TED Talk: The Other Inconvenient Truth

The Fantasy of Infinite Growth

Keynesian economists, whom are the majority of economists, and of whom most government economic policy is based upon, have an illusion of continuous economic growth year upon year, and that without growth, we will have major problems; the latter part of that statement being true, but only within this system we build ourselves into.

We’ll get into the ridiculousness of this perpetual growth fantasy in a bit, but first I want to go over why growth is so vitally important in this Keynesian epoch.

Money, as I’m sure everyone knows, doesn’t just pop out of nowhere. Before we had the printing press, we used gold, silver, and various other tangible goods; such as tea in Siberia or cheese in parts of Italy.

So, once the printing press arrived and we moved to the modern incarnation of the fiat standard at the beginning of last century, we had to have a limit on our ability to create this money. Thus was born the era of debt.

This is how you Fix Politics

I recently wrote a post, ‘Are We Responsible Enough to Govern Ourselves?‘. In it, I make the argument that the answer is no. If you disagree with that, I would love to hear why.

At the end of that post, I postulated a few points on how we can fix politics so that we may avoid the destructive nature of it. Here I will expand on those, and correct my shortcomings in writing it hastily the first time.

Let’s get started.

Career Politicians

The career politician is a virus in the democratic system. A career politicians major concern is to get re-elected. Thus their every decision, policy and recommendation are acted upon in regard to their re-election chances and not to the people’s or nations benefit.

As a result of this, they are beholden to the people for the choices they make. The people, like most democratic people everywhere, are usually not well-versed enough in all matters of running a society, hence the need for a democracy in the first place, to elect others to do what need be done.

Are We Responsible Enough to Govern Ourselves?

I want to talk about responsibility. Personal as well as social responsibility.

Let’s talk about social responsibility. The majority of us are part of society. We enter into a social contract with our fellow citizens and our government to give up some of our liberties in exchange for certain conveniences. For example, we allow the government to tax us in exchange for them to build infrastructure such as roads, communication and utilities that we can use. We expect them to pass laws, regulations and statutes that will protect us from others who would do us harm, and to look out for our best interests on the international stage.

Has anyone ever heard of the Bystander Effect?

Major iPad Disruptions Coming

One of my first posts on this blog, was ‘Which Industries Did The iPad Disrupt?‘. I thought I was smart listing out a few industries here and there, but it never hit me just how huge the disruption of the iPad is really going to become, like this article from cultofmac titled ‘Why the iPad is the Most Hated Gadget Ever‘ suggests.

– Millions of toys might never be purchased
– Millions of tonnes of paper flight manuals won’t be printed
– Tens of millions of Netbooks won’t be made
– Millions of Restaurant menu’s will never be made as apps are developed and an iPad is shoved into the middle of the table.

The list goes on and go.

I for one, think this is a positive development. Yes, there will be lots of pain felt in these industries, and undoubtedly many layoffs, and while I feel for these people. This is the cost of human progress.

Short term pain = Long term gain.

Of course, that doesn’t mean people will see it that way, especially politicians but lets leave that subject alone for now. I am very exciting about the merger of all these industries into one device (maybe not just the iPad, but eventually other tablets too like Android. Monopolies suck).

Think of the efficiency gains that will be made, the energy savings, the millions of trees that won’t need to be cut down to make millions of flight manuals and hundreds of millions of books. The millions, perhaps billions of tons of oil that won’t need to be converted into plastic to create toys and cheap netbooks.

And of course, the cost savings. We all know money talks, and all else simply falls upon deaf ears. No wonder 92% of Fortune 500 companies are currently using the iPad, or testing it for potential deployment. That a lot of the top hospitals around the US are using iPads, and it is becoming an increasingly used tool in schools. It saves you money, both in terms of resources and huge time savings. Colour me impressed!

Now, think on the backend. The millions of toys and netbooks that we won’t have to throw away into overflowing landfills, contaminating our planet with chemicals. Of course, tablets might replace a part of that landfill, but any downhill movement in terms of pollution and waste is a win, and just a step on the way to zero waste.

The future is beginning to be realized, and I think it is going to be brighter than anyone of us can imagine. Yes, there will be huge pains on the way, especially economic pain, and social unrest resulting from this economic pain, but I have high hopes for the technology that will alleviate us from the woes of the 20th century.

What Pisses Me Off About Hollywood

Hollywood is a major pain in the ass. I can’t emphasize the disdain I have for the corporate side of Hollywood. Sure, I love movies, nothing beats watching a great movie on a sunday night, or any other night for that matter. But what pisses me off about Hollywood is the lengths they goto to remind you that you don’t own the piece of media you are about to watch on DVD or Blu-Ray.

It’s incredible. You just spent between $10 and $50 on your favourite movie, and one of the first things it tells you when you pop it into your machine, get comfy on the couch is that you can get fined $250,000 and spend up to 5 years in prison for showing this in public, a friend’s house or making a copy of something you bought and paid for with your hard-earned money.

As more and more of our movie watching experience is moving online, they are taking the same steps as the music industry, and we know how badly those guys screwed up. Luckily, at the time we had Steve Jobs to drag them into the future kicking and screaming. This time, I’m afraid we don’t have anyone strong enough to arm wrestle them into submission. I don’t think Tim Cook will do it, but if anyone was going to do it, I think it would be him or someone else at Apple just from the huge amount of pull they have now in the media business and when their Apple TV comes out next year, but I doubt it.

