Only optimism can save us. But plenty of reasons for optimism!

Far too many of us seem addicted to downer, ‘we’re all doomed’ gloom-trips. 

Only dig it, that foul habit doesn't make you sadly-wise. Rather, it debilitates your ability to fight for a better world. Worse, it is self-indulgent Hollywood+QAnon crap infesting both the right and the left. 

In fact, we’d be very well-equipped to solve all problems – including climate ructions – if it weren’t for a deliberate (!) world campaign against can-do confidence. Stephen Pinker and Peter Diamandis show in books how very much is going right in the world! But if those books seem tl;dr, then try here and here and here.

In particular, I hope Jimmy Carter lives to see the declared end of the horribly parasitic Guinea worm! He deserves much of the credit. Oh, and polio too, maybe soon? The new malaria vaccine is rolling out and may soon save 100,000 children per year. 

(Side note: Back in the 50s, the era when conservatives claim every single was peachy, the most beloved person in America was named Jonas Salk.)

 

More samples from that fascinating list: “Humanity will install an astonishing 413 GW of solar this year, 58% more than in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from 2021. That means the world's solar capacity has doubled in the last 18 months, and that solar is now the fastest-growing energy technology in history. In September, the IEA announced that solar photovoltaic installations are now ahead of the trajectory required to reach net zero by 2050, and that if solar maintains this kind of growth, it will become the world's dominant source of energy before the end of this decade. … and…  global fossil fuel use may peak this year, two years earlier than predicted just 12 months ago. More than 120 countries, including the world's two largest carbon emitters…”

(BTW solar also vastly improves resilience, since it allows localities and even homes to function even if grids collapse: so much for a major “Event” that doomer-preppers drool-over.  Nevertheless, I expect that geothermal power will take off shortly and surpass solar, by 2030, rendering fossil fuels extinct for electricity generation.)

 

== Why frantically ignore good news? ==

It's not just the gone-mad entire American (confederate) Right that's fatally allergic to noticing good news. That sanctimony-driven fetishism is also rife on the far- (not entire) left.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is the single largest commitment any government has yet made to vie for leadership in the next energy economy, and has resulted in the largest manufacturing drive in the United States since WW2. The legislation has already yielded commitments of more than $300 billion in new battery, solar and hydrogen electrolyzer plants…” 

And yet, dem-politicians seem to dumb to emphasize this manufacturing boom resulted directly from their 2021 miracle bills, and NOT from voodoo “supply side” nonsense.

 

Oh, did you know that: “Crime plummeted in the United States. Initial data suggests that murder rates for 2023 are down by almost 13%, one of the largest ever annual declines, and every major category of crime except auto theft has declined too, with violent crime falling to one of the lowest rates in more than 50 years and property crime falling to its lowest level since the 1960s. Also, the country's prison population is now 25% lower than its peak in 2009, and a majority of states have reduced their prison populations by more than that, including New Jersey and New York who have reduced prison populations by more than half in the last decade.”  

 

Of course you didn’t know!  Neither the far-left nor the entire-right benefit from you learning that. (Though there ARE notable differences between US states. Excluding Utah and Illinois, red states average far more violent than blue ones, along with every other turpitude. And the Turpitude Index ought to be THE top metric for voting a party out of office.  Wager on that, please?)

 

Likewise: “The United States pulled off an economic miracle In 2022 economists predicted with 100% certainty that the US was going to enter a recession within a year. It didn't happen. GDP growth is now the fastest of all advanced economies, 14 million jobs have been created under the current administration, unemployment is at its lowest since WW2, and new business formation rates are at record highs. Inflation is almost back down to pre-pandemic levels, wages are above pre-pandemic levels (accounting for inflation), and more than a third of the rise in economic inequality between 1979 and 2019 has been reversed. Average wealth has climbed by over $50,000 per household since 2020, and doubled for Americans aged 18-34, home ownership for GenZ is higher than it was for Millennials and GenX at this point in their lives, and the annual deficit is trillions of dollars lower than it was in 2020.” 

 

(Now, if only we manage to get rentier inheritance brats to let go of millions of homes they cash-grabbed with their parents’ supply side lucre.)

