Saturday, December 29, 2018
The rate of global warming
Since 1880, which is the measure most people use, on average the CO2 level has gone up less than 1 part per million per year and the temperature has gone up less than 1/100th of a degree celsius per year. You could argue that since about 1970 things have accelerated a little, but a little less than double. The temperature went up on average of 0.016 degrees celsius pear year. It is going take a very long time to reach the five degrees needed to melt the polar ice caps, which are according to every source going to take 5,000 years to melt. Meanwhile we will be out of most fossil fuels by the year 2100 and coal will be gone by the 2150. The only thing that will save us from running out of energy will be nuclear fusion, which fortunately is not that far off.
Three years ago I wrote this:
The amount of carbon on planet Earth by definition remains pretty much the same. Man has been burning fossil fuels, which puts carbon into the atmosphere. Where did the carbon in the fossil fuels come from? It mostly came from plants and bacteria that got buried underground due to geological processes. Over millions of years natural processes turned the plants and bacteria into fossil fuels. Where did the plants and bacteria get their carbon from? They got it from the atmosphere. The carbon that we are now putting into the atmosphere originally came from the atmosphere.
To better understand this, we have to understand the complete history of atmospheric carbon dioxide on planet Earth. The original earth atmosphere was an amazing 43% carbon dioxide compared with the roughly .04% that we have now. That original atmosphere had so much pressure that it could crush a man flat. About 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria began using photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into free oxygen, which lead to the creation of our oxygen rich "third atmosphere" 2.3 billion years ago. At that time the carbon dioxide levels were about 7,000 parts per million, but it went into a somewhat steady but uneven decline because geological processes would sequester carbon underground. The decline was uneven because as part of the "carbon dioxide cycle", sometimes geological processes like volcanoes would cause massive amounts of carbon dioxide to be released back into the atmosphere.
Thirty million years ago during the Oligocene Epoch, the average temperature of the earth was about 7 degrees Celsius warmer than it is now. There was no ice on the poles, but the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was in rapid decline during this epoch. About 23 million years ago, at the beginning of the Neogene period, ice began to form on the poles. About ten million years ago, a series of intermittent ice ages began that continue to this day. I found one source that said that we are still technically in an ice age because we still have ice at the poles.
These ice ages helped create human evolution. The ice ages caused Africa to dry up which lead to some deforestation. This forced some arboreal (tree dwelling) apes to venture onto land. About 7 million years ago, the first apes that could comfortably walk upright appeared. They had evolved a new type of pelvis that allowed upright locomotion, which is about three times more efficient when trying to cross land.
The first tool making ape that resembled modern humans, Homo habilis, arose 2.5 million years ago. It would be soon followed by Homo erectus, and then about 200,000 years ago, modern humans, Homo sapiens would arise. However, Homo sapiens almost died out. About 50,000 years ago an ice age in Europe had caused Africa to almost completely dry up. The total human population had dropped to 7,000 individuals living on the southern coast of Africa. During this period humans learned how to fish, make new tools, and create permanent dwellings. When the ice age abated, these humans with their new tools spread out to rest of the world at a pace of about a mile per year. This was the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic (Late Stone Age) period.
More ice ages would follow, and during each ice age human population would decline. It is no coincidence that all of human civilization (i.e. agriculture, use of metals) would arise during a "brief" warm period between two ice ages starting about 10,000 years ago. I have heard that no matter what we do, we will enter a new ice age in about 10,000 years from now, but I have also heard speculation that the next ice age will be delayed by global warming. This actually should be our goal, since humans have always declined during the ice ages and always prospered during the intermittent warm periods.
During the geological time period of the earth, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been on an uneven decline and mostly disappeared. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is necessary for plant growth, and I have read that we were running dangerously low on atmospheric carbon dioxide, about 00.02%, before mankind at least temporarily reversed the trend. I just read a wikipedia article that said that atmospheric carbon dioxide will eventually get so low that all plants and animals will die off. What mankind has done is put carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere that was previously there, thus possibly delaying the next ice age. Currently the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 00.04%.
Carbon dioxide by itself cannot cause significant global warming. There are diminished returns. Carbon dioxide has to double again to produce the same effect as the last doubling. The effect is not linear but logarithmic. What the alarmists are worried about, and they could be correct, is positive feedback. The warming of the earth causes more water vapor to enter the atmosphere, and water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, thus causing more warming. If this were true, however, the last warming period around the year 2000 should caused a continuous positive feedback, a runaway greenhouse, which didn't happen. Instead temperatures went into a major decline and hit a really big low point in the year 2007.
The skeptics believe that increased cloud cover reflects sunlight back into space thus causing a negative feedback. The skeptics are not "global warming deniers", which is a pejorative phrase used by global warming theorists to make the skeptics sound like holocaust deniers. These skeptics actually believe in global warming. At least, the legitimate skeptical scientists do. They just think that global warming is happening at a rate slower than predicted by the theorists. I can point you to an article that shows that the positive feedback models have been contradicted by the actual temperature data, which in reality has been closer to the negative feedback models.
