Xeno's Paradox: 10/01/2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Really Crazy, Wacked-Out, Totally Loony Theory. Plus Some Science, And Speculation.

OK.

Ever heard of the "Gaia Hypothesis?"

First proposed by a Dr. Black, the discoverer of carbon dioxide, in 1789, at its simplest expression the Gaia Hypothesis states that the planet itself is one living organism, with self-regulatory control over its own biosystems.(1.)

Right. Ignore that. The guys who dream this stuff up imagine that even the soil itself is part of this massive organism, and that's...

...Well...

Nuts.

HOWEVER, the idea that our entire biocycle is a single organism, or at least interconnected in ways we're only now beginning to understand? Far more likely.

Let me advance to you several facts, followed by a whole lot of really crazy theorizing and mumbling-while-contemplating-of-the-navel, and I will conclude with some reference material. (It disrupts my flow of thought too much if I keep linking in the middle.)

First, every form of life on earth, from the most massive to the most submicroscopic, is formed from carbon, and uses DNA.

Alternative life cycles have been hypothesized, using for example silicon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and even arsenic, but despite the fact that our planet in particular is silicon-rich and carbon-poor, ALL terrestrial life is fundamentally based on carbon. (2.)

At least in that sense, we are all related.

Now, the Gaia Hypothesis indicates that the planet - or the biosphere, the Gaia organism - self-regulates the environment to control conditions in such a way that they are optimal for the forms of life needed; there is, believe it or not, evidence for this. For example, the fact that despite the sun's heat output having increased nearly 25% over the last few million years, the planet's global temperature average has remained relatively constant - thanks in no small part to the carbon dioxide output of ocean algae. (3.)

Again, the scientists actively pursuing this hypothesis seem unable to resist the temptation to ascribe to the very soil of the planet itself some kind of low-grade sentience, and I think that's bunk.

But I don't think the whole idea should be tossed so casually aside.

Ever notice that life is expendable?

Shocking statement, that; I will explain.

When one species dies out, life adapts to fill the niche, so that the necessary functions are still performed. Often, even when human technology obliterates an entire species, there's already a replacement ready to go, as may be the case with bees. See, regular honeybees are dying off in mass quantities, and the cause is thought to be radiation from cellphones and cellular towers interfering with their navigation - they go out in search of food for the hive, but then can't find their way back, and die like tiny apian Mary Celestes. (4.) What's interesting is that so-called "killer" bees, thus far, remain totally unaffected.

All your hives are belong to us.

Right.

These types of evolutionary transitions, under normal, Darwinian rules of evolution, are accidental; they happen simply because they are possible, and the new traits are retained because they are beneficial. But under the Gaia Hypothesis, these changes are directed; the Gaia organism creates the species necessary to perform a necessary function within the extant environment, using the building blocks of extant species and their DNA.

Now, I am about to wander off the beaten path here into the realms of "what if," so bear with me.

There are two schools of thought prevalent in the scientific community about the Gaia Hypothesis. The first is that it is utter bunk, because for organisms to regulate the biosphere - as it is evident they are (5.) - they must be able to plan and coordinate, which, it is argued, is clearly impossible.

The second hypothesis involves feedback loops and is quite plausible, as far as it goes, although the people who support it tend to wander off into ranting about stewardship of the environment (6,) which is the corner at which I am about to take a sharp and sudden turn.

See, here's the first divergence I hold from the second group of theorists: they assume stewardship inheres in us as though we are somehow alien to this biosphere. We are not. All evidence shows that we evolved here, that we are directly related to this giant organism, because we are PART of it; we are a part of the animal kingdom as well, and thus despite having individual free will, are also part of something greater.

And as such, we have a purpose to serve, as well.

Here is my second point of divergence, this from both groups of scientists. They both ridicule the idea of the Gaia organism having any sort of consciousness, and I don't. I don't believe - I stress that word, believe - that the super-organism is sentient in any fashion we can understand, but there's plenty of evidence that it learns; evolution takes profound, unexpected leaps, as demonstrated in the fossil record (7,) and those leaps are almost always positive. Despite the fact that the laws of probability dictate that organisms suddenly evolving new features would die off far more often than they succeed, this is not in fact the case in practice.

