tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7971148711868374035..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Expanding our view: Science and technology and unimagined possibilities!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44415110794960314472016-07-02T20:51:23.107-07:002016-07-02T20:51:23.107-07:00I just posted one of my big ones. Please help spre...I just posted one of my big ones. Please help spread the word about this one!<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50700879956189131752016-07-02T17:00:21.090-07:002016-07-02T17:00:21.090-07:00Re - population growth and Malthus and innovation
...Re - population growth and Malthus and innovation<br /><br />NZ was another perfect example<br /><br />A very small number of people accidentally colonized NZ <br />It was paradise in some ways - vast amounts of easily available protein!<br /><br />The initial 70 odd people had become about 300,000 and had changed from an explosively expansive phase to an agricultural phase in about 500 years<br /><br />From the history on other islands the next stage of massive warfare was just about to start when the Europeans put their oar in<br /><br />I see no evidence at all that such expansion eras operate in driving improvements or innovation - quite the reverse duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41299506933356755972016-07-02T16:18:17.654-07:002016-07-02T16:18:17.654-07:00Folks I just posted one of my big ones. Please he...Folks I just posted one of my big ones. Please help spread the word about this one!<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47854062262258888522016-07-02T15:43:01.534-07:002016-07-02T15:43:01.534-07:00Jumper,
science hasn't yet fully explained th...Jumper, <br />science hasn't yet fully explained the placebo effect, but there have been some tantalizing clues recently, both in terms of genetics and hormones/neurotransmitters. The explanation isn't there yet, but it's coming. And there are hordes of things that can't be explained by science, but those are most often in the realm of personal preferences that have relevance only to specific individuals (why does my daughter like turquoise so much, but my son goes for conventional blue?).<br /><br />Donzelion, <br />I used to be an archaeologist, so I'm somewhat familiar with social/demographic collapses. The Mayan Civ is one of my favorites, because we don't have much in the way of pesky written records to muddle the facts (since written records generally only reflect the prejudices of the day). It wasn't until the 1980's that we had a clear picture of what happened, and the picture is actually similar enough to Rapa Nui it points to broader patterns in human life. Small island boom-and-bust cycles happen at all levels of social organization in all geographies, but every location in space and time will have its own unique features, muddying the picture. Still, there is a pretty consistent pattern of factional competition leading to growth and complexity at first, then Malthusian misery and depopulation later. Our technology has often increased the carrying capacity, but so far we have yet to create an infinite K, which is what Alfred assumes. Maybe we will, some day, but right now it's anybody's guess, and very dangerous brinksmanship.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23325506758127765622016-07-02T15:39:47.869-07:002016-07-02T15:39:47.869-07:00Okay,folks are going too far in leaping to conclud...Okay,folks are going too far in leaping to conclude that this image cast out by the Trump Campaign was DELIBERATELY anti-semetic. I give odds it was just another example of stupidity. But to be able to toss a sop to the worst supremicists now and then, in ways you can retract and deny? Priceless. <br /><br /> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-hillary-clinton_us_5777e61fe4b09b4c43c0afb4<br /><br />Oh, the same day that Elie Weisel died. Friend of my father. <br />http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/02/166184644/elie-wiesel-holocaust-survivor-and-nobel-laureate-dies-at-87David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79929258980411090222016-07-02T13:01:08.592-07:002016-07-02T13:01:08.592-07:00Someone asked for an example of something science ...Someone asked for an example of something science could not explain. I jumped in with "the placebo effect." ;>]Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23501052788102608772016-07-02T12:40:39.348-07:002016-07-02T12:40:39.348-07:00Dr. Brin,
