Bolo's blog

More detail on the HR3962

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:24:30 -0800

I've written this in reference to Michael Collins's diary post One More Reason to Kill this Bill and some of the confusion over sections and what is in the bill as far as coverage requirements and penalties.

I'm looking here (.pdf file) for the new Health bill and somewhere around here for the IRS Tax Code. Will post more precise links (possibly to other sources) as needed.

1) HR3962 Sec. 501 (p. 297) If you fail to purchase insurance you will pay 2.5% of (modified adjusted gross income - gross income) but, if that value is higher than the “average premium for self-only coverage under a basic plan which is offered in a Health Insurance Exchange…” you will pay that average premium instead. So, there is a cap on the 2.5%, set at the average premium of a plan on the exchange. Not sure how high that average will be. HR3962 Sec. 501 (p.298) This amount is pro-rated based upon the fraction of the year that you go without coverage.

Note that a “basic plan” is outlined in HR3962 Section 303(c) on page 168.

Modified Adjusted Gross Income is defined as adjusted gross income increased by (A) any amount excluded from gross income under section 911 of IRS Code (see the link below) and (B) any amount of interest received or accrued by the taxpayer during the taxable year which is exempt from tax.

2) HR3962 Sec 501 (p.299). For Americans living overseas, you are exempt from paying this tax if you have been living abroad and are a resident of a foreign country for at least one taxable year. Relevant IRS code is here (scroll down a bit to sec. 911(d)(1)). I assume the prorating would apply if you’ve only been living overseas for less than a year.

3) You can apparently file an exemption from the requirement to purchase insurance based upon religious beliefs, though you must document your adherence to a faith that would want this. There’s a bit more in there, starting on HR3962 Sec. 501, pages 299-300.

4) HR3962 Sec 501, p. 304. Seems to state that small lapses in coverage are not going to result in taxes. I would assume this means a few days, but I don’t see any specific numbers. The bill just calls them “de minimis lapses of acceptable coverage.”

Now, if you don’t pay the tax in point (1) above then you will be subject to normal IRS rules and regulations. I would assume this is where IRS Code sections 7201 and 7203(see links below) come in. They feature up to $25,000 in fines and no more than 1 or 5 years in jail (depending on which is applicable). I’m not sure how these are applied in practice.

So, it looks like no specific penalties are outlined in the bill, but the 2.5% is designed as a tax and so would fall under IRS rules for non-compliance.

IRS Code Section 7201
IRS Code Section 7203

A Better Perspective on the Tea Party Rally

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:25:21 -0700

The newest and increasingly favored blogger on my RSS Feed is J.R. Boyd, posting at Lady Poverty. His take on the Tea Party rallies is refreshing:

...By and large, these are working people with grievances stemming from economic hardship, who feel that government is too large and unresponsive, and otherwise fails to represent them. They have been organized to confront Obama on behalf of the same corporate concerns that pay Glenn Beck's salary and own his network. They articulate a general dissatisfaction with government in addressing their needs, then carp about "socialism" -- perhaps the natural enemy of the pro-business entertainer; not so much the average American trying to find a job.

From a class perspective, the interests of working people deserve to be consolidated and advanced by working people as a class. This means that people without work or without health care, or anyone vulnerable in this regard, have more important things in common than who they vote for, what God they worship, or whether or not they would have an abortion. After all, one does not go bankrupt and lose their home owing to their party affiliation, but thanks to a different set of relations entirely...

Click here to read the rest. I'd also recommend scrolling through some of his older posts--they tend to be short and to the point, with longer entries only appearing in the last couple weeks.

A capella Metal

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:12:04 -0700

I recall, sometime in the last year or two, that someone in the comments here at the Agonist stated their belief that the guitar is so popular because it sounds so much like the male voice. I'm probably misremembering the statement, but I think that's close to what was written.

Well, I've recently come across what you might call living proof of that assertion: Van Canto, an a capella metal group composed of 5 singers and 1 drummer. It's music that I simultaneously feel embarrassed and immensely happy listening to. I can't see myself listening to it in the presence of friends, but I also can't wipe a big smile off my face while listening to it alone. I have to marvel at the guts it takes to do what they do--and the skill with which they pull it off too!

Here is "Pathfinder," which starts right off with the vocal guitar:

Two more songs below the fold

Next, a cover of Iron Maiden's "Fear of the Dark":

And finally, a cover of Nightwish's "Wishmaster":

A Spontaneous Post about Rick Sanchez

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:09:32 -0700

Holy hell. I know news programs are pretty bad and tend to cover inane subjects--or, if covering something important, descend into inanity pretty quickly. That being said, I was just watching Rick Sanchez on CNN Newsroom while eating lunch when I saw the following.

Sanchez wrapped up a news segment on a teenage fight club somewhere in the state of TN, then some images of a flood-devastated area in Istanbul, Turkey appeared on screen. He mentions that dozens have died and many more have lost everything, while pictures of survivors picking through mud-caked ruins are played on the screen. He then says that watching flood waters come on so suddenly and strongly is amazing, like nothing you'd expect, etc. Sanchez must have then looked up at the screen for the first time since starting the flood story and said (paraphrased) "sorry folks, I thought we had better footage... this isn't that interesting."

He made one more trite, half-hearted statement and then asked his producers to cut back to him (before the segment was supposed to end), whereupon he stated that they'd be going to commercials and, after the break, be discussing what some person or another said about President Obama. Stay tuned!

Well, let's see here--what's the bigger story? Dozens die in floods deemed "disaster of the century" by the Turkish prime minister? Or discuss the latest gossip about something someone said about President Obama? Well, clearly the first one is just boring, so Sanchez decided that gossip was better. Actually, I bet he has a better feel for his audience than I do. Covering foreign disasters without spectacular footage of explosions or destruction probably loses viewers.

