Random Rationality is Back

The 2nd edition of my e-book, Random Rationality: Expanded – A Rational Guide to an Irrational World has just been released on Kindle for $2.99. Some key features differentiating it from the 1st edition:

• Every chapter has undergone a makeover with a total of 24,000 words added, making it 63,000 words now.
• Corrected several facts – my favourite correction is that the Universe is now 13.82 billion years (though there was no way for me to know the age of the universe in the 1st edition, so this is more of an update). Some other facts I reported were genuinely wrong and I have corrected as many as were bought to my attention and I’ll write a future post on which ones they were if I can find my notes. The ones I remember off the top of my head are that the global debt-to-GDP ratio I quoted was actually representative of only the top 10 western governments (the real updated global figure being about 1.5 to 1 instead of 3.5 to 1).
• The book benefitted from many of my subscribers having a dig at each chapter as I published them all online soliciting constructive criticism (notable contributors include John Zande, RL Culpeper, Allallt who have made the book immensely stronger – thanks to all who participated and helped out)

What hasn’t changed is the format: 22 chapters, 7 sections; 22 divided by 7 is equal to 3.14 crudely equaling Pi (π). Pi is a mathematical constant; mathematics is the language of science; therefore, using simple logic, Random Rationality is the literal word of science. (This will stand until proven otherwise–which you shouldn’t try to do if you are reading this).

As before, the book is not DRM’ed. That means you can read it on as many devices as you want with no restrictions, and share it freely with your friends. Thank you for being a subscriber, reader, or random visitor to my blog. You can buy it here, or smooch it off someone else who has bought it since it’s not DRM’ed. If you leave a review, however honest, then this rambling idiot will love you even more. 

P.S. Since I signed up for the Kindle KDP program, I will be promoting it on certain days for free, so if you’re patient, you may be able to nab it free of charge.

Fear of Fission

So, here is sub-chapter #3, of Chapter 1, Science, of my ongoing rewrite and open editing process of my book, Random Rationality: A Rational Guide to an Irrational World. Sub-chapters #1 and #2, can be found here and here. I made the mistake of not throwing up the Introductory chapter online, so I’ll take a brief paragraph to describe the overall narrative of the book. The book takes twenty seemingly random subjects, attempting however poorly, to thread them together. In the process, attempting to make sense of the world we live in today. It is a very macroscopic worldview, as the whole book fits into two-hundred pages, but it aims to tickle the intellects of people just enough so they may go on to study more in-depth the subjects of their liking. The narrative really tries to inspire the abolition of thinking in isolation, i.e., we so often talk, discuss, and debate topics in isolation and assume that the same points prevail in the real world where nothing exists in isolation: such as the relationship between science and religion/society, fission with politics and economics, technology against government, and how they subtly, sometimes drastically, affect each other.

Would greatly appreciate any feedback, criticisms, and comments. If you want the MOBI, ePub, or PDF, then please let me know in the comments—if you provide constructive criticisms in return and live in the US, UK, or EU, then I’ll ship you a paperback copy of the book free of charge when it’s published.

Note: the book is fully sourced, but because of the writing program I use, the links don’t transfer over to WordPress. At the conclusion of the twenty chapters, I may throw up a post with all hundred-fifty+ sources, but the final book will have all the relevant sources in the proper locations.

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 There was a dream once, of atomic energy. It is as yet, unrealized. Our current energy portfolio, primarily consists of about eighty-eight percent coal, oil and natural gas, with nuclear power just shy of five-percent, and renewable energy making up the rest.

We will probably be using coal, oil, and natural gas for a while to come, especially natural gas as it is being found everywhere in huge quantities, but they should have started phasing out decades ago. Though because of our short-term irrational fear and hatred of things we do not understand, the safest, cost-competitive energy source, nuclear fission, was never given legs to stand upon.

We all know that coal, oil and gas are pollutants: the first two much more so than the third, so it is an environmentally favorable trend that so much gas is being found, as it will result in a downward trend of pollutants from the prior two. Though even natural gas pales in comparison to the safety and efficiency of nuclear power, which we shall see now.

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”  ~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Sociologist)

 

First off, let’s look at some overlooked statistics of our current energy sources at 2011 usage levels:

• Coal, which comprises 30.3% of world energy: causes 161 deaths per TWh (Terra-watt hour)
• Oil, which makes up 33.1% of world energy: thirty-six deaths per TWh
• Natural gas, 24.8% of world energy: four deaths per TWh
• Nuclear power, 4.9% of world energy: 0.04 deaths per TWh

 

For every twenty-five TWh of power generation, one human death will occur because of nuclear energy, compared to 3,220 for the equivalent amount of energy from coal, 720 from oil, and eighty from natural gas. Yet, every time there is a nuclear accident, there is a global outcry to shut them all down. Even though they are, by far, the safest means of generating power and the cleanest, in relation to immediate environmental degradation and climate change, which are somehow always overlooked.

Since the first nuclear reactor in 1952, there have been only six accidents that resulted in a loss of human life; seventy-one people died as a direct result of these accidents. Compare that to the triumvirate of coal, oil and gas, which are linked to the deaths of 4,020 people for every seventy-five TWh. Coal, all by itself, kills around 24,000 people in the USA per year. And yes, eventually four-thousand people may die as a result of Chernobyl in the next twenty-years, which is an increase of one-percent compared to other spontaneous forms of cancer. But the biggest nuclear catastrophe in sixty-years, killed fewer people than one single year of coal in one of the most developed nations in the world—keeping in mind the distinction between ‘four-thousand people may die’ and ‘twenty-four thousand people die every year’. The data, when expanded worldwide indicate that coal-related deaths are at least one-million people per year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Of course, the nuclear accidents that do happen grab so much attention that we are irrationally coerced into a state of fear. But let’s critically examine the three biggest nuclear accidents of recent history without the scepter of hysteria influencing our collective amygdala: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima. The reasons for the disasters were: human stupidity, human error, and human arrogance respectively. Notice that none of them are technological in nature.

In dressing down Chernobyl, I prefer instead to quote an article from Cracked Magazine, titled ‘The 7 Most Mind-Blowing Places Science Has Discovered Life.’