One of my neighbors is a psychiatrist a...Dr. Brin,<br /><br />One of my neighbors is a psychiatrist and when he saw me working he called me over and said I shouldn't wear gloves when handling dirt. I asked why and he told me some new research just came out. Soil is chock full of fungi and many of them are mildly euphoric and hallucinogenic and the research found that their chemicals can pass through the skin into the bloodstream. I immediately removed my gloves. I now know why many people like to garden.Deuxglassnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56850816101046739542016-07-02T12:18:18.813-07:002016-07-02T12:18:18.813-07:00Deuxglass I garden too. I am grateful for the chan...Deuxglass I garden too. I am grateful for the chance to do so... and tenfold grateful that I don't have to rely on it in any way.<br /><br />Fred Pohl was the greatest exemplar of the sci fi author, who gobbled idea after idea.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71232166660210434922016-07-02T11:35:12.835-07:002016-07-02T11:35:12.835-07:00Dr. Brin,
I must excuse myself for not thanking y...Dr. Brin,<br /><br />I must excuse myself for not thanking you for your kind words and answering my questions. I do have an excuse though. My wife decided that the garden needed a beginning of summer makeover and I have been busy cutting grass, weeding, trimming, digging holes and filling them, uprooting plants and planting new ones, hauling dirt, fertilizing and more. Doing the work of a medieval peasant has reinforced my appreciation of the our civilization and I not wish to go back.<br /><br />I remember reading "The Man Who Ate the World" long ago. It is a good story and I especially liked how the couple solved the problem of having to use up their stuff allowing them to move up in status and into a much more humble house. It took a genius to think of that.Deuxglassnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77409457938793435512016-07-02T10:12:40.530-07:002016-07-02T10:12:40.530-07:00Sci fi note. Most today don't realize how many...Sci fi note. Most today don't realize how many weird ideas smart people believed from the 1920s thru 50s. For example, that consumption wasn't just a driver of employment and economic activity, but essential in some deeper way. In THE MAN WHO ATE THE WORLD Fred Pohl suggests that poor folks are required to consume more stuff and only get to relax and keep things when they get richer! The notion can also be found in BRAVE NEW WORLD. And yes, we'll be viewed as similarly weird.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22833755802612143752016-07-02T10:04:04.721-07:002016-07-02T10:04:04.721-07:00Paul SB,
Population collapses have occurred in ma...Paul SB,<br /><br />Population collapses have occurred in many regions throughout time. Easter Island is the classic example but most Pacific islands have gone through the same cycle several times. Mesopotamia is a better example for large civilization collapses since being dependent on irrigation anything that disrupts central authority such as an invasion, resulted in a big drop in population. Accumulation of salts in the soil over thousands of years turned a once rich and populous region into a shadow of its former glory. China also periodically outran the carrying capacity of the land resulting in population drops of 90% in some provinces. The Malthusian limit seems to the rule rather than the exception. It is too early to tell if industrialization and technology have broken the cycle or merely have just put it off. <br />Deuxglassnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36317602885385168002016-07-02T07:31:46.242-07:002016-07-02T07:31:46.242-07:00Jumper,
Your comment appeared while I was typing m...Jumper,<br />Your comment appeared while I was typing mine (and being stereoed by my daughter, slowing me down), so I didn't get to see it until mine got posted. As you have probably seen, that's pretty much what I thought, too - that Alfred is arguing that population growth drives economic/technological growth. If so, he needs to go to Anth 101, because there is a huge literature that questions that assumption.<br /><br />This reminded me of a series of discussions in "Earth" in which a character (Nelson Grayson) discusses cooperation and competition as being two sides of the same coin. Competition and cooperation happen right inside our bodies, Dr. Brin giving the example of cells in a growing brain completing with each other to become the 10% neurons, while other cells are relegated to various glial functions, but all are working together to create the functional brain. This dynamic goes on up to higher levels of organization, all the way to global ecosystem. Now I haven't finished the book yet, so I may be getting ahead of myself, but so far it hasn't been said what coin is being discussed. Anyone can see a quarter or a nickel and know, whether they are looking at heads or tails, that the coin is used in financial transactions, the coin is money. I am assuming that the coin Dr. Brin refers to (where competition is one side and cooperation is the other) is survival, though maybe he was thinking of prosperity.