jameswharris

Faith

My friend Carl and I were talking about words that can be shared by religion and science. Carl commented to my last post,

From a Christian perspective what I think many people need to hear is an acknowledgment that science itself is filled with leaps of faith and is founded on faith. Now that faith may not seem to be defined the same way for both groups but I think that is wrong. I think it is the same word. It is trust and belief in things that cannot be seen. Science takes leaps of faith all the time. It is the hard line view of a need for religion and science to be seen separately that scares off religious people and makes them want to reject scientific speculation, proof, etc.

When I first read this I wanted to protest that the word faith has no place in science, but I let Carl’s comment ride around in my head for awhile. I’m glad I did, because many ideas grew from letting my thoughts lie fallow for awhile.

The pursuit of science does not involve faith, that is the testing of a hypothesis. Scientific experiments have to stand alone and be reproducible and not be influenced by the beliefs of the experimenters. However, faith plays a big role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge. We are all taught that the Earth orbits the Sun, but how many of us could actually prove it? I have read about many experiments that are meant to prove that the Earth orbits the Sun, but I have not replicated any of them.

And I think this is what Carl is talking about. We have a kind of faith in science. We accept the consensus that the Earth orbits the Sun. But is acceptance the same as faith? Christians have faith that life exists after death, but that belief does not come from experiments and testing. Religious people have faith in untested hypotheses. So can one word apply to both situations?

My faith in science comes from reading a lot of books and in the acceptance of consensus. I assume every scientific idea has been tested over and over again, and that all of science if built on billions of experiments that are constantly being retested. I also live on the assumption that any technology derived from scientific laws will behave in a way that connects it to all other scientific laws. Since I am not a scientist, I have to trust, accept, believe or have faith in science, but I depend on it to be consistent.

Religious people use the word faith in an inconsistent manner. The object of their faith varies from person to person, and from religion to religion. To the skeptic the faithful appear to be validating their wishes with determination and belief. However, to the faithful, faith is about commitment to the unknowable. Spiritual knowledge is handed down from the past, much like how scientific knowledge is passed down, and the worshipful are asked to accept this knowledge on faith.

This is where religion and science are different. Science says to students, trust me, the experiments have been done, and I’ll show you how to reproduce any of them yourself. Religion says, trust me, this knowledge comes from a higher being, one who was not of this world. Religious people are followers of mystic knowledge. Mystics are those people claiming direct experience with other worldly knowledge. Religious people accept mystic knowledge on faith. I am not religious, but that doesn’t mean I can disprove their hypothesis in which they base their faith. Nor can science.

For decades there have been those who want to unite science and religion, and there have been Popes that have tried to solve the problem by allowing science to have providence back to the big bang, but declaring anything earlier belonging to God. Religious people need for the realm of the supernatural to exist beyond our physical reality for their faith to exist. Faith in the supernatural is very different from faith in the foundations of science. Carl has his faith, and I have mine, so what’s the problem?

What bothers Carl and I are the competition of faiths that we see in the news and in the people around us. Most people would like to be left along to pursue their own beliefs, but a few believers from every belief system want to legislate their faith into law for all to follow. Some people have faith in areas other than religion and science, such as concepts like justice, goodness, evil, economics, ethics, etc. There are all these competing ideas and ideologies. It’s enough to drive one to watching sitcoms.

My conservative friends are riled up by Michael Moore and Al Gore. My liberal friends are outraged by Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. These folks are a kind of prophets of various faiths. They campaign to gather believers in their ideas. Just like the current presidential election, with each candidate wanting voters to embrace their beliefs, and thus have faith in them.

It makes me wonder if “faith” is a bad word. If I express my faith in the concept of global warming, it presses the button on some people that raises their hackles. But if someone around me starts talking about “intelligent design” my own hackle button gets pushed. If I’m willing to accept Christianity as a belief, why not intelligent design? This is getting to the heart of things, I think.

Faith requires betting the farm, committing the entire soul. As long as Christianity is separate from science I can ignore it. Intelligent design is religion’s way of attacking the belief in science. Ouch, time to fight back. The theory of evolution overlaps faith in the old testament. Ouch, let’s start a crusade against science.