 “The lesson of Chernobyl is that the most dangerous substance in the world is human stupidity. If everyone who whined about nuclear technology actually understood it, the world’s average IQ would increase by 50 points. When idiots drink and drive and kill thousands, we don’t ban cars. But when idiots run emergency shutdown tests with an untrained night crew without telling the designer of the reactor or nuclear authority scientists, then deliberately drive the reactor into the nuclear equivalent of balanced on tiptoes on a stool perched on a stepladder on a table…made of plutonium, suddenly all nuclear power is evil…“

 

 The events of Three Mile Island were somewhat less extravagant in comparison. What transpired was an obscure mechanical gauge failure that became compounded by a lack of training. The operators’ manually overrode the automatic cooling system—Why this is even an option befuddles the non-nuclear engineer in me—because they mistakenly believed there was too much coolant—nor can I see what’s wrong with this—which turned an otherwise fixable event, into the ‘disaster’ that hurt no one and killed nobody. The problem was correctly diagnosed and subsequently fixed upon the arrival of the next shift, whom spotted the odd readings the dashboard was giving, and having the proper-training, began reversing the situation. Overall, people living within five-miles of the reactor, were exposed to no more radiation than one would receive on a commercial flight. 

 

 The Fukushima plant in Japan, which underwent a reactor meltdown in 2011 is over forty-years old, and was built with fifty-year old technology. The owners knew what the plant’s shortcomings were and were even told by the courts and the government to fix them. To make matters worse, TEPCO, had a record of changing the layouts of the cooling systems without bothering to document them. So when the tsunami hit, the previous plans had the utility of soggy toilet paper in finding out what was happening. Only through sheer incompetence did the Fukushima reactor fail, using decades-old technology that has since been surpassed, and only alongside the naive human thought, ‘it’ll never happen here,’ compounded by ignoring the law, and the docile Japanese culture.

 

 A report released by the mouthful of a commission, the aptly named Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, confirms that thought.I will highlight the opening salvo, “The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture.” And then there’s this little nugget a little later on, “Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented…” End of discussion you’d think, but alas. A few months later, Germany announced they were shutting down all of their nuclear reactors by 2022.

 The reasons for our three meltdowns are, as mentioned, primarily human error. Not an inherent danger in nuclear fission technology. Nuclear reactors are among the safest, most secure facilities in the world because engineers know to build them that way. It’s the managers, governments, and the presidents that end up breaking things, and the people are induced by a frenzied-media into blaming the reactor as a scapegoat to sleep better at night, which politico’s then go on to exploit for votes, and ever the cycle continues. And as a result of all this, nuclear power was never given the stage it deserved. So the market did what it does best. It routed around this obnoxious intervention, in the process increasing oil, coal, and gas power generation to feed our increasingly energy-hungry ways, because renewable energies were not yet cost-competitive. All of which come with the added bonus of pollution, disease, millions of deaths (per year!), resources wars, and the destruction of our environment which will results in tens of millions of more deaths…all because of seventy-one deaths and a few weeks of media coverage.

 Even the second point that a lot people, and environmentalists are especially guilty here, make against nuclear power—the storing of dangerous hazardous material that stays radioactive for thousands of years—is a moot point. Radioactive waste is stored in highly secure vaults underground, in mountains, or other equally secure areas with no immediate effect on the environment or to us. With the eventual mastery of nanotechnology sometime this century, it will cease to be a point at all. We will be able to sub-atomically rearrange the atoms that make the waste radioactive and render it inert and harmless, but more on that later. And even were that not the case, wouldn’t having the waste stored and put away for 10,000 years, out of sight and harms way, be better than pumping far more waste directly into the atmosphere—and into the lungs of every person, animal, and plant—as we do now with coal, oil, and gas? And causing irreversible climate change to top it off…Yeah though.

 

The folly of fearing fission, over coal, which powers thirty-percent of modern civilization:

• A 1,000 MWh (mega-watt-hour) of nuclear fission generates twenty-seven tonnes of radioactive waste per year, stored out of sight and harms way—in some cases, ninety-seven percent can be reprocessed so only, leaving three-percent (1,500 lbs) needing storage. The same amount of power from a coal plant generates eighteen tonnes of radioactive waste spewed directly into the atmosphere, while also vomiting forth 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, 400,000 tonnes of ash, 10,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide (acid rain), 10,200 tonnes of nitrogen oxide (smog), 720 tonnes of carbon monoxide(toxic), 170 lbs. of mercury (extremely toxic), 220 lbs. of arsenic (poison), and 114 lbs. of lead (toxic)
• Between 1970 and 2008, there were 1,686 accidents that killed more than five people at coal power stations. On the nuclear side, only one
• One TWh of nuclear energy releases 30 grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. An equivalent amount of power from coal releases 1,290 grams (forty-three times more)
• Uranium provides sixty-thousand-times as much energy per kilogram compared to coal. One kilogram of uranium will power a 60-watt light bulb for 685 years. An equivalent amount of coal will power that same light bulb for four days

 

 Nuclear power is, in the popular vernacular of the green movement today, exceedingly efficient, needing sixty-thousand times less units—or eleven-thousand less if measured against crude oil—for an equivalent amount of energy. It can, should be, and always should have been part of our energy portfolio. It is much safer and cleaner than the other forms of energy we use today, all the while, having no short-term ramifications to the environment, and manageable, trivial almost, long-term ramifications, along with a proven economic record. 

 Another disconcerting fact is continued government interference, initially stemming from the Manhattan Project, but really exacerbating the situation throughout the Cold War, has greatly and destructively cemented uranium as the fissile material of choice in nuclear fission reactors, as opposed to thorium, which shares many of uranium’s beneficial characteristics and none of its ugly ones:

Thorium’s Advantages:

• It is four times more abundant in nature
• Produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste
• Cannot sustain a continuing nuclear chain reaction, so fission stops by default in any emergency that shuts down the power, I.e., Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima would not have happened
• Generates more energy per ton and its enriched material cannot be used for a nuclear bomb
• Does not require enrichment, therefore usability is 100% of the isotope as it is found in the ground, compared to 0.7% for uranium, which must be enriched to U-235 (which can then be enriched to P-239, i.e., main ingredient of an atomic bomb)
• The supply will not be exhausted for a thousand years at today’s energy levels

 

 Thorium reactors are finally beginning to catch on, with India leading the way, but the technology is still in its infancy. Norway has recently started a four-year trial of a Thorium reactor to work out the economics and make the theoretical efficiencies into practical realities. Were it not for the destructive nature of our species, the Manhattan Project, and the subsequent Cold War, we would probably already have clean, abundant, cheap, and safe energy, with no climate change. Imagine that. 