<br /><br />Using this coin analogy, if you flip a coin many times, whether it lands on heads or tails is irrelevant, unless you are betting on it, in which case the result of the coin toss relates to your survival and prosperity. What happens when a culture flips "competition" way more often than "cooperation?" What happens if it goes the other way? Presumably that would depend a lot on context. If you population is expanding into new territory, competition fills up that landscape faster than cooperation. But if you have filled dup that landscape completely, like Easter Island had within a few hundred years of colonizing, flipping "competition" becomes deadly disastrous. The growth mindset that makes up much of American superstructure (the "psyche" if you prefer) filled up the frontier a long time ago. Now we probably need to flip that coin over more often in order to survive, which is why our population growth is leveling off. Waving the flag of unregulated capitalism, cut-throat competition, free-market everything really could bring about that Malthusian catastrophe.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64066846315626953462016-07-02T07:26:19.006-07:002016-07-02T07:26:19.006-07:00A good example of economic growth without populati...A good example of economic growth without population increase is obviously the computer revolution. Efficiency skyrocketed in the USA. I do not see that this somehow necessitated the immigration increase of the same period, which seems more involved with the real estate bubble. Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39381843007447556522016-07-02T07:07:26.625-07:002016-07-02T07:07:26.625-07:00The idea that the needs of a growing population (w...The idea that the needs of a growing population (which assumes growth is "natural" and not something that is manipulated) lead to technological innovation may not be much more than an assumption. Being the natural-born fence sitter I am, I can see a dynamic in which both are happening. The cultures that have the lowest growth rates are in the most egalitarian societies, where there is very little in the way greedy manipulation. Regardless of which is the cart and which is the horse, population growth still happens, but very, very slowly. Multiply by thousands of years, and eventually you start bumping up against K. You get a sort of deadly brinksmanship, where we either invent the technologies that would feed all our babies or suffer a demographic catastrophe. History has shown time and time again that in many places our ancestors invented their way out of that catastrophe, but in many places did not. You can look at any civilization that grew and thrived, then later collapsed and burned, to see the dynamic in action. You don't have to invoke Easter Island, which is an extreme case, largely because they lost one of the principle mechanisms by which populations deal with population/resource imbalance - migration. No one could escape the island once they killed off all the trees. But why were they cutting down the trees? Socio-political competition. However, until we get effective space travel, we may be in the same boat, but on a much larger scale.<br /><br />This is why when Annabelle complaint that the US did not have at least 3% growth under the Obama Administration, I rolled my eyes. The richest, most powerful chiefs and shaman want to see constant growth, because it enriches themselves. This is just as true of population growth, in that it provides both cheap labor and markets for products. But it's an open question how much the majority of the population benefits from this brinksmanship, just as it is an open question whether we will be lucky enough to innovate our way out of collapse forever, or if we will once again go over that brink. Don't assume that growth = good automatically.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67402309257994453572016-07-02T07:06:52.050-07:002016-07-02T07:06:52.050-07:00I'm a little more awake than I was last night ...I'm a little more awake than I was last night (after a day of dealing with summer school bums, bankers and car salesmen), and reread some of the Malthus discussion. Alfred, I may be reading you wrong, but a couple things you wrote seem to suggest a bit of a disturbing idea.<br /><br />"Nowadays, things are changing so fast women can't produce babies fast enough to absorb the surplus" <br /><br />It sounds to me like you are suggesting it would be good for population growth to match economic growth. Given the extremely low standard of living for most of the human species, wouldn't it be more humane if the economy grew but the population did not, presuming that the growth were distributed broadly instead of being hoarded by the 0.01%? Living conditions in most of North America and Europe are the best they have been through all of history, but huge swaths of the world are pretty miserable places, and it is in those miserable places where population continues to rise, while growth is taking on that K-strategy S Curve in those more comfortable locales.