Bring all your gifts to play in life

Sometimes people get caught up in a hurry-caine tornado of reactivity; what a mis-application of human power! Here is a reminder, "Our Gifts", which I developed from various handout materials when I was studying "psychosynthesis" psychology (Psychosynthesis psychology explored concepts that people were each a confederacy of thousands of sub-personalities; and that all aspects had spiritual components; Psychosynthesis was started by Assiogoli, and was an experiential taught subject exploring one's own self and that of other students present, provided firsthand knowledge; long term focus was on group efficiency such as in business) in the mid-1990's, the handouts referenced here were a composite of the finer qualities that each of the basic types of people embody. This is also in my early web pages on http://home.earthlink.net/~jedcline/
Compiled from psychosynthesis workshop handout notes describing the better qualities of the 7 basic types of people, key handouts were written by a Michel Robbins, I think, which helped stimulate the following inspiration. Which of these are closest to your strongest pattern? And can you appreciate the others, see their validity ... those of other people?


A higher vision: Our Gifts, bringing our all to the task

1. May we liberate people from all forms of bondage and oppression.
-- Thus may we become dynamic, powerful and benevolent leadership serving the greatest good.

2. May we have a wise and complete understanding of life so that we can teach and illuminate others.
-- Thus may we have a deep intuitive loving-understanding of others, so that we can nurture them and help them to unfold their highest potential.

3. May we arrive at truth through the power of deep thinking and careful reasoning.
-- Thus may we have great mental agility and resourcefulness, applying them creatively to intellectually challenging enterprises.

4. May we be mediators, reconcilers of human conflicts and instruments of peace.
-- Thus may we express great artistry in every aspect of our lives, thereby inspiring others to increase their sensitivity to beauty.

5. May we invent and develop those mechanisms, instruments and technological improvements which will transform and uplift the quality of life.
-- Thus may we become vitally involved in discovering solutions to Nature's mysteries through scientific research and experimentation.

6. May we serve God, the Highest Ideal, with complete faith and utter devotion.
-- Thus may we live with complete faith and commitment, true to our highest visions.

7. May we take a practical, administrative role in redesigning and transforming the patterns of human civilization, so that for all people an excellent new order to life may emerge.
-- Thus may we bring rhythmic order out of the chaos of human living, by grounding progressive ideas in practical activity, and seeing them through to perfected expression.

(This I've adapted, from a psychosynthesis group's handouts, which were said to be originally authored by a Michel Robbins. Adaption and integration by Jim Cline, circa 1995)

For LA ISSS group discussion

ISSS-NATO
2004 09 21 J E D Cline
Ideas for ISSS proposal re Counter-Terrorism to NATO RFP:

Technique for this idea-writing is to use the redundancy technique where each sentence is followed by another sentence which correlates with the first one on the major points communicated.

In school I was taught that correctly & exactly defining a problem, was to have already half solved the problem.

So I explore here factors for defining the problem of "terrorism" so as to enable more optimum approaches for "Counter-Terrorism."

A1. A "rule of thumb" is that any given person of any given competency, is capable of destroying 10 times as much as he/she can construct, using an equal amount of effort for either.
A2. It is usually a lot harder to build something than it is to destroy it.

B1. Since if everybody, or even 1 out of 10, did the destructive mode, we would long ago ceased to exist; therefore, people generally don't do the destructive mode.
B2. Something normally keeps people in the constructive mode.

C1. "Terrorism" has changed operational definitions several times: as a youth a half-century ago, "terrorism" was what the schoolyard bully did in wrath to those who "squealed" on them.
C2. Or sometimes the schoolyard bullies terrorized others just to again prove their ability to instill fear in their neighbors, to elicit compliance with the bully's everyday routine demands, particularly the girls' compliance to submit to the bullies demands.

D1. In more recent decades, the word "terrorism" suddenly re-appeared, being the word used to describe a form of "guerilla warfare" in which a non-strategic target would be destroyed, followed by a group claiming to have done it and demanding compliance with the groups demands, to prevent further "terrorism."
D2. "Guerilla" warfare was a destructive activity as part of political turmoil; "terrorism" was part of that, except involved situations which would not announce violent conflict about to happen to non-combatants.

E1. A characteristic of "terrorism" was that the damage was done to non-strategic, but cherished, parts of the opponent group/nation/gang, was immediately followed by a declaration of responsibility by a specific group and included demands of compliance required to avoid more of the same from happening; the Palestinians vs. Israelis quarrels over ownership of territory for homes was an example.
E2. "Terrorism" was a form of guerilla warfare characterized by assault against opponent's non-strategic parts, often involving the active assaulter to not survive the assault, and that a following message would declare what group did it along with explicit or implied demands for compliance to prevent more of the same from happening.

F1. More insidious were variants where, in a land where peace reigns and the internal guard is down, and all is vulnerable, "accidents" or "mishaps" are done by saboteurs of secretive groups who have political and/or commercial power agendas, so that the opposition only sees a very consistent trend of tragic losses where normally things work fine, yet it is very hard to prove assassination and sabotage by the clever secret group, so as to gradually instill fear only in the target person or group.
F2. "Terrorism" by a group can come from within a country or group, as well as from outside; and it can target the whole opponent group, or even only one targeted individual.

