Just Ask Oldguy

Bryant:

A bit convoluted, but there’s a question in there…

Q1) when will all this population control slow down?

A1) I don’t think there’s much population control happening now!  Perhaps you want to know when the population growth will slow down.  In either case, here’s what I think about population growth and control… we’re screwed.

Hans Rosling gave a good TED talk on this.  In short, earth’s population will hit 9 billion within 50 years.  It turns out that the higher the standard of living, the fewer children people have.  Perhaps it’s because they want lots of kids in the hopes that those children will support them when they age.  Or maybe it’s because they’re really poor and the only entertainment they have is… well, you know.  Or maybe it’s because they can’t afford birth control.  Personally, I think it’s mostly that they have little else to do but reproduce but I could be wrong.

So, he figures that the only way to stop the population growth is to increase the standard of living of people.  But the trouble is… we don’t have the resources to do that.  We’re going to run out of oil and coal and natural gas about the same time we hit 9 billion.  So we’re screwed.

Okay, maybe some miracle energy source is found and we magically raise everyone up to the standard of living currently experienced in civilized places like, Europe or the USA/Canada.  We’re still screwed.  How come?  Because we’ll run out of water.  And arable land (without irrigation, much of which comes from aquifers, we have less arable land).

Q2) So why not just send some nukes on some overpopulated cities.

A2) Oh, it will happen.  If not nukes, then bio-weapons.  Or maybe plain old war.  Back in the late 1930’s a German leader named Hitler (you may have heard of him) made Lebensraum a key Nazi policy.  What’s Lebensraum?  It’s literally “living space” — they wanted space and raw materials.  It didn’t work for Hitler, but he didn’t have nukes or bioweapons.  Somebody will try it, you can be sure.

Everybody wants control.  Everyone wants to be in charge of the world — and they figure that the best way to get it is to outnumber every other group!  The Catholic church is not big on birth control… the more Catholic babies are born, the more Catholics there are; other religions do the same, even if they’re not as up-front about it.  Heck, in Canada people still get “baby bonuses” ($100/month per child).  In 1988, the province of Quebec started writing cheques for $8,000 per baby (they were worried that English Canada would out-populate them).

Q3) You seem to imply that there is a slow pace of trying to kill people off so as not to draw attention to what’s happening.  Leading me to believe that you really think we are successfully slowing down population growth!

A3) I like conspiracy theories as much as the next person (maybe more!).  I hope that the BP Gulf oil disaster won’t kill the planet, but even if it does, I doubt that it was done on purpose.  I don’t believe that the oil spill in the Gulf is an intentional attempt to kill millions of people in the Southern USA.

Population will increase until two things happen: we run out of resources (and many people die) or we pollute our environment and drown in our own waste products (and many people will die).  Just like bacteria: unlimited growth while food is available and while their waste products don’t kill them.  Life really is that simple at some level.

This is a very simple question, and I thought that it would be easy to answer.  Not so!

The general consensus seems to be that a blood loss of 30-40% would be fatal, but even that is an over-simplification.  It turns out that it depends on the SPEED of the blood loss.  If the blood is lost quickly, 33% can be fatal; if it’s lost slowly then up to 66% could be lost before death!  Why the difference?  Well, a sudden loss can result in either of these two conditions (both of which can be fatal due to heart attack or stroke):

• too little fluid in the blood vessels for flow to happen properly (kind of like when the pipes in your house are drained of water)
• not enough blood cells left to carry enough oxygen.

Here’s the best reference: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec14/ch172/ch172b.html

Although I am slow answering this question, the delay is with cause… the question is excellent and I’ve probably spent 3 or 4 hours (cumulatively) trying to come up with the best answer possible.  Thank you for the quality of the question.  Here goes:

Set a goal.

It doesn’t matter what your goal is, since by definition:

Any time you spend working towards your goal is time that is not wasted.

And, time spent NOT working towards your goal is, by definition, wasted time.  Now, some of this “wasted time” is unavoidable, so don’t begrudge unavoidably wasted time but instead fully immerse yourself in it; you may discover something new.  Examples of this would be doing a few chores for your parents, talking with grandparents and that sort of “social activity”.  However, to a large extent you must guard your time, because nobody else will guard your time for you.  Always remember this important rule:

Time is all you really have in life.  Be wary of people that want to spend your time for their benefit.

My definition of wasted time is time that is spent NOT working towards your goal and about which you have full control.  Doing this one simple thing will save the average North American 9 years of life:

Do NOT watch television.