The worst case scenario is that the polar ice caps will melt. If that happens we will lose some coastlines and all of Florida due to sea level rise. However, according to what I just read, it will take 5,000 years for the polar ice caps to melt. In other words, these are processes that take a very long time to happen. In this century we are only looking at modest temperature increases. In the meantime, humans are very adaptable. We are only five to ten years away from creating the first workable prototypes of nuclear fusion. It might take 25 years for this to be practical, but at that point if we wanted to get rid of fossil fuels altogether, we could. I think that we will also see advances in solar power, which is already happening, and battery technology to store the energy created by solar. In other words, we have it within our means to avoid any possible disasters that might be coming.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Mueller’s Collusion Hoax Collapses
When that phantasmagorically impossible mission failed, without missing a newscast the president's enemies opened fire with the new theory. This is that a confessed criminal and accused liar could prove that the president committed crimes when he paid his legal bills, including, with or without his specific knowledge, inducements to two women not to violate agreements to keep private their own contested recollections of innocuous sexual encounters with the president ten years before the election.
The theory further holds that these supposedly criminal violations of election financing laws could cause a two-thirds majority of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to remove the president from office, or at the least, that a prosecutor who patiently waited until the president left office could then send him to prison for this conduct.
I was even astounded at the reaction of the Trump-haters who had been citing the Steele dossier as incontrovertible evidence of his "treason" (Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, and many others), when they had to deal with the fact that it was a smear-job commissioned and paid for and shopped to the media by the Clinton campaign. Without breaking their strides, they called this inconvenient fact "a talking point" (Washington Post), and altered the dossier's status to "campaign information," (Hillary Clinton).
This latest display of sangfroid is even more remarkable and ethically disturbing. All of them knew that the Russian collusion claim was defamatory fiction, and no one with an IQ in double figures or higher could believe that the election finance crime theory generated by putting the screws to a low-life like Cohen could seriously inconvenience the president.
The theory further holds that these supposedly criminal violations of election financing laws could cause a two-thirds majority of the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to remove the president from office, or at the least, that a prosecutor who patiently waited until the president left office could then send him to prison for this conduct.
I was even astounded at the reaction of the Trump-haters who had been citing the Steele dossier as incontrovertible evidence of his "treason" (Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, and many others), when they had to deal with the fact that it was a smear-job commissioned and paid for and shopped to the media by the Clinton campaign. Without breaking their strides, they called this inconvenient fact "a talking point" (Washington Post), and altered the dossier's status to "campaign information," (Hillary Clinton).
This latest display of sangfroid is even more remarkable and ethically disturbing. All of them knew that the Russian collusion claim was defamatory fiction, and no one with an IQ in double figures or higher could believe that the election finance crime theory generated by putting the screws to a low-life like Cohen could seriously inconvenience the president.
Payoff Politics | The Ben Shapiro Show - YouTube
This is an interesting summary and analysis of Trump's legal problems.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Friday, November 30, 2018
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Facebook post from 2 years ago today.
The theory of left or right brain dominance is considered a myth, but even if it is a myth, it illustrates that people have different ways of thinking, where some people are more logical thinkers, good with math and science, and others are more artistic, subjective, and emotional.
I once took a personality test that claimed that I had 70% left brain dominance. This was in no way a surprise. I am into science, history, math and chess.
I see many assertions on here and elsewhere that seem to me to not have a sound logical basis. This is especially true of political posts in the last few weeks. I find myself reacting to things that seem totally outrageous, but reacting to these things is mostly a waste of my time. It can be entertaining, but it doesn't lead anywhere because I am never going to convince people who are already firm in their beliefs.
I have come to believe that a great many people and I will never agree on great many things because our brains are wired differently. This doesn't necessarily make one person right and the other wrong, but it does mean that we see the world very differently.
I think that politics is driven by fear. Each side has completely different things that they are afraid of. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator, therefore it takes away people's ability to be objective. Politics is mostly a reaction to things that people are against, because if people were perfectly happy, they wouldn't need politics.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
I once took a personality test that claimed that I had 70% left brain dominance. This was in no way a surprise. I am into science, history, math and chess.
I see many assertions on here and elsewhere that seem to me to not have a sound logical basis. This is especially true of political posts in the last few weeks. I find myself reacting to things that seem totally outrageous, but reacting to these things is mostly a waste of my time. It can be entertaining, but it doesn't lead anywhere because I am never going to convince people who are already firm in their beliefs.
I have come to believe that a great many people and I will never agree on great many things because our brains are wired differently. This doesn't necessarily make one person right and the other wrong, but it does mean that we see the world very differently.
I think that politics is driven by fear. Each side has completely different things that they are afraid of. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator, therefore it takes away people's ability to be objective. Politics is mostly a reaction to things that people are against, because if people were perfectly happy, they wouldn't need politics.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Friday, November 16, 2018
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Friday, November 9, 2018
Jordan Peterson.
Jordan Peterson is a lot to take in. He appears to ramble, but that is because he has much to say. He looks at humanity on a kind of systems level, which is how do people function together and what values do they have? He ties this to how mythology reflects the values that make society work.
It takes effort to understand Jordan Peterson, but he is fascinating to listen to.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Trump and the Survival of the West
I found much of this livestream pretty interesting. Occasionally, it had sound problems. However, there is a great little speech from 29:10 to 31:20
Another interesting part starts at 25:00 and goes up to 29:10.
Monday, November 5, 2018
Re: Slavery's Scar on the United States
FYI.