<br /><br />"What I like to ask of people is.. What causes technology and available energy to expand? Before Malthus, we essentially didn't or did so at such a slow rate that women could have a few more babies and consume the surplus."<br /><br />It sounds like you are going with a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention argument, which makes good sense of the data. It isn't resolved to everyone's satisfaction, though, whether population growth is the horse and technology is the cart or whether it is the other way around. Old World archaeological data show that population growth was climbing very slowly after the last glacial retreat, but that growth accelerated as our ancestors began to rely more on crops that could produce a storable surplus. This suggests that those surpluses immediately became an object of socio-political manipulation. One suggestion is that the increasing reliance on storable surplus crops facilitated the power struggles of early chiefs and shamans, whose power was based in kinship obligations (not markets). Chiefs and shamans who had bigger families (not just nuclear families but extended kin groups) could wield more power than those with smaller families, so they would naturally encourage their kin to have more babies (inventing gods who command us to be fruitful and multiply). This would create a positive feedback loop for population growth, but such feedback loops always reach limits (and leading to our shrinking middle class and increasingly power of the 0.01%). Malthus, living at a time when the growth curve was expanding rapidly, was warning the world of what looked like impending disaster at the time (and ignoring those godly injunctions to be fruitful and multiply).<br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54487178175337566182016-07-02T06:31:33.057-07:002016-07-02T06:31:33.057-07:00I don't abstract massive coal, oil and phospha...I don't abstract massive coal, oil and phosphate rock deposits into the "magic of markets." They are coal, oil and phosphate rock deposits.<br />Incidentally my father was part of the "green revolution" which while continuing (e.g. Golden Rice) is tapering off. He was a fertilizer chemist for IMC and Occidental. (Occidental, under Armand Hammer, began massive phosphate sales to the USSR in the dawn of Detente). I don't see phosphate being replenished unless energy is used to reach other sources, and at present any new technology that requires massive energy sources is a problem.<br />I can't quite make out if Alfred is advocating for population increase to fuel economic growth.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82653566436517710522016-07-01T21:36:36.300-07:002016-07-01T21:36:36.300-07:00Malthus was wrong in the same sense that Alfred We...Malthus was wrong in the same sense that Alfred Wegener was wrong, which is to say, that he was largely right, given what was known in his time, but you can hardly expect his ideas to be 100% on the mark given how much more we know today. Wegener was right that continents do move imperceptibly slowly across the face of the Earth, but he knew Jacques Merde about how it happened or what forces were driving it. He could not have figured it out without data in the seafloor that was only available decades after his death. Malthus lived at the beginning of what we call the "elbow" of the human exponential growth curve. From his historical vantage point, things looked pretty dire. And just like Tuzo Wilson put things together to create our modern Plate Tectonics theory, based on Wegener's ideas and data gathered in intervening decades, E.O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur (and more recently Holling & Gunderson's "Adaptive Capacity" work), building on a Malthusian foundation and the work of many others, have given us a much richer understanding of population dynamics than Malthus had or could possibly have had (short of divine inspiration). Unfortunately, most people know the name of Malthus and what he was famous for, but know little about where the science has gone in the intervening centuries, just as most people know Wegener and Continental Drift, but have never heard of Tuzo Wilson and know very little of where the science has gone in the near century since Wegener's time.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46494521312285520312016-07-01T20:09:46.487-07:002016-07-01T20:09:46.487-07:00Alfred you are being too theoretical. If women in ...Alfred you are being too theoretical. If women in the devloped world had reproduced at the same rate as the Duggars or Hutterites, we would be swamped now and living in dystopian grinding poverty.