G1. A new variant of "terrorism" began with the "9/11" events, where no one claimed responsibility, nor made demands for some kind of compliance to prevent future occurrences.
G2. Even lacking a demand for compliance about something like handing over territory, such an event as "9/11" is sure to instigate a widespread paranoia-driven security system empowerment, like an immunization response to an infection or vaccination.

H1. "Beware violent destruction when you least expect it" is part of big and little terrorist activity, so as to instill a continual fear and watchfulness, which blocks the target group/nation/individual's higher mental cognitive activity most of the time.
H2. Keeping the target group's members in an internal state of fear, serves the purpose of excessive R-Complex time in main control, making people tend to be be predictably reactive instead of responsible, thus they become easy to predict and easy to control.

I1. "Terrorism" is a form of "bullying", each using deliberately instilled irrational fear to force compliance, and to block higher cognitive processes that might have provided better solutions for coping with the bully.
I2. Therefore, the study of "bullying" and successful ways of counteracting it, is foundational to the study of terrorism and possible ways to counteract it.

J1. Insight into the nature of the "bully" can be found in the archetype: the bull that has the herd of cows to himself, spends all his time attacking other males of his kind and quickly impregnating the cows when in heat, and does not defend the herd but seeks protection in the ring of horned cows, like their calves.
J2. The herd's cows thrive on the food and water of the herd's territory encircled, but the bull depends on protected space and food within the herd's boundaries, thus is predatory on the herd itself so as to propagate his violent genes.

K1. Understanding the archetype and seeking its playout in specific drama, there is a chance of escaping the trap of sparring with the bully; the bully thrives on high drama which is implying his power over others, drawing obedient excited followers.
K2. Avoid playing the bully's game on his terms, so as to deprive the bully of rewards for his abuses done to others, making the game too dull and unrewarding to play anymore.

Societal Games

In the struggle to find out why I haven't yet gotten the KESTS to GEO project going, I realize that it has to do with my social interactions; even in kindergarden, it was found that I just did not "get it" adequately to be an acceptable player in the schoolyard games like "Rover Red Rover Come Over." Bashing my body against the opposing team line just did not work for me; and quickly I was not allowed to play in team games anymore. I must solve the problem from where I stand, how I really am; so I attempt to understand what goes on with people, they seem to robustly go on prancing along yet won't stop to check out KESTS to GEO. to optimally save their own future and mine. What are the factors?

There are some things that I have found as factors:
1. Innate sense of territory both one's own and that of one's neighbors;
2. Continual exercise of give-and-take, defend-and-aggression, both playful and for-real;
3. A sense of social hierarchy structure, including one's own "place" in it, and the acceptable rules for changing one's position in that social hierarchy;
4. Display for comparison to see whose is bigger than whose, better-than, faster-than, smarter-than, many kinds of whose-betterness.

Team sports teach players (and to some extent teach those in the bleachers) the principles of both cooperation and hostilities, and physical expression of both; both required of by, and restrained in scope by, the rules of the game, each player's worth being determined by how well he/she physically performs and follows the rules of both demanded and prohibited actions, as played out in the ongoing contextual situation, some is static and some is dynamic within the structure.

Why do they spend their time that way? Perhaps it is some instinctual urge to tussle with each other, exercising for strengthening capacity to do certain kinds of things. Perhaps it is part of the societal hierarchy flow process, rewards granted only to "winners" therefore there is much incentive to play and to win.

To make that all work, there must be strict adherence to the hierarchical scheme, from which the goodies of life are meted out: food, homes, attractiveness to potential mates; "wealth" and "social standing" key summary parameters.

Now, the thing I don't notice anywhere in this, is the visionary guidance of the whole for the well-being of the whole. I have been voluntarily attempting to provide some of this, such as with the "KESTS to GEO" and its enabled applications, for robust expansion and survival of civilization, and restoration of nature.

But rule-moderated "bullying" is the actual guide nowadays, instead. This works while nature can continue to provide bounty for the "winners", while man's munching and frolicking about doesn't destroy essential parts of nature, so as to collapse the support system: game over.

I believe mankind can take on the task of visionary guidance for growth and sustenance of both civilization and nature. Perhaps this is more of a prayer, blind faith, than of observation of current reality.

That will involve also finding out how to prevent, contain and perhaps even harness (??) the bully-force that often bursts forth to cause bull-types to launch locking horns in struggle to see who is better than who, trashing out the surrounding environs and destroying others lives and property and indebting the system so that it won't have the resources to create highly constructive large-scale options; the contentious bullies being righteousness-proclaiming on both sides, of course; onlookers getting all excited about the ongoing fracas, instead of using their combined abilities to stop it immediately. This prevention & coping-with is something that I cannot even guess how to do at this point; very ancient problem that it is.

-- Jim Cline

Comparing Rocketry, Tether Elevators, and KESTS

Comparing Rocketry, Tether Elevators, and KESTS
J E D Cline 20040913

There are various layers of detail and scope by which something can be described. Fields of possible relevance to the reader are significant, too; some people will be interested in one kind of thing, whereas other people interested in a quite different factor. So here is an effort to provide a basic description of the basic principles of rocketry, anchored tether space elevators, and KESTS to GEO spacerails; in basic physics and psychology aspects.

