These days, it seems like news of natural disasters have become more frequent lately. Most of this recently is due to the ongoing 20 year uptick in tropical/hurricane activity. Place on top of that wildfires, tornados, earthquakes, avalanches, blizzards, ice storms, record heat, record cold, floods, droughts, and the list goes on and on, its amazing any of us are even sane enough to live at all. Recently, I read this article on CNN, talking about how the people in the "Last House Standing" in Gilcrist, Texas are celebrating Christmas. Gazing towards the bottom at the comments, it looks like the typical range of responses there. "I can't believe they rebuild on the coast." "I can't believe we allow the government to insure these home." Then of course its done with absolute sarcasm and bitterness towards fellow man. On the other hand you've got those who applaud the rebuilding and stand up/justify their reasonings why they think people should stay, citing every thing from the amount of years they've lived there, to the fact that their jobs require them to work nearby. Then, out of those two primary arguments, a war of words ensues.
First of all, the arguments here are mostly a waste of breath, (or rather typing if you prefer.) But, I guess its the Internet, so we get seemingly unlimited spaces to post our thoughts and we live in a "free country," so why not? It's completely absurd to think anyone will actually win an argument. You will rarely see anyone actually concede to another person's point of view. (The one time I actually tried to concede to the other person's point of view, he or she just kept on, so I gave up on that.) And of course, the more the controversy there is, the more impassioned people are to say nasty things thanks to the anonymity of the poster. Plus, I think some people post arguments back and forth against themselves just for the sake of creating buzz about an article. We can't help it, its all human nature, even it is rather silly sometimes and very predictable. I bet I could write a program to simulate post-article commenting to demonstrate. But, I digress, the point of this post isn't to discuss post-article commenting tactics of the public but to address our development in areas that are known to have higher risks of disasters.
No matter where we live on the planet Earth, we are all subjected to some risk of disasters. But, we can all also recognize that some people live in higher risks areas than others. (Or so, our perception and intuition tell us so.) I don't need to do a 10 year study to say that its probably better (from a disaster-survival point of view) to live in an established small town in the heartland of the US vs. living at the base of an active volcano. We always get these routine arguments, but no one is standing around talking about how we should actually go about having people live with this known probability in a way that will have the least economic impact to the rest of us. Most arguments stem around the belief that its either the wealthiest who live on the extreme edges of the Earth (i.e. wealthy celebrities in California getting their houses burned by wildfires), or the most ignorant and impoverished people, who are clueless to the disaster that awaits them (i.e. New Orleans refugees after Katrina), that are always in the middle of these events. Few people place the middle class in these situations, and when it is done, its usually done so with a more justifiable, stance and its usually a disaster that hits everyone of all socioeconomic backgrounds (i.e. earthquake rattles SoCal, or ice storm blankets thousands in New England.) Real quick, it makes sense that the wealthy tend to place themselves in harm's way at "earth's extremes" with mountainside properties in the thick woods or perhaps stilted mansions on the coast, while flood plains are typically really cheap and affordable for the poor. I say to those that are wealthy who loose their homes, tough, I don't want to hear the complaints, because you knew the risks when you built or bought your home. You could even apply this to some middle class folks who are asking for trouble placing their life's savings to live in places where they ought not live. Things are perhaps different for those that are less fortunate. Perhaps its possible that some of these people really are clueless to the possibilities of disaster and as a result are ill prepared when it does happen. You could take this a step further and say that they are aware of the danger, but either lack the means (money) or motivation to evacuate or adequately prepare. Those all seem to make sense (through my white middle-class perspective), but let's move beyond typical places to find where to place the blame.
