Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Universe

I've spoken before about the cosmic see-saw of the universe between energy and matter and I've come to a few new conclusions. 

Energy is simultaneously repellant and attracted to itself.  This explains and is seen in the idea of universal expansion.  If given enough room, energy will space out far enough to limit as much contact with itself as possible.  Like the light from a lamp, energy dissipates as quickly as possible into the lowest energy-density the volume allows.  A room with no obstructions does not have an area that is brighter than any other if the light source is uniform.  Like light, when there is no where for energy to go it becomes forced into contact with itself.  This changes energy's properties.  It creates matter.  Energy that is forced to come into contact with itself overcomes its repellant properties and forms matter.  Look at the skeleton of the universe and how stars and galaxies form along it.  These are the areas where energy is most dense currently.

Matter attracts itself.  This explains and is seen in gravity.  The entire matter-based universe pulls toward itself.  Or else stars would never have formed.  If matter acted like energy, there would be nothing in the universe but a uniform quantity of particles resting end on end.

The more matter there is the more it tends back toward energy.  If too much matter is attracted, matter forms a black hole and reverts to energy. Additionally if matter breaks down small enough it also reverts to energy.  For instance, the decaying of atomic nuclei.

Matter is the form of energy trying to overcome it's own repelling tendencies when energy becomes too dense.

The cosmic see-saw between energy and matter explain the attractive and repelling forces in the universe. 

Success as a Subset of Evolution

I got to thinking, as I tend to do between periods of arduous labor.  It tends to fill the gaps nicely.  I was thinking about success and more specifically successful people.  There's a famous quotation by Bertrand Russell:  ""The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt".  That idea annoys me.  Evolutionarily it seems like a negative on the species.  That is, the quotation does seem pretty true.

A thought occurs to me now though, one of two actually which may be key to this.  The first is that intelligence may not be evolutionarily useful beyond a certain point and the second is that what we define as intelligence may be evolutionarily useless.

In the end though, I think I've answered my own musing.  I think that we as a species do in fact move forward and that the intelligent are not necessarily full of doubt, but the people who are full of doubt may find this quotation to be soothing of the fact that there are indeed people smarter than them.

Or perhaps not.  Perception is an interesting variable in this line of thought.

I apologize for the scattered quality of my thoughts tonight, but they are as they are and I wouldn't attempt to play with them afterward.


Saturday, September 15, 2012

Limitiations of the Interstellar Migration of the Human Species

First and foremost, I will state that I am supposing that the creation of habitable environments on the large and small scale are achievable and that the human species will desire and succeed to achieve this.  That is, we currently are not able to spread our species out amongst the stars, primarily due to the fact that we are currently unable to meet the challenges of long-duration interstellar travel.

There are three limiting factors to man's ability to extend out into the universe and they are:  time, technology, and physiology.

In regards to time, human expansion into the universe is particularly limited currently.  Outer space is huge.  Colossally huge.  I'd suggest that it is indeed the biggest thing possible.  And in addition, space is for the most part completely empty.  And I don't mean that there isn't discernible matter, but that those quantities of matter over the microscopic level, are quite few and far between.  People don't even understand the magnitude of emptiness that space is, perhaps largely due to our inability to comprehend that which we have not or cannot experience first hand.  Either that or bad sci-fi movies.  Either way.

Because the universe is so big, we will see that there are several issues with man's expansion across it.  The first is that matter can only travel up to approaching the speed of light.  Even it it were possible to accelerate a person up to that level safely, I suggest that spending a hundred million years shooting from one end of the galaxy to the other is practically useless.

As a subset of time, we need to understand that the universal speed limit, the speed of light, dictates that there is a maximum speed at which we can travel without utilizing a time-devoid inter-dimensional method of transportation.  (I suggest that such a method of travel is impossible, as I will state in a later post.)  Therefore, there is a minimum amount of time it takes to get from one place to another.  From the sun to Earth in under ten minutes sounds great.  But over a year to our nearest neighboring stars?  Thousands of years or even millions to other potentially inhabitable planets?  There comes a point when the size of the universe inhibits man from being able expand and also remain in contact with each other.  There comes a size after which the species will be so far out of contact with each other that the species will grow in separate directions.  While that distance may not be a light minute or second.   I would suggest it would be about the distance that light travels in 24 hours.  At a point where it takes transmission, not even human transportation, 24 hours to travel in each direction, the desire of humankind to remain a cohesive unit, will likely deteriorate.

It should be noted however, that humanity will not stop spreading at this point, but that fractured segments of humanity will grow and flower in different areas of the galaxy.  At this point, it is highly unlikely (without FLT) to leave the galaxy.  Human lifespans and the sheer amount of space in between galaxies is a strongly limiting factor.  We would simply lose interest either by design or unwillingly.