On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 9:46 PM John Coffey <> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 11:52 PM Albert Nelms <> wrote:
this dude chickened out in the end. he took up today's popular view that the civil war was about slavery. It's the easy way out, once your foolish enough to enter the bag of worms known as the American Civil War. After all, this guy had almost 500,000 views on this video. Supporting the popular view makes him more money due to more views. It also supports the leftist agenda to rewrite history to support their imagined framework of the American truth. I can hear the first two stanzas of Pink Floyd's song Money. The cash register's bell seems to get louder and louder as the views build up. Truth be damned or at least modified to please one's point of view. cha-ching, Cha-Ching, CHA-CHING!
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Coffey <>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: Slavery's Scar on the United States
To: Al Nelms <>
From: John Coffey <>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: Slavery's Scar on the United States
To: Al Nelms <>
Al,
On this matter I think that you are wrong. To be clear, the North fought the war to reunite the Union, but I have seen enough quotes from people that it is clear that the South seceded over the slavery issue. People claim that Lincoln never promised to free the slaves, but Lincoln tended to treat the issue with kid gloves for political reasons. In his heart he was an abolitionist, and so was his father, and the south knew that. I have seen quotes where southerners regarded the election of Lincoln intolerable and give this as the reason for secession..
I would like to see you provide evidence to the contrary.
Granted that wasn't the only issue, but I think that the real historical revisionism has been by people from the south who tried to give the rebellion a more noble sounding cause. There is this organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy that for over a century has been erecting civil war monuments to the south and literally rewriting school textbooks to deemphasize slavery and put slavery in a more positive light.
Personally I think that Lincoln should not have sent warships to Ft. Sumpter. Lincoln also made it clear in his inaugural speech that he would not allow the south to secede peacefully. This lead to a war that was enormously costly in terms of lives and treasure. Even if you could say that he was in the right legally, the consequences of his actions devastated the country. (We can also place blame on the south for the blockade of Ft. Sumpter.)
--
Suppressing the Vote | Disenfranchisement
In response to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI25YYZURGk
Much voter fraud does not get investigated or is ignored. https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/instances-voter-fraud-continue-mount-further-compromising-our https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSbe4fK1crg The political left is always saying that this is not a problem, but if so why did states refuse to cooperate with Trump's voter fraud commision? Fraud benefits the left, so they are always claiming it is a non-issue. Maybe it is a non-issue, but we will never really know because people ignore it and put up roadblocks to investigations. I think it is a real issue. Political power is hotly contested in this country and we see people stoop very low to achieve their objectives. There is also a very long history of voter fraud, which likely decided the 1960 presidential election.
We have the right and obligation to protect the integrity of our voting system. If people can't be responsible enough to get a proper ID then maybe they are not responsible enough to vote. The most I have ever had to wait at a DMV is an hour, and that was in Utah. In Indiana it has always been less than 30 minutes. Maybe some voter ID laws are unfair and should be changed, but voting is such an important responsibility that it should not be considered such a heavy burden to get an ID. We are faced with all kinds of other burdens in society to be compliant with the law, such as filing taxes just for starters, that getting an ID to vote seems like a relatively minor burden.
Complaining that you have to take time off from work and wait a few weeks for your ID to arrive in the mail seems like much whining. States always provide you with a temporary license/ID until the real one arrives in the mail.
I am somewhat skeptical of a court of appeals that impugns the motives of the legislature without any direct evidence.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Monday, October 29, 2018
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Re: Forced back to catch and release
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials – faced with a lack of housing space, an agreement that limits how long they can detain families and a massive increase in the number of border crossers – are having to resort to releasing illegal immigrants and asylum seekers "out of the front door" in Arizona.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Friday, October 12, 2018
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
The paradox of choice | Barry Schwartz
Funny. I don't necessarily agree with his final conclusion about redistributing wealth, but the video is thought provoking
Fwd: Award winning teacher Kerstin Westcott's resignation speech in Green Bay...
This is from my friend Al:
This is one of the saddest teacher testimonies I've seen on YouTube. What's sadder is the general public's complete ignorance of how bad our public school systems have become. Keep in mind, this teacher is speaking about the school system in Green Bay, Wisconsin. If it's that bad there, imagine how bad it is in New York, LA, Chicago, etc.
https://youtu.be/-SRCY8FqoyQ
https://youtu.be/-SRCY8FqoyQ
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Fwd: France violent protests across country
The marches on Tuesday, October 9 are the first since June and are taking place in cities across France including Nice, Marseilles, Tours, Rennes and Bayonne.
Students, employees and pensioners have all been protesting against what they believe is the "destruction of the social model".
Images have emerged of French armed police officers tackling protesters, severely injured people and police even using tear gas to control the demonstrators.
Unions including The General Confederation of Labour and Workers' Force unions are holding protests in Paris against "ideological policies" and reforms.
One protester held a banner which read "Macron, assassin of the social system".
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1028966/france-protests-emmanuel-macron-nantes-latest
Monday, October 8, 2018
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Bill Maher: Liberals Must Stop Chasing Conservatives Out Of Restaurants
I rarely agree with Bill Maher, but I do think that he is funny.
Friday, October 5, 2018
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Friday, September 28, 2018
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Apple says that they charge so much because they make the best phone.
Apple wants to make the best so that they can have the most margin. It probably costs around $350 to make this phone, and maybe $400 for the maxed out models, but Apple screws the customer on price anyway. They could charge $750 to $800 for any of these phones and be doing well.