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39510383471196644882016-07-01T17:11:24.078-07:002016-07-01T17:11:24.078-07:00@jumper: You have the nutshell version of it corre...@jumper: You have the nutshell version of it correct. What I like to ask of people is.. What causes technology and available energy to expand? Before Malthus, we essentially didn't or did so at such a slow rate that women could have a few more babies and consume the surplus. Nowadays, things are changing so fast women can't produce babies fast enough to absorb the surplus. Some have tried, but we are growing far faster.<br /><br />A 2% growth rate for real income (common enough in the West) implies a doubling about every 36 years. Can the human population grow that way if all our resources were magically provided?<br /><br />An 8% growth rate for real income (more common in developing countries) implies a doubling (from an admittedly low start) every 9 years. Can women match that?<br /><br />For Malthus' dire predictions to hold, we can work backward from what is a humanly possible female fertility rate to calculate the maximum economic growth rate. At that rate, human suffering wouldn't get better or worse. Anything less and doom looms on the horizon.<br /><br />What we've learned from looking at these ideas, though, is the Earth shouldn't be thought of as having finite resources. That is only the case absent the swan. If innovators are strongly rewarded, we accomplish more tomorrow using fewer resources while doing it. One Earth turns into ten even before we reach for the stars IF innovators do what they do. It scares many to rely upon them this way, but population growth is leveling off. Our dependence may be short-lived which might make us even richer.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28292908363300635542016-07-01T16:38:12.384-07:002016-07-01T16:38:12.384-07:00I must not understand the topic of Malthusian limi...I must not understand the topic of Malthusian limits. I thought it was about population and finite resources. Technology and energy expand resource extraction. If either become static, the other must either take up the slack, or a population increase will lead to misery. Misery in the material sense: hunger, disease, cold, war.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52694295212866677112016-07-01T16:08:49.249-07:002016-07-01T16:08:49.249-07:00@donzelion: You are splitting a hair many others c...@donzelion: You are splitting a hair many others choose not to split. I get your point about us not having proven Malthus wrong, but I can make a decent case that we did and we should be glad for it. He and others from the period missed the industrial revolution and can be partially excused for it. What he also missed was a cultural change that was underway. The bourgeoisie were in the midst of redefining their virtue ethics system. Courage was a virtue normally reserved for the aristocrats. Faith was a virtue normally reserved for the priests. The bourgeois town dwellers were expected to care more about prudence and temperance. Starting in the 17th century with the Dutch rebellion against the Spanish and then in the 18th century when the British practically copied the Dutch system, though, courage and faith got redefined a bit putting them in range of the town dwellers. It took courage to do what the Dutch did and a kind of Faith to stick to it over the many decades it took to win. In the process, the goose laid a whole lot of golden eggs for them. The British obviously envied it all and began to imitate the Dutch BEFORE the industrial revolution began. It is both a swan and a goose in a sense and Malthus along with many others didn’t account for this possibility even though he was immersed within it.<br /><br />I’m not knocking our intellectual forefathers. It’s all right to be wrong in such a spectacular way. Malthus helps us see that something fundamental happened to us. Since this change vastly enriched us, I’m all for defending it, but that requires we know what it is we are defending. Malthus was right absent the swan. Malthus was wrong once it appeared.<br /><br />I’m with you regarding the anonymous Mammon poster that needs a hug. The pain I hear is one they’ve been trained to feel, though, by many among the clerisy who believe our markets are inherently non-virtuous. They see Mammon motivating all commerce and would undermine the virtue redefinition adopted by the Dutch. It wasn’t all that long ago that our habits of the lip (sneers) ensured all those who earned a living were seen as only slightly above slaves and housewives who could not possibly exhibit courage or transcendent faith. Such people were seen as inherently motivated by an over-abundance of prudence which we see as greed when it is about trade. Pfft! Thank goodness for the Dutch and the British who copied them.