The weather finally turned warmer this past week. Some music is seasonal for me, for example, classic jazz in the winter, lighter fare in the spring and summer. This week I've been listening to Spyro Gyra, a fusion band formed in Buffalo in the 1970s. They're still around, still doing it, all these years later. Many of the tunes I wanted to play were not available on youtube. Too bad.
Heart Of The Night — from their 1996 album of the same title
Incognito — from their 1982 album of the same title
As We Sleep — from Heart Of The Night (album)
The Deep End — from their 2004 album of the same name
I noticed some time ago that some of my own comments were getting filtered, and thus did not appear on the website.
I only recently discovered where those missing comments went, and was taken aback to discover that the Typepad software marks some perfectly good comments as "spam". I now look at the "spam" comments every day to see if such mistakes were made, and correct them.
Just today, I rescued a perfectly good comment by JohnWDB.
Otherwise, if your comment doesn't appear on DOTE, that means that it is temporarily in "spam" limbo, it really is spam, I deleted it or you are banned — or you forgot to confirm that you're not a machine.
If you were to tell people that the technology exists to manipulate the workings of people's brains, they may not believe you.
No, no, I would believe it! I thought it was called propaganda & advertising. But this is something else.
That sort of thing
is the stuff of cheap sci-fi B movies. If someone in the real world
were to try to develop it, that's exactly the sort of scenario where
they'd send James Bond in to stop them before it got too far.
But the fact is that this technology genuinely exists and is widely used in neuroscientific research. It is known as Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, and as the name suggests it stimulates the brain through the cranium using magnetism...
Rather than just passively looking and observing as the brain goes
about its business, these advanced electromagnets actually alter the
activity of targeted brain regions by inducing a localised varying magnetic field that causes a weak electrical current.
This might sound like a bad idea (like licking a battery, but with your
temporal lobe rather than your tongue) but it's perfectly logical...
The technique relies on placing a coil ... on the scalp of your conscious
subject, above the area you hope to stimulate, and turning it on. The
biophysics behind what occurs is fascinating, albeit complex, but that's essentially the procedure, which is deceptively simple seeming.
What's the point of doing this?
Good question!
The neural activation caused by TMS can tell us a lot about how the
human brain controls different behaviours, ranging from basic functions
like the ability to see, hear and touch, to our ability to speak and
make motor movements. We can even use TMS to explore how the most
advanced part of the brain – the prefrontal cortex – regulates
high-level abilities like consciousness, impulse control and working
memory.
The great advantage of TMS over other neuroscience methods is
that we're interfering with the brain rather than simply measuring its
activity.
Yes, sure. Fucking with the brain is always better than simply watching it.
Because of the causal nature of this intervention, this can
tell us which parts of the brain are necessary for particular functions.
There is also some evidence that TMS may assist in the treatment of
conditions such as depression and tinnitus, and there is growing
evidence that it can help the brain reorganise following a stroke...
It's not a perfect tool, of course.
Of course.
And what's the bottom line? This is me talking, with emphasis.
Humans (like these neuroscientists) typically try to figure out how humans work by doing things like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
But a very few humans, me included, can easily figure out how humans work by observing and interpreting the telling fact that humans typically try to figure out how they work by doing things like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
Much can be learned about how humans work by simply observing what they typically do.
Thus we see in TMS the search for the elusive clue. The humans are blissfully unaware that the clue they're looking for is right there in front of them, if they would only look at themselves.
Unfortunately, they can not see that clue, even though to some of us, it's as plain as the nose on your face.
I hope you will mull over what I said here. Every day on this blog, I show you what humans typically do.
Have a nice weekend.
These scientists are looking for love in all the wrong places...
This is the third and final day of my spring fundraiser. If you value this website, consider making a donation via the Donate (Paypal) button on this page, or by sending a check or money order to the PO Box I gave you in Tueday's post. Thanks
— Dave
[Tony Judt's book Ill Fares the Land] has a touch of prophecy in the authentic sense of that term. Prophecy is not about foretelling the future; it is about warning those in the present that unless they change their ways, they are unlikely to have much of a future at all — Terry Eagleton
The principal "benefit" of the peak oil story stated that in a supply-constrained world, the global economy could not grow because such growth depends on an endless stream of cheap crude oil. If the global economy could no longer grow, Homo sapiens wouldn't be able kill itself off by means of climate change, degraded oceans, and all the rest. Time Magazine put it this way in The IEA Says Peak Oil Is Dead. That’s Bad News for Climate Policy.
But there was an upside to peak oil. Crude oil was responsible for a
significant chunk of global carbon emissions, second only to coal. Only
the shock of being severed from the main fuel of modernity would be
enough to make us get serious about tackling climate change and shifting to an economy powered by renewable energy and efficiency.
