To correctly solve a problem

Here it is a mere five days until July 20 Space Day 2012, and I have not made a blog post here in a long time.

Sure, I feel it is like what if the makers of buggy whips and conestoga wagons had teamed up to protect their immediate business territories by blocking the creation of the railroad system that opened up the interior of America to expansion from the east and then the west coast. Who knows, maybe Mexico and Canada would now own the middle part of what is now America, if we had been unable to access and protect its resources; we might have lost the WWII fracas and be experiencing that kind of world. So now humanity's access to nearby space is in much the same situation, stuck in the extremely limiting reaction engined access constraint, and thus constraints as to what can be economically built and maintained in space. And, does it really matter in the longer history of life?

So what, if we could be already utilizing significant quantities of solar power satellite solar energy from GEO orbiting facilities, built economically by KESTS to GEO? Sometimes the greedy and power-addicted folks muddle up the situation big-time like they did re that; but, at least so far, life goes on amidst unnecessary human turmoil and suffering, but it still goes on. And, we humans are apparently addicted to drama of the inter-human conflict type, and this is a way to maximize that drama.

But, maybe I will remove that grump from the above. For now I will leave it there, as I helplessly "rail" impotently against what seems to be a monster industry that ought to have been very much my friend and helper in mutual successes. Is this fine drama or what? More like yuk.

Anyway, I had some moments of insight this morning while doing my Morning Pages, and want to record it here. Not really new at all; just a welcome and hopefully useful restatement of an old principle:

To correctly solve a problem, the problem must first be correctly be observed and characterized, then potential solutions need to be designed; then utilizing those solutions to solve the problem or if they don't fully work, use their results to better define the problem and from that redefinition of the problem, design new potential solutions to the problem, and explore them.

Identifying and fixing the real problems

Re Obama's cost-effective solutions to health needs of the nation: what if the guiding goal of providing health was not to maximize business income and profit dividends, but rather to maximize the effectiveness of health provision for the cost? Levels of health could then be adjusted for what the country is willing to spend to stay healthy and fully adequately functional. The health providers and associated pharmaceuticals could then be run on a cost plus reasonable profit basis. with keen surveillance of what goes into the cost makeup. And R&D could be redirected toward that which provides the better health instead of the maximum business profit; better efficacy all the way around. There are many protocols which have historically been suppressed by the powerful business interests, that if truly honestly evaluated for health efficacy, will surely bring to light some extremely cost-effective protocols for human well-being.

Notice that in the existing health system, that it is sick people that bring maximum profit to business, instead of healthy people. So, what do you expect to happen, to gain maximum business profit? Work themselves out of a good job?

The overall picture of health goes beyond the expenses of providing diagnosis, surgery and medication. Such things as correct nutrition, emotional healing and physical exercise are important contributors; it is way cheaper to stay healthy than to get sick and be healed. More fun, too, except perhaps for soaps-like drama addicts.

For example, examination of comparisons behind causes of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) being legal and in very widespread use; while in comparison the ancient pest-resilient hemp products of paper, durable clothing, highly nutritious grain, and high tensile strength per mass rope, are illegal to grow in America in recent decades, apparently merely because of recreational escape by some people based on chemicals not unlike pharmaceuticals dispensed by medical system at vastly higher cost. MSG has been shown to be damaging in many ways to health, including neurotoxic damage and obesity complex effects, far more health-damaging than the rare smoking of marijuana-hemp does; thus the expenses of tax-paid enforcement goes to cause the worse health results; so fixing that problem ought to also improve the cost-benefit of overall health for Americans. Of course, that is a sensitive issue ... but, exactly what caused that, for real, honestly? Are we as a people able to courageously repair the situations?

The belief that profit-investment-dividends were the ultimate guide for what gets done, is possibly based on that if someone is having income via business of doing something it will get watched over by the business owner and thus done with minimum sloth and wastage of time and money; and that a something is worth doing only if others will pay money for it, thus eliminating useless endeavors. But major factors such as advertising, control much of what gets bought-paid-for, only vaguely related to the best buy potentials; thus heavily skewing the parameter supposedly of what gets paid for equals the most needed.

And corporations effectively stake out business territory, preventing competition from happening; thus neutralizing the principle that competition will spur creation of the best product for the money.

How wise it, really, to put our investment dollars into businesses solely for the larger profit dividends we receive; instead of putting our investment dollars into the businesses that provide the better stuff we need for life but at less resulting dividends to the investor? Surely there is a "bottom line" deeper than merely the dividend rolling in; what if the businesses do not provide you with what you need? Our existing American health system is a glaring example of what happens. If those fabulously wealthy business profit dividends cannot buy you fine health, what good are they?

Political-economic ideologies do help people reach for some unifying larger principle by which they can govern themselves; yet such ideologies seem to be hawked by special interest groups that would gain preferential benefit by the adoption of a specific ideology; and thus the vision falls far short of the real bigger picture of the needs of the American land and her people. The cost to the nation in recent times has been horrendous; how willing & able are we to go for identifying and fixing the real problems?