Should ordinary people fund space research?

Life on Mars? Funding to find answers fades
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/national-international/article/Life-on-Mars-Funding-to-find-answers-fades-3401227.php

I am always a bit on the fence regarding big ticket research projects funded by tax payer dollars (I am not, however, against broad-based support for science via the doling out of research dollar via grants administered by organizations like NIH, DOE, etc., I firmly believe that the cost to society is vastly outweighed by its benefit). Nixon’s “war on cancer” probably set back cancer research by at least a generation, largely because it turned out that cancer was a lot more complex than originally thought and it took the better part of a generation before the few gatekeepers of the money Nixon doled out to accept that fact. A lot of scientists refuse to accept the notion that science research, at least as funded by tax payers, is a zero sum game and when one project soaks up a huge fraction of that money other projects get canceled or put on hold indefinitely. I am quite curious about the possibility of life on Mars, but you know what? If I were making decisions I would rather put that money into the exploration of life under the frozen surface of Eurpoa. While there is a very good chance that Mars once supported life, the evidence that it currently supports life is rather thin. However, the chances that Europa currently supports life has to be considered much higher than the chance of Mars and I would rather study actual living extraterrestrial organisms than something long dead.

I also suspect that if scientists were forced to make do with less that research would still be done because scientists are a very inventive lot and they would probably invent something to make their research possible even without any taxpayer dollars.

Now, what if tax payers don’t want to fund this sort of stuff at all? Would that mean no research gets done? I suspect that if science was marketed properly that there would be a huge amount of interest in donating to fund projects. While cable channels like Science and Discovery seem to quickly devolve into a grab at the lowest common denominator (some of the shows are embarrassing to me due to their pandering to the ignorant louts who should be getting their entertainment elsewhere), they have proven that there is a market for science-based TV shows (the Mythbusters is a favorite of mine and while they don’t always get everything right, they are very good about making the effort to be scientific). What if, for instance, someone were to produce a science show where micro robots were to explore the surface of the moon. The robots could be scattered in groups all over the surface of the moon and the groups could act cooperatively to explore the surface. The viewing public could participate by suggesting specific places to explore and voting (perhaps with donation dollars determining the number of votes?) on which to prioritize. I suspect that even very expensive projects could be funded this way, though clearly there would have to be different personalities involved and the focus would likely have to shift away from pure research to try to increase the entertainment level.

Perhaps even with this approach no Superconducting Super Collider would get funded, though I could see that if, say, 40% of the proposed budget were to be supplied by donations that governments might see it worth picking up the other 60% as a way to stimulate the economy. There would still be uncertainty in funding as the whims of the donating public will be influenced by the economy, world events, competing interests, etc., but coupled with the focus to do more with less there might be substantial improvements in basic science as a consequence.

If anyone is interested in the idea of donation funding of robot moon exploration let me know and I can outline what I have in mind.

How our ‘Justice’ system works for the 1%

Washington’s high-powered terrorist supporters
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/washingtons_high_powered_terrorist_supporters/singleton/

If you are someone who cares about the Constitution (or the tiny shreds that remain) this is an article that should make your blood boil. I would wind up copying most of the article here by way of ‘discussion’, so instead will encourage you to read it.

Go Police State!

10,000 member House?

What’s wrong with Congress? It’s not big enough
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/flynn-expand-congress/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Man was I skeptical when I first read the title of the article! However, I was taken in when I read this:

A seat in the House of Representatives has gone from representing 33,000 people to more than 700,000 today.

Of course Gerrymandering (I discuss this a bit here) is a critically important issue as well but I see huge parallels with the author’s idea that Representatives are not, after all, very representative. I am not totally sure that gridlock would melt away if we had 3K (or 6K or 10K) Representatives as the Senate will remain as partisan as ever but I do agree that it would provide a wedge opening for third parties and with that many cats to herd it seems unlikely that a handful would wind up in more or less total control that we have now.

Of course, nothing is likely to happen on this scale, but it is nice to fantasize about these things.

Feel sorry for the 1%?

