Noam Chomsky - Pirates & Emperors

Dueling sanctimony (my daughter was reminded of me)

http://conservatoons.deviantart.com/art/Dueling-Sanctimony-142758959

A Catholic cleric argues effectively against the New Atheists

Mazi En Gondolando

Mazi En Gondolando

Miaj infanoj multe sxatis tiun filmon. Ankaux bona maniero lerni, ecx por plenaguloj.

Our kids loved this film. Watched it over and over. I learned a lot too, about Esperanto vocabulary and diction. This is the sequel, Mazi revenas al Gondolando. Riveting plot.

This song is for beginners learning Esperanto, but I found it quite touching, in a bittersweet way. Many's a friend I had who mixed with me "kiel akvo kaj oleo." 

Filmeto por la muziko en Esperanto "Jen", kantata kaj ludata de Alejandro Cossavella (tiam en La Porkoj). Tiu video ankaŭ omaĝas la Kurson de Esperanto ( http://www.kurso.com.br ), eble la plej granda respondeculo pri la disvatigo de tiu muziko inter la komencantaro, ĉar ĝi enhavas "Jen" en unu el siaj lecionoj.

Next Step for Democracy: A Government BY the People

Branches of One Tree

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree..." -Albert Einstein

Evacuated Tube Transport Video Playlist

Euclid's proof of deity

Euclid gave what to me seems to be a pretty persuasive proof of the existence of God. We are created in God's image, two things are equal to that image, therefore they are fundamentally equivalent.

The recent movie about Lincoln shows how this same idea gave the great man faith that political polarities can be united.

Take this extract from the Huffington Post on this subject:

During our discussion, Kushner offered insight on Lincoln's affinity for Euclidian Geometry, particularly on its usefulness in avoiding political gridlock. Kushner remarked, "Lincoln was fascinated by mathematics and geometry, and often used it to resolve political differences." In one of the most poignant moments of the film, Lincoln recites Euclid's first common notion by stating "It is self-evident that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." (clip shown below)

Video clip courtesy Movieclip.com

Euclid's first common notion gave Lincoln the ability to visualize two unlike ideas and allow parties to converge on a claim that would eventually become "self-evident." Lincoln's point was that truth claims become self-evident through the dialectic, or the combined process of resolving the tension between two ideas through discussion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ravi-chaudhary/steven-spielbergs-lincoln_b_2155859.html

Whole Earth Discipline Book

I am just finishing Stewart Brand's "Whole Earth Discipline," a revolutionary book that destroys many green misconceptions. Here, in a brief talk, he sums up the arguments he makes at length in the book:

Golab and the Seven "S"'s at Naw Ruz

Happy Naw Ruz! Persian cooking uses rosewater, as does oriental medicine. It is also used to welcome guests, especially at New Year.

"Rose water … has symbolic meanings within Iranian traditions and culture. It represents cleansing and as such is often placed on the ‘haft sein’  table at new year or Naw rooz ( a table containing 7 traditional items beginning with the letter S). The Rose water is  for collection all sickness be it in mind, thought, deed, or in the physical body and/or it’s sprinkled into the air. Rose water is symbolistic within the Zoroastrian religion and in ancient Iran newly arrived guests are greeted with sweets made with rose-water and sprinkled with rose-water as they entered the house. Some Zoroastrians still keep a ‘golabaz’, a traditionally shaped vase with rose-water in it and greet their guests in the traditional ways.  I also have memories of using rose-water to lightly cleanse and freshen up furniture and draperies before receiving guests and especially at Norooz."

From <http://javanehskitchen.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/rose-water-or-golab/

I have been getting interested in Iranian cooking lately.

Here is what celeb cook Jamie Oliver has to say about it:

..

To be for the people, government must be by the people. Brilliant talk by Étienne Chouard

Race Amity: America's Other Tradition

Dr Richard St. Barbe Baker Man of the Trees

First Futurist

Pythagoras, the First Futurist

By John Taylor; 2013 Jan 07, 169 BE

 

Last month I finished reading a rather disappointing book about the influence of the sun on history. It is called the "petulant sun hypothesis," or something, the idea that sunspots and solar flares have influenced climate and just about every other aspect of our world more than we tend to think.

Its author describes himself as a futurist. Instead of paying his dues by researching this promising thesis thoroughly, though, he relies on his sense of humour to get him through some three hundred pages of fluff. The jokes I found distracting and less than amusing. This is not the only futurist who disappointed me. If, as Bacon put it, some books are to be tasted and some digested, futurists, at least those I have read, are windblown foam that I would not put in my mouth.

Yet the subject itself is so important and fascinating!

