Defending enterprise from its "defenders"

Regarding a recent Wall Street Journal article by Russ Roberts - "Why Friedrich Hayek Is Making a Comeback" - I have to react on several levels.  I'll start with one that is superficially emotional and immature... but that seems the most apropos and on-target reaction... and then follow up with added, calmer insights.

Before offering that initial response, however, let me posit that I admire Hayek's insights, in many ways.  As author of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom, I am in tune with his critique that one of the worst flaws in any modern market is failure to maximize the number of diverse, maximally-informed players, in a truly competitive playing field.  This draws upon the fundamentals of the liberal enlightenment, as elucidated as far back as Adam Smith.  I will also avow that his role as a critic of statist-interventionist tendencies in economic management has been useful and often cogent.

Only, in regards the Wall Street Journal article what I have to say to the author, Russ Roberts, is "Get bent!"

Speaking as a hired mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch, Roberts is part of the twisting of a once-vaunted journal into a principal tool for the destruction of the market economy it portends to defend.  Along with the intellectual courtesans (a polite term) at Cato, Heritage and AEI, it has played a major role in the warping of conservatism.

 Specifically, the perversion of "free enterprise" away from its Smithian meaning of maximized competition and toward a meaning that Adam Smith openly, repeatedly and vociferously despised... the protection of uneven influence and collusive power in the hands of private oligarchy.

 Let us be plain.  Across 4,000 years of recorded history, there has been no greater enemy of open competition than collusive, wealth-centered aristocracy.   By comparison, the horrific reign of Soviet communism was a brief flash (and the "nomenklatura" caste in the USSR was arguably just another owner-conspiracy class).  And today's libertarian obsession with civil servant "regulators" pathetically ignores the real enemy, across 40 centuries...

...an enemy that killed every market until Smith came upon the scene, and that has done everything in its power - through the promulgation of Culture War" - to distract from the word "competition."  The word that ought to be the true focus of any genuine libertarian.  Any libertarian who was not a monstrously hypocritical dunce about human nature and history, that is.

At his best, Hayek was all about competition.  The larger the number of knowledge-empowered players the better!  And yes, government bureaucrats are inherently dangerous to competition, if they are left to "guide" an economy.  They are few in numbers and hence prone to group delusion.  Their limited information makes their models inherently cumbersome and planning problematic. (Though each generation of mercantilist hegemons does seem to do a better job than the last: witness the progression from the USSR to Japan Inc, to modern China.)

But Hayek collapses when he is used SOLELY as a critic of government economic management.  For his critiques apply equally well to ANY economy-running oligarchy!  And I have yet to see anyone explain cogently why 5,000 conniving golf-buddies, appointing each other onto each others' boards and granting each other 100 $million bonuses while calling each other "geniuses" and raping their stockholders...

...are inherently better managers than 50,000 highly educated  civil servants, answerable to solemn codes of accountability, regularly audited and subject to open scrutiny, to prevent their self-interest conflicting with the job they are charged to do.  By Hayek's own calculations, the latter group is VASTLY preferable!  Moreover, Adam Smith would have said so, as well.

Of course, the BEST solution is genuine competition, with only enough government regulation to ensure that the market functions well as our primary engine of problem solving creativity.  If  50,000 accountable bureaucrats are better than 5,000 secretly colluding oligarchs, then 5,000,000 small and medium-scale  businesses are even better.  They are more likely - by Hayekian reasoning - to discover the alternate paths and most creative solutions.

{Side note:  I would part with many libertarians - and Hayek - in that I believe that markets can and should be "tuned" to shift their incentives in directions that society has chosen, through well-vetted political consensus, to be desirable in the long run, or to take into account externality costs; e.g. tobacco taxes and mileage standards, along with safety and other desiderata.  And state intervention that *expands* the number of savvy, empowered competitors (public health and education for poor kids) is absolutely justifiable in market terms.  (And so said Adam Smith.)

{ Finally, in a world where mercantilist hegemonies are running roughshod over market enterprise, some assertive governance is needed, just to protect our own companies from the Marxian "contradictions" that make them easy victims of nationaist-mercantile manipulation, say, by China.  The matter is especially severe when such nations are scofflaws toward intellectual property.)

Finally, I am going to be brutally frank again.  For the neoconservative movement to haul forth Hayek at this point an howl at Keynes... after their entire movement has seen its credibility destroyed by reality, across the last twenty years, is an ultimate groaner.

Let's put it plain.  The neocons can point to NOT A SINGLE CLEAR STATISTICAL METRIC OF NATIONAL HEATH THAT UNAMBIGUOUSLY IMPROVED DURING THEIR TENURE.

Their mythologies lie in ruins, along with our economy, our civil society, our small businesses, our markets, our military, our alliances, our stature and our science.  Not one of the bold predictions made by Supply Side economics ever came true.  Not one, ever.

 Their program of stocking the civil service with industry whores - turning "regulatory capture" into relentless government policy - is now revealed in its full glory, in the Gulf of Mexico... and I am furious at Barrack Obama, for failing to appoint a special prosecutor.

No, I am not claiming tat the Keynsians have it all sussed!  It is arguable that the stimulus prevented a FAR deeper depression... most economists think so.  But here's the crux: the Keynsian modality is to "use debt when times are bad and buy down debt when times are good."  The test isn't bad time (like now), but DID THE KEYNSIANS BUY DOWN DEBT WHEN TIMES WERE GOOD?

.The fact is that they did.  Under Clinton.  He tried to buy down our debt and build a rainy day fund for hard times.  If  this had been allowed, we would have been in great shape.  But instead, the neocons said "give largesse to the oligarchs!  The debt will vanish!"  Yeah right.  Smith knew better, 250 years ago.

No. Excuse me, but I don't think that the neocons have any more right to cite F. Hayek than they do to mention the name of Adam Smith.  For them to try to take shelter behind such men is a travesty.

Me? I think I'll stick with the democrats and Keynsians a while longer, rather than listen any further to a howling pack of certifiable loons and shills for a new feudal caste.  People who drove both capitalism and the nation that I love straight toward an early grave.

What General McChrystal May Have Planned All Along

President Obama removed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander of American forces in Afghanistan and tapped as his replacement the architect of the 2007 surge in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus. 

None of this is surprising, of course.  The President certainly got counsel from his most-trusted military advisors, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mullen  and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, to the effect that the remarks given by McChrystal and his aides, spoken outrageously on-the-record  to ROLLING STONE Magazine, constituted gross insubordination and disrespect for the chain of command, not to mention contempt for civilian authority.