To dig further in thought, I'd like to focus on those who are living near the coast who are dependent on jobs that are made available because of it's close proximity to the coast, particularly the US Gulf Coast. These jobs could be anything from shipping, to working at coastal refineries to shrimp boating, not to mention all of those people who work in jobs that service those communities (teachers, grocery store clerks, doctors etc.) All of these are jobs are not only important to the local community, but as soon as you think about that last tank of gas that you bought, or the product that used any chemical from plastics to detergents, or the good shrimp you've eaten recently, you realize that those people living on the coast are important to all of us. Now let's assume that most of these people don't live directly within a stone's throw of the oceanside property, but they do still live within harms way. On the Gulf Coast, its quite common for properties 10 to 20 miles from the coast lie no higher than 20 to 30 ft. above sea level. That means that the first 3 or 4 miles inland, those properties are subjected to storm surge from run-of-the mill hurricanes. To overcome this, houses within these areas are built on stilts. That's good, as long as those houses are built to withstand the accompanying winds. For those who live above the storm surge line, you'll still need to have a house built to withstand sustained winds of at least 120 miles an hour. Keep in mind, the saying, "its not that the wind is blowing, but its what the wind is blowing." So even if your house can withstand the high winds, you're still going to need to have a way to protect your house from the debris that's blowing around because your neighbor forgot to tie down his gas grill in the backyard. That sounds great until you find out that building a house large enough for a standard family of 4 or 5 people is too expensive for the refinery worker and the shrimp boat assistant to afford. Throw in the school teacher who lost her husband to war with 2 kids to take care of and you can quickly see where the economic problem lies. Where do these people live, 30 or 60 miles inland? An affordable, but crowded, government subsidized housing complex? Perhaps, if those workers united and asked for higher pay from their employers they could afford those houses closer to work. That sounds good, but now you've got a company that's either going to give in to those demands and simply pass on the costs to its customers, or it'll be forced to relocate over seas or across the border where its more affordable to operate. The bottom line is, we're tied in to those communities' economies, and we're all indirectly responsible for those who live on the coast. And whether its the government or big business that pays the initial up-front cost, we all end up paying for those the costs in the long term either through higher prices or higher taxes (or lost jobs to overseas markets). This is just another example of the hidden costs of products that are priced too low. (You can bet I'll have a blog entry on the hidden costs of cheap goods, imported or otherwise.)
Don't get me wrong, there are some other remedies to the situation. For example, living below sea level, near the coast doesn't make sense and should be prohibited. Why even bother with coastal levies, they're expensive to build and maintain, and when they fail, its disastrous. (If you want to make Death Valley your home, have at it, but I'm not covering the cost of that either.) It also makes sense to do things like allow for natural, undeveloped buffers to exist between the coast and the towns that are economically tied to the sea. This is particularly true for areas near the mouth of the Mississippi and other rivers along the Gulf Coast. These buffers also act to take the blow of a storm surge and can also give some room to allow a hurricane's winds to slow down some before having the chance impact human development. Other things like better levy management upstream to allow silts, which are important to sustaining coastal wetlands, (the needed buffer described above) to build up as they naturally would have done so. Think of the Gulf Coast as being like a cell wall (think Biology 101, not prison). The cell wall needs to be able to allow important materials to pass through, but it also needs to keep the dangerous substances out and help regulate the balance of materials. (Urban development and economics based off of biology will be a future blogging topic as well.) (In fact, someday, I'll be discussing many other systems that are similar to biological structure (such as corporate structures and the movement of goods, people and information in a urban environment.)
Unfortunately, there's bound to be some resort hotel and luxury home owners that will claim that its their right to develop within a stone's throw of the coast. I suppose that limited developments could be allowed, but only if they followed strict development guidelines. Such development must be done at their own expense, never subsidized, nor publicly insured, and must place the value of preserving the natural resources above their own benefit. It would be much like the labels you see on electronics that state that the device that you are using must not interfere with other electronics from a higher class and must receive any interference from electronics from a higher class. The integrity of the coastal buffer must take precedent over the any development directly on the coast, without exception. Certainly there's a lot at stake here, with millions of people and billions, if not trillions of dollars on the line. Its a sensitive subject that pits public policy against private land owners and industry. There is no quick, blanket solution that can be given, while at the same time all cost, hidden or not, should be considered when taking a true measure of the economic impacts of the decisions to be made.
Read More!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Economic Turmoil? Why Texas may keep its head above water.
After watching or reading the news, it doesn't take much to get a sense that the economy isn't so bright these days. Never before in my lifetime (only 28 yrs) have I ever encountered such negative, pessimism about the economy.
Here, where I live in North Texas, we seem to barely be holding off the soon-to-be-declared recession that is gripping the nation. Yes, we've been lucky here so far with natural gas royalties and all things Barnett Shale related, but even that opportunity is drying up as natural gas prices plummet, for now. Still, despite that, around here, houses are still being built, albeit, at a slower pace, apartments are still being constructed and hotels are still popping up.
For Texas, there are still lots of opportunities for economic growth. This of course, is assuming that the financial markets continue to see some loosening as Uncle Sam lives up to his promise or buying up bad debts and restructuring the financial industry. Texas has a slight upper hand here as two things go into play: housing prices, which, here, never got over-inflated to begin with, and the fact that Texas has had to endure this sort of thing before relatively recently through the real estate crunch and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's. Perhaps, because of the learned lessons from that time, Texas banks have been better prepared this time around, and didn't make as many risky sub-prime loans that seemed to have plagued the larger financial institutions of the US. An example of this is Frost Bank, which was bold enough to turn down federal bailout money.