Closely attached to time, is human physiology.  I have touched upon human lifespan limitations, but there is a further limiting factor to human expansion.  It is the ability of the human body to endure acceleration.  There is an upper limit to which the human body cannot any longer endure the force created from acceleration.  Therefore, there are further time limitations involved in the velocity of space travel.  Acceleration would have to be a much slower process for humans than for automated satellites (and so on).  As would braking.

With the factors of the light speed speed limit and the inability of the human body to endure rapid acceleration and deceleration, we limit the ability of humanity to spread out into the universe beyond a heretofore unknown distance from a central point (say Earth).

The final and most obvious limitation of interstellar travel is technology.  Mankind is unable to race between the stars even within the aforementioned limitations, because we lack the technology to do so.  We lack the ability to travel fast enough, yes.  But, also we lack the ability to produce food, recycle waste, and in essence sustain ourselves in small enclosed shuttle environments.  Additionally, the affects of a lack of gravity and of radiation bombardment lead to similar difficulties, although the latter could likely be solved with present technology if the necessity of it arose.

So where are we going as a species?  We will spread out into the universe provided we gain the technology to do so.  How far we spread will be limited by our technology, by our human physiology, and by the simple vastness of space.

One may ask if there is other life out there.  There very well could be.  Right now.  But it could be at such a distance that, one: we are unable presently to reach them or visa versa, or two: it is physically impossible for the two groups to come into contact in a mutually acceptable quantity of time.  The fact is that like lost Amazonian tribes, we may indeed think that there is no greater world out there, simply because it is too far beyond our abilities to reach it or too far distant that the laws of physics themselves have prevented us from coming into contact.  Likewise, as these factors play out, the physical distance between two entities makes it increasingly statistically insignificant that two separate groups will ever meet up.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

A Vast Majority of People Are in Fact Completely Undateable

This goes exponentially true about gay guys.  I don't even think gay guys know how to date anymore.  I think that they were robbed of this ability when they were shunned from society.  Many even believe that to date is to betray their gayness and enter into a "heteronormative" pattern of behavior.  I see this very frequently in the unattractive as well.  Straight or gay.  Those who are unattractive cling to the fringes of society and seek out increasingly risky and dangerous ways of finding sexual pleasure.  Both groups become needy and sex-crazed.

Being shunned from society has a lot of negative effects on the ability of gay men to commit to relationships.  Even those most unaffected by these negative effects (ie, generally those who seem straight or else those who can stick up for themselves or have others to stick up for them very well) still seem to slip into these patterns as most of the people they look to date follow these patterns and it's easy to accept that this is the only way to find happiness.  Of course, happiness is never found.

Dating websites and clubs provide the biggest outlets for this kind of sex-driven behavior.  It reinforces what society tells people they should do.  And in turn, it kills most chance of them ever being truly happy.  Gay guys are always looking for that exception, the guy that is different than the crowd.  Unfortunately, most often, the guy himself is exhibiting those qualities and wouldn't attract a guy out of the norm anyway.  So everyone gets stuck in a vicious cycle caused by their shunning from society.

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I don't talk about myself frequently, it seems kind of in poor taste since if you're reading this you're probably here more to hear my ideas than hear me moaning about my life.  Well, maybe I'm going to moan a little, feel free to stop reading here though and pick up again on my next post. 


I'm coming to a point in my life where I'm sick and tired of the bull shit that gay guys have put me through and that I have put myself through for relationships with gay guys.  And no I'm not going to try to be straight.  Umm... hell no.  I'm just done settling.  And I don't mean that in a hurtful way.  I'm just done with the drama.  The chaos.  The empty feeling after sex.  I want a meaningful relationship with a guy I can respect and feel good about.  That's not to say I haven't had this in the past, it's just to say that I want this in the future and forever.  I want to meet a guy that I respect and that makes me feel tingly in my heart instead of just in my pants.

The Future of Space Travel

Click to view in original size.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Doomsday

Throughout history there have been hundreds if not thousands of predictions for the end of the world, yet it hasn't happened.  Everyone knows the silly 2012 Mayan doomsday assumption.  There are so many doomsday's throughout history, is it not surprising that people still fall for this stuff?  Perfectly (otherwise) sane people are looking to 2012 as some sort of end game.  This is truly ridiculous.

I, for one, think that the world will not end in some blinding flash.  If man disappears it is vastly more likely to our own stupidity than anything else.  This itself though, I equally find very unlikely.  It is against our nature to kill ourselves.  Nuclear warfare?  It probably won't happen.  And if it does, it probably won't be on a level that will kill end the species..

