Debris on the moon

Looks like the Russians put a probe on the moon. Actually, they put a probe on the moon at a high rate of speed creating a debris field. Russia has never successfully landed anything on the moon. The Soviet Union did, but Russia is not the USSR. Actually, the USSR did some amazing space endeavors. I’m still impressed with the Venus probes that haven’t been equaled since. 

I guess that point: Russia is not the great power the USSR was. It’s still coasting along on the achievements of its earlier empire. The system that created great scientists and engineers appears to have broken down. The current brain drain hasn’t helped either. Russia needed this moon landing to go well. They haven’t had many wins lately. Another high technology failure doesn’t help their brand. 

Of course, one of the legacies of the old USSR was a rather extensive nuclear stockpile. It’s one of the last things keeping Russia in the big leagues. Then again, if their nukes aren’t any better than their space probes they might have an issue. 

Just to make things interesting India has a moon probe on the way. It’s actually a more ambitious probe the Russian one was. Now all they have to do is to stick the landing. Space is hard, so if they can make this happen it’s a testament to their scientific progress. 

The thing about India is that a failure on the moon is not the end of the world for them. The are up and coming so can learn from any mistakes and try again. They are developing a solid scientific and industrial base. Russian, on the other hand, is riding on the coattails of a previous empire. 

Did you ever notice how freaking old those Russian scientists and engineers are?

-Sixbears

Putin’s USSR

He went and done it. Putin has recreated much of USSR. The only thing is he recreated all the crappy parts. Russia will now have a lower standard of living, isolation, more oppressive state police, and technological inferiority. He’s even destroyed Russia’s commercial airlines. While the rest of the world will be living in the 21^st century, Russia will be back in the 20^th.

If a peace deal was signed today Russia will still be feeling the effects for years to come. It’s much easier to break things than to fix them. As the days drag on the hole gets deeper. A lot of smart people have already left the country and more are trying to get out.

Russia has shown itself to be a risky place to do business. Even the oil industry, the backbone of the Russian economy, has lost western investment and expertise. Not only that western countries no longer want their energy needs reliant on Russia. It will be a huge boost for sustainable energy development.

Putin has sacrificed everything for a military adventure and even that’s not going well. There’s a dark joke going around the US State department. Russia was once thought to be the world’s second most powerful military. Now they are the second most powerful military in Ukraine.

Putin is a cautionary tale. No country should allow one man to have that much power.

-Sixbears

Information does not equal intelligence

I’ve been giving some thought to the surveillance state recently. State operators have more and more information at their finger tips, but often they don’t know what to do with it. Domestic or foreign, it doesn’t seem to matter. They get a lot of stuff wrong.

For decades the US and Soviet Union struggled against each other in the cold war. The spying that went on was epic. We’ll never know how much money was spent on it as much of it was “black budget” -invisible to the average person. In spite of the massive effort, the collapse of the USSR was totally missed. That was huge and nobody saw it coming.

Take our involvement with Afghanistan. To get the Russians out, suitcases of money were given to people who turned out to not be our friends. Sure, the Russians were forced to leave, but then the some of the same guns were turned against the US. Pretty short sighted.

Domestic spying has access to huge volumes of computer data. Our whole lives are tracked. Everything we buy. Every e-mail we send. Every blog post I write. There are records of everything -even when not strictly legal.

How is it whenever a “domestic terror cell” is uncovered, they turn out to be a bunch of wanna be losers? None of them would have done much of anything at all if not for their secret government informer. He’s the who supplies them with stuff like arms and bomb materials. Embarrassingly often, these cases are thrown out of court.

Now consider the government can infinitely detain someone on allegations of terrorist connections. That’s pretty scary. Now consider how often they get people’s intentions out and out wrong. Then it get’s really scary.

Governments use a lot of the same data mining that companies use for marketing. I don’t know about anyone else, but a lot of stuff is marketed to me for stuff that I don’t want. For example, at one time I was researching marine diesel fuel tanks and fuel transfer systems. My project was converting a car to run on waste vegetable oil. I was looking at marine fuel tanks because they come in may different sizes and shapes, and I was looking for one to fit in the available space in the vehicle. The fuel transfer equipment wasn’t for diesel but for veggie oil. From that information, marketers were under the impression I owned a large diesel powered boat. My mailbox was flooded with advertising for power boat related goods and services.

That’s only one example. In one day’s mail I got stuff asking me to join the NRA and a membership offer from a group pledged against the NRA. Since I’m a writer, I often research stuff that other people might be interested in, or sometimes I’m researching for a negative blog post. If I criticize a product, there will most likely be ads for it on my blog. Hope you are as amused by this as I am.

It’s funny when it’s marketing. It’s deadly serious when it’s national security or personal freedom.