 

And… “In March this year, 193 countries reached a landmark deal to protect the world's oceans, in what Greenpeace called "the greatest conservation victory of all time."

 

And… "In August, Dutch researchers released a report that looked at over 20,000 measurements worldwide, and found the extent of plastic soup in the world's oceans is closer to 3.2 million tons, far smaller than the commonly accepted estimates of 50-300 million tons.”

 

And all that is just a sampling of many reasons to snap out of the voluptuous but ultimately lethal self-indulgence called GLOOM. Wake up. There’s a lot of hope. 

Alas, that means – as my pal Kim Stanley Robinson says – 

“We can do this! But only if its ‘all hands on deck!’

== Finally, something for THIS tribe... ==

Whatever his side-ructions... and I deem all the x-stuff and political fulminations to be side twinges... what matters above all are palpable outcomes.  And the big, big rocket is absolutely wonderful.  It will help reify so many bold dreams, including many held by those who express miff at him.

Anyway, he employs nerds. Nerds... nerdsnerdsnerds... NERDS!  ;-)

Want proof?  Look in the lower right corner. Is that a bowl of petunias, next to the Starship whale?  ooog - nerds.

Reflections on science and human nature

All right, the news comes so thick and fast that no postings of mine can keep up, except to share with you a deep hope that our professional protector castes - who defeated Hitler and stymied Stalin, Mao and bin Laden and created an unbeatable alliance of free peoples - are on the ball. (Ironically, this is the first year in ten that I haven't consulted with one or another of those agencies, offering warnings that all-too often came true.) 

And so, for sanity's sake... in order to recall that 'sanity' is even a thing... let's step back and take a bigger perspective.

== The Pursuit of Truth ==

For example, a selfish argument for making the world a better place: this video on Egoistic Altruism about the key concept of our times - the Positive Sum Game - is very persuasive.  

Consider also the insights of Roger Bacon's pursuit of truth....“This year marks what is believed by many to be the 800th birthday of an especially courageous truth seeker, the English polymath Roger Bacon (1214 - 1292). Though other scientists came before him, his breadth of study has led many to call him “the first scientist.” Were he alive today, Bacon would likely be pursuing the truth about such matters as the coronavirus and its effects on society, as well as the need for personal and political virtues to overcome it.”

“Bacon believed that the improvement of human life, both personally and socially, depends on the eradication of error. To correct what ails society, it is necessary to restore respect for learning, real-world experience and the pursuit of truth. So long as people go forth with a false map of reality, they will lose their way and never reach their true destination." 

Roger Bacon argued that there are four causes of error: 
1) weak and unworthy authority, 
2) longstanding customs, 
3) the opinions of ignorant crowds, and 
4) the hiding of ignorance through displays of apparent knowledge…. What people often lack, Bacon believed, are not correct answers but the best questions.”

Further “…he called for experimentation, but not only in the sense of a scientific laboratory. He believed that people should put their ideas on trial, seeing how well they fare when tested in the real world of experience. What doesn’t hold up should be rejected.” And this essay’s author adds: “The last thing any good political leader needs is to be surrounded by yes men.”

To which let me add my own guideposts, in the form of a Questionnaire on Ideology which some of you have taken, carefully designed to get you to interrogate - at least briefly - some of your own 'fundamentals.' A whole lot more challenging that Donald Trump's dementia test.

Take it, if you dare!

== Experimental evidence against cynicism about human nature ==

Since 1951, one novel has typified the cynically pessimistic view that human beings are inherently nasty and selfish and brutal. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was certainly a masterpiece, presenting us with Jungian archetypes like the hero, the hunter, the mystic and the civilized man – and it ripped away the naïve notion that civilization is anything more than a veneer, whose restraints, if ever loosened, meant immediate return to chaos.

Or else something worse than chaos – a return to the form of ‘government’ that dominated maybe 99% of the last 6000 years. 

Certainly these are topics I’ve chewed upon, in works from The Postman and Earth to The Transparent Society. And yes, while deeply impressed by Golding’s novel, it was a very Hobbesian view of us. I hoped and prayed and gathered evidence that he was wrong.