In fact, McChrystal’s statements were so grossly insulting and intentionally inciting that one cannot simply shrug and attribute them to inadvertent slip-ups, in the macho atmosphere of a war zone.

Now, lest there be any mistake over motives, let me first establish one point: no one has been more vocal, across the last dozen years, in support of the United States Officer Corps, than I have been.  At  senior levels - the generals and admirals - these men and women make up one of the best-educated clades in American life, just after university professors and medical doctors.  Their dedication, discipline and courage are well-noted, but seldom remarked-upon is another fact -- that you cannot rise to flag rank in any service without developing a meticulous eye for detail and a facility for carefully studying the traits of both superiors and those under your command.

Hence, given the advanced warning they had, and extended period over which the ROLLING STONE interviews took place, the notion that all of this was just an aberration -- a momentary lapse into snarky, immature and impulsive gossip -- simply beggars the imagination.  Indeed, to claim that any of this was inadvertent is manifestly an insult to the general, himself.

Another thing that needs to be made-plain is that McChrystal's antipathy for democrats is not universal among his peers.  Indeed, I have long made a strong case that the US Officer Corps should be considered among the top victims of the insanity known as Neoconservatism.  That movement’s relentless war against every reservoir of sagacity and expertise - its one consistent program - has extended far beyond Tea Party populism, the War on Science, and the campaign to demolish and disable the US Civil Service (with effects we now see in the Gulf of Mexico).  It also featured the most outrageous meddling by politicians in military affairs - for political reasons - that we have seen since the Vietnam War.

The harm done by the neocons to the military, and especially the US Army is well-documented; when Bill Clinton left office, every Army and Marine brigade was deemed by military auditors to be  “fully combat ready.”  After George Bush was done, the number of “war ready” brigades was precisely zero.  And though the conversion of our land forces from supremely potent battlefield dominators to bedraggled counter insurgency swat-teams went uncriticized on the right, it contributed to desperate worry among the top members of the Officer Corps.  Well, most of them.

Resentment toward the Bushites finally crescendoed, in 2006, in a fuming, sub-surface rebellion, culminating with Donald Rumsfeld’s replacement, as Defense Secretary, by Robert Gates.  When I also saw that Adm. Mike Mullen was to become JCS Chairman, I knew that the neocons’ fanatically incompetent grip on our military had finally been pried loose... but that is another matter, drifting away from the topic at-hand.

Given that I think so highly of the Officer Corps (with allowances for the inevitable excesses of their testosterone-permeated realm), shall I sympathize with General McChrystal, for being fired?  Certainly his reputation for competence in managing field operations must have made the President’s decision as difficult as it was for Harry Truman to dismiss Douglass MacArthur, after similar levels of disrespect, during the Korean War.  Let there be no mistake, Obama did not want to do this.

But no, this was not (as McChrystal claimed in his public apology) just a lapse. A case of forgivable “stupidity.”  I do not believe that a man like McChrystal does anything without serious contemplation of the pros and cons.  It took weeks and many separate decisions to bring ROLLING STONE to his inner circle. Why, then, has nobody in the mass media even considered the simplest hypothesis --
-- that McChrystal did it all on purpose?

Am I serious?  Well, I do try to see the under-contemplated possibility.  And sure, my contrary quest for the alternative hypothesis can lead me down strange paths.  Nevertheless, in this case, there is ample precedent and incentive for the man to have done all this with full fore-knowledge and intent.
Consider the Liddy-North Effect, named for convicted criminals G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, whose conspiratorial efforts to undermine lawful government should have ensured perpetual infamy, but who instead went straight from prison to cushy roles as ranting hatchetmen in an oligarchy-subsidized punditry. What these men proved is that, unless you are caught eviscerating small animals or children on video, there is nothing -- no misbehavior -- that will prevent a prominent and macho critic of democrats from getting a paid gig on Fox News or Venom Radio.  Indeed, the more choleric, insulting and pyrotechnically disrespectful the behavior, the more likely you will get a plum slot.

Hence, it is with no lack of grudging respect that I predict this fellow will slip comfortably into whatever retirement engagement he has lined up, and we will see his face and hear his voice for the next 20 years, reading whatever talking points are put in front of him, whining - like Ollie North - about his Martyrdom at the hands of cursed liberals.

Hey, you gotta hand it to a tactician, who -- upon approaching inevitable retirement -- maps out the perfect campaign to optimize his results, forcing the hand of his boss, creating a situation where the president has no option at all, but to fire a “fighting general” and send him on his strategically planned way.

Ah, but respect or no, I’ll be glad to see him replaced by someone more typical of the Officer Corps. By a professional.  One who is also a citizen soldier.


=== OTHER POLITICAL ITEMS ===

The 20 world leaders at an economic summit in Toronto next weekend will find themselves in a country that has avoided a banking crisis where others have floundered, and whose economy grew at a 6.1 percent annual rate in the first three months of this year. The housing market is hot and three-quarters of the 400,000 jobs lost during the recession have been recovered.  Care to learn how it happened? 

This riff about the history of the US energy crisis is both hilarious and informative and demonstrates why it is NOT silly, but indeed heartening that a majority of American young people get a large portion of their news from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart! They aren’t fools.
J.M. Bernstein of the NY Times offers the following: “ More than their political ideas, it is the anger of Tea Party members that is already reshaping our political landscape.  As Jeff Zeleny reported last Monday in The Times, the vast majority of House Democrats are now avoiding holding town-hall-style forums — just as you might sidestep an enraged, jilted lover on a subway platform — out of fear of confronting the incubus of Tea Party rage that routed last summer’s meetings.  This fear-driven avoidance is, Zeleny stated, bringing the time-honored tradition of the political meeting to the brink of extinction.”

Bernstein goes on: “My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.“

Offered up from the left: “The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.”

(Note, I often snarl “a plague on both your houses!” toward BOTH the right and left.  Sure, one side in particular is the worst threat to liberty and enlightenment, right now.  But I remember when it was the other.  I support these “coffee” alternatives.  But always with a wary eye.

=== The Power of Denial ===

Hey, I’m a parent.  I know first hand how natural it is, when confronted with unpleasant facts, to try to deny them away simply with “No, I didn’t!”  Heck it is probably humanity’s greatest talent.  But adults, especially in our civilization, are supposed to outgrow it.

