kunming, China find it necessary to lock up their taps to prevent water from being stolen. Basically this says that some people are desperate enough for water, that they would "steal" from somebody else's tap if they had a chance. While, the price of water and relatively poverty in much of China, might make it unfair to condemn people for this practice, it is a tragic situation that water would literally be kept "under lock and key", like that.

4) Far from original: The idea of raising goats and pigs rather than cattle to save water is a well known tactic, and nothing new.

Also remember that notion in the 80's that in order to save water, it would be desirable to wear disposable paper clothing, and use paper plates and cutlery rather than spend the water and detergents washing clothes and dishes? It turns out that doesn't work out so well when one considers the large amounts of water that go into making paper and plastic.

But as usual the worst ideas about solving water problems tend to be the large scale ones. Perhaps the most talked about has been privatization, which turned out to be a disaster in a number of places. Also water privatization has got its foot into the US in recent years. If privatization is a bad idea, certainly it is an even worse idea for companies such as AIG to get into the business of owning water utilities. What is the hydrological equivalent of a credit default swap? Nothing good, I'm sure.

The worst idea for solving water however, would be fighting wars over access to it. Yet, many have expressed the fear it may happen in the 21st century. And in that case the worst idea of all would be having a nuclear war over water. (Kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?) But unfortunately some concerns have been raised over water conflicts between India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons.

Be on the alert for other bad ideas. And.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Serious Questions about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

Hello Everyone!!

Although the Bush era is technically over, I'd like to raise some issues about why George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could do the sorts of things they did. And for over eight years now, I've seen much made of two things:

1) They both came from very affluent families.
2) Neither of them were in Vietnam.

But personally, I don't think either of the above go all that far in explaining either of their behavior. To blame wealth or some "missed Vietnam Syndrome" for their willingness to inflict the kind of damage on other human being that they did, is a cold hard slap in the face to the moral reasoning and intelligence of ordinary human beings. That they did these things without losing a night's sleep for it, as far as anyone seems to know, reveals something far more sinister than simple ignorance.

Admittedly both of these views get on my nerves. In fact, I think they are such poor explanations for their behavior that it almost negates the severity of what they've done. Personally, I expect normal teenagers and even normal third graders to be able to understand why telling lies that result in the deaths of thousands of people is wrong.

Therefore, to say that those men acted as they did because they missed Vietnam, gives them an excuse. An unflattering excuse perhaps, but an excuse nonetheless. An excuse that they flat out do not deserve. And that has been backhandedly given to them, at the expense of many other people who were their age and were not in the Vietnam, but were very dedicated to protesting the war then and still are now.


I don't feel that growing up wealthy and having never seen combat can explain the sheer callousness towards other human being required to start a war on false premises and cause the deaths of an unknown number of people. And in fact, we don't know how many Iraqi civilians were killed, but even the most conservative estimates make it dwarf the number of US fatalities. Historically nearly every US President and Vice President who orchestrated a war suffered immense amounts of doubt and anguish over the sheer amount of suffering that their actions were causing. Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson all experienced massive amounts of remorse and sorrow over it. And there is no solid evidence that Roosevelt (He had a stroke while doing it!!), who in fact did grow up wealthy and never served in the military, was drastically different from Abraham Lincoln who grew up in poverty and who was a veteran of the Black Hawk War. And it got to Johnson, despite the fact that he was known for being a fairly ruthless individual, whose sense of ethics are not universally remembered as above question.

So if the conventional explanations for these guys' behavior don't hold water, where does that leave us?

I'm not a diagnostician and don't think that we know everything there is to know about why people are the way they are. 40 years ago, the conventional wisdom had it that people are basically pure products of their environment, primarily their relationships to their parents during the first five years. When I was a biology student in the 90's the conventional wisdom was summed up by, "It's all in the genes." Nowadays there's a common idea that people are the result of both nature and nurture. Of course, there are competing ideas such as the notions children are mostly socialized by peers, or that birth order mostly determines one's politics. My personal opinion, is that it's too complex for any one unifying theory to "explain it all".

But regardless of who's wrong or right, it's clear that both Bush and Cheney both show an extreme lack of concern for the effects of their actions on other people.