And it seems the experiment was run, pretty much perfectly, when, almost exactly cribbing from Lord of the Flies, in 1966 half a dozen Tongan school boys had to survive as castaways on a rocky islet for 15 months… and they exhibited absolutely none of the nasty traits that Golding implied were inevitable. Cooperating to an almost obsessive degree, caring for each other, resolving disputes and setting broken bones, they innovated and retained their compassion up to the moment of rescue, and later served together on a fishing boat.

This is important, because cynicism is the poison being spread not just by the entire Putin-Murdoch right but also some elements on the left, catering to the ingrate laziness of those who dislike what’s demanded by the contingently optimistic among us. 

Hard work and maybe a little heroism, to help save a planet and civilization that’s been very good to them.

== The Science of Deception ==

Inside corporations' war on science: we've seen an excess of bogus science paid for by companies seeking a pre-biased outcome are familiar from tobacco and Big Oil industries  - to sugar, chemical and pharmaceutical companies. There are ‘studies' denying health harms from smog… even while - in my childhood - it was physical agony to breathe. Similarly, for months, the Fox network promoted the idea that the coronavirus was a hoax.

See the recently published book - The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception. David Michaels dissects the methods many corporations use to sow doubt, uncertainty and confusion in the public sphere. Michals comments, "It's mostly because the laws are written in a way that parallels the criminal justice system. So the assumption is that exposures, pollutants, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty." 

And finally... Caltech’s “The Lonely Idea” podcast demonstrates how top scientists nurture curiosity that’s impudent and challenging – diametrically opposite to the “herd mentality” accusation hurled by those who would never recognize a fresh idea, themselves. And here's another good one.

Optimists aren't the ingrate betrayers.

I just finished 9 weeks of relentless speechifying around the globe, from the Arctic and Russia to South China to LA, to a dozen events in DC. More than 25 talks! Culminating in last week’s commencement at UC Santa Cruz (Crown College.) Time to get back to writing.

== But first…

Two minutes. Watch this, you Americans. Two minutes for your country. (And you others, learn from this!) As for those cardboard election mailers you were getting, and will get again, come November? Do what you should do with anything received over the web. Start by looking at the return address. (The "paid-by" is usually some made-up shill phrase.) 

There's lots more we need to do, to shred the veil of lies. But that should only be a start. 

It truly is simple. One party wants a return to the campaign accountability laws that worked mostly-well in the past. Ronald Reagan was elected under them, by the way. Vote for that party and against the one that has adopted wholesale cheating supported with acts of war by foreign powers.

Better yet, join Lawrence Lessig's campaign to bring all the funding into the light.

== Is there any protection from the inevitable meltdown? ==

With Paul Ryan announcing his retirement (to spend time with family), and the last professionals leaving a White House in full melt-down mode, talk of a bill to protect Robert Mueller is going nowhere, because GOP pols are desperately afraid of Rupert Murdoch. And yes, just in time, the Murdochs are getting a huge, cash war chest of $70 Billion they can spend on perverting the Enlightenment. Thanks a bunch, Mickey.

What happens when a toddler with presidential powers enters full panic mode? What are the skilled and grownup men and women of the officer corps, the civil service, and adults both in and out of the "deep state" to do, when faced with a life-or-death choice between their duty to all of us, and the chain-of-command?

There is a solution! It can pass, quietly, in a three sentence resolution from both houses. Far less daunting or traumatic than impeachment, it would give our military officers and others a place to turn, if they are ever given "spasm" commands.

Three sentences -- that could be slipped into almost any bill -- that would quietly let us sleep at night. Give it another look... and pass it along to anyone you know who might know someone who knows someone...

== We haven’t lost… yet ==

Long ago I learned something from my friend Ray Bradbury... that people want to be optiminstic, but they are worried about looking naïve or foolish. Still, they can be chided into seeing the advantages of a positive attitude.

Hated on by both the far-left and the entire-right, Steven Pinker dares to beat the drum of optimism in an era of stylish cynicism and self-indulgent gloom. He and I choose different examples, and reasons to feel guarded hope. But first, ponder this Pinker excerpt:

"Consider the U.S. just three decades ago. Our annual homicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000. Eleven percent of us fell below the poverty line (as measured by consumption). And we spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 34.5 million tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere.