Alas, you can’t beat doubt as a corporate strategy – especially if your product is life-threatening when used as directed”. New Scientist’s latest issue focuses on the Age of Denial. In particular how corporations manufacture doubt through PR campaigns, ads, slogans, hiring scientists & phony grass roots groups….all extensively used by tobacco, coal, chemical, fossil fuel industries.

Finally, a reminder:who wants culture war?  Who promotes it, as the best way to divide and weaken America?  Seriously. When talking to your favorite “ostrich”, mention that Fox is up around 10% owned by a consortium of Saudi princes. The truth.  Ask them why that should be.  And why their paranoia only works in one direction.

“Saudi billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal held meetings this week with  Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch to discuss investments, including Rotana Media, according to a statement from the prince's office Saturday. The meetings, which took place in New York on Jan. 14, "touched upon future potential alliance with News Corp., the statement said about a deal that would see News Corp. buy 10% of the existing shares in the company could be completed this month.”
Actually, it goes both ways.  Rupert Murdoch is buying 10% of Prince Talal’s media group... and Talal and his peers already own upwards toward 10% of Murdoch’s News Corp, parent of Fox News.  Ah, but smoking gun or no, there’s no effort to even hide any of this, because the populist culture warrior dittoheads will think what they are told to think.  And of course, it’s the liberals who are the traitors.

Okay.  Reminder time.  Cyclically, regularly (and always) keep checking on the Fox News Boycott.  You have a right to make your purchasing judgments based on many criteria.  Including a list of those who advertise with Glenn Beck.

A secret of college life... plus controversies and science!

Advice for college students and graduating high-shoolers. Reflecting on his son's graduation from high school, Science Fiction author David Brin offers inspiration and advice for students going on to college.

Broaden your perspectives and take full advantage of the wealth of educational experiences awaiting you during the next four years. The key is curiosity. Among several tricks offered: explore what is happening in those buildings on campus. Once a month, pick a building and randomly knock on doors! What’s the worst that can happen?  What’s the best?

This one has gone viral, with 5,000 hits in the first day! (Hint: you folks could also spread the word.)  Great (and highly unusual) advice for that bright young college-bound grad.

= OTHER NEWS... then controversy... and science! =

Back in 1985 I was the very first author in Bantam's (Randomhouse) science fiction line SPECTRA. Now this famed, accomplished publishing line is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Time flies and the future rushes upon us.  Congratulations Spectra!

I’ve been on more than thirty television shows. I’ve had one novel filmed and others scripted. But now comes my first appearance on the big screen! “The People vs. George Lucas” premieres June 23 at the Los Angeles Film Festival. I was interviewed for this provocative documentary -- along with many passionate fans and foes of the popular Lucasian universe.

I’ve already stated my opinion, as editor and ‘prosecutor’ in the book Star Wars on Trial, which offers every pro/con perspective in more detail - a real treat for fans of intellectual dissections of po-culture!   But for a lighter-fun scan, the movie is coming soon to a theater not too far away…

And yet-more podcasts! Especially for TedX Munich, I performed a 10
minute video talk entitled: “Ambitious Problem-solving for the Future” It's too easy to lapse into negativity/pessimism about the problems we face: war, political instability, economic trouble, global warming.  Indeed, vast inequalities of wealth exist across the globe. To keep things in perspective, we should recall that things were nearly always worse in the past. We must develop innovative problem-solving skills to face the complex world of the future – and to raise standards of living across the world. For the first time, the entire world community is able to communicate -- across borders and nationalities -- to share strategies and seek solutions. My favorite aphorism: Criticism is the only known antidote to error.  Identifying errors is the first step toward seeking solutions. But we must keep in mind the goal – to improve our civilization. Technology must be part of the solution.


And now exciting news that I predicted... Andrew Wade, an avid player in the two-dimensional, mathematical universe known as the Game of Life,  posted his self-replicating mathematical organism on a Life community website on 18 May. It sparked a wave of excitement.  And might I note that I foresaw this would happen, in my novel GLORY SEASON?  Someone log in and congratulate him, on my behalf?

 I think it is very important to have a clear, fact-based view of the state of the world.  It may seem superficially to be less caring, when I say that 95% of human beings have it better than their ancestors.  But the opposite is true. We can only attack the huge remaining injustices in the world if we first admit that past efforts have done some good.On the up-side, refuting the stylish cynicism that infuses everything from Tea Parties to “Avatar,” dig the facts: Professor Steven Pinker on the myth of violence: he charts the decline of violence from biblical times to the present. 

= A Transparency Issue in the News =

On the other hand, I’ve long been a champion of openness, e.g. in my nonfiction book, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?   In fact, I’ve long held that some millionaire could do more to save freedom and civilization than any other person on the planet, by funding an entirely new approach to encouraging whistle-blowers. (It really is a cool idea!) Indeed, I was generally approving of the endeavor known as WikiLeaks... an attempt to create a clearinghouse online for people to expose what they perceive as wrongdoing.  

Alas, the core person at Wiki-Leaks appears to be on the run from authorities who want to nail a member of the military who disseminated a large number of of classified documents from his post in Iraq. In fact, the matter is more complicated than it seems, at surface.  (I will opine further on this - informally - under "comments" below.)

= And Now Lighthearted (intellectually satisfying) Fun! =

Go read some of ther terrific “fanfic” or fan-generated fiction out there. Here’s a great example: futurist/scholar Eliezer Yudkowsky’s ongoing series/novel that is both a tribute to - and deconstruction of - J.K. Rowling’s fantasy universe.  HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY poses an alternate world in which Harry is a genius, not only at magic but also the muggle wizardries of math and science. Oh, and his step-parents, instead of being cartoony/silly villains, were wise, decent and smart.  (In other words, Dumbledore did not commit a horrific crime, but put him with the best muggles he could find, duh?)  The result is a fiercely bright, logical and infuriatingly immature 11-year old prodigy who is loyal to science and progress and the Enlightenment, unleashed on poor Hogwarts School, vowing to up-end that is corrupt, horrific and insular society that is Magical Britain.

It’s a terrific series, subtle and dramatic and stimulating.  I liked especially hearing the vocal rhythms of Maggie Smith in dialogue with Professor McGonnagal. And I (naturally) I loved the dissing of Yoda! Yudkowsky gets it, and lots else. Smart guy, good writer. Poses hugely terrific questions that I, too, had thought of... and a number that I hadn't.  Enjoyed all references to the enlightenment.

I wish all Potter fans would go here, and try on a bigger, bolder and more challenging tale.