The author Greg Bear, in the very SF novel "Darwin's Radio," (8,) hypothesized that our species - the only one he dealt with in the book - has a means of communicating at a genetic level with one another, through viruses, and that there is a kind of "bank," if you will, of proposed genome changes that are stored within our DNA, waiting for the right stimulus to trigger a massive, sudden evolutionary shift.

I believe that this is quite close to the truth, but he only directed this idea at HUMAN evolution, not at the evolution of the living biosphere as a whole.

Why stop with just us?

Why not expand that theory across the entire spectrum of life? While different virii affect different species, their function as a means of genetic communication is not a minor one; in fact, we have been for years attempting to co-opt this natural process as a means of creating custom organisms.

So.

You have a gigantic organism, which maintains its genetic database through viral communication, allowing it to self-regulate by actual creation of needed species.

So where do we fit in?

Remember the dinosaurs? Those big honking lizards that were wiped out by a big-assed rock from the sky? Jurassic Park, all that?

It took the biosphere MILLIONS of years to recover from that single traumatic event.

IF - and I stress IF - the Gaia Hypothesis as I have presented my view of it is correct, or at least close, don't you think that even a subsentient intelligence would want to avoid another, similar trauma?

So the question is, why did humans evolve at all? The very features that make us the dominant life form on Earth also make us inherently destructive, inherently dangerous; why evolve higher intelligence for us at all? Why combine territoriality, homesickness, aggressiveness, expansionism, and intelligence? Why the particular series of leaps that produced us? (9.)

Because the organism itself is expansionistic.

It is looking for ways off this ball, ways to expand the greater organism so that it not only won't but can't come that close to total destruction from a single event ever again.

We're one of those ways.

Bacteria are another; many of them are gradually developing traits allowing them to survive in outer space.

But we're the best bet.

Because of two simple things.

First, we need the biosphere itself to survive. Regardless of our forays into outer space, there is no sign of any technology developing which will allow us to make foodstuffs out of things that are not directly related to our terrestrial biology, which means if we colonize another planet, we spread the greater organism with us, simply to have something to eat; terrestrial plants, terrestrial animals, terrestrial insects and bacteria; the LIFE FORM goes with us, if we go at all.

Secondly, we get homesick. Who wants to watch weird red rocks all day? (Well, except these guys.(10.)) Wherever we go, we are going to make it as home-like as possible - a process referred to as terraforming (11, 12) - in which manipulation of the colony planet's environment is used to create conditions as Earth-like as possible, for purposes of supporting life - our kind of life. Specifically, terrestrial carbon-based life.

Which we are inherently required to take with us.

In a very real sense, if the Gaia hypothesis is at all accurate, human beings are Gaia's reproductive organs...

...And our paramount responsibility is to reach the stars.

Stewardship of the environment is a fine and worthy goal, and I support it as much as I can, in the ways that I can. But when we have reached a position in which we deny NASA $3 billion (13) for a manned Mars trip, but want to spend $1 TRILLION on health care, our priorities as a species are badly disturbed.

After all, if a big ol' rock comes by and smacks us, we'll all die too; maybe we won't then care if the Gaia organism dies with us or not, but that'll be because we'll all be dead. Not a great idea.

If we are so worried about replaceable life-forms (the snail darter leaps to mind,) that we ignore our greater responsibility, to ourselves as a species and the the greater organism of which we MAY be a part, we will eventually be scotched as a bad experiment by said greater organism... and we will become yet another species which simply stopped breeding and died out.

Did you notice our birth rates, at least here in the space-technology equipped West, have fallen off tremendously? (14.) Gaia is giving us a second chance, in some places, by increasing the ratio of female births to male (15) - the number of babies being a function of the number of available uteri, not the number of males - but it's long past time we started taking that responsibility seriously.