Online movies, in my opinion, will stay DRM’ed, be watchable in only a specialized program (i.e. iTunes) and won’t be transferable to other formats and you won’t even own the movie, just a license to watch it. That to me, is the most infuriating part about all of this, if I give you money for something, I own whatever it is that I receive in return, no questions about it, but that’s not the way it works these days. These big media behemoths go out of their way to lobby governments for copyright protections above and beyond what was already codified into law, despite the fact the existing framework worked perfectly fine, and that pirates wouldn’t be buyers if they did not have the option to download it illegally.

Now they are trying to release SOPA (The Stop Online Privacy Act) which pretty much leaves it up to the media holders, and the US government what constitutes privacy or not. In other words, if this bill passes then internet censorship will be legalized, and be placed in full control of the US government and these Hollywood types. Buh bye democracy. Luckily, SOPA just got rebuffed on the first go around but the next scheduled hearing is on the 21st Dec, so hopefully it will be defeated once and for all.

I just read this over at business insider, and I couldn’t agree more. This is disgusting and pathetic, but we bought it on ourselves.

This is the way Hollywood should handle themselves. C. K. Lewis recently did his own show, released it online DRM-free, and charged only $5 for it (as opposed to the usual $20 that a corporation would), and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. When there is very little difference in effort between buying the legitimate copy that will benefit the artist, and downloading it free, then consumers generally tend to pay the money. What Hollywood does is treat everyone as an illegal downloader, DRM the crap out of it all, remind you they will try to put you in jail if you violate the terms of service, and charge you a ridiclous price to boot, with the majority of the profit going to the studio itself instead of to the artists. And they call illegal downloaders thiefs!

Whatever happens to the future of the industry, they bought it on themselves, and I will happily say, suck it!

This news article is just the icing on the cake. Hollywood IP addresses used to download via bittorrent movies and tv shows illegally. So Hollywood, please come meet us in the future, or you might get teased for being that stupid kid still playing his Atari while the rest of us talk to Siri, watch blu-rays on our Playstation 3s. They are a bunch of dinosaurs, and not the cool kind.

Why Doesn’t Ron Paul Get Any Love?

It’s fascinating watching the american media covering the Presidential race. Well, not so much fascinating as mind-blowing as its so blatantly obvious that the media is pulling their own agenda in regards to whom are eligible as the next candidates. As such, a candidate like Ron Paul gets next to no coverage whatsoever.

I believe the reason is, is that Ron Paul threatens the establishment. As is plainly obvious, the corporations of America have taken controlled of its government, and the way they did it was not hard at all. Bribery is legal, campaign donations are legal, and only come if the candidate or party they donate to propagate their viewpoints. This upper level of society has in a way usurped power from the democracy. Such as the military industrial complex, that FDR warned Americans about 50 years ago, that thrives on perpetual war. They will fight tooth and nail before any troops are ever called home. They make too much money from death and destruction to care about spending trillions of dollars that America doesn’t have. Like the food giants who make it ever difficult for small farmers to get their products to market, and use dangerous chemicals to streamline the food production system that threaten the lives of millions. Ron Paul threatens everything that doesn’t make sense, and that is why he gets no coverage at all.

Ron Paul’s mission is to cut the waste out of government. He wants to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the 250,000 other troops stationed around the world for no reason. This costs a huge amount of money, and is no longer required. He wants to cut down on the size of the government, to only its essential functions and leave the rest to the private sector.

In a way, I understand why these corporations act the way they do. They act only in their own self-interest. Much as we all would. We act and do the things we do so that we can have a paycheck, food and a home etc. Except in their case, they are beholden to shareholders who demand more money than the last quarter. We, as humans always want more, and bigger or both. Notice how we keep building bigger cities, and taller buildings decade after decade, we are all over-compensating for something. Now, while I understand it, I don’t excuse it. They need to wake up and smell the roses and adhere to the will of the people as you are supposed to in a democracy.But through the continued lobbying of politicians and their parties, they continue to get what they want and will continue to do so until people wake up and have their voices drown out the donations of corporations, which is a very tall order.

Ron Paul is the one contender who has never changed his viewpoints for the sake of an audience. He doesn’t try to sugarcoat his message or dumb it down. He says what he believes in, and he says exactly what he will do once he’s in office. He’s not afraid to discuss any topic and give his own take on it. Agree with him, or disagree with him, it doesn’t matter. That’s the way a politician should act. That’s whats been missing from government for so long. I can’t ever remember a time (but I am only 26) where a politician was so candid, honest and even ready to admit his shortcomings.

Just read this open letter that Ron Paul wrote himself, and see for yourself how different a politician this man is from the rest of the crowd. Then check out the funny video of the Daily Shows take on the media ignoring Ron Paul.

I am inspired by the Occupy Wall St movement that has cropped up while I have written this blog post. I only hope that it doesn’t get hijacked by other parties with their own interests at heart, much like the tea party was in its infancy a few years ago. The founder of the tea party disavowed the party saying that it had been hijacked, read the following quote:

“It began as a movement to take back the United States from corrupt politicians. The Tea Party movement has been hijacked by Republicans and is now all about guns, gods and gays. Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker was one of the original founders of the Tea Party and calls the direction of the group an absolute joke.” – Karl Denninger

What does the future hold? Does Ron Paul stand a chance, or will a dim-witted talking points politician again take the reins of the Presidency, and democracy wither away ever more? I would like to hear other people’s opinion on this, leave a comment and lets gets a good discussion going.

Until next week.