= And see Comments for more... =

Can Libertarian Conservatism Find Its Way?

A fascinating article in Foreign Policy lays out how Ronald Reagan was actually far less of a war-lover or battle-hawk than any of the modern crazies who deify him, screaming his name to justify extreme nonsense.  In fact, both Bushes - father and son - were among the most war-eager presidents in US history, if you add up the number of times they leaped to hurl American troops in harm’s way, sometimes concocting reasons out of thin air.  By comparison, Reagan frequently expressed a deep reluctance to “start counting bodies.”   

This relates to something I have been saying for a long time - that the conservative movement badly needs a counter reformation, an insurrection by reasonable grownups who are brave enough to push back against the forces of bilious unreason and Culture War that have taken over an entire wing of the “left-right spectrum.”  Is there any hope that this might happen?

In the past I have praised John Mauldin as a conservative who “gets” the core fact that markets, enterprise and capitalism were among the top victims of the mad neocon era. Indeed, these bulwarks of the American cornucopia are not the cause of our problems; they have been betrayed and crippled by the same enemies that spoiled markets and freedom in 95% of human societies, across 4,000 years of recorded history.

Now I want to offer you some words from another true-blooded capitalist who sees this basic truth.  In his April 2008 essay, Michael Lewitt began with a quote from Adam Smith that should be etched into the brains of every Wall Street CEO and included in the oath of office of every new member of Congress. Moreover, they should propell every liberal to go out, read Adam Smith, and embrace him as one of their own.

Lewitt quotes Smith, who is best known as the author of The Wealth of Nations, but who wrote an equally important book two decades earlier entitled The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith wrote the following:

"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."

In Lewitt’s words: What Adam Smith pointed out more than two hundred years ago is equally true today – our society, fed by the media, worships wealth at the expense of other values that are far more important to a cohesive and healthy society. The entire mission of The Wealth of Nations was to try to recognize man for what he is – a social animal who is reliant on the good opinions of his neighbors – and to develop the optimal economic system to harness that human essence for the good of all mankind. Smith believed that system was a free market, and history has by and large proven him correct. But th e United States has strayed from a free market model to a system that privatizes gains and socializes losses.

Later in his recent posting (which alas is from a newsletter I cannot share in whole), Lewitt goes on: Much of the crisis could have been avoided had policymakers and investors operated under r ealistic assumptions about how markets and economies work. Several years ago, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan described the failure of interest rates to react in the manner he expected as a "conundrum." We now know that Mr. Greenspan was operating under a false set of assumptions about human nature, as well as a misguided understanding about how market participants behave. As noted in my book, had Mr. Greenspan been an acolyte of Hyman Minsky instead of Ayn Rand, he would have been less susceptible to such a fatal conceit. But beyond that, the real conundrum in modern markets is the continued reliance of investors and policymakers on two false mantras. The first is that markets are efficient; and the second is that investors are rational.

I would put it another way.  The libertarian wing of conservatism ought to be the portion that non-leftist liberals and pragmatic moderates could negotiate-with.  All three groups appear to be motivated by a shared set of general goals.  A dream of maximized individual opportunity and freedom.  An aversion to bossy accumulations of undue power. A belief that unleashed human creativity can solve a vast array of problems and that tomorrow could be better, as a result.  These commonalities ought to make for lively, good-natured debate over the details, e.g. whether to use the state or laissez-faire or a tuned-markets to solve this or that problem.

Why then, are most libertarians instead the most intransigent and obnoxious of fuming dogmatists, contemptuous of practicality or compromise, endlessly reciting nonsensical pseudo-religious catechisms from a dunce-prophetess and railing at the stupidity of their fellow citizens for having committed the unforgivable original sin known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

Cajoled by paid shills from the Cato, Heritage and American Enterprise “institutes,” most libertarians and libertarian minded conservatives have been duped into calling government an inherently satanic foe of Manichean dimensions. Indeed, they see civil servants as the only force out there that’s inimical to liberty, something that Adam Smith (mindful of 4,000 years of history) would have found laughable. While worshipping at an altar of private property (coaxed coincidentally by propaganda paid for by billionaires), libertarians thus turn their gaze away from the two desiderata that ought to be the movement’s core focus.

Freedom and fair competition.

These are basic underpinnings of true markets, democracy, science and justice -- and history shows that government can foster them as readily as hinder them.  Just as private wealth can undermine them, and has done so, in nearly all human societies. Only through dynamic confrontation can the private and public realms prevent each others’ worst excesses.  But that fact is too complex ever to be admitted by purists.

Freedom and fair competition.   If these twin pillars again became the main goals of the brighter-right, there would be a shift of tectonic proportions. Libertarians and libertarian-minded conservatives would sever all links to both populist know-nothings and plutocrats.  They would rescue what remains worth-saving, from their hijacked and shattered movement, and thereupon rejoin us at the negotiating table, helping a coalition of civilizaed adults in search of new, agile and creative ways to save civilization.

---------    addendum ------

Anyone care to study this book and report back to us?  Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by Bradley Thompson, (from the Amazon review) explicates the deepest philosophic principles of neoconservatism, traces the intellectual relationship between the political philosopher Leo Strauss and contemporary neoconservative political actors, and provides a trenchant critique of neoconservatism from the perspective of America's founding principles... Thompson actually lived for many years in the Straussian/neoconservative intellectual world. Neoconservatism therefore fits into the "breaking ranks" tradition of scholarly criticism.

I am told the book is an analysis and critique of neoconservatism from a limited-government perspective.

--------  and a poetical interlude ------

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
 The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

      - William Butler Yeats

I promise to be cheerier next time.

------- PS ---------

I go into much more details about libertarianism, its assumptions and the mistakes that have veered a promising movement off-track. (Note, the Libertarian Party once invited me as a main speaker at one of its conventions.  I think the fellows who invited me were fired!  Alas, so much for open thought.)

See  "looking past political totems" and... "maps of tomorrow"... and...the text of that infamous speech I gave, after which half the audience gave a standing ovation, while defending me as the other half attempted a lynching!

"Blowback" from progress -- and more science

First: now up on kindle: Four essays, also found in my collection, Through Stranger Eyes.