Maybe the Gaia Hypothesis is wrong, and Western Civilization is just getting too jaded to reproduce. But in that event we STILL owe it to ourselves to get off this rock as fast as we can, simply for our OWN survival - 99942 Apophis is coming awfully close in a few years (16,) and that's just the biggest rock we KNOW about that headed our way. (Apophis, by the way, is a ball of iron the size of the Rose Bowl Stadium.)

The cost to us of complacency might be the continuation of our species; the cost to our world might be...

...Life, itself.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

[+/-]

OK! So, A Little Explanation Is Due...

...For a comment I made on one of Lee's posts, here.

Crystal had commented that president Obama was paying attention to the thinkers, and not the doers.

I remarked that in fact, he wasn't; the people he has surrounding and advising him aren't the best or brightest, but instead people who can be portrayed as such.

Lee asked me to explain, so here goes.

Academic credentials don't necessarily indicate a fine mind.

See, if you're patient and stubborn, you can grind away at schooling until you eventually get a degree. But even that's not necessary; most of the big-name Ivy League schools from which Obama's colleagues have arisen have turned, in the last 5 decades, into sort of a sinister version of the good ol' boys' network, only for communists.

And they help each other out to a really amazing degree.

So, many of these people - in the administration, the cabinet, throughout the upper echelons of government - have credentials that aren't as water-tight as they may seem at first blush.

Just recently, we as a nation have witnessed, repeatedly, people in the highest reaches of government make really, really stupid decisions; Obama himself is no exception. An example of this would be betraying our allies by dropping the ballistic missile defense systems in "exchange" for Russian pressure on Iran - which then predictably never materialized.

Each time a new crisis arises, this administration brings out a new "czar," someone who is loudly touted as the best and brightest in their chosen field, and will of course magically solve all the problems within their bailiwick.

How often has this actually worked?

See, the thing is, President Obama knows that most people - even today - blithely accept whatever the TV news shows tell them; they watch the shows closest to their chosen convictions and that's all the information they get.

So he doesn't have to actually FIND the best and the brightest; he just has to find people who play well on TV, and can be hailed as saviors without any actual substance.

Because he isn't about having thinkers, or doers; he is about having the APPEARANCE of having such, without the problems such people inevitably present.

As evidence for this, I hasten to point out General McChrystal, who was appointed BY PRESIDENT OBAMA to command over U. S. forces in Afghanistan. He is, by all accounts - I myself never served under him, so I can't say first-hand - an extraordinarily competent officer, and a passably gifted military thinker.

...So when he realized the depth and scope of the problems faced by our forces in his theater of operations, he went to his boss - El Supremo himself - and laid forth a plan to turn things around over there.

...And Obama tossed him under the proverbial bus in short order.

See, if someone is ACTUALLY a thinker, or ACTUALLY a doer, it means they think, and do, things; some of those things, due to the fact that rational thought at its base is a means of dealing with real-world situations as they actually exist, don't agree with the party agenda Obama wishes to put forward.

Which makes those people perpetually the bearers of inconvenient truths.

Kill, kill, kill the messenger.

...Or better yet, don't let them bring their messages at all; the Obama Administration's tactic thus far has been to surround and interpenetrate the administration with yes-men, people who can be portrayed as intelligentsia while retaining sufficient party loyalty that they don't actually interrupt the president's self-contemplative navel-gazing with facts, figures, logic, or good ideas.

Thus my statement: President Obama doesn't care about thinkers or doers; only about people who can be portrayed effectively as such to the media.

And the result is - and will remain - a staggering culture of institutionalized incompetence masquerading as partisan loyalty.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

[+/-]

Lots Of Little Notes... Old School Style.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

[+/-]

"Long Overdue" - Women In Combat Arms

[*As a note before I begin; I wrote - literally, pen and paper - this post well over a year ago, and it went into the Crate Of Unpublished Blogs - again, literally. It is getting resurrected because I have time to type it, and a friend - yes, I'm looking at you, Kelli - who pestered me to actually start posting these archaic protoblogs, this one in particular. So, without further ado, here we go.*]

For all the hoopla we seem to make about it, the notion of women in combat arms isn't exactly new. there have been many societies in history in which women fought.

