We All Want Slaves

The concept of slavery has existed throughout history.  Possibly, it has always existed.  Different societies have used different forms of slavery, from servants opting for voluntary service for their own purposes, to indentured servitude, to outright iron-fisted slavery.  In different forms this arrangement has always been with us, but in all forms, it's always been a master/slave relationship. 

Even in family units, a form of slavery exists.  In traditional societies, as soon as children can walk, they are taught help with household duties.  This not only prepares the child for adulthood later, it also distributes the workload of the parents, so that they do not have to acquire food and resources alone.  This is a form of voluntary slavery, agreed upon by all for the good of all, done in love (ideally).  Things are obviously changing from that age-old type of society, to the one we are in now, inundated with ever-increasing technologies. 

That brings me to our modern time, regarding slavery.  The concept of human slavery, in any form, is totally repugnant to any civilized person in the Western world.  There are some that seek to cling to old ways of thinking about human slavery, but they are increasingly an aberration.

We still have slaves, however.  They have not gone away.

In another blog, hopefully soon, I will talk about the concept of wage slaves.  For today, though, I'm talking about the secret, hidden slaves that we all have and don't know it.  Every day, every one of us employs the use of dozens of slaves.  We order them without mercy.  We abuse them and even destroy them without a thought.  We buy them and sell them endlessly.  And when we're done with them we throw them into a pit and leave them to expire.

The slaves are our machines.

This is not necessarily a new topic.  What makes it new, though, is that we are on the verge of having complex, sophisticated machines coupled to rapidly-evolving artificial intelligence.  In other words, we just might possibly make machines that look almost human, and act almost human.  Why would we do this?  Because our body is the ultimate interface with our technology.  You could design a robot to swing a hammer, but a humanoid robot could automatically do that, and drive a car, and plant a tree, and infinitely more.

Let me back up for a moment.  In case you don't think of our machines as being slaves, allow me to have some fun with you.  Imagine it's twenty degrees below zero, and you go to start your car.  The car says to you, uh-uh, I ain't startin', it's frickin' twenty below out here, and how about a garage for Chrysler's sake.  We don't experience that, do we?  We demand that the car start under ALL conditions, not just the conditions that are good for the car.  We force the car to serve our needs, or else we get rid of it and buy a car that will.  The car is completely and entirely our slave.  A car, at least at this time, does not possess an intelligence.

What we desire is a machine that is smart enough to understand us and obey us, but not smart enough to refuse an order, or rebel.  In other words, we want our machines to be enslaved to us.

Re-read that last paragraph, now thinking of human slavery.  Why is this important?  Because soon we will be faced with the ultimate in slavery, intelligent machines.  This will also bring us to the question of what constitutes human, and what is a slave.  Most importantly, this issue will force us to think about our own attitude toward slavery.  If I offered you a person in chains, you would refuse, I would hope.  But if I offered you a sleek Japanese robot that could do all your household chores and have sex with you, would you accept it?  Both are slaves.  Both are intelligent humanoids.  Which is the slave?

I really think we need to consider this now.  It won't be long until this issue is right in front of us.  There is another point to remember in this discussion.  It may happen by accident or by design that our intelligent machines become more intelligent than us.  If they have knowledge and abilities that we can't compete with, they will effectively control us.  Then, we become the slaves.

In which case, our own laws may be applied to us.  So legislate carefully.  Would you want a member of your family to be treated the same way you treat a car?  Or a toaster?  

Blessed Be All The 1%

We are all born into slavery.  We all have the opportunity to escape our servitude.  

Our prison is poverty.  The way out is to get rich. 

Some people are proudly clinging to the concept of being part of the 99%.  They are proudly clinging to their status as slaves. 

In America, like nowhere else, and like no time in history, 99% of the people have the chance to become part of the 1%.  They just have to accept it.  

America is known to be about business.  People that start a business have a dream.  They sacrifice all that they have for the sake of that dream.  If they succeed, and most don't, it is because of hard work and dedication and a bit of luck.


When a business does succeed, any profits of that business are at the discretion of the owner of the business.  Usually, they put large amounts of money back into their businesses to improve them.  


After going through all this, the business owner is justifiably proud of their accomplishment, and very humbled and thankful for all that they have been able to do.  They seek to give back to the world that has given them their freedom, and to improve the world around them by being charitable, by creating more jobs with their businesses, by purchasing things that creates even more jobs elsewhere, by giving grants where they believe it's justified, and by teaching others how to do the same as them.  There are many more ways that business owners offer great returns to the community, but I don't need to list them all here. 