 This chapter has barely begun to scratch the surface on nuclear energy, without even mentioning ongoing nuclear fusion research, which aims to replicate the energy source of a star, the ‘perfect’ energy source. There is also the traveling wave reactor that aims to use the ninety-nine percent of waste left over from a normal uranium fission reactor, which Toshiba is aiming to have in production by 2014, financed by Bill Gates. It is just a taste, a mind-opener, and a realization that a future is possible; it can be bright and it doesn’t need to revolve around hydrocarbons or the destruction of our environment.

 

“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.” ~Unknown

Infinite Frontier

So here is sub-chapter two, which is part of Chapter 1, Science, of the Random Rationality rewrite. The book is called Random Rationality, so it won’t start making sense until a ways in, so don’t be worried if you see no relation to the first chapter, which can be found here. Would greatly appreciate any feedback, criticisms, and comments. If you want the MOBI, ePub, or PDF, then please let me know in the comments—if you provide constructive criticisms in return and live in the US, UK, or EU, then I’ll ship you a paperback copy of the book free of charge when it’s published. If you share the same love of space as I do; consider signing the petition for increasing NASA’s budget here, or if you’re American, here. Enjoy the read.

 

regards, 

a Humble Idiot

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In 1903, the Wright brothers were the first human beings to fly in a heavier-than-air machine, flying their garage-made contraption a total of one-hundred-twenty feet. Sixty-six years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, traveling 828,752 miles, or an increase of 3,704,811% in total distance travelled over and above the Wright brothers’ historic virgin flight. We stopped pushing this boundary in 1972, relegating ourselves to an earthly existence, though occasionally venturing out to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). That, I and many other space enthusiasts, believe was a mistake.

Let’s play a guessing game extrapolating out the exponential progress from 1903-1969. Accounting for the one-third less time we’ve had, since that sixty-six year period, and assuming that the increase in distance travelled due to technological advancement relative to that sixty-six year period is lineal—which it more than likely wouldn’t be. We may have been able to travel 2,413,740% farther than the distance Apollo 11 travelled to get to the moon relative to the Wright brothers’, or approximately 2,012,051,840,341 miles, as the crow flies—or space monkey floats. That’s beyond Pluto…though it wouldn’t get us to Pluto due to the zigzagged nature of space travel (flying around planets using their gravity to slingshot around giving a free speed boost to the spacecraft).

While the number I just came up with is about as valuable as monkey excrement, it’s only meant to make you think big, space big.

Had we continued with the frantic pace of research and development that started in 1957 with the launch of the first manmade satellite, Sputnik, into orbit by the USSR, there is little doubt that there would be footprints on Mars, though they wouldn’t last long, as Mars actually has weather unlike the moon.

Perhaps we would have created different means of interplanetary transportation, and the exponential rise of technology would have propelled us ever forward, creating unparalleled economic growth in its wake. Instead we got the moving around and creation of electronic zero’s on computer screens on Wall Street.

We could have potentially mined asteroids by now, which are chock-a-block full of yummy resources that we want and/or need. Even a relatively small asteroid a mile across has approximately $20 trillion of resources. That’s one-third of 2011 world GDP in one little space rock, and billions of these rocks are just floating around between Mars and Jupiter.

So why did we stop pushing the space frontier? Why did we stop going beyond LEO in 1972? Well, we stopped going for geopolitical reasons. A travesty of politics—beginning the main theme of governmental shortsightedness this book will continually find itself in the midst of.

Throughout the entire history of Homo sapiens, an epoch of some 200,000 years, we have continuously pushed the final frontier. Expanding outwards from the Rift valley in Africa, we pushed into the vast expanse of the Mideast, then to the wetlands of Asia and to the extremes of Europe, making a final push to the lush Americas, and the remote Oceania. Overcoming our limitations and exploring the frontier is a quintessential aspect of human nature.

The frontier need not always be physical either. When we stopped exploring geographically outwards; we started downwards, inwards, and upwards. Downwards into the rocks to determine the age of the Earth and all manner of fossils. Inwards into our bodies to extend both the length and quality of life. And upwards into space to explore our place in the cosmos. 

We found fossils of ancient monsters, exploited the Atom, discovered mathematics, geology, medicine, and physics. In the process expanding our mental horizons, which allowed us to make sense of our little corner of the Universe, and it just so happens that the pursuit of such endeavors made life better for everyone in the process.

Thankfully we haven’t stopped expanding our mental frontiers. We stopped long ago pushing its sister, the physical frontier, and who knows what insights and discoveries we have missed out on as a result. 

Political expedience should not be a factor in discovering new—or more—knowledge. Neither should naïve thoughts that we have too many problems down here to go exploring up there, otherwise we’d never have left Africa! We need to access such endeavors objectively and with standards, though even that has its shortcomings. Nobody could have foreseen the implications of discovering the atom, and the scientist who discovered it, when pressed, would have been unable to properly articulate a satisfactory answer, yet out of the atom came nuclear power and the atom bomb. Out of Quantum Mechanics (QM), came integrated circuits and information technology, and now thirty-five percent of the US economy exists because of QM. Out of Einstein’s relativity, we discovered the means to keep satellites in orbit in tune with equipment on the ground (GPS). Problems down here are often solved by problems up there! When the Hubble Telescope had a malfunctioning mirror, scientists had to make do with observing a blurry Universe, but in the process, they created image-processing algorithms to clear up some of the blurriness, which was later used in mammograms down here on Earth, allowing earlier detection of breast cancer, potentially saving the lives of millions of women. Because of a mistake!