The Discourse in America

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:17:19 -0700

I can't help thinking that much of the current debate in the US over health care, foreign wars, other domestic policies, climate change, etc. is not unlike a debate over the color of unicorns. That guy over there says they're yellow, that gal says they're green, and the talking head on TV says they're checkered pink and black. Almost no one takes a step back and asks why we're debating such a silly thing that is so disconnected from reality. Those who do step back to ponder are pretty well drowned out, their voices unheard. Meanwhile, our societal machine chugs onward, expending thousands of bullets and trillions of dollars on targets that don't deserve them.

My most recent favored quote to describe the situation in this country: This is what the ouroboros looks like when it's gotten all the way to the back of its own head. Yes, I had to look up just what an ouroborous was too.

Some other short, cutting observations on the situation:
Lady Poverty
Dennis Perrin

What is a Sustainable Society?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:41:56 -0700

No one really knows, even those who study such things. Everyone has a different definition of the term "sustainability," leading everyone to pick and choose different criteria that must be satisfied for a system to be sustainable. For those of an engineering bent (such as myself), definitions tend to focus around energy and material flows: Clean, abundant, reliable energy and control of the supply of material goods around the globe--and minimization or elimination of environmentally harmful by-products. Those from a social sciences background focus on the communal, human dimensions: Safety, basic needs are met, people are happy and lead generally pleasant lives, institutions are open and transparent, etc. The business community tends to define sustainability as incorporating environmental and social externalities into traditional models--in other words, a sustainable society is one in which the effects of toxic products and the social disruption from industry are accounted for in valuation. Ecologists and environmentalists, who in my experience are near the epicenter of the movement, define a sustainable system as one in which natural systems, biodiversity, etc. are preserved and the irreplaceable functions of the biosphere are maintained. An individual's background very heavily weights his or her perception of what sustainability means and what a sustainable society will look like.

Sustainability is frequently associated with ideas such as organic farming, local production of goods, energy and material efficiency, waste reduction, clean technology, transparent government, growth of social capital, equality, and so on. All of these ideas sound great. Some of them actually are. Some may be disastrous in execution. They are part of an ideology that attempts to be all-inclusive and concerned with all dimensions of continued life on Earth. This makes them dangerous, as they are taken as inherently good ideas by many of the people in the movement and, because of its global scope, these same people may fall prey to thinking this is the only way to do things. Taking on faith that such ideas are good drastically narrows the scope of thought that we can bring to solving our problems, both now and in the future.

Organic farming and the "eat local" movement is one such example (read the link for a pretty good discussion). What happens if we can get vat-grown protein (meat) factories up and running and they can produce vast quantities of beef-equivalent for a sliver of the energy/material now required? What does that do to the vegetarian and vegan movements, so deeply intertwined with environmentalism and sustainability? Does an overemphasis on "natural," "organic" food and farming methods mean that this option will blindside the mainstream sustainability discourse? Or that the discourse will fight it or in some way reduce the likelihood of it coming about, even if it may be more beneficial in the long run? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. When I feel cynical (which is most of the time), I think that sustainability may inadvertently do great harm to society by pretending to be all-encompassing and open to dialogue but in actuality eliminating some rather positive options. For example, the discourse as it stands now is not too keen on technology, other than stating that it is part of the reason we're in this mess and that its undesirable impacts must be reduced. This isn't stifling innovation, but it is very subtly directing it into more limited channels. I contend that the thinking that leads to a focus on certain very particular solutions must be done away with and largely stems from a lack of a neutral definition of sustainability.

Back to the original question then: What is a sustainable society? Most of the answers to this question are laden with value judgments, wishful thinking, and ideological stances that can be far too inflexible. My answer, and I'm sure it's not original, is thus: A sustainable society/system is one that learns and acts at a rate that is faster than the pace of the problems that would destroy it. These problems could range from a clash with a rival civilization to a failing ecosystem to a rogue asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Yes, its still a pretty vague definition of sustainability, but it defines the term in such a way that the ideological baggage is largely removed. I'll answer a few other questions that will provide more context for this definition:

What are we sustaining?

Whatever we wish to sustain, beyond the continued existence of humanity. If we wish only to ensure that some number of humans are alive into the indefinite future, then so be it. If we want to create Eden on Earth, fine. If we want a techno-utopia of computers, internet, and cybernetics, good. What matters is that we are able to create these things and allow them to further evolve on their own. The three scenarios just mentioned are not end-states by any means, since there is always change in large, complex systems. The direction that we take will be dictated by politics and the usual social bargaining. The role of sustainability, in the large sense, should be to sound out how possible these scenarios are and what would be required to reach them and allow us to move on from them without wiping ourselves out.

Should humans be the focus (anthropocentric), or ecosystems (ecocentric)?

I implicitly answered this in the previous question, but... humans should be the focus for now. Why? Because we already run the planet, even if we don't understand how we're affecting it. We've been changing atmospheric and oceanic chemistry for quite a while now, predating even the Industrial Revolution. We've altered ecosystems across the globe by introducing new species and hunting others to extinction, and this is true even before European colonialism. We have tinkered with the genetics of our crops and animals for thousands of years, well before genetic engineering was even conceived of. In short, humanity is a race of tinkerers that, thanks to our numbers and our technologies, now plays as great a role in the evolution of the Earth's systems as that of "nature." (Personally, I don't think that nature is separate from humans at all but is instead a social construct... but that's for another post).