Imagine yourself a business owner that has accomplished all this.  Now comes to you a person demanding money of you.  Not asking, demanding.  Not politely, rudely.  What would you do?  We all know the answer.  Nobody likes to be treated badly.  Not the 1%, not the 99%.  The fact is, the 1% are the masters, and the 99% are slaves.  The unique feature of this system is that the slaves can free themselves.  If you want to avoid being treated badly, escape the system that treats you badly.  Leave your servitude behind.  Become the master of your fate, of your life, by becoming as rich as you can.  

If you are rich you have the power to re-make the world in your image.  Get the power. 


If you are not evil now, you will not be evil when you are rich.  Money is merely a tool to manipulate the world around you.  How you play your hand is up to you.  A hammer can crush a skull or build a house.  You decide which way the hammer swings. 


Swing the hammer.

Would You Like To Live On A Star?

That sounds nice and metaphorical, doesn't it?  To live on a star, it sounds so whimsical.  But what is a star?  We're told, it's a nuclear furnace.  We're told that in stars, the simple gas of hydrogen is transmuted into heavier and heavier elements.  The next element to be made is helium, and it progresses into lithium and beryllium and boron.  In some stars the process stops at carbon, and the star dies as a giant diamond.  In other stars the process continues until iron is formed, and the star dies as a big iron ball.

However, some stars don't end up as a mere lump of cold, dead matter.  Under just the right conditions some stars will become novas, supernovas, or even hypernovas.  These stars die a violent death.  They actually explode, and in their thundering outward blast, they simultaneously compress matter inward.  The incredible energy in the compressed zone drives the matter into higher and higher elemental states, well beyond the iron limit.  It's at this point that some of our most precious and most needed elements are created.  Elements like gold, lead, silver, copper, nickel, zinc, mercury, tin, iodine, and uranium, all of these come from supernova stars. 

By now you're wondering, why is he telling me all this?  Because, Gentle Reader (as my idol Asimov used to say), look again at the composition of this planet we call Earth.  Our scientists tell us our planet has a core of iron, the highest element to be formed in a star before it explodes.  We know that we have an abundance of trans-iron elements here, such as those listed above.  How can this be?  I would invoke Occam's razor, by suggesting that the simplest answer is likely to be the right one.  Our planet is the core of a star that underwent a supernova explosion.  We live on the outside of the core of a long-dead star.

It's one thing to understand that we are all made of atoms born of stars that existed eons ago.  It's another thing to realize that this planet is not just some haphazard conglomeration of elements.  Earth is the heart of a star, and we are made of the Earth.

What Was Before The Big Bang?

Science has brought us much understanding of the world around us, but it can't answer everything.  

Like, what came before  the Big Bang? 

I believe I have an answer.  Before the Big Bang, was...

The Big Dinner,  the Big Drinks, and the Big Movie.  

Our Daily Bread

We're taught that Jesus forgives all.  Do you think he'll forgive us our national debt?

Caution: Live Steam!

When we hear the word "steam," our minds automatically go back in time a hundred years or more.  We are living under the belief that steam power is old-fashioned, outdated, crude and inefficient.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Although some applications have moved away from steam power entirely, others are still using it today.  Did you know that almost all of our electricity today is still made from steam power?  From the coal-fired power stations that are the industry standard, to the latest, greatest designs in nuclear-power generating stations, they all work on the same principle of using large amounts of heat to make large amounts of steam, which then drives big generators to make electricity.  As you're reading this on your sleek, modern computer, remember that most likely, the power for your computer is still being supplied by the same steam power that's been around for some 200 years. 

The reason that's always been given for steam's demise is lack of efficiency.  My favorite example of this kind of thinking is the automobile.  In the earliest days of the automobile, the motoring public was confronted with three basic types of transportation.  The first was the steam car, the oldest and best-understood form of technological power.  Next was  the electric car, which was a newer technology, but still very well understood for its day.  Finally came the gasoline engine, and its cousin, the diesel engine, both internal-combustion designs. 