ROCKETRY:

Rocketry utilizes the physical principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; useful operating in a field of gravity. The force on the propellant mass being expelled out of the rocket engine is equal in amplitude and opposite in direction to the force on the rocket itself. That action, or force is equal to the product of the mass and its acceleration, the mass of the expelled propellant being small and its acceleration very high, whereas the opposite-direction acceleration on the rocket of much vaster mass, is small. If the force of gravity on the mass of the rocket is less that the upward force generated by the downward thrust against the expelled propellant, the rocket moves up away from the earth. The energy that accelerates the propellant, and thus the rocket, comes from the combustion reaction between the propellant fuel and oxidizer carried by the rocket. Nearly all the energy consumed is used to lift the fuel itself and its support structure, only a tiny fraction of the energy gets given to the lifted payload. But this is the best way we now have for getting up into space, and most importantly, it works. And the psychological factors of the sight and rumble of a spectacular rocket launch inspires excitement in people, psychologically evocative. Rocketry business provides much power and wealth and high profile presence to a lot of people, inspiring its continuance even though useful mostly for emplacement of lower orbital satellites, LEO Space Station service, small GEO com and survelliance satellites, and future rare high profile manned space exploration adventures following unmanned ones. Worthy goals; but surely by far not the best ones.

ANCHORED EARTH TETHER SPACE ELEVATORS:

A vertical elevator tensile structure supported by the outward centrifugal force on mass of the tether beyond the balance point GEO, upon which elevator vehicles climb up and down. Made of a tether material that has a suffiecently high strength to mass ratio and is sufficiently durable, a tether anchored to the earth surface equator and extending vertical so high that its counterweight mass beyond GEO exerts sufficient outward centrifugal force due to the Earth's rotation, to offset the gravitational force on the mass of the tether material below GEO, appears atractive for building a Space Elevator. Power to run the motors of the climbers that bring payload up and down the tether would be sent by high powered laser beams aimed at the vehicle as it rises up from ground to space and back; avoidance of toasting the tether material with the laser is a requirement, as well as precisely tracking position of the rectenna on the climbers on the tether. Pairs of such tethers side by side would allow two-way traffic. Tether material with a tensile strength to mass ratio sufficient for a constant crossection makes for much easier construction and reproduction techniques. The tether Space Elevator concept is getting much attention since 2002, with the prospect of carbon nanotube matrix material hopefully becoming available soon.

KESTS to GEO:

KESTS to GEO (acronym for "Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structure to Geostationary Earth Orbit") would be of a complexity level about par with one's CD player, though of such huge perimeter that it would totally encircle the planet, eccentrically connecting between ground level at the equator, around and up to GEO on the other side of the planet, in a huge loop. It would use the centrifugal force from high velocity mass circulating within the structure to press outward just enough to balance the force of gravity on the structure with its loads. Electromagnetically coupling some of the momentum of the upward-bound portions of that high velocity circulating mass stream, inductively drags vehicles with their payloads up between ground and GEO; and gently returns them back to the ground. Electrical power is input at the ground terminal accelerators to restore energy consumed by the transporation system.

It would utilize the physical principles of electromagnetism and centrifugal force within the gravitational field of a planet. Electromagnetism utilizes the principles that opposite polarities of magnetic fields cause a pull toward each other, whereas polarities that are the same shove away from each other, and that current flow creates a magnetic field, and a changing magnetic field creates a current flow. Centrifugal force occurs when a moving object has a lateral force applied toward a central point, in this case the lateral force is a combination of gravitational pull on mass and lateral thrust against a curved track. Much like a combination rotary and linear electrical motor stretched very thinly all the way around the Earth into an eccentric loop between ground and GEo above the opposite side of the planet. Electrical power, initially from conventional electrical power sources, is applied to electromagnetically thrust the motor's armature segment mass stream, thrusting against the mass of the earth, accelerating the motor's armature mass stream, transferring kinetic energy to the high velocity armature mass streams. The mass streams experience lateral thrust both from the earth's gravity as they travel around the earth, and by lateral thrust in the same direction as they are deflected by the curved track of the motor's stationary structure. The armature's thrust against the curved track reaction force, is set to exactly balance the force of gravity on the mass of the stationary structure with its loads, supporting its weight thusly by energy instead of primarily by strength of its materials. This enables the existence of such an immensely high structure.

The high velocity armature mass streams share some of their upward-moving momentum, via electromagnetic coupling, to lift spacecraft up along other sets of maglev tracks on the structure. Thus the spacecraft need lift no fuel mass for the journey between ground and GEO, making it inherently highly efficient transportation, as compared to rocketry between the two locations.

So overall, electrical energy is input to the motor system at the ground, the energy is stored in the structure and supports the structures weight and lifts spacecraft along the structure between ground and GEO. GEO is selected as the destination site because it is motionless relative to the earth surface, thus the transportation structure can maintain a solid link between ground and facilities in GEO without use of intermediary free-flying spacecraft with their propulsion and connections factors. The psychological factors include the lack of high profile persons in the field, just one impoverished older man fairly invisible to the public, stifled by the establishment; few dare to side with him.

Both tether space elevators and KESTS to GEO would severly compete with conventional satellites and rocketry, for exclusive right to use the space below GEO, since collision of an orbiting object with a stationary structure would be catastrophic for both. With easy and efficent electric transportation to GEO, most if not all of the functions now served by objects below GEO, would be relocated up to GEO. Space Station would be a special case; in GEO manned habitation would need more passive shielding, particularly until the charged particles are soaked up out of the radiation belt there by large quantities of mass placed there. Probably we would just build an initial 1976-designed Stanford Torus there in GEO instead, particularly utilizing KESTS transporation capacity.