Government agencies are agenda driven. They will only see what they are looking for. Nobody gets promoted finding evidence that goes against the boss’s pet project. With so much information available, it’s easy to cherry pick the “facts” needed to “prove” any viewpoint. Information is not intelligence.

-Sixbears

Large and unified or small and squabbling?

What’s better for the advancement of humankind, large unified territories or small little places that don’t really get along?

Think back to history. The Roman Empire spread learning over a very large area. Advances were made in many fields. When the empire fell we slipped into the Dark Ages.

. . . which lasted until the Renaissance. There were an awful lot of little countries at that time, yet that’s when art and science reawakened.

I had to ask myself, what did those two prosperous time periods have in common? It all comes down to mobility. The Roman Empire built excellent quality roads that were relatively safe to travel on. Ideas and people could travel easily.

The Renaissance time period, as I see it, still comes down to mobility. Countries were divided, but borders were fairly porous. If someone ran afoul of the local ruler, it was a short trip to a different country. Trade crossed borders. Even things like cannon, essential to war efforts, crossed borders of rival countries. If you can’t stop cannon from moving around, you certainly can’t stop ideas.

What about today? Is the EU good or bad for the average person under its umbrella? On one hand, the EU has kept a lid on European wars, so that’s a good thing. It has also made travel between member countries much easier. On the other hand the EU can enforce rules and regulations across a large area, stifling innovation and local solutions to problems. Has the EU passed the point of diminishing returns?

The United States seemed designed from the ground up to try and take advantage of large and small dynamics at the same time. Brilliant in theory. The Federal government would take care of things like roads, water ways, navies, armies -the things that make travel and trade easy and safe. The states could all adapt to local conditions and cultures.

At one time, if a person had to remake themselves, they’d do something like move out West. They were still in the same country, but under a different set of local rules and expectations. Newer territories tended to be looser and more open to new ideas.

That was then. The Federal part of the design has grown and grown until its power reaches into everyone’s day to day lives. Moving to a different state makes a difference, but not the huge difference it once did.

Now it looks like there’s a chance the EU will break up. How will that affect human progress in the long run? On the positive side, it would free a lot of smaller places from central control. That should help innovation. At the same time, however, there’s talk of severely restricting movement between countries. If the Internet remains relatively free and open, ideas could cross borders making up somewhat for travel restrictions. However, governments seem to really want to restrict and control the Internet.

Maybe we should look to the remains of the old USSR. It’s been broken apart long enough that we should be able to judge if individuals are better off or not. If the break up has been good for humanity, we should be starting to see some innovations about now. There are some fascinating things brewing in some of these countries that could have major implications down the road, but they are in their infancy.

Has the impact of the break up been lessened by many of these countries joining other International organizations like NATO, the IMF, International trade and finance agreements, or other schemes? Have multi-national corporations become stifling empires of their own?

For humankind to thrive, I’m looking for situations where mobility (of people goods and ideas) and personal freedom are both allowed or encouraged.

I look at the news and wonder what will become history.

-Sixbears

End of the world

Well, here it is 2012, the end of the world. 12 years after the other end of the world back in 2000. Oh wait, didn’t we have a few raptures along the way?

Here we are, still on the green side of the grass.

The world did end. It ends every single day for someone. I’m glad it hasn’t ended for me yet. Not that weren’t some close calls.

A lot of Preppers are guys. Maybe we have more taste for doom. Perhaps it comes from all those fighting cave bears for real estate. We expect that maybe bad things might happen.

Women, in general, don’t usually want to talk about this sort of thing. That doesn’t mean they don’t keep their eyes out for trouble. It seems some guys love to talk about this stuff, but women rather not. Doesn’t mean they don’t think it. They want their home and family to be safe. Men and women often have different ideas of what will keep someone safe.

The guy might want to buy the latest assault rifle and 10,000 rounds of ammo. The lady of the house might think the money would be better spent keeping the household out of debt. Most of the time, the keep the budget balanced strategy is the most useful -until the hordes of zombies attack. Then you’ll wish you had that battle rifle.

Okay, so the zombie hordes are a really low probability. The end of the world is an even lower probability. The thing is, what can we do about it? The end of the world thing is actually pretty easy. Unless you have a way off this world, there’s nothing that can be done about the end of the world. It it happens, we all die. End of story.

It’s the less than total crackup that takes some planning for. It’s the smaller disasters that could end the world for you that needs attention. If you were in Russia in 1990, and kept your eyes open, the end of empire was in sight. Those people who could take care of their own needs and had a community to draw on did much better than those without.

In the USA, it might be 1990. Heck, for most of the world it could be 1990. The US will not give up empire gently. I think we were very lucky that the USSR did not turn to the outside distraction of a major war. May we be as lucky and realize, like USSR, a screw up in Afghanistan is trouble enough.