This is deliberate. Apple will continue to do this only as long as people are willing to throw their money away. If nobody bought the XS Max, with the ironic name, Apple would be forced to offer discounts and be more reasonable in their pricing structure.
I am still happy with my iPhone 6+, but these prices are so insane that I will not buy the latest models. I could be just as happy with a cheaper 1 to 2 year or model, or a different brand. There are $500 phones that people can be just as happy with.
A dollar per day will not pay for this phone in two years. Maybe three years, but some models would take four years.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Monday, September 24, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Richard Wolff - What is Public Debt? How is money printed? And how do Governments pay for Wars?
This guy is a marxist, but in this video he says the same thing as libertarians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DdYJIM9fgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DdYJIM9fgo
Thursday, September 13, 2018
(22) US Schools Start WAY Too Early | Random Thursday - YouTube
I found the first part of this video pretty funny. I'm not sure that I agree with the conclusions, but making kids go to school at 7 AM doesn't make much sense.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Monday, September 10, 2018
Friday, September 7, 2018
Midterm Elections
The typical turnout for midterm elections is about 40%, so the side that wins will be the one that can get more of their people to the voting booth.
I'm predicting that both sides will have above average, if not record breaking turnout.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Sunday, September 2, 2018
The Truth About Untruth | Postmodernism Exposed
I thought that this long video is a very good critique of Postmodernism, until the end when he brought up race and IQ, which is one of his favorite topics. I think that the following video is a very good counter to this prejudice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9jiPyLYZA
In response to Stefan Molyneux's video I wrote the following:
I would love to share this extremely good presentation, but the moment you bring up race and IQ you make it unpresentable, because others will dismiss you as a racist. In fact, claiming that one ethnic group on average is significantly smarter than another is still racism. David Duke said the same thing. Like you, David Duke said that he was for European culture. Where is the difference between the two of you?
You may think that this is based on sound science, but there are many reasons to think that this is questionable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9jiPyLYZA Even if you could refute some of the things in this video, I think that we can't adequately test for culture and environment. It may never be clear, or maybe it will more clear in 50 years, because as people rise out of poverty some or even all of the discrepancies will disappear, which is shown by the Flynn Effect.
Because of this, we put too much faith in IQ scores. It is true that IQ scores are a great predictor of success, but we have a chicken and egg problem. Successful people produce environments for their children that lead to financial and academic success. They instill ambition and work ethic in their children, which by itself might account for the higher scores by Asians and Jews. Environment and values will affect IQ scores.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Monday, August 20, 2018
On the Vital Necessity of Free Speech
Wow. This is the best Jordan Peterson speech I have heard. Too often he tends to meander and get into technical jargon that confuses the audience and makes both his points and his motives fuzzy. But here he is focused like a laser.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Friday, August 17, 2018
Why the Left Loves Mass Immigration
In my opinion, there is a danger in too much immigration, for a variety of reasons. There is competition for resources and jobs. There is a burden on the welfare state. Some groups of immigrants don't assimilate and may be hostile to the culture. Some are criminal.
However, my biggest concern is that mass immigration is used as a tool of the political left to promote the leftist agenda. If we were to have open borders then the country would lose any resemblance to its founding principles of limited government. We would end up with a socialist government. I think that this is the reality, but people don't see this, and many others would welcome it.
This doesn't mean that I am against immigration, nor am I against immigrants. I just don't want to open the floodgates to everyone. I am appalled by those who say that we should have open borders, and I am hearing more calls for this all the time.
The problem with anyone taking a position against mass immigration is that you are immediately labelled a racist. There is also the danger that your goals look similar to racists groups. When browsing the internet for others who are anti mass immigration, it can be difficult to distinguish between those who just want to protect our country, and those who are hate groups. As an example of this, I present the following video:
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
The Bangladesh Student Protests
The Bangladesh Student Protests over buses have turned extremely violent.
My concern is that student protests everywhere have become more violent. I get a sense that people are descending into chaos. There is pent up rage, much of which is out of proportion to reality.
https://youtu.be/mpbNbGZriIA
My concern is that student protests everywhere have become more violent. I get a sense that people are descending into chaos. There is pent up rage, much of which is out of proportion to reality.
https://youtu.be/mpbNbGZriIA
Saturday, August 11, 2018
7 Reasons Donald Trump Won
I found first part the video amusing because of his extreme reaction to the Trump victory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJOexGISPTI
He goes on to say nasty things about the political right, so response I wrote this ...
"Straw mans all over the place. If your perception of the right is a bunch of racist, tribalist conspiracy theory loving authoritarians wanting strong men then you don't really understand the political right.
Socialist and left policies are authoritarian to the core. It is the political right that loves freedom and free enterprise.
Has society collapsed yet?
It is not racist to want to protect our border. It is not racist to say that criminals are coming into our country and committing crimes; this is easily provable. Nor did Trump call all Mexicans this. The left plays the race card every chance they get. Anybody they don't like they call a racist as a way of shutting down the argument. This infuriates me to no end. When Trump and anyone else they don't like speaks, the left is guilty of confirmation bias. Any statement he makes is taken as a confirmation of his evilness.
It is the Republicans who begged Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell to run for President. The Tea Party's and my favorite candidate was Herman Cain.
What you see on Social Media doesn't necessarily represent the political right. It might for some people, but it is not represent the core beliefs.