Those societies were very different from our own, however. And it's THOSE differences - NOT the physical ones - that make the issue such a thorny one for us.

So, let's talk about the physical differences first, and get that out of the way, hmmm?

...And bear in mind here that this is ALL generality; I will address that specifically later.

First off, men are bigger than women.

Obvious, right?

The overwhelming majority of women who possess the kind of physical fitness required by the military weigh in the region of 130 pounds, as opposed to 180 pounds or so for males. Of that mass, a significantly higher percentage by weight of a male's body is muscle when compared to a woman's, even assuming similar levels of fitness.

There are many, many physucal differences, but simple size is the major one; here's why. A typical soldier's load, counting rucksack, web gear, body armor, weapon, helmet, commo devices and ammunition, can easily come to 80 pounds or more.

On a 180 pound male, that's no light burden, but on a woman weighing 120 pounds,that's two thirds of her entire body mass. Which means, proportionally, the woman must exert FAR more effort to move it.She will tire more quickly.

The same phenomenon presents itself when moving heavy objects, like ammo cans or wounded comrades; a female simply has to work harder to get the same results as a male, strictly by virtue of size.

That, in and of itself, is no big deal. There is a simple solution, which is to let only the females demonstrably able to perform to the required standard to join combat teams.

But here's where those cultural differences start to be an issue. See, in previous societies in which women have fought, that solution would have been applied without a second thought, but we suffer from the mistaken notion that "fairness" applies - or should apply - to everything.

In fact, it does not. In real life, nature doesn't give a damn if you want to be a firefighter or soldier; the reason so few females ARE is strictly a matter of physique. A 120 pound woman will have significantly higher difficulty - and thus risk - associated with rescuing a 200 pound smoke inhalation victim or gunshot victim than will a 200 pound man; Mother Nature simply doesn't CARE if that's "fair."

But we have the mistaken notion that fainess applies regardless; so, if we let one female on a combat team, they all get to go. And most of them - hell, most men - can't.

Combat arms, specifically the infantry, but any combat element - is gruelingly hard physical labor, day in and day out. Most men, much less most women, simply collapse under the strain. The washout rate at Infantry School is very high, and the more advanced you get, the higher it gets. Airborne? Higher. Ranger? Higher. SF / SEAL? Higher still.

Ranger school earns you convalescent leave.

And most - like, 95% most - women are not physically capable of doing the job.

But that's "unfair." And the solution to THAT, of course, at least so far, has been to lower the physical fitness standards - but only for women. Not only not "fair," but dangerous, because it allows people not capable of doing the job into positions where lives depend on their performance, and worse because that unfairness is brutal in its effect on morale. Imagine how it feels, to see someone who does less than you earn the same rewards for their lesser effort that you earned for yours.

But that's only on one level.

There is another.

One thing that changed immediately when women began filling military jobs is the environment for the soldiers. Much of the environment for combat soldiers is designed to desensitize - to make the soldiers inured to violence and its inevitable lingering emotional traumas as much as is possible.

Traditional "combat" cadences, gone, because a female soldier might overhear "Napalm Sticks To Kids" and get offended. Suddenly every soldier has to watch his mouth, and edit everything he says, for fear of being accused of creating a "hostile work environment."

Fine and good on civvie street. But combat is the world's ultimate hostile environment. And quite frankly, if you can't handle the stress of hearing someone joke about death, or say "motherfucker!" you are ill-equipped indeed for the emotional impact of seeing a child that actually HAS napalm burns. Or your friend, down with a sucking chest wound.

And when others are depending on you to back them up, you cannot be in a position to fail them because your feelings got hurt.

Politesse and "steely-eyed killer" don't mix well.

Now, I personally know a couple of females who not only could handle being in combat arms, but would likely excel; but they are the exception. Most women could not. Not until that idea of "fairness" goes out the window, at least with regard to the military.

Real life does not hand you a stress card.