Faith has to be 100% pure, and any conflict is a threat. Many people like to believe that reality is completely objective and can only handle one truth. Nobody assumes their faith is one of the many that’s not part of reality. I happen to wonder since most people lead highly delusional lives, does it really matter which faith is validated by objective reality?

But this head-in-the-sand approach won’t work. My faith in science does conflict with other people’s faith in the systems they need to believe in with 100% certainty. Strangely, this comes down to politics. You’d think we could keep metaphysics out of decisions on road building, taxation, maintaining armies, building schools and libraries, and all the other mundane activities that go into running cities and states. Take for instance the Wall Street buy out under discussion in congress. Why are things lining up along party lines?

Everyone has many faiths, and for some reason of psychology, these collection of faiths line up along the two political parties like iron filings in a magnetic field, polarized by two opposing charges that we don’t understand. Actual science is not a faith. Believing in any idea is a faith. Backing unproven scientific assertions is still a kind of faith. We can’t prove our faiths with scientific like experiments, although some people believe rhetoric is a science, which it’s not.

I don’t know if the two species of humans I talked about in my last post are different because of their beliefs, or they are physically different in some way that make them believe along opposing lines. I wonder if anyone has done studies of political parties around the world, and explored whether or not they had common traits and how they might be related to personality types.

JWH 9/25/8

Two Species of Human Beings

One of my all time favorite experiments dealt with visual perception. I’m recalling this from memory of a book I read long ago, but maybe someone can let me know the original source. In this experiment scientists raised two batches of kittens in different controlled environments. Half the kittens were raised in a room with no vertical lines and the other half brought up in a place with no horizontal lines. After six months they let the kittens out into the normal world. The kittens who were raised without horizontal lines would not jump up onto a flat chair seat or shelves, and kittens raised without vertical lines would walk into chair legs.

When I read this I wondered what was missing from my vision because of my limited upbringing. This current election makes me think of that experiment, because the Republicans are shouting at the Democrats, “Hey, Liberals, can’t you see the vertical lines, they’re right in front of your face!” And the Democrats are yelling back, “Dudes, can’t you see those horizontal surfaces, they’re right there!”

Global warming deniers are making me wonder if there’s two different species of human beings living side by side. Their absolute refusal to see the problem is so adamant that I have to wonder if it’s a matter of failed perception. I don’t know what to say to them. They clutch their false out-of-date data like it was handed down from God on stone tablets and they refuse to look at any new data because they think it’s from false prophets. No matter how much information I’m willing to provide, they deny that it’s valid or that it really exists. They are like the kittens raised without vertical lines that can’t see chair legs.

But the implications are far greater than this. The division of the two species divide other issues like politics and religion. How can we as a nation solve our problems, especially big problems, if we’re always polarized? I wonder if the deniers have an innate sense of the cat in the quantum box, knowing at an unconscious level that as long as they don’t look inside the box the cat will be okay? Will a global warming denier even understand what I just said?

To me the issue has gone beyond global warming. I’m starting to worry that there is an even more dangerous problem than climate change, and that’s this division of perception that polarizes the population. Is it like a law-of-nature barrier that keeps anything from going faster than light. What if the average intelligence of the human race limits how far we can progress as a species? We’re seeing more and more big problems that will require us to work cooperatively if civilization is to survive, but we’ve reach a total impasse on communication, refusing to do anything because we can’t agree.

Let’s avoid the global warming issue for the moment since it’s such a touchy issue. Many of the climate change deniers scoff at climate predictions because various scientists have made predictions in the past that have apparently turned out not to be true. Or appeared that way for awhile. Two books, The Population Bomb (1968) and The Limits of Growth (1972) are often used as examples of failed predictions. The trouble is, these deniers didn’t wait long enough to give the forecasts time to unfold.