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86190634493207697002016-07-01T15:13:08.371-07:002016-07-01T15:13:08.371-07:00@Daniel Duffy - "Which begs the question: Why...@Daniel Duffy - <i>"Which begs the question: Why are nerds never in charge?"</i><br /><br />Nerds are OFTEN in charge, just the ones who take charge have remarkable skill in presenting themselves as non-nerds to win public approval.<br /><br />Obama, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, Bush Sr., and Hillary Clinton are all "nerds" - Obama is mocked for his nerdy, professorial air (among many other things). Nerds do tend to lose popularity contests to "alpha males" (like Bush v. Gore, Reagan v. Bush during the 1980 primaries, Clinton v. Bush Sr. in '92). In 2008, Obama better channeled a "non-nerd extrovert" to beat Hillary in the primaries (and circumstances in 2008 meant that John McCain, a strong "alpha male," did not beat him in the election).<br /><br />Here are some interesting nerd presidents:<br /><br />Abraham Lincoln - an amicable nerd, read through the Lincoln-Douglas debates - Douglas depended on "Trump-like" homilies, racist appeals, and non sequitur that failed after a little analysis, Lincoln researched and utilized facts (Douglas wound up winning that election though)<br />Theodore Roosevelt - the man wrote numerous history books...he played a cavalier swashbuckler for public consumption<br />Woodrow Wilson - a nerd among nerds<br /><br />Behind every successful president, there are a number of nerds working to make them succeed. But in many cases, the most successful presidents were themselves nerds, and thus, accrued significant trust from other nerds.<br /><br />donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6555866147963282472016-07-01T14:47:02.754-07:002016-07-01T14:47:02.754-07:00@Dr. Brin - re anonymous troll-prophet of doom -
...@Dr. Brin - re anonymous troll-prophet of doom - <br /><i>"What’s the blessing? That such people render themselves gelded, sinking into the torpor of their drug, snarking and railing against a civilization that has heaped upon them more riches and toys and pleasures and freedom and knowledge and vast opportunities than all of their ancestors had… combined… by a fact or many hundreds."</i><br /><br />A cynic who despises the achievements of others is expressing some personal fears and pain OTHER than what they're verbosely pointing out. I hear the intellectual equivalent of a child screaming "I hate you all!" but really just wants a hug. <br /><br />That's the gentle interpretation of Anonymous-Mammon's rant(s).<br /><br />@Alfred/Jumper - Malthus wasn't proven "wrong" - in 1798, a "Malthusian Trap" was an accurate description of cycles of world history. Rather, he failed to predict the Industrial Revolution (which was only just beginning), and failed to take into account weather as a reliable factor in subsistence (e.g., crop yields 'fell' in 1645-1715 during the "Little Ice Age"). <br /><br />You see a "black swan"; I prefer a "golden goose" - of thought and action that started in the late 18th century, persists now, and should be cultivated and defended. Compatible views, perhaps, but mine offers a different prescription: black swans 'happen' - but golden geese must be defended from cynics who will try to kill it for their own benefit.<br /><br />That's the angry interpretation of rants like Anonymous-Mammon's. He's trying to kill and distract from interesting work.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60635130048744334922016-07-01T13:32:10.475-07:002016-07-01T13:32:10.475-07:00Heh. Nerds already have LOTS of power.
We write th...Heh. Nerds already have LOTS of power.<br />We write the software that runs the world.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22288859578660699142016-07-01T13:20:34.839-07:002016-07-01T13:20:34.839-07:00"They help guys like this to be very articula..."They help guys like this to be very articulate (and verbose) while feeding a seething resentment toward the nerds who actually understand some of what’s happening in the world and have the nerve to think things can be made better, by correcting mistakes and enhancing the products of our better natures. " - DB<br /><br />For nerds to accomplish this they would need power.<br /><br />Which begs the question: Why are nerds never in charge?<br /><br />Why isn't Spock in the captain's chair instead of Kirk?<br /><br />You see that's the trouble with power.<br /><br />The people who really want it are usually the last ones you want to give it to.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.com