Given this, the only ethical option we have is to manage our systems so that they don't cause catastrophic, global failures--i.e. death and loss of life on a massive scale. Although we do have two other options, which are to (1) not even try to manage the Earth and instead let our system run amok, likely leading to disaster, and (2) dismantle our systems before they can do much more harm, thus eliminating the need for management. That second scenario sounds like it might be easier, but I'd hate to be the person who has to inform 5 billion people that they have to lay down and die.

So, humans must be the focus of sustainability because their ideas and actions determine how the rest of the planet evolves. And, if you'll indulge a little species-exceptionalism, we are the absolute best at bringing about new systems. Before human brains and thumbs, an ecosystem had to evolve the slow way. Now, we are capable of designing life. What right do pre-existing ecosystems have that would let them monopolize existence over designed, alternative ecosystems created by humans? The design space for life is much bigger than that which currently exists and we appear poised to explore it much more rapidly than traditional evolution.

But then, if pre-existing ecosystems should not be privileged over potential ones, why do I state that humans should be the focus of sustainability? Surely we are not privileged either? True. Note above that I state that humans should be the focus for now. Humanity is not the end-point of evolution, and that's a cold, hard fact. Future changes in the Earth and in ourselves will be driven by the ideas and designs in our heads, and that is a form of evolution--just cognitive and "memetic" rather than "natural" and biological. Something will take our place, whether it be supreme machine intelligences, a new type of primate, or something in between.

But we are the smartest. We are the most adaptable and the best at learning and acting. Therefore, despite all the violence we have done to the world and each other, we are the best thing going right now and the natural defenders and sustainers of life. Sustainability should be about keeping us alive, so that we may create more life and provide something for our successors to build upon.

Technology, Culture, and the Human Environment

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:14:48 -0700

(The following is a short, informal, speculative essay that I've written for a class I'm currently taking)

Technology is often poorly understood and narrowly defined as the artifacts built by humans and used to serve their needs. But this definition does not address the widespread adoption of technology among non-human organisms, the subjectivity inherent in any such artifacts or systems, and the unique characteristics of human technology that appear to differentiate us from the Earth’s other inhabitants.

Technology is the means by which an organism or group of organisms enhance their control over the external environment and improve their perceived chance of survival. Some aspects of this broad and preliminary definition require further explanation. Improved control tends to happen by either internalizing what was once external or crafting tools to interface with external environments. More advanced tool users—such as humans—often do the former, while less advanced species tend toward the latter. The word “perceived” is used because the actual effects of any technology are not necessarily to prolong life or aid in survival. All that matters is that the adopting organism, culture, or species believe this to be true. An excellent example would be lead-lined cups adopted as part of a religious ritual and drunk from daily with the expectation that a god or gods would be pleased.

As indicated above, technology is not solely a human endeavor. Certain birds will find sticks and bend them to use as hooks to acquire out-of-reach food. Various monkeys and apes use relatively sophisticated technologies to assist their everyday living, such as beds, digging tools, and so on. Termites create enormous mounds, ants create anthills, and bees build hives—all of which are examples of technology being employed by very low-level intelligences. Humans are simply the best at manipulating their environment—so much better that we have historically tended to define technology as only consisting of human artifacts.

Finally, all technology is subjective. It relies heavily on the physical, cognitive, social, and, for humans at least, cultural dimensions of those organisms that use it. What may be a technology to one organism (say, a bent stick used by a crow) is often meaningless or has vastly different significance as technology to another (that same bent stick as seen by a gnat). Humans have no use for abandoned termite mounds, other than possibly as inspiration for their own human-oriented building designs or conceivably as places of worship based on some hypothetical religious belief.

In summary, technology is the means by which organisms control or interface with their environment and is developed to aid their perceived chances of survival. It is used by many organisms, not just humans, and is a highly subjective phenomenon. What may be a useful technology to one animal is often useless to another.

What may set human technology apart from that of other organisms is that our technologies are not only the product of our physical, cognitive, social, and cultural background, but are also a major input to them as well. Historically, they have been significant drivers of cultural and social change. For example, the stirrup was one technology that enabled the Mongols to conquer and rule an empire that spanned most of Asia. The Mongol empire allowed relatively rapid dissemination of ideas between Europe and China but also facilitated the introduction of the Black Plague, which wiped out up to one-third of Europe’s population and set the continent on a drastically different course.

Another technological driver of social change more relevant to today would be the automobile and road system. Our cities are more expansive, individually we occupy more space, and we can casually drive several hundred miles in a single day in relative comfort and for little cost. In the US, the car is associated with cultural values of freedom and technological dominance and, through its very existence and widespread dissemination, has changed the way people think about time and space.

And this last observation brings up an important point: Human technology is now influencing not only culture but our cognitive abilities and genetic heritage to an unprecedented degree. Genetic engineering, used in farming in a slow, trial-and-error manner over the past thousands of years, is already being applied to simple organisms rapidly and with much more forethought. We are now poised to engineer our bodies and define for ourselves what it means to be physically human. Likewise, technological systems such as the internet are changing the way people interact with each other and process information, altering our cognitive landscapes and somewhat reshaping what it means to think like a human.

Human interaction with the physical environment has become interaction with technology. Our environment is our technology, either through incorporation of existing systems or fabrication of new ones. For example, this essay was outlined with pen and paper and typed on a computer that was illuminated by a light bulb in a built apartment. It, and its author, will spend the majority of their existences in such environments. So will most people, though to varying degrees based upon their wealth and status. In the few instances that people do interact with non-technological landscapes (or, at least, those that are designated as “natural” in popular thought), the interaction is heavily mediated by technology. Water bottles, hiking boots, clothing, tents, etc. are all brought along to recreate the human technological environment, while the “natural” location is often reached by car or airplane.

