Science and the Media

I really hate how the media puts WAY, WAY too much focus on two extremely specialized areas of science and not much else.  They put a ton of focus on global warming and on evolution.  Now you can still know mountains and mountains of information in the field of biology alone without even addressing evolution.  The same could be said of chemistry and global warming.  And we haven't even gone into addressing the fields of physics and astronomy.

Now evolution might do a good job of addressing WHY certain animals have similar skeletal structures and all of that, but you can spend years studying and memorizing the anatomy of thousands of different species without the idea of evolution impacting your study at all.  It's not like your quota on the number of muscle names you can memorize goes down because you refuse to believe that one species evolved into another no matter how much biological evidence is out there.

The media seems to imply if you don't have time to do your own research or your own experiments then just trust the formal experts.  I suppose that's sensible advice.  But arguing against such things is a part of the scientific process as well.  At one time space was believed to be filled with a substance that carried light waves and now formal scientists believe that's the case anymore.  Not to mention at one time it was considered more scientific to believe that heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones.  This was the result of people trusting formal recognized scientific experts like Aristotle, not religious figures like the Apostle Paul.

The biggest problem people have when they argue against evolution is they have zero alternative theories to explain the biological evidence.  But such people, although religiously stubborn, are not necessarily scientific dolts.  I've seen some people deny evolution that have MD degrees.  They spent years studying the different parts of the body and they know a lot about it.  They're very capable of understanding science when they want to.

I really don't get why there's such heated division on global warming.  It has zero impact on anyone's religion.  I think the best way to prevent further environmental damage is to simply produce less.

I'm wondering when scientific literature became an all-or-nothing philosophy like religion has been for the past several centuries.  Where if you don't have absolute faith in the current expert consensus then you don't belong in their group.  Neil deGrasse Tyson, who introduced me to such wonderful information as Faraday's electromagnetic studies and special relativity recently warned that if we persist in denying global warming and evolution we open the door to regressing into the world of complete superstition once more.  I think he was in North Carolina when he said that.

Oh well.  I don't plan to let such things deter me from self-study of the physics that I have an interest in.  I don't have to completely shut the door to the mystical in order to understand the rational.  In fact, I think the mystical is a great way of dealing with things like emotions and ethics.  Things that the scientific world can't really address.

But then again, the scientific world probably does have the tools to address global warming and evolution since those are not based on emotions or ethics.

Oh well, it doesn't matter to me.  I'd rather have a deeper understanding of gravity than biology or meteorology.  And I actually have learned a lot about it.  Like how Newton derived his equation for the conservation of angular momentum using a similar triangle argument and how that explains Kepler's second law.  That stuff is wonderful, whether you believe in or don't believe in Christianity, global warming, Freddy Krueger, the moon landing, or whatever.

Hugo Black

Man, you wonder how the overtime for 40+ hours law came into effect and figure, "The guy who set that in motion must have been a pretty decent guy."  Then you find out he ended up joining the Ku Klux Klan.  That really takes the decency away in a hurry.  I can see why Diogenes the Cynic walked around with a lantern looking for an honest man.  What a depressing world we live in.

slowdownnow.org

One of my favorite websites is slowdownnow.org, advocating a slower lifestyle.  One day it posted a link to Bertrand Russell's essay "In Praise of Idleness."  Highly recommended reading.

Trading the Internet

I think some people out there may argue that perverts that want to harm children have always existed and now we're just more aware of it.  That argument probably has some truth to it.  But I do think that there are more perverts out there now than there were before the internet existed.  And I would trade the internet in a heartbeat to get rid of the increased number of perverts.  Again, that's one of the things that makes me one of the very first open millennial regressivists.  I don't need the internet like the other millennials do, even though I am a fan of match,com.

And I know a great song that sums up the whole spirit of millennial regressivism.  It's called "Back When" and was performed by old Tim McGraw.  It came out around 2004 I think.  Here are some of the lyrics:

We got too complicated
It's all way over-rated
I like the old and out-dated
Way of life

Back when a hoe was a hoe
Coke was a coke
And crack's what you were doing
When you were cracking jokes
Back when a screw was a screw
The wind was all that blew
And when you said I'm down with that
Well it meant you had the flu
I miss back when
I miss back when
I miss back when

Of course it's obvious that Tim McGraw was a regressivist before I was, but he's not a millennial.  Old people have always tended to be regressivists, so that's nothing new.  As millennials begin to age, more of them will probably become regressivists too.  In fact I'm quite old for a millennial.  I might just barely make the cut. 

