everyone has infinite value

a piece of bread
with the potential energy
of 100 calories
has the value of a few cents

your mind
has the potential energy
of infinite ideas
of infinite words
of infinite power
of infinite value

why do you allow others
to treat you as less than infinite
why do you allow yourself
to treat you as less than infinite

I see your infinite value
it blinds me
this world of billions
of supernova

how different the world looks
when you see everyone’s value
like stars in daytime
as no one is worthless

do not let anyone give you
nothing for you
you are worth infinite value
you are worth living

you say, “how can we be
worth infinite value
we are common
like sand”

I say, “water is infinite value
in a desert
your mind has infinite value
in this universe”

you say, “what of the ones
who treat me as less
than infinite
what of them”

I say, “why believe them
they believe you are worthless
believe my infinity
as I believe in yours”

...

Love, Leads To

Love, leads to
sex, leads to
babies, leads to
overpopulation, leads to
scarcity, leads to
bickering, leads to
war, leads to
death, leads to
hate, leads to
exhaustion, leads to
reparation, leads to
forgiveness, leads to
peace, leads to
love, leads to

Where is All the Dark Matter/Energy?

I've been thinking about Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is to say that I've been speculating possible reasons for why we have no idea where most of the matter and energy in our universe is. Just take a look at this graph:



This pretty much means that 96% of the mass/energy in the universe is not visible to us. Which is sort of confusing. I mean, we can see stars, we can see gas, we can see the rocks and matter all around us, but for some inexplicable reason we are unable to visibly see 80% of all matter, or even observe, let alone harness most of the energy in our universe.

Let me combine this idea with my previous post about a super advanced alien civilization:

For sake of an analogy, pretend we are fish. We are swimming up a river, and bam, out of the blue, we hit this barrier where we can't go upstream anymore. Our fishy senses are confused, because hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have programmed us to want to swim up this stream, but for some reason we are blocked. Something hard and impassible obstructs our way, and we are unable to continue, unable to advance up this river, all because of a dam.

Now imagine a super advanced civilization of aliens. Perhaps these aliens evolved in another universe, somewhere trillions or quadrillions of years in the past from our own universe. Maybe they developed a way to travel through space and time, and even between universes, and they have been skipping between universes, colonizing as they go. Perhaps these technologies require unthinkable amounts of energy, possibly the energy from many stars, from many galaxies, from many universes, all acquired by this supremely powerful species.

(Just like how we have dominated the resources on our own planet, and would absolutely ransack the resources of nearby planets, if we could only figure out a cheap way to get there.)

So imagine this alien species is here already. Perhaps they have already harnessed 95% of the matter/energy in our universe, possibly with a super advanced version of a Dyson Sphere, that blocks all outgoing radiation with a super thin mesh of nano-robot solar panels. They could place these megastructures on any star, at any point in time, at the exact moment of a star's birth, to maximize the efficiency of their consumption.

What if we can't see most of the matter and energy in the universe, for the simple explanation that they are already being harvested by someone else? What if there is a fifth level to the Kardashev scale, where an alien civilization has not only consumed all of the energy of their universe, but has moved on to dominate millions or billions of other universes, including our own?

If this is true, then I would alter the Zoo Hypothesis to something much more humbling, something more fitting of our proper place in the universe:

I'd call it the Fishbowl Hypothesis.

The Early Beatles

Just watched this, which is a documentary about the first U.S. visit The Beatles made. There is no commentary, no plot, just footage of The Beatles being themselves.

What interests me about this film are the contradictions: their prim and proper image onstage clashes with the behind the scenes footage of them smoking and drinking and fooling around. You can already feel the tension, as John is often absent, and Paul at one time quips, "No, that's the married man," referring to John.

You can start to feel their social commentaries take root, in stark contrast to the stodgy and slick Ed Sullivan (who doesn't let them talk on his show.)

If you like The Beatles, I would highly suggest renting this movie. It was $2 at Blockbuster, and is infinitely more entertaining than something trivial and lame you could rent for $6 that happens to be a new release.

The Illusion of Choice

Today's Penny Arcade led me to the Wikipedia article on Sophie's Choice, where I refreshed my memory of this powerful movie.

I had seen it many years ago, back when I was a robot. The plot had confused my wiring, but had not elicited anything unusually emotive. Now, reading the twists and turns of the movie, I can see Kevin Kline's madness, and Meryl Streep's torment as if I watched the movie yesterday. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, these images have been stored, perhaps for the day when I might have needed them.

Now, I am nauseous. I look at my kids and I want to vomit. The revulsion leads to anger, a righteous fury where I would rip apart reality if anything remotely like what happened in the movie occurred to my kids. The image of the girl flailing for life as they drag her to the oven makes me want to shred this universe, my rage is ablaze that these stories can and have transpired. Something primal is loose, and I can barely contain the frenzy. I look on as my son takes a nap, and I want to cry for a fiction that exemplifies the worst in humanity.

If there is a God I am pissed at him because he allows these things to pass. An omnipotent being by definition is the emanation of everything, including evil. Indirect or not, he is ultimately responsible, and so I lay the blame at his feet.

Luckily for him, regardless of whether there is a God or not, it's also our own damn fault, mine included, which is why I cage the animal, divert it into nonviolent channels, so that I am not a part of the problem. It's not ideal, because I am imperfect. Unlike the so-called perfection of deities, that set us up with choices of limited resources between our brothers and cousins and parents, friends and enemies and strangers, so that we must choose between people, who lives and who dies through our own indirect actions and inactions.