"Fast forward to the most recent numbers available today. The homicide rate is 5.3 (a blip up from 4.4 in 2014). Three percent of us fall below the consumption poverty line. And we emit four million tons of sulfur dioxide and 20.6 million tons of particulates, despite generating more wealth and driving more miles.

"Globally, the 30-year scorecard also favors the present. In 1988, 23 wars raged, killing people at a rate of 3.4 per 100,000; today it’s 12 wars killing 1.2 per 100,000. The number of nuclear weapons has fallen from 60,780 to 10,325. In 1988, the world had just 45 democracies, embracing two billion people; today it has 103, embracing 4.1 billion. That year saw 46 oil spills; 2016, just five. And 37% of the population lived in extreme poverty, barely able to feed themselves, compared with 9.6% today. True, 2016 was a bad year for terrorism in Western Europe, with 238 deaths. But 1988 was even worse, with 440."

Pinker has mountains of such examples, enraging those who think that only hand-wringing guilt trips can possibly motivate people to take action to improve things further.

Fools. It's confidence that spurs action, not despair! See his new book: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

Along these lines, famed statistician Hans Rosling's final book (published posthumously): Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, explores the upward trend of human progress, which Bill Gates calls "One of the most important books I've ever read."  As a matter of fact, Bill Gates is giving a free ebook of Factfulness to all 2018 college graduates.

Have things improved? Enjoy this vivid video of Hans Rosling: 200 Countries, 200 years in 4 Minutes -- joyfully detailing statistical progress across the globe, over decades.

Here's an example or two of my own.

If you were around in 1985, when Star Trek IV came out, would you have bet that in 2018 all species of whale would still be around, and in greater numbers than ever? 

Oh, but can they survive long with idiots denying that the oceans are going acid? It's not to late to stop the bad trend and save the good. It's that mix of confidence-building accomplishment with urgency that might empower us to save the world.

Seriously, any of you who would trade places with any generation of our ancestors need to get a grip. Try actually, actually confronting the facts of feudal oppression, inquisitions, and the plain reality that nearly all of those forebears had experienced the smoke, blood, screams and terror of a burning city or village, not once in their lives, but several times. 

Spoiled rotten, do not add ingratitude to your list of faults. Confront your place on the slope of progress! Gaze briefly (with Pinker's help) across how far we've come... then dig in your feet and get to work climbing further.

== Infopacalypse? ==

Which brings us to another big perspective... and what it says about our disruptive era.

A member of our comment community corrected my impression that the American democracy has lasted longer than the Athenian:  

“Athenian democracy lasted from around 594 BC when Solon instituted the Ecclesia to when Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC, a total of 256 years. It started in revolution because a very small elite had turned all the others into debt slaves. Solon made the very deep reforms thereby avoiding civil war. It lasted for through many existential crises but was eventually brought down by hubris brought about by empire, a lost war and afterwards a general slump into insignificance all in 256 years. Our democracy started in 1788 so if democracies have a lifespan then we will reach our end around the year 2044. In the critical stage Athens produced Pericles, the best of leaders, but it also produced Alcibiades who was brilliant, from the best family and had been a pupil of Socrates but was totally devoid of principles. Who is our Alcibiades these days?” 

Well, yes, sort of. Athens went through wilder swings, across those 256 years, including stretches when the oligarchs resumed control, and others when democracy resembled more a mob than a deliberative assembly of adults. (In fact, the U.S. has gone through swings, as well, which I call "phases of our ongoing/recurring Civil War.")

Much of this came to mind while watching Mark Zuckerberg testify to Congress.  I've been to Facebook twice, in the last year or so, advising one of the teams trying to come up with ways to make facts and reliability more a part of that online roiling stew. (In EARTH (1989) I predicted social media would become a morass of self-reinforcing echo-chambers.) Alas, people keep inviting me to come and consult... and never take my simple advice.

== How to defend Truth ==

Which brings us to this chilling revelation about foreign electoral meddling and our current "Infopocalypse Now.”

Those with less education are more biased by false information - even once they know it's false. Scientific American recently published an excellent analysis of the research on fake news, misinformation, and cognitive ability. The nut of it is this: those with low cognitive ability are more likely to believe false information even after they've been explicitly told it's false.