Forty years later, many people think the world is just fine with 6.7 billion people and figure we can grow much larger, and they don’t think our rich lifestyles show any limits. Perception is everything, but we’re on a roller coaster that’s climbing to the peak of the Kingka Ka, because we haven’t started the blazing ride down yet. Now that China and India have taken up our American consumer habits, and resources are starting to be fought over, and hundreds of little stories tell me that The Limits of Growth is about to come online, I’m getting the feeling that we’ll arrive at the peak of the climb soon. Hold on for the ride down.

The people with rose colored corneas, obviously don’t watch a lot of documentaries, or keep up with diverse science magazines. Conservative news shows tend to focus on the same old tired issues while ignoring the little stories that shows a whole lot of different barometers are all falling. It’s funny that millions welcome the Christian apocalypse, but can’t see the world possibly ending in some other way. The trouble is, the world doesn’t end, we just end up in a big mess that we’ve got to clean up.

It worries me that so many people enjoy the end-of-days stories that are so popular. Why is it so easy to believe that an imaginary superior being will destroy us, but so hard to believe that we can destroy ourselves through pursuing those same old seven deadly sins that that same superior being warned us against? You can not drive a SUV through the eye of a needle to get to your destination.

Maybe it’s a matter of language, and science is not the language to use to communicate across the gap that divides us. I’ve been listening to the Bible this past year, on my iPod. I know it’s an odd thing for an atheist to do, but I consider it learning a language. I find it fascinating that all the things that the New Testament teaches are the things we need to do to change ourselves to avoid problems like global warming, over population and dwindling resources.

I have been thinking for days on how to reply to global warming deniers, and it is now occurring to me that I can’t recommend studying science. That isn’t their language. My reply to them is to buy an iPod and get a good audio edition of the Bible and really listen to it. Listening is far superior to reading, and start at the beginning. Pay attention to what’s happening chapter by chapter. I know you conservatives don’t like the word “evolution” but the Bible shows an evolution of spirit. Pay particular attention to the transition between the Old and New Testament. Fundamental thinking is based in Old Testament philosophy. It teaches about nation building. The New Testament teaches about soul building. For the people of the Earth to survive climate change will require a lot of soul building.

It is my belief that climate change deniers are worried that changing the world requires changing themselves, and they just don’t want to change.

JWH 9/22/8

Anatomy of an Internet Joke

In the old days people would tell you jokes and anecdotes in person, but in these modern times they send them around in emails. I got one the other day that sparked my interest,

A stunning senior moment

Apparently, a self-important college freshman attending a recent football game took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation. “You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,” the student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear.

“The young people of today grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, man walking on the moon. Our space probes have visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, ships and electric and hydrogen cars, cell phones, computers with light-speed processing …and more.”

After a brief silence, the senior citizen responded as follows:

“You’re right, son. We didn’t have those things when we were young …….. so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little shit, what are you doing for the next generation?”

The applause was amazing ……

Since I’m slightly old, at 56, a big smile came to my face at the end, and I thought “Yea, for the old guy.” But after I closed the email and went back to work I started thinking about this little anecdote. The freshman wasn’t wrong, so why should he be the butt of the joke? Kids today are different, and they grow up in a much different world than us baby-boomers, and much more different than my parent’s generation. The difference between any two or three generations is always going to be startling.

My grandmother, who was born in 1881 and died in 1972 saw a lot of changes, having been born before the car, electric grid or airplane. My mother was born in 1916, and my father in 1920. I assume the senior citizen of the story was maybe from the 1930s or 1940s, older than my generation, but younger than my parents.

So why was the senior so angry at the freshman? As I get older I hear more resentment of the young. I wouldn’t mind being young again myself, but I don’t hold it against them that I’m not. I think this story is popular, because I searched on “Now, you arrogant little shit, what are you doing for the next generation?” at Google and got 34,600 hits. A lot of people are quoting it and thinking it funny, but I’m not finding many people commenting on it. I think we need to examine the story more closely.

First off, why the anger? Are older people, boomers and older generations, threatened by the current generation? I see old people all the time that have adapted to computers, cell phones, iPods and the Internet, but for those that haven’t, are they angry at the young for leaving them behind? Don’t we expect the young to surpass us, and go out and discover new stuff?