Another important contributor to the health of the Texas economy is due to the diversification of the economy that has developed in the last 20 yrs. When energy prices plummeted in the 80's the Texas economy suffered, and really only rebounded thanks to growth in the technology and service industries. This growth was of course spurred by the relatively cheap cost of business, lower cost of living and the availability of higher education for its citizens. In the early 2000's, when technology peaked, energy prices began steadily rising, resulting in the first significant new growth in the energy sector in over 20 years. This more than offset any losses due to any decline in the IT industry. Texas was also able to maintain generally lower costs of living due to lower housing costs (thanks to the seemingly endless amounts of land available and availability of cheaper labor mostly from bordering Mexico.) Texas has also enjoyed some of the lowest energy and transportation costs (thanks, of course, to the energy industry itself.)
Because of these advantages, along with business friendly laws, many companies and organizations have either relocated their headquarters to town, or they've brought in significant production facilities. With many companies looking to save on their bottom line, I won't be surprised to see more offices opened up down here. Still, there is a possibility that Texas will eventually succumb to the recession forces that are roaming around the land, but even so, it should occur at much less of a blow to the economy than in other states. Texans could all benefit from a slowing of economic growth to give us the opportunity to catch up on building new infrastructure to help serve the growing population. If President-Elect Obama's economic plan is passed through Congress after his inauguration, Texas should stand a good chance to see some funding come from long awaited and overdue projects that we've been needing for years. Hopefully, all states will have a fair share as well, proportional to their needs, but, of course that's all in the eyes of policy makers. Another great opportunity that Texas should benefit from, is from the growing need for "green" energy. If you didn't know otherwise, your intuition would likely give you the idea that this would harm the Texas economy since it has been so dependent on fossil fuels. Thankfully, Texas has not only been blessed with a plethora of fossil fuels, but also a treasure trove of potential green energy sources from biowaste energy in East Texas, to biofuels, such as biodiesel, grown in the open plains of Central Texas, to wind and solar resources in West Texas.
The bottom line here is this: because Texas won't see as severe of an economic downturn as the rest of the nation and since Texas still has a lot of untapped resources that are compatible to our desires to meet our future's greener energy needs, Texas will be poised to take the lead with great economic growth opportunities to economic for the state, which should benefit the rest of the US and the global economy as well. Our abundance of energy will be met however with new demand for it (despite our future gains in conservation and efficiency.) We'll have new needs like desalinating sea water and urban food production along with newer types of transportation to water, feed and move a population that will nearly double in size with each passing generation. The key is for the US to take this economic turmoil and use it to shift gears from a 20th century economy to a 21st century model and that can start right here with Texas.
Read More!
Here, where I live in North Texas, we seem to barely be holding off the soon-to-be-declared recession that is gripping the nation. Yes, we've been lucky here so far with natural gas royalties and all things Barnett Shale related, but even that opportunity is drying up as natural gas prices plummet, for now. Still, despite that, around here, houses are still being built, albeit, at a slower pace, apartments are still being constructed and hotels are still popping up.
For Texas, there are still lots of opportunities for economic growth. This of course, is assuming that the financial markets continue to see some loosening as Uncle Sam lives up to his promise or buying up bad debts and restructuring the financial industry. Texas has a slight upper hand here as two things go into play: housing prices, which, here, never got over-inflated to begin with, and the fact that Texas has had to endure this sort of thing before relatively recently through the real estate crunch and the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's. Perhaps, because of the learned lessons from that time, Texas banks have been better prepared this time around, and didn't make as many risky sub-prime loans that seemed to have plagued the larger financial institutions of the US. An example of this is Frost Bank, which was bold enough to turn down federal bailout money.
Another important contributor to the health of the Texas economy is due to the diversification of the economy that has developed in the last 20 yrs. When energy prices plummeted in the 80's the Texas economy suffered, and really only rebounded thanks to growth in the technology and service industries. This growth was of course spurred by the relatively cheap cost of business, lower cost of living and the availability of higher education for its citizens. In the early 2000's, when technology peaked, energy prices began steadily rising, resulting in the first significant new growth in the energy sector in over 20 years. This more than offset any losses due to any decline in the IT industry. Texas was also able to maintain generally lower costs of living due to lower housing costs (thanks to the seemingly endless amounts of land available and availability of cheaper labor mostly from bordering Mexico.) Texas has also enjoyed some of the lowest energy and transportation costs (thanks, of course, to the energy industry itself.)
