Two Seveneves Speculations

In the novel Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, the Moon explodes, causing the surface of the Earth to become uninhabitable for 5000 years. The Pingers, one of the surviving groups, are descended from people who survived in submarines in deep ocean trenches.

In view of the fact that novels about the potential uninhabitability of the surface of the Earth, such as On the Beach by Nevil Shute have been around for decades, is it possible that various navies already had plans to do something similar? Let's see… It might make sense to have an all-female crew with a gallon of frozen sperm… They would need a hydroponics and a nuclear reactor…

Speaking of On the Beach, what would Rufus MacQuarie do in that situation?

Not a Case of “Name That Party”

In a discussion of high-end shoplifting, we see:

Goldshine says confrontations do happen, like the time he had to face down a regular, well-liked customer — then also a well-known adviser to the Democratic Party — who always concluded his visits by slipping a pint of H&aauml;agen-Dazs under his sport coat. “I had to take him to the side and say, ‘First of all, if it comes out, it will ruin your career.’” And second of all? “I said, 'You’re my friend, and I love you. But you can’t come in here anymore.'”

Also see this.

A Strange New Respect

Nativists and protectionists are giving me a strange new respect for the crybullies insisting on “safe spaces.” When you can't even discuss the Chipotle E. boli problem without nativists etc. blaming it on either illegal aliens or Mexican imports, it's easy to understand the temptation to censor.

To the would-be censors: You cannot use the Ring!

To the nativists: You might try taking this little fact into account.

Enough to Kill X People

2,500 rounds of ammunition might sound like “enough bullets to kill 2,500 people.” There have been lots of other instances of the “enough to kill X people.” rhetoric. For example:

• On April 1, 2003, I pointed out the lethal doses of aspirin present in an aspirin factory.
• During World War II, the US manufactured 47 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition, enough to kill everybody on Earth at the time 20 times.
• In the 1980s Nature published a letter claiming that even if SDI worked, the destroyed missiles would spread millions of lethal doses of plutonium across the globe. I then wrote a letter (on my trusty Commodore 64) pointing out that the plutonium in question would be no more radioactive than the radon naturally present in the air. They not only printed it; I even received requests for reprints!
• The original version of this was, of course, the claim “We have enough nuclear weapons to kill everybody on Earth!”

Collatz Statistics

I've been wondering about the statistics of the length of Collatz sequences so I wrote a program to print a chart of the distribution. (It's a Python program that produces a pbm file. You'll need netpbm to get something useful out of it.) Since the length of the Collatz sequence for \(2^n\) is \(n\), it makes sense to scale the lengths by dividing them by \(\log_2 n\). The results are as follows:

I didn't expect to see an interference pattern.

A Question That Must Be Asked about the San Bernardino Shooters

One of the them was born in the USA. Was he radicalized in American schools? As I've said before:

I suspect that anti-American ideology in public school is more dangerous than anywhere else because, at least as far as youngsters are concerned, school is the Voice of the Establishment. If the Establishment says the Establishment is wrong…

Maybe we should look at schools before looking at borders or guns.

How to React to the San Bernardino Shooting and Similar Events

When among liberals say: “Conservatives are advocating border control in response to this. Don't they realize that X control is people control disguised by a euphemism? That goes for more than one value of X.”

When among conservatives say: “Liberals are advocating gun control in response to this. Don't they realize that X control is people control disguised by a euphemism? That goes for more than one value of X.”

The Purpose of College

One possible purpose of college education is to enable the elites to communicate with each other using “dog whistles” that will not be understood by the common people. Along similar lines, the purpose of graduate education is to enable people in each field to communicate without being understood by outsiders.

It is, after all, well known that college teaches cryptical thinking. (I was inspired by a recent post at Slate Star Codex.)

A Question about a Demand by New York University Protesters

Protesters at New York University are demanding (seen via TheDemands.org):

Rededicate Library from Elmer Holmes Bobst, a known anti-Semite; removal of Elihu Root’s name from the School of Law Scholarship for being an advocate of US Colonialism; renaming of the Fales Collection of English Literature within Bobst, as Fales family fortunes can be traced to colonial slavery. Rename these for POC or people of marginalized communities in the US who have been leaders in activism and advocacy of oppressed groups, OR leaders of equal style and caliber from the Global South.

Will renaming the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library to the Yassir Arafat Library be acceptable?

Pilgrims vs. Political Correctness

The Huffington Post has adopted a pro-pilgrim position this year. I doubt if it will last.