I love science and I love your channel for talking about it.
If you were more rational you would understand that freedom is the engine of prosperity and that Socialism has always failed hurting the poor the most. Maybe you already understand this, but why then support the political left which has become more extremist? We are headed toward a debt bubble that could potentially crash our economic system, and the only way to get out of this huge mess (admittedly created by both parties) is to have strong economic growth. I take it as a given that we need less burdensome government and a better tax system, both of which we got.
I know that many people didn't like Trump. Even many of us who voted for him thought that he was a narcissistic billionaire playboy. Believe me, people understood this. I didn't so much vote for the man as I did his agenda, which I mostly agree with. Given the stated goals of both candidates, one of which wanted to increase government's reach and sounded more like a warmonger than Trump did, it was a no brainer."
--
Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJOexGISPTI
He goes on to say nasty things about the political right, so response I wrote this ...
"Straw mans all over the place. If your perception of the right is a bunch of racist, tribalist conspiracy theory loving authoritarians wanting strong men then you don't really understand the political right.
Socialist and left policies are authoritarian to the core. It is the political right that loves freedom and free enterprise.
Has society collapsed yet?
It is not racist to want to protect our border. It is not racist to say that criminals are coming into our country and committing crimes; this is easily provable. Nor did Trump call all Mexicans this. The left plays the race card every chance they get. Anybody they don't like they call a racist as a way of shutting down the argument. This infuriates me to no end. When Trump and anyone else they don't like speaks, the left is guilty of confirmation bias. Any statement he makes is taken as a confirmation of his evilness.
It is the Republicans who begged Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell to run for President. The Tea Party's and my favorite candidate was Herman Cain.
What you see on Social Media doesn't necessarily represent the political right. It might for some people, but it is not represent the core beliefs.
I love science and I love your channel for talking about it.
If you were more rational you would understand that freedom is the engine of prosperity and that Socialism has always failed hurting the poor the most. Maybe you already understand this, but why then support the political left which has become more extremist? We are headed toward a debt bubble that could potentially crash our economic system, and the only way to get out of this huge mess (admittedly created by both parties) is to have strong economic growth. I take it as a given that we need less burdensome government and a better tax system, both of which we got.
I know that many people didn't like Trump. Even many of us who voted for him thought that he was a narcissistic billionaire playboy. Believe me, people understood this. I didn't so much vote for the man as I did his agenda, which I mostly agree with. Given the stated goals of both candidates, one of which wanted to increase government's reach and sounded more like a warmonger than Trump did, it was a no brainer."
--
Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
Friday, August 10, 2018
Monday, August 6, 2018
Sunday, August 5, 2018
Saturday, August 4, 2018
The Venus Project And The Resource-Based Economy | Answers With Joe
In response to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYodgWapmgc , I wrote the following:
The definition of Capitalism is that the means of production is privately owned. Since when has it ever worked to have the means of production publicly owned? I'm not talking about services to protect our rights, nor public works like roads, but 100% of the means of production. How would you like to live in the Soviet Union?
Having a free market means that you are free to make choices, the opposite of which is tyranny. Suppose you want to start a business? You might not be allowed because your business doesn't fit the official paradigm. Besides, you have no money to invest and no medium of exchange by which to conduct business. You are completely dependent on the state to make decisions for you. Some think that it is more fair if it is 'democratic', but tyranny is still tyranny. There is no room for innovators like Steve Jobs in such a society.
Suppose you want to own a yacht or eat steak everyday for breakfast? There are never going to be infinite resources where everyone can own a yacht and eat steak. Either nobody has these luxuries, or there are those who are arbitrarily rewarded by the political system, making them the privileged class. It would nearly impossible to earn these things through your own efforts, unless those efforts were were in service to someone more powerful than you. These things are decided in a free market because people make choices about who they want to give their money to. Voluntary exchanges, as opposed to involuntary ones imposed by the state, reward those who provide the most value for other people.
A society where you have no ability to improve your lot in life beyond what the state allows is a slave state. By definition. Impose a one size fits all lifestyle on everybody and people will immediately start to rebel against it
Communism and its variants are not just as corrupt as capitalism, but always more so. People resent that under a free market some people end up much better off than other people, but the disparity of wealth is never solved in the various forms communism where the lot of the poor ends up being worse. Allowing some people to be more successful than others in a free market is an essential motivator for innovation, investment, and hard work.
People respond to incentives on just about everything, including whether they work and how much they work and for who. Incentives decide what people choose to spend their money on.
Money is essential for managing scarce resources. Price will change based upon the laws of supply and demand, and price sends an absolute critical signal to people on how to manage resources. Suppose there is a temporary shortage of orange juice and the price goes up? People will switch to something cheaper, like grape juice. When eggs are cheap more people will eat eggs. When eggs are expensive more people will eat something else. Eliminate money and resources will immediately become mismanaged. There is no way that centralized control, automated or not, can properly decide how many resources to allocate and use. State control is never as good as individuals deciding for themselves how to best serve their own needs. State control will result in shortages like we see in Venezuela. Black markets will form, because people prefer to make their own choices.
Friday, August 3, 2018
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
War and Democracy in Ancient and Contemporary Middle East
I don't remember if I posted this before.
This is a great discussion of war.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Friday, July 27, 2018
Nietzsche on Democracy, Christianity and Decay (Prof. Stanley Rosen)
Some regard Nietzsche as kind of crazy. For others he has an intellectual appeal.