Where’s this all going? Today my lovely wife was really stressing that we have to get our preps sorted out soon. It’s time to build fix up the house and build that greenhouse. She’s the one who pushed me to get the garden ready for planting early this year. My lovely wife has a keen sense of when trouble is coming, and her spidey senses are tingling.

No, it’s not the end of the world, but something to take seriously enough to get a few more things squared away.

-Sixbears

Differences in States matter more

As the United States moves in a more troubled future, the states won’t be quite so united. For years we’ve heard that Peak Oil will force everything to be more local. Travel will be restricted. Energy will be limited to what your local region can provide or that you can generate for yourself on your own land. Even entertainment will be more home grown.

Politics will be more local. The Federal government won’t have the reach it does today. There may be people sitting in D. C. making “national policy,” but that won’t affect people very directly in the hinterland. If the rules are followed at all, it’ll be because some local power wants it that way. If the locals don’t want to enforce a particular rule or law, it won’t be enforced.

Think about that when you pick a place to move to. Local norms will be what really matters. You’d better study an area well: it’s history, customs, and practices. What do most people believe? Does it matter which church you belong to? Will you never really fit in because your family hasn’t been in the area for three generations?

When the Soviet Union broke up, many countries regained their independence. They became nationalistic and much more concerned about their local affairs. Many things that predated the Soviet era came back. Much of that was positive, but there was one group that had a very hard time.

Many ethnic Russians settled in these satellite states. When the states became independent, these Russians were stranded. Now many were born in those regions and had never even been to Russia. However, most still spoke Russian and often they even looked markedly different than the people of the host country. Some managed to assimilate, but others have suffered. Many emigrated to Russia. Other found their world shrunk down to little Russian enclaves in hostile territory.

Now picture yourself stranded where you live today. Do you really fit in with the people around you? Is your well being dependent on Federal law trumping local prejudices? Picture your state or region as its own nation. Is it your nation, or will you be a stranger in a strange land? Better find your people while it’s still relatively easy to travel. Your options will only narrow in the future.

-Sixbears

The Ghost of Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev, at the time of this blog post, is still very much alive. All the same, his ghost haunts the corridors of the power elite.

As the ruler of the USSR, he tried to reform a failing system. Perestroika was an attempt to reconstruct the stagnant economy and change social structures. Glasnost was supposed to open up political society. By changing the Soviet Union, he was trying to save it.

He failed, of course. Economic realities brought the country down. He was lucky to escape the collapse with his life. Since then, he's been in the political wilderness. However, he did get a lovely Nobel Peace Prize as a consolation gift.

The lesson is here for today's world leaders is simple: don't try to fix the problems, don't attempt reform. Hide the problems and try to keep the broken system going for as long as possible. Don't let the people know how badly and long the system has been screwing them.

In America, we have the Ghost of President Carter. (also still very much alive at this writing.) In 1976, he saw the country was going to run into some serious trouble and took the early steps necessary to save the nation. Had the country kept moving forward with alternative energy, we'd be much lest dependent on fossil fuels.

Of course, he wasn't any fun. I didn't like him myself, but I was still a teenager. What excuse did the adults have? They didn't want to face reality either, I guess. Reagan was elected, the nation got a boost of cheap energy from Alaska, and the good times kept rolling along. Reagan, unlike Charter, was very popular indeed, never mind that we were eating our seed corn.

For the world's leaders the lessons were plain. Avoid real change at all cost. It's a good slogan, but whatever you do, don't actually do it. Cross your fingers that some stroke of good luck will pull your chestnuts out of the fire in the nick of time. (Reagan's lesson.)

Today's leaders have let the charade go on too long. It's like when a little kid tells a lie, then has to tell bigger and bigger lies to cover for the original deception. Too much has been hidden from the public. It will all end in tears, but who's tears? Today's elite are doing all that they can to push the problem off one more generation. It's what the previous generation did. It's too late to fix the problems without sever pain. No political leader has the stones for that sort of difficult decision.

Even if a leader tried to open up and reform the system, it's too late. In the Soviet Union, it was probably too late by the time of Leonid Brezhnev, but he was able to push the problems aside long enough to live out his days. That's what's going in in the world today. Our last hope of an easier transition was back in the 70s.

Gorbachev did not collapse the USSR. That puppy was going down anyway. His attempts to fix the problems may have hastened the fall. No way to know for sure. Today's world economy is also going down. The elite know it too. Their actions betray them. A last ditch effort is being made to skim off what's left of our wealth. It's working pretty good for them too, as people can't even understand the scale of the wealth transfer from public to private hands.

President Obama's freedom of movement is limited by a very tiny cage. He can pace around it all he wants, but there will be no breaking out from the narrow cell. The elite remember Gorbachev.

-Sixbears