The talent pool for futurists seems to be the dubious demimonde of fads and punditry. Instead, I think the ideal place for a futurist to start when exploring the future is in philosophy and the history of ideas. Here, are those ideas most likely to last into the future. Here, you become familiar with those that have been discredited so you can recognize them when they crop up again in disguise. And, not least important, you can give credit where credit is due when an old, profound truth raises its head. It is in this spirit that I wrote the following about the real Pythagorean theorem.

 ==========

The Real Pythagorean Proof; Pythagoras and our Object as Humans

 

 

It is now established that the proof of Pythagoras was known by the Babylonians many centuries before his birth; indeed, they understood the theorem much better. We should therefore call that right angled triangle relation, which some say is the most important theorem in mathematics, the "Babylonian Proof" instead of the Pythagorean. Nonetheless, there remains a Pythagorean proof that should be far better known as such than it is. Arguably, it is even more important that the mathematical contribution of Pythagoras and his followers.

==========

What is our goal as human beings? Pythagoras of Samos (about 570-495 BCE), travelled the known world, from Europe to Asia, from Egypt to India and back, in search of an answer, and his discovery still stands today. He found that our object, our raison d'etre as human beings, is knowledge. Not only that, he found that knowledge has three aspects, just as triangles have three sides, or our world has three dimensions. These are knowledge of self, of the universe and of God. Once we grasp these, truth will empower and set us free, in and of itself. Pythagoras has been credited with this statement:

"Man, know thyself; then thou shalt know the Universe and God... No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself." (Pythagoras <http://www.experiencefestival.com/pythagoras_quotes>)

This unites theory and action, East and West, and all that we now call science, religion and politics. It is still repeated by pundits of all stripes, hundreds of centuries afterwards. The same advice, "Know Thyself," was posted above the Oracle of Delphi. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, a father repeats it to his departing son,

"This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."(Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Sc. 3)

Ideally, everyone would succeed in this sublime quest to know oneself comprehensively, to rule over oneself with perfect love, justice and wisdom. If we could, we would know and grow smoothly, all the time. Like his right angled triangle, we would grasp the hidden unknowns and progress steadily through each stage of our development, from early youth to old age. We would not need laws, rules or outside compulsion. It would be a libertarian paradise.

Unfortunately, life is imperfect. Self-knowledge tends to fail. Much as we would like it to be, the right angle is not always exactly 90 degrees. We misunderstand. We forget. We change, the environment changes and society grows. The universe is expanding. Knowledge itself is incomplete, by its very nature. We lose hold of our freedom. Rule over self lapses. To adapt, we must be tentative, and continually upgrade what we know, even of one's self.

Pythagoras recognized this when he coined the word "philosopher" to take the place of the much older "elder" or "wise man."

"Pythagoras is said to have been the first to assume the title of Philosopher (lover of wisdom) in place of the name Sophos (wise), by which the sages had before been known." <http://www.nndb.com/people/773/000087512/>

Wise men think they own wisdom, an impossible expectation in this growing, expanding universe. All that imperfect beings dare aspire to is to be seekers after wisdom, to adore wisdom but never possess her. At our best, we are lovers who revere knowledge, and humbly court wisdom. A philosopher does not presume to be wise already. He is tolerant, tentative and evolutionary. Such is the station of a philosopher.

Pythagoras was among the first to notice that this station points in three direction, like a right angled triangle. There is not, and cannot be, only one path to truth. There are three ways of knowing and growing because knowledge starts with knowing the self, then it proceeds to the universe and to God. We have three main motives or reasons for being, which he illustrated by the three types of people who turn up at a sporting event.

 

 

"Pythagoras argued that there are three kinds of men, just as there are three classes of strangers who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest consists of those who come to buy and sell, and next above them are those who come to compete. Best of all are those who simply come to look on. Men may be classified accordingly as lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain." ("Pythagoras," Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/pythagor/)

The Hackerspace Movement: Mitch Altman at TEDxBrussels

It's the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World

It's the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World

The World Belt (jetbadi.aligu@blogger.com)

Today's Badi' Blog Essay

Today's Badi' Blog Essay

Snapshot of the item below:

Here is the text of my latest post on the Badi’ Blog. The original can be found at:

http://badiblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/cosmopolis-earth-volume-2.html

 NOVEMBER 16, 2012

Cosmopolis Earth, Volume 2

Another draft

November-16-12

 

The World Belt; A Global Vascular System

By John Taylor; 2012 Nov 16, 169 BE

 

For centuries farsighted writers, scientists and engineers, most notable among them Jules Verne and Buckminster Fuller, have put forward ideas to improve our infrastructure. The most difficult of these megaprojects remain undone, including domed cities, moving sidewalks, pneumatic tube transit and modular housing. Others, long dismissed as utopian pipe dreams, are already completed, such as train tunnels below the Alps and under the English channel, not to mention satellites and GPS location. Wikipedia's article on megaprojects lists hundreds of other schemes, all formerly impracticable, that present technology allows and which are in various stages of planning, including some already under construction.