Cognitive ability also correlates with education, which teaches meta-cognitive skills - the ability to monitor and regulate one's own thinking, which can be used to combat the effects of misinformation on worldview.

Among the disturbing findings:

· The Trump campaign targeted low cognitive-ability voters.

· Repeated exposure is more convincing than one-time exposure.

· Fake news is more viral than real news.

Case in point: "The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now. But now they're setting records. They're at a record level." - Donald Trump, to Reuters, quoted on msn.com.

You and I find it hard to believe we are members of the same civilization – nay, species – as people who are able to murmur such an incantation, knowing full well that – if they allowed any fact person to speak, the nostrum would prove diametrically opposite to truth. The word “Idiocracy” comes to mind.

But is this surprising? The Confederacy always relied upon this: Aristocrats pay for propaganda to get the most dimwitted whites to march off and fight for the rights of the richest.

And yes, this is using democracy to destroy itself. When the war on all fact professions is done, and the aristocracy is the only power left standing, you can bet that democracy will be curtailed. The one thing puzzling me is how - once all the fact and skill professions are pounded down - the feudal lords expect that strategy to ultimately go well for them.

(Source: Berit Anderson's SCOUT site and the Strategic News Service).

== And finally... ==

Ex-Speaker John Boehner Joins Marijuana Firm's Advisory Board. Seriously. How many times have we seen this? These guys scream at Martin Luther King... then later proclaim themselves to be his heirs. They cry out: "cars don't cause smog!" And "it's okay that rivers catch fire!" And "tobacco is good for you!" And "Russia is our pal!"  And "glaciers are expanding!"... and a jillion other fact-hating nostrums.  Then, when utterly disproved and the delaying tactic is used up?

It's "who, me? I never!" 

The last thing they'll admit it that being always, always, always wrong should affect a jerk's credibility.

Experts and reformers aren't always right! But you troglodytes have such a horrid record that you bear the burden of proof.  And hence your all-out war on every single fact-using profession.

Light-up, John. Inhale. Maybe it will deaden the dull ache in some residual stump of a soul, after a lifetime spent betraying your nation, world and civilization.

Optimism, Pessimism, and Hypocrisy

Maintaining the image of two alien races, unable to even ponder learning from each other, a site maintained by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal called “Red Feed, Blue Feed” claims to present Liberal Facebook vs Conservative Facebook rants side by side… and let YOU decide! 

At a glance, it clearly supports the Fox narrative, that we must choose between extreme narratives(!!!) And heaven-forbid actually negotiating with each other, finding middle ground like adults. 

This dichotomy-of-demonization is how politics -- one of our civilization's key problem-solving methods, along with free markets and individual endeavor -- has been deliberately killed in the United States. And it reveals the foremost (among many) reason why Rupert Murdoch is the principle enemy of any calm, rational and grownup American republic.

Let me restate that to be clear. If you believe the sole Murdochian agenda is to support an ever-more extreme confederate right-wing, then you only perceive the surface. Sure, the lobotomization of American conservatism commanded by Rupert and Clear Channel svengalis certainly did lead to today's frothing, hydrophobic GOP phenomenon. 

But no. The actual purpose is made clear by Red Feed, Blue Feed.

To destroy politics as an pragmatic, grownup American approach to negotiating and resolving new solutions to onrushing 21st Century problems. Stop focusing only on surfaces and slogans! Look at the actual, actual effects.   

The opposite of the Murdochs is not eloi liberalism, that is now rife with its own cynical dogmatists.  The opposite of crippling pessimism is...

When Did Optimism Become Uncool? In the New York Times, Gregg Easterbrook, author of “The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse,” points out the corner into which we’ve painted ourselves, emphasizing and exaggerating bad news while frenetically ignoring any good. An irony since the latter arguably far outweighs the former. 

Subjectively - to heed all the carping and grousing from every end of the spectrum - we are in terrible times, with a “glass” that is nearly empty. Objectively, the glass turns out to be significantly more than half full.