Humans are defined by not only their genotype and phenotype, but by their technological and cognitive systems as well. It can be argued that other species fit this description, but none as perfectly as humans. These systems define our physical environment and mediate any interactions with external natural systems. They both shape and are shaped by human culture, a dynamic that may be unique to our species. And as humans have come to dominate the planet, their technological systems have altered pre-existing natural environments and shaped them to suit human needs. The planet has become technology.

Previous essays in this series:
Transforming Climate Change into Carbon Management
Faith, Science, and Religion

Faith, Science, and Religion

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:01:40 -0700

(The following is a short, informal, speculative essay that I've written for a class I'm currently taking. Note: ESEM = Earth Systems Engineering and Management).

Science and faith are not opposed to each other and conducting an analysis to highlight their differences is fruitless. They are not on the same philosophical footing, for faith is a very broad concept that encompasses the whole of human thinking and activity while science is a very specific mode of testing one’s faith. It is between the concepts of science and religion that there are significant differences that ESEM must explore.

First, a definition is in order. Faith is best defined as an individual or group belief in something that cannot be proven to be true or can only be proven in limited circumstances and must be assumed to apply universally. Provided with this definition, it is not a stretch to say that the whole of human existence can be defined as an exercise in faith—including even the most reductionist of sciences, for science requires faith to function. The modern theory of science is best exemplified by Karl Popper’s falsifibility criterion. This criterion holds that you can never prove a theory to be absolutely true but must instead assume it to be true until it is proven false. You cannot prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, but past observations indicate that it very likely will. Gravity may affect falling objects in the same manner today, but there is no absolute proof that it will be the same tomorrow or that it will behave according to current theory several million light years away. All of science requires at least a small bit of faith to operate—faith that scientific theories are true. No matter how often the same experiment produces the same results and confirms the same theory, you cannot absolutely prove truth.

Science requires faith, yet it seems to be qualitatively different than religion and has produced a radically different society than those which were or are dominated by religious authorities and mythologies. This presents a bit of a conundrum unless one realizes that it is in their approach to faith that science and religion differ significantly. Religions are stability-seeking systems of belief. In the language of dynamical systems, they hover around stable equilibria within valleys and return to these equilibria after small perturbations. Their doctrines and systems seek to affirm and reinforce faith. Under normal circumstances, when an individual’s religious faith is tested, it is seen as a test of the strength of his or her convictions. It is an opportunity to become closer to God and to prove that you are a true believer. The biblical story of Job is perhaps the best exemplar of this dynamic, as Job is repeatedly stricken by terrible events designed to question his faith, yet does not give up his religious beliefs and is rewarded by God for his loyalty. In reality, circumstances that test religious faith don’t always reinforce belief and it is not uncommon for individuals to question their faith and change their views. But the average effect over an entire population is for self-reinforcement and re-affirmation.

By contrast, science is instability-seeking. It hovers around unstable equilibria on hilltops and only requires a small push or cessation of effort to begin moving elsewhere. Its doctrines and systems ideally seek to question and reject the currently accepted faith in search of a better one. Science actively pursues experiments and data that falsify its own theories and destroy previous beliefs, so that a test of one’s faith in a theory will determine whether that theory is true or false. Karl Popper’s falsifibility criterion and the philosophy of science surrounding it are an excellent example of this way of thinking, as it claims that all theories are contingent and never proven absolutely true. The objective of science is to repeatedly test these theories in an effort to decisively show them to be false and, if it cannot do so, science must believe that they are true until proven otherwise. As with religion, this dynamic is not universally true and many scientists will hold on to outdated and disproved theories. But the bias of science is toward questioning and, if necessary, removing the current system of faith.

The contrast between religion and science in their approach toward faith can be drawn more starkly and simply: Religion presupposes the cause of an event or trend and uses that event to reinforce faith. Science seeks to determine the cause of an event or trend and allows new data to dispel previous beliefs. As such, science is a much more dynamic and fruitful system of faith.

Environmental science is an example of a system that incorporates elements of both religion and science within its approach to faith and is constantly in danger of undermining the authority of its scientific dimensions. The reason that environmental science encounters this difficulty is that the systems it examines are often highly complex, making it difficult or sometimes impossible to determine causality. When causation is hard to discern, there is a good chance that individuals will fall back on their own beliefs and normative judgments for explanation. Rather than identify causality and then only embrace belief when it comes to the theory’s universal validity (as in most science), environmental science must embrace belief at the level of causality. The move toward explicit faith and belief occurs one step earlier than in most traditional science. This opens a dangerous path in that it is a dynamic not unlike that of religion—observations cannot truly answer the question “why?” and so are not used to confirm or deny the current faith but instead to reinforce it. Practitioners of environmental science are often involved in areas of heated political, economic, and cultural debate and feel an especially strong pull toward becoming activists and advocates for their beliefs. Over time, the character of the discipline and the loss of perspective that comes with heavy involvement in powerful political struggles have transformed environmental science into something closer to a religion in its approach to faith.

It is very important that ESEM understand the relationship between faith, religion, and science. Faith is a universal human constant and is required for any intelligence that is not omniscient. We do not know the future and cannot know that anything is absolutely true, so we must rely on some measure of faith in all circumstances. However, it is the dynamic of faith that is most important for ESEM. Religion seeks affirmation and reinforcement of beliefs, to incorporate new observations into the existing faith or to repudiate these observations entirely. Science seeks to dispel less useful and outdated beliefs and find a different faith that better explains observations. The critical distinction between the two appears to be the manner in which they approach causation. ESEM would do well to be aware of this distinction and to use it to differentiate religious statements from those that are scientific.

Previous essays in this series:
Transforming Climate Change into Carbon Management

Transforming Climate Change into Carbon Management

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:25:54 -0800

(The following is a short, informal, speculative essay that I've written for a class I'm currently taking. I may post more of these, as the course content is very interesting and there are several more such essays due during the semester.)