I think that Nietzsche wanted to tear down all the old institutions and morals. He is kind of the opposite of Jordan Peterson who says that we need some sort of moral base to function as a society. Jordan Peterson seems less concerned about whether or not religion is actually true than he is about what religion means to us as a society.
One thing I found interesting in the video is the notion that all structures are eventually replaced by something completely different. This is kind of scary thought. This is what the Marxists want. We don't know what will eventually replace Western values, but it seems likely whatever it ends up being could be much more authoritarian.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Economics
FYI.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Korea
To: Albert Nelms
Cc: Steve
From: John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Korea
To: Albert Nelms
Cc: Steve
Al,
I am going to address several
On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Albert Nelms <alnelms@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We need to have minimum wage keep up with inflation. However, any politician suggesting such a thing would be run out on rails.
I don't see why this is politically impossible. Any party that suggests an increase in the minimum wage, perhaps moderate, would likely get votes.
This makes certain assumptions. What business is it of the state to say what kind of wage people agree to work for? If I choose to work someplace for $5 an hour, it is because I can't get anything better. Maybe my circumstances are so bad that nobody will hire me at minimum wage. It is like the application at Taco Bell that says, "What drugs have you done?", as to opposed to asking if you have done drugs
The purpose of minimum wage is not to provide a living wage. It is for unskilled workers who might in time develop skills and be worth more. It is intended for entry level jobs.
In reality, many places pay more than minimum wage. People at Burger King told me that
>
> There was a time when a person could graduate from high school and get a job in which he was able to support his family and eventually enter middle class.
That time seems to have passed
If a person can not make enough to support a family, then they shouldn't start a family. Should there be a safety net for people who otherwise would not survive on low wages? I think so. We might need more of this if automation takes away jobs
>
> Today, college degrees are tied into student loans which in turn ties the graduate down to long term debt right off the bat. So, if the college grad has student loans he may never get to middle class. Now with internet degrees diluting the on campus degrees salaries for college graduates are dropping.with a few exceptions like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9luf6IOpV4
The problem is that the government is spending over $200 Billion a year on higher education. When you subsidize something, you get more of it, whether you need it or not. When 40% of
>
> The solution? Good question. There was a time when Americans who bought goods from say Japan or Germany were considered traitorous.
I think that international trade is vastly misunderstood. When you buy something from Japan ...
1. You do so because they can make it cheaper or better than the equivalent thing made in America. In economics they talk about comparative advantage, where you might be really good at doing one thing, which is highly profitable for you, so you would rather somebody else do the thing that is less profitable for you.
2. The dollars you send to Japan are no good to them unless they can exchange them for yen or buy our goods, and the currency exchange market only works if goods are going both ways.
I am going to address several
of your
points here ...On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Albert Nelms <alnelms@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We need to have minimum wage keep up with inflation. However, any politician suggesting such a thing would be run out on rails.
I don't see why this is politically impossible. Any party that suggests an increase in the minimum wage, perhaps moderate, would likely get votes.
This makes certain assumptions. What business is it of the state to say what kind of wage people agree to work for? If I choose to work someplace for $5 an hour, it is because I can't get anything better. Maybe my circumstances are so bad that nobody will hire me at minimum wage. It is like the application at Taco Bell that says, "What drugs have you done?", as to opposed to asking if you have done drugs
at all
.The purpose of minimum wage is not to provide a living wage. It is for unskilled workers who might in time develop skills and be worth more. It is intended for entry level jobs.
In reality, many places pay more than minimum wage. People at Burger King told me that
they
make $11 an hour. Do you think that Burger King would pay $11 an hour if it could get away with paying minimum wage? There must be some demand for workers, maybe reliable ones, that compels them to pay higher.>
> There was a time when a person could graduate from high school and get a job in which he was able to support his family and eventually enter middle class.
That time seems to have passed
for many people, but some people can still do this.
This is one reason we need an environment that is pro-business. Economic growth, preferably strong economic growth,
is the only thing that will get us out of the debt bubble we are in, assuming that is even possible, and help us to solve many other economic problems,
like having enough good paying jobs
.If a person can not make enough to support a family, then they shouldn't start a family. Should there be a safety net for people who otherwise would not survive on low wages? I think so. We might need more of this if automation takes away jobs
, but I am hoping that healthy economic growth can avoid this.
>
> Today, college degrees are tied into student loans which in turn ties the graduate down to long term debt right off the bat. So, if the college grad has student loans he may never get to middle class. Now with internet degrees diluting the on campus degrees salaries for college graduates are dropping.with a few exceptions like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The problem is that the government is spending over $200 Billion a year on higher education. When you subsidize something, you get more of it, whether you need it or not. When 40% of
college graduates are forced to take a job that would not require a college degree, then we are throwing away money educating too many people. The solution is to get government out of higher education and let the free market decide how
people need to be educated.>
> The solution? Good question. There was a time when Americans who bought goods from say Japan or Germany were considered traitorous.
I think that international trade is vastly misunderstood. When you buy something from Japan ...
1. You do so because they can make it cheaper or better than the equivalent thing made in America. In economics they talk about comparative advantage, where you might be really good at doing one thing, which is highly profitable for you, so you would rather somebody else do the thing that is less profitable for you.
