The Strange Truth

We are self-replicating patterns of supernova debris trapped (for now) at the bottom of gravity well orbiting a nuclear fireball.

Sometimes it just needs to be said, for how strange and awesome it is.

Virtual Reality

Modern Virtual Reality systems are pretty obtrusive and unconvincing. While video games, movies, television, and the internet continue to push forward technologies related to VR, the ultimate form of VR is likely very different from anything we can imagine from present consumer electronics and digital media.

The logical endpoint for Virtual Reality is a direct-to-nervous system interface. The reason for this is that it would be far cheaper and less energy intensive than something like Star Trek’s holodeck, and more convincing than gloves and goggles could ever be.

Most people would choose to spend as much time as possible in VR worlds, because they could live a lifestyle simply unobtainable in the real world. Even billionaires cannot have a new palace every day. Boring commutes would be all but eliminated. Long-distance relationships would be easy. A wealth of incredible new experiences would be available to all VR users.

Everyday life in a time with advanced VR (probably many decades from now, at minimum) would be defined by the experience of moving between worlds. I imagine these are some worlds people will want to move between.

Real World: People will primarily do things that must be done physically, an ever shrinking set. For example, people with manual labor jobs will work in this world. I expect a world that has technology advanced enough for this level of virtual reality would probably have eliminated virtually all manual labor,  and automated most production. Most people will only use this world for physical exercise, eating, bathing, procreation, etc.

The Real World will likely changed significantly by ubiquitous VR.

Work Worlds: People who commonly do office work/creative work will want to be able to coordinate and communicate in real time with their coworkers. Face to face communication is still the best, most fulfilling way to do this. And for some projects where coordination is necessary, face to face  communication is essential.  However, VR would eliminate the need to commute, a good way to save time and energy. VR would also allow for eliminating office noise and other distractions and interruptions  during times when solitary work is best. Another benefit of using VR for a work world, is that ideal, highly customizable work spaces could be created cheaply and on-demand: a huge benefit for small organizations. Imagine brand new startups being able to have their own Googleplex.

Home Worlds: The Home World would be like a person’s home. With VR a person could design a mansion, palace, castle, volcano lair, etc. This would be the place a person goes to rest, relax, enjoy leisure activities like swimming, horseback riding, reading, cuddling with loved ones, etc.

Since this is virtual reality, a person might also have several “nonplayer characters”, to act as servants, pets, or sex partners.

Politician as Personal Savior

It seems that people (at least in the media) are angry that Obama has neither magically plugged the oil spill nor sufficiently beaten up BP for incompetence. One is almost inclined to pity Obama, after all, this isn’t his fault. Getting angry about the oil spill won’t actually solve anything.

On the other hand, Obama deliberately campaigned as the personal savior and redeemer of this country. He cultivated the notion that the power of the government, embodied in the person of the president, could solve any problem. Well they can’t solve this problem. To his credit, Obama has so far recognized that BP is better equipped to handle this problem than the U.S. government. He should have recognized that his glorification of government power would backfire, but he didn’t. He is reaping his own foul harvest.

The Relative Status View of History

Evolutionary Psychology implies that conflict occurs when there is no clear status hierarchy or when one group decides to challenge the existing hierarchy. The conflict continues until a new equilibrium hierarchy is established. For example, World War I occurred because Germany (after centuries of internal division and disorganization)  had finally caught up with and exceeded Great Britain and France in power. Yet the world was still dominated by the British and French empires, which together dominated almost half the globe. In other words, the German Empire was a first rate power, the most powerful single nation in Europe, yet they were treated as second rate as compared to the global empires of  France and Great Britain.

After the western powers and Russia teamed up, and (barely) managed to defeat the German Empire, Germany was forced to accept humiliating terms that forced Germany to accept an unnaturally subordinate status in Europe. From an Evolutionary Psychology perspective, this made another war inevitable.

Why is the US Military In South Korea?

It doesn’t make any sense. South Korea’s GDP is 30 times greater than the North, and climbing. South Korea has twice as many people. A technologically developed country like S. Korea could develop a nuclear deterrent in a matter of months. South Korea can easily afford to deter the North from invading, simply by possessing nukes and being willing to use them, if faced with northern aggression.

So  why risk the lives of 30,000 Americans by placing them within the reach of a deranged, murderous movie-buff?

Libertarianism is Cynical

Amazingly, one of the most common critiques of libertarianism is that it is Utopian, super-optimistic, and naive. Progressives  seem to think that libertarians are saying that people are trustworthy and good, so they don’t need government supervision.

I have always considered this to be bizarre. Libertarians don’t think markets are perfect. Rather, they think that while markets fail sometimes, they have the benefit of forcing people to play positive sum games. Libertarians are cynically saying that people cannot be trusted to play negative-sum games, as they will use these to the point of impoverishing everyone.

Governments (and criminals) play negative and zero sum games.  Progressives, socialists, and other left-wingers naively believe that human beings can be trusted to play negative sum games (from a position of asymmetrical power, no less), and still produce positive total utility. I see this perspective as naive and unjustifiably optimistic.

Insurance Death Spiral

Basically, the problem is that, under the new law, it is cheaper for healthy individuals to drop their coverage, and pay the fines. Since the government is forcing insurers to pick up anybody who requests coverage (no matter how sick they already are), people can wait until they need care, avoid paying premiums, and then get insurance when they need it. This provides the insurer with very little money from premiums, and high expenditures from paying out for sick people.

As people continue to move out of the market for insurance, the insurers will either collapse or be propped up by the government at great expense. The relatively low fines for breaking the mandate will not be enough to pay for even a small part of the massive government outlays. Either they will come up with a system for rationing care (which will be hugely unpopular), or they will raise fines drastically, (which will also be hugely unpopular). In the end, they may simply pay the insurers’ bills, leading to severe deficits or severe tax hikes.

Ultimately, the government may try to simply nationalize the insurers, but the Republicans are likely to be in a position to prevent the Democrats from doing this, and they have every incentive to block this nationalization. They can simply (and justly) blame the Democrats for the catastrophe they created by passing Obamacare, and reap the political rewards for having said “I TOLD YOU SO!”