According to Nielsen, the average American spends 9 out of 65 years watching television! Nowadays, web-surfing and video games are starting to replace television – but ultimately they’re all the same: if you’re staring at a screen and not actually creating something, you’re probably wasting time.

This is a perfect example of someone else (specifically, advertisers) wanting to control how you spend that singularly valuable thing in your life: time.

Here’s a fact: it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.  That’s about 4 hours per day for 9 years.  Follow the link.

The only thing most North Americans become expert at is… watching television.  Because that’s the only thing they work hard at.

Frankly, I could give you many little things that you can do to save a few minutes here or there, but by following this one simple item you’ll get an extra 9 years or more of life.  That’s enough time to become an expert in the field of your choice.

Ah, the iPad… so much to say, so little time…

Answer One:

In a nutshell: everyone who wants a complicated computer already has one. The iPad opens up the world of computing to the other half of the world’s population. But here’s the thing: half the people that already have a complicated computer would prefer something simpler. So you can also think of the iPad as “pain relief”.

Do the math: this is the style of computing for a minimum of 75% of the population.

Answer Two:

The iPad is the future of computing in a way that you probably haven’t thought much about: efficiency. I’m not talking personal efficiency (although that’s likely true as well), I’m talking power. You’ll probably not believe me, so here’s a reference.

From that link, I’ll assume that you have a nice G5 desktop Mac with an LCD monitor. Let’s assume that the computer is used 3 hours per day and is in “sleep mode” the other 21 hours:

G5’s power consumption = 365 days x (3 hrs x 110 watts + 21 hrs x 3.5 watts)

= 365 (330 + 73.5)

= 365 ( 403.5 watt-hrs)

= 147,277.6 or 147 kWh. which at 14 cents/kWh costs you $20.58 (by the way, a typical desktop machine with a separate LCD monitor is perhaps double this)

iPad’s power consumption: 365 days x (3 hrs x 2.5 watts + 21 hrs x 0.17 watts)

(I got the .17 from a review where the iPad lasted 6 days while playing music at 50% volume through headphones; 25Whr/144 hrs is .17 watts/hr. So this isn’t even sleep mode!)

= 365 (7.5 + 3.57)

= 365 (11.07 watt-hrs)

= 4040.55 or 4.04 kWhr which at 14 cents/kWh costs you 56 cents.

Ballpark: you can run about 40 iPads for the price of one desktop computer.

So… using an iPad is the ethical thing to do for the kinds of tasks that most people use computers for; it uses less of the earth’s dwindling resources.

My prediction: in a few years, Apple will replace the black border around the screen with super high efficiency solar cells; version 8 of the iPad will be self-charging. Critics will blast Apple and complain that the price should go down as Apple is no longer including a power adapter in the box. Don’t get me started on the savings in raw materials, shipping costs, packaging, etcetera.

Answer Three:

The iPad brings computing closer to people by removing a layer of indirection: the mouse.

In a lot of ways, current computers rely more on magic than the iPad does: “don’t watch my hand moving the mouse, simply watch the cursor flit about the screen like a working Ouija board at a seance…”.

There’s a lot of cognitive processing that takes place when you are forced to wave your hand around on a desktop somewhere to the left or right of where you’re looking. There is much less cognitive dissonance when you simply move your finger and touch the thing you want to affect. That, of course, means you can save valuable brain cycles for more important things.

I have been typing for so long that it is as if there’s a direct link between my brain and the computer screen. I think something and it appears as text on the screen. That’s part of the reason that my answers to all these questions are so long — I am able to communicate at the speed of thought! But not everyone types over 100 words per minute. For most people, typing is an inefficient way to command a computer to do something (it pains me to watch Allen eke out his thoughts… he might as well be given a chisel, a hammer and a piece of flat rock…).

Simply pointing and touching the screen is much more direct.

Answer Four:

The iPad, when running iPhone apps at double-sized resolution, will allow women in the 45+ age range to continue avoiding the wearing of glasses in public.

I have heard women in this demographic say: it’s unfair that men get better looking as they age.  Well, I’ve got news for you: we don’t. It’s just that our flaws become blurred… and if you squint too much, you get wrinkles.

Answer Five:

Seriously, the iPad is the first “complete” example of what will be the next trend in computing.  I was at the National Computer Conference in Chicago back when the Xerox Star was introduced (1981).  The Xerox Star was the first commercial example of a computing system with a mouse, a graphical interface and a laser printer.  I watched their demo for many hours (it repeated every 15 minutes).  I knew at the time that I was seeing the future of computing, and I have exactly the same reaction to the iPad.  It’s the next paradigm.