2. The dollars you send to Japan are no good to them unless they can exchange them for yen or buy our goods, and the currency exchange market only works if goods are going both ways.
If there is an imbalance of trade, in an ideal world the currency exchange market would cause our currency to devalue and theirs to increase, which results in their goods no longer being as attractive to us because they are more expensive, and our goods becoming more attractive to them because they are cheaper. This would result in trade becoming balanced.
One
problem here is that governments will intervene to try to control the value of their currency.
Where it gets complicated is when they use their surplus of dollars to buy investments or property in America.
>
>
Now no one cares about their fellow American. If I owned a McDonald franchise and raised my prices so I could pay $15 per hour minimum, I'd be out of business in a week. The new American spirit is selfish and focuses only on ones best interest. The country and fellow Americans take a back seat. As a general rule, people everywhere focus on their self interest. This is not a bad thing, at least most of the time. The free market is a system where you have to give to get. Adam Smith wrote that the baker (or substitute any other profession) does not bake bread out of the goodness of his heart. He does so for his own prosperity, and by doing so he provides a service that other people need.
The American spirit has always been selfish, as it is human nature to be selfish. If I am robbing you, then that is a bad form of selfishness where I am using force, but if hypothetically I write an iPhone app that you need, then this is a voluntary exchange where both parties get something they want, so both parties benefit. The problem with the government is that it engages in involuntary exchanges, because if it was voluntary then the government wouldn't need to use force to achieve its aims. The problem with involuntary exchanges is that one party benefits at the expense of another.
Friday, July 20, 2018
Korea
With some 2.6 million forced laborers, North Korea is world's leading villain in modern day slavery, according to estimates in a new report.
One in 10 people live under modern slavery in the secretive nation, with the "vast majority being forced to work by the state,"
http://www.nydailynews.com/new
Fwd: ISIS inspired Berkeley graduate plotted to kill 10,000 in San Francisco
A graduate of Berkeley High School in California, who reportedly told authorities he wanted to help ISIS kill 10,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area, pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday,
Amer Sinan Alhaggagi, 23, of Oakland, pleaded guilty to trying to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, possession of device-making equipment and identity theft, said officials of the state's Department of Justice.
Alhaggagi allegedly opened several Twitter and Facebook accounts in 2016 for ISIS supporters. He then allegedly told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to kill 10,000 people in the Bay Area with bombs and rat-poison-laced cocaine,
He met with the undercover agent, pointed out locations for terrorist attacks and brought three backpacks to be used in a future attack to a storage locker,
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Friday, July 13, 2018
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Friday, July 6, 2018
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Sunday, July 1, 2018
In China, 'Free Trade' Means Steal What You Want
China's been fighting dirty against American business for years. China steals something between $225 billion to $600 billion worth of fashion designs, pharmaceutical formulas and new technologies from U.S. companies every year, according to the Commission on Theft of American Intellectual Property. Previous U.S. presidents did nothing but negotiate. That's like watching a burglar strip your house and asking him, "Can we talk?" At last, an American president picked up a weapon -- tariffs -- to fight back.
Not a minute too soon. The stealing is getting worse. Politicians naively said admitting China to the World Trade Organization in 2001 would push it toward a free market economy observing the rule of law. Magical thinking.
From the start, China violated WTO rules, knocking off American products and selling them as the real deal. A staggering 88 percent of counterfeit goods seized are from China and Hong Kong, according to Homeland Security. It's like the Chinese thought "free market" meant steal what you want.
Steal it or extort it. American companies doing business in China are pressured to transfer proprietary technology to a local partner. China promised to stop that arm-twisting but broke its word.
Now China is abandoning any pretense of respecting intellectual property. President Xi Jinping's official economic policy, called Made in China 2025, elevates technology theft to official status. The government politely calls it "the assimilation and absorption of imported technology." China plans to steal its way to economic dominance and end dependence on foreign suppliers.
American companies can't thrive under this threat. Our advantage in world markets isn't cheap labor or cheap materials. It's ideas
American Superconductor Corporation was almost put out of business, its stock value driven down 96 percent, when a Chinese wind turbine maker stole its technology and flooded the Chinese market with copies.
But if Beijing's plan proceeds, these U.S. companies will be shut out of China in a decade, and will have to compete in the rest of the world against Chinese companies that stole their technology and enjoy low-cost financing from Chinese state banks
Liberal says build the wall...
The Democrats need to accept that they lost the last presidential election for a reason, and that their opponent's main campaign pledge was to tackle illegal immigration, with a wall at the southern border as the centerpiece. Completely resisting a legitimate agenda based on a clear campaign promise — well, it reminds me of the Republicans with Obamacare.
And there is clearly an adamant, persistent segment of the public that sees the crisis of illegal immigration as a vital one. They're not alone. Cast an eye at Brexit Britain, newly populist Italy, Macron's France, and even Merkel's Germany as it heaves in response to mass immigration from the developing world. This is a huge force in Western politics in every country. It may be the primary one. Millions of people are on the move right now, fleeing war and poverty and persecution. The vast migration from south to north, from poverty and chaos to opportunity and order in the West may be just beginning. Climate change will surely only make it worse. Finding the right balance between reason and compassion is essential if we are not going to further tear this country apart, or witness ever more humanitarian catastrophes, or see what's left of the West go under
So give him his fucking wall. He won the election. He is owed this. It may never be completed; it may not work, as hoped. But it is now the only way to reassure a critical mass of Americans that mass immigration is under control, and the only way to make any progress under this president. And until the white working and middle classes are reassured, we will get nowhere. Don't give it to him for nothing, of course
If all this sounds like appeasing a bigot, I understand. But better to see it, I think, as a way to address the legitimate concerns, fears, and worries of a large number of Americans who feel like strangers in their own land.