A new role for the 1%
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/08/opinion/rushkoff-one-percent/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9

An interesting article that, given my past reading on history, rings true (I am too lazy to do research). I babbled about this earlier, how the rich are not incentivised to grow our economy, but this takes a different view. The above article makes a plausible argument for why our economy has stagnated over the last 40+ years, as the rich get richer the overall buying power shrinks. As I mention in my screed, since the rich don’t care about changing things that puts us, as a society, in a bit of a quandary. Everyone is better off with a widespread and robust middle class, rich and poor alike. Since it really is the middle class that pays the taxes (yes, I know (and complain about) the fact that rich pay less in taxes as a percentage that the 99% do, but even if they paid the same the middle class (at least as it stands today) would still pay more than half of all taxes) as the middle class shrinks (what we have been experiencing for the better part of the last 40+ years) tax revenues inevitably decrease (can’t get blood from a turnip, so the poor will never contribute in any meaningful way and the oligarchy of course owns the government outright, so will never pay the majority in taxes).

I am not sure, though, that the author’s ideas of trying to reassure the 1% that we aren’t out to get them is really going to make a difference. The oligarchy knows that other than torches and pitchforks, there isn’t a damn thing that we can do about it and even with those weapons of mass destruction they can easily afford goons that will hold us off. Even if we attempt to formulate a barter-based economy independent of the oligarchy (like they would allow that), I can’t see that going on for long before it becomes usurped. The only way I can see something like this happening is if a huge fraction of the 99% were to all suddenly agree to operate their lives in a way totally outside of today’s marketplace, something I just don’t think that many cats can be herded to do. Heck the Occupy Wall Street-ers can’t even seem to agree on what their protest is about.

Interesting concepts, though.

The great Afgan quagmire

The wrong exit strategy
Given Afghan history, a large U.S.-trained army would likely promote bloodshed not stability
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/08/the_wrong_exit_strategy/singleton/

Nothing much motivate me to blog today until I read this article. I recall reading very shortly after we invaded Afghanistan that some local people were asked what would be the most important thing that could allow for the formation of a stable country. The simple answer: good roads. It seems that except for a few highways between major cities there is nothing capable of handling vehicles and as such the pace in Afghanistan is foot or occasionally horse/donkey limited. A country gets very large indeed when the populace is relegated to foot!

So, as could be easily predicted (I did so predict, but no one gives a damn about what I say, so what does it matter) the US has failed to win friends or influence people in Afghanistan because instead of working to make the local’s lives better, the US has used the war as just another excuse for the military industrial complex to get richer at taxpayer expense. Naturally bombs built in the US have higher margins than roads built in Afghanistan!

So, in a few years we will tiredly leave Afghanistan convinced that we had done everything humanly possible to make those animals behave. As soon as we leave there will be a huge pop as the power vacuum collapses and the Taliban will be back in control within days, perhaps sooner. So, after pissing away _trillions_ of dollars (all borrowed, btw; thanks GOP!) we will have accomplished exactly dick.

Boy, I can’t wait until we start our war with Iran!

Shockingly, the US spends more on healthcare because it costs more!

Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-an-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/2011/08/25/gIQAVHztoR_blog.html

I was surprised to see that health insurance companies made so little profit, but I am a bit suspect on how the numbers were calculated because the author also reported that the pharmaceuticals and medical device industry had 20% profits which doesn’t jive with my analysis (which puts the margins well over 50%). The overall conclusion, though, is that the US pays the most for medicine and has the least to show for it, which is pretty much what all analysis I have seen in the last decade or so have shown.

Yet another reason to get off your ass

How Exercise Can Change Your DNA
Scientists discover that physical activity leads to beneficial changes in gene activity, even after a single workout.
http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/07/how-exercise-can-change-your-dna/

More bla bla bla exercise or die horribly from preventable diseases bla bla bla. I was a bit surprised to see that genes were being _de_ methylated as based on my (now clearly ancient) understanding of gene regulation methylation was considered mostly irreversible (methylation generally results in a gene that won’t be expressed). To see that the methylation was reversed so quickly (within 20 minutes) was amazing. It gives some hope to the reports of methylation changes (also now often referred to as ‘epigenetics‘) due to environmental factors can be reversed.

Now, get off your butt and get your heart rate up!

Fascinating, if a bit useless

Spider silk conducts heat better than other organic materials
http://www.slashgear.com/spider-silk-conducts-heat-better-than-other-organic-materials-07217244/

I found this really interesting so decided to post it here. However, I am not sure if there would be much practical use for the information as it is decidedly difficult to farm spiders for their silk (they like to eat one another, doanchano). Still, something like this might trigger someone else to think of something no one else has thought of that might lead to something with huge societal payoff. Of course, there isn’t any real need for pure science to have a societal payoff, contrary to the insistence of so many politicians.