Blog Name Change

Apparently I'm one of the first people in the world to be an open millennial regressivist.  I searched for that phrase on google and nothing popped up.  So I changed the title of my blog to include the phrase.  To be clear, I don't want to regress on the progress that has been made in the area of civil rights, or in certain surgical procedures, but on most things I think I'd rather take a regressive approach.  I don't have a smart phone because I don't want to be playing on it all of the time.  And I don't like that there's a new version of windows every year.  I think operating systems should change maybe once every ten years, to give people time to get used to the changes.


That's my main issue with progressivism.  It goes too darn fast and doesn't give people time to adapt to changes that have been made.  In my MIS class we discussed "systems thinking" which is the idea that changing one system affects another.  But when you progress too fast, you do not give time for those affected by the progress to adapt to the changes that have been made and all heck breaks loose.  That's why customer service in any business is so lousy today.  Because of constant updates in computer systems and constant updates in everything else.


I mentioned earlier about surgical procedures and their advancement, and how I am not against that.  But I am against the overprescription of opioids that society has progressed to over the years.  You do need opioids for major pain, but you don't need them for small stuff.  When I got a small surgical incision that was only about an inch they gave me some form of codeine, and I wasn't even hurting that much.  I took the stuff as prescribed for two days and thought I didn't need it anymore.  As soon as I stopped even after that short amount of time I became very sick and felt like I had the flu.


Most of the math I independently study is over 100 years old.  I'm on vector calculus now and am attempting to progress to differential geometry.  Not doing so well, but I'm having a good time.  I study that old stuff because I feel to progress I need to understand what has happened so far before pressing on into new territory.  I don't think we need to design our societal progress in such a way that we put all of our efforts on a few people at the top and try to push them further and further up so that no one else can possibly follow.  I think we need to progress in a way that we build bridges so people who aren't at the top can still get there.  It's slower progression, but it's more enjoyable because you can bring more friends with you while you're going up.


I hope that I can build a bridge to differential geometry so that normal people can work to understand it and it's not confined to only a few people at the top.  I'm not doing so well, but it's my regressive ambition.

Elaborated Equation For Success

Condensed Equation:

Hard Work Leads To Success


Elaborated Equation:

Hard Work Leads To Frustration.  Frustration Leads To Insanity.  Insanity Leads To Taking Big Risks.  Taking Big Risks Leads To Success.

Why Hell is Inescapable

Reading Dante's Inferno really opened my eyes to something.  I don't think the Bible gives any justification about why you can't get out of Hell once you're in there.  I think it implies that you're there because you were bad, and you can't get out because you only get one chance to not be bad.


But Dante's Inferno gave me another idea that I felt was interesting enough to post.  It gave me the idea that people in Hell never want to stop sinning.  That's why they can't get out.  If they suddenly decided to repent even in the depths of Hell, God's all powerful love would free them in an instant.  But they don't want that.  They want to continue to sin MORE than they want to be freed from the tortures of Hell.  That's how much they love sin.  And their afterlife is nothing more than a continuation of their life on earth.  They sinned on earth more and more as they aged, craved it more and more, so much that before they even left earth they were already too wrapped up in it to ever let it go.  They don't even need an external source of pain like flames to punish them.  Letting them continue in their own sin is punishment enough.  That's very clear in many cases of the TV show Intervention.


One may ask "God, why'd you create them then?  Why didn't you just let them never be born so they wouldn't have to go through so much torture?"  But if God in his mercy asked the Hell-dweller, "Hey, you want me to reverse time so you're never born, or give you a second chance or something?"  They'd say heck no.  They don't want God's help.  They want sin's help.  They trust that their own sin gets them out of Hell.  That's why they keep pursuing that path indefinitely.  And they refuse to be persuaded otherwise.  They are exactly where they want to be.  They don't want paradise because there's no sin there.