It's been reported that Bush used to blow up frogs as a child, something that most psychologists agree is a bad sign in a kid. Other people looking to Bush's childhood for clues, have looked at the fact his three year old sister died when he was seven. As a reason that a person might lack empathy, that strikes me as more credible than "missing Vietnam" or coming from a wealthy family. But at the same time, a lot of people have lost siblings and still find the things Bush and Cheney have done appalling. One psychoanalyst suggested the difference between Bush's reaction to his sister's death, vs. a peace activist who claimed to be influenced in that direction by the early loss of a sibling may lie in the Bush family's unwillingness to talk openly about such things. However, it's also reasonable to argue that W, inherited his lack of compassion much more directly from his family members, including Dear Old Dad. His father had a Machiavellian history that involved a war of political expedience, and his actions as head of the CIA. And his grandfather made money off the rise of the Nazi War Machine.

In the final analysis that sort of debate goes into a realm, where we simply don't have all the answers. But either way, Bush's lack apparent lack of a conscience started before most Americans could locate Vietnam on a map. By the time Bush was a young man the pattern was awfully clear. During his much ballyhooed fraternity days, Bush was actually involved in a scandal where he defended his frat, Delta Kappa Epsilon's, practice of hazing new pledges by burning them with coat hangers. Torture and interrogation practices? Complete denial of wrongdoing, anyone?
And if finding Jesus didn't install a basic sense of right and wrong, I'm not going to take it as a given that a year of combat would have.

Dick Cheney has not received the same level of public psychoanalysis. However, one incident stands out in my mind as an indicator of just how ruthless and unconcerned for other people Cheney truly is. Namely the time he shot his own friend in a hunting accident and did not seem to doubt his role in the Iraq War because of it. In a human being with anything resembling a normal conscience, one would expect the experience of accidentally harming and potentially killing a friend would prompt some re-evaluation or inventory of one's life, especially if that happened to include promoting a war. But all the evidence indicates that he didn't. And in the post Bush era, he has continued to support Bush era policies and has suggested that he actually pressured Bush to be even more extreme.

Of course, I didn't say as much about the fact that both men grew up relatively wealthy. But then again so did Ted Kennedy, may he rest in peace. And as a Senator he did not display the same indifference to other people, that permeated everything Bush and Cheney did.

Say Goodnight Readers.

9/11 in the Post-Bush era

Hello Everyone!

Yes, it's the eight anniversary of the the infamous terrorist attacks on the United States. And I suspect that most of the readers of this blog are already on the page that the administrations reaction to the events was not good. It is certainly true that neither the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq were logical reactions to the events. And nor were various attacks against Civil Liberties.

But if those reactions to 9/11 were not logical, why did so many people buy into them? Was it out of fear? Perhaps, but fear alone fails to explain why so many people in Blue States many of them living in port cities or near other possible terrorist targets by and large did not fall in behind the Bush administration, and why so many people in very rural areas in the South and lower Midwest who lived nowhere near any obvious targets seemed much more likely to seeing civil liberties as expendable and war as a foregone conclusion.

Of course, it's only fair to accept the possibility that many people in low risk areas might be responding to their concern for other Americans rather than simply to concern for their own personal safety. (Indeed, I've often complained about the fact that anti-war protesters are cursed as cowards if they stand a chance of being drafted or have immediate relatives in that war, and cursed as being ideologues who don't "have a real stake in the issue" if they don't.) But even if that's true-which it probably is-there is little way around the conclusion that some geographic and demographic portions of the country by and large saw the risk of terror and logical reactions differently than others. And that difference was not defined by the more militaristic reactions belonging to those more at risk of actually being a victim of the attacks.

Could it be that certain areas of the country were less likely to favor unbridled militarism and loss of civil liberties, because since they were largely near port cities, they were despite being more at risk, also more cosmopolitan and more aware of the world at large? It's certainly possible, but not every area fits that model. Florida and Texas contain largely Red areas with ports and lots of immigrants. And much of the blue Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest, can be a bit provincial in its own way.

Could it be that we are dealing with long-standing regional cultural differences? After all, there is a long history of anti-war movements being located largely in New England, the Upper Midwest, and the West Coast, while the Deep South tends to support wars unconditionally. And this trend has been around since colonial times. Or could we be looking at another attempt to "beat the Vietnam Syndrome" because the Gulf War wasn't quite enough as Bush I had said?