We’d have to because we’d have no other choice, save a future that might
look something like Mad Max. We’d lose oil but save the world.
Increasingly, though, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. New oil sources, many of them unlocked by new technology—the Canadian oil sands, tight oil in North Dakota
and Texas, ultra-deepwater oil in the Atlantic—has helped keep the
supply of oil growing, even as greater efficiency measures and other
social shifts have helped blunt demand in rich countries like the U.S.
Oil isn’t likely to be cheap—a barrel of Brent crude is $102—and
getting it out of the ground isn’t going to get any easier.
But
it’s increasingly likely that we will have more than enough oil in the
future to keep the global economy growing and stave off any Mel Gibson-esque apocalypses.
Indeed, a new assessment released yesterday
by the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the surge of
supply from North America—most of it from new unconventional
sources—will transform the global supply of oil and help ease tight
markets. Between now and 2018, the IEA projects that global oil
production capacity will grow by 8.4 million barrels a day—significantly
faster than demand. Oil isn’t likely to peak any time soon.
Although a small cadre of Doomers are still sticking to the peak oil story—they expect the collapse of industrial civilization any minute now—the vast majority of humans, being hopeless optimists like the economists at the IEA, have decided that the peak oil story is dead because we clever humans will frack our way to perpetual oil prosperity. Or we will get more "oil" from the tar sands. Or we will drill the deep oceans to get it. Or we'll get it from Iraq. Or we'll wish upon a star.
So, death by climate change, degraded oceans, etc. it is!
I've estimated that there are perhaps 10,000 realists on Planet Stupid, which may be an overestimate. I'm proud to count myself among them. What does the realist know that the other 7,000,000,000 fools do not?
Before I answer that question, let's look at growth in Chinese oil demand. It has not collapsed, but it has slowed down considerably.
I added the dotted trend lines.
Stuart Staniford of the Early Warning blog has extrapolated the previous trend in Chinese oil consumption (graph immediately above). This text and graph are from Extrapolating China's Oil Consumption.
If, then, Chinese consumption were to continue to grow around 7% out through 2025, it would look like this:
I added the current trend line.
That's another 15mbd in the next thirteen years or so. Just for China.
If you compare this to things like the extra 4mbd you might hope for
from tar sands in this time frame, or the 2mbd that global crude supply
has increased since 2005, you can see that this is going to stress the
global oil system a lot.
Either the global crude supply is going to
grow a lot faster than it has been, or OECD oil consumers are going to
have to consume a great deal less than they are now, or China (and other
rapidly growing consumers) are going to have to slow down a lot.
Fortunately for those who need costly but still affordable crude oil, which is just about anybody on Earth who consumes it, Chinese growth in oil demand has slowed (first graph).
And now, what does the realist know that the other 7,000,000,000 fools do not? Here's a partial list bearing on the subject at hand. The realist knows...
... not to trust the blind optimists at the IEA. Their positive bias discredits anything they say. Therefore it is very unlikely that the oil supply (production capacity) will grow by 8.4 million barrels per day by 2020 (as cited in Time Magazine).
... not to trust the blind pessimists ("Doomers"). Their negative bias discredits anything they say. Industrial civilization is not going to collapse anytime soon because of a steep decline in the oil supply.
... that Stuart Staniford's assessment is correct. If Chinese oil consumption were to resume on its previous growth path, then either #1 the global crude supply is going to
grow a lot faster than it has been, or #2 OECD oil consumers are going to
have to consume a great deal less than they are now, or #3 China (and other
rapidly growing consumers) are going to have to slow down a lot.
It appears that China is following path #3. Staniford added the following—
Whichever is the case, it's hard to see how any combination of the above
happens on the necessary scale without prices a lot higher than the
$100-$120 we've been paying in the last few years. The comparative
truce in the oil markets during 2009-2013 seems like it cannot last
forever.
The realist also knows that he can not predict specific future events in the longer term, but he can talk in terms of trends and probabilities.
China's oil consumption is likely to stay on its currrent growth path (first graph above).
The global crude oil supply (production capacity) will probably grow by (up to) a few million barrels per day by 2020. (The IEA knows how to add, but they have lost the ability to subtract.) Also, I am talking about crude oil only. I am not talking about natural gas liquids or moonshine, as the IEA is wont to do.
If China's oil consumption reaches (or even approaches) 12/13 million barrels-per-day, all other things being equal, the global oil supply will be under great stress. There will likely be a huge price spike. The optimists will become perplexed.
That's the bottom line in terms of trends and probabilities.
But now, nobody is happy. Peak oil is not completely dead, so the optimists are unhappy. Peak oil may not be completely dead, but it's not alive and well either, which makes the pessimists unhappy. Not that any of these people (optimists or pessimists) are likely to notice. They all have their stories, and they're sticking to them.