There is a defense of the pilgrims from a standard leftist viewpoint, even in years without a refugee “crisis” from Martin Ripa on Usenet:

If the Indians did owned the land, they were rich ultra-reactionary pigs and were deservedly expropriated by poor workers and peasants. Remember, the property belongs to those who need it.

If the Indians did not owned the land, then there was no theft.

Even by capitalist standards defending landlords is questionable:

“The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community.”—David Ricardo

An Odd Reaction to a Cell Phone Upgrade, Part II

Yesterday someone asked if the new cell phone I got a few years ago came from the Smithsonian. If I had my slide rule handy I would have been tempted to hit him with it.

Does Marion Nestle Read This Blog?

When I posted One Reason We Need Government-Free Science, I wondered if someone on the statist side would use similar arguments against private funding of research. It's happened.

On the other hand, funding from a private business can be countered by funding by its commercial rivals … except that, according to Professor Nestle:

As for Monsanto and the organic food industry, both “recruit scientists to speak on their behalf, [but] Monsanto has far greater resources,“ says Nestle.

On the gripping hand, out here in the real world, Monsanto's revenue is US$ 15.9 billion and the sales of organic produce amounts to $39 billion.

Two Types of People Control

One side of the political spectrum reacted to the recent Paris attack by saying it's time for common-sense gun control. They would be more believable if they hadn't reacted to nearly any news by saying that it's time for common-sense gun control.

The other side of the political spectrum reacted to the recent Paris attack by saying it's time for common-sense border control. They would be more believable if they hadn't reacted to nearly any news by saying that it's time for common-sense border control.

Both sides are ignoring the fact that they're advocating people control. They're pretending that they just want to control something abstract or inanimate.

More on Terrorists and the Refugee “Crisis”

As far as I can tell, the people behind ISIS are attempting to become so broadly hated that they will eventually be fighting everybody on Earth. They plan to put themselves in such a position that they can only be saved by a miracle. Maybe they're trying to force God's hand. (ObSF: Jamethon Black in Soldier, Ask Not by Gordon Dickson)

Of course, Syrian refugees aren't analogous to 1930s Jews; they're analogous to 1870s Catholics.

A Few Questions about the Recent Terrorist Attack

In view of the fact that the recent attack was staged from Molenbeek, Belgium, a town with a very high unemployment rate and recently run by a left-wing nutcase mayor for a couple of decades, we should ask the following questions:

1. Did any of the attackers have jobs? Preparing for such an attack must be rather time consuming. This won't be the first case of a connection between unemployment and terrorism.
2. Was there any involvement on the part of traditional leftists? A generation ago, such attacks were usually carried out by Communists. (The rest of the time, they were committed by Irish nationalists.)
3. We can continue with other questions: Could the attacks have taken place in an area where even a small fraction of the people were armed?
4. Were the suicide vests a necessarily-temporary tactic? As I've said before, “Suicide bombing is an essential part of the Enemy's strategy. It's needed to convince us that deterrence won't work. (Deterrence played an important role in defeating the Soviet Union and they don't want a repeat.)” On the other hand, when Israel was faced with a plague of suicide bombers, they did not give in and eventually the Other Side ran out of people willing to exercise their right to self-detonation. It is, after all, very hard to recruit experienced suicide bombers.
5. Was the apparent involvement of refugees a red herring? Carrying out such an attack requires an in-depth knowledge of the area and a refugee just off the proverbial boat would not have that.

In other words, counteracting such attacks might just be a matter of free the guns, cut the dole, and keep an eye on the anti-capitalist nutjobs.

Climate Change and Terrorism and Search and Replace

At Ed Driscoll at Instapundit is comparing the response to climate change and the response to terrorism and speculating that the responses of the mainstream media were produced by search and replace.

I'd be more inclined to take the people advocating emergency action to stop the climate-change crisis seriously if it weren't for the fact that most of the proposed actions (e.g, prohibiting “wasteful” devices) were advocated by the same people for years.

It's also a bit odd that people who usually congratulate themselves on opposing the Establishment are so much in favor of more regulations.

I'd be more inclined to take the people advocating emergency action to stop the terrorism crisis seriously if it weren't for the fact that most of the proposed actions (e.g, prohibiting “dangerous” immigration) were advocated by the same people for years.

It's also a bit odd that people who usually congratulate themselves on opposing the Establishment are so much in favor of more regulations.

Yes. There is much to be said in favor of writing using search and replace.