Because of these advantages, along with business friendly laws, many companies and organizations have either relocated their headquarters to town, or they've brought in significant production facilities. With many companies looking to save on their bottom line, I won't be surprised to see more offices opened up down here. Still, there is a possibility that Texas will eventually succumb to the recession forces that are roaming around the land, but even so, it should occur at much less of a blow to the economy than in other states. Texans could all benefit from a slowing of economic growth to give us the opportunity to catch up on building new infrastructure to help serve the growing population. If President-Elect Obama's economic plan is passed through Congress after his inauguration, Texas should stand a good chance to see some funding come from long awaited and overdue projects that we've been needing for years. Hopefully, all states will have a fair share as well, proportional to their needs, but, of course that's all in the eyes of policy makers. Another great opportunity that Texas should benefit from, is from the growing need for "green" energy. If you didn't know otherwise, your intuition would likely give you the idea that this would harm the Texas economy since it has been so dependent on fossil fuels. Thankfully, Texas has not only been blessed with a plethora of fossil fuels, but also a treasure trove of potential green energy sources from biowaste energy in East Texas, to biofuels, such as biodiesel, grown in the open plains of Central Texas, to wind and solar resources in West Texas.
The bottom line here is this: because Texas won't see as severe of an economic downturn as the rest of the nation and since Texas still has a lot of untapped resources that are compatible to our desires to meet our future's greener energy needs, Texas will be poised to take the lead with great economic growth opportunities to economic for the state, which should benefit the rest of the US and the global economy as well. Our abundance of energy will be met however with new demand for it (despite our future gains in conservation and efficiency.) We'll have new needs like desalinating sea water and urban food production along with newer types of transportation to water, feed and move a population that will nearly double in size with each passing generation. The key is for the US to take this economic turmoil and use it to shift gears from a 20th century economy to a 21st century model and that can start right here with Texas.
Read More!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
New Challenges for President-Elect Barack Obama
What this means to me: First, I'll say that I'm a young man of fairly conservative views and beliefs, and as you can imagine, I lean Republican more times than not. Now that the election is behind us, I find that its time to pray as a nation.
Not solely because Obama won, as we should all be doing the same if McCain had won, but because we, as a nation still face challenges unprecedented to our generation. Beyond those challenges I see glimpses of the bright future that is upon us with many opportunities of growth and development in this nation and world. For those that didn't receive the victory that you had hoped for, this isn't a time to give up and hang low, instead its a time to stand united behind our new President-elect, Barack Obama. It doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice your moral grounds, it simply means that we need to stand united as a nation. Remember, Barack will have to re-earn our votes in 4 years if he is to want to remain as president. He cannot afford to to move the nation any further left( or right), but forward.
The primary challenge is that we need to turn our economy around. We can do this by investing in newer, emerging, domestic technologies such as solar and wind technologies as well as taking the lead in developing newer transportation technologies and by restoring the balance of trade, primarily by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and upon days of prosperity, yet to come, paying down our debt. In this time of an economic downturn, it is time to retool our factories, in all industries, to become more productive through investment in robotics and information technology and of course better training for all workers. In the factories across America, we have lost jobs to overseas, not because we aren't trainable or willing to work, but because it is simply cheaper to operate overseas. The simple reason for this is because we expect more for wages, better working conditions and environmental standards here which were hard fought for in the 20th century. This is why the Kyoto treaty wasn't signed by the Bush administration, because preserving the environment did not, at that time, take precedent over preserving our competitive advantages. Barack Obama will have the tough challenge of maintaining our standards, while not putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Our only answer to this challenge seems to be answered through technology. Unfortunately, this means that factories will have a staff of a few hundred instead of a few thousand. In the long run, this means that we need to continue to strive for better educational opportunities for all Americans young and old. For the short term, that means that we still have jobs to create to those who have labored long hard hours in mills and factories accross the nation. This will be accomodated through the colossal need to build new infrastucture, and need to upgrade existing energy, transportation and water infrastructure in the US. Let's face it, in the same manner that we can't solely drill our way out of the problem, we can't coninue to drive our way out of one either. In the short term, here we will need to build roads, just as we're going to have to use some more traditional energy sources at home to make it another day. In the long term, we'll have to look to and invest in technologies that have been discussed for decades that have seen little development, proportional to traditional methods that we have been using. (These technologies range from mass-transit and on-demand vehicles to water conservation and desalinations and purification.) We must realize that in tommorow's world we will have many more people living, and competing for the same resources. Our goal here is to learn to use these resources as effeciently as possible. We must also encourage the development of these sytems accross the globe to promote peace, because not doing so means facing a rash of violence as nation competes againts nation for resources like clean drinking water.
The economic prosperity and security of our nation and world do indeed go hand-in hand. We still have a lot of work to create or enable free and democratic nations, with fair governments and free will of all people accross the globe. At the same we must be able to defend our own security and democracy. Here, it is true, we must work with our allies and continue to stand against those who strive to harm us and the people they oppress. At the same time, we must help facilitate the growth and propserity of other nations through a democratic system by leading the way by protecting our values at home and abroad and by preserving and promoting free and fair trade. In Iraq, we must not leave until a good transition can be made to allow the Iraqi people to lead themselves and provide their own security. I think we are approching this as the tide of violence continues to decline. Here, I agreed with the troop surge, and without a doubt that it, along with a better stategy utilizing newer technologies, has worked and we cannot afford to withdraw too quickly. In Afganistan, I feel that our values still aren't fully taking taking root, especially in terms of religious freedom. At the same time, we still have terrorists hiding out in the mountains along the Afganistani and Pakastani borders. If there is one good thing that has resulted in Iraq, it is that we've developed more effective technique to counter terrorism and insurgency. Hopefully, we'll be able to use these methods along with a troop surge there to finish our job of destroying Al-Queda's leadership.