LONG TERM ENERGY SOURCES FOR TRANSPORTATION

The long term sources of energy for rocketry come from remaining fossil fuel sources, although electrolysis of water electrically from nuclear reactor electrical power could expensively generate some fuel in the future. Use of rocketry to lift people to space seems limited to a chosen few, now and in the future, because of this.

Anchored tether Space Elevators would utilize energy from ground conventional resources at first. When used to build solar power sources, some could be used to generate laser power to follow the vehicles, like from ground lasers, but instead from lasers located in GEO.

The long term sources of energy to sustain and power the KESTS to GEO come from the solar powerplants it enables built in GEO, so it will provide its own transportation energy, as well as provide clean electrical power for civilization on the planet below. Since it will not be limited by energy from ground sources, and can be scaled to whatever capacity desired, and that it can have continuous rail traffic, it seems reasonable it can handle the commute traffic of a modern metro rail system: a million people a day. To space.... This might come in handy if we have to make a temporary exodus to cities built in GEO if the ecosystem has catastrophic collapse and drastic measures are needed to boot it back up again to working program, before comming back. The temporary exodus seems much more humane to me than the alternative. Even without such an incentive, a large civilization presence in GEO cities makes sense, and allows healing of the ecosystem of a few decades hence.

Of course, we have got to get our act together as Humanity for this, or any other scenario, to work long term. This seems a much more challenging part of the task, compared the technological challenges involved, since we clearly enjoy having a conflict fracas, far more than taking on mutually beneficial construction projects together. Can wisdom be taught in school, along with the 3 R's? How? When? Soon enough?

Solving Headaches

Solving Headaches-a
20040912 J E D Cline

In the news lately are declarations that the health care system is costing the economy too much. An old saying is that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", although this is not heard much anymore, probably because there is much more profit to be made from the pound of cure. One would think that the "customer" would select the "ounce of prevention" instead, it being much more economical and very much less painful and inconvenient.

However, only in the "health food" and alternative health" arenas, do people seem to explore this option. General population, I think, lives in a "fighting brush fires" mode most of the time, just treading water to stay afloat, no energy or attention remaining for the "ounce of prevention." Some part of the cause of this is that the "pound of cure" providers (and very welcome they are in time of real need) are the ones with the big advertising budgets to hog the attention of the population, and to use leverage on governmental agencies to block viable alternatives from being accepted widespread.

The principle of "efficiacy" seems to provide a solution to this problem, in case people really want to solve the problem. Perhaps analogous to court of law arbitration, the various interests involved would need to be willing to accept the results of valid reality-testing appropriate to the situation overall. Such efficiacy reality testing can often be done even by oneself (examples shown below); it does not take millions of dollars to perform such reality testing.

"Efficiacy" measurements would be different for different people and situations, I suspect. For example, some people might find it more efficient to rid themselves of a headache by swallowing pills on demand, like aspirin etc; while others would find it more efficient to apply a few moments of rubbing their neurolymphatic appropriate points to deal with headaches, while others might use a battery operated electrical device set to headache-source healing frequencies, to prevent the headaches. It would depend on how busy the person is, what knowledge and materials and equipment are at hand for the person, then decisions made by the person with the headache.

Currently, the makers of analgesics have the money and influence to toot their horn loudly and most people thus know only of that option to deal with headaches.

Having personally done some "efficiacy" reality-testing on the subject to myself during the past decade, I've found the electric microcurrent devices do an efficient job of preventing the headaches formerly a frequent problem for me (and their use has clarified my thinking and memory to a significant extent and so is another plus); the self-neurolymphatic rubbing works wonders for me too and has general stress-relief as a side effect (although I can't do it in public as it looks too weird.) And yet it is nice to have that bottle of analgesics handy for the times I have been too busy and frazzled coping with life's dramas to have done the preventive modes.

Each of the "headache-fixing" modes have their own special side effects on myself: the analgesics may drop inflamation-related damage elsewhere too; the self-neurolymphatics may stress-relieve enough to be able to see other options in the situation ongoing; the small electrical device may prevent other problems besides headaches. Another modality, that of intensive nutritional intake focus, also may be "efficiacy" found to prevent some headaches, and have its own side effects such as weight control and better life energy and so forth. Yet not everybody can equally utilize all of those modes; for example, I as a lonely bachelor grieving over lack of normal close relationship with a woman in the present time, have little facility for the adequate nutritional modality.

A mere headache may seem an automatic call to grab the analgesic bottle and pop a pill, get on with life while it takes effect. Forget the neuro-rubbing and the electrical gizmos, not needed. Yet, like other aches and painful sensations, headaches are the body's way of saying that help is needed down here in the physical self, and needed right now! Pill-popping may be analogous to hitting the alarm clock's off-button, when it sounds wake-up in the workday morning, and then going back to sleep, instead of getting awake and seeing what needs to be done and going for it.

My rambling thoughts about How to Save the Nation

My rambling thoughts about How to Save the Nation
Start 2004 09 10 James E D Cline

I've had fleeting ideas about how to turn the trends around. As well as thoughts as to the deeper problems behind the trends that look dismal to me. At this point I am just jotting down the rather unintegrated pieces. Maybe later do what I can to assemble the pieces, like those of a jigsaw puzzle.