Be that as it may, did problems in the motherland stop Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, or Marco Polo, from exploring and discovering new sections of the Earth. It certainly didn’t stop the Iraqi and Syrian farmers who left the Fertile Crescent ten-thousand years ago due to over-utilization of resources and travelled to modern-day England and everywhere in between? (Eighty-percent of the current British population are descended from those Iraqi and Syrian farmers) 

 No, the problems of their time didn’t slow them down, but spurred them on, and possibly helped to alleviate their problems. For example: 

• Need more efficient shipping routes, sail the seven seas, map the coastlines, create maps, and plan better next time (We then went onto invent GPS, cars, ships, planes, and meteorology)
• Old World becoming stagnant, cross the Atlantic and start the New World, which eventually went onto become the dominant financial and military superpower of the world
• Minerals and resources becoming more expensive and/or scarce, mine deeper or farther away using new techniques and technologies

New, useful and beautiful things are always discovered when pushing that final frontier ever farther; therein lays its significance and the crux upon which our seven-thousand year old civilizations stand. Without it, we are cave dwellers, rendering the 1.6% genetic difference separating us from chimps nothing more than an unnecessary and wasted gift. It’s that mix of new problems in the face of old ones that forces upon us a different mode of thinking, along with practical experimentation that can then be taken back to society, allowing for its economic or geographic expansion. This is the foundation of human prosperity, where new processes, tools, social orders, and technologies spring forth as a result of new understandings. Without this engine of discovery and growth, history has shown us time and time again that society rots from the inside out and empires crumble. You can only coast on the achievements of your forefathers for so long.

 Why do all empires decline? Every single empire in the history of civilization has fallen from its peak due to a failure to anticipate change, and the propensity of government to maintain the status quo—a lesson to be learned in today’s heated political climate. To anyone afraid of change, history shows us that those who fear and push back against economic, scientific, and social change are on the losing side of that battle almost hundred-percent of the time. What are you pushing back against today?   

 It’s not religion, communism, monarchy, government, or any other factor of society that drives this innate human desire to discover—in point of fact, they are its antithesis with their desire for the status quo. It is change that is the instigator, and nothing forces change more than the unknown.

 Our final frontier, if you can call it that, since it is infinite, is space. We’ve conquered LEO, with the manned International Space Station, but we must not stop there. We should aim for permanent habitation of the moon and its exploration, which is chock-a-block full of helium-3—which will became necessary with nuclear fusion technology coming online in the coming decades. We should aim for capture of an asteroid, landing a person on Mars to establish humankind as a multi-planetary species, and have a back-up of Earth’s biosphere in case of a calamity, and then march, actually coast, ever forward. 

 Space doesn’t end. It is infinite and at each turn, there will be a blessing in disguise, maybe in the form of new resources, vast energy reserves, or new scientific understandings expanding our view of the Universe. And who knows, perhaps life, maybe even a sentient alien race. But we are guaranteed something, and the human race as a whole will be the benefactor. 

 This is not to say there will be no risk. Crossing the road entails risk. Getting into a car entails risk, but the rewards will far outweigh the risks, especially in our desolate solar system.

 Space has untold riches just waiting for us. We could diversify our eggs and sperm out of the proverbial single basket that is Earth, thereby increasing the chances of long-term human survival in the event of disaster. The technologies that we would invent to survive in space would be applicable to all our problems here on Earth, and it would greatly accelerate the day we live in a sustainable economy that doesn’t destroy the fragile ecosystems of our small home.

 Through our exploration of only a small section of space, we have already invented technologies that have served a multitude of needs down here at ground level:

• More nutritious infant formulas that allow a better quality of life for those infants unable to be breast-fed
• UV sunglasses protecting our eyes from harsh sunlight
• Memory foam used in helmets and prosthetic legs, saving countless lives and treating injuries
• Camera optics used in a third of all cell phone cameras capturing life’s beauty
• Digital imaging techniques such as CT scans and MRIs, potentially saving the lives of thousands, if not millions
• GPS and weather forecasting, allowing the efficient transportation of goods and people worldwide, increasing the quality of life of billions
• Smoke detectors that have saved countless people from horrible deaths
• And 1,723 other inventions that NASA has catalogued with the addendum that this list is far from exhaustive

Space exploration is the most awe-inspiring work that can be undertaken by humankind, simultaneously inspiring a new generation into becoming scientists and engineers instead of bankers and insurance salesmen, and expanding economies and horizons in a real sense. The understanding it brings fosters human innovation in a way that benefits all of humankind, not just those living in the void of space.

 Thankfully, private companies are stepping up to the plate in droves to take over where once government solely had the means. In 2012, SpaceX successfully launched a private spaceship and docked with the International Space Station twice. Another new company, Planetary Resources, has been formed to mine asteroids sometime this decade or next. Last;y, the newly formed company, Golden Spike, is offering tickets to goto the moon for $1.5 billion by the end of this decade. Though the niche they are creating is yet a delicate newborn that needs support. 

 

“Exploration is the most sublime expression of what it is to be human, and space exploration is the ultimate expression of this humanity.” Elliot G. Pulham and James DeFrank

How, Not Why…

So, I’m re-writing Random Rationality. After taking a break of several months. I went back and reread it, and realized how sloppy it was. Not much of a surprise really. It was my first book, and I’ve only been writing for a year. But there was many cases of sloppy reasoning, poor word-choice, and unexplored avenues of supporting examples. So I went back and cleaned up as much of that as I could, adding almost sixteen-thousand words in the process, taking it from thirty-eight-thousand words, to just shy of fifty-four-thousand words.

Today, I just finished the first draft of that rewrite, and I wanted to try something new with the editing process. I am going to upload one chapter every second or third day, and gauge the readers response (if any), and take what actions may be required in light of any response, be they spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, or outright errors. If anyone wants the full MOBI, ePUB, or PDF to read it at their leisure in exchange for constructive criticisms, just leave a comment and I’ll gladly send it over—if you also live in the USA, UK, or Europe, I’ll mail you a paperback, when it’s finished, as thanks for your constructive criticisms.

Here is the first chapter of the book, How, Not Why. I’d gladly appreciate any reader input and criticisms. Thanks!

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There are how questions and why questions. A why question presupposes purpose and therefore agency. The history of human ignorance, has had come with it, the describing of that which we were ignorant of at the time with unwarranted purpose, because we did not understand the how. Nothing in the relatively short history of modern science has given us any reason to believe that our ancestors were correct in placing the why before the how in any age, object, or process. This is the story of the universe, the how, as best we know it. Our understanding of the first second of the universe falls under the purview of speculative (theoretical) physics, but onwards, is empirically based in observation and experimentation (in particle accelerators, telescopes et al).