Next, we have unprecepented needs in our medical industry and the nation's health as individuals. It astounds me that the medical industry is still so far behind the information technology curve, that long complicated forms must be filled out again and again just for a simple consultation with a doctor for each doctor or facility. Let us work for better standards for information so that medical care can become efficient at healing instead of proficiently maintaining the overly antiquated bureaucratic system that stands today. Here we need to encourage the development of standardized and secured health information. Doing so will not only provide more effeicient care, with less headaches involved in with getting checked in, but it could help prevent medical errors and allow staff members to focus on caring for patients instead of keeping track of volumes of information. We also need to clean up the corruption of the medical industry and politics. It seems to me that we've become a nation dependent on presriptions with side effects and drugs to counter those side effects. At the same time, we see pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies lobbying politicians motivated for profits rather than better care. Profits are indeed important so that companies can grow, but doing so at the cost of patients health cannot be allowed. We need to make sure that the medical indusrty is translucent in the way that they conduct busness and do research. At the same time, we need to make sure that the agencies that have oversight over the process, do so without favors, cronyism, or biased views. Better medicine and care should be driven by science and research and not politics or profit motivations.
Finally, there are moral issues that we face. More on this when I continue at a later time....
Read More!
Not solely because Obama won, as we should all be doing the same if McCain had won, but because we, as a nation still face challenges unprecedented to our generation. Beyond those challenges I see glimpses of the bright future that is upon us with many opportunities of growth and development in this nation and world. For those that didn't receive the victory that you had hoped for, this isn't a time to give up and hang low, instead its a time to stand united behind our new President-elect, Barack Obama. It doesn't mean that you need to sacrifice your moral grounds, it simply means that we need to stand united as a nation. Remember, Barack will have to re-earn our votes in 4 years if he is to want to remain as president. He cannot afford to to move the nation any further left( or right), but forward.
The primary challenge is that we need to turn our economy around. We can do this by investing in newer, emerging, domestic technologies such as solar and wind technologies as well as taking the lead in developing newer transportation technologies and by restoring the balance of trade, primarily by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and upon days of prosperity, yet to come, paying down our debt. In this time of an economic downturn, it is time to retool our factories, in all industries, to become more productive through investment in robotics and information technology and of course better training for all workers. In the factories across America, we have lost jobs to overseas, not because we aren't trainable or willing to work, but because it is simply cheaper to operate overseas. The simple reason for this is because we expect more for wages, better working conditions and environmental standards here which were hard fought for in the 20th century. This is why the Kyoto treaty wasn't signed by the Bush administration, because preserving the environment did not, at that time, take precedent over preserving our competitive advantages. Barack Obama will have the tough challenge of maintaining our standards, while not putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Our only answer to this challenge seems to be answered through technology. Unfortunately, this means that factories will have a staff of a few hundred instead of a few thousand. In the long run, this means that we need to continue to strive for better educational opportunities for all Americans young and old. For the short term, that means that we still have jobs to create to those who have labored long hard hours in mills and factories accross the nation. This will be accomodated through the colossal need to build new infrastucture, and need to upgrade existing energy, transportation and water infrastructure in the US. Let's face it, in the same manner that we can't solely drill our way out of the problem, we can't coninue to drive our way out of one either. In the short term, here we will need to build roads, just as we're going to have to use some more traditional energy sources at home to make it another day. In the long term, we'll have to look to and invest in technologies that have been discussed for decades that have seen little development, proportional to traditional methods that we have been using. (These technologies range from mass-transit and on-demand vehicles to water conservation and desalinations and purification.) We must realize that in tommorow's world we will have many more people living, and competing for the same resources. Our goal here is to learn to use these resources as effeciently as possible. We must also encourage the development of these sytems accross the globe to promote peace, because not doing so means facing a rash of violence as nation competes againts nation for resources like clean drinking water.
