M.I. Lastman's Blog, page 19
February 18, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Is winter trying to tell us something? It likes everything except us. 
This blog attempts to remind us that no matter what it touches, winter renders astonishing beauty except where we and our engineering are in the way.
This blog attempts to remind us that no matter what it touches, winter renders astonishing beauty except where we and our engineering are in the way.
February 17, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Problem: 1% own 50% of the world’s wealth. Greater problem: most of the rule makers are inside the same 1%
neighbours
neighbours
February 16, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Covered with pavement grey, our bee-loud glades are silent now. This refers to Yeats' well-now poem, Lake Isle of Inisfree. You can find it at http://goo.gl/i5Mzkb
February 15, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Mankind, the bringer of deserts: the leading edge. 
We image building this because we might - no life in sight. 
Human convenience, 100 - life zero. There is enough pavement in the United States to cover the state of Georgia - a sizeable and absolute desert. 
This is bottom trawling. It flattens and destroys all benthic life in its path. We can't see it, so few complain. We would if someone dragged across a human suburb a block-wide concrete pole, flattening everything in its path. The result would be similar, if less devastating. 
A natural occurrence you say. Well yes, but getting much worse as a result of global warming. Mankind continues to grow, dragging the desert along just behind. 
Lots of pathos here. However, we, the desert makers are now dumping annually into the oceans enough garbage to cover half the province of Prince Edward Island knee-deep in plastic. Where does it go? Into the huge, ever-expanding oceanic gyres of particulate plastic and after that to the bottom of the ocean to suffocate even anaerobic life. 
Oil spills, another horrific bringer of deserts to our coastlines. You've seen the pictures of oil encrusted sea life. Did they ask us to suffocate them?
This speaks for itself. All those red areas were once teaming with life. Now they are lifeless. Mankind, the bringer of deserts.
I have snorkeled over dead coral. I hated it. The coral reefs will not last much longer.
Mankind, the bringer of deserts.
Even these pictures do not do full justice to our desert-making skills. Perhaps the most dramatic of all cannot be represented by a picture. Have a look at this article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL031745/full
So we are very, very good at making deserts. It is extremely difficult to see how this can continue, even as our numbers grow into the final stages of a plague. What will it take to convince ourselves that we have to drastically change our ways. Please, no more testosterone - there's is no planet B.
We image building this because we might - no life in sight. Human convenience, 100 - life zero. There is enough pavement in the United States to cover the state of Georgia - a sizeable and absolute desert. This is bottom trawling. It flattens and destroys all benthic life in its path. We can't see it, so few complain. We would if someone dragged across a human suburb a block-wide concrete pole, flattening everything in its path. The result would be similar, if less devastating. A natural occurrence you say. Well yes, but getting much worse as a result of global warming. Mankind continues to grow, dragging the desert along just behind. Lots of pathos here. However, we, the desert makers are now dumping annually into the oceans enough garbage to cover half the province of Prince Edward Island knee-deep in plastic. Where does it go? Into the huge, ever-expanding oceanic gyres of particulate plastic and after that to the bottom of the ocean to suffocate even anaerobic life. Oil spills, another horrific bringer of deserts to our coastlines. You've seen the pictures of oil encrusted sea life. Did they ask us to suffocate them? This speaks for itself. All those red areas were once teaming with life. Now they are lifeless. Mankind, the bringer of deserts. I have snorkeled over dead coral. I hated it. The coral reefs will not last much longer.Mankind, the bringer of deserts.
Even these pictures do not do full justice to our desert-making skills. Perhaps the most dramatic of all cannot be represented by a picture. Have a look at this article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007GL031745/full
So we are very, very good at making deserts. It is extremely difficult to see how this can continue, even as our numbers grow into the final stages of a plague. What will it take to convince ourselves that we have to drastically change our ways. Please, no more testosterone - there's is no planet B.
February 14, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Nature goes to extremes: human intelligence+testosterone, Nature's most evolved extreme. 
Neither the Alberta tar sands nor the Tsar bomba (the largest detonation ever achieved - up to 57 kilotons of explosive power ) could have happened without human intelligence with a healthy sprinkling of testosterone. For a more telling experience of the lunacy of tsar bomba, have a look at one of the videos available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlNPhn64TA The following article is excellent as well: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html
I think that I am correct in saying that the magnitude of the physical devastation to the original landscape is about the same for the two projects, although it is important to note that humans mostly do not lie directly in harms way in either. It is ironic that as an exercise in destruction, several small warheads cause much more target damage area than a single warhead alone, thus providing a greater target damage for a given nuclear payload (to paraphrase the Wikipedia article on MIRVs.) How's that for an exercise with the human intelligence - testosterone brew?
Neither the Alberta tar sands nor the Tsar bomba (the largest detonation ever achieved - up to 57 kilotons of explosive power ) could have happened without human intelligence with a healthy sprinkling of testosterone. For a more telling experience of the lunacy of tsar bomba, have a look at one of the videos available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlNPhn64TA The following article is excellent as well: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html I think that I am correct in saying that the magnitude of the physical devastation to the original landscape is about the same for the two projects, although it is important to note that humans mostly do not lie directly in harms way in either. It is ironic that as an exercise in destruction, several small warheads cause much more target damage area than a single warhead alone, thus providing a greater target damage for a given nuclear payload (to paraphrase the Wikipedia article on MIRVs.) How's that for an exercise with the human intelligence - testosterone brew?
February 13, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Testosterone in China: they 've always loved their engineering and their men, and now they've contracted capitalism as well. 
February 12, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
Testosterone fuels both the plague of homo sapiens and employment. 
The point of this blog is not to condemn warfare or unprincipled labour practices. Instead, I want to point out that since testosterone works so hard to make as many of us as possible, once we are here it has to find something for us to do. Warfare, huge engineering projects, and commercial exploitation are not likely to go away so long as there is not enough else to do. It is true that these sorts of things are also very popular with the extremely privileged because they offer such wonderful opportunities to augment their privilege.
The point of this blog is not to condemn warfare or unprincipled labour practices. Instead, I want to point out that since testosterone works so hard to make as many of us as possible, once we are here it has to find something for us to do. Warfare, huge engineering projects, and commercial exploitation are not likely to go away so long as there is not enough else to do. It is true that these sorts of things are also very popular with the extremely privileged because they offer such wonderful opportunities to augment their privilege.
February 11, 2015
Is another brewing? The biosphere would not survive the engineering.February 10, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
if will is free, why is there so little free to will ethical choices? Free will?
http://goo.gl/HuAzZ
February 9, 2015
Aforementioned: aphorisms and questions for 2015
As with water, there’s more than enough free will for all us humans, but it's polluted. 
There is no need to assign blame for the acts depicted by these three horrible pictures. However, we need to keep in mind that they were all committed as a result of the conscious exercise of someone's free will.
There is no need to assign blame for the acts depicted by these three horrible pictures. However, we need to keep in mind that they were all committed as a result of the conscious exercise of someone's free will.