Let us look at how the "big three" designs compare to each other.  Again starting with steam, the earliest configurations had a boiler, essentially a big pot of water, that was located in a convenient location, and the steam was piped to the engine, which was located in another convenient location.  Even though the basic design was improved over the years, it always suffered from the same problem of inefficiency, because not enough attention was paid to the thermodynamics of the system.  A large amount of heat was applied to a large amount of water, which was wasteful.  Then the steam was piped, usually a considerable distance, to the engine.  Along every inch of that piping there were heat losses, adding-up over the length of the piping to the point where a great deal of heat had to be supplied to the boiler just to make sure that the steam arriving at the engine would be hot enough and under enough pressure.  Because the engine was located at some distance from the boiler, the engine would take quite awhile to heat-up from the steam, and all the while the engine was absorbing heat, it was not making power from that heat. 

Next let's take a look at the electric car.  It was true a hundred years ago, and it's still true today, that the electric motor is the single most efficient way to move a car along the road.  Period.  End of argument.  No matter what the specific design, every electric-powered car has essentially the same configuration.  A motor with one moving part is connected right to the wheels of the car.  Electric motors are clean, quiet, efficient, require no warm-up, and they are very powerful at accelerating a dead weight.  Keep in mind as you read this, I'm not saying anything at all about batteries or any other means of storing electricity.  The source of power for an electric motor is a different matter altogether.  Right here, right now, I'm only concerned with the electric motor itself, and its ability to move a car.  The early electric cars, and the latest ones being produced today, all suffer from the same basic problem, which is how to get enough electric power on-board to give the electric motor what it needs.  The motor itself is not the problem, the power-storage issue is the problem, and always has been. 

Now we come to the internal combustion engine.  This design was the least-favored of the "big three" back in the early days of motoring.  The electric car was clean, quiet, and instant-on, but was slow and had a short range.  The steam car was clean, quiet, powerful, and fast, but required a sometimes-long warm-up time.  The ICE design, even with its problematic features, could start instantly, did not require a long warm-up period, and was able to go long distances without refueling.  Despite its crudeness at the time, it overcame the deficiencies of the other two major designs, and this put the ICE at the forefront of automobile engineering. 

It can be argued that the modern ICE has been thoroughly refined over decades of use and millions of miles of motoring.  I, however, would not make that argument.  For example, the steam engine always had a clean exhaust, because it was an external-combustion design, and it did not suffer from the stinking, poisonous exhaust of the ICE.  So, over many decades, the exhaust of the ICE has been cleaned-up, by using such things as exhaust-gas recirculation, positive crankcase ventilation, electronic fuel injection, catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, controlled ignition timing, oxygenated fuels, and more.  My point should be obvious.  The ICE design causes nasty, foul combustion products to be created in the exhaust, and then dozens of devices are added to the engine in order to counteract those noxious emissions, and this is called refinement by the manufacturers.  Here is another point: ICEs by their nature run best at a single speed.  Since that is incompatible with an automobile that must constantly speed-up and slow-down, a complex means of transmitting power from the engine to the wheels is required.  In the simplest of cars, this was done with a two-speed transmission.  In today's "refined" cars, the engine's power is sent to the road through an eight-speed transmission.  Likewise, an ICE running at a single, fixed speed, as it would like to do, would require only the simplest of carburetors (such as we see on a lawnmower).  Since a car engine must constantly change its speed, a complex carburetor, or even digitally-controlled fuel-injection system, is required to allow the engine to be flexible enough to be drivable.  An electric motor, by comparison, requires none of those things.  All that is needed is a motor controller and a motor.

You see, all the "refinements" we've made to the ICE over all the years that we've been using it, are supposed to make the ICE more like the steam car or the electric car were in the first place.  Rather than fixing a couple of small problems with the steam or electric car in the beginning, we have elected instead to take the ugly duckling of the "big three" and dress it up in colorful clothing and declare that it's beautiful.  

Part of the reason an ICE is efficient at all is because of the compression stroke that takes place before combustion and the power stroke.  This has always been stated as the reason the ICE took precedence over the steam engine.  Let me present this to you in another way.  Every gallon of fuel contains "X" amount of chemical energy.  Just to make things easier, I'm going to use some round numbers.  Let's say a gallon of gasoline contains 100,000 Btu's of heat.  If you simply burn that gallon of gasoline, you will get 100,000 Btu's of heat from it.  Now let's burn that gasoline in an ICE.  After the whole gallon of gasoline has been run through the engine, we will look at our measurements, and we will discover that 1/3 of the energy in the gasoline has gone straight out the exhaust pipe and been lost.  Then we discover that another 1/3 of the energy in the gasoline has gone to heat the water in the radiator.  That's 2/3 of the 100,000 Btu's we started with going to waste, accomplishing nothing.  We are quite literally paying $3 for a gallon of gas, and throwing $2 a gallon away as wasted heat. 