The economic prosperity and security of our nation and world do indeed go hand-in hand. We still have a lot of work to create or enable free and democratic nations, with fair governments and free will of all people accross the globe. At the same we must be able to defend our own security and democracy. Here, it is true, we must work with our allies and continue to stand against those who strive to harm us and the people they oppress. At the same time, we must help facilitate the growth and propserity of other nations through a democratic system by leading the way by protecting our values at home and abroad and by preserving and promoting free and fair trade. In Iraq, we must not leave until a good transition can be made to allow the Iraqi people to lead themselves and provide their own security. I think we are approching this as the tide of violence continues to decline. Here, I agreed with the troop surge, and without a doubt that it, along with a better stategy utilizing newer technologies, has worked and we cannot afford to withdraw too quickly. In Afganistan, I feel that our values still aren't fully taking taking root, especially in terms of religious freedom. At the same time, we still have terrorists hiding out in the mountains along the Afganistani and Pakastani borders. If there is one good thing that has resulted in Iraq, it is that we've developed more effective technique to counter terrorism and insurgency. Hopefully, we'll be able to use these methods along with a troop surge there to finish our job of destroying Al-Queda's leadership.
Next, we have unprecepented needs in our medical industry and the nation's health as individuals. It astounds me that the medical industry is still so far behind the information technology curve, that long complicated forms must be filled out again and again just for a simple consultation with a doctor for each doctor or facility. Let us work for better standards for information so that medical care can become efficient at healing instead of proficiently maintaining the overly antiquated bureaucratic system that stands today. Here we need to encourage the development of standardized and secured health information. Doing so will not only provide more effeicient care, with less headaches involved in with getting checked in, but it could help prevent medical errors and allow staff members to focus on caring for patients instead of keeping track of volumes of information. We also need to clean up the corruption of the medical industry and politics. It seems to me that we've become a nation dependent on presriptions with side effects and drugs to counter those side effects. At the same time, we see pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies lobbying politicians motivated for profits rather than better care. Profits are indeed important so that companies can grow, but doing so at the cost of patients health cannot be allowed. We need to make sure that the medical indusrty is translucent in the way that they conduct busness and do research. At the same time, we need to make sure that the agencies that have oversight over the process, do so without favors, cronyism, or biased views. Better medicine and care should be driven by science and research and not politics or profit motivations.
Finally, there are moral issues that we face. More on this when I continue at a later time....
Read More!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Size of the Universe - The Reach of Photons
One of the things that I was thinking about earlier today (and one that's been in my unpublished mind for a few years now) has to do with the physical size of the universe.
Lets take a look at my theories of the universe.
First, why would I think that the universe is perfectly sphere? To answer that is to simply say that if the universe formed from a central point. Then at some early time along the way, the density of the universe dropped low enough to allow photons to escape. Because the universe was likely in a spherical shape during this time period, the photons left this early universe in a sphere. Because of this, regardless of what happened to the internal structure of the universe, those photons will have remained on their course uninhibited by the limitless bounds of space. Because of the fact that gravity has the ability to bend light (see gravitational lensing) as well as the ability to pull in light (such as the case for black holes) we can assume that these photons accelerated until they reached the true maximum speed of light. Because of this, if you left Earth today and went in any direction at the speed of light, you'd never see the technical edge of the universe, even if you had all of eternity to do so. Because you could never leave the sphere of original photons, you could never leave the universe, and therefore the universe is infinite in size. Paradoxically, the universe has a finite size, but that assumes that you could measure it while time remained frozen.
The interesting thing would be the concept that placed you in observation of the universe if you held the position of the outer most photons. Not only would the universe appear to move and morph its shape much quicker than our observation on Earth due to special relativity, but it would also appear to be collapsing. If you observed your neighbors on the same outer shell they would appear to be getting further and further away, all at equal velocities. If you looked inward, your next inward neighbor would seem to be appear to be getting further away, but at an accelerated pace. Why accelerated? That would be of course due to the acceleration of photons because of its reduced interaction with the gravitational pull from the internal universe.
Finally, you may wonder why I think the speed of light is dependent on its vector relative to the mean center of the universe. This effect it highly negligible due to the vast expanse of the universe. There is a catch to this, path of a photon would also have an effect from the sum of the forces of gravity in the galaxy as well as our Sun. Those these latter effects are have not likely been measured, it would be theoretically noticeable, though on a trace level. By this, the speed of light would travel faster as you progress towards the Sun than as it would away from the Sun. Also, the path could be bent, or slightly accelerated (or decelerated) depending on the measured photon in reference to the center of the galaxy (dependent on whether the center of the galaxy is perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the measured photon.) If you could eliminate the error of these measurements you could do several really cool things. Amongst them, would be the ability to determine the center of the universe. In order to pull that off you would have to consider the Earth's position relative to the center of the Solar system and the solar system's position relative to the center of the galaxy. (Its also probably likely, but unclear until I see the math, that the neighboring stars in our band of the Milky Way have a greater effect on our solar system than the center of our galaxy by a direct line.) If this is true, then even that could be compensated for.