1. It seems reasonable that some Intellectuals, many decades ago, learned about Malthusian Theory, of the exponential rise in populations of mice and men. Their learn-ed calculations urged that people ought to stop having so many children, etc, etc. Some groups may have decided to take action to lower the population, well-meaning people that saw the devastation man wreaks on the earth and sea. Indeed, such may have powered some of the forces now rampaging. And those highly esteemed, well-meaning folk, having seen much resulting loss of life and happiness that came forth (all in the banner of lowering the population), believing they did the right things that were hard decisions, do not want to hear a message that says they were wrong, that right now a high quality mankind needs to intensely expand civilization with a path for cities in space right now ... that mankind's potential is truly above that of the animals. Not a message they would like to hear; and much worse, they do not want others to hear. Understandable. But does that mean man has to continue to pull the plug, just to save face? Can we learn from our mistakes and move on?

2. I have always lived lightly on this earth. Even now, though a "senior", I struggle to get around by walking and public mass transportation systems, even though I could drive my car. The need to conserve petrochemical reserves is widely known, yet the average size of the vehicles that pull up at the stoplight as I wait for the light on the sidewalk, on foot, seems to have about doubled. If I look over at the people in those mammoth vehicles, I see one or a couple looking back at me, they rather suspiciously at me, before the light changes and the parade of behemoths surges forward. Somehow, it does not make sense to me, why are those young people racing to consume the resources they and their children will desperately need, not long hence? Are these people well educated? If so, what are they being taught? Maybe it is "survival of the fittest, rip out as big a chunk as you can while there is still something to rip out." Or maybe simply the guy proclaims "I am a winner" and the gal sees the winner and says that surely he will provide for her and her children, and so she will ride with him. Maybe they simply don't think further than that, due their particular temperament and need to just tread water, nowhere really to go. Or so they think, and act upon.

3. Three years ago tomorrow, some strange things happened: something enabled a bunch of planes to be hijacked and slammed into some buildings, and ushered in the age we now live in. Among other things, we are warring in the middle-east, Afghanistan then Iraq; yet, would we not be in civil war were it not for turning our attention outward? As I wander the streets and marketplaces, even workplaces, I see a lot of angry people. Often I see an angry glaring thug right behind me at the checkout line, like at KMart today; I can't adequately evaluate what is going on, but something is. Reminded by recent news, I remember all the assault weapons stockpiled since the 1960's, and the people who focus on that mode, preparing for something, Patriots, many claim. Back in the 1960's it was to dispose of enemy spies in the country, the government was not doing a good job of eradicating them, they thought. Most, surely were well-meaning folk; some were adventurers needing some group backing for their destructive exploits. On both sides. So, who is their enemy now? Without an enemy they have no rallying theme, and they would dissolve, maybe. In the 1960's, the women solved the problem with the motto "make love not war" and it worked: things moved toward peace and prosperity (probably most men find that lots of really real lovemaking with a woman is very much better than slugging it out with the guys), but population grew and energy consumption increased faster than population, along with accumulation of civilization's wastes that nature does not know how to recycle without our knowledgeable help. Horrid disease created since then has now blocked that "make love, not war" option; that door is now sadly shut. Stresses mount higher, suppressed angers fume and strive to find a target. Tranquilizing the public with drugs might help if they could get to the tough thugs, which is unlikely to happen; besides, a stupefied population is not competent to take on the challenges of life. Much needs to be done; and the glazed eyes and vacant smiles walking down the street don't seem to me to be able to get the job done well and on time, and probably they won't even see the problems anyway. And the way of the ruminant herd bull haunts me: ramming headfirst into the broadside of the interloper, as works for bulls in the field, is an image far to close a match for image of planes ramming headfirst into Twin Towers, to down the presumed opposition, so as to claim the herd's future.

4. There has to be a way or ways. The manipulation of "Group Think" seems to be the main force operant nowadays; even I, afflicted with the social handicap of Asperger Syndrome, am not totally immune to the so-subtle advise of Group Think, at the moment of quick decision. Making "boo-boo's" is no stranger to me either; I've "been there done that" too. Most likely there are a bunch of forces which think they are going to "win big" during the turmoil and lack of accountability going on. No good guys and no bad guys, just boys... playing with matches sometimes. Free-Enterprise is proclaimed, yet "nobody is watching the store" except security staff through TV cameras looking for images resembling pre-labeled bad guys; meantime everything is getting sold-out. So, Big Problems in River City. Are we humans great at solving problems? Yes! OK, like the Chicken Pox, we have got it.

5. Assuming there is some future for our nation possible other than being divvied up into feudal lordship corporate kingdoms, within an isolationist nation created through deliberately poking the other nations with a sharp stick; I look for those kind of options. Technology change needs to be handled by other than "the new product company trashes the old product company", if only because it is too easy for the old product company to squash the upcoming new product company in its infant stages. This deprives everybody from the benefits of the new products that might have been. Some of those new products may be life saving; some even civilization and environment saving. Would be nice to have them there in time of need. Perhaps some 3rd party arbitrator kind of thing could arrange for the folk and stockholders of the old company to be welcomed in as adequate partners in the new company, for example; education and training for comparable level employment in the new technology corporation being a mandatory part of the deal. Does this seem of interest to anyone but me?