--The Dark Side: Star Wars Mythology and Ingratitude
--The Matrix: Tomorrow may be different
--George Orwell and the Self-fulfilling prophecy: Why 1984 didn't happen
--Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien vs the Modern Age

Amateurs have always played a significant role in scientific discovery, particularly in earlier phases, in astronomy and the natural sciences. During the last century, we've seen an increasing trend toward professionalization of all aspects of society; however I have forecast a counter-trend toward an Age of Amateurs.  Indeed, the sheer number and complexity of our challenges will demand a wider proliferation of skills than just one-per-person. For many reasons, we may be returning to a greater emphasis on citizen involvement, even in areas like national defense and self-reliance. In one case -- the scope of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence -- will be enhanced by thousands of amateur dishes scanning the skies, sharing their results through the internet.  Now I talk about this in a newly posted video that may open your eyes to a fascinating trend.

== Possible “blowback” repercussions of War Technology ==

See a very interesting article and panel, about the possible privacy and liberty and existential repercussions -- or "blowback" -- of rapidly advancing military technologies.  Alas, the very smart panelists did miss several points.

(1) The very thing that (they fret) most threatens privacy is the same thing that can protect privacy... at least a small but sufficient amount of it.  Likewise freedom.  Omni-veillance is true to the spirit of the Enlightenment.  Only an onmi-empowered citizenry will have a chance of protecting either.

(2) No military technology ever had side effects greater than the H-Bomb, which altered us at the very deepest psychological level.  Every male of my age owes his life to Saint Bomb, because the regular schedule of human warmaking would have sent us to some horrid, all-consuming, conventional World War III, some time in the seventies or eighties.

(3) Emphasis on fantastically computerized and miniaturized AI and robotics and "telepathics" in the future will come fraught with a basic danger... that all our potential enemies are working hard to develop technologies that might universally degrade computers and radio on some future battlefield.  The theory is that such a degradation will harm the most hackable and tech-dependent combatants, most of all.  This is a potential failure mode similar to one that struck the laste Roman Empire. See more on this in my article Forgetting Our American Tradition: The Folly of Relying Exclusively on a Protector Caste.

I could go on and on.  There are dozens of ramifications... some of which were discussed in enlightening ways by this panel... and many of which they never touched upon.

=== Science and Coolstuff ==

Can bacteria make you smarter? Wait a minute, I thought eating dirt wasn't so smart a thing to do!

Fascinating stuff! Do high incentives lead to poor performance? 

Stefan reports: “Totally awesome: A lander concept that can not only take off and land in earth's gravity well, but can do a motor shutdown and restart in mid air!”

Speaking of levitation... The Magnetic Suspension Device – for all your home levitation needs.

HP Thinks Sensors Will Lead to The Next Big Wave of Computing. The Internet of Interconnected Things

Is Optical technology coming of age?

“Empirical evidence suggests that events taking place in periods of positive social mood are of a dramatically different character from events you can expect when the mood is negative -- thus the importance of mood as an early-warning indicator for extreme events in human society.”  I agree in general, that depressing a civilization’s confidence is the surest way to prepare it to fail.

Science Rocks!

First, any of you in the San Diego area, I will be among 30+ visionary speakers at TedX Del Mar... a spin off TED conference to be held in the beautiful seaside village of Del Mar on June 2.  Speakers will do 18 minute flash presentations on all types of science, hyper-new technology, art, society... from noon to 9pm.  There will be a charge for attending, since the audience is limited to 100 or so. Or see  TEDxDelMar.com

Uplift fans.  Now you can show your visionary belief in the future by wearing the meme! Order T-shirts, caps, mugs etc emblazoned with logos of the Galactic Institutes.  Or get a tot-bag with the crest of the the Earthclan Uplift Project (featuring a brash neochimp and neo-dolphin).  Or wear the proud emblem of the Terragens Marines.

  Most recent issue of New Scientist focuses on Climate Denialists with articles by Michael Shermer and others.

My special feature on “How the Net Ensures Our Cosmic Survival” has appeared in Communications of the ACM, the June 2010 issue.

For my predictions Registry:  Jeff Robbins recently stumbled upon an article in the New York Times about a hedge fund that provides upfront payments for IRS whistle-blowers. They are essentially agreeing to buy a percentage of those future payouts in exchange for a smaller amount upfront to the whistle-blowers.  “This could hopefully be the start of realizing a whistle-blowers reward system as you envisioned in Kiln People.”

Fascinating.  I had hoped that a philanthropist would get behiond this, as I portray at Horizons and Hope: The Future of Philanthropy.  But capitalist drive can be good, too. 


=== Accumulated Science Stuff ====

A new Chinese train innovation allows people to get on & off a bullet train without the train stopping. No time is wasted. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou , just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time.

The new, second tallest building in New York is amazingly green.

Alternative future passenger jets.

EcoMotors is currently developing an engine prototype that could improve fossil-fuel economies by up to 60 percent (achieving 100 miles per gallon), while halving the weight and size of standard gas and diesel-powered engines.

"There are lakes and seas that make Titan the only other place, other than the Earth, in the solar system with large, stable bodies of liquid on its surface," says Zarnecki. "There are also river channels; great stretches of dunes; weather and meteorology; complex hydrocarbons; and – most excitingly – powerful signs that Titan has a subsurface ocean that could provide a home for primitive life. Titan turns out to be an incredible place. It's a moon that would be a planet."... "It turns out that those rivers, lakes and seas on the surface are not watery affairs but are made of methane."

Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth. (Um, but you get the power to drive the pumps from... oil, right?)

An interesting TedX riff about the importance of resilience in any ecosystem. The fellow’s specific - somewhat barter-based - alternative currency proposal is much less important than his insight offered at the start of his talk.

Smart guy Marc Millis talks about future tech in space.

New experiments with photosynthetic light-harvesting protein found in green sulfur bacteria show that solar photons generate coherent, wavelike oscillations in the protein complexes. These "quantum beating" signals enable the donor and acceptor molecules to sample all potential energy pathways at once, and choose the most efficient.

Martin Gardner, Puzzler and Polymath, Dies at 95; amazing fellow.

YIPE!  Talk about a politically incorrect theory: "A Farewell to Alms discusses the divide between rich and poor nations that came about as a result of the Industrial Revolution in terms of the evolution of particular behaviors originating in Britain. Prior to 1790, Clark asserts, man faced a Malthusian trap: new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations. In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the sons of the wealthy, who were less violent, more literate, and more productive. This process of "downward social mobility" eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap."