That brings me to another idea. We do have a pull from the center of the Milky Way, but instead of the direct linear influence that you would expect, its more due to the sum of all masses between us and our black hole center as you travel through the bands of our galaxy. In the suburbs of the galaxy, where we live, that's more likely the case. That brings out another realization that as you travel through the spiraling bands of a galaxy, the effects of the direct linear pull of gravity increase. Eventually the influence of the center becomes equal, and then greater than the effect of the nearby bands. Its because of this that you have the core, or sometimes bar of a spiral galaxy form.
After these considerations, I've already began to rethink the possibility of being able to determine the center of the universe. Its very likely that our galaxy is part of a larger structure of organization within our galaxy. Since this is not only possible, but very likely, its feasible to to conceive the idea that rather than detecting the center of the universe, we could detect the presence and perhaps magnitude of the influence from our sector of the band that forms our multi galactic structure. Again measurements would be effected by the vector of photons relative to the structure of our extra galactic band. Because of the size of the band that we likely inhabit, and due to the overpowering gravity of our local galaxy and solar system, calculating this to any precise number would prove to be extremely difficult. But, none-the-less its theorectically possible as long as you fine tune the calculations of the effects of every structure on our scale.
That concludes this session of my stream of conscious thoughts for now. Its 1 AM and I'm getting rather tired. I'll have to re-read this and make any editions at a later time. I'll be curious to see how much of any of this makes any sense. In addition to that, I'll be wanting to look for the possibility that someone has already thought through these concepts and I'd be very curious to see the work done on this subject.
Read More!
Lets take a look at my theories of the universe.
- I think the universe is nearly a perfect sphere (only if you're using a 3 dimensional perspective.)
- That the universe expands at least the speed of light from its center.
- If you traveled at the speed of light to reach the edge of the universe, you'd never be able to reach it, even if you were given an infinite amount of time to accomplish this. This means that the universe is infinite in its size, yet it is finite in size at any given frozen instance of time.
- That the true speed of light may be not be constant, and instead its speed is relative to the photon's distance and vector from the center of the universe. (The center of the universe is the mean distance between the absolute value of all mass.) The observed speed of light is from Earth seems constant, but any variance of velocity due to its relative position is extremely negligible. (Think about how small the Earth is, relative to the size of the entire universe... yea, that small.)
First, why would I think that the universe is perfectly sphere? To answer that is to simply say that if the universe formed from a central point. Then at some early time along the way, the density of the universe dropped low enough to allow photons to escape. Because the universe was likely in a spherical shape during this time period, the photons left this early universe in a sphere. Because of this, regardless of what happened to the internal structure of the universe, those photons will have remained on their course uninhibited by the limitless bounds of space. Because of the fact that gravity has the ability to bend light (see gravitational lensing) as well as the ability to pull in light (such as the case for black holes) we can assume that these photons accelerated until they reached the true maximum speed of light. Because of this, if you left Earth today and went in any direction at the speed of light, you'd never see the technical edge of the universe, even if you had all of eternity to do so. Because you could never leave the sphere of original photons, you could never leave the universe, and therefore the universe is infinite in size. Paradoxically, the universe has a finite size, but that assumes that you could measure it while time remained frozen.
The interesting thing would be the concept that placed you in observation of the universe if you held the position of the outer most photons. Not only would the universe appear to move and morph its shape much quicker than our observation on Earth due to special relativity, but it would also appear to be collapsing. If you observed your neighbors on the same outer shell they would appear to be getting further and further away, all at equal velocities. If you looked inward, your next inward neighbor would seem to be appear to be getting further away, but at an accelerated pace. Why accelerated? That would be of course due to the acceleration of photons because of its reduced interaction with the gravitational pull from the internal universe.
Finally, you may wonder why I think the speed of light is dependent on its vector relative to the mean center of the universe. This effect it highly negligible due to the vast expanse of the universe. There is a catch to this, path of a photon would also have an effect from the sum of the forces of gravity in the galaxy as well as our Sun. Those these latter effects are have not likely been measured, it would be theoretically noticeable, though on a trace level. By this, the speed of light would travel faster as you progress towards the Sun than as it would away from the Sun. Also, the path could be bent, or slightly accelerated (or decelerated) depending on the measured photon in reference to the center of the galaxy (dependent on whether the center of the galaxy is perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the measured photon.) If you could eliminate the error of these measurements you could do several really cool things. Amongst them, would be the ability to determine the center of the universe. In order to pull that off you would have to consider the Earth's position relative to the center of the Solar system and the solar system's position relative to the center of the galaxy. (Its also probably likely, but unclear until I see the math, that the neighboring stars in our band of the Milky Way have a greater effect on our solar system than the center of our galaxy by a direct line.) If this is true, then even that could be compensated for.