A Rule of Thumb on Immigration

Nativists occasionally assert that a high rate of immigration is an unprecedented experiment. On the other hand, the US immigration in 1907 was 1.5% of the population. So … maybe we can admit up to 1.5% of the population each year. That's more than the current rate of immigration to Europe during this refugee “crisis.”

A potential problem: The above rule of thumb implies that the 2003 Iraq invasion was the 2003 Iraq immigration. This is oddly low for a successful invasion.

Brooklyn—the City of Light

In the early days of New York City, one of the proposed city plans included a plan that resembled what was eventually done with Paris:

Mangin laid out a pastiche of grids, of varying densities, at acute angles to each other, sensitive to natural contours.

That's what happened in Brooklyn. As far as I know, nobody has seriously called Brooklyn “the City of Light.”

The plan that didn't happen in NYC (but did happen in Paris) was an instance of a common phenomenon: A centrally-planned system that tries disguising itself by imitating the superficial aspects of an unplanned system. (ObSF: The Rediscovery of Man in Cordwainer Smith's SF)

One Reason We Need Government-Free Science

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article by Matt Ridley (also see comments by Derek Lowe and ORAC) on the advantages of avoiding government-subsidized science.

One very important reason is that there is a suspicion that government-funded scientists are toeing a “Party Line“ and shading their research in politically-acceptable directions. For example, when the Koch brothers paid for the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study of global warming, the fact that it showed there has been global warming over the past few decades was far more believable than a similar study from the EPA.

The global warming fanatics have not been that eager to quote the Berkeley Earth study. Apparently, they would rather not give any credit to right-wing zillionaires. Their revealed preference is that class warfare has priority over “saving the planet.”

A Possible Downside to Legalizing “Drugs”

According to Tom Trinko, leftists tend to be occasionally anti-authoritarian as a result of the illegality of some of their favorite substances. Does that mean legalizing said substances will make them even more authoritarian? On the other hand, legalizing drugs might make them less likely to vote.

Is Jumping to Conclusions an Olympic Event?

For some reason, a recent interview with Bill Gates has conservatives outraged.

If you read the actual article, you should notice that he's mainly recommending a combination of subsidies for increased energy research, longer patent protection for energy technology, and a carbon tax. If the carbon tax is based on the IPCC's average of peer-reviewed studies, it's $43/tC. That's 12¢ per gallon of gasoline.

In other words, the actual recommendations are compatible with capitalism. I'm dubious about the need for subsidized energy research on the grounds that such subsidies frequently increase costs and it's unnecessary if the other two steps are taken but that's a quibble.

Conservatives can identify nine out of five actual examples of socialism.

How Much Kinetic Energy Is There in Continental Drift?

The Earth's mass is 5.972 × 10²⁴ kg. The speed of continental drift is 2.5 cm/year. If we put that together and assume that the motions that lead to continental drift extend through the entire Earth, we get a value of the total kinetic energy of continental drift of 1.9 × 10⁶ J (using \(E=\frac{mv^2}{2}\)). That's around ½ kilowatt hour or 450 kCal. That last is about the calorie count of a McDonald's Quarter Pounder Burger with Cheese.

Wait a moment… That doesn't sound right…

A Ninth Amendment Test Case

According to the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

At first this looks like a conclusive argument against the complaints that the Supreme Court is following Amendment Pi of the Constitution, in magic invisible ink that only special people can see … until we consider the word “retained.”

A right to gay marriage, for example, was not retained; it was invented recently. On the other hand, a right to wear a hat (according to Theodore Sedgwick) was retained:

if the committee were governed by that general principle, they might have gone into a very lengthy enumeration of rights; they might have declared that a man should have the right to wear his hat if he pleased; that he might get up when he pleased, and go to bed when he thought proper.

Even despite the fact that a member of the First Congress described the right to wear a hat as a right that should not have to be enumerated, many states violate that right when it comes to issuing driver's licenses. This might be a suitable test case for the 9th Amendment.

I won't more than mention that driver's licenses also look problematic.

The Tepid Equations

There's an attempt at applying the “Trolley Problem” at Technology Review. Should self-driving cars be programmed to swerve out of the way of a crowd even it it would mean running over an individual?

I'm not sure why that would be a problem in the real world. The forces needed to swerve are the same order of magnitude as the forces needed to stop. I won't more than mention that humans can survive a deceleration of 40g, which would bring a 55-mph car to a halt in 2.5 ft. Maybe instead of paying ethical philosophers, we should pay for better brakes.