I certainly don't have all the answers. I've had my doubts at the accuracy of some of the polls, and consider it very possible that elections 2000, and 2004 might not have been entirely fair. But one thing is for certain: The reasons why so many people supported the Bush administration's agendas wasn't an "understandable" response to fear of terrorism, or even one universally shared among Americans.

And sadly, it wasn't just a case of supporting the Bush administration. Soon after the 9/11 Washington Senator Patty Murray (D), who had long supported environmental legislation, said something to the effect of "Now even worrying about the environment seems like such a luxury."

One film that in my mind captured the *mood* of American society in the first few years after 9/11, was "Land of Plenty" by Wim Wenders, a German director with ample experience living in and making movies and commercials in the United States. Among the themes of the film are both the high level of poverty in American society for such a rich country, and the sort of odd combination of paranoia and "lostness" of those years. Mostly this is portrayed through the relationship between a niece, a young woman named Lana, who grew up a missionary kid in Africa and the Middle East and her uncle Paul, a rather paranoid Vietnam Vet. Of course, you could argue that Paul was something of a stereotyped character, and Lana was ferociously anti-stereotypical: a devout Christian woman who was anti-war and neither the least bit hippie nor rednecky. What the movie captured amazingly well, was the bizarrely disconnected and almost schizophrenic contrast between the ever present paranoid and demagoguery constantly portrayed in the media and through all forms of mass communication on one hand, and the economically grim haze that society seemed to be in. Where "third world" problems seemed to be on the rise and nothing seemed to matter to anyone other than just short term economic survival. Those of us who protested the war were often looked upon as fools, less than respectable types, and not so much "unpatriotic" but rather resented for simply having the energy to care. Often the implication-at least from people on the street-was not so much that we were traitorous or helping the terrorists, so much as sorely in need of being pulled down a few pegs, for being so high-and-mighty to be thinking beyond day by day existence. When simply having a real conversation with anyone by itself, even in the anti-war movement, seemed something enormously to be thankful for, and grounds for immense solidarity.

One of the reasons why we loved Howard Dean so much was because he seemed to "break the spell". I suspect that with Obama the same desire to get out of this funk, was one reason people decided to support such an unlikely candidate.

And now for the first 9/11 anniversary Bush is not in charge. It's no secret that there is a massive cleaning up to do from the Bush years, but how?

One question is how the attacks should be remembered. Obama tried to declare September 11, as a day of public service. Some people have worried that telling people to do good works on that day will take away from the remembrance of that event. But is that not better than telling people to go shopping?

Perhaps one serious issue, is how to prevent any future shock events whether terrorism, natural disasters, or perhaps global warming from sending the nation into such a massive funk and total willingness on the part of large numbers of people to completely get rid of the Constitution and start wars that had almost nothing to do with the incident. Are there any effective ways to avert such reactions to tragedy?

While the Tom Tomorrow carton suggesting that Bush and Co, would use hurricane Katrina to declare "War on the Weather" may be a little over the top, it is likely that some time in the future the American people will experience other tragedies like 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. The question is, how to keep those incidents from giving rise to mass despair, economic fallouts, ill-conceived wars, Constitutional crisis, blind obedience, and general lostness.

Should leaders be elected with this in mind? Should we reform the economic system to be more shock-resistant? Where do fuel, energy, and water infrastructure, not be mention climate change fit into this? Food security? What should be done about the willingness of too many Americans to exchange freedom for the illusion of safety? Or to wage wars simply for a sense of revenge?

These are serious questions. Better to ask them before the next shocking thing happens.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Mother of Feminism, Grandmother to Science Fiction

Hello Everyone!

Today is the the anniversary of the death of Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of modern feminism. Since this is the anniversary of her death it should also be mentioned that in dying she would orphan her ten day old second daughter. Mary Shelley who would launch the genre of modern science fiction with the publication of her book "Frankenstein".

One thing you hear from a lot of conservative writers is that women's liberation was pretty much just a byproduct of technology one way or another. Even the Vatican claimed that the washing machine did more to liberate women than the pill, just a few months ago. Basically there is a tendency in many quarters to discount the role feminism had in the ways society has changed. But they aren't really looking at what sort of things have at one time or another been "crazy feminist causes". Nor do many of them understand what feminism actually is and was.