And enemy - you know, with bullets - does not CARE if you feel put upon, and someone unable to deal with the trauma of hearing a joke - even a sexist joke - is simply not equipped to function in the conditions of combat.

Is sexism wrong? sure; but as long as people - men and women both - go out of their way to keep the stereotypes true, it will not only exist but flourish.

The way to put women in combat arms is simple indeed; require them to fit in. If they cannot physically meet the standards set by the men, they are unfit for that duty, period. There are plenty of equally important but less physically demanding jobs, and nothing dishonorable in doing them.

Dishonor lies in laying claim to a job you cannot do, and causing deaths by your failure.

That said, I think if they can keep up, women are potentially a huge tactical advantage in combat, for several cold, bloody-minded, cruel reasons. Since I am a mean bastard, I will explain.

First, the bulk of the world's soldiers are men; and those soldiers are, by and large, trained to automatically consider females to be civilians; that can cause hesitation, and let the females shoot first, always a good thing.

Secondly, and more cold-bloodedly by far, the bulk of the world's soldiers are males, and those males are, by and large, trained to think of women as civilians - and something to be protected. the post-combat trauma of having to kill women will eat enemy soldiers alive in a way killing men will not; devastating to morale.

Thirdly, and yet more cold-bloodedly, is the fact that the bulk of OUR soldiers are male - and trained by and large by society to defend women. Revenge is a powerful motivator; how much more so when coupled with the guilt - deserved or no - arising from the perception of a masculine failure to protect the females?

...I told you I am a mean bastard.

Fourth, is the fact that the bulk of the world's soldiers are men, which means that regardless of their nation's specific tactical and strategic doctrine, their basic thought processes are very similar. Female thought processes are quite different, and that plays out on the battlefield in the form of doing the unexpected, which can create surprise - which wins battles.

For all these reasons, women can be tremendously advantageous in combat, if able to do it at all.

But honestly, my soul weeps at the prospect. Maybe it makes me a chauvinist; I can live with that label if you can live with the fact that I would lay down my life without question to save my wife from ever knowing what it feels like to "win" a battle.

To keep her from knowing the self-revulsion that comes when you realize how glad you are that it was the enemy, and not you, who fell. The glee, however fleeting, that says "Yeah, take THAT, motherfucker!" and wants to pull the trigger again. the part of your deepest id that bares bloody fangs and hisses at the bodies of the slain.

And God forbid, the part of you that likes it.

For me, the beast within is closer to the surface than in some; my darker side is dark indeed.

But for some - most women, but a lot of men, too - it's buried so deeply they're not even aware of it. They may really believe that the PTA and the 4-H club are who and what they are.

And combat will bring you face to face, inexorably, with what you really are inside.

It is for that reason that I ask - beg - women: Please. Please do not do this to yourselves. You will ruin yourselves in a cause that does not require you.

Learn to defend yourselves, great.

But don't charge to the sharp end.

You will hate what you learn about yourself when you get it stuck in.

And you can never, ever unlearn it.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

[+/-]

A Well-Deserved Award...

So, here we are.

I would like to introduce you to a few people.

This is Dr. Sima Samar. Sima is a medical doctor from Afghanistan, who has spent years advocating women's rights, even under the Taliban. Despite near-constant threats against her, she has built and maintained schools for women in Pakistan and Afghanistan, publicly advocated ending use of the burqa, and heads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

She has worked tirelessly and without regard to her own safety to advance the rights of women, despite the direct opposition of her government, for nearly three decades.

This is Dr. Denis Mukwege. He is a gynecologist and obstetrician in the Congo. For the 12 years of the conflict in Congo, he has worked, often under fire, to save the lives and health of women gang-raped by Congolese soldiers and militia, and is considered by many to be the world's foremost expert in repairing the physical damage from multiple rapes; he has performed more than 21,000 surgeries since the war began, sometimes as many as 10 per day.

He works 18 hour days, most of the time.

