Science as the ultimate accountability process

Before getting into Science as the ultimate accountability process, let me allow that I am biased in favor of this scientific era!  Especially after last weekend when Caltech - my alma mater - honored me - along with three far-more-deserving others - as Distinguished Alumnus.  Seems worth noting. Especially since it is one honor I truly never expected!

You  readers of Contrary Brin might be surprised that, with the crucial US election looming, I'm gonna step back from cliff-edge politics, to offer some Big Picture Perspective about how science works... and civilization, in general. 

But I think maybe perspective is kinda what we need, right now.

== How did we achieve the flawed miracle that we now have... and take too much for granted? ==

All the way back to our earliest records, civilization has faced a paramount problem. How can we maintain and improve a decent society amid our deeply human propensity for lies and delusion? 

As recommended by Pericles around 300 BCE… then later by Adam Smith and the founders of our era… humanity has only ever found one difficult but essential trick that actually works at freeing leaders and citizens to craft policy relatively - or partially - free from deception and falsehoods. 

That trick is NOT preaching or ‘don’t lie’ commandments. Sure, for 6000 years, top elites finger-wagged and passed laws against such stuff... only to become top liars and self-deceivers! Bringing calamities down upon the nations and peoples that they led.

Laws can help. But the truly ’essential trick’ that we’ve gradually become somewhat good-at is Reciprocal Accountability … freeing rival powers and even average citizens to keep an eye on each other laterally. Speaking up when we see what we perceive as lies or mistakes.

== How we've done this... a method under threat! ==

Yeah, sometimes it’s the critic who is wrong, and conventional wisdom can be right!  

Indeed, one of today's mad manias is to assume that experts - who spent their lives studying a topic closely - must be clueless compared to those who are 'informed' by Facebook memes and cable news rants.

Still, Criticism Is the Only Known Antidote to Error (CITOKATE!)...

...and one result of free speech criticism is a system that’s open enough to spot most errors – even those by the mighty – and criticize them (sometimes just in time and sometimes too late) so that many (never all!) of them get corrected. 

We aren’t yet great at it! Though better than all prior generations. And at the vanguard in this process is science.

== The horrible, ingrate reflex is NOT 'questioning authority' ==

Sure, scientists are human and subject to the same temptations to self-deceive or even tell lies. We who were trained in a scientific field (or two or three) were taught to recite the sacred catechism of science: “I might be wrong!” 

That core tenet – plus piles of statistical and error-checking techniques – made modern science different – and vastly more effective (and less hated) -- than all or any previous priesthoods. Still, we remain human. And delusion in science can have weighty consequences.

Which brings us to this article by Chris Said: "Scientific whistleblowers can be compensated for their service."  It begins with a paragraph that’s both true and also way exaggerates!  Still, the author poses a problem that needs an answer:

“Science has a fraud problem. Highly cited research is often based on faked data, which causes other researchers to pursue false leads. In medical research, the time wasted by followup studies can delay the discovery of effective treatments for serious diseases, potentially causing millions of lives to be lost.”

As I said: that’s an exaggeration – one that feeds into today’s Mad Right, in its all-out war vs. every fact-using profession. (Not just science, but also teaching, medicine and law and civil service... all the way to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.) 

Still, the essay is worth reading for its proposed solution. Which boils down to do more reciprocal accountability, only do it better!

The proposal would start with the fact that most scientists are competitive creatures! Among the most competitive that this planet ever produced – nothing like the lemming, paradigm-hugger stereotype spread by some on the far-left... and by almost everyone on today’s entire gone-mad right. 

Only this author proposes that we then augment that competitiveness with whistle blower rewards**, to incentivize the cross-checking process with cash prizes.

Hey, I'm all in favor! I’ve long pushed for stuff like this since my 1998 book The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? 

...and more recently my proposal for a FACT Act...

...and especially lately, suggesting incentives so that Artificial Intelligences will hold each other accountable (our only conceivable path to a ’soft AI landing.’) 

So, sure… the article is worth a look - and more discussion. 

Just watch it when yammerers attack science in general with the 'lemming' slander. Demand cash wagers over that one!