One thing that this post won't deal with in any depth are the contributions of women to society. Certainly enough has already been said about the roles female labor has always played in society, and the number of women who have despite it all managed to become rulers, writers, poets, scientists, doctors, teachers, artists, or inventors. Frankly, I'm assuming that many of my readers already know about them.

This post is not concerned so much about the contributions of women, but the contributions of feminism to modern society.

Many people do not know that Mary Wollstonecraft was the first writer to radically argue that universal public education should be mandatory with no regard to sex or social class. She felt that ages four through nine should be the first ages in which it ought to be tried on state supported compulsory basis. At the time it was a nearly unheard of idea, even among the intellectuals who supported the French and American Revolutions among other things. So there you have it, once state sponsored early elementary school was once a feminist cause. Of course, the movements for the vote would gain current in the 19th and early 20th century. But Mary Wollstonecraft was not just about "empowering" women politically. First and foremost, she wanted to make the women of her society human, something most of them had not been allowed to aspire to. And to get most of humanity-not just women-out of a horrific ignorance which if it had continued, would have rendered most of our modern world impossible. Another idea which was introduced by very early feminists such as Wollstonecraft, was the notion that the right to vote or participate in civic affairs should be based on adult citizenship and by demonstrating the capacity for reason and conscience (which she claimed contrary to the accepted wisdom of her time women could develop) rather than being seeing suffrage as a sort of property-indeed in many places the right to vote was dependent on owning property.

For this reason strong ties between suffragette movements and abolitionist movements were no accident.

The issue of family planning was advanced heavily by feminist movements, and as a result also changed the human condition is many ways. For example in the past, when Malthus talked about the possibility of their not being enough land to feed the world's people someday the only options on the table were infanticide, abortion, draconian sexual and marital codes, or simply allowing large numbers of people die in local disasters and famines. But now, when we think of population as an issue the first thing that comes into most peoples' minds are relatively safe modern contraceptives. Obviously medicine and science were an important part of this advancement. However, much of the applied research was lobbied for by feminist groups, much as Margaret Sanger had sought to enlist various scientists to develop the birth control pill. Even the research however, would have done little good if feminists had not sought both to legalize it and change its imagine from something used by prostitutes, to something that was OK for respectable people.

So there you have it. There are three major changes in our society, even most anti-feminists take for granted these days.

Beyond that Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter, in many ways shaped modern imaginations, by inventing science fiction. In an interesting coincidence one early forward to the book "Frankenstein", Mary Shelley mentioned the research of a Professor Darwin-the father of Charles Darwin. But despite all that, our society labels science fiction as "geek boys' adventure stories" despite the fact it has made modern sensibilities so different from what they were before science fiction was invented. Basically this genre did nothing less than give people a form of fictional literature that could serve as a sort of ground for thought experiments about how certain technologies and/or social changes would affect the society. And people of various stripes could read it, come up with their own ideas about how realistic the author's version was, and if they thought they could do better write their own. Without it our how understanding about society would likely have been quite different. How often do work of science fiction and the whole language that has grown out of them, come up in political debates (ei Big Brother's Watching, Brave New World, or even "Frankencrops".)? Could we imagine how the modern world would look without any of those touchstones or references?

I've always found it ironic that science fiction has long been regarded as primarily the province of men and boys, when it was invented by a woman. And that on top of that when Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein", romance writers were almost exclusively men. Men who almost always used male pen names, if not necessarily their own names, unlike the male romance writers of today who almost always take on female pen names. And throughout the early 20th century most female science fiction writers took on male pen names. In one famous case Alice Sheldon, writing under the pen name "James Tiptree", decided to came out of the closet after some of her stories had been described in magazines as "robustly masculine" and even a classic example of what science fiction would loose if women continued to enter the field.

But life is full of little ironies. Such as the fact that in the 18th century reading and writing were thought to be only fit for males. But today some would argue (fortunately few of them are actual teachers) that girls should be the ones who learn by reading quietly and by rote handwriting excercises, while the boys should get the hands-on experiments and fields trips.

Say Goodnight Readers!!

Absurdities of Our Times: Part 3

Hello Everyone!

I'd like to talk about another aspect about our current society, that future generations are going to look back upon and say: "My God, that was so stupid. What in the world were they thinking."