The current climate change dialogue is entirely rooted in the language of mitigation and avoidance of carbon emissions when it should be thinking in terms of managing both carbon emission and capture. This limitation in perspective does great harm to strategic thinking on how to best manage the planet’s future climate and must be overcome.

The question currently being asked by the climate change dialogue is simply “How can we stop emitting carbon to reduce climate change?” There is an implicit assumption in this question that the human race plays a passive role—it stops emitting and lets natural processes take care of the excess carbon in the atmosphere. Reframing climate change as a question of carbon management shifts the central question of the debate to “How much carbon should we allow into the atmosphere and what kind of global climate do we desire?” This reformulation highlights an active human role in the management of global systems and is a better way to think of the problem given the very long history of human intervention in environmental systems. We are not going to stop emitting and just wait for the climate to stabilize but will instead actively intervene to create our desired environment for various economic, political, and spiritual reasons.

To alter the climate change dialogue in this manner, we would need to focus on both emissions and captures of CO2 into and out of the atmosphere. The addition of the second half of the carbon cycle to our thinking transforms the internal combustion engine and large, fossil fuel power plants into carbon source points that push climate toward warmer temperatures via their output. Emission controls can be located at these points to provide the choice of capturing most of the CO2 emitted to deposit it underground or to let carbon out into the atmosphere. Organisms such as trees and algae can be crudely lumped together with emerging artificial means of pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and placed into the category of carbon sink points that push climate in the opposite direction of the source points. These sinks would ideally be located as close as possible to the highest concentrations of carbon emissions to allow for high efficiency of capture.

Another consequence of such a shift in thinking is that the absolute concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will no longer be the only number of significance. Flow rates for sinks and sources across large global regions—the northern and southern hemispheres being obvious and natural divisions—will be very important for management purposes. Our systemic thinking will move from monitoring a single variable to measuring rates and flows around the globe, in the oceans, and throughout the atmosphere. Questions naturally would arise as to which regions should be net emitters and which should be net sequesterers—or if each region would become responsible for its own net carbon quota. For example, the northern hemisphere has been the primary emitter of carbon over the last five hundred years. It has benefited economically from this fact yet is also the primary party responsible for the excessive carbon emissions that are currently warming the globe. Should the north (or portions of the north) be forced to sequester while the southern hemisphere emits and grows? And who gets to decide this?

That last question raises an entire constellation of other issues. If the system is to be managed, some coalition of interests will be managing it. There will be competition and cooperation between these interests and it will take shape along certain lines. First, there is the possibility of strategic reserves of carbon being maintained by nations or other powerful groups such as large corporations, tribes, and so on. These reserves would have at least two roles. On the financial front, bricks of carbon or tankers full of CO2 will be worth significant amounts of money to either hold in the ground or emit into the atmosphere. Perhaps gold and silver will be superseded by carbon as the global reserve of choice. Powerful interests that control large amounts of carbon or have significant capacities to emit or capture carbon will also have the opportunity to blackmail their opponents. How much is it worth for Canada to not emit carbon and thereby deny itself access to abundant strategic resources currently inaccessible due to climate? How much will other countries pay?

Carbon reserves could also function as long-term weapons. Emissions of CO2 could be used to alter the climate to your advantage and hurt your enemies who live in more tropical or arid regions. The same dynamic, simply reversed, holds true for CO2 capture. One can very easily envision future leaders speaking of a “carbon gap” between their nations, as a country with superior management technology will have more power over the fate of other nations. There will be a need for a global regulatory body and global market to monitor carbon emissions and captures around the world. Agreements analogous to nuclear non-proliferation treaties may be created, though they will be aimed toward carbon technologies and quotas for carbon reserves. Payoffs to third parties to emit or capture in the interests of large powers may become common as well. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, carbon management of the globe implies significant political concern with the carbon cycle and the possibility of climate wars.

The reformulation of climate change as carbon management appears to open a Pandora’s Box of problems. Lifecycle management necessarily raises thorny issues in the political, economic, and military realms and also begins a larger debate about what kind of climate we wish the planet to have. Yet the history of the human race indicates that such a debate is inevitable. Humans have never been content to let the environment evolve without their active intervention and tinkering—and even if some groups have, others have always pushed forward on their own and brought the rest of the globe with them. It is better to ask these questions now than to let them rest until we’ve already created an irreversible global carbon management infrastructure.

More Budget Cuts Aimed at Arizona State University

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:08:04 -0800

A bit of local news for me: The Arizona State Legislature is looking to cut ASU's budget by $243 million for the remainder of this fiscal year and by $388 million for 2010. I don't know the university's actual operating budget and it is a very large state school, but this seems like an awful lot of funding to have just pulled out beneath your feet. The university has already been scrambling to make cuts and merge departments where possible, but it looks like the pain is about to get worse.

This is one of the dumber things I can think of doing during a recession--the university is a major source of jobs and research for the state and making drastic cuts is going to really hurt the economy in the long term.

America

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:45:36 -0700

I've been popping in here and there with comments but haven't really posted a diary in many months. I don't really have a good reason--just entered a non-posting phase where I don't feel that I have much to contribute. I'm sure it'll pass eventually.

But I am going to contribute something small right now, spurred on by an email my grandfather just sent me. My grandfather is a very nice man who rarely if ever has raised his voice in my presence. He gets along quite well with everyone, his face always having a smile or amiable look about it. He particularly likes bad jokes, both the real bad groaners and the cute little puns that you can't help but laugh at. Not the belly jokes or the ones that leave you laughing so hard you're in tears. And not racist or hateful jokes either. Just the nice, safe, family-friendly plays on words.