A transparency setback. Andre Hansson writes in: “Swedish income tax records were subject to public scrutiny. This will now change with the motivation that it violates the privacy of ordinary citizens. Hence, it will also be more difficult for citizens and journalists to scrutinize individuals in public office or in any other position of power. Let's just hope it won't cause a snowball effect on other transparency laws.”  Amen


=== MORE GREAT SNIPS (some of them c/o Cheryl) ===

Little Dog Robot: Very cool video of a miniature quadruped robot. Watch how it assesses where to put its foot on uneven surfaces, as it climbs stairs, crosses a gap, walks over a see-saw – and recovers/learns from errors. Developed by researchers at USC. Let’s send a larger one to Mars…and let it fetch some nice samples.  -- Oh, see the earlier "BIG dog" robot from Boston Scientific!  The growling sound is from the onboard generator, since the big version could not carry enough battery power.

Then see the parody!

Leonardo would have been proud:  A model butterfly that flies nearly as elegantly as its real world cousin. A rubber band drives a crank that flaps thin plastic wings. First time that a free-flying replica has been made with the same size, shape & weight as a real insect. Tests showed that veined wings created more lift that veinless ones….as chosen by natural selection.

Testosterone makes people suspicious of one another.

Humans: Why They Triumphed: "The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals. Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before. 

Could companies that toss out copiers become targets for corporate theft? The hard drive of copiers retains copies of all documents copied; tax documents, research papers, employee records.

Five ways to monetize the future of news media

1. Erect a paywall
2. Erect a semi-permeable paywall ( a percentage of articles are free)
3. Implement a metered system (redress users can read a set number of articles a day
4. Remain free (generate lots of inexpensive output)
5. Create better value for advertisers

Can bacteria make you smarter? Specific bacteria in the environment not only have anti-depressant qualities, but can increase learning behavior

New study shows that the number of books in a home is as important to a child’s success as the parent’s education level. A bookless home is equivalent to having parents who are barely literate.  A book-filled home – equivalent to having university-educated parents. In China, having 500 or more books in the home propels children over 6 yrs further in their education; in the U.S. the effect is 2.4 years.

“You can’t beat doubt as a corporate strategy – especially if your product is life-threatening when used as directed”. New Scientist’s latest issue focuses on the Age of Denial. In particular how corporations manufacture doubt through PR campaigns, ads, slogans, hiring scientists & phony grass roots groups….all extensively used by tobacco, coal, chemical, fossil fuel industries.

What will the city of the future look like? Here’s a gallery of past notions with many failed hopes and dreams: Glass-domed cities, plastic pod-houses, an underground metropolis, orbiting space structures, multi-level streets & swooping walkways, rooftop landings for dirigibles, robot-controlled farms.

Ruminations on LOST (before the finale)

OK I’m hooked on LOST too. Each episode was well-directed/acted/written, intensely mixing drama, pathos & hungry curiosity. As a writer I don’t believe all questions must be answered! (See my earlier posting: Land of the LOST!)

No, what bugs me is the “Yoda Effect.” Persuading millions that a “good wizard” (Yoda/Jacob) is good, just because he says so, when his every action and effect is near-pure evil.

But let's hold that thought and start with the issue of LOST leaving a million questions unanswered. Sometimes it is good to answer everything at the end of a story cycle. For example, I tied up ALL of Isaac Asimov’s loose ends in Foundations' Triumph! And the Asimov fans were very happy. But I don’t expect that from a saga like LOST, where the writers, though brilliant, were also clearly passing around a bong at every story session, shouting at each other “Hey, wait! What if they then turn around and see THIS!!!”

I was frustrated, of course, by unanswered questions. Some were small, but grated endlessly, like the AIR DROP OF SUPPLIES that landed near the hatch, allowing the castaways to eat a while… supplies from a Dharma Initiative that did NOT seem to be defunct and that indeed could find the island by air! I kept waiting for their counter-attack! Okay, it’s a small thing that rubbed like a blister in my boot. Far worse, from a storytelling point of view, was the utter absence of a persuasive voice speaking up FOR the Dharma Initiative, and its very human ambition to satisfy human curiosity about the island and its powers. Hey, at least let’s hear their side once?

Ah, but even the Dharma Initiative was stupidly secretive. Oh, sure secrecy can help propel a plot (ALL Michael Crichton “science is foolhardy” novels depended on dumbass-secrecy to propel their Big Mistake scenarios and to prevent science from simply correcting the problem.) Still, shouldn’t somebody, some time, speak up for just telling the world about the island? Telling people, all the people (like those millions watching the show), about something wonderful, that might elevate us all and be better handled by open institutions than a few, self-selected, pompous “island protectors” who always act viciously, leaving corpses and mountains of regret in their wake?

As it turns out, there is one character who did that – speaking up for openness and trusting people, a world, humanity, civilization. The only character with a scintilla of actual wisdom in the whole show. The fellow who always turned out to be right, even though nobody would listen to him.

Hurley. Hugo Reyes, who kept saying “Hey, dudes, why don’t we just tell everybody the truth?” Heck. Just as you cannot name a time when a policy of Jacob or his followers did not lead to evil, you cannot name a time when Hurley actually proved to be wrong.

In contrast, poor likable but unwise Jack is nearly always wrong, nearly all of the time, but we trust him. Why? Because he’s handsome and sincere? Tellingly, he is at his best when performing his mission in life. Not as island messiah, but as a doctor.

Which brings us to this parallel world riff… which BTW is charming and enjoyable! But can you name a character who is not better off in the world where the H-Bomb sank the %%$$#! Island? There is one, poor Rose, who now will die of cancer. And Kate is not in great shape in the normal world. Still, everyone else is happier and better off in the reality where the island’s dumb old “light” got extinguished.

Oh, there will be illogical tidbits that rankle. Didn’t Miles’s Dad stay on the island after sending his wife and baby Miles away, just before the H Bomb went off, so wasn’t he doomed in BOTH universes? And what about the KIDS on Oceanic 815? They were “pure” and taken to the Others. What’s with that purity, eh? Who were the murderous Others to judge it? And the fatal-pregnancy effect and the “disease” and…

Okay, let it go. (Anyway, I am writing this before watching the Sunday 2 hour finale.)

But really, I can dig it. The writers are pot-heads, but not coke heads. They routinely lose memory and focus, but no actual brain cells. They are creative wizzes and they do characters very well and they gave us all a great time.

No, what bugs me is the same stuff that finally turned me against Star Wars. A matter of very very very basic morality. I will not follow the allure of the Yoda Effect. Just because a wizard is pretty and claims to be a “good” protector of light, that does not free him from responsibility for the evil that he spreads, and that is done in his name.