Easterbrook writes, “Job growth has been strong for five years, with unemployment now below where it was for most of the 1990s, a period some extol as the “good old days.” The American economy is No. 1 by a huge margin, larger than Nos. 2 and 3 (China and Japan) combined. Americans are seven times as productive, per capita, as Chinese citizens. The dollar is the currency the world craves — which means other countries perceive America’s long-term prospects as very good.

“Pollution, discrimination, crime and most diseases are in an extended decline; living standards, longevity and education levels continue to rise. The American military is not only the world’s strongest, it is the strongest ever. The United States leads the world in science and engineering, in business innovation, in every aspect of creativity, including the arts. Terrorism is a serious concern, but in the last 15 years, even taking into account Sept. 11, an American is five times more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed by a terrorist.

"Is the middle class in dire straits, as Mr. Sanders contends? Yes, inflation-adjusted middle-class household income peaked in 1998 and has dropped slightly since. But during the same period, federal income taxes on the middle class went down, while benefits went up. Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution has shown that when lower taxes and higher benefits are factored in, middle-class buying power has risen 36 percent in the current generation.

“Is American manufacturing in free fall, as Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump assert? Figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show industrial output a tad below an all-time record level, while nearly double the output of the Reagan presidency, another supposed golden age. It’s just that advancing technology allows more manufacturing with fewer workers — a change unrelated to foreign competition.”

To be clear, while I agree with most of Easterbrook’s points, and even with much of what the king of optimism - Peter Diamandis - says in his book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, that does not make me a Pollyanna without deep and fretful worries!

  It is not their lack of purchasing power that is demolishing the American middle class, but their perception that they’ve lost their central standing in American life.  To Trump supporters, the blame falls on rising immigrants.  To anyone sensible, it is blatantly because an uber-oligarchy has seized the reins, using lies like Supply Side “economics” to justify their hell-bent drive toward feudalism.

To re-parse Easterbrook’s point, things aren’t anywhere near as bad as we’re saying in mass media today… but they are nowhere near as good as they’d be if, say, high-velocity money were circulating through excellent middle class jobs repairing a decaying U.S. infrastructure… a flow vastly more (obviously) beneficial than trillions in outright gifts to the rich have been, since Reagan. 

And of course, that is exactly why the Republican Congress refuses to fund infrastructure repair.

Read the original article. Especially where Easterbrook lays into liberals for buying into these sick-alluring pessimism trips: “while addressing issues such as inequality, greenhouse emissions and the condition of public schools — will require optimism. Pessimists think in terms of rear-guard actions to turn back the clock. Optimists understand that where the nation has faults, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

Easterbrook concludes, “The lack of optimism in contemporary liberal and centrist thinking opens the door to Trump-style demagogy, since if the country really is going to hell, we do indeed need walls. 

"And because optimism has lost its standing in American public opinion, past reforms — among them environmental protection, anti-discrimination initiatives, income security for seniors, auto and aviation safety, interconnected global economics, improved policing and yes, Obamacare — don’t get credit for the good they have accomplished.”

Recently Warren Buffett said that because of the “negative drumbeat” of politics, “many Americans now believe their children will not live as well as they themselves do. That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.”

Of course, one of the key books to arm you simmering optimists, so that you can finally rise up in rage and take back civilization from cynics of both right and left, is Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.  You will come away filled with righteous wrath against those who are weakening our can-do spirit, just when humanity seems on the verge of solving so many problems.

Oh, and a final note for this section: Nicolas Gruen on Adam Smith: “Smith was the original theorist of my subject—emergent public goods—explaining how language, culture and markets are all public goods; how they are an emergent property of life itself.  (Later, by design, we got) new largely government provided public goods enhancing public order, financial stability, scientific knowledge, public health, transport , communications and standards like weights and measures.” - Nicholas Gruen is Head of Lateral Economics, based in Melbourne. 

== Those who thrive on ultimate pessimism ==

I’ve long maintained that we should encourage the “henchman effect”… where villainous cabals are ruined from within, when some lackey gets fed-up and decides to tell-all. The Panama Papers leak is a major recent example.  Many would cite Edward Snowden. Better legislation could entice whistleblowers down pathways that both protect and offer the benefits of orderly due process.