The last time I was around him (we meet infrequently because he lives far away), he had printed out a single-panel cartoon showing a fat giraffe that he found online and told me a funny joke that he had made up about it. He kept the piece of paper folded up in his pocket and, during the course of the day, would take it out and tell it to kids, adults, and other seniors. Everyone laughed and liked it--there weren't any "haha... get away from me" reactions. As I said, he's a genuinely kind and likable guy.

But when I'm back home, I get his emails. Forwarded messages, probably from some buddies of his that love to send chain letters. They're invariably political. And if you read what he sends, you'd come to discover that beneath the gentle exterior of this kind man who takes joy in making complete strangers laugh, there is a blood-thirsty reactionary who advocates the slaughter of millions and who subscribes to the most stereotypical, narrow view of politics in this country. We should close our borders and shoot anyone who tries to cross them. We should nuke the Middle East. You must either speak English or get out. The poor are lazy, drug using losers who should be left for dead. Eye for an eye should be our legal code. And why can't blacks just behave better and get jobs?

This is America.

Rather, this is how I have come to view America. There is a great capacity for good and kindness here, but there is also a deadly sickness that runs through the country. We tell harmless jokes, help our friends and families, and make strangers smile--then we collectively slaughter millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia (and soon more in Pakistan). We torture and deny the humanity of others. We preach to others about how they should behave and then we act against our very own words. This disease afflicts almost all of us, all of humanity. But it is doubly horrid when you see it in "the land of the free," the country that believes it is the best, last hope for the Earth. The country that pretends to lift up humanity and provide a beacon for liberation and good living. The country that views itself as exceptional, as above the rest and unique in history. The dissonance has become deafening.

So I'm not surprised by anything that our politics does anymore. I'm not surprised that Obama is tied with McCain in national polls right now. I'm not surprised that many liberals and Democrats have shown themselves to be just as mindlessly tribal as the Republicans they rail against. I'm not surprised by the bigotry and racism. I'm not surprised that the "good" candidate wants to expand the War on Terror. I'm just not surprised.

I guess I've lost my faith in humanity. Not in its continued existence, but in that tiny core of rationality that I believed existed within it. A very deep-set opinion of mine is shifting in an uncomfortable direction. So many people try to assure me that they are nice and well-intentioned--they tell me little jokes and smile afterward, hoping that I'll at least chuckle. They are on TV. They are on the internet. They are at school and among my friends and family. And many of them, deep down and in the most essential ways, are like my grandfather.

I no longer expect better from most people, especially on the societal level. I won't stop trying to do good in my life, but I also won't be surprised when others do harm--even when those others profess to be working for the greater good. Maybe I've just hit that wall called "realism."

Re-reading the last few paragraphs, I realize that I'm sounding pretty bleak. I'm fine and this whole situation doesn't make me depressed. It's just a big shift in perspective that I'm still absorbing.

Oil Experts: No Better than Chance

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:46:23 -0700

I just ran across this article about a survey of oil futures experts (via Bernard Chazelle at A Tiny Revolution). Chazelle points out something interesting that I'm going to reproduce here because... it's just too funny.

The linked article discusses the results of a Bloomberg News survey of 28 oil industry analysts who predict oil futures. The final sentence is the killer:

The oil survey has correctly predicted the direction of futures 49 percent of the time since its start in April 2004.

Since direction can only be up or down, this means that the survey is no better than chance. This survey of experts tells you just as much as flipping a coin would. How useful.

Multitude I: Social Production and Biopower

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:01:50 -0700

(An ongoing review of Multitude, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.)

In the contemporary period of transition, the global interregnum, we can see emerging a new topography of exploitation and economic hierarchies the lines of which run above and below national boundaries. We are living in a system of global apartheid. We should be clear, however, that apartheid is not simply a system of exclusion, as if subordinated populations were simply cut off, worthless, and disposable. In the global Empire today, as it was before in South Africa, apartheid is a productive system of hierarchical inclusion that perpetuates the wealth of the few through the labor and poverty of the many. The global political body is in this way also an economic body defined by the global divisions of labor and power.

pp. 166-67

Before I get started explaining anything else about this book, there are two concepts that are critical to understand: Biopower and biopolitics. Both terms were originally coined by Michel Focault, though Hardt and Negri have their own interpretations of them that appear to be slightly different and a little narrowed for their own purposes.

Actually, before giving definitions of these two terms something else must be explained: The nature of social life. Every day, every moment, in every action we take, we build our collective social structure. Systems of kinship, friendship, production, and so on are all recreated every single day by every single one of us. We all agree to wake up every morning and generally carry on the reality of yesterday.

We establish these systems, customs, modes of exchange, etc. in institutions, cultural symbols, physical monuments and organizations. They are the real embodiment of our ideas. They serve to reinforce and continue the general direction of the social systems we create. But they require upkeep—our constant acquiescence to their existence and our support in maintaining and improving them. We build new ones all the time, and they are often supreme efforts requiring millions of individuals working piecemeal over time. A good, recent example of such would be the blogosphere. It’s a huge social and political construct that evolved over time through the collective actions of millions of individuals. It has its own rules, codes, and mechanics that are generally agreed upon by most of its contributors. However, as with all such institutions, some of its structure and energy was and is created by the more powerful members of the community. Think of the rankings of the most influential blogs—how many hits they get, how rock-steady they’ve become, and how powerful they are relative to most other blogs. But the blogosphere is still the collective creation of countless bloggers and readers, who constantly add to it, shape its destiny, and are in turn shaped by it.

But lets not get sidetracked talking about blogs—enough navel gazing! In the previous two paragraphs, I used the verb “build” when referring to cultural and social systems. A better way of conceptualizing this process is to say that we “produce” society every day. We produce social life. And we reproduce it, all the time. That is perhaps the most basic of all human functions, outside of biological reproduction and digestion.