After this will be voice, then implants as we continue our evolution towards becoming Borg.

These are all excellent questions in their own right.  Please feel free to ask for additional clarification on any of them (one at a time, of course).  What I will do in this reply is give you a few statements for each of them — an overview, if you will.

Studies: Life is short.  It may not seem like it to you yet because you’re still young.  But it’s short and it can end with little or no notice.  So, find something you love to do and do it.  As Leonard Cohen (famous Canadian poet) put it: “I don’t want to work for pay, but I want to be paid for my work”.  If you can possibly earn a living while doing something you love, it’s like getting an extra life.  Seriously: you’re asleep 1/3 of the time and at work 1/3 of the time and your time is your own the other 1/3 of the time.  So if you love your work then the last two merge into a satisfying and healthy lifestyle.

Money:  In short, the rule is: never get on the wrong side of compound interest.  In other words, if you want to buy something, save up some money and then buy it.  If you wave cash in front of the vendor, they’ll usually give you a few dollars off.  In addition, you will receive interest (aka free money) on that money you’re saving up.  Many times, those who buy things on credit end up paying double or more.  Here’s an appropriate Albert Einstein “quote” (which he never actually said, but it’s pretty accurate, so many people wish he had): “The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”.

Fashion: Always go classic.  When you get married, wear a nice suit — not the baby-blue velour that’s in fashion for a year or two (believe me, you’ll be embarrassed the rest of your life when your wedding pictures are viewed!).  What seems appropriate and new (jump suits, very short shorts, ruffled shirts, etcetera) don’t last.  Probably the best thing to do is look over the past 15 years or so and see what’s been common clothing throughout that time.  Same thing goes for haircuts, jewelry, etc.  If I had to make a simple rule it would be: don’t try to stick out; don’t be a peacock.

Well-Being: This is of paramount importance.  Right now, you’re young.  You can eat fatty, crappy food and it won’t appear to make a difference.  But I think it does — I think it’s filling up spaces inside your body, and when those tiny empty spaces are all full you start getting fat.  So: eat right and exercise by doing activities you enjoy (go on a walk instead of being on a treadmill).  All things in moderation (including alcohol, of course).  Avoid drugs and smoking like the plague; my feeling on drugs is that some of the modern synthetic ones are particularly dangerous as they directly kill brain cells and/or do genetic damage.  Finally, learn to cook!  It’s fun, you’ll save a LOT of money (you can eat filet mignon for the price of a McDonald’s meal – did you know that?) you’ll eat better (restaurants like fatty food because fat tastes good (that’s a genetic thing with humans because fat is high energy and food wasn’t always available) and fat is cheap).  Oh, and women love a man that can cook.

Girls: are interesting.  Avoid them until you’re about 28 or so.  There are good reasons for this and I’ve covered it in depth in previous entries.  It boils down to this: males mature (mentally) fairly slowly and you won’t be fully hatched until about age 28.  Without getting tied down, you will be able to concentrate on your studies, well-being and money; these are all good things to have concentrated on because by age 28 you’ll have a good career, will be physically in top condition and will have cash.  Cash is the ultimate aphrodisiac but when you look good and have a great career on top of that, you will have your pick of women.  One more thing: if you want to know what they’ll be like in 20 or 25 years, be sure to meet their mother.  I’m probably going to get roasted by women for this answer…

Anyway, I hope this helps.  If there are things you would like more information on, JustAskOldGuy.

Some people think I find “conspiracy theories” interesting.  I do, mostly because things really don’t add up when you look into it.

But if “they” are really out to get you, you’re not being paranoid…

It’s about 2 hours long; I dare you to watch it.

Uh… I think you’ve answered your own question!

But that’s a gut reaction, based on my natural pessimism.  Do me a favour and give this a read: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html

There’s some pretty good evidence that as the standard of living and the average life span have increased, we’ve become more peaceful.  This does make one wonder about the high levels of military spending, though.  And that “wonder” forces me to follow the standard investigative procedure for finding the truth: follow the money.  You don’t have to look far to realize that some people, companies and even countries are becoming very rich as a result of either arms sales or as a result of the power it gives them over valuable resources such as… oil.

Therefore, I reluctantly conclude that we cannot stop war because the “military industrial complex” is one of the many ways that money is funnelled from the pockets of the poor (via taxes) into the pockets of the powerful.