Approximately 13.72 billion years ago, a singularity exploded creating space, time, matter, and anti-matter. Neither space nor time existed before the Big Bang, so asking the question of what came before the Big Bang is akin to dividing by zero. The matter and anti-matter, being each others polar opposites, annihilated each other on contact (because they have opposite charges). Luckily for us, there existed a one in one-billion surplus of matter over anti-matter, so when all was said and done, there remained one-billionth the amount of the created matter, whence all the gas, stars, planets, and life that we see around us, came.

The instigating factor in the singularity, was a quantum fluctuation, which created a positive energy input into a system of net energy zero. We know today that the net energy of the Universe is zero, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, except to accommodate a total energy of zero (i.e., we cannot create energy, but the Universe seemingly can), and space expanded to accommodate the negative energy to counterbalance the created positive energy, and thus began entropy, and the arrow of time.

Succeeding this explosion (for lack of a better word, though it was amazingly hot; billions of degrees), the Universe expanded exponentially. The process of expansion in the first second is called Inflation, during which the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. During the inflationary period; hydrogen, helium and lithium were created in the intense heat which instigated Nuclear Fusion (more on this soon), in descending quantities of seventy-seven percent, twenty-three percent, and trace amounts of lithium. Also, tiny quantum jitters (particles that pop into and out of nothing, and which instigated the energy imbalance that began the Universe) were magnified during the expansion from subatomic to macroscopic, in the process creating imperfections in the fabric of space-time that allowed gravity to take hold and shape the Universe. We can see these imperfections in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), which is how we know they happened.

As the Universe expanded, the heat dissipated and it cooled, and as time passed, matter started attracting matter via gravity, made possible due to the aforementioned imperfections in space-time. Everything that exists: stars, planets, us, exist only as a result of those imperfections, otherwise the Universe would have been formless (everything would have pulled on everything else equally and thus nothing would have changed). With time and gravity, clumps of gas began forming. Floating in the gaseous ether, they swirled and formed into ever-bigger clumps, and just like rubbing your hands together in the cold of winter generates heat, so do trillions upon trillions of gas particles rubbing, moving, and banging into each other.

The larger and more voluminous a gas-clump became, the more gravitational pull it exerted on other free-floating gas and gas-clumps nearby, and the faster and hotter the gas within it swirled and whirled; each cycle only reinforcing further gas accumulation and heat. Eventually, this frictionally derived heat reached a critical temperature and nuclear fusion occurred; the process by which two atoms are smashed together at such speed and energy, that they are joined and a new element is created.

At this point, the clump of gas becomes a star and begins using its gas as fuel. Hydrogen fuses into deuterium. Two deuterium atoms fuse to make helium, which fuses into carbon, which when combined with helium, fuses into oxygen (for stars the size of our sun, fusion stops here), into magnesium, neon, and so on until iron is made; a by-product of this fusion reaction is electromagnetic radiation, a small sliver of which we perceive as light and feel as heat: the entire energy of everything on this planet (except for the deepest valleys in the oceans) is derived from the fusion reaction in the Sun, ninety-three million miles away. As each star moves onto the next element, it’s temperature slowly rises—one billion years from now, our sun will be too hot for life on Earth.

This goes on for many millions or billions of years: the star creating new elements, inching down and across the periodic table. Once iron is made, the star has just about reached the end of its life, as it cannot use iron as fuel. As the buildup of iron continues, gradually, the gravitational inward pull of the star’s mass (accelerated by the iron creation) begins to outweigh the outward push of it’s weakening fusion reaction (decelerated by the iron creation), and suddenly it collapses in on itself in stages, breaking the balance of forces that kept it in equilibrium. At each stage, the core becomes hotter and it creates new elements, until finally, if the star is massive enough, it will collapse so violently inwards that it subsequently explodes outwards seeding the Universe with its elements in what is known as a supernova. The resultant fireworks can, for a few weeks, outshine galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars.

On a side note, it is in supernovae that the heaviest elements are created; gold, palladium, uranium, etc. They came from a fireball burning at one-hundred-billion degrees. And if the star is even bigger, a black hole is created, where the entire mass of the star is compressed into so small an area during the implosion that the laws of physics, space, and time itself actually break down. Nothing, not even light itself, which travels at 300,000,000 meters per second, can escape its gravitational pull.

This process repeats ad infinitum until the ninety-two naturally occurring elements are created and flying every which way across the Universe, seeding the next generation of stars, which, in turn, plant the seeds for planets and galaxies to pop into existence, alongside the dinosaurs’ worst nightmare, the asteroid.

Turning the story toward a more personal nature. At this juncture, free-floating gaseous matter meandering through the Universe, in a corner of an otherwise normal, but old spiral galaxy, began coalescing into dust, ice, rock, and metals, co-mingling in this similar process around a newly formed yellow star, from which the planets, our one among them, were born.

More asteroids and meteors, not used in the planetary formation process, but still gravitationally locked in the Sun’s gravity well, zip and shoot around the place, seeding these new planets with elements, and eventually with the required puzzle pieces of life, amino acids—the building block of proteins. In Earth’s case, one among many, theories is that a meteor carrying amino acids landed here on Earth, and in the ensuing millions of years (these building blocks of life  have been found in the core of uncontaminated meteorites), these amino acids mixed with lightning and volcanic activity on a young, violent Earth and became organic matter, which (mysteriously and the search for an explanation is ongoing) went on to become single-celled life. After a few billion years of this mindless tedium, a single bacterium in an involuntary act of self-sacrifice, allowed itself to be swallowed up by another single-celled creature called an archaea, and became the first multi-celled organism (we can still find the genetic sequence of that little bugger in our own genetic code). Many trillions of evolutions later; here there be lions…and humans.

It took almost a billion years from the creation of the Earth to single-celled life, then another three-billion years to Homo sapiens: not coincidentally a carbon-based life-form. Carbon also happens to be the most chemically active compound in the Universe, so no surprise there. The four most common elements in the universe are in order: hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon. The four most common elements in your body are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen (seventh-most common). We are, as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, “extreme expressions of complex chemistry.”