The young Freshman was right, the world of 2008 is extremely different from anything before 1990, and especially before 1980. Is it his fault that the older generations don’t stay current. Kids are all the time talking to me about fantastic music groups and movie stars that are unknown to me, but on the other hand, I can mention William Powell and Kay Francis, and their faces will go blank. It evens out in the long run.

And can the senior at the game really take credit for inventing all that stuff? I never invented anything. And a lot of that tech was invented by people before the baby boomers. Would that senior feel that my generation didn’t do anything either?

We don’t know the full context of the story. Was the freshman being rude to the senior? Was his tone really arrogant? Or did the senior just read that into the situation?

I bring this up because there’s a lot of humor going around the net at the expense of various groups, much of it political. Conservatives make fun of liberals, and liberals make fun of conservatives. If you ask the people making the jokes they will say it’s all in fun, but if you’re on the receiving end, it feels like hostility. I wonder how Sarah Palin feels about the jokes about her. Or how Obama feels about jokes about him?

This senior moment story is pretty minor, but at the core of it is anger, and I think a lot of people think it’s funny because of resentment towards the young. Later the same day after reading this humorous anecdote I read about a 12-year-old boy inventing a 3D solar cell. The point of the senior moment anecdote is patently false, the young are always inventing new stuff. Every generation has its slackers and heroes. So why the, “my generation is better than yours,” routine?

One reason could be because the older generations don’t like all the tech stuff and hate having to deal with it. They might prefer the good ole days of vacuum tube radios and vinyl LPs. They might prefer mail with stamps over email. They might prefer Ed Sullivan to Chris Rock. Life might have been nicer with 3 channels of television as opposed to hundreds.

Maybe the old are just envious of the young. The freshman was the same age as the football players the senior was paying to watch. Maybe the freshman was with a beautiful young girlfriend, and the senior felt jealous at not being young himself. Even at 56 I would feel envy for their youth. Could the attitude of the freshmen have made the senior, and all the people who enjoyed this joke, feel they were over the hill, and the angry retort made them feel better?

Now, if you are from my generation and older, and you meet a kid that points out how backward you are and how you’re out of touch with modern times, are you going to use the same line as this senior did? Or will you say something different?

The senior could have wisely said, “So, kid, how are you going to feel in a few years when a younger person tells you what you told me? And you maybe surprised how quick you’re find yourself in my place.”

Or he could have smiled and said, “It’s easy to be 19, let’s see how you do at 75.”

Or maybe the senior could have done what my Uncle Jack did to me. I was 13 at the time, but the same trick will probably work with someone 19. I had arrogantly told my Uncle Jack something, this was around 1965, and the generation gap was starting to widen, and he replied, “Ok, smarty, I’ll tell you what. Write down everything you just said and put it in an envelope, and in five years we’ll open it up and I’ll give you five dollars for everything you list you still believe.”

I refused to do it because I was so confident in my beliefs that I didn’t think it worth my time. Later on, when I was 18, I remember that incident and realized that my uncle wouldn’t have lost any money on the deal.

Wisdom is not calling the younger generation arrogant little shits.

Jim

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

I started reading Edith Wharton this summer with Ethan Frome. Then I read her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence. And now, I’ve finished The House of Mirth, which I’ve decided is one of my all time favorite books. I’ve elevated Wharton into that crowd of writers that I love to study because their real lives are as interesting as their fictional creations. My major favorites over the years have been Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Samuel Clemens, Jack Kerouac, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens.

Wharton will be next when I start reading her biography. By studying the works of these writers, their lives, and the history of their times, I’ve been able to build a rough mental map of the changes in English and American society. This 4th dimensional guide chronicles the battles of the sexes from a hazy beginning in 1840 with the novel Pamela by Samuel Richardson, then with clearer focus using Jane Austen, and after that, with ever sharper focus with Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott and others moving forward in time.