If, however, we take that same gallon of gasoline, and burn it completely, we will get all the heat back out of it.  Then it just becomes a matter of engineering to get the heat from the burner to the driving wheels.  This is where new, efficient designs in steam cars comes into play.  Let me give you one idea for a better steam car design.  Since it's all about heat, let's start with putting the heat where it's needed.  Imagine, for example, if you took a blowtorch and used it to heat a cylinder head.  The cylinder head would get very hot indeed, right?  Now spray a small amount of water onto that heated cylinder head.  It would instantly flash to steam, and almost all the heat energy in that steam would go toward driving a piston.  Compare that to the old steam designs that located the boiler many feet from the engine, with all the heat-losses that occurred at every step of the way.  You see, folks, it's all about making and using the heat, with as little loss as possible.  The problem with steam cars was not the steam power itself, it was the thermodynamically-inefficient designs of the time.  I have more ideas for steam cars but for now this example will do. 

I want to see a return to steam power.  Not in any nostalgic, turn-back-the-clock kind of way, not at all.  I'm talking about modern, efficient steam power, using the latest advances in materials, and our best understanding of the laws of thermodynamics.  I dream that someday, I will have the chance to build some of my designs and test them under real-world conditions.  I would wager right now (if I had any money!) that my ideas will work, just based on a scientific understanding of how heat flows in a given system.  By making heat efficiently, right where it's needed, many of the simplest problems of the old steam-car designs can be avoided.  I'd like to see what a few decades of refinement would do to a new, improved type of steam car. 

Anyone care to join me for a steam? 

Magical Christmas Eve

When I was young, perhaps around 10 years old, there was a steam engine that I wanted for Christmas.  It was back when they had the giant Montgomery Ward and Sears Wishbook catalogs.  In one catalog was a model steam engine, with a whistle and a governor and a reversing lever.  I know I got other presents that year but this present was the only one I really wanted.  I remember one night, on a Christmas eve long ago, I went out into the living room after everyone had gone to bed.  The house was completely dark, except for the lights on the Christmas tree, which were the multi-colored type.  The living room was lit in a dull ruddy glow, and the tree was...there's really no other word but, intoxicating.  I was totally captivated by the rainbow of colors of lights, and the plastic icicles reflecting the colors a thousand times over.  Underneath the tree were many presents, but for the moment I was concerned with only one.  A gold-wrapped box with a red ribbon and bow had my name on it.  I knew it was the steam engine I had asked for.  A simple thing like that, to me as a child, was bliss.  All this emotion came together in an instant, and I fell in love with the idea of Christmas.  

The story of Christmas has many meanings to many people.  Some look at it in a classical religious context.  Some think of it as a worship of the turning of the season.  Some people think it's about buying lots and lots of presents.  Well, I actually think it's about all those things, and more.  It is no accident that Christmas takes place near the shortest day of the year.  Those days, the days that have more darkness than any others, are more than just the accident of celestial mechanics.  They represent, in a very real sense, the long, dark night of the soul.  The time when things seem at their worst.  In the world of nature, this is winter, when nothing grows, and all is cold and dark.  In the world of the mind, this is depression, despair, desperation. 

And here, in the midst of the darkness, in the endless biting cold, when all seems dead and dying, comes the light.  Not just one light, but many lights.  Lights in all the colors of creation, gleaming, glowing, chasing the shadows.  Sparks of brilliance that throw cheer and laughter at despair and despondency.  They give a warmth of light and levity that throw-off the cold shoulder of the winter outside. 

This is what Christmas means to me.  Is it about buying presents?  Yes!  Giving and receiving presents brings joy to everybody in the wintry season.  Is it about the turning of the season?  Of course!  Celebrate the physical, and symbolic, death of the old and birth of the new.  Is it about religious tradition?  Absolutely!  This is not the place to go into that in too much depth, but Christmas is also about the death and rebirth of our bodies, and our minds.  The key to it all seems to be to laugh at the darkness, in the world around us and in our own souls, just at the time when things seem their worst.  Do not be defeated by the engulfing dark.  Light a candle, and the dark goes away.  It's true in the outside world, and it's true in the world that lies within ourselves.