And equally, the Democrats who are currently posturing are playing a good card badly. They give off the appearance, as Hillary Clinton did, of making no distinction between legal and illegal immigration, favoring de facto open borders, and calling anyone who disagrees with them a white supremacist. Until they recognize that illegal immigration is a huge and legitimate problem, and until they propose a set of actual policy proposals to end it humanely and efficiently, they run the risk of another 2016 in 2020.
And this is what Miller and Bannon want. They want to turn the fall elections and the next presidential contest into a polarizing, fearmongering referendum on illegal immigration
Fwd: Isis zealot killed 8 on nyc bike path
A man charged with murdering eight people on a New York City bike path invoked "Allah" and defended the Islamic State group in court Friday, reports said.
Sayfullo Saipov, 30, raised his hand to speak out immediately after U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick set an Oct. 7, 2019, date for the Uzbek immigrant's trial.
He said he cared about "Allah" and the holy war being waged by the Islamic State group
"So the Islamic State is not fighting for land, like some say, or like some say, for oil. They have one purpose, and they're fighting to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on Earth," he
said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/06/22/suspect-in-nyc-bike-path-killings-invokes-allah-defends-isis-in-court.html
Fwd: Political hatred
TMZ reported that she was kicked out of the restaurant -- The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia -- on "moral grounds" and cited a waiter who said that Sanders was served "for a total of two minutes before my owner kicked her out along with seven of her other family members."
Sanders confirmed the events on Twitter, saying she was told to leave by the owner because she worked for the president.
"Her actions say far more about her than about me," she said. "I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so."
Fwd: Active Antarctic Volcano
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet lies atop a major volcanic rift system, but there had been no evidence of current magmatic activity, the URI scientist said. The last such activity was 2,200 years ago, Loose said. And while volcanic heat can be traced to dormant volcanoes, what the scientists found at Pine Island was new.
"You can't directly measure normal indicators of volcanism — heat and smoke — because the volcanic rift is below many kilometers of ice," Loose said
But as the team conducted its research, it found high quantities of an isotope of helium, which comes almost exclusively from mantle, Loose said.
"When you find helium-3, it's like a fingerprint for volcanism. We found that it is relatively abundant in the seawater at the Pine Island shelf.
"The volcanic heat sources were found beneath the fastest moving and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier," Loose said. "It is losing mass the fastest."
He said the amount of ice sliding into the ocean is measured in gigatons. A gigaton equals 1 billion metric tons.
https://today.uri.edu/news/
Fwd: Restarsumt owner effects sarah sanders and extended family
She first spoke with her employees, who disagreed with Sanders' defense of Trump's discriminatory ban on transgender Americans who want to serve in the military and her recent defense of Trump's un-American family separation policy.
In response, she then asked Sanders to step outside to the patio and "explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation." Clearly, Sanders doesn't comply with that standard
As a progressive, I feel that denying service to a person is instinctively troubling. For many, it may conjure up laws that banned blacks from being served at restaurants before the Civil Rights Act and the current campaign by some on the right to turn away same-sex couples who want professional services for their weddings. Or even a gun range owner who declared that no Muslims were allowed on the premises.
But the situations with Sanders and even Nielsen are not even in the same universe as these discriminatory examples. No one is targeting them for their race, religion or sexual orientation.
From a legal point of view, a person can be asked to leave a privately owned establishment because of their political views. For example, In April, a judge in New York City dismissed a lawsuit by a Trump supporter who wore a "Make American Great Again" hat to a bar and was asked to leave.
But applying this to the average American divides us even more as a nation and makes it less likely that we can ever return to being the United States of America.
No border enforcement
The over-the-top rhetoric and avalanche of grossly inappropriate analogies to the Holocaust have served Trump critics well. But there is a cost to feeding the overall impression that any effort to stop illegal immigration — no matter how careful it is to avoid cruelty — is inhumane. If every person entering the U.S. without permission — whether they come for economic opportunity or are fleeing violence in Central America — is the moral equivalent of a Holocaust victim seeking refuge and those seeking to stop them are all hatemongers or monsters violating human rights, then we've arrived at a point when the law and policy arguments about how best to enforce it have become irrelevant
In such a debate, there is no more middle ground. No matter what your opinion about how much immigration the United States should allow or whether illegal immigrants already here should be given a break, the firestorm over the children at the border has made this discussion impossible. This is not just a rerun of the argument Americans have been conducting about what to do about the estimated 11 million-plus illegal immigrants who were already here during the Obama administration and whether they deserved some form of amnesty up to and including a path to citizenship. Now the appeal for not merely mercy and compassion but for amnesty applies to those crossing the border, with or without children.
former actress Cynthia Nixon, who is mounting a vocal and well-funded challenge to Andrew Cuomo's effort to be reelected governor of New York...
she is now demanding — to the applause of the hosts and the audience on The View, where she appeared — that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency be abolished altogether and not replaced by any other body to perform the function of apprehending illegals.
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