"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

up in arms

May 5, 2009

Musings, Society

3 comments

A friend recently asked me my opinion on petitions for legislative action. You know, those pesky emails and junk mail that say “Action needed now!” or “[Insert terrible event here] will happen if you don’t do this!” Or just the plea for help to solve something by simply signing a petition for some legislation.

Let me ask you the question:
petitionlogo

Do you think these types of petitions are effective? Or are they a big waste of time and energy?

Use the comment box below to post your opinion!

Generally, I don’t think they work. It is hard for them to work, especially when these efforts would be going up against lobbyists who have tons of money. A lot of the time the money wins out.

It isn’t always ineffective though. I think these things are helpful to let politicians know what issues the public is concerned with. But it doesn’t necessarily pressure them to take action as much as lobbying does.

I worked for a month or so with NYPIRG, and what they did was they collected money from people as “memberships” for the organization and whatever campaign they were working on. (They recently were working on the Bigger Better Bottle Bill, which I posted about yesterday. They finally “won” this campaign after many years of advocacy.)

Also there is the issue of validity, as in, are these signatures actual people or are they made up? It is hard to prove that, besides leaving an email address or mailing address, which could be made up anyway. (Remember the voter registration controversies?) So I think people may question the truthfulness of the counts.

I think these types of things have some value in generating awareness and exposure, but they are not the most effective in terms of producing results. It might be better to directly contact your Representatives or Congresspeople and let them know what you think are important issues. A personal letter is definitely more sincere than a signature, but we all know how lazy people can be!
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new energy generation

May 1, 2009

Musings, Society, Technology

7 comments

Ever thought that maybe the energy expended to shake your booty at a dance club could be converted to useful electricity?

I haven’t been clubbing in a long time, but when I do it is usually a good workout, mostly from the bouncing around. Piezoelectric energy allows mechanical stress to generate electric potential. The panels put in a dance floor, or any flooring actually, generate electricity whenever the weight of a person pushed the floor down.

Here is a video that explains this concept:

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meteor

April 21, 2009

Musings, Society

4 comments

What if a meteor hit the planet?

I know there have been several movies about this topic, but really, what if?

What would happen to the planet and everything on it? Immediately there would be a lot of destruction, but what about later? What are the longer term effects of such an impact? What would happen to the planet in the time afterwards?

I started to think more about this topic after it came up in a car ride a few weekends ago. I wondered if there were people calculating very morbid things like how long it would take for all life on Earth to die after a meteor strike, or how different sized meteors would impact the planet, things like that. I found this article and these other interesting sites: Earth Impact Effects Program; impacts calculator.

Usually it takes some relatively big event in my life for me to realize what my priorities in life should be. Maybe the meteor is that for us as a community. As a species, we only seem to be interested in persisting at least at current levels of quality of life and satisfaction. Any actions we take are in self-interest. That instinct has helped us survive and out-compete other species for thousands of years, but now, at this stage, individual actions in self-interest are starting to add up towards our demise as a species.

Some people have pointed out that, individual disastrous events, such as an extra powerful hurricane or tsunami or earthquake, affect far fewer people but attract much more attention and support than continuous, ongoing conflicts and suffering like never-ending violence and hunger.

Perhaps there is the collective sympathy for victims of spontaneous and unpredicted events because we believe we could be in those same situations at any time and hope that we would be met with similar support.

If a meteor or object were to hit the planet, I have no doubt the planet would continue to exist just as it has for millions of years, but I wonder about the possibilities.

like a rickshaw getting pulled around by another rickshaw

April 14, 2009

Musings, Society

2 comments

Overheard conversation in class about an assignment to be handed in:
A: “Were we supposed to print double or single-sided?”
B: “I don’t know.”
A: “Well I wasn’t sure, so I did both. I didn’t want to get points off for something silly like that.”


Our previous assignment requested that we print double-sided. It would make sense to do the same this time, especially if you understand the main reason for why that was requested, which is to save paper. Printing both a double-sided and a single-sided copy defeats this purpose and truly makes me sad.

Student A was so fixated on not losing any points the assignment was worth that the greater understanding was missed. The student may not totally be at fault. (S)he may be a product of a results-driven education system. In any case, this type of narrow mentality and misunderstanding is still very much prominent even among the supposedly-conscious younger generation.

Thoughts?


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do what you want

April 13, 2009

Musings, Society

2 comments

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend. He is planning his wedding and they recently have been going to Bed Bath & Beyond to add items to their registry.
He told me about a few items that he saw while there: containers for a single slice of bread, and containers that have a built in ice pack in the lid.

That reminded me of an idea that I read about in The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (recently featured here for his 10 Theses).

Taleb discusses how in a study, when people were asked which was more likely, they would more often choose the second of these two:

  1. He was happily married. He killed his wife.
  2. He was happily married. He killed his wife to get the insurance money.

What this is suggesting is that, we, as humans, naturally want to find a cause and a story for anything that happens. Even though the first sentence allows for a wider range of possible reasons for the man killing his wife, the second one may seem more likely because it has a cause.

So back to plastic containers…
Are we suckered into thinking we need a container for every possible purpose out there? Are companies marketing to this aspect of human nature and taking advantage of some innate need for purpose and explanation? Do we really need an ice pack built in or a single bread slice container?

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