== A useful tech rule-of-thumb? ==

Do you know the “hype cycle curve”? That’s an observational/pragmatic correlation tool devised by Gartner in the 90s, for how new technologies often attract heaps of zealous attention, followed by a crash of disillusionment, when even the most promising techs encounter obstacles to implementation, and many just prove wrong. 

That trough is followed, in a few cases, by a more grounded rise in solid investment, as productivity takes hold. (It happened repeatedly with railroads and electricity and later with computers and the Internet and seems to be happening with AI.) The inimitable Sabine Hossenfelder offers a podcast about this, using recent battery tech developments as examples. 

Your takeaways: yes, it seems that some battery techs may deliver major good news pretty soon. And remember this ‘hype cycle’ thing is correlative, not causative. It has almost no predictive utility in individual cases.

But the final take-away is also important. That progress is being made! Across many fronts and very rapidly. And every single thing you are being told by the remnant denialist cult about the general trend toward sustainable technologies is a damned lie.

Take this jpeg I just copied from the newsletter of Peter Diamandis, re: the rapidly maturing tech of perovskite based solar cells, which have a theoretically possible efficiency of 66%, double that of silicon. (And many of you first saw the word “perovskite” in my novel Earth, wherein I pointed out that most high-temp superconductors take that mineral form… and so does most of the Earth’s mantle. Put those two together!)

Do subscribe to Peter’s Abundance Newsletter, as an antidote to the gloom that’s spread by today’s entire gone-mad-right and by much of today’s dour, farthest-fringe-left. 

The latter are counter-productive sanctimony junkies, irritating but statistically unimportant as we make progress without much help from them.

The former are a monstrously insane, science-hating treason-cult that’s potentially lethal to our civilization and world and our children. And for those mouth-foaming neighbors of ours, the only cure will be victory – yet again, and with malice toward none – by the Union side in this latest phase of our recurring confederate fever. 

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** The 1986 Whistle Blower law, enticing tattle-tales with up to 30% cuts of any $$ recovered by the US taxpayers, has just been gutted by a Trump appointed (and ABA 'not-qualified') judge. Gee, I wonder why?

Supernovas, Mars, and solar sails!

We just returned from Pasadena, where Caltech - my alma mater - installed me as Distinguished Alumnus. An honor that I sincerely never expected, given the many brilliant minds I knew when I was there. Reflecting on that is humbling - even 'imposter syndroming' - though people kindly urged me to think otherwise.

In today's delayed posting, I'll be mostly taking a pause from politics... though the topic of my previous blog - about the likelihood of blackmail poisoning top levels of the U.S. republic - remains horrifically plausible... 

...especially now that prominent members of one party are openly admitting that their party is suborned in this way, by foreign powers.

Only now, let's move on to news from out there!

== Space News! ==

I've already posted elsewhere about the incredible "chopstix" landing-grab of a returning heavy-lift SpaceX booster stage. The concept is now proved, even though a whole lot more incremental steps are needed. 

Don't let any polemical jibber-distractions take away from the wonder that was achieved by Gwynne Shotwell and her SpaceX team.

Anyway, as for that distracting blather... well... I recall when there was a similar problem with Frank Zappa -- vast accomplishments that he seemed bent on contiuously spoiling with audience-insulting rants -- until (at last) Zappa listened to the fans shouting he should "Shut up and play your Guitar!" 

The ratio of ravings to accomplishments seems similar, this time. And what will be remembered (whether or not that wise example is followed) is the 'guitar.'**

 == The next steps in space exploration? ==

On this Future in Review (FiRe) podcast, I'm interviewed by the brilliant Berit Anderson - focusing on the near and mid-future of human spaceflight, especially Artemis and other planned missions to the Moon. (Incidentally, the annual FiRe Conference - one of the most visionary gatherings on the planet - has been postponed due to landslides.)

Also.... Just released: a newly-updated version of  Project Solar Sail: 21st Century Edition: A collection of stories and essays exploring the future of lightships and solar sails in propelling interplanetary... and then interstellar... exploration!

This volume (which I edited with Stephen W. Potts) offers classic contributions by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, and others... plus new material, including by JPL scientists exploring the latest technologies and vast potential for sails in the future of space exploration. 