That’s it—that’s how it all started.

A few things have been left out for simplicity’s sake such as dark energy, dark matter, the finer points of planetary formation, and natural selection by random mutation, but the core of it is the gist of it. These extra details fill in the blanks in-between some of the events just told, but the story told without them is much easier to digest, process, and remember.

“Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” ~Richard Feynman (Theoretical Physicist)

Random Awesome Quotes

Just three days until Random Rationality is released. Until then, here are twenty random and awesome quotes!

“How fortunate that men do not think.”

Adolf Hitler

“Universal truth is not measured in mass appeal.”

Immortal Technique

“The time will come when you will see, we are all one.”

The Beatles

“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.”

Unknown

“In the end we discover the only condition for living is to die.”

José Saramago

“I am only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.”

Unknown

“You cannot reason a man out of that which he was not reasoned into.”

Benjamin Franklin

“The first principle is you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard Feynman

“The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”

Arthur C. Clarke

“We long to be here for a purpose, even though despite much self-deception. None is evident.”

Carl Sagan

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Plato

“As long as you still experience the stars as something above you, you still lack a viewpoint of knowledge.”

Frederick Nietzsche

“Depressions and mass unemployment are not caused by the free market but by government interference in the economy.”

Ludwig von Mises

“Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.”

Carl Sagan

“There are many things given to us in this life for the wrong reasons. What we do with such blessings, that is the true test of a man.”

Gnannicus

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. We are made up of thousands of others. Every one who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.”

George Matthew Adams

“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” 

Gandhi

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of poison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing, then to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, and I’m not absolutely sure about everything, and there are many things I know nothing about. I don’t have to know an answer, I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it is as far as I can tell, and so all together I can’t believe the special stories that are made up about our relationship to the Universe.”

Richard Feynman

Biblical Metaphors…Flipped on its Head

Invariably when I get into a biblical discussion with Christians, I go into the why for’s and the WTF’s of the supposed morality, history, logic, and contradictions inherent in the Bible. And every time I rip apart the immoral, genocidal, murderous, and misogynistic rage that makes up most of the Old Testament, and which creeps into the little nooks and cranny’s of the New Testament, I get the all-to-familiar “It’s not meant to be taken literally.” Sometimes followed by, “Well its a metaphor for >>insert nonsense here<<“.

I fail to see the metaphorical value of killing my brother, mother or father for enticing me to follow other (or any) Gods. Where is the metaphor there? Or in stoning your child to death for talking back to his parents? Yes, yes, that is a metaphor for >insert bladdy-blah here<… Nor do I see the metaphor in Jesus not wanting to start a new religion, otherwise he would have written the damn book himself.

But, seeing as how the logic works for Christians. I decided to not take the Bible literally. In the process inserting some scientific truths where the writers of the Bible inserted bobble-cock, because they possessed a third-graders worldview.

I’m not one for formalities so let’s dive right in.

I’m An Idiot…Are You?

If you have read my author bio, or my letter to my future self, you will make the astute observation that I call myself idiot rather often, and you may ask why do I do this

The answer lies in a good friend of mine. It was some years back, as we were having one of our many debates, Israel vs Palestine I believe it was. Upon concluding our debate, with no clear victor, he said something along the lines of “What do I know, I’m stupid…”. That struck me as rather odd. He was, and still is, one of the most intelligent people I know. I would never had admitted something like that about myself. As far as I was concerned, I was at least somewhat intelligent.

I believe I finally understand his meaning. If you admit to yourself that you are smart, you will eventually begin assuming you are smart, and not keep up the necessary hard work and sacrifice needed to actually stay smart. If you keep telling yourself you are intelligent, or reveling in others praise of your intelligence, eventually you become dumb; the world just moves on by.

We live in a fast-moving world, bombarded every day with information from a multitude of sources. Just to keep up to date with the latest issues, requires hours a day of reading, watching and social interaction.

I spent hours a day reading articles on philosophy, science, politics, economics, and technology on my computer at home, my laptop when my girlfriend is showering, on my tablet when I am out and about, on my iPhone when I am and about and forgot my tablet, and on my Kindle when I tire of backlit screens. I do all this to try to be up-to-date, to know stuff, and stay an idiot, for I can never be smart. I don’t do this just to release a book. It is my default mode, I just like to know everything, and I like to pass on that knowledge to others. But to be smart is a fantasy, a goal that will never be realized. It took me a few years to realize that, which just proves the point of this post.

At the end of the day, we are all idiots at a lot of different things, while only competent in a few areas, and only smart in even less. The best thing we can do is let go of the fantasy that we are smart. I get a little better at it every day.

I am an Atheist in a Foxhole 4/4

This is the last post, in my four-part series countering the false thought that humanity cries out for God in moments of need and death. Here are part’s one, two, and three.

The day was March 16, 2011. The Arab Spring was in full force. Already, regimes had toppled in Tunisia and Egypt, with protests in full swing in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and in Bahrain where I happened to live and work.

In Bahrain, the protests had been going on for six weeks, prior to this day. My friend and roommate, woke me up at the crack of dawn, about 0630am.
“They are about to start the assault…” He said to me, followed by an awkward pause as my senses were still half-asleep.
“Alright, I’ll see you on the top floor” I replied, as he went up to the forty-forth floor, while I got changed and followed him up.

Assault on Pearl roundabout

We lived one block away from the Pearl roundabout, the focus of the anti-government protests, and as I peered out the forty-forth floor window, I could see dozens of Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), tanks, and thousands of troops amassing on the left-hand side of our viewpoint. Then all hell broke loose. Gunfire, tire burnings, helicopters, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire, molotov cocktails, even a few car bombs; people running and falling, only to be followed by an advancing army armed to the teeth. Not a pretty sight at all.

Once everything was wrapped up and the government forces had shot, arrested or scared everyone away, a curfew was declared in the entire region. My friend and I did a horrible job preparing for such an eventuality, as all we had in the house was protein shakes and water (We ate out everyday near the American base for 6 weeks for when the shit hit the fan, so groceries wasn’t high on our priority list). But we had to make it to the suburb next to the American base again this morning, in this case, after the shit hit the fan.We already had emergency go bags packed. We grabbed them, our passports and went downstairs to the car. But before we got into the car, we walked outside the building (with our passports in our hands) towards the nearest police patrol, who were scattered every few hundred metres. As we approached, we told them we were Australian and American, and we need to get to Juffair (next to the American base), while we flashed our passports. “No broblem, no broplem. Go” they said in the arabic english (Arabic has no sound for P.)