One megaproject is so daunting that nothing like it has ever been attempted. This is the World Belt, a long corridor of superconducting power lines crossing and joining the continents. This energy grid would both deliver electricity and store it. The peculiar properties of superconduction permit power lines to act as a huge storage battery. This is the ideal enabler for green energy, wind, wave and solar, all of which are intermittent. These high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines are actually more efficient transmitting electricity over long distances than our present grid, using alternating current, is over much shorter distances.

 

 

This world belt would permanently shift the balance of electrical power towards green energy. As Buckminster Fuller tirelessly pointed out in his public talks (two of which I had the honour of attending), one side of our planet is always bathed in sunlight while the other languishes in darkness. A global grid connecting these shifting dark and light halves of Earth would pay for itself very quickly. It would transmit energy from where it is free, bountiful and unneeded to where it is in demand, from bright to dark areas, from warm to cold regions, and from low population desert areas to those with a high population.

Once the global grid makes the entire energy resources of the planet available anywhere at a very low price, it will be economical to undertake a similar and parallel megaproject to reorient the all-important area of transport, transit, travel and tourism. A rapid transportation line running near or alongside the World Belt's power lines could derive power directly from this energy grid.

Together, these two, power and transport, would constitute the vascular system first of continental union, then of a global democratic super-state. This technical development allows us to move ourselves and our stuff from one place to another with a speed and efficiency approaching electronic communications, which is virtually instantaneous. It will permit our built world to enter into the third dimension; as Fuller pointed out, until now we have built only two dimensionally, scratching the surface of earth. Our internal processes can be seen from above, like bacteria, amoebas and other unicellular creatures. Once we have these veins and arteries, however, we can build in every direction, erecting floating cities on the ocean, flying domes in the air, and boring underground, into mountains and underground.

Ambitious projects like this require undreamed of integration and interdependence, however, not only physical but mental and spiritual as well. We are unlikely to move forward in this direction without the advances in politics, religion and education that John Amos Comenius laid out for us back in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. We discussed his analyses and proposals at length in the first volume of this series, Beyond Borders. Once we remove our habits and mental blocks, we will learn to balance our lives in an integrated way. Then, we can erect the machineries of world democracy, of which megaprojects such as the world belt are only an outer expression.

::

Google Drive: create, share, and keep all your stuff in one place.

Cosmopolis Earth, Volume 2

Another draft

November-16-12

 

The World Belt; A Global Vascular System

By John Taylor; 2012 Nov 16, 169 BE

 

For centuries farsighted writers, scientists and engineers, most notable among them Jules Verne and Buckminster Fuller, have put forward ideas to improve our infrastructure. The most difficult of these megaprojects remain undone, including domed cities, moving sidewalks, pneumatic tube transit and modular housing. Others, long dismissed as utopian pipe dreams, are already completed, such as train tunnels below the Alps and under the English channel, not to mention satellites and GPS location. Wikipedia's article on megaprojects lists hundreds of other schemes, all formerly impracticable, that present technology allows and which are in various stages of planning, including some already under construction.

One megaproject is so daunting that nothing like it has ever been attempted. This is the World Belt, a long corridor of superconducting power lines crossing and joining the continents. This energy grid would both deliver electricity and store it. The peculiar properties of superconduction permit power lines to act as a huge storage battery. This is the ideal enabler for green energy, wind, wave and solar, all of which are intermittent. These high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines are actually more efficient transmitting electricity over long distances than our present grid, using alternating current, is over much shorter distances.

 

 

This world belt would permanently shift the balance of electrical power towards green energy. As Buckminster Fuller tirelessly pointed out in his public talks (two of which I had the honour of attending), one side of our planet is always bathed in sunlight while the other languishes in darkness. A global grid connecting these shifting dark and light halves of Earth would pay for itself very quickly. It would transmit energy from where it is free, bountiful and unneeded to where it is in demand, from bright to dark areas, from warm to cold regions, and from low population desert areas to those with a high population.

Once the global grid makes the entire energy resources of the planet available anywhere at a very low price, it will be economical to undertake a similar and parallel megaproject to reorient the all-important area of transport, transit, travel and tourism. A rapid transportation line running near or alongside the World Belt's power lines could derive power directly from this energy grid.

Together, these two, power and transport, would constitute the vascular system first of continental union, then of a global democratic super-state. This technical development allows us to move ourselves and our stuff from one place to another with a speed and efficiency approaching electronic communications, which is virtually instantaneous. It will permit our built world to enter into the third dimension; as Fuller pointed out, until now we have built only two dimensionally, scratching the surface of earth. Our internal processes can be seen from above, like bacteria, amoebas and other unicellular creatures. Once we have these veins and arteries, however, we can build in every direction, erecting floating cities on the ocean, flying domes in the air, and boring underground, into mountains and underground.