It is not assasination when the US govt. assassinates someone!

Holder: Not ‘assassination’ to target Americans in terror hunt
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/05/holder-targeting-american-terrorists-not-assasination/?hpt=hp_t3

Can you believe this guy? Talk about legal hair spitting! So this is what our Constitution has come to.

I don’t think it is possible for it to get better before it gets worse, the fear in my mind is that it will get _a lot_ worse before it has a chance to get better.

Why the rich don’t care about a robust economy

I have been thinking about this for quite a while (and mentioned it in a few posts), but this article has prompted me to finally write a post that focuses on it:

Welcome to the 1 percent recovery
That elite sliver reaped 93 percent of the post-recession income gains. Is extreme inequality America’s new normal?
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/05/welcome_to_the_1_percent_recovery/singleton/

First, full disclosure: my personal goal is to have more money than sense. That I haven’t achieved that exhaulted state is a source of frustration to me (in my teens I blithely stated I would be a millionaire by 25 and billionaire by 30). Having said that, while I expect to enjoy being wealthy (presuming, naturally, I am ever able to achieve that goal), it will come as a side effect of achieving my business goals of building a mega corporation focused on establishing a series of permanent space stations (not the joke we have now, but big enough to hold thousands and eventually 100’s of thousands of people). Yes, I am a few eggs short of a dozen (perhaps as many as 13 ;-)), but because of my goals I have thought about what it means to be wealthy, how to influence people in power, the greatest good for the greatest number, etc. So, with that as perhaps unnecessary background, on to my point…

Most rich people (everyone talks about the 1%, but it really is the 0.1% and the 0.01% that are the really rich and even at that level there is a wide degree of variability) are in a state where they have to engage in a long string of really stupid actions in order to ever become not-rich. The sort of things you see football and basketball players doing all the time: buying brand new Porches and wrecking them each week, things like that. Generally first generation rich had to bust their asses to get the money so they tend to be thoughtful about it and generally don’t buy useless things (this is not to say they don’t gamble (or, in their words, “make aggressive business decisions”), just that they don’t buy stuff they don’t need). Often second and subsequent generation rich are focused on maintaining their wealth and generally become quite risk averse as they have never lived ‘poor’ and have an exaggerated sense of the privation involved (I have been homeless and destitute because of my “aggressive decisions” and while it sucks it actually gave me a lot of free time to think about things; with the help of some good friends I was able to recover and I expect most people who aren’t total assholes (I am only partly an asshole) have good friends that will help them out during periods like that). When I say rich people have more money than sense, I am not necessarily saying that as a bad thing, because if you aren’t rich and you aren’t sensible about your money, then you get to live like a troll under a bridge because you are homeless and destitute. Lets say that there is a minimum level of money necessary to live, sort of like a minimum level of calories is needed to survive. Once you have that minimum then having more acts as a reserve against future bad times. Since bad times can be very bad indeed, what would be a necessary reserve? In food you might expect it necessary to have at least a year’s worth of calories squirreled away because one bad crop and you are dead. For best planning, you probably ought to have several year’s worth of food (money) prepared because sometimes there can be long periods where crops just don’t do well. At some point, though, the amount of food (money) you have banked for bad times becomes more than sufficient for any plausible bad scenario and any more just becomes a way to ‘keep score’ against your neighbors.

So, lets imagine that, unlike food that has a shelf life and is quite bulky, money stored can actually grow more of itself, meaning that once you have a certain minimum amount of money (food), your survival needs are completely covered by the interest that is returned on your stored money. So, if there is a total crop failure and even if that crop continues to fail indefinitely, you really can’t be motivated to give a damn because your food needs are completely covered by the ‘interest’ on your stored food. In fact, you might look down on your not-so-lucky fellows and consider them idiots because they weren’t smart enough to be born to parents whose family was fortunate enough at some point in their history to get enough surplus food that they could live off the interest on that food. Perhaps not an excellent analogy, but hopefully you can see my point I am trying to get across. Once someone has enough resources that generate resources, they no longer are incentivised by bad economic situations like someone who hasn’t got those stored resources.

