Paul M. Jones

Driving is a liberating technology, and we ought to recognize this, especially as we approach Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

Let’s think back to 1955, when African Americans stayed off segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala. During the year-long boycott, 325 private cars, some owned by African Americans, some by whites, some by churches, picked up people at 42 sites around the town.

Police harassed the drivers -- Martin Luther King Jr. was stopped for speeding (30 in a 25-mph zone) about 30 times -- but oppressing people in private cars is harder than oppressing them in public buses.

The boycott was successful, in part because of King’s fiery rhetoric, but also because of car ownership.

via The Volokh Conspiracy » Martin Luther King and automobility.

When the Affordable Care Act passed in early 2010, many in academia--faculty and students alike--cheered on. But now that its provisions are going into effect, some of these same people are learning firsthand that Obamacare has some nasty side effects.

A new piece in the Wall Street Journal reports that many colleges are cutting back on the number of hours worked by adjunct professors, in order to avoid new requirements that they provide healthcare to anyone working over 30 hours per week. This is terrible news for a lot of people; 70 percent of professors work as adjuncts and many will now have to cope with a major pay cut just as requirements that they buy their own health insurance go into effect.

via Universities Bludgeon Adjuncts With Obamacare Loophole | Via Meadia.

The U.S. could become the largest producer of oil this year, seven years earlier than expected, a recently published BP report predicts. In less than 20 years, it will be 99 percent self-sufficient in net energy. ...

Prior to the BP report, it was thought that the U.S. would lead oil production only by 2020. The fact that we’re already there is a reflection of the rapid pace of the shale energy boom.

We are now speeding into the arms of a world that has a lot going for it compared to the old one. The American economy could soon be sitting pretty on a heap of new energy industry jobs and on the new revenues that will inevitably flow from natural gas exports.

It's unlike me to be optimistic. However, this does sound good. Via US Could Be Top Oil Producer This Year | Via Meadia.

The average G-type star shows a variability in energy output of around 4%. Our sun is a typical G-type star, yet its observed variability in our brief historical sample is only 1/40th of this. When or if the Sun returns to more typical variation in energy output, this will dwarf any other climate concerns.

The emergence of science as a not wholly superstitious and corrupt enterprise is slowly awakening our species to these external dangers. As the brilliant t-shirt says, an asteroid is nature's way of asking how your space program is doing. If we are lucky we might have time to build a robust, hardened planetary and extraplanetary hypercivilization able to surmount these challenges. Such a hypercivilization would have to be immeasurably richer and more scientifically advanced to prevent, say, the next Yellowstone supereruption or buffer a 2% drop in the Sun's energy output. (Indeed, ice ages are the real climate-based ecological disasters and civilization-enders -- think Europe and North America under a mile of ice). Whether we know it or not, we are in a race to forge such a hypercivilization before these blows fall. If these threats seem too distant, low probability, or fantastical to belong to the "real" world, then let them serve as stand-ins for the much larger number of more immediately dire problems whose solutions also depend on rapid progress in science and technology.

Via "2013 : WHAT *SHOULD* WE BE WORRIED ABOUT?" at Edge.org.There's no direct link to the essay I've quoted; search for the essay title "Unfriendly Physics, Monsters From The Id, And Self-Organizing Collective Delusions" on that page.

[T]here is a general wariness and nervousness about the return of the old dream of armed intervention. Above all because we realise that humanitarian interventionism offers us no political way to judge who it is we are helping in Libya - and thus what the real consequences of our actions might be.

Even if one's instincts are to help those fighting Gadaffi, it is no longer enough just to see it as a struggle of goodies against baddies. For it is precisely that simplification that has led to unreal fantasies about who we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fantasies that persist today, and which our leaders still cling to - because they give the illusion that we are in control.

via BBC - Blogs - Adam Curtis - GOODIES AND BADDIES.

“The Klan would drive through our neighborhood shooting at us, shooting into our homes,” recalled Hicks, 66, who grew up in Bogalusa, La., and has been a civil rights activist in the District for more than 35 years. “The black men in the community wouldn’t stand for it. You shoot at us, we shoot back at you. I’m convinced that without our guns, my family and many other black people would not be alive today.”

via On MLK holiday, walking for civil rights and the Second Amendment - The Washington Post.

What science is it that assures you that government officials will, in such situations, act impartially and for the public good rather than politically and for special-interest groups?  What objective and established proof, or even plausible hypothesis, have you that the very same knowledge, free-rider, and transaction-cost problems that promote the negative externality to begin with do not also operate – or operate with even greater force – to distort decision-making by government officials?  I believe that history and science reveal that the answer to both questions in typical situations is “none.”

via More Scientific Than Thou.

The ONLY thing that can validate your art and thus you is OTHER PEOPLE.  And if your art sucks (which it certainly does) then it's not art, and is nothing more than a child in an adult's body forcing crap on the rest of us.