Ambitious projects like this require undreamed of integration and interdependence, however, not only physical but mental and spiritual as well. We are unlikely to move forward in this direction without the advances in politics, religion and education that John Amos Comenius laid out for us back in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. We discussed his analyses and proposals at length in the first volume of this series, Beyond Borders. Once we remove our habits and mental blocks, we will learn to balance our lives in an integrated way. Then, we can erect the machineries of world democracy, of which megaprojects such as the world belt are only an outer expression.

Universalaj Kongresoj de Esperanto 1905-2010

Research Report on the second volume of my book

The Trans-Earth Skyway System

 

The first volume of Cosmopolis Earth was about John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) and his plan to build a stable democratic republic beyond national borders by raising up confederations based on the continents. Comenius proposed a particular division of labour among leaders designed to prevent the concentration of power that causes tyranny. He proposed a schedule for this unification that would do it gradually, over several generations, through a series of successive ten year cycles.

 

I am now working on the second volume of Cosmopolis Earth. In it, I will speculate about implementation of these decade-long cycles that Comenius proposed, concentrating especially on the infrastructure that is needed to carry out global integration in as soon as two or three hundred years. As with the first volume, Beyond Borders, I will share early drafts here, on the Badi' blog and mailing list, over coming weeks and months.

 

Preliminary Research Report for the Second Volume of Cosmopolis Earth

 

 

 

Researching the second volume of Cosmopolis Earth, I started with the keyword, "world belt," which I have been using for several years to describe the sort of infrastructure that I expect to come about as democracy goes global. Unfortunately, "world belt" turned up nothing on Google. Did I forget the real name, or is it a false memory? Or did the proposal for this project, run by engineers who were inspired by Buckminster Fully, I thought, just die? However, I did find something fairly close, called the "Trans-Earth Skyway System," though. The site describes this as a,

 

"projected global network of elevated, electric transportation corridors, containing three major subsystems, 1. The Electric Superhighway 2. Sustainable Energy Grid 3. Trans-Earth Aqueduct." (http://www.summitbridge.com/index.html)

 

The site includes a map of the world showing how this "skyway system" would join and encircle the coasts of each continent. Passengers would ride in hypersonic trains through transparent tubes held high in the air, looking down at the scenery through glass observation windows. Because these tubes are evacuated, travel could take place at hypersonic speeds, tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. This is very different from the idea of Buckminster Fuller, who envisioned these tubes running mostly underground, which would allow for completely integrated, containerized intermodal transit. That is, passengers would ride in an independent seat capsule or cabin, and be switched invisibly from one mode to another, say, from an automobile, to a truck to a train to an airplane.

 

I suppose that the suspended, high-rise transparent tubes of the Trans Earth Skyway System (TESS), if technically feasible, would be ideal. Why not enjoy the scenery as you travel the continents? There would certainly would be less disruption if the TESS tubes flew overhead. The anonymous author of this site suggests that the land under the tubes be devoted to natural parks,

 "Construction of the entire system will simultaneously establish a worldwide ecological economy, and literally unite the world beyond war."

I do not necessarily subscribe to this "build it and they will unite" approach, but if humankind ever did build an integrated transit, power and housing scheme, it would surely already be well on the way to unification on the global level. The TESS plan arose from another proposal, the Summit Bridge.

This is a proposed bridge across the Bering Sea, joining Alaska to Russia. We would start by building an artificial island at the midpoint of the Bering Sea, with two bridges joining it to the continents of Asia and America on either side.

 

"Welcome all peoples, this is the reunion of mankind, the global movement to end all war and terror on Earth, by construction of Summit Bridge and the Trans-Earth Skyway System." (<http://www.summitbridge.com/declaration_if.php>)

 

The site tells an interesting story about how this idea came about. It seems that in the depths of the Cold War, a certain US Air Force pilot flew his fighter plane along this flight path to the USSR. He did it as a peace protest, running the dire risk being shot down, which in turn would have started a nuclear confrontation. The site displays a map of the island and the bridge joining it to Alaska and Russia.

 

The construction of this Summit Bridge would mark the first time in 11,000 years that the Americas would be connected to the vast super-continent of Asia. It would be an historic event, which would then lead to the TESS, a rapid train connection of every continent with every other. While expensive to construct, it would just require that we redirect a portion of the massive funds now wasted on armament, weapons research and the military.

 

Instead of eliminating defense budgets, that is, the money could be redirected into the Summit Bridge, and then universalized to the TESS megaproject. This would contribute more to real defense and security than anything that mere military expenditures can promise, since it would make every continent part of the same homeland. Undoubtedly, since defense budgets have expanded tremendously, to the tune of trillions of dollars per year, there should be more than enough funds available not only to finance the TESS, but also to build it entirely out of crystal, gold and diamond.

 

Next time, I will discuss the other features of the TESS proposal, some of which were entirely new to me.