Multiplicities In Paradise

  The Many Splendored Worlds of Hugh Everett Though celebrated now, when Hugh Everett first introduced his theory of multiple universes, he was met with scorn and mockery. Hugh Everett abandoned the world of academic physics and turned to top secret military research. His private life was tragically lamentable. Fifty years ago Hugh Everett devised the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which quantum effects spawn countless branches of the universe with different events occurring in each. Although this theory sounds like a bizarre hypothesis, more suited for science fiction than real science. It is in fact, inferred from the fundamental mathematics of quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, most physicists of that time dismissed it, and he had to abridge his Ph.D. thesis on the topic to make it seem less controversial. Discouraged, Everett left physics and worked on military and industrial mathematics and computing. Personally, he was emotionally withdrawn and became a he...

T he universe is deteriorating.  A mere 10 years ago, any decent search engine would reveal 100s of YouTube videos and thoughtful articles from people like Christopher Hitchens , Stephen Hawkins, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris if you searched for Intelligent Design or Creationism. Today, most of those entries have disappeared or moved 100s of pages back in the queue and instead there is a plethora of pseudoscience nonsense much of which intentionally being passed off as science, much of which can be traced back to the Discovery Institute or Discovery Science - anything from these sources is propaganda masquerading as science. It's a con job. And like in the political realm, people are apparently easy marks. Don't be duped. The pressure is on. The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike. I find this particular type of con job must disdainful.  Here's the deal. I don't believe, nor do I elevate the subject matter by disbelief,  There is NO evid...

  H istory repeats itself, often in a strikingly similar way. Democracy lasted 250 years in ancient Athens until privilege, corruption and mismanagement strangled it.  American democracy, is now approaching 250 years, and it is desperately ill. D emocracy is under assault. We may think that these clashes are an aberration, a Mar-A-Lago Mussolini thing. But they are actually part of a troubling dichotomy that seems to be intrinsic to democracy itself.  D emocracy is more than a bundle of laws, norms and institutions. It is an open culture of communication.  Democracy affords people the right to think, speak and act and it allows every possible means of persuasion. Going all the way back to Plato's Republic, it's understood that the seeds of democracy include the roadmap to destruction in it's very DNA.  It's understood that every democratic society  is inescapably vulnerable to the consequences of communication. We may not like it, but something li...

 Americans have always been center left, they just no longer believe they are. The cause of this is largely that language has been systemically sabotaged to manipulate and deceive. America has a particular version of liberalism that has always been divergent from the norm. It's always been a term that is a little puzzling. This is true of "conservatism" in America as well frankly.  The words have particular meanings in the US that are dissimilar to the rest of the world's understanding. It seems if you nonchalantly ask folks to describe their political views, many respond with "conservative". What they really mean has more to do with with the broader meaning of the word 'conservative", rather than the meaning of a political conservative which is primarily about strengthening and protecting an existing social hierarchy.    In Europe, the word "Liberal " has traditionally meant a preference for things like limited government, separate privat...

  Each year brings its own unique set of triumphs and defeats, hardships, and joys. What can we say about 2021? It was not quite as unspeakably abominable as 2020. While that's not exactly splendid,  (It’s like saying that dog feces are marginally nicer to have in your living room than Hitler. It's not much, but it is something) What was better about 2021? We emerged from pandemic cocoons and started connecting with others. (Granted, the vast majority of these connections were attempts at identity theft or pitches for extended warranties.)  Sony announced a new console during the pandemic...the Plaguestation 5. We did learn things during 2021. It is possible to have substantial parts of the workforce working remotely. Before Covid, this was generally unthinkable.  (Though it's best to avoid telling a joke on ZOOM...it's not remotely funny.) Supporting local businesses and services close to home is prudent. (We should have known this before Covid but appare...

  3 0 years ago Francis Fukuyama penned his famous "The End of History?" thesis. Fukuyama’s assessment of the unravelling of the Cold War and the triumph of Western Liberal Democracy and the free market economic system was all the rage at the time.  It was easy to reduce the failure of the Soviet state-led political and economic model to being inferior to the more robust and free-flowing ideology of individual civil liberties and, of course, a minimalist state that enabled the invisible hand of the market. 1989 represented what Fukuyama described as the “End of History”. T he storming of the United States’ Capitol Hill buildings on 6 January 2021 by pro-Trump supporters could come straight out of a Hollywood-style action movie script. Predictable after four years of a presidency that can only be described as pop culture's ultimate reality TV climaxing in the Seizure of the Legislature. Had this taken place in any other country, the US may have sought to intervene, to up...

W hen the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, this is an attempted coup. There is no doubt whatsoever about that.  Trump must be impeached, convicted and removed from office – immediately. To let the clock run out on his presidency and allow Trump to seek the office again and receive the benefits and protections of a former president  would signal loudly that attempted coups are part of the American system. That we are NOT a nation of laws. If Senate Republicans can install a new supreme court justice in eight days, Trump can be removed from office within 12. He should then be arrested and tried for inciting violence and sedition – along with Donald Trump Jr and Rudy “trial-by-combat” Giuliani.   T hose who attacked the Capitol must also be prosecuted. The first amendment is not a right to try to violently physically overthrow the US government. Trump...