I wish I had read Wharton as a teenager, but I’m not sure if I could have understood her then. So I’ll change that wish. I wish I could have understood Wharton as a teenager. In high school all I knew was I wanted a girlfriend, but never entertained the idea of why a girl would want me as a boyfriend. It was physical craving. At the time, girls appeared to want boyfriends just as much as us guys wanted them, and we falsely assumed they craved us in the same way. Of the girls I did get to date, they kept their true desires well hidden from me. I think few teen males recognized the torture teen girls go through in judging their worthiness, and fewer still understood what girls wanted. Even the most toady of young men automatically assume a pretty girl will want them. If I had understood Edith Wharton as a teenager I would have understood why I wasn’t that appealing to the opposite sex in high school even though I wasn’t bad looking, had decent manners, a job and pocket money. All boys want is a female body to play with, what girls want is illustrated in The House of Mirth.

Edith Wharton writes about communication between men and women, and the nature of women, in such a way that it could have saved me years of miscommunication. Wharton’s observations on society and sexual politics are so enlightening that I wonder why she isn’t given more credit as an early founder of feminism.

The House of Mirth is about Lily Bart, a woman who wants to capitalize on her beauty, but in the process of various negotiations realizes that closing the deal won’t give her the complete freedom she desires. Lily’s motives are unclouded by romantic notions. Marriage is a business arrangement, and a great marriage means high social status. However, as she reels in each potential groom to the point of getting a good look at them, Lily ends up deciding their price is too high and throws them back. She is sidetrack from this husband hunting by the charming, but poor, Lawrence Selden, who pollutes her mind with ethical considerations. She is attracted to Selden but she cannot consider him an appropriate catch for her matrimonial fishing.

What Lily discovers over and over again is women of her time are totally dependent on men. At the dawn of the twentieth century there were women who could make their own way, but they led miserable lives. The House of Mirth (1905) makes a great companion novel to Sister Carrie (1900) by Theodore Dreiser, a novel about a young woman moving to the big city to live on her own. Carrie and Lily even live in New York at the same time for a short overlapping period, but in different social strata. Jump ahead to The Sun Also Rises (1927) and see how Hemingway presents Lady Brett Ashley, but think of her as Lily Bart recast and sexually liberated, after having evolved through Ellen Olenska from The Age of Innocence.

The history of the development of the female mind in the twentieth century can be shown through these characters and other fictional women. Their security and happiness is dependent on men. Wharton shows through Lily Bart what happens to women when they fail to negotiate a deal with a man. Wharton holds out hope that men and women can find paths of communication and even understanding, but in the end of each novel there is always failure to communicate. I like to think The Age of Innocence is graduate work for where Wharton left off with The House of Mirth.

Both books are about men and women trying to decipher the cryptic messages thrown across the gender gap. Even during moments of honest straight talking, like the scene where Simon Rosedale offers a very practical marriage arrangement, or the one where George Trenor explains what he wants for helping Lily financially, the two sexes can understand each other’s words, but not each others needs and desires. Wharton seems to imply that men can fulfill women’s fantasies by buying them, or women can manipulate men by outsmarting them, but in either scenario one or both of the sexes must live in a fantasy.

I need to read more Wharton, and to read about her, to understand Wharton’s real position on the battle of the sexes, but I get the feeling that she is gloomy on whether or not either gender can understand the other. Women often claim men are transparent to them, and believe that men haven’t a clue in understanding women, but I think Wharton goes way beyond disproving that cliché.

These novels suggest that Wharton thinks both sexes are opaque to each other. Naturally, I assume that Wharton knows the female point of view, but I also feel she has some insight into males. She goes way past the stereotype that men only have one thing on their mind, and she doesn’t seem corrupted by the philosophy of romance.

Wharton grew up rich, married well, but probably didn’t achieve her own freedom until after her divorce in 1913, a period between these two novels. I’m hoping that reading more about Wharton’s life will reveal greater depths to her novels.