== A Red/WET Planet? ==

Geophysical/seismic data from the old Mars InSight lander indicates a lot of water – frozen or even liquid – sloshing deep, deep under the surface of Mars. If the water-rich layer now detected deeper below the surface were consistent around the entire globe of Mars, there would be enough water to fill ancient oceans, and then some. 

And while we’re there…

NASA's Innovative & Advanced Concepts program - (NIAC) - is pleased to announce the 2024 NIAC Phase III award to the mighty pioneer of applications of spaceflight to future biology, and vice versa, Lynn Rothschild: “Mycotecture Off Planet: En Route to the Moon and Mars.”  

In other words, growing space habitats with the help of fungi and mushrooms! A house that protects you from vacuum and radiation... and that you can eat!  For a list of all early stage NIAC research, please visit the Funded Studies page. 

The Curiosity Mars rover rolled over a rock, accidentally crushing it open to reveal yellow crystals of elemental sulfur! - the first time sulfur has been found in its elemental form on Mars.

A fine article about my friend & colleague (and half of a mighty fencing team) Geoff Landis, epic scifi author and incidentally superstar NASA scientist, proposing ways to explore Venus. See also Land-Sailing: Venus Rover, where Landis introduces younger readers to methods of exploring - and traveling across - the surface of Venus.

Speaking of Venus…. re-analysis of data from the 1990s Magellan probe appears to show that volcanoes there are still active!

== Gettin’ a little galactic wit it ==

Many of you are familiar with Lagrange points – L1 through L5 – where gravity balance between two objects (the smaller orbiting the larger) creates ‘tidepools’ where even-smaller things can gather. Temporarily or (in the case of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid clusters) permanently. Here Anton Petrov talks about a (slim) possibility that there might be such a point between our sun and the galactic center.  It would not be able to collect much, with other stars whipping by over millions of years. But still… I do talk about galactic tidepools in Infinity’s Shore!

Mysterious brightening of a distant galaxy: Did this galaxy suddenly brighten, doubling in infrared frequencies, a 10 fold increase in X-rays)… because its central black hole ate a star?

Getting cosmic. Has the James Webb Space Telescope allowed researchers to resolve the “Hubble Tension” or discrepancy in the rate of expansion of the universe?  It may have just been exaggerated… or possible we simply needed a better tool. 

Two huge galactic clusters were colliding at 1% of light speed, billions of years away/ago, heating their gas clouds prodigiously as drag slowed them down… "These cluster collisions are the most energetic phenomena since the Big Bang…"  But while drag slowed the gas and stars, the galaxies’ dark matter apparently kept rolling on ahead at the original velocities, separating dark from regular matter clumps. This is pretty good reporting on how much detailed sleuthing is involved in figuring all this out.

== Truly mind-stretching! ==

Incredible. About 20 seconds into this video by Anton Petrov (one of the best ‘casts about new discoveries in space) you’ll see an amazing image from the Webb Space Telescope. A very deep field photo that dives into the faint past, beyond redshift-3, this one image captures eighty(!) supernovae taking place ‘simultaneously’ (as seen from Earth today) in a single, narrow frame. Each in a different galaxy. 

There are so many things this tells us.

1. Since any one supernova only remains stand-out visible for a few weeks (maybe a bit longer in infrared, the Webb specialty), this means there ‘are’ absolute gobs of them happening out there…

2. …or there used to be gobs of them, since we are in this case peering way back in time, making it a wee bit less surprising, since early star formation must have led to a great many giant, 1st generation stars, of the kind the burn bright and then blow themselves up with core-collapse supernovas… seeding later generations with heavier elements. Certainly, nothing like this rate is occurring “today”… (our redshift <1 era.) Though Betelgeuse is simmering...

3. Since each of the circled supernovae happened in a different galaxy… and it had to be happening a lot, in order for these brief bursts to be so common in one patch of deep sky... it gives you a truly boggling idea how many galaxies there are. A mind stretch that I can only perform for a few seconds at a time. Read more: NASA's Webb opens new window on supernova science..