And the realists?
The realists can't stop laughing. Or crying. They know they are fucked.
Realists have no idea how they ended up living on this once hospitable planet with all these fools
This is the second day of my spring fundraiser. If you value this website, consider making a donation via the Donate (Paypal) button on this page, or by sending a check or money order to the PO Box I gave you in yesterday's post. Thanks
— Dave
In the United States, going to college often means taking on a boatload of debt. It's not hard to see why. College tuitions and fees have been rising far beyond the official inflation rate for decades. That trend has not abated much in recent years.
Tuition and fees at U.S. public universities rose 4.8 percent this year
to an average $8,655, as the smallest increase in 12 years still
outpaced inflation, a College Board report found.
“It’s an improvement in a bad story,” said Sandy Baum, an independent policy analyst for the College Board.
Nonprofit
private colleges increased tuition and fees 4.2 percent to $29,056. The
report, for the 2012-2013 school year, marks a shift from the previous
year, when public universities raised prices twice as much as private
schools.
Rather than deal with the core problem—soaring costs and student debt—analysts have instead focused on a secondary question: is college worth the price?
With that nifty move, the problem is neatly cast as a return on investment (ROI) question instead of a societal failure. Before I look at that bogus calculation, I should point out that calculating the ROI of getting a college degree in 2013 vis-a-vis how much it costs to get that degree presumes that the graduate will have a "normal" working life over the next 2 or 3 decades. At some point, the college graduate can determine whether college was "worth it'" if their earnings eventually show a positive return, after all the debt been paid off, over and above the earnings of someone who didn't go to college and didn't take on all that debt.
Such a calcuation was possible if you graduated in the decades immediately following War World II, but those times are long gone. Back then, thanks to the GI Bill and the general prosperity, more and more Americans were able to get an affordable college education. But look at where we are now in 2013.
Can anybody tell me with a straight face that young people can assess the cost/benefit risks based on the possibility that they will have steady, good-paying work 10 years from now? 15 years from now? Or even worse, 25 years from now?
Obviously not. So the is college worth it? question is rooted in a fantasy. This presumed future may look a lot like Disneyland, but it is the fantasy America's elites want you to live in.
There have been a number of studies lately of whether going to college is worth it. Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett wrote a book about it. He was interviewed by The Daily Ticker. (Follow the link to watch the interview.)
The U.S. is home to some of the greatest colleges and
universities in the world. But with the student debt load at more than
$1 trillion and youth unemployment elevated, when assessing the value of
a college education, that’s only one part of the story.
Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, author of Is College Worth It,
sat down with The Daily Ticker on the sidelines of the Milken
Institute's 2013 Global Conference to talk about whether college is
worth it.
“We have about 21 million people in higher education, and about half
the people who start four year colleges don’t finish,” Bennett tells The
Daily Ticker.
The message that everyone should go to college does a disservice to the 60 percent of students who do not finish their degrees within six years, according to new research from Brookings Center on Children and Families, a non-partisan research center in Washington.
These students end up with debt that is not recouped by higher salaries later in life. And for low-income families, the impact is even worse.
Back to Bennett.
“Those who do finish, who graduated in 2011 — half were
either unemployed or radically underemployed and in debt.”
That average student loan balance for a 25-year-old is $20,326,
according to the Federal Reserve of New York. Student debt is second
largest source of U.S. household debt, after only mortgages.
Bennett assessed the “return on investment” for the 3500 colleges and
universities in the country.
He found that returns were positive for
only 150 institutions. The top 10 schools ranked by Bennett as having
the best "ROI" are below (for the full list he used, click here, and for the latest figures, click here):
Harvey Mudd College
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Stanford University
Princeton University
Harvard University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Notre Dame
He found college is “worth it” if you get into a top tier university
like Stanford, or study an in-demand field like nuclear engineering at
even a lower tier school.
So, is college worth it? Even with the caveats I pointed out above, entering debt slavery in 21st century America is not worth it unless you go to Stanford or major in some exotic engineering or medical field. Don't be an arts or English major!
What we have here, in effect, is one Grand Illusion overlaying another Grand Illusion.
There are lots of things to choose among, but Higher Education is high on the list of clear signs of America's precipitous decline. In the majority of cases, it is yet another scam. Consider this last statement from Bennett.
Bennett discovered, for example, that graduates of Jefferson College of
Health Science and Nursing in Virginia make more after two years than
those from the prestigious University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Alternatives to a traditional four-year college include entering the
workforce prior to college, joining the military, or going to a 2-year
community college.
Alternatives? I think this Daily Ticker story forgot some alternatives. Perhaps you can help them out.