The Value of Women

Lily Bart is exceptionally beautiful and everyone expects her to marry a very rich man, one that would position her near the peak of society even though her own family has lost its fortune. Lily dwells among the upper crust, without wealth herself, by the grace of her beauty and knowledge their society. She makes herself useful to her rich women friends as a social secretary, but beyond the skill of dressing fabulously and being an attraction at parties, Lily is helpless. Simon Rosedale, a Jew trying to break into high society, wants to marry her because of her connections, but Lily is repulsed by his social climbing and personal manners. Rosedale even tells Lily that he doesn’t expect her to love him and that his ambition is to have a wife that could lord it over all the other society ladies through access to his wealth.

The more Lily tries to live up to insights inspired by Selden, the harder her life becomes. I don’t know if this was Wharton’s intention, but The House of Mirth illustrates how women are property, and their value is set by a commodity market of men, with their price rising and lowering depending on the rumors of the day. Lily’s stock takes a nosedive when she becomes a pawn in a game between a vicious woman friend and that woman’s husband.

What Do Women Want?

I think The House of Mirth makes an excellent sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen set the standard for novels about women looking for a rich husband. Lily Bart wants her own Mr. Darcy, but Edith Wharton goes deeper into examining the bargain women make when selling themselves into money. Romantic writers like to suggest its all for love, but really it’s about freedom. Just another retelling of Cinderella – escape from floor scrubbing. When do we get a new story where Cinderella gives her step-sisters the finger while shouting over her shoulder, “I’m out of here, I’m going to make my own damn fortune, and buy me my own castle.” Is it any wonder why Scarlett O’Hara became a towering heroine to women in 1936?

From 1905 to 2008 women make fantastic advancements. Many, if not most, can live on their own in the developed western world, although often poorly. Times have changed too, in the marketing of women. In 1905 a woman is valued as a merger of family assets, for running a house, raising kids, cooking, and having social skills. Today it seems women are valued for their bodies and sexual talents, at least in common fiction, although that depends on which gender creates the fiction. Strangely enough, what women want hasn’t changed much since 1905, they still want freedom, protection, and wealth, but what they are advertising for sale has changed. I wonder if Wharton would be shocked by the blatant sexual bargaining of today?

Wharton never suggests that Lily might study stock investing with George Trenor, so she could make her own riches. Lily refuses to trade sex and become a well-to-do mistress. She only considers work when all her other options are gone, and she’s a failure at that. Wharton could have written a novel about Lily starting a fashionable business and succeeding on her own, but she didn’t. Happiness always comes down to finding the right man, and Lily, literally worth her weight in gold and diamonds, loses at negotiating because of miscommunications and failures to close deals.

Lily’s beauty is powerful enough to attract armies of average men, with average incomes, but she doesn’t consider lowering her asking price. She could have easily gotten a reasonable wealthy man, an up-and-comer, but she doesn’t. I assume Wharton wants us to see the corrupting influence of the idle rich. At one point Lily is dining with a roomful of society’s best and she realizes they are all twits and not a single Mr. Darcy among them.

I have to wonder if the frantic desire by modern women to be thin and beautiful is just compulsive perfecting of their product. Is looking great the feminine form of ambition? It’s surprising that the winners at Miss America pageants aren’t decided by bids, like at art auctions. Lily Bart could have been married several times but she always takes herself off the block when she learns too much about who is going to buy her.

And I have to wonder what Wharton is telling her lady readers. Settle before it’s too late? Don’t be greedy? Learn a trade? Wharton had been married twenty years to her wealthy husband by the time this novel came out. She’d be divorced in another eight. Edith is no Jane Austen, her eyes were not clouded by thoughts of love. Lily wasn’t even expecting friendship. She wanted to be free and rich. She was an alpha female believing she deserved the alpha male. So what was Wharton telling us? I don’t think I’ll know until I read books about her and then reread The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, but here is something to think about now.

As a male I can fantasize about living in the world of The House of Mirth and meeting Lily Bart. If I was realistic, I’d picture myself middle class, having to work like Lawrence Selden, and I do identify with him and what she says to Lily. I can easily imagine being very attracted to Lily and wanting her, but if I was having a realistic historical daydream, I’d realize that owning Lily would be like winning a yacht on a bet but not be able to afford a slip in a marina, or afford to hire a crew, or even have the money to take it out on a trip. Selden lived in a modest apartment and I can’t imagine him marrying Lily and parking her there for a new life after the world traveling and luxury that Lily considered basic needs. It’s easy to have a sexual fantasy about a beautiful woman, but it’s much harder to create a fantasy that will make her happy too.

