Advanced Space Travel

In thinking about the heat that we have in the center of the Earth, it seems as though we have a huge supply of energy that isn't going away any time soon.  The gravity from the Earth causes all the matter in the world to compress towards the center creating large amounts of heat. 

Eventually this is going to be useful as we figure out how to use it.  One way that may be especially interesting is for space travel.  I know, there's no way to take the energy with you.  But really, what we could do is actually make the entire Earth a space ship and use the energy that it creates by it's own gravity to drive the ship.  Some day this may become a reality, and while taking Earth to distant galaxies may not work out or be advisable, it might be a good idea for a nearby planet. 

Sexuality in the United States

This is probably my most uncomfortable post so far, but I have an idea and I want to put it out there for people to help me with it.

So, I find it interesting that we have Gyms in the US where people are okay being naked in front of other people.    And if you think about it, many of those people could very well be homosexual, but I don't know many people that are bothered by that.  There probably are, but I haven't met them.  My theory is that everyone is comfortable with the fact that checking out other people in the locker room is completely inappropriate, so it's just not done.  Same thing with underage sexuality.  Men, or at least decent men, have a built in switch that just doesn't allow for the chance of checking out underage women because it's accepted as inappropriate.

The thought is that if we can trust some segments of the population to not be inappropriate, then it seems like co-ed locker rooms would be an extension of this thought.  In addition, it would go against, rather than support, the idea that it's okay for Men to check out or look at women inappropriately whenever they get a chance.  Right now it's assumed that a heterosexual male will stare, if not closely examine, and enjoy seeing women naked.  What if our society could get beyond that?  What if we got to the point where it was never acceptable to "check out" a woman?  Imagine the implications for social interactions, fashion, advertising (media generally exploits the fact that men will drool over any half naked woman they see), and any other aspects of public sexuality.

Maybe it's not possible, but it's an issue that I think a modern society should think about and possibly address.  Not that I think locker rooms should go co-ed tomorrow, but just thinking about it brings up some interesting ideas.

What's Wrong with America

I just got done reading a length article on the "decline" of America.  Very interesting but quite long.  I'll try to summarize here and then provide some analysis.

The article's main points:

• America has been thought to be in decline at many times throughout it's history and America continues to respond with resilience, flexibility and rebirth to drive it forward into growth and vitality while people continue to lament the impending doom of the country.
• America has specific and significant advantages over other countries around the world:  Attracting talent, our University system, and resources.
• Our infrastructure is getting older and is hardly sufficient for the needs of today, much less the needs of future generations.
• Our government system is old, inflexible, and cannot accomplish significant projects.  He also mentions specific problems with the system such as the fact that California has 69 times more representatives in the House than Wyoming yet they both have the same power in the Senate.
• Everything can be fixed if all decisions are made by thinking about that decision as if you would wake up tomorrow and it would be 75 years later.

The sections on the constant doom and gloom and how America responds to it is interesting.  One thing I noticed from my own life is that people in my company seem to have this same view of how the company is doing.  Yet the company keeps getting stronger.  Maybe my company, and possibly many others out there are microcosms of the entire American culture.

On declining infrastructure:  It may be true that our current systems need maintenance, but I believe in some cases, a collapsing infrastructure might give us a good opportunity or possibly motivation to invent something better, more efficient, less expensive, or easier to maintain.

He never really makes a good point about how the House and Senate are setup.  I believe they were setup with the balance as it is for a reason, and it still seems to make sense to me.  You want higher populations to get more say, but not to be able to dictate the course of this country.  It seems like a good setup.  In addition, he talks about states containing 12 percent of the population having enough votes in the Senate to block a bill.  However, the states are mostly irrelevant since the important affiliation is whether those Senators are Democrats or Republicans.  I'm not sure I've ever hear anyone discuss the possibility of Wyoming and Montana gathering a few more states together to block a specific bill.  It seems to always be a party vote.

My Solution:  I think technology is opening up some new avenues for Democracy that could be interesting.  One example is the idea that we could involve far more people in the process using the internet without increasing the costs a lot.  This would be a good step toward a real Democracy instead of a Representative Democracy.  Even if getting everyone to perform all the functions of legislators is too big a task to start with, it could be fun to build a system where many people could collaborate to write better bills to be presented to the legislature that come from the people.  Imagine a bill authored and edited by 1000 people scattered across the country making it into the House for a vote.  To extend that idea, what if we created a new pseudo branch of government made up of all the people in this country who had the ability to vote on a bill and send it to the White House, or to amend, or block a bill.  I know, there are lots of details to work out there, but I think the details could be worked out.  If I get much response on that I may expand on it in future postings.

Overblown reaction to terrorism

I have long thought that we waste a lot of time and energy fighting terrorism, which is probably one of the end goals of terrorists in the first place.  Reading the reactions to the attempted bombing on Christmas day is amazing.  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/29/airline.terror.obama/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

The basic view of politicians and many Americans is:  "Let's spend all the money we can and prevent 100% of all terrorist acts."  I really want to know why the overreaction.  Trying to prevent 100% of anything is a near impossible task.  A more reasonable approach would be to try and prevent 80% of all attacks.  This is much cheaper, more realistic, and doesn't cripple our systems.  Besides, if the end result is to prevent American deaths, then there are areas where our money would be better spent.  Car accidents still account for 30k American deaths each year yet we do not throw our resources into that.  We are still wasting billions of dollars going after a cause of death that in the last ten years has claimed 3,000 lives.  That is 1% of the car accident death total over the same period.  In addition, the worst case scenario in this most recent attempt would have been the sum total of the passengers and crew on the one air plane.  300 people or so.  Sometimes we have to be ok with casualties in order to run an efficient and intelligent system.

What other goals might we have in mind:
- The vague notion of protecting America's borders.  If 1000 American's die this month in car accidents, it doesn't make are borders unsafe.  If a foreigner kills 300 people, somehow that indicates that we are close to being invaded?

- We must prevent terrorism:  This isn't an end goal.  It is an ideal with no real purpose.

- Airplanes must be safe:  Why?  As long as they are really really really safe, as they are now, and they would be even with a couple planes being blown up every year, I still think they would qualify as really safe.

- We must protect the airline industry:  Again, why?  Any industry that needs protection should probably be dismantled anyway.  Maybe we'd come up with something better if we weren't babying the airlines all the time.

Bill Simmons Interviews Tiger Woods

Bill Simmons is by far my favorite sports writer.  His contribution to the whole Tiger Woods disaster, reposting a like to an old interview with Tiger.  Pretty good read.

Wine Snobs are a Fake

Just read an article on wine tasting pointed out by TMQ from ESPN.com.  The article from the Wall Street Journal reports on research done on Wine Tasting Judges over the years.  Very interesting.  The bottom line:  Wine snobs are a fake and you should never fell "not good enough" to enjoy wine.  Drink it and buy wine that is less than $10 a bottle.  The article basically says that you have a 1 in 5 chance of getting a really good wine whether you're spending $5, or $100.  Spend $10 and enjoy your wine.

Good Quote

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.
  - Cullen Hightower