This is not to say that we, as individuals, can just decide to up and alter the culture, to change our social life. We are always bound by our institutions and their inertia. We are also bound by physical reality (both the rules of the universe and our past utilizations of them—technology and the built environment) and the fact that every person is an individual who has their own decision-making capabilities. Revolutions of the modern era attempted to get around these obstacles by destroying the institutions and killing or imprisoning those who would not adjust their social reality to the new one being created. Of course, most revolutions recreated much of what they set out to destroy in the first place… but that’s perhaps another topic for another day. So, please don’t think this is something along the lines of “If you just wish for it, it can happen” or “If we just get everyone to believe X, Y will happen.” That’s not how society works, and that’s not how we produce it. That’s magic, and there’s no room for that outside of entertainment and wishful thinking.

So: Each of us constantly produces society. Our labor in this respect is actually no different than our paid wages at our jobs. It is not usually recognized as valid for compensation and is not generally tabulated. This must be understood to properly grasp the mechanics of biopower and biopolitics.

Best to start with biopower. This is the top-down, imperial power that currently strives to dominate the globe. According to Hardt and Negri, it is still evolving and mutating as we speak during the current period of interregnum—we are in-between eras. Biopower is exercised in many ways, through many institutions, including states, corporations, international organizations, and so on. It is not synonymous with the US and its client states and allies. The US may be situated near the top of the empire and may be the most visible symbol of biopower today, but it is not the emperor (there is no emperor, but that discussion is for another day). It competes for dominance and influence in the imperial hierarchy along with other nations and organizations.

Hardt and Negri give a very straightforward definition of biopower (p. 334):

…biopower, that is, the tendency for sovereignty to become power over life itself.

They continue on the same page with a more thorough exploration. I will quote it at length:

On one hand, political power is no longer simply oriented toward legislating norms and preserving order in public affairs but must bring into play the production of social relationships in all aspects of life. We argued in part 1 that war has gone from an instrument of politics, used in the last resort, to the foundation of politics, the basis for discipline and control. This does not mean that all of politics has been reduced to a question of brute force, but rather that military power has to accommodate and address not only political questions but also the production of social life in its entirety. Sovereign power must not only rule over death but also produce social life.

The immediate objection to this would likely be: “But that’s always been true to an extent! Governments and militaries have always influenced social life and have almost always ruled over both life and death, from the most ancient civilizations to the modern day.” Very true, but that’s not quite what biopower means—it’s larger than that. Look at the above quote again, particularly this part: “…military power has to accommodate and address not only political questions but also the production of social life in its entirety” (emphasis mine).

This absolutism is the key difference. Hardt and Negri argue that biopower is different than previous incarnations of sovereignty in that it can and must become absolute. It seeks to control social production, to dictate the direction of the social and cultural labor of the global population. Many such examples are given, including patents on biological organisms and population controls (instigated via food and medicine aid or more directly through sterilization or fertility campaigns). But the most powerful is the shift from “defense” to “security.”

First, a short quote is needed to build up to the discussion:

Sovereign political power can never really arrive at the pure production of death because it cannot afford to eliminate the life of its subjects. Weapons of mass destruction must remain a threat or be used in very limited cases, and torture cannot be taken to the point of death, at least not in a generalized way. Sovereign power lives only by preserving the life of its subjects, at the very least their capacities of production and consumption. If any sovereign power were to destroy that, it would necessarily destroy itself. More important than the negative technologies of annihilation and torture, then, is the constructive character of biopower. Global war must not only bring death but also produce and regulate life.

So what happens when we start thinking in terms of security rather than national defense? We go from a conceptually reactive and conservative way of thinking to an active and constructive one, though I use the term “constructive” in a very negative way. Maintaining security requires intercepting and eliminating threats before they arise or before they can do harm. This, in turn, requires constant vigilance and pre-emption.

The modern conception of war, at least among the “democratic” nations, was idealized as purely defensive in nature. Parliaments and Congresses were given the power to declare wars with either explicit or implicit knowledge that such wars must be defensive. International agreements aimed to make offensive warfare illegal and restrict armed conflict to defense only. This was rarely observed in practice, but it was at least an ideal to strive for and served as a holy grail for geopolitical organization.

But today is different:

The contemporary justification of preemptive strikes and preventive wars in the name of security, however, explicitly undermines national sovereignty, making national boundaries increasingly irrelevant. Both within and outside the nation, then, the proponents of security require more than simply serving the present order—if we wait to react to threats, they claim, it will be too late. Security requires rather actively and constantly shaping the environment through military and/or police activity. Only an actively shaped world is a secure world. This notion of security is a form of biopower, then, in the sense that it is charged with the task of producing and transforming social life at its most general and global level.

A global power does not defend itself from the outside, for by definition it has no outside (barring invaders from Mars). It maintains its own security by regulating itself and shaping its environment. The global Empire, while certainly not monolithic and unified—in fact, its more of a network—must secure itself. In doing so, it undermines the old national sovereignties and boundaries, making them subservient but by no means irrelevant to the maintenance of global order.

Further understanding why biopower is compelled to control all of social life requires an understanding of biopolitics—the power of the Multitude. For biopower, despite its activity and constructive character, is still fundamentally reactionary in nature. It is the global hierarchy’s response to the emerging potential of biopolitics, commonality, and the Multitude.

It’s getting late and I’m getting tired, so I’ll continue the next installment with an exploration of biopolitics and its relation to biopower.

This is How It's Done

Fri, 30 May 2008 11:38:35 -0700

Via This Modern World:

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn’t go that far. I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president. I think, over time…

COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?

YELLIN: Not in that exact — they wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.