This is Wei Jingsheng. He has spent his life in protest against the Chinese communist system, and has paid for it - he's been in prison for 17 years of his life. He has made reforming the Chinese government his priority and his personal mission - despite the government's imprisonment of him, and their attempts to silence him - for thirty years.

Would you like to know what these three extraordinary people all have in common?

Their achievements, contributions, and efforts were all judged to be less, for purposes of comparison, than those of this man:

President Obama has accomplished a lot during his first ten months in office.

I can't believe I was able to type that with a straight face. I need to find a new poker crew.

During the first ten months of his administration, President Obama has failed to support our troops in ways that make their tremendous and ongoing sacrifices worthwhile. He has failed to keep even the simplest of his campaign promises, steered us into ever-greater military commitments in Afghanistan, insulted our allies, pandered to our enemies, weakened the defenses not only of our country but of many others, and thrown the entire weight and prestige of the United States behind global warming control.

And yet, the Nobel Peace Prize judges found that his "accomplishments" outweighed those of a doctor who has performed thousands of surgeries, an educator, and a tireless political activist.

It can't be race; Dr. Mukwege is darker than President Obama.

I wonder what the ever-to-be-considered-more-important-than-domestic-opinion foreign news services have to say?

Could they be saying, I don't know,

“This isn’t the first mistake of the Committee, but it is the biggest. The value of the Nobel Peace Prize has been diminished.” -LINK

Or maybe - just a thought -

"Obama is being given his award for mere words — for striking fashionable poses in favour of multilateralism, for making a nice speech in Cairo, for offering “hope.” Months after Americans learned to dismiss Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign slogans as the meaningless bromides they were, Scandinavians are still drinking his Kool-aid." -LINK

Perhaps they're saying this:

”What got into the committee to award this prize to a man who has yet to live up to the high expectations? Were they drunk?” -LINK

You know what's really cool? They said ALL those things.

You know what I said?

What a fucking joke.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

[+/-]

I Wonder...

...If anyone's noticed, as I have, that the torrent of seemingly never-ending anti-war protests has mysteriously dried up.

You see, there's a difference between protesting something on principle... Like, say, "you don't have a right to any more of my money, you jerks," and protesting something because you oppose the politician currently in charge.

Under the Bush Administration, every deployment of our troops outside the U.S. met with furious protest, rallies, signs, placards, bad t-shirt slogans, paint being thrown at people, and furious blog posts denouncing the government.

It's funny how obvious the Left is; since the election, all that has dried up like the meaningless dust it was in the first place...

...Despite the fact that our troops haven't come home. The only real change in our overseas deployments has been that some troops have moved out of Iraq, to Afghanistan. Afghanistan, of course, is a nation in which we have far less chance of a successful resolution than we did, and do, in Iraq; but hey, "the right people" are in charge now, and that makes it ok, despite the fact that those "right people" are doing...

...The very same thing as the previous administration.

If it was morally UNjustified under President Bush, it cannot suddenly be morally justified under President Obama.

Which means any one of three things, none of which is good for the Left.

Either the War On Terror was morally unjustified to begin with - in which case it's still wrong under the Left...

Or it was morally justified to begin with - in which case the Left was protesting just because it was Bush, and anything you can use as ammunition is ok...

Or the war itself is considered irrelevant by the Left, useful only as a tool for propaganda.

We have always been at war with EastAsia, citizens.

So, I have a question for all our military people, everyone we've deployed under arms overseas.

Does it feel good, knowing that the deaths of your friends, the injuries and sacrifices you've endured and continue to endure, serve only to provide political ammunition of the Left - and no other purpose whatsoever?

I bet it doesn't.

Which brings me to my second question.

...Are you going to DO something about it?

Xeno's Paradox

The Highlight Reel

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Really Crazy, Wacked-Out, Totally Loony Theory. Plus Some Science, And Speculation.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

OK! So, A Little Explanation Is Due...

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Lots Of Little Notes... Old School Style.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

"Long Overdue" - Women In Combat Arms

Saturday, October 10, 2009

A Well-Deserved Award...

Thursday, October 01, 2009

I Wonder...

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