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Monday, November 30, 2009

Government Intervention

I’ve been away from my blogging station for about two weeks now and I figure the people that visit my little blog has plummeted from billions per day to perhaps a few hundred.

During my absence I have decided that the majority of people are stupid. I may have decided that a while back, but I’m more vehement about it now.

I’m also testing this blog via email thing.

People believe that through technological achievement we have discovered how to make the earth warmer.

I don’t like smog. I don’t like cars. I don’t like smoke. I’m all for cutting emissions. I don’t like the government telling me what to do. I don’t like my boss telling me what to wear. I prefer being told what we need to accomplish and then feeling like I have the freedom to use my ingenuity to figure out a unique, creative and possibly fun way to get there.

If I’m in a room full of 1000 people and someone tells me we need to get everyone out in 15 minutes, I’ll fail. I’m not one for rash action. I’d ask why 15 minutes? By the time I was convinced everyone needed to be out, it would be too late. I like weighing my options and thinking things through. Someone who was intent on getting everyone out would probably simply yell fire or pull the fire alarm. Perhaps a more ingenious solution would be to tell everyone they were giving a million bucks to the first 100 people in the street outside.

The US government is in charge of about 300,000,000 stupid people. There are almost 7 billion stupid people in the world. If you are a world leader and you decide that carbon emissions are bad, how do you get people to cut down? Well, horror stories of global warming, ice caps melting, polar bears dying, etc. is probably a good place to start. They are using the “fire” approach to accomplishing the goal. They’ll probably impose penalties that feel a lot like burning to bring the goal to fruition.

Back when gas (in the USA) was hitting $4+ per gallon, there was lots of invention going on regarding algae fuels, hydrogen energy, etc. We don’t need a fire, we need motivation. In 1962 when Kennedy challenged the USA to put a man on the moon, it was done by 1969. There was no reason to get there. It was just a challenge, but look at all the good that has come of it.

Why can’t government propose a challenge to have cars run on something besides carbon based fuels by 2015? Can we eliminate the need for carbon emissions by 2020? Instead of creating a new health insurance debacle why can’t we discover some kind of super cure all by 2012 through stem cell research or some other science that hasn’t been thought of?

The government has lost our trust. Everything they do they do through yelling fire. Then, when the fire isn’t real they wonder why the next fire produces less fear. Maybe we aren’t so stupid after all.

10 comments:

  1. A little comment on the space-race analogy: they actually did kindof yell fire for the moon shot. The fear was all about Soviet nuclear domination of space. Make no mistake, the space-race was as much about military domination as any kind of "noble scientific ambition"; we just wanted to be able to nuke the motherfuckers from space. Likewise, the moon-shot was CRAZY expensive. If the gov't decided the invest the kind of cash on green energy as they did in the 60s on the space race, I would bet 2 things:
    1) you (and most libertarian types) would be howling bloody murder about the government running up a rediculous tab and mismanaging what the market could be doing way more efficiently
    2) we would actually get some pretty awesome tech and it would spur a huge renaisance in American science and technology. It also *might* actually make a difference in preventing our extinction. Maybe.

    However, none of this is likely to happen anyway. By the time most governments come to realize exactly how big a military threat climate change is going to be, it'll be too late. Besides which, attacking a global problem requires a funny kind of strategic thinking that doesn't work with Us vs. Them viewpoints. We can't say "we've got to beat China & India to prevent massive climate change so we can beat their asses in case they attack!" It's more like, if climate change continues on course, we're going to have global famines, massive disruptions and destabilizations of large (nuclear-equipped) countries who could easily enter into complete chaos, destroying global markets and increasing the lethality & probability of random terrorist attacks throughout the world. That's a really hard sell for a stupid, myopic public whose main concern is who's on "Dancing With the Stars."

    Sucks to be us, yo.

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  2. Actually, I guess it sucks to be our kids even more....

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  3. What a dismal outlook.

    Killed by capitalism and stupidity.

    This leads me to another blog posting I intended to do... Concerning the last episode of House. Or was it the episode before last?

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  4. There are way too many erroneous notions in this particular rambling. Suffice to say there is a bit of irony with you saying the majority of the world is stupid whilst displaying your own stupidity. Pardon my bluntness.

    I'll just point out one error and leave it at that. JFK did not point the U.S. to the moon in 1960. JFK was not the president in 1960. He was a senator. Eisenhower was the president in 1960.

    As for Ed. Going to the moon had nothing to do with being able to nuke the commies from space. But it was a Cold War thing. First the Soviets shocked us being getting the A & H bombs. Then in 1957 they shocked us by putting up the world's first satellite. Then they shocked us by putting the first monkey and then man in space. And then JFK proposed going to the moon to put American technology ahead of the Russkies. Going to the moon had nothing to do with nuking anyone. We were developing ICBMs for that purpose.

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  5. Oh Durango. You need to pull out your little dictionary and look up the difference between stupidity and ignorance. One is bliss.

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  6. You prefer being thought ignorant to being thought stupid? Can't you be both?

    And another thing. You are too old to be wearing t-shirts with messages. They are almost as cringe worthy as your old mullet hair.

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  7. Oh Mr. D.

    I don't mind people calling me ignorant or immature (I love my t-shirts).

    I am most assuredly not stupid.

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  8. Oh, Mr. D...hey, that's my line :P

    If not stupid, how about misinformed?

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  9. We can only go by the evidence you present. When you write about the bulk of humanity being stupid and then make stupid factual errors whilst doing so, well, you sort of leave yourself wide open to being tarred by your own stupid feathers.

    Or something like that.

    Loving your t-shirts presents another area of concern. I don't think loving such t-shirts can be explained by being ignorant. I think being stupid would explain walking about attired in such a manner.

    I'm thinking some form of intervention is called for.

    As for you, CT2, I think you are being far too generous to let this egregious display of disdain for the bulk of humanity be excused by suggesting the boy is simply misinformed.

    Are not people who are "most assuredly not stupid" also well informed?

    I can not process the contradiction. It is causing me cognitive dissonance. Or something like that.

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  10. Damn it. Many many many moons ago, people were not all stupid but they all thought the earth was flat. They were ignorant.

    Don't behave stupidly by being unable to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity even after being told the difference.

    People vote republican and they determine that republicans don't lead them to the promised land so next time they vote democrat. They vote democrat and the democrats don't lead them to the promised land so they vote republican. And so on an so on ad infinitum. At some point, it ceases to be ignorance and becomes stupidity. How long have we been stupid?

    At some point, you have to throw your hat in the ring for "something completely different".

    Thanks for stupefying my subtle point :).

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