Spelunking the Universe
Posts tagged Global
The Power of a Proper Education
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
The US and likely most people who are attached to the capitalist system believe that money can heal all wounds. However as nice as that would be it is generally not the case. It is incredibly pleasant for me to see that I’m not the only person that sees this and indeed I’m not the only one that sees the true cure for many many wounds.
The one of the two fellows who spoke at my Graduation Ceremony mentioned that he was running a project to educate Kenyans. This project wasn’t to throw money at them, nor to throw food at them, nor to assign them to any subjective system of beliefs for personal gain. This was and is a system that I can strongly support, the idea of educating the uneducated.
There are no negatives to a proper education, it helps expand the understanding of the world around us as well as our own bodies. A proper education can and will provide people with a better personal attitude. Unfortunately in the US we’ve got small groups of people fighting a proper education in order to push their subjective systems of belief (again for personal gain). But as Mr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has stated before, nations that break away from scientific discovery also break away from financial security, and he has said that this is why we will never nationally support the destruction of scientific theory or a proper education, rich folk don’t want to die poor.
But back to Africa. There are three major things that every person not only needs but they deserve, without exception. These three major things are Healthcare, Housing, and an Education. There is absolutely no exception at all period. Now I am a bit loose with Housing, because I actually include food under that domain but if we wanted to expand so it was less abuse able, you could say “Healthcare, Housing, Sustenance, and Education.” Regardless all these things are required for a nation to be just and if it doesn’t have ANY piece of these, regardless which one, it is an unfair and unjust society.
In the case of Africa they are largely missing all four. However the foundation for this pyramid is Education, above all else. Without an education the people are left to believe not what is true but what is most convincing, the most charismatic or more likely the most violent rule in lands that are lacking in education. Many times these people are not the best people for the job. With an education comes an understanding of proper healthcare and proper home construction techniques. Renewable systems of living are also built in the architecture of education so that people do not strip the land they live in bare and end up greatly diminishing their chances of survival.
I could go on and on, but it is quite simple, if a nation is to succeed financially and quite frankly in any other sense (even *bleh* morally) they must have a strong and legitimate educational system. Such a system is not a democracy either, just because you do not like Gravity does not mean it doesn’t exist. But that’s a post for another time.
There will likely never be a WWIII.
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
While I’m sure there is at least one snooty historian reading this. Not to say all historians are snooty indeed I like basically all of the historians I’ve ever met but I know at least one that is kind of a jackass. Anyways that bit a tangent out of the way lets get down to the meat of this prediction.
World War I likely had some events that happened before it that lead up to it. I’ve never really studied the first world war but that isn’t the topic of discussion today. People sometimes act like World War II was totally unseen and completely surprising to all parties involved. Indeed whereas World War I was terrible the second World War was absolutely atrocious. Events transpired during it that are the epitome of unbelievable. However it required extremely precise and special events to transpire for it to build to such a level.
You required a nation with industrial strength to hit a point of absolute desolation financially. This financial destitution really needs the extra bonus of being caused by a series of outside nations who are intentionally destroying you. Germany was essentially a wounded animal that was getting the crap poked out of it by a few other nations with sticks. Basically the world wasn’t ignoring it passively but actively. Making sure that Germans knew that nobody outside of Germany cared either. This set them up to trust anyone who promised to get them out of the situation. Now there are tons and tons of other things that happened as well and I’m sure I’m missing some. However it was a matter of taking a powerful nation and treating it like utter crap until it was nothing but tattered remains. The current economic ‘crisis’ really isn’t that impressive compared to the financial doom of the past.
Well most people know the gist of what happened during the second world war. Ending with the introduction of arguably the most feared weaponry the modern world has ever and may ever know. This added a new paradigm to future wars. It is now relatively certain that a new world war would end with something far more dramatic than the second world war. Anyone with the power to destroy cities doesn’t want to risk losing their cities and anyone willing to lose their cities doesn’t have the power.
The introduction of biological weaponry (the lab produced kind) we have another paradigm of possibly creating a weapon that has a global mortality rate in the upper 90’s. This sort of extreme event is a very strong deterrent. Indeed there is little reason anymore to have a world war. While the first world war marked the last great land grab attempt in Europe the second world war was an event brought on by extreme (for a lack of a better term) dickery. If everyone wouldn’t have treated Germany like trash after the first World War there is basically a 100% likelihood that there would have never been a second world war.
The sequence of needs offset by the costs of execution make any future World War extremely unlikely. Indeed everything commonly used now to support the idea of a future world war is merely a more active observation of events that have been happening for a long long time. The rise in terrorism has been the case for centuries, the rise in dissention and international conflict ahs been the case for centuries, and most other ‘notes’ are really more a case of efficient international communication than a sudden dangerous shift in global paradigms.
It is more likely that space will send us a global decimator than man will. At least in the next century or so. The old extremists are dying and the youth are less and less intent on following the suicidal nature of their parents. Which you can’t really blame them for, when all you had to play when you were a kid was beat the rock with a stick or paper cut-out GI Joes of course you’ll grow up to be bitter.
We have I-Phones and Video Games now, even nations that are labeled as ‘haters’ of modernization have high percentages of young citizens who are more or less infatuated with the cultures of other nations. It’s just a matter of surviving the current generation of leaders, once that is done it’ll be quite a long time before another great atrocity happens.
The History Crushing Power of Our Planet
2 years ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
There seems to be a belief amongst a sizeable group of people that the Earth has never had the poo beaten out of it by meteor rocks. We look at the moon and see this abused sphere dancing around us and it gives the illusion of being our shield. While it is true that many of the things that have pummeled it would have hit us it has hardly been perfect.
The Earth has an amazing ability of erasing everything that happens given enough time. Plates are constantly moving and sliding under one another, melting away and later sprouting up to fill cracks somewhere else in a seemingly endless cycle. It is not unlike a conveyer belt, essentially it is convection with molten and not-so-molten rock instead of hot water or air.
Very recently (Monday) Italy was hit with a large Earthquake, 6.3 Magnitude, while obviously human life is always the priority and I am not trying to trivialize that loss (which has reached nearly 300 last time I checked it is important to know the historical impact of these sort of events.
The Earth in a moment can flatten Millennia of history. Structures that have survived world wars and century upon century of erosion leveled with the greatest of ease. It’s humbling to say the least. Something that humans must remember. No matter what we do, while we may end all biological life on Earth we will likely never leave a lasting scar on the planet. At least I’m fairly skeptical that we will.
(Image from NYT)
That is assuming we don’t survive long enough to have the core of the Earth finally cool completely (thus making continental drift nonexistent). But I ‘think’ that before that the sun will scorch the surface.