That's how its done. Some guidance from above. Gentle nudges over time, small edits here and there. And, popular opinion to the contrary, journalists aren't stupid. Or they're at least rational and aware enough to know that if the bosses are clearly tacking one way, they better get on board. Otherwise their access and privileges will slowly start getting cut off. Then their careers and livelihoods and social status will disappear.

While I do believe that there is some direct, purposeful guidance from the top, I also think that this is largely an emergent phenomenon. You have a rich, executive media class in which fewer individuals control more of the national share of the media. Their interests are going to get expressed more strongly over time. A little comment here, a little edit there, a few suggestions to an editor--do that every so often, especially on important stories, and it all adds up over the years to visibly change the direction of an institution.

Add to this that the most prominent, influential, and highly-paid pundits likely share and actively promote their bosses' socioeconomic values (Russert, Matthews, Dowd, etc.) and that up-and-comers need to play the game regardless of where they come from... and, well, you get today's press corp.

The Coal Conundrum

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:08:56 -0700

This is the first installment in a series of posts on future energy sources. I make no claims on being an expert or knowing all the relevant issues. I’m just trying to get some information out there—enough to get people thinking and to help them weigh the options with some degree of informed opinion. I don’t know when future posts in the series will be put up, but I will try to get them done gradually over the summer.

The “Coal Conundrum” arises from the intersection of three simple facts:

1) Coal releases large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere when burned
2) Climate change exists and is being accelerated by human-made CO2 emissions
3) There are still enormous reserves of coal in many parts of the world.

First, some quick information about coal and its usage:

Around 23% of our nation’s total energy consumption needs are met by coal. Most of it is used in power plants to generate electricity, supplying about 50% of our national grid’s power. Coal is not as easy to transport as oil and the lowest-grade coal (lignite) is almost not worth transporting.

There are, roughly, 4 main grades of coal:

Anthracite is the highest quality and releases the least carbon per unit mass burned. It’s Gross Heating Value (GHV, a measure of energy released per unit mass) is about 8.5 kcal/g.

Bituminous coal is next down on the list, with about 6.7 to 8.5 kcal/g burned. At best, it is pretty much equivalent to anthracite. At worst, you must burn 1.25 tons to equal the energy from 1 ton of anthracite.

Sub-bituminous coal’s GHV is about 5.5 kcal/g, so you must burn 1.5 tons for 1 ton of anthracite equivalent.

Lignite is the lowest quality coal, giving you about 3.9 to 5.4 kcal/g—or, between 1.5 and 2.1 tons of anthracite equivalent.

While the carbon emissions that result from burning 1 ton of each of the above types of coal are slightly different (due to different carbon concentrations within each), burning 2 tons of lignite will definitely give you more carbon than just 1 ton of anthracite. And the bad news here is that about half the proven coal reserves in the world are lignite.

For comparison, gasoline has a GHV of about 11 to 11.5 kcal/g and fuel oil is somewhere around 10 to 11 kcal/g. Another measure of the utility of an energy source is the ratio of input energy to output energy. Ratios for oil and coal vary greatly by source, but oil is generally at least 50% more efficient than coal.

Enough with the boring information! Let’s get to the meat of the problem:

Source: US EIA

Source: BP, 2006

Notice something interesting? The largest of the proven global coal reserves are in developed or developing nations. And global reserves are estimated to be enough to supply our coal needs for between 200 to 300 years, provided we keep our consumption constant and no new coal deposits are discovered. Both of those provisions will be broken, but it’s unclear exactly which direction they’ll go—new coal deposit discovery could, for a time, outpace consumption growth if enough money is put into the search.

But the point here is that this represents a huge temptation for the existing global energy order. It’s a step backwards, away from the higher-energy, oil-powered economies we currently have. But if oil gets too unstable and the tar sands of Alberta are to expensive, it might start looking good. After all, its an energy technology that we know and understand quite well. The only thing really stopping us from going full-steam ahead with it is our own willpower (ok, ok… and perhaps some economics too). Ramping up our coal usage will accelerate the pace of global climate change.

We see and hear coal’s newfound siren call on television, in the paper, and on the radio. It’s in ads for “clean coal,” “coal sequestration,” and various methods for extracting liquid fuels from coal. They put up pictures of children playing in green fields, of animals in the forest, of a clean, coal-powered future where carbon is sequestered under the ground.

Sequestration is not a well-proven technique. Given time, perhaps they’ll come up with some good solutions--though the best is to simply leave the carbon in the ground. I can’t speak with much authority on the subject, so I’ll give you two opposing views of sequestration:

Tree Hugger
Environmental Defense Fund

Coal is a great temptation for the developed and developing world. True, it represents a step backward in terms of energy concentration and utility. But it’s readily available right at home in large quantities, would last us more than a century, and uses known technology. More than that, when converted to liquid fuel, it could be used to maintain our current lifestyle at a reduced level.

I personally don’t think it’s sustainable in any form. It will be a transition technology, a step toward achieving a cleaner, better energy infrastructure. Coal would run out eventually, and its lower energy value and higher transportation costs make it much less appealing than oil. The real risk comes from short-sighted industry and government players who will see these massive reserves, sell their usefulness to the people using slick advertising that pretends to care about global warming, and then extort prodigious sums from us for the benefit of having “clean coal” (the death rent). They may try to drag out the transition as long as possible, exposing us to both financial hardship, delayed technological innovation, and increased risk of sequestered carbon escaping into the atmosphere. Plus, sequestration does not capture all the carbon, so the longer the transition the more we pump out.

We need a quick transition away from coal. The sooner the better. But given its huge reserves in accessible places, the enormous infrastructure built up around it, and its status as a known and proven energy source, I don’t know if that will happen.