Exercise - Imaginary Press Release

Learning more creative writing tools at a recent writer's workshop (perhaps more adaptable to poetry than technical papers) included efforts to bring smiles from my writing, it was suggested that I put the following on my blog. Background is that we had just experienced a meditation tool in which one imagines self inside a black box, which for me seemed to isolate me from the rest of the universe, just me and the black box. Then we were asked to write an imaginary Press Release in which oneself was the subject.

So here is what I wrote for that exercise, and reading it to the workshop group provided lots of mirth for everybody....

"Press Release -

Jim Cline went into an odd shaped black box and disappeared from the universe.

He was that older man who rode around on the buses from Sunland to Exposition Park 4 or 5 hours a day, carrying a backpack everywhere , worrying people with his oddities and lack of talking with people and looking wistfully at the cute young women; he clearly did not know his place.

He volunteered at the Natural History Museum 3 or 4 days a week, helping several marine biology research projects ongoing there.

Back in his tiny studio apartment in Sunland, he wrote endlessly on his computer and internet, raving on and on about how people could make this weird electric motor thing encircling the earth from ground up to GEO and that could enable constructions in GEO that could provide all the electric power the world needs, clean and free of the greenhouse gas problem, abundant energy for the whole world; ability to recycle toxic wastes back into their pure elements for re-use, and people could live in cities built up there in orbit, crazy things like that, raving on and on.

He made everyone feel uneasy with his strange ideas, and we can all breathe easier now that he is gone into that black box.

Another Press Release will be issued to warn you if he re-appears."

Poetry of KESTS to GEO

How powerful the cast spell!
That enchants Man with mere winning.

The Earth's vast oil fields
A pocketful of energy for man,
But mere pittance from its huge source
Steady solar power endlessly intense
High above this planet
Even this moment, pouring past
Unclaimed, going to waste,
Trillions of clean watts every second
Unnecessarily gone past forever.

The incredibly grand rocketry of the 1960's
Did race us to the Moon in time
To say "No" to the "enemy"
That was trying to move Cuban scenario nuclear missiles there.
Rocket's proud great achievement for Man's daring step.

But for the building of Solar Power Plants in GEO
Rocketry doesn't have the Right Stuff
Stepping off to the journey
To climb up the 20,000 mile high mountain
Carrying the immense weight of all the fuel for the trip in its pack.
It would use more energy than the machines could send back.

Man has other ways, however,
Many are his kinds of wares.
Fit the tool to the task,
Don't get stuck mired forever in the old business ways,
Stored kinetic energy as centrifugal force
Stretching away from around the earth in a loop,
Balancing structure weight
Perhaps could support a railway.

A Hula Hoop for Mother Earth,
Swinging around as she rotates;
The hoop a double carousel,
A low speed one to ride upon;
The very high speed one along side of it
To pull the low speed one up and to provide outward centrifugal force
To support the weight of both carousels arm in arm.

A hoop supported by stored internal energy,
Not by its strength of materials, as do other kinds of high structures.
A great gateway to high earth orbit with its solar power so abundant,
And from there to the riches of the Solar System
Waiting patiently for life to bloom upon its hard barren vastness.

Mother Earth's Hula Hoop;
High speed multiple carousel hoops side by side,
The faster lending a hand to lift the slower.
No more would vehicles have to lift fuel energy for the trip to GEO.
Cheap electrical lift to GEO
Builds solar power plants there
To light our homes and power our machines
And power the carousel itself,
Becoming a self-sustaining path to space to keep the path open.
And build solar powered giant mass spectrometers
For total recycling plants there
To use sunlight's power to reverse the entopy from toxic industrial wastes.

Perhaps to finally set Man free
From ancient bondage to heavy ground.
Farfetched it seems to most;
But Just In Time, it seems to me.

Does Man now pause in his mad race to win
Lemming Leap's ultimate reward?
To look around,
See this something new to give reason for life anew?

Not yet, I notice, sadly, 16 years into the trying;
The enchantment spell of the Lemming Race to win
Has taken their souls
I shout Turn Back! There is a better way!

But they reply
"We will teach you who is boss here,
Watch us cunningly win the girls,
While you slowly perish in despair
As if man no more: How clever we are!.
Watch how beneath our feet
As we crush your cast pearls and then turn to rend you.
We are the most powerful, while you are nothing
And we are enjoying winning at what we are doing,
And all your inventions will soon be ours to reap."

What kind of answer is that?
I thought they were not just sane
But also adequately great.
It is just that they like playing their game,
Instead of playing mine with me even a little.

Can this poetry about Mother Earth's Carousel Hula Hoop
Finally get them to hear a strange message? From a crazy man.
Instead of my usual saying, like:

Cargo spacecraft would be lifted
to and from GEO
by inductive electromagnetic drag
along a structure encircling the Earth,
whose weight is supported by internal stored energy,
of armature segments sliding along maglev tracks
at far above orbital transfer trajectory velocity,
From Earth terminals such as in an east-west tunnel
in the Ecuadorean Andes mountains on the equator.
Yet the overall complexity of such a transportation structure,
a KESTS to GEO,
would be of complexity level similar to
the common CD drive in one's computer,
No wait needed for super strong tethers;
This is ready for development now,
Here is a great project that people could do.