Moreover, as in Dune and Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, having a terribly evil enemy does NOT automatically get you off the moral hook, just because your brand of oppressive nastiness is a little less openly murderous than the version practiced by Darth or Palpatine, or the Harkonnens, or Sauron, or Voldemort. Or a smoke-monster brother

Setting up a sneering/awful, mass-murdering (and ugly-looking) villain is NOT enough to make your “good wizard” truly worth rooting for! It is lazy, romantic trickery. And while Yoda and Jacob may fool millions that way, they do not fool me.

A plague on both their houses. And I am with Hugo. Here’s to civilization! An open civilization. The one that invented democracy and science and television and TV shows and an Internet to discuss them on! The civilization that gave the writers of LOST absolutely everything they ever valued or loved and the opportunity to dazzle us with their wit. A civilization that will someday actually be shown some gratitude and love, by screenwriters and directors in Hollywood. (Yeah, right. As if. Ever.)

But then… maybe the finale will make me happy! Yep. Hope springs, eternal….

[See my earlier posting: Land of the Lost]

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

Twitter                Facebook

Many Cultural & Scientific Wonders

Lots to cover... science, culture, problem solving, energy crises, more science...

But first... A BRIEF MOVIE PRE-REVIEW...

No, I haven't had time yet to write my long, thoughtful essay on "Avatar and the Well-Meant Wrong Message from Hollywood."  That will just have to wait.  But, as a popular culture stopgap…

...has anyone seen the new Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie? I admit I haven't yet. But I did see one one of the trailers and found It filled with clues to the basic plot of the film.  And in ninety seconds we can see that it will not go back to the standard, clichéd Robin Hood plot, nearly all of which revolve around "good King Richard" being held for ransom in Austria, after getting captured on his way home from the Crusades. In that cliche, bad Prince John plots to steal the ransom for himself. Robin foils the plot. Richard returns to banish John and re-enoble Robin. Yawn.

Here are  hints I noticed in the new film's trailer:
- he is the SON of the Robin who (in all other RH movies) helped Richard return -
- it's not Prince John, but King John -
- Crowe rants about "we want our rights IN LAW!"

At home I went online and offered a wager. What important historical event must this film be all about?  Why, the Magna Carta, of course. And why does it make me happy… in a world where most films swwon toward the notion of kings, solipsistic wizards and vampires? Clearly, Tom Charity of CNN and Kenneth Turan of the LA Times are not getting smarter with age.  Both, nonsensically and weirdly called the new movie a "prequel."

When I learned that the script was by Brian Helgeland, I perked up even more.  While I have mixed feelings about the Postman movie that Helgeland scripted for Kevin Costner (Costner never even bought me a beer), Helgeland tried hard, under difficult conditions.  He definitely caught the heart message from my novel, with its pro-civilization theme. He remains one of the bright lights in Hwood-writing, these days.

I'll go see Robin Hood with high hopes.

(See more musings about Popular Culture...from Star Wars to Star Trek and Lord of the Rings.)

== A New Facebook Page for the Uplift Universe ==

It will offer updates, links & background on Uplift books. The go-to source for everything about Uplift! with updates on books...and the science behind them.

Plus a new web page dedicated to Uplift.

 == GET 'YER POSDCASTS HERE ==

Amateurs have always played a significant role in scientific discovery, particularly in astronomy, biology and other natural sciences. This tradition has been masked, somewhat, by the prodigious growth of Big Science. In the last century, we've seen an increasing trend toward professionalization of all aspects of society; however, back in the 1980s I started forecasting a counter-trend, toward a rising Age of Amateurs.  Indeed, the sheer number and complexity of our challenges will demand a wider proliferation of skills than just one-per-person. may soon witness a return to greater emphasis on citizen-contributors, in areas like national defense and self-reliance at networked information gathering.

The scope of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, will be enhanced by thousands of amateur dishes scanning the skies, sharing their results through the internet.  Now I talk about this in a newly posted video: The Age of Amateurs that may open your eyes to a fascinating trend.

Every year I help run a special "Architechs" creativity workshop at the Future in Review Conference, challenging some of the world's top Chief Technology Officers, from corporations like Cisco, Intuit   Deloitte and Microsoft, to solve a major problem in 48 hours. Here’s a clip of FIRE’s 2008 CTO Challenge: 'Using Technology to fight Wildfires.”  Part1:   Part2:

At this year's FiRe Conference, (just finished), I  challenged the CTOs to come up with great new ideas for spurring the development of "Scalable Alternative Energy." The result was clear thinking from bright fellow at Intuit, Deloitte, Microsoft, Cisco, CalIT2 and other visionary companies. With wisdom provided by my old Caltech classmate Professor Nate Lewis. I hope to be able to link you to the video soon.  (Tell your companies and groups that I do these events as "creativity stimulating exercises" for hire! Customers are always happy!)

Check this out: An Interactive Scale of Universe: You can zoom in and out by sliding the bar along bottom to see changes of scale: from Quantum foam, the fabric in Einstein's space-time theory (10 to the -35 meter) to the observable universe (10 to the 27 meters).


==  OUR COUSINS ==

The near complete Neanderthal genome sequence (first cut) has been released! What about the differences? "When it comes to protein coding genes, they're pretty minor. Only 78 differences in the sequences that encode proteins are uniformly present in humans but absent in Neanderthals. Only five of those would change the primary structure of the protein. ... Much of the action instead seems to be happening in areas that may regulate the expression of genes. There were over 230 changes apparent in the parts of genes that flank the protein-coding section (the 5' and 3' UTRs). In the areas that have been identified as Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) based on the large differences between humans and chimps, the Neanderthals had the human form 90 percent of the time, but that still left 45 HARs in which humans have picked up significant differences since they diverged from Neanderthals."

The authors also went looking for cases where there was evidence of what's termed a , where a useful mutation occurs and spreads through the population, dragging its area of the chromosome along with it. We can detect these by looking for large chunks of the chromosome that are essentially identical in modern humans, but differ from the Neanderthal versions.  Researchers found over 200 of these. Many of them appear to contain genes involved with neural development, including DVRK1A (implicated in Down Syndrome), Neuregulin-3 (schizophrenia), and CADPS2 and AUTS2 (autism). The authors also point out RUNX2 is part of a selective sweep; mutations in this gene lead to skeletal deformities in the face and shoulders, areas which differ significantly between humans and Neanderthals.
  
Gosh I want to know more about the autism and down syndrome links!

The data implicates gene regulation - rather than the protein-making genes themselves - as a significant driver of the evolutionary adaptation in humans. That's the next frontier.