The current absurdity involves two partial solutions to global warming and oil depletion that have been technologically "ready" for decades but which still aren't being put into practice. Namely electric cars and gasification/pyrolysis methods of converting waste biomass into fuel.

Now some readers are likely to ask, "But are electric cars ready for the market? Aren't there a lot of technical bugs to work out?" I have some news for you. Electric cars were apparently ready for the market-by Detroit's lights that is-over 100 years ago. In fact, that early 1900's car you see in the picture above is an electric car. Thomas Davenport built a prototype electric car in 1835, and electric cars were "on the market" in the US, Britain, and many Europen countries before the 20th century. Even Henry Ford was manufacturing a popular electric car in 1908. New York had electric taxis in the 19th century.

I don't doubt that technological advances matter. But how did it come to be that the electric car was "viable" in 1908, but not in 2008? One legitimate concern I suppose is that electric cars don't get the same miles and take a long time to recharge (which may change in the near future), however the idea of hybrid vehicles didn't begin with Prius either. In fact, one of the earlier Porsche models (a contemporary of these early electric cars) was also a hybrid.

During the 1970's oil crisis, people had become accustomed to driving much further distances at least some of the time with their cars, and train travel was no longer the favored option for long trips that it had been in the late 19th to early 20th century. But all the same, there was much talk of both electric cars for in city use, with combustion engines reserved for longer trips. And many ideas, some quite radical and others more conservative, were floated as to how ordinary citizens could have reasonably access to both without having to own both and perhaps while owning neither, since cars were expected to be secondary to public transit, trains, and such in the future. Also there was talk about a very basic form of plug in hybrid car and working prototypes were created in both the US and Europe. Yet, somehow what had been doable enough for the late Victorians, was the stuff of science fiction for a country that had just landed a man on the moon. Is that because modern people somehow got stupider and the technology was lost?

At the least that view is very hard to gel with the fact that electric/petroleum hybrid submarines existed throughout the late 20th centuries. Or that in recent years Seattle's Metro has to buy mainly or exclusively hybrid or electric buses. Or the recent boom in hybrid trains and locomotives. And hybrid boats. And industrial machinery.

As for flex fuel vehicles, you are perhaps getting the theme here. The Henry Ford company produced them from 1903 to 1927. Henry Ford it turns out was strongly in favor in ethanol, because of his rural sympathies. While corn ethanol is not the best source of energy, options such as algal ethanol, biomass gasification fuels, synfuels and other options might make them extremely useful options.

And let's talk about gasification fuels. That's another neglected technology, that worked fine for Nazi Germany during WWII and South Africa during the Apartheid boycott, but supposedly the modern US of A, can't possibly make use of it with oil issues a major risk factor for war and serious talk of global warming threatening our very existence. Jimmy Carter once called oil crises "The Moral Equivalent of War". Yet, late 20th century America-and so far early 21st century America-did not show the flexibility of the Nazis with their murderous Empire, or a South Africa determined to keep its racist government. Why is this? Lack of technology? Lack of imagination? Or resistance to change?

Of course, many people will site the coming solar revolution as a sign that our current society isn't quite so hidebound. But little do most of them know that solar thermal engines and power plants were built in 1904.

Sometimes it pays to listen to historian of technology, instead of relying entirely on engineers at General Motors with their ideas about what is and isn't "economically practical".

Say Goodnight Readers!

On Corrupting The Youth

Hi Everyone!

I'd like to talk about a surprising controversy that has come up lately. Namely Obama's plan to address school children with the most controversial socialist message imaginable: To stay in school and study.

As a child of the 80's, this amazes me because it says that some people, including some of my contemporaries, have extremely short political memories. But I clearly remember the many times when Ronald Reagan appeared on a TV screen our classrooms, in both Catholic and public school alike. Or the time in 1989 when George H.W. Bush made a massive appeal to the young people not to use drugs. Of course, this was a minor part of what Ronald Reagan's wife set in motion: a massive campaign to keep young people from using drugs. And some of it really did use tactics that some psychologists would question.