To be used for building the solar satellite electric power plants in GEO,
Enough to power the world
Thus the CO2 greenhouse gas could dwindle back to normal levels.
And to build simple mass spectrometer type total recycling plants in GEO
Solar energy to convert entropied toxic industrial wastes cheaply lifted up to there
To be changed back to the purest of raw materials for re-use.
Lift spacecraft electrically to GEO, spaceports there
To return to the Moon in grand style
And Mars' adventures suddenly could become huge expeditions.

One might ask then: "If it's so great why aren't we doing it,
Looks like it would make money hand over fist."
Part of the answer is, well, just because we're not doing it.
It is very hard to do something different.
And this project has lots of new somethings in it.

And too, the Big Game Players,
Might treat me as if I were trying to crash their huge games.
They see me as if someone who steps out of line
Tries to go around the immediate boss, in desperation:
Bosses have clever sharp claws to shred those kind.

Jim Cline 2004 09 04-08

Smiling

I stood waiting for the next bus. There is little to do there, but to wait. I'm on my way to visit my last friend. A #92 bus will come along eventually. I look at a distant billboard that once had proclaimed a cheap internet service; it now proclaims something else. I look at a pile of dirt behind me, a fence, and a deep hole surrounded by steel piling, water in its bottom and cans and bottles float down there in the slime. I look far down the street, past under the arch bridge where the bus will pass through. No bus.

I wait, pace back and forth then stop and wait. I'm not impatient. Life for me now is just to wait for the bus. Even when it comes, there is little to do but wait for something else, none of which is the one thing I need: a nice woman to love every night. And the world weirdly prevents me from having a sexy loving woman these days, as if my own incompetance were not enough to prevent it.

I notice a young couple with two young children striding down the sidewalk in this direction. They all are smiling, yet they ... march. I look away, not to worry them. People often act as if I scare them somehow, so it is best to not notice them obviously. Then I glance again as they are almost here, do I need to step further back. They are all smiling confidently at something I can't see, still marching ahead, in my direction. Plenty of room on the sidewalk. I resume looking at the street, so as not to bother them.

They abruptly stop their march, right in front of where I stand; the man suddenly grabs up one of the young boys and violently tickles him and the boy screams with both happiness and discomfort, on and on. A bit surprised, I look at the cute young woman, she is closest to me, she still has the same smile on her face, staring straight ahead past me at nothing, standing still there not yet quite in front of me. The man then puts the boy down, who then stops screaming. The four resume their march ahead on past me, silently; all still have the same confident smile on their faces, no more, no less.

I wait for the bus. It will come eventually. And I briefly think: that was a bit odd. And I notice something else now that was not there before: the lively screams of that little boy being tickled by the man right in front of me, that "energy" seems to be still there, but the others are not there. Odd, too. My imagination doing something odd, this energy thing again. I wait for the bus to come, and I think of those almost friendly smiles that did not change ever, and did not quite have something in front to smile at. I've seen that smile a few times before; yes, the identical kind of smile at something I could not see in front of the person, unchanging.

I wait for the bus, standing there, on sidewalk far too long unwashed by rain, painted by many spilled sticky drinks that glued dirt to describe their last path. The smiling family has gone out of sight. I look at the street, and I look at the dirty sidewalk behind the seats there. Ah, I see the bus coming, it stops a long time at a bus stop under the arch bridge, in the direction the ever smiling family had marched.

I begin to wonder: what were they smiling at?

The hypnotic race to Win

What is it about Man
That causes the intense focus
Of the mad race to win, down the narrow path
To lose sight of the wonders
Of the vastly broader terrain
Which their compulsive race frolics past?

Perhaps it is the ingrained lesson of the spermatozoa
Who know that in the race to the egg,
First one there wins all.

Yet the rhythms of Mother Nature,
Like those of earthly woman,
Decide the future of that race,
Can it be won now, or not till later.

Take detours in the race
Explore the vast wonders to the side
Just like with woman,
Caress her wondrously and long
Make love with Mother Earth
Enjoy her incredible qualities,
Like that of more familiar close woman,
Some are plain,
some are utterly sublime,
All can be delightful
by day and by night.

Yet how powerful the cast spell!
That enchants man with mere winning.

James E D Cline 20040902

Incoming Idea, watch out!

Incoming Idea, watch out!

In this quatrillion-piece machine we call "Civilization", the click and buzz and slosh back and forth of rhythms play out, business as usual. It was not always this way; the pieces of civilization started from zero; more and more added piece by piece, until it is huge and complex as now.

Civilization grew, idea by idea, and the ideas worked the hand of mankind upon stone and wood and water and on living things, ever growing, idea by idea. Each incoming idea fell upon the ongoing waves and ripples in existing civilization as it found, each fell sometimes like a cool raindrop onto a thirsty leaf, others fell like a fiery meteor from outer space. Whatever, the impact of the new idea made new waves, new ripples, at first upsetting, then settling in to the new norm of everyday slosh.