Now, lets add in some psychology… People of privilege (and not just those with money, but those in power or even those who were endowed by nature/nurture with what is perceived as personal advantages (imagine again, if you will, football/basketball players)) tend to develop a sense of superiority because they have something that the average Jill or Joe lacks. Couple that with the generally inevitable societal worship that is given to people with privilege and it becomes pretty easy to see that people in this state begin to believe that they are indeed better off than their fellows. A lot of people are insecure, though, and believe (rightly in many cases, in my mind) that their privilege depends on the worship of their less fortunate fellows, as opposed to anything intrinsic that they have in their personality. It is easy to imagine that people in this situation would develop paranoia about losing their station in life and actively and aggressively work to ensure that they will never have any risk to their stature. Thus, even when a proposed stimulus to the economy might increase their wealth, it is understandable that if that stimulus has any possibility of endangering their status quo they would resist it. They already have more money than they need, their money is already invested so conservatively that anything short of a global catastrophe ensures that they will continue to be wealthy and they are deeply paranoid about losing their status because they know they haven’t anything intrinsic within them to stand out once that money has been taken away.

I have attempted to outline my argument that the wealthy have no incentive to bolster the economy as a whole. Instead, they actually have negative incentive to see that the poor get enough resources to cause a massive upward spiraling economy because then they risk being supplanted in their position as uber rich. For those of you who think this is a blanket condemnation of wealthy people, take a breather and just think about it for a moment. All rich people are not the same, just like all poor people are not the same. The different classes, do, however, share certain drives (as a group) and their behavior (as a group) is subject to some prediction once those motivations are revealed. Poor people are motivated by their need to find their next meal and as such they are rarely in a position to think long-term. They _cannot_ consider putting their money in a 401K or IRA, etc. because they are faced with decisions like “eat now or die”. Once you climb out of the gutter into the middle class and are able to enjoy decisions like “shall I eat this expensive meal or put my money in a 401K and stick with Ramen Noodles” then you have the potential to consider long range decision making. Lots of middle class people tend to make short-term decisions (e.g., I would rather have this 50 inch TV now then let that money grow and be able to retire young enough to enjoy myself), but say you have enough green to buy that TV AND fully fund your retirement account. Now we are approaching my ‘more money than sense’ area where people have opportunities to do something with their money besides self preservation. Some people at that level do good deeds for society (Bill Gates), but lots of people tend to only take the excess interest that they can’t figure out what to do with and do good deeds with it. And of course there are people who do good deeds in their own way (my ‘good deed’, were I to achieve my goals, would be to give the human species insulation from a global catastrophe by having stable breeding populations off-planet (ultimately I would want to insulate the species from a catastrophe to our solar system by spreading throughout the galaxy)) that might not even seem like good deeds. There are a few, I am sure, that just don’t give a damn and don’t see that their lofty success is absolutely due to the society they live in, but I believe those are the minority.

In a society where wealth is polarized I think you inevitably get stagnation. I believe one of the reasons why the Chinese feudal system was so stable for so long, despite producing virtually every single invention of note that lead to the industrial revolution, was because the upper class had no incentive to change anything due to having ‘more money than sense’. When Europe replicated the same sort of feudal society there was a long period of stagnation, but when the plagues ripped through and there simply weren’t enough laborers any longer, a middle class was created via the lords bidding wars to get labor. I believe it was that substantial middle class that was the trigger to the industrial revolution that lead to the exploding economies that had the side effect of making everyone vastly more wealthy (and as a consequence, made the difference between the richest and the poorest the lowest level in centuries, perhaps millennia, possibly ever). However, when wealth gets polarized I see pressure for the feudal system to reassert itself. I strongly believe that is what is happening now in the US. Europe, through its rather draconian progressive tax system, is maintaining a lid on the extremes of wealth accumulation, but there seems to also be a lid on the incentive to develop something transformative. Their economy does grow, but at a more sedate pace, and it is less likely to be floored by shocks (or at least less likely so far, this Greek thing might really put my theory to the test). The US, with its oligarchy in near absolute control over the government, is moving toward the feudal system that will squash any incentive for anything transformative. On the whole, unless I was rich already, I think I would rather live in the European system, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about feeding myself since ‘big brother’ is taking on the challenge of having enough food (resources) saved for a string of bad crops. I would rather live in the US as long as there is a realistic chance for someone to have vertical mobility, but my strong impression is that potential is quickly ebbing, if it hasn’t already vanished.