Here's a good way to tell if your art sucks and if you are indeed not an artist:

Is your "work" subsidized in any way by the government?

If it is, then your art sucks.  The reason why is that your art is SO BAD that it requires the government to FORCIBLY TAKE MONEY FROM OTHER PEOPLE to buy it.  Nobody willingly buys it because it's that bad.  But to spare your worthless feelings, politicians will (for the cost of a vote) make other people waste a percentage of their precious and finite lives to pay the taxes to pay for your veritable crap that you call "art."

Emphasis mine. Via Captain Capitalism: Hey Art Majors, You Suck!.

P.S.: "now's the point in time you rehearse your 'you don't understand art' BS and condescend me about being 'ignorant' about art and having a close-minded view of your 'field.'"

One of the prosecutors in the case of the online pioneer who killed himself this weekend, Aaron Swartz, was accused in 2008 of driving another hacker to suicide.

Some of Swartz's friends have accused Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann of contributing to Swartz's suicide, with his unwillingness to compromise on the prosecution of Swartz in a case involving scholarly journal articles.

Back in 2008, another young hacker, Jonathan James, killed himself after being named a suspect in another Heymann case.

James, the first juvenile put into confinement for a federal cybercrime case, was found dead was two weeks after the Secret Service raided his house as part of its investigation of the TJX hacker case led by Heymann -- the largest personal identity hack in history. He was thought to be "JJ," the unindicted co-conspirator named in the criminal complaints filed with the US District Court in Massachusetts. In his suicide note, James wrote that he was killing himself in response to the federal investigation and their attempts to tie him to a crime which he did not commit.

via Internet Activist's Prosecutor Linked To Another Hacker's Death.

The stages [of the crash] are laid out below. The first three have already occurred.

1 INITIAL CRASHES

• Crash of the residential property market
• Crash of the commercial property market
• Crash of the stock market

2 INITIAL KNOCK-ON EFFECTS OF CRASHES

• Loss of homes
• Loss of jobs
• Inflation

3 IMMEDIATE ACTIONS BY GOVERNMENT

• Bailouts for select groups
• Dramatic increase of debt
• Politicians going in the opposite direction of a real solution

The first knee-jerk reaction began immediately, with the Government attempting to "make the problem go away" as quickly as possible. Almost invariably, at this stage, the corrective strategy is hastily prepared and shortsighted, assuring further deterioration of the economy.

In this stage, the politicians on both sides fail to focus on a real solution. Instead, their primary focuses are, first, to avoid a painful real solution, and, second, to engage in finger-pointing, each political party blaming the other for the problem. The problem worsens steadily until one of the next series of major dominoes falls. This is usually sudden and triggers the toppling of other dominoes.

4 SECOND WAVE OF CRASHES

• Major crash in stock market
• Currency plummets
• Increased bankruptcies
• Increased unemployment

5 INTERNATIONAL TRADING PARTNERS REACT

• Foreign countries refuse to accept more debt
• Foreign trade slows dramatically

At this point, the Government introduces dramatic change, such as ill-conceived protectionism, which backfires almost immediately.

6 GOVERNMENT INSTITUTES DESPERATE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE MEASURES

• Defaults on debt
• Restrictive tariffs on imports
• Currency controls

7 ECONOMY REACTS IN LOCKSTEP TO GOVERNMENT ACTIONS

• Hyperinflation - dramatic increase in food and fuel costs
• Massive unemployment
• Extensive foreclosures
• Extensive bankruptcies

At this point, the dominoes are tumbling quickly, and a rapid unraveling of control is about to take place.

8 SYSTEMIC COLLAPSE

• Bank closures
• Extensive homelessness
• Food and fuel shortages
• Electric power becomes sporadic, blackouts common

As these factors unravel, the public mood turns to a combination of blind fear and anger.

9 SOCIAL COLLAPSE

• Crime rises dramatically (particularly street crime)
• Food riots
• Tax revolts
• Squatters' rebellions

10 MARTIAL LAW

• Creation of special army to address "domestic terrorism"
• Random killings become commonplace

At first, the authorities focus mostly on violent subjugation and arrests; then, as prisons quickly become hopelessly overcrowded, camps become the norm. Soon, these too become unmanageable, particularly as a result of high cost of food and manpower. At that point, the solution turns to the killing of anyone who is suspected of a crime and, more frequently, anyone who is not submissive. (This will not resemble the Gestapo of the late 1930's. It will be less organized and more chaotic.)

11 REVOLUTION

If revolution is to occur, it will happen at this point. Many people will feel that they have nothing to lose, and anger will be at its peak. If revolution does take place, it will not be an organized movement as such. It will be spontaneous, and breakouts will manifest themselves like popcorn popping, largely at random, with ever-increasing frequency. At some point, it may possibly evolve into something more organized.

via After the Storm - International Man.