We got into the car, and drove off. We took a right at the round-about a few hundred meters in front of our place, and before we knew it, there was five soldiers running at us. So we stopped the car, wound down the windows, and told them the same story we just told the earlier group of police. Except this lot of soldiers wasn’t as friendly (friendly being a comparative term here, as all the soldiers were shooting at innocent protestors not one hour earlier, who were simply demanding what their King had already promised them).

Upon completing the need of our trip, the soldier looked at the road ahead, looked back at us, and said “Good luck…” in a very sarcastic, ominous tone that gave us the goose bumps, but go ahead we had too, so we did.

For reasons I will never know, I put my passport in my pocket, as I hit the gas and drove off. Not 400 meters away, out of nowhere, eight soldiers start running at our car pointing shotguns, and screaming at us to stop. I froze for a second (though the car didn’t.) Luckily, my friend snapped me out of it with a quick smack across my chest, and I slammed on the brakes. If I hesitated for a second more, that may have been our last drive. Sitting in the parked car, we now noticed the two APCs behind the eight soldiers; one manned with a fully automatic machine gun which you would expect to see in a Rambo movie, while the other had a grenade launcher, and both manned with soldiers.

We know enough at this point to slowly step out of the car. My buddy, who had the good sense to not pocket his passport (though he looked like an all-american American so the passport was more of a formality for him) was holding it up so there was no doubt. I, however, am an arab, and without my passport in hand (nor could I reach for it without risk being shot) looked like the protesters they had spent their morning shooting. As the soldiers approached, they kept their guns trained on me, the big threat that I was, with my purple shirt, and grey shorts.

Having almost being shot at for not stopping the car quickly enough was not the end of my trials and tribulations. A strangler soldier showed up, barged past the others with his baton, and lifted it above his head, ready to strike me down. I didn’t have to freeze, I was already frozen. Nothing I could do. If I dodged it, one of the others soldiers, the ones with shotguns would pop me; stuck between a rock and a hard place as they say.

“Where are you from???” his commanding officer interjected at the last second.
“…Australia…” I responded.
“Ohh… We thought you shia brotestor… Go back…” he said, as his baton-happy soldier lowered his weapon, unhappily it seemed.

I glanced over to my right, and saw a “shia brotestor” laying on the ground with a hood over his face as he was being zip-cuffed by a soldier, then picked up and thrown into a car, and driven away. My buddy and I were allowed back into the car, and had to go home. We eventually made it out, the same way we tried the first time, though several hours later, as a friend of ours who had an uncle in the police force called us, saying if we take that same route again, everything would be clear. We took our chance and made it out, luckily.

In hindsight, and unbelievably, I am grateful for these Near-Death experiences. Not many people know how they will react in the face of death, and it may leave them with an uncertainty about how they will face the inevitable. I do know that I will face it with at least some dignity. I don’t want my last act on this pale blue dot to be of pissing my pants or begging. Not that it matters, because I’ll be dead after, but it matters while I am on this side of the great divide.

And that wraps up the somewhat self-centered, four-post series of being an atheist in a foxhole. Thank you for reading.

In other news, I just launched my author website, and I am giving away free copies of my upcoming book, Random Rationality: A Rational Guide to an Irrational World, to the first one-hundred people who sign up for the email newsletter on the home page. The book will be released July 31st, 2012, so make sure you are part of that first one-hundred!

I am an Atheist in a Fox Hole 3/4

This is the third of my four-part series on being an Atheist in a Foxhole, to counter the naive thought that at the moment of death, Man always cries out for a higher power, based my own experiences. Here is the 3rd part of that series, which is much longer than the first two.

The day, was March 27, 2008. The US military had just begun an offensive in Sadr City a few days earlier. The Green Zone, where I lived, had the unfortunate luck of being situated right across the river from Sadr City, and the militants who couldn’t take on the US Army in a front on fight, decided to put pressure, or just take revenge by shelling the Green Zone every 30mins with anywhere between 1-8 mortars / rockets round the clock, where the politicians, generals, officers and unfortunately I lived. Without going into the ethics, and morality of people fighting for their own country against what could easily be called an ‘occupying’ force. This is what happened that day.

Before we get started, it is necessary to explain one thing. We were lucky enough to have what is called as a C-RAM; Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar. It is a device that gave us occupants of the Green Zone, a 6 second warning of any rocket or mortar attacks in our 4 sq. mile ‘paradise’. Once you heard the siren, you ran to the nearest bunker, and if it was further than 6 seconds away, you hit the ground and curled up into a ball. Ok, now that is established, we can begin the story.

My three friends and I were scheduled to head out on vacation on the 4th day of this shelling (thank goodness, because the shelling would continue for another 7 weeks). Our friend drove us to the helipad, to take a Blackhawk helicopter to Camp Victory, which is situated right next to the airport. Half way to the helipad, the C-RAM went off for the first, and definitely not last time that day, and we screeched to a halt, and ran into a nearby bunker as an explosion occurred several hundred metres away, and there we waited for the all-clear siren.

A few minutes later, we were back in the car and on our way to the helipad. As we arrived, we got our gear out and walked into the helipad to put our names down for standby (waiting for empty seats on available helicopters). 3 of us immediately walked over to the Burger King in the small shopping centre on the other side of the street, while 1 remained behind to call us if the chopper arrived.

On my way to Burger King

All the while walking past damaged cars, with broken windshields due to the dozens of explosions and their shockwaves.

Blowed up car

We even walked past a damaged bunker, which most certainly housed a few people, whom surely became deaf as a result of the deafening reverberations of a direct hit.