We are all Sophie, and we must all choose.

Teaching History Backwards

Education has failed me.

I say this with great trepidation, because I respect and admire teachers, both as a whole and individually. However, just because I admire and exalt scholarly thought, doesn't mean I think the institution is perfect. I wholeheartedly support the notion that a society cannot be both democratic and uninformed at the same time, which is why it pains me to admit that I, like many Americans, am ignorant.

I know absolutely nothing about the twentieth century past the end of WWII. Every time a class was supposedly about "United States History", we'd generally start at the colonies, and end around Reconstruction, or possibly touch on the Industrial Revolution. Then the semester would end, and the timeline would cease. This pattern continued throughout middle school and high school, and then in college, where nothing about current events mattered in order to graduate.

Apparently the U.S. has been involved in nothing of interest in modern times. The bombing of Bosnian Serbs my the senior year of high school was not as important as me learning calculus or running a mile in under eight minutes. I did not need to know anything about the Middle East in order to obtain a college diploma.

I know of no reasons as to why other places in the world might have dissident views concerning the U.S. Especially not concerning our "defense" budget, or that we have the most powerful and advanced military in the world. Or that this amount is actually a small percentage compared to our GDP (4%). Though that leads to the question of why our GDP is so much larger than the rest of the world. (Not counting the European Union, though that would be a great discussion topic too.)

To a certain extent, it's not the fault of the teachers and administrators, since the curriculum seems rooted in the tired old cave paintings and pyramids, Greeks, Romans, ah, the Dark Ages, how sad, Colonization, and Independence! treadmill due to what society wants. (And by society I mean you and me.)

I think the issue here is twofold. First: educators want to stay away from anything politically charged. That means anything recent gets ignored, because no school board wants angry parents rioting when their kids' teachers cover the Vietnam War. (Which in Vietnam is called "Resistance War Against America", or the American War.) No one gives a crap about which Pharaoh boinked which handmaiden, or whether the U.S. declared war on Mexico in 1846, since everyone involved at this point is dead.

Second: people have double-standards concerning adolescents. On one hand, society expects young adults to magically transform into thinking adults at the age of eighteen, while keeping them blissfully innocent (ignorant) of anything actually important up until that time.

Concerning the first point, I absolutely agree. Education should not be in the business of peddling ideologies. However, this does not mean that an objective mention of current events is beyond the scope of a school setting. Why can't teachers give the facts, without endorsing one particular side or the other?

As for the second, how can we entrust the future to our children without giving them the tools necessary to make informed decisions? They don't have the luxury of being innocent, especially when they must make adult choices, which cannot be framed in terms of demonizing one camp or the other. In a true democracy, no one group can hate another, or else the entire process fails.

I propose that every class with the brand of History on it do a complete 180 degree turn. Instead of starting with some random event far back in time, which has zero bearing on today, every history teacher should start with today. Then work backwards. Then students can see what is happening now, then travel backwards to yesterday in order to explain today, and then look at the yesterday before that, and the yesterday before that, and so on.

For example, we are in Iraq. Give the situation as it is occurring today. Then step back in time to 2003 and the invasion, and the circumstances surrounding it. Then push back further to every related incident with Iraq, going backwards with the First Gulf war, and the instability in the region due to the establishment of the state of Israel and the Zionist movement, and the Cold War.

This type of backwards thinking, where we anchor ourselves in the present, then work toward the reasons why things got to be the way they are, is the only way that we can free ourselves and our society from the shackles of ignorance and partisan thinking, where one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, because none of us really know what is going on because no one told us, for fear of giving us the truth.

If we aren't working with the truth, then how can we possibly work together in the future?

Science Fiction Fan

As can be surmised from many of my posts, I love science fiction. The idea that we can foresee the future, and then plan our actions accordingly, then implement new strategies to dominate our environment is utterly intriguing. This has (thus far) been the entire history of our species.

At some point, every technology was fiction, from the creation of the wheel, to the harnessing of fire, to agriculture, and every aspect of our lives. Someone saw a need, and filled that need by applying some learned process. This type of methodology is unheard of anywhere else in the animal kingdom, and is the entire key to our success (and to our possible downfall).

Science fiction explores what it means to be human, and what it might mean to be human in the future.

It is my belief that anyone who says they don't like science fiction at a basic level, is destined to be a science dinosaur.

American Royalty

This is fascinating.

In a list of the top two hundred wealthiest people throughout history, adjusted for inflation, how many of them are from the United States?

One hundred and twenty-seven. (I counted it twice.) Over half (63.5%) of the richest people ever, in all of human history, were born here (or immigrated here in the case of eleven of them), and through some combination of hard work, luck, and economic conditions, have accumulated obscene levels of affluence.

I am serious about the word "obscene" by the way. I'm simultaneously horrified and intrigued by this, since, as an American, I have some connection to these people, however tenuous. My thoughts range from this to this to this, with the Roman Empire being the obvious comparison.

Do I have a solution? Not a chance. I don't even know if there is a solution, or if I'm even asking the right questions. My net worth is closer to zero than a billion, so it would be easy for me to jump to a conclusion that something should change, however, these thoughts tend to lead to something equally appalling.

It gives me hope when billionaires can reevaluate their rise to power, and shift their focus to philanthropy, like Rockefeller and Gates, however, I wonder if a unilateral attempt at goodwill is at odds with the ideal of a democracy.