A Note on Brainworms

Tapeworms don't only infect intestines; sometimes they're found in brains:

The closer scientists look at the epidemiology of the disease, the worse it becomes. Nash and other neurocysticercosis experts have been traveling through Latin America with CT scanners and blood tests to survey populations. In one study in Peru, researchers found 37 percent of people showed signs of having been infected at some point. Earlier this spring, Nash and colleagues published a review of the scientific literature and concluded that somewhere between 11 million and 29 million people have neurocysticercosis in Latin America alone. Tapeworms are also common in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Asia. “Neurocysticercosis is a very important disease worldwide,” Nash says.

This may explain Third-World politics. Hookworm infections were common in the southeastern US back when they always voted for Democrats. Come to think of it, I'd like to know what infection swept Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

One implication: If Third-World politics are due to brainworms, then immigration from the Third World to places with flush toilets and sewage treatment plants will help get rid of Third-World politics.

The really bizarre reaction comes from nativists, for example the commenters at Instapundit:

Geez...good thing we are letting all of those illegal aliens potentially harboring such parasites into the country.

What could go wrong?

If such worms were likely to spread in this country, they would have done so long ago.

A Star Wars Speculation

The historical model for the Star Wars series is obviously the French Revolution and its aftermath.

It starts with a revolution backed by the “money power” (i.e., the middle classes) followed by a megalomaniac seizing power temporarily. The Emperor Palpatine is clearly an analog of Napoleon. (That means, of course, that Darth Vader is an analog of Talleyrand.)

The next step will be a restoration of the Ancien Regime. There may be more revolutions later.

Solar Energy Is Not Always Associated with Hipsters

There is some evidence that the Kepler Space Telescope has found a star surrounded by solar-energy collectors (or, more likely, lots of asteroids). Some of my fellow wingnuts saw the word “solar” and figured the researchers must be hipsters trying to ignore nuclear energy. Well … Let's do some arithmetic.

The mass of the ocean is 1.4 × 10²⁴ g. This is 1/9 hydrogen. Deuterium is 1 part in 10⁴ of the hydrogen. Deuterium fusion can yield 3.4 × 10¹¹ J/g. Multiplying them all out, we get 5 × 10³⁰ J. The Sun emits 3.8 × 10²⁶ J/s. Dividing that we see that the Sun puts out as much energy as fusing all the deuterium in Earth's oceans in 13,000 seconds.

Even if we assume we can fuse all the hydrogen in Earth's oceans (using imaginary technology), that would still only bring us to four years.

Compared to space-based solar, Earth-based nuclear energy is a wet firecracker.

Occupation and Immigration

As is well known, the occupation of Germany and Japan after World War II is generally considered a success. The German and Japanese populations didn't change but having American authority made the difference.

Putting previously violent peoples under American authority? Isn't that part of immigration? The example of the post-World-War-II occupation shows that sometimes institutions matter more than people. In other words, bringing THEM over here need not turn here into there.

A Seveneves Calculation

In the novel Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, the Moon explodes, causing the surface of the Earth to become uninhabitable for 5000 years. There is a colony or two of humans who survive in deep mines. Let's calculate how deep the human hole goes.

The thermal diffusivity of rocks appears to be around 1 mm²/s. 5000 years is around 1.6 × 10¹¹ seconds. You can expect the heat from the “hard rain” to diffuse to a depth of \(\sqrt{1.6\times 10^{11}}\) millimeters or 400 meters. Three times that distance should be safe, so the colony would only have to be \(\frac{3}{4}\) miles down. It might be doable.

Will the Chinese “Credit Scores” Backfire?

The Chinese “credit scores” might backfire. They might let dissidents know they aren't alone.

On the other hand, people with low credit scores will include both dissidents and real deadbeats. On the gripping hand, people sent to prison in the Soviet Union included both dissidents and real criminals. Even despite that, being sent to prison was sometimes considered a badge of honor in the Soviet Union.

Set paranoia bit to ON: What if this is being released by China for the purpose of encouraging the United States to crack down on “Big Data”? Such a crackdown might sabotage part of the US economy.

Why Are People Getting Fatter?

One theory is that it's due to changes in exposure to pesticides:

First, people are exposed to more chemicals that might be weight-gain inducing. Pesticides, flame retardants, and the substances in food packaging might all be altering our hormonal processes and tweaking the way our bodies put on and maintain weight.

If pesticide changes are the cause, does that mean that DDT prevents obesity? Or is it due to the cyclamate ban? There's even a possibility it's due to the absence of leaded gasoline. All of these might explain why humans are getting fatter and also why lab animals are getting fatter.

On the other hand, could it be due to the decline in red-meat consumption? On the gripping hand, that would not explain the lab-animal data.