There would have been people huddling inside this bunker

We had just managed to buy our burger king meals, which still amuses me to this day, after dozens of explosions, and where being caught out in the open could mean your death, we needed a small slice of comfort food. Upon walking out of the store, the C-RAM went off again. We made a b-line for the nearby bunker, and got stuck there with a small continent of cool as chips US Marines, on their way home from the recent offensive in Fallujah (I can’t imagine what they went through). What we were going through was a walk in the park for them. We were stuck in that bunker for what seemed like 30 mins with them, shooting the shit as they told us of their recent exploits, and struggles being in Fallujah, and in the Marines. Eventually the all-clear sounded and we walked out, only for the C-RAM to immediately go off again, so we scurried back in like panicked dogs! While the Marines simply walked back in.

This time, the bunker filled up with dozens of people, including one woman who worked for KBR, who had her radio turned on. During the ensuing minutes, rockets and mortars landed extremely close by, mainly targeting the nearby American Embassy. Over the radio, we hear a frantic voice screaming “A mortar hit the living quarters…. *pause*…. THERE’S SOMEONE BEING BURNT ALIVE”. Everyone was unnerved, but only the woman spoke. “I’m fucken leaving this country tonight!” she said in a shaky voice, on the verge of tears.

There was a man burning alive in that fire

More explosions ensued, and eventually, the all-clear rung out much to everyone’s relief. I, and I imagine many others, at this point, had forgotten about the burning man, and looked only to our own peace of mind. I was wilfully forgetting what had transpired until I was in a calmer environment. We made it back across the road, and reconnected with our 4th comrade. The events from leaving the helipad, to our return clocked in at 2 hours. We were given a brief respite, as we sat around a picnic table throwing a nerfball around, and taking some photos. Our respite was short-lived, and instead of sitting around an open picnic table, we decided to get situate ourselves in front of the helipad front desk, closer to the bunker, but unfortunately, right underneath the C-RAM speaker, of which there were only 2 in the entire Green Zone, which should give you an indication of how loud they were.

Unbeknownst to us, we still had hours to wait before any helicopters were even cleared to show up, due to the constant bombardment, and the helipad waiting list grew ever longer. All the while, every 15-30 minutes, the bloody C-RAM would sound, sending us scuttling for the bunker 30 yards away in a mad dash with 40 other people. Let me tell you something, when you are in a crowd of people scurrying to save your own life, dignity goes out the window, as does chivalry. If there was someone in front of you, slower than you, you ran around them, there was no such thing as waiting, or bravery. Your life was in your own hands, and if you thought God was protecting you, then you were a fool. (The thousands of Iraqi’s who were killed/maimed in the explosions I heard everyday, would attest to that, if they didn’t have the self-contrived ‘comfort’ of religion hammered into them distorting their viewpoint from when they were old enough to talk).

Over the course of the next several hours, we had to scurry into that bunker between 1 and 2 dozen times, while bombs rained down destruction all around. It all remains a blur, though very peaceful in-between the rains, as odd as that sounds. You very quickly adjust back to normal (comparatively) once the all-clear sounds. I imagine having friends to shoot the shit with, helped a tremendous amount.

Worst day of my life

Finally, at long last, after several hours of agonising waiting, the choppers arrived, a few minutes after the last all-clear, and we had to line up in the open to board. The anxiety once again, begins to set in. What if the C-RAM goes off? Do we run to the bunker, or brave the chance to get out of this hell hole, which for all we knew, may be the only chance we get. We all board quickly, and as we lift off, the C-RAM goes off again. All hold their breath. Luckily, our helicopters aren’t hit. We take off, and fly over the war zone that parts of Baghdad have degenerated into as a result of the offensive.

The helicopters we eventually took off in

That night, we slept in Camp Victory before our flight the next morning, and I could still hear the explosions bombarding the Green Zone, 40 km’s away, and the C-RAM siren played in my head the entire night. We were only half way through our trials and tribulations of getting out of the country, but the horrible half was over with, and the 2nd half has nothing to do with God so I shan’t go into it.

My friends and I, went through 8 hours of hell on Earth, and not once, at least in my case, did God enter into the picture. I was as Godless as ever, getting mortars and rockets lobbed at me by others whom did have God in their mind, encouraging them, and by God, I mean their Ego.

I am an atheist in a foxhole.

Fun After-Fact:

The iPhone alarm sound simply titled ‘Alarm’ still scares the bejesus out of me to this day because of that C-RAM. When I need to wake up really early, say for a flight at the crack of dawn, that’s the alarm I set as it literally scares me out of bed, and gets my adrenaline racing, which ensures I don’t need my morning coffee or tea, I’m wide-eyed, tired but ready to go.

Wouldn’t Heaven be Boring? [Random Rationality Chapter]

[Free Chapter]

Lets pretend that the Abrahamic god does exist, and that depending upon your Earthly actions, you will be met with a heavenly eternity, or perhaps a fiery one, like myself and perhaps even those 93% of scientists who selfishly work to improve the human quality of life developing new medicines, knowledge and insights into the Universe expanding the tools we have at our disposal.

You lead a good life, you help the poor, you follow the 613 commandments and so on; and upon your Fortunate death you are received at the pearly gates.

How will you spend your first year in heaven? Re-connecting with loved ones perhaps.

How about your first decade? Long walks on cloud 9 picking the brains of Jesus, Abraham, Mohammed, Einstein, Elvis, and perhaps even the big G himself, exploring the vast sanctum of his infinite knowledge using the heavenly version of our own big G; Google.

God = Google? I’m just throwing it out there and seeing what sticks.

How about the first century? Trying all the experiences you were too scared to do while you were a lowly mortal, only to find out the thrill is gone now that Death no longer lingers close by.

What about the next thousand years, and the million after? And then the trillion after that, and the next 10 trillion years after your first big T party? Now what?

I guarantee you one day, you’re going to want to not be there. What could possibly make eternity fun?

If you have ever eaten more than 5 chocolate bars in a row, then you probably know what heaven will feel like it. The first one tastes amazing; by the second your taste buds are a bit desensitized, but it still tastes good, ditto with the third and fourth, until you finally try on a 5th one for size, and it tastes like nothing, just a bland paste while your mouth goes through the motions.

We all had this feeling as kids, and perhaps as teens for the sweeter toothed among us, and even now for myself. But take that feeling, multiply it by a really large number and you’ll get a taste about how boring heaven would eventually get. One day, it will be no different from death.

Does the eternal darkness seem so scary now?

This is chapter 4 from my eBook Random Rationality: A Rational Guide to an Irrational World available on Kindle and Paperback.