I think that we will continue on in one form or another.  Considering how far we have come in the past hundred and fifty years, and considering the pattern of technological advancement we have undergone during that period, I'm not sure that we will recognize what we will be if we indeed were able to see it.  No doubt, however, we will progress in either the short or long run.  The issues of overcrowding, corruption, greed, and so on that we see as pains for the mid-term future will not impact us as a species.  While these issues may impact some of us or most of us, they will not consume all of us in such a way that will inhibit progress in the next 100 years into the next 1000.  Of this, I am certain.  Man expects as a species a certain level of progress, with the general diversity of thought in the world, we would be hard-pressed to find any number of causes that together could end progress or halt advancement never mind a single issue.



Monday, March 5, 2012

Make Something of Me

I took all the right paths.  Good grades in high school.  Very focused.  Went to college.  Graduated.  Went back and graduated with a Master's degree.  I always did well in school.  I just "got it".  I was fairly well liked.  I tried to be a good person.  And so on.

That's taken me to a dead end.  No one wants to hire me.  No one.  There are no jobs.  None.  For all the preparation and hard work, there is nothing.  Sometimes I sit here and wonder what there actually IS for me.  What is there?

What am I the best at?  We're always told that everyone has a talent.  We see them all the time.  Actors, athletes, musicians, etc.  People with undeniable talent in something.  Well what is my talent?  What in me will make me happy?  

I sit on my ass all day, surfing the web and doing nothing.  I work sure, but it's a bullshit job.  Overworked, underpaid, disappointment is my new middle name.  What is there for someone who did everything they were told they needed to do to reach that platform above which all are successful and below which I currently reside?  What course of action can I take if all previous courses of action have led to nothing?

It's not so bad to fail at something, but to fail at THE thing?  My career path ends at a river with no bridge.  I can walk as far up and downstream as I want, still seeing my goal on the other side, but I'm unable to reach it.  There is no bridge.

 And what am I good at anyway?  Maybe I win a moral victory with "good at hardworking" but moral victories don't cash out into real victories.  And, I've tried several different roads too.  Education, management, writing, music...  All failures.  What is there left for me? I don't feel "good" at anything anymore.  I don't feel like I have a place in the world.  Am I doomed to shitty job after shitty job until I curl up and die?

How can I make something of myself if everything I've done so far has led to absolutely nothing?  Where do I even start?

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Death of Backyard Invention?

I suppose to some extent we should have surmised that this would happen.  That is, that the process of invention, by and large, becomes more cumbersome and more needing of resources as the inventions made become more complicated.  I could go home tonight and build a new model for a working toilet.  If I wanted to of course.  I don't.  Equally, if I went home tonight, and even if I needed to, never mind wanted to, I could NEVER build the next greatest computer chip.  It is physically impossible.  8, 10, 12 nanometers?  You lose me by a factor of a thousand at least.  You need to be a large corporation, with billions of dollars of equipment to be able to create then next big advances in computer chips.

The same is true for most things today.  All?  Not quite.  But most.  Certainly more so than ever before.  There's really nothing of consequence to the world today that I can improve, alter, build off of, or be inspired by that can lead to the invention of a new, amazing, hi-tech advancement.  Nothing.

So is it the dead of backyard invention?  Are we relegated now to hypotheses and Time Machine / Frankenstein types of literature?  Have we lost the ability to individually create and moved into a more collective, or "hive", humankind?  Is it possible to take an idea today and make something out of it?

For the vast majority of people the answer is an astounding no.  People do not, by and large, have that ability anymore.  We are blinded by the bright light of our current innovations and have not yet been able to fully wrap our heads around them.  Additionally, companies still hold valuable patents/copyrights on inventions that have come out in the past few decades.  Companies have the collective brain power and resources to do what was considered unimaginable just decades ago.  Yet, I fear we are losing something too.

I'll sit here now and then and be struck by amazing ideas.  Some of them could change the world.  Back in the day, with such an idea, you had a better chance, it seems, of being able to do something about it.  You didn't need to mobilize dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people to get it off the ground.  You could do it yourself.  But science and scientific research is changing.  There will be no DaVinci's or Wright brothers of the future.  Arguably there never were, but for chance.  A hundred thousand people try flight and two succeed.  Whereas today you have a hundred thousand working for the space program worldwide, and they all might eventually succeed at something.  Or they could fail.

There has to be something so simple, so intrinsically plain left that someone can create.  Imagine though, that the billions of minds that thought before you missed it.  You could be the only one to ever have had this idea and decided it was merit-worthy.  After billions of tries already, humankind still hasn't found something so simple?  No wonder we are seeing the death of backyard invention.  Is there that few simple ideas left to invent?