That we are a civilization capable of building such a wonder as the Webb… and perceiving and marveling at such wonders… fills me with joy! And also fear that we might throw it all away, in a fit of anti-modernity angst, Pushed by powerful fools bent on restoring us to feudalism’s darkness.

More impact news...

Recent chemical and isotopic analyses from samples obtained by coring into the Chicxulub, Mexico's crater site in the Yucatan peninsula, indicate that the 66-million year old mass-extinction event was likely caused by the impact of a carbonaceous asteroid, originating from the outer solar system, rather than a comet.

As for the moon... Bombardment and impact vaporization of meteorites hitting the lunar surface appear to replenish and maintain the moon's extremely thin atmosphere.

Watch this simulation of a black hole tearing apart a star. 

And...You can help find black holes: a new app, Black Hole Finder - enables citizen scientists to help identify singularities in astronomical images collected by BlackGEM telescopes in Chile. 

And yeah. Again. ALL of this is under threat by ingrates with a lunatic grudge against not only scientists, but every fact-using profession. A too-seldom-mentioned aspect of this dire fight for the only civilization that ever brought us all these wonders... and that now stands poised to venture the stars.

If we decide not to blow it.

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** Patrick Farley's Electric Sheep Comix appears to no longer support the beautiful series DON'T LOOK BACK, which featured Guitar spaceships!  You could nag him to repost it?  

Or else enjoy... and be terrified by... APOCAMON, revealing what fate some of our neighbors believe and fervently salivate for, from from the Book of Revelation. OMG read that one and know what they want and plan for us! People who want this are not nice and they are openly telling you what they want for you.

Republicans admit “We’re blackmailed!” – Plus quick/partial fixes for the Electoral College

There's not a lot of time left, so let’s go for the carotid on a couple of major political points that could benefit from a little ‘judo.’

== Republicans denouncing the subornation ==

Remember Madison Cawthorn, the rising young Republican star Congressmember, who was suddenly dumped by the GOP, for revealing ‘orgies’ amid upper ranks of the party? That huge over-reaction - destroying him for offhand (and likely stoned) remarks on shock radio - reflected almost-certain desperation to silence truth; otherwise he'd a got a slap on the wrist. 

But was it true? I've long posited that the behavior of so many top GOPpers – e.g. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz – can only be explained by blackmail. Mere corruption is insufficient, because any merely-corrupt official can say ‘that’s enough bribery for this year; if I keep saying more shit, I’ll look suspicious or insane.’ 

Blackmail, on the other hand, is insatiable. You simply keep doing whatever the blackmailer demands, even if it makes you look like an idiot, or hypocrite, or both, as in the multiple times when Graham tried to say "I'm done with Trump!" hoping that it would end his ongoing humiliation... followed the next day by utter groveling. 

I mean, do you have an even remotely plausible alternate theory?

This isn't new. Russian secret services have been expert at ‘honeypot traps’ ever since the czars.  Look up the Moscow US embassy Marine guards (1980s) as just one example.

Now, yet another Republican Rep has spoken out, even more explicitly than Cawthorn. Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett warns that fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives have been lured into honeytraps with sex workers and drugs. 

"Republicans aren’t backing important efforts, such as Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s crusade for Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs, under orders by big backers and Russians."

Seriously read this.  It’s not getting the attention it deserves and this fellow is at least partially a hero. Or watch this. 

== It’s the Republican defectors who will make the biggest difference, stupid ==

Above, I showed how an honest and decent conservative Congressmember has stepped up to denounce the blackmail subornation of his party. Others recently used insane rhetoric and mad conspiracy theories about hurricanes as their own excuse to step up and partially reject the madness.  

Not as much courage as we need from them. But we'll take what we can get.

Then of course there's the long list of former Trump officials – his ‘adults in the room’ during Trump v1.0 – who have nearly all denounced him. From Tillerson & McMaster to Kames Mattis and John Kelly, to even far-right schmucks like John Bolton and Bill Barr. As many as a hundred have said "even I can't stomach the insanity and treason."

To which Tump's answer is that in Trump2.0 there will be NO adults in the room. Total brownshirt time. 

