Christmas Gloom and Doom

Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, I think it's always appropriate to share a little gloom and doom on Christmas.  I watched this video from www.upworthy.com the other day about human overpopulation and exponential growth.  Here's the link: http://www.upworthy.com/a-smartypants-scientist-makes-an-easy-analogy-about-our-planet-and-now-im-scared  .  I hope you will watch this short video, so that you can follow my train of thought.

First of all, let me say that the video is a gross over simplification of a very complex problem, but the analogy the speaker uses is basically on target.  The speaker refers to a test tube filled with food to which he adds one, one celled bacterium. The bacterium reproduces every minute so that in 59 minutes the tube is half filled with bacteria and half empty of food.  In the next minute the bacteria reproduces again, doubling in population, and in that minute the test tube becomes full of bacteria and depleted of food.  The speaker postulates that the human species is in it's 59th minute.  If you look at the historical record, you see that world population growth was relatively flat until the beginning of the industrial age.  World population did not reach one billion until around 1804.  After that, it doubled by 1927, reached 5 billion by 1987, 6 billion by 1999, and is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050.  You can see that this is not exactly exponential growth, but does represent an alarming trend.  It must be also be noted that birth rates are decreasing and the rate of world population growth is decreasing as well, but I'm not sure that's a positive sign, and here's (at least in my mind) why.

I think that any reasonable person would agree that there has to be a finite carrying capacity for the human population on our planet.  I don't know what that number is, but based upon the population growth of the last 200 or so years,  it does seem that our test tube is rapidly filling up.

I remember a similar analogy from back in high school.  In this case, lab rats were allowed to breed without any restraint of food and water, but the increasing population was confined to the same amount of living space.  Eventually the population seized  to thrive, and ultimately collapsed.

So, here we have a two pronged problem.  On the one hand, our population continues to expand, using up available resources, and polluting and taxing our environment, and, on the other hand we have increased competition for the remaining resources.  It must be noted, that even at our current population, over one billion people live in extreme poverty of less than $1.25 income per day.  I doubt that the pie, even if we were all willing to sacrifice our own well being for the sake of humanity as a whole, is big enough to allow the current world population a comfortable life style.

In fact, I believe that just the opposite is beginning to happen.  What I see, both around the world, and in our own country, is the hoarding of resources.  The world's uber (sorry, I don't know how to add the umlaut) wealthy control almost all of the available resources, and are increasing unwilling to share, while the rest of us compete for the decreasing remainder, and become both unwilling and unable to share.  We are, like the lab rats, becoming less able to function as a normal society.

I'm not sure what we can do about this dismal situation, but, Like Pascal's wager, here are our choices.  We do nothing, and bet that things will improve.  If we lose that bet, our world is doomed.  Alternatively, we chose to address our problems, and, even though we may still be doomed, at least we will have made some improvement in our own lives and the lives of others, and we have a chance of winning the reward of heaven on earth.

The Trouble With Facebook

The only food picture I've ever taken

Facebook may be the best medium ever invented for the exchange of ideas and opinions.  So, what do I see when I open my Facebook page?  Frk'n pictures of cats and the soup you had for supper and the cake for desert, recipes and religious quotes, dogs and grandchildren, "Criminal Case and Lucky Slots", cartoons, and innumerable cuts and pastes of someone else's opinion or slogan.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've been guilty of most of the above at one time or another, and there's nothing wrong with any of it.  I like knowing what my friends are up to, and I like getting birthday wishes when the time rolls around, and I'm gratified when I see that someone has pushed the "like" button under something I post.  I like to know when someone I care about is sick, or married, or divorced, or has done something exceptional or just kind.

  All that is good, but what I really like is when people post thoughtful comments about someone else's post and even better, when someone posts an original thought in the "whats on your mind" section.  Here is an opportunity to say exactly what you think, without fear of interruption, to be read by most of your friends, and to get feed back from at least some of them.  Even if you offend someone, whats the worst that can happen, you get defriended by a person that you probably weren't that close to anyway.  At least that's the worst that has happened to me so far.

My New Rescue Dog Urc

I've been working on a new do it your self project that requires a dog, so I went to the local shelter and adopted one.  The purpose of my project is to produce electricity for my home.  I've modified an old home treadmill I wasn't using, so the the motor that propelled it now functions as a generator.  I've trained my dog to run on the treadmill and made a little device that drops a single bit of Purina Dog Chow onto a tray every five minutes.  The treadmill generator is attached to a battery which provides current to my refrigerator even when the dog is too tired to run.  I noticed that the dog tends to stop running when he eats his dog chow, so I modified an invisable fence collar to administer a non lethal shock to the dog if the treadmill slows down.  I considered adopting a greyhound for the work, but decided that it's stride is too long for a standard treadmill.  Instead, I obtained a mutt with some hound and Pitt bull mixed in.  The dog was very aggressive and was not very adoptable, but I've found that after ten hours of running on the treadmill, the dog has calmed down quite a bit, and sleeps almost all of the time not at work.  In order to curb protests by the dog, I've considered having him debarked, but I need to do a more through cost/benefit analysis before taking on the additional cost.  The system is not very efficient, but the labor is very cheap, and I'm working on ways to make my worker, err dog, more productive.  I'm gradually lenghtening the time between morsels, and have thought about adding a strong incentive smell to the front end of the treadmill.  The dog is also losing weight, which so far has improved his stamina without any other noticeable effects.  I know that there is a fine line between productivity and starvation, and I'm trying to achieve a happy balance.

In fact, this project is going so well, I'm considering expanding.  I've bought a used shipping container, and I'm purchasing unwanted treadmills (call me if you have one).  I believe that I can (if I make two levels) get twenty workstations in a trailer.  I will collect the electricity and reverse sell it to the power companies like some people do with their excess solar or wind power.  I've decided to export the units to willing municipal animal shelters, and will share the profits with the shelters.  This will increase my profits without the bother of direct worker, I mean dog, contact.  This way I will not get any bad publicity, should there be any worker, there I go again, I mean dog abuse.  The shelters will no doubt become more selective in the kind of dogs they capture.  It makes no economic sense to put a Yorkie or a Chihuahua, either of which might be useful as an actual pet, on a full size treadmill.

I've approached some venture capitalists to provide seed money for my start up,  but I'm willing to let a few of my closest friends in on the venture.  There could be big money in this when it gets off the ground.  I could perhaps, even export the units to China where they have a serious pollution problem from coal fired electric generation plants.  There, they eat their dogs, but have an excess of expendable people.

One of the things I've noticed about my dog, is that his need for food is so strong, that I don't need to keep him on a lease.  Because of this, I named him Urc for unrestrained capitalism.