At the same time, the genome sequence does provide evidence that humans and Neanderthals have interbred. This became apparent when the Neanderthal genome was paired against human genomes from different parts of the globe. The Neanderthal DNA consistently matched European and Asian samples better than it did African; the difference was small, but consistent. It suggested that the Neanderthals, which were restricted to Europe and Asia at the time modern humans originated in Africa, had interbred with humans once they began migrating out of Africa.

=== Attempted Transparency ===

I like this effort to create a cloud-movable utility for group judging the credibility of journalist-reporting.  It could, in theory, lead to what I portrayed in my 1989 novel EARTH -- and in my next novel EXISTENCE -- as "credibility ratings."

Alas though, I cannot see how this fine idea would gain enough traction -- in today's fractured net-world -- to reach the critical mass of users that would make it truly effective.  This is one of a hundred places where a little seeding by a billionaire visionary could make a huge difference... or else if the company and method got incorporated INTO Google.

 === Misc science ===

See a famous math wizard/billionaire's new endeavor that's making the future you will live in.  Seriously.

Problem Detected with Voyager 2 Spacecraft at edge of solar system. Mission managers can no longer decode the science data beamed to Earth from Voyager 2. The space probe and its twin Voyager 1 are flying through the bubble-like heliosphere, created by the sun, which surrounds our solar system.

Explanation?  Duh?  Passed through our “Crystal Sphere.”

The sum of human knowledge just took an order of magnitude leap: Zettabytes overtake petabytes as largest unit of digital measurement! The size of the digital universe will swell so rapidly this year that a new unit -- the zettabyte has been invented to measure it. Humanity's total digital output is expected to pass 1.2 zettabytes this year. One zettabyte is equal to one million petabytes.

Stan Seibert writes in to recommend another 3-D “object printer.”  The Makerbot http://makerbot.com/ It is a 3D printer kit for $750 that is assembled by the end user.  “It can produce objects on the 10x10x10 cm scale with a few different kinds of thermoplastics, though ABS is the most common.  Although too young to have experienced this, I'm told the MakerBot is the 3D printing equivalent of the Altair 8800 or the Apple I.”

A team of international researchers has brought the primary component of mammoth blood back to life using ancient DNA preserved in bones from Siberian specimens 25,000 to 43,000 years old. Studiesreveal special evolutionary adaptations that allowed the mammoth to cool its extremities down in harsh Arctic conditions to minimize heat loss.

"A 1-millisecond advantage in trading applications can be worth $100 million a year to a major brokerage firm, by one estimate. The fastest systems, running from traders' desks to exchange data centers, can execute transactions in a few milliseconds--so fast, in fact, that the physical distance between two computers processing a transaction can slow down how fast it happens. This problem is called data latency--delays measured in split seconds. To overcome it, many high-frequency algorithmic traders are moving their systems as close to the Wall Street exchanges as possible.

At its most abstract level, the data-latency race represents the spear point of the global movement to eradicate barriers--geographic, technical, psychological--to fair and transparent markets. "Any fair market is going to select the best price from the buyer or seller who gets their order in there first," says Alistair Brown, founder of Lime Brokerage, one of the new-school broker-dealers, which uses customized Linux servers to trade some 200 million shares a day. "At that point, speed definitely becomes an issue. If everyone has access to the same information, when the market moves, you want to be first. The people who are too slow are going to get left behind."

Tech Briefs Design Contest: Create the Future. The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 7,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide. Entry  categories include: Machinery & Equipment, Consumer Products, Medical, Safety & Security, Transportation, and Sustainable Technologies.

Astronomers find Recoiling Supermassive Black Hole: "Astronomers have found a possible supermassive black hole that is recoiling out of a distant galaxy at high speed. The black hole, visible with X-rays as a clear star, is not located in the center of the galaxy, as would normally be the case. Recoiling black holes are interesting because they provide insights into how supermassive black holes develop in the center of galaxies."

About Space elevators: A Hoist to the Heavens: .
and The "Space Elevator: Physical Principles"

Hydrogen from Seawater Using Molybdenum Oxo Catalyst
World Futurist Society's 20 predictions circa 2025.
10 hot energy projects that could electrify the world
  
Lessons from history for technology designers.    

Emory University scientists have dscovered that simple peptides can oganize into bi-layer membranes.
The finding suggests a "missing link" between the pre-biotic Earth's chemical inventory and the organizational scaffolding essential to life.

Cell phones could double as night vision devices. 
Google Invests in Firm That Tries to Predict the Future. 

Social media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the web. TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. Facebook has topped 200 million. If Facebook were a country, it would be the world's third largest country. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. 

Excellent collection of material on space-based solar power.

==== SETI and more silly shouting ====

To mark the 50th anniversary of SETI, as well as the publication of Paul Davies's The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence, (a new book about our search for extraterrestrial life), Penguin UK and National Science and Engineering Week will be firing off up to 5,000 messages into space via a radio telescope. The messages can be up to 40 words, and can say anything you like – greetings, warnings, confessions, jokes. The 50 best will be revealed in The Daily Telegraph in March, with each of the winners receiving a copy of Davies's book. To enter the competition, submit your message of no more than 40 words at www.penguin.co.uk/eeriesilence Entries will be accepted until February 28.

 Personally, I think a message should be: "Know that humans are exuberant and impatient.  No international consultations have discussed how best to make wise contact.  Until our most-sage human thinkers have pondered and discussed this with the Earth's citizens, rash "messages" like this one should be taken as informal bursts, from individuals, that don't speak for humanity."

I have seen THE EERIE SILENCE... Paul kindly sent me a copy since he cites my recent positions on the METI Controversy (whether to shout into the cosmos).  Alas, he failed to cite my far more important "Great Silence" paper from the 1980s, which is still the only review article and overview the field  ever had.  Paul is one of the fine and original minds of our age.  I hope now that he is Chair of the Post-Detection Committee (from which I resigned in disgust, a few years ago), that he will change and broaden his view of the range of thought experiments we need to ponder, in this "topic that (so far) lacks any subject matter."

===  AND A QUICK POLITICAL NOTE ===

Jim C wrires: "From NYT via Firedoglake, how the risks of a spill were increased through the same destruction of the civil service that you've been discussing for some time now.  It would be nice to see the oil-spill / civil service relationship explored more in the popular media."  Yes it would, Jim.
All right, the decks are now mostly clear.  Hoping to get back to work now.