Organized crime likes to run something they call a protection racket (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket ).  If you think of the government as being the mafia, their Army is a key component to their protection racket — it is here to protect us from all the bad guys out here and every once-in-awhile they need to fight to prove that the threat is real.

There is, though, something larger than countries: religion.  With the mafia or government, their ultimate threat is that you will die.  Many religions wield an even scarier stick: their ultimate threat is that after you die you will spend eternity in Hell… and eternity is a very, very long time.

We may be past the era of large country wars, and just entering another era of religious wars.  Some people will become very, very rich and powerful in this kind of war.

I hope I’m wrong.

Your question is a little bit vague, so I may well be missing some critical piece of information (the more background information I have on questions of this nature, the better).  For example:

• Your friend may be an emo and just slightly heartbroken; it looks worse than it is.
• Your friend may be macho and if they appear heartbroken even a tiny bit then they may be suicidal!
• Is your friend male or female?  What about the object of their affection?
• Are they young?  Really young?
• Are they old enough that this may have been their last realistic chance to find a mate?
• Fifty percent of people never get over their first boyfriend or girlfriend, so are they heartbroken over their “first love”?
• How messy was the breakup?  Was it your friend’s fault or the other person’s fault?  It makes a difference.
• What is the marital status of your friend’s parents?  What is their home life like?
• Is your friend usually mentally strong?
• Does your friend like to be the center of attention?

So, as you can see, without some additional background information it’s going to be hard to come up with the correct answer to your question.

Of course, that won’t stop me from providing advice…

I deduce from your login name, the fact that the question itself is not a complete sentence and from your email address that you are a youngish teenage female.  Probably 13 or 14.  So your friend is probably about the same age since girls at that age tend to travel in packs; they can’t even go to a public restroom without their BFFL tagging along.  And, they’re chock full of hormones; bundles of emotions if you will.  Plus, they’re just developing, uh, let’s call them “super powers”.  Yeah, I like that term.  Super Powers. I hope that they never get used for evil; an early and painful breakup can result in a long period of evil use of Super Powers. At this age, the breakup was probably with a boy, perhaps a year or two older, as most boys the same age as her would have been confused to the point of panic.  Most likely the boy broke up with your friend as opposed to the her breaking up with him (if she’d broken up with him, she wouldn’t be heart broken).

That’s my guess, and that’s the scenario I will answer.

Here are the wise things to tell your friend:  Nothing.  Just listen.  Listen hard.

You see, you can’t say that she did anything wrong (even though it was obvious to you that this good-looking jock was more interested in getting his hands on her super powers than anything else).  ”I knew it”, “I was expecting it”, and similar phrases all imply that your friend was too dumb to see the truth.  It is all too easy to accidentally say something like “He didn’t deserve you” (then if I was more than he deserved, why would he leave for that cow-faced Becky Jones?) or “I hope he gets hit by frozen turds that fall off of a passing airplane” (but he’s going to come back to me, why do you hate him, what kind of friend are you?).  In other words, in your friend’s emotional state almost anything you say can be twisted by her warped logic into being a personal attack from you.

So just listen.  Use phrases like “Do you want to talk about it” (the answer will be NO!, followed a minute later by an emotional rant) or “Is there anything I can do to help?  Would you like some chocolate? (chocolate may not help, but it will keep her mouth full and she can’t blubber on with a full mouth) or “Uh huh” followed by a slight shake of your head.

Do NOT compare her to Sandra Bullock or Erin Nordegren.  Just be sad with her for awhile.

I will give you one other useful piece of advice.  Pay close attention to this one.  If this is a particularly painful (and probably first or close to it) breakup, your friend’s emotional state can best be described as being one of extreme grief.  As it turns out, there are 7 stages of grief that she will go through.  Know what they are (and the probable order) will help you keep your sanity, because you will have some idea how many more stages she has to go through.  You may want to do a Google search for “stages of grief” to learn more:

1. shock/disbelief
2. denial
3. bargaining
4. guilt
5. anger
6. depression
7. acceptance and hope

Please feel free to ask the “What is the meaning of life” question after you read the answer to your real question (which is a new question, so I will answer it right now!)

A: One thing I know for sure is that humanity is spreading out like a disease – but that’s something entirely different that I imagine I will have a chance to talk about eventually.  The gist of your question is really this: The world has gone through some interesting crises lately, and these crises seem to be coming at an increasingly rapid rate.  Has this made people change their behaviour for the better or not?  Are we still a greedy species or are new (smaller) communities forming; indicating a loss in faith in regards to government and big business, and more dependence upon personal relationships?