Women reading The House of Mirth will learn different lessons than men who read it. Like men in Wharton novels, I can only guess at what women will think. Most women are inflicted by the romance gene and I assume many will rationalize marrying Selden. Most women do not marry rich men, so they settle for the Lawrence Seldens of the world. There are plenty of women who’d accept boredom and marry Percy for his immense wealth. And I imagine that there are lots of women who would have jumped at Simon Rosedale’s offer, or even George Trenor’s proposition. And many women would consider it perfectly fine to exposed Judy for what she was and take her rich husband. The real question is how many women would find another way out? One that doesn’t involve men?

I think that’s the difference between now and then. I’ve often wondered why so many modern women over fifty prefer to live single. Some of my single women friends joke they would give in and marry again if the man was very rich, but anything less, and a man is too much trouble. I guess many of my lady friends would be like Lily, and reject those rich guys too. The difference between 1905 and 2008 is millions of woman can afford to be picky, whereas Lily did not. That’s what the core of women’s liberation is about – being able to live without a man.

Jim

What If Carbon Pollution Was Visible?

If automobiles had never been invented and transportation still depended on horse power, we’d be knee deep in horse you know what. We’d probably have some very strict equine pollution laws. Now imagine if cars pooped out solid carbon pellets – lets imagine them to be orange and about the size of golf balls so they could shoot out existing tailpipes – then according to CarbonCounter.org my mid-size pickup truck would leave more than 10,000 of these car turds on the highway and streets every year. My house would excrete more than 26,000 of these scat balls piling up around the yard.

Carbon is invisible and goes way up into the atmosphere. It’s easy to think we’re not doing anything to the climate. But if pollution was solid and visible, we probably couldn’t see anything else. What if every kind of pollution was a color coded feces. Methane could be green balls, sulfur could be brown, etc. Try and imagine what our streets would look like. I doubt they would be drivable.

If we could see the invisible pollution we’re putting into the air, or into the sea, we’d realize that we have a huge problem. I don’t want to take the time to do the mathematics, but I bet we’d all be standing pretty deep in piles of colored balls. And the funny thing is, if we had cars that made solid pellets out of carbon we would not need to worry about the greenhouse effect. People are trying to invent technology to sequester carbon underground. To understand the magnitude of that problem, once again picture how many colored balls would be laying around to be picked up and put somewhere.

Think about it another way. What if you had to pay $1 for every pound of carbon you polluted and the only way to get a deduction from this tax was to produce less carbon? If my wife and I worked to be more efficient, we might could reduce $50,000 a year down to $20,000, but that’s still leaving a lot of pollution. And when you think how the standard of living is rising all around the world, we’re quickly back to being waist deep in carbon doo-doo.

When environmentalist talk about rolling things back to how it was before 1990 or 1980, and that means asking Americans to consume 50% less, it would also mean asking a billion people that climbed from underdeveloped to developed to step back into poverty. If Americans could find a mode of transportation that had 1/20th of the impact on the environment, then the rest of the world could come up to our standard – but then we’d all need to cut consumption by half.

The magnitude of the problem is just horrendous. And we really don’t see it because carbon is invisible. How sneaky. I’m a positive guy. I like to believe we can solve this problem. I like to think humans can overcome anything, but if you read Jarrod Diamond you know our track record 0 in N tries. Why didn’t all the brilliant MBAs running Wall Street not see the sub-prime fiasco coming? As a race, civilizations seem to prefer to collapse, and then pull a Phoenix, rather than do a caterpillar and butterfly act.

Lots of people love spectator sports. I like watching all the nations on the Earth play the game of survival. The United States has no trouble facing any odds if it can play the game with guns, but for some reason we don’t want to compete when science is the weapon of choice. Science fiction writers really should help us see what lies ahead, so more people can see the invisible coming.

Jim