Well do I remember, "getting to" miss both algebra, art, and English class as a high school Freshman in order to spend the morning in the cafeteria witnessing the burley members of the "Radical Youth Invasion" break bricks on their heads, bend construction poles with their teeth, and tear up phone books in an effort to persuade us not to use drugs. As one conservative neighbor commented at the time, "It sounds like they're on drugs." Since their rationale for tearing up phone books was that drug dealers used phone books to find buyers, I wondered if they also wanted to keep us away from pizza parlors, lawyers, and car dealers as well. And expressed the concern to my parents, several teachers, and the principal that they were using "mob mentality", even though I was an extremely straight laced kid who had no plans on using drugs, nor any decriminalization stance. Of course, almost nobody took what I said seriously. Not even the "stoner" kids at the school.
Then there was also the "inspirational speaker" who told us that boys and girls couldn't really be friends and that eventually it would lead to something more. Therefore, it was better to show platonic affection to members of the same sex, while everyone in the crowd copped their usual homophobia. To think otherwise would be fooling ourselves.

So there you have it!! I suppose this was the intermediate between the nuns that used to warn young girls about ordering ravioli on a date because it would remind the boys of beds and pillows, and today's abstinence educators that compare loss of virginity-for females of course-to becoming like an unwrapped lollipop.

Looking back on those days, I find it ironic that so much attention was given to keeping teenagers off drugs and less was given to teenage pregnancy-a much bigger problem in this school district. Also whether or not a youngster was perceived as a "stoner" had little to do with whether or not they were actually using drugs, and a lot to do with how they dressed.

But nowadays, I know that most illegal drug use does occur among adults, not teeangers. And that not all ex-addicts are anything like the people who used to come to our school and tell about their horrific struggles with drugs-complete with details that would attract the attention of certain book banning parents, were they found in a book on the school reading list-while even the kindergartners were present.

But behind this apparent contradiction, I think lies a bigger issue. Namely the idea that school age children are both parental property and little babies who have no real ability to think or form opinions. Right winged talk show host Chris Stigall said of the school speech, "I wouldn't let my next door neighbor talk to my kid alone. I'm sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone." Besides the fact that Stigall talks as if this was going to happen in some broom closet, I hate to imagine what sort of childhood the poor boy is going to have. I couldn't figure whether Stigall's kid(s) go to public school, private school, or (God forbid with such an insular father) are homeschooled. I wonder if he objects to teachers speaking to his children. What about clergy? Having been raised Catholic, it was quite normal for us to start talking to priests alone around the age of seven or eight. I also seem to remember kids going off to scout camp in groups where at most one third of them had a parent present.

How in the world did so many parents become so protective of their kids? Why is that so many kids don't get to walk one mile to school in some low crime neighborhoods? Or even ride the subway?

Another thing that seems not to occur to people who think the President and the Right are using the kids as pawns, is that maybe the children actually care about the world beyond the metaphorical nursery world that so many parents seem determined to create. Maybe issues like global warming, the war in Iraq, jobs, and health care actually mean something to them. The younger ones, have recently just witnessed the first Presidential election that they are may be old enough to remember. Or the first one since they hit "the age of reason" so to speak. The older ones may already have been thinking about how global warming or the economy are going to affect their lives or wondered if they might be drafted and sent to Iraq like some of their parents, uncles, or even grandparents were sent to Vietnam. Some of the more aware ones may even think about issues such as health care, world poverty, civil liberties, prison reform, land minds, or nuclear weapons.

Indeed, they may not be old enough to vote. (Of course, some might just be a year or less from it!!) But where did we get the idea that children are not old enough to hear what their President has to say? Is there not a sort of authoritarianism in the idea that cops and firemen can come to school and talk to kids, but not an elected leader? Why do so many people complain of political and social apathy among young people, and yet so easily dismiss the idea that they may actually have some thoughts or something to say about the state of the world?

Maybe it's the right is so hostile to young people "getting ideas" as they *supposedly* first did in the 60's, that they would like to shut not only the voices of children and teenagers, but even their ears and eyes, out of the political dialog entirely.

But for my part, I think the idea of the President treating people too young to vote for him like real citizens, is a beautiful thing. In a small way. And much as I never liked Ronald Reagan, I can after listening to the Tea Party crowd, look back on upon the images of him out our classroom screen monitors with a certain amount of nostalgia.

(Good Lord!!! I never thought I'd say anything like that. I must be getting sentimental!)

Say Goodnight Readers!