Is the Alt-Right for real? The latest example worth pondering came when Colin Lokey confessed to Bloomberg that he had been running a supposedly populist online site called Zero Hedge that was actually a front for two wealthy financial analysts.  “Lokey was required to push certain basics: “Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry= dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft.” 

For Zero Hedge, Syria was a special obsession, a sign of the essential strength of authoritarian regimes and the weakness of democracies. (e.g. “Putin Is Winning the Final Chess Match with Obama.”)  In other words, ballsy-blatant propaganda to discourage citizens believing in themselves or our democratic Great Experiment.

(In fact, this cult of Putin-worship is hilarious.) 

This article by Benjamin Wallace-Wells (from the New Yorker) talks about the layers under Zero-Hedge. Uber-rich dudes who got their lucre parasitically, attempting to rile the rabble while skulking behind a populist mask, with Lokey as their ghost-writer… all of it in a core element of the movement that’s been called “alt-right” — which cranks the Limbaugh-Fox ethos to Trumpist levels and then beyond, to open and overt racism. Alt-right exists mostly online, and so it is shrouded in pseudonyms, but I know some of them personally and have found that their agenda goes all the way to weird — not just contempt for democracy and all its tainted works, but nostalgia for royalty! Yes, for kings n’ such.

The article hits things on the head, when it blames some of the raging assholery on a giggling eagerness to discover what they can get away with, like extolling Holocaust themes. But the drives go deeper. Both bored and resentful of the generous, gentle civilization that gave them everything, these fellows go beyond insipid ingratitude and hatred of fact-based innovations like science. Their deepest motivation is masturbatory fantasy. Knowing that a few males in the past got such things, they envision themselves owning harems, and draw consolation by declaring hatred of the kindliness and generosity they grew up in, but that now prevents them from enslaving nubile females and getting their due.

Of course, anyone who has met some of these fellows knows the truth.  That none of them would be post-apocalyptic kings… or top dogs in a dog-eat-dog world. Nor would they even likely become bitches. In truth, only one word describes what their role would be, these pimply-dreamy-whining ingrates.  Kibble.

And more....

Abortion rates have dropped dramatically in the past 25 years to historic lows in wealthy countries, but dipped only slightly in poorer developing nations, according to a global study published recently.  In other words… if you generously help to uplift poor women, the problem begins to solve itself. Educated and confident and empowered, they need or demand abortion with ever-greater rarity.

This incremental reduction is anathema to those who need the abortion issue as their one claim at moral high ground. It only reinforces their demand for total prohibition because “even one is too many.”  

Only… in that case why is every single abortion-limiting piece of legislation recently passed in Red America … incremental?  Nibbling at the credentials of abortion providing clinics and forcing women to drive farther, but having very little effect on rates? Sometimes hypocrisy lies in such details.

In Business Insider, Nick Hanauer reports on a new study of “78 years of minimum-wage hikes have produced zero evidence of the "job-killing" consequences headline writers want us to fear.”  See: Raise Wages, Kill Jobs? Seven Decades of Historical Data Find No Correlation Between Minimum Wage Increases and Employment Levels.  

Galaxies, Black Holes, Supernova... PLUTO... and More Space!

From Mercury to Venus, Mars, Ceres, Pluto, and comets… It’s been an amazing year for space! 

Okay here's your Pluto reminder. Tomorrow is the AWESOME encounter day, when our little robot emissary -- New Horizons -- flashes past the Ninth Planet (of our youth).  Here's my recent posting about that -- and here's a graphical guide to the Pluto Flyby. Follow the coverage on NASA TV. Celebrate. Talk to kids about it. See if you can rouse your neighbors and co-workers to feel a flicker of pride and curiosity.

== Other News from Space! ==

Astronomers may have seriously over-estimated the number of smaller-fainter galaxies there were in the early days of the universe. The universe may be less crowded than we thought...

...but black holes more abundant: By detecting the highest-energy X-rays, which can penetrate through enshrouding gas and dust, the NuSTAR satellite has been able to detect super-massive (and very active) black holes in half a dozen galaxies, invisible to other wavelengths.  This suggests that such super-busy gobblers may be more common in the modern era than previously thought.  