The process of adding to civilization continues, building it up more as before. But each new idea that plops into the slurry of busy civilization is not often welcome, disruptive to the routine that was before. Some people decide to defend against new ideas that might be headed their way, instead of needing to cope with the disruption and new norm that might have resulted. Depending on just where the incoming new idea plunks into, here are some of the observed forms of blocking waves spreading from the plopped idea, cutting the idea off at the source (sorry, if any of this steps on some toes a little):

1) Ideas make new things possible, resulting in change, and thus they must be suppressed/controlled to keep all things fine just like they are right now. If I own a corporation, I can specify what ideas can be worked on, none else permitted on the job. If I additionally require each employee to sign an "employment agreement" handing over all ideas the employee ever has (on or off the job and on any subject) to me, and yet requiring me to do nothing with them, I can deep-six all those other ideas all those employees might have. Since nearly everyone must work for some corporation to pay bills, and if all corporations do this same idea suppression thing, there will be no new ideas created except which those we owners choose, and all will be in our plushly rewarded fuedal domain control forever.

2) Only very highly educated people are capable of creating useable wide-implication new conceptual designs, and are well rewarded for that capability. Therefore, someone not highly degreed but still claiming to create such concepts, must be lying, or else the idea is defective and won't work. In either case, ignore the person that is out of line, he/she will starve eventually and vanish as if never existed if unrewarded thoroughly enough; the idea will then freely be for all of us to use as we see fit, part of the knowledge base of our education, our right to high position, and thus all will remain well.

3) An idea for a radically new kind of space access transportation and application conceivably could have military uses, therefore the idea surely is classified and the guy telling of it must be a spy. Therefore correct response would be to stifle the guy's efforts to communicate the idea (since it obviously must have been classified), constantly block the guy's efforts at everything and particularly don't let people intimately talk with him such as a girlfriend might do; and conduct a widely advertised search to locate the security leak source where that spy stole the idea, shake things up and let them know who is boss.

4) My business's income is my source of survival and high living. The conduct of business generally is as clean and merciless as the rules of football game playing; and so my survival requires I too be equally and cooly merciless toward anything which might compete with my business. Therefore, someone coming in with a better idea than that idea upon which my business is founded, must be mercilessly and coldly treated, quietly grabbing or destroying that other idea and its originator, so my business and life will remain fine.

5) In school I did not care who originally came up with each of the bits of knowledge which I learned there; I got the knowledge and it all is mine to use to get what I need. Therefore, equally I don't care who comes up with a "new" idea, a bit of knowledge, it is mine to use freely to do what I want, nothing whatever owed to the "originator" of that so-called new item. Anyway, ideas just come out of thin air, thus they are of no value.

6) If someone below my hierarchical status does something "better than" me even once, my boss may fire me and give the job to that wiseguy underling. Therefore, if an underling proclaims a clearly better idea than I do, the purpose is to humiliate me; response therefore is to fight back at the underling, keep my position by destroying the idea or insinuating it was mine all along. Everyone knows the hierarchical system must be honored totally, one break in the structure and all will be at risk.

Civilization grew, idea by idea, and the ideas worked the hand of mankind upon stone and wood and water and on living things, ever growing, idea by idea. Yet it is said that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Given knowledge of how to most voraciously devour the resources of our home planet, excreting the materials as unusable entropied wastes, are there none to be found responsible enough? While we yet have the energy to create the radical electrically powered space access systems to enable us to reach for vast solar power far above the atmosphere and above earth's shadow, up where the entropied wastes of civilization can be totally recycled back to newness using solar power, hard vacuum, and zero-g up there in GEO orbit, instead we persist in smug power games to show who is better than who. Is the hand of man on the stone now chiseling the epitaph on mankind's tombstone, the human experiment gone run amuck; and the mad race to "win" be run in the tracks of the Lemmings? Ah, I trust in the hand of the Creator on the hand of Man.

Seen from 4 Temperaments: Data and Subjectivity

Here is my initial effort at writing the same thing from each of the four Temperaments that people have. The subject is my preceding post on "Data and Subjectivity"

Idealist:

The recording, transmitting and receiving of data is perhaps the most important power of civilization's development. Content and accuracy of that data is thus important. Each bit of that data is recorded by an observer. In the past, the separation of the observer from the observed was considered necessary to make it useable by all concerned, and to impartialize the data as much as possible. But maximum data communication might not be achieved by separating the observed from the observer, since that is not entirely possible anyway, since the observer can only observe that which its nature can perceive. With the advancement of data capacities, now may be the time to begin the recording of the nature of the observer, the situation surrounding the observation, and the observation itself as perceived from the position of the observer. This would avoid distortion of data through attempts to guess at what data would have been perceived by all other possible observers with their viewpoints. The later extraction of data of likely pertinence to the receiver would be done so as to enable a wider range of uses of the data. Surely this would be a step toward for civilization and mankind's well being.

Rationalist:

The purest form of data might be that perceived by observers from all possible viewpoints, the commonality of their multiple data sets form the purer data. However, even then if the direction viewpoint from which each of those viewpoints sees is deleted from the data processing, merely a jumble of images would result. Therefore it is essential to include both the observation and the viewpoint including the nature of the of the observer's senses etc. Then the observed can be reconstructed from whatever is useful to later receivers of the data set.

Guardian:

The traditions and ways of doing things have attempted to provide standardization of successful ways of civilization. Now, the complexities and capabilities of civilization make it prudent to record both the observation and the observer. The sources of the knowledge of our traditions needs to be fully identified so as to determine their validity and fittingness into established traditions.

Artisan:

It is great fun to compete and win the rewards of doing something a bit better than others. It is right that it be told of not just what was done, but also of who it was that did it, and how it was strived to do it, as part of the description of the data, or else something essential about it would be lost. The doer is part of all that is done.