Which is why I urge the zillionaire oligarchs, murder sheiks and "ex" commissars who have pulled Trump's puppet strings for decades to watch the movie Cabaret, especially the last 5 minutes. Because if he does get back into office on a MAGA sig-heil-wave, none of those masters will ever again ‘control him.’ Not with blackmail or anything else.

In fact, you oligarchs and Kremlin guys need yet another film... watch Angela Lansbury’s chilling soliloquy near the end of The Manchurian Candidate to see what Don will likely do to his former masters, once the strings are cut.

But let’s add yet more pertinent movie overlaps! This interview with former Trump Communications Director Scaramucci is interesting. “Scaramucci on Trump: "He's going to lose because he's getting boring."

 

Dig a little, and you'll see that the Mooch is describing the "Howard Beale Scenario." (Watch the last 10' of Network and get truly scared!) 

Still, the part of his interview that I resent - because if it does happen, Mooch will get all the prediction points - is when he gives 40% that odds ol' Two Scoops won't even make it to the election or inauguration. 

While I was there lots earlier - with lower odds - I hedged it with the election that actually matters - the Electoral College. Which is where the fix may be in.

== It’s the Electoral College, dummy ==

Okay, three big points about the Electoral College, America’s weird (insane) but unchangeable Constitutionally gerrymandered gimmick favoring Red America.

Make that four points. The first? Um why are there two Dakotas? And shouldn’t just one state – Ida-Wyo-Mont – span the northern Rockies?

But no, let’s get practical. The core aim of the Trumpists has been openly declared… for GOP governors and others in some Harris-won states to refuse to certify enough electors, so that the count for president will be invalid, so that the choice will be ‘thrown to the House.’ Hence, even if Dems win a sweeping, crushing victory in November, you might still see Trump get in! 

Because at that stage - in another insanely dumb Constitutional provision - the House votes by delegations – one vote per – and Republicans have 26 delegations vs 24 for dems.

Now, that nightmare assumes there won’t be brave and patriotic Republican Congresswomen or men in some of those reddish delegations, who decide to put country first, the way Alexander Hamilton (bravely) swung the 1800 election to Jefferson, instead of Aaron Burr. That might happen. 

Or else some of YOU will be heroes who help swing just one or two of those delegations blue. In some cases it could come down to just one Congressional race. Look around. There may be some tight races you can help with. And that's where $100 could make a lot more difference than donating to Kamala.

== More Electoral College partial fixes within reach! ==

Okay, two more. I have elsewhere ruminated on the Wyoming Rule. If the dems get real power in Congress, they should pass it, so that all Americans get at least roughly equal representation in the lower house, as was intended. And if that happens, not only will blue states get more representation in the larger (~560 members) House, but the coloration of the Electoral College will change forever.

Only let’s swing to another of my proposals, One which no one else has broached, but that could (well, maybe) make a real difference this year.

In Polemical Judo I mentioned a possible action by one hyper rich person (say a Mark Cuban?) A bold yet totally legal move that could (possibly) get us past whatever tricks the Project 2025 schemers have in mind, to screw up certifications and throw it to the House. 

Briefly: rent a whole mountaintop luxury hotel with minimal - highly vetted - staff. Then announce that for two weeks ...

"Only certified Electors may come as guests. Upon arrival from their home states, they can just stroll and enjoy the views and meals and discuss with each other anything they like. Or else they could - at their own volition - convene the first actual Electoral College in U.S. history. As would be their prerogative! And this year, such a gathering just might be one more bulwark against shenanigens." 

Again, no coercion or persuasion. Just show up by individual choice, eat, stroll and chat with others who just happen to be there at the same time, without any of those others being anyone but fellow electors (and minimal staff of trusted cooks). And if you just happen to decide to convene a meeting - formal or informal - well…

Suppose this happened. Watch how quickly the stalling states would rush to certify! 

Though note. No matter how carefully Trumpists have ensured the GOP elector slates are party hacks – and most dem electors would likely be loyalists as well – some would likely talk it over, suddenly moved by the genuine (not ceremonial) power in their hands. 

Moreover, as one of the candidates (you-know-who) fulminates volcanically against this "trickery!!" just enough of them might listen to their conscience and reason…

… and act to save the Republic.