What would happen if you met a black hole? “According to Samir Mathur. professor of physics at The Ohio State University, the recently proposed idea that black holes have “firewalls” that destroy all they touch is wrong. He believes that a black hole converts anything that touches it into a hologram — a near-perfect copy of itself that continues to exist just as before.  Mathur says if our world could be captured by a black hole, we wouldn’t even notice.”

Okaaay!  Very interesting.  Though of course the thing to be recorded would be your bloody mess, after being tidally squished, on your way to the holographic absorption layer.  Still, this is weirdly and wonderfully reminiscent of a scene from volume three of Liu Cixin’s The Three Body Problem.  Volume one is up for a Hugo Award, with my blurb on the cover; get it! Volume II, The Dark Forest will be out in August. But you won’t get to see vol.III – terrifically translated by Ken Liu – till late 2016.  I have, though!  Nyah nyah...

Now...zombie black hole: this massive black hole has awakened after 26 years of dormancy!

Zowee.  Type 1a supernovas are special.  They occur when a neutron star or white dwarf or giant star hauls enough mass from a neighbor to just barely hit the Chandrasekhar Limit where an in-collapse triggers the Big Kablooie (A technical term for use only by we licensed astrophysicists.)  This threshold effect meant that type 1a supernovae are all the same… and hence perfect “standard candles” for measuring distance… the Nobel winning work that refined not only the age of the universe, but the big news of accelerating expansion. (The reason we now believe in ‘dark energy.”)  

Only now… might type 1a supernovae NOT be all the same?  Might some of them be yanked over the Chandrasekhar Limit by an excess of Dark Matter? Yipe!  This could change a number of things. Oh, such times to live in.

Gobbling galaxies! Elliptical galaxy M87 may have swallowed an entire medium -sized galaxy over the last billion years.

==What's next for NASA? ==

A submarine to explore the seas of Titan -- the depths of Kraken Mare?

NASA has selected seven technology proposals for continued study under Phase II of the agency’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program. The selections are based on the potential to transform future aerospace missions, introduce new capabilities or significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems. The selected proposals address a range of visionary concepts, including metallic lithium combustion for long-term robotics operations, submarines that explore the oceans of icy moons of the outer planets, and a swarm of tiny satellites that map gravity fields and characterize the properties of small moons and asteroids.

“This is an excellent group of NIAC studies,” said Jason Derleth, NIAC Program executive at NASA Headquarters. “From seeing into cave formations on the moon to a radically new kind of solar sail that uses solar wind instead of light, NIAC continues to push the bounds of current technology.” (I am proud to serve on NIAC's External Council of advisers.)

== Looking ahead ==

Details of the still-tentative plans for a Europa-Clipper mission to visit and study that fascinating Jovian moon.  I wish one of these articles would expand upon such a mission’s obvious secondary purpose, to be a general probe continuing our surveys of both the biggest planet and its other moons. Speak up, if you find information about those aspects and report it here, under comments!

Is Venus geologically active? Analyses of Venus Express observations have detected multiple hot spots on the planet. 

Here's a lovely infographic of our solar system's extraterrestrial oceans -- now believed to exist on Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus, Titan, Mimas, Triton...

DARPA is already engineering the organisms that could terraform Mars -- genetically engineered extremophiles capable of surviving in the red planet's arid terrain. Will we see the onset of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars/Green Mars scenario? 

In 2019, Russia intends to land a spacecraft, Luna-25, on the moon's polar region, rather than near the equator where all other landings have occurred.

Meanwhile... The Russian government doubts the U.S. moon landings? Actually, it’s not as lurid as that: “We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon], and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific — or perhaps cultural — artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened,” said the official demanding investigation of disappearance of some of the original 1969 footage.   Still, notice how this works at multiple levels.  As with Fox News in the US, all you have to do is imply in an arched way, and let your … “challenged”… viewers bay after rumors, all by themselves.   

Again, celebrate Bastille Day with New Horizons!  Say hello to Pluto!

Oppose the cynics!  Burnish your hopefulness and pride at being a member of a civilization that does cool stuff!

Then turn and be determined to used the same can-do spirit to solve problems down here too, and make a better world.