At least, I think that’s what you’re asking.  So that’s the question I’m going to answer.

Let’s start by making this concrete.  Examples are good.

• Here, in British Columbia, the provincial government decided to hold an election a year or so early – May 2009 instead of 2010.  Why would they do that?  Well, we spent a few extra billion dollars on the 2010 Olympics, which had the effect of hiding the economic crisis from most people here (everyone was employed building Olympic things and fixing the roads).  That’s bad enough, since one of their platform points had previously been to have fixed election dates.  So in this new election, they make big noise about NOT bringing in HST (HST is PST (provincial sales tax) plus GST (federal goods and services tax)).  PST is 7%, GST is 5% and HST was proposed to be 12%  So what, you say?  7 + 5 = 12 so no change, right?  Wrong.  HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) will be applied to all kinds of things that did not apply to PST previously.  It’s a huge tax grab that they are now planning on implementing in the spring/summer of 2010.  In other words: they lied.
• Another British Columbia example from the same election.  Kash Heed wins a seat in a riding by 748 votes.  He goes on to become cabinet minister in charge of law and order.  So how did Kash win?  A few days before the election, his team sent out flyers claiming the opposition wanted to legalize heroin and cocaine, would legalize prostitution, would implement a “death tax” (where the government takes a percentage of what you own when you die, before it is left to relatives), and would force senior citizens to live in slums.  It spooked enough people for him to win, as there was no time for the truth to come out (note: Kash Heed resigned a few days ago in early April 2009).
• An American example: claims by anti-public-healthcare groups in the USA that if the USA implemented public health care then there would be “death squads” trying to kill off old people early.  Perhaps they got this idea from the BC election described in the previous point!
• Another example: the myth that we’re fighting a war in the Middle East and that it has nothing to do with oil.
• Another example: we’ll bail out the banks, because they’ve learned their lesson and will quit being greedy.  This will help the common people.
• Okay, one more: the former governor of Illinois, Blagojevich.  Heck, even Tiger Woods and Jesse James.  Apparently anyone in a position of power or with money is a Lying Bastard™.

I could go on, but you already know all this: we’re being lied to on a continual and consistent basis by the people in power.

And then there’s the Tea Party – supposed rebels, naming themselves after a seminal event in American History, the Boston Tea Party.  People generally believe that the Boston Tea Party incident happened because the British decided to raise taxes on tea.  Actually, what happened was that the British had set taxes earlier and consequently a flourishing smuggling industry began (bringing in cheaper Dutch tea sans tax).  The British decided to give a rebate to the East India Company, which allowed the East India Company to bring in the British tea and sell it (even with the tax still there) at a price that was lower than the smuggled Dutch tea!  The smugglers didn’t like this, so they caused a bit of a kerfuffle and threw the British tea overboard.  To quote Wikipedia on the subject:

The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773. … Colonial merchants, some of them smugglers, played a significant role in the protests. Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.

Heck, if the Tea Party was really being true to their roots I’d have to conclude they probably have drug smugglers actively working behind the scenes.  They’d want to fight the existing government, which is making their lives difficult.  To be fair, that’s probably not true – the Tea Party is probably just people who don’t read much history but who can see the the obvious advantages the people in power enjoy.  And they want said power and privileges for themselves.  Politics corrupts!

Ah, the advantages the people with power enjoy (and money is power; Wall Street is always taken care of)… it made me want to compose a Wall Street Love Song (so off on a tangent I go…):

Anyway, back to answering your question: Generally, I’d say that human greed is still here (well, here and in Mexico!  Can you say “drug wars”?).  The last year or so has shown this is true because the behaviour of the money people has not changed one iota.  But an increasingly large number of people are deciding that since they can’t play that game, it’s time for them to play a different game.  I like to think that more people are realizing that chasing after money and material possessions is not what life should be about.  This growing group is, I think, dropping out of the consumption contest that’s been going on since the end of World War II.  And as they/we give up on consumption for consumption’s sake — and start going after less “stuff” but of better quality, it is scaring those in power (who can we sell our crap to, they ask).

An awakening has begun, I think, but it is still nascent.

As requested, here is the medal count, using this algorithm:

1. actual medals handed out (e.g. 5 for curling, 4 for 4-man bobsled, etc.)
2. there were 2 team events where winning teams had different numbers of participants.  In these cases, I used the least number of medals given to any of the gold/silver/bronze winning teams
3. for “Points”, I used 3 points for gold, 2 points for silver and 1 point for bronze.  Because, face it: Gold is better than Silver.