That brings me to another idea. We do have a pull from the center of the Milky Way, but instead of the direct linear influence that you would expect, its more due to the sum of all masses between us and our black hole center as you travel through the bands of our galaxy. In the suburbs of the galaxy, where we live, that's more likely the case. That brings out another realization that as you travel through the spiraling bands of a galaxy, the effects of the direct linear pull of gravity increase. Eventually the influence of the center becomes equal, and then greater than the effect of the nearby bands. Its because of this that you have the core, or sometimes bar of a spiral galaxy form.
After these considerations, I've already began to rethink the possibility of being able to determine the center of the universe. Its very likely that our galaxy is part of a larger structure of organization within our galaxy. Since this is not only possible, but very likely, its feasible to to conceive the idea that rather than detecting the center of the universe, we could detect the presence and perhaps magnitude of the influence from our sector of the band that forms our multi galactic structure. Again measurements would be effected by the vector of photons relative to the structure of our extra galactic band. Because of the size of the band that we likely inhabit, and due to the overpowering gravity of our local galaxy and solar system, calculating this to any precise number would prove to be extremely difficult. But, none-the-less its theorectically possible as long as you fine tune the calculations of the effects of every structure on our scale.
That concludes this session of my stream of conscious thoughts for now. Its 1 AM and I'm getting rather tired. I'll have to re-read this and make any editions at a later time. I'll be curious to see how much of any of this makes any sense. In addition to that, I'll be wanting to look for the possibility that someone has already thought through these concepts and I'd be very curious to see the work done on this subject.
Read More!
Universe Theory
OK, first of all, this is going to be my starter conversation on anything related to the structure of the universe. What does that include?
That'll be anything from the outer expanse of the universe looking in to the theories behind the smallest pieces that hold us all together and everything in between. The idea here is for me to explore these concepts in self-thought. From time-to-time I'll look up something, or stumble upon something related to the universe, and perhaps I'll update my own theories. Its very possible that my thoughts are as primitive to some folks as thinking that the world is flat, or that everything revolves around the earth are to most people. But, who cares if I'm wrong? Your job, as the reader and potential commenter is to either interject your own ideas, or point me in the right direction. Read More!
That'll be anything from the outer expanse of the universe looking in to the theories behind the smallest pieces that hold us all together and everything in between. The idea here is for me to explore these concepts in self-thought. From time-to-time I'll look up something, or stumble upon something related to the universe, and perhaps I'll update my own theories. Its very possible that my thoughts are as primitive to some folks as thinking that the world is flat, or that everything revolves around the earth are to most people. But, who cares if I'm wrong? Your job, as the reader and potential commenter is to either interject your own ideas, or point me in the right direction. Read More!
Socoeito
First of all, I'd like to welcome anyone reading this. This is my first blog entry, and you're probably wondering, ok what the heck is Socoeito? Socoeito is an acronym that stands for Stream of Consciousness of Everything I Think of.
Why give it that name? Well, because "Socoa" (which would have stood for stream of conscious of anything) has already been taken (even though its meaning is completely different.) How do you pronounce it? Like so-kwee-toe. However you interpret that, then that's how it sounds. What will I talk about? Well, that's just the thing, there's virtually no limit to the range of topics. As my wife likes to put it, I like to A-D-D-out (as in I get into my own internal world in an ADHD sort of way) on things. And when I'm doing that, it's me having a conversation internally about anything from the structure of the universe to the weather or economics, or societal influences of technology and vice versa, or just you-name-it anything. The rule is, I'm not going to worry about whether or not I'm correct on any one thing or issue. The whole point here is to give me an outlet to develop my thoughts regardless of how they hold up to the academic world. Chances are I may even contradict myself from time to time. And guess what, that'll be OK. If things get too far fetched, then I guess I'll be looking for the edit or delete button. So, thats this in a nutshell. Oh yeah, one last thing: Don't expect things to be organized into neat paragraphs, expect to have lots and tangents about other things, and keep and open mind when you read. I do go back and make some minor edits to what I write (usually to expand on an idea, or remove obvious grammatical errors), but for the most part, I'll keep this in its raw form. Read More!
Why give it that name? Well, because "Socoa" (which would have stood for stream of conscious of anything) has already been taken (even though its meaning is completely different.) How do you pronounce it? Like so-kwee-toe. However you interpret that, then that's how it sounds. What will I talk about? Well, that's just the thing, there's virtually no limit to the range of topics. As my wife likes to put it, I like to A-D-D-out (as in I get into my own internal world in an ADHD sort of way) on things. And when I'm doing that, it's me having a conversation internally about anything from the structure of the universe to the weather or economics, or societal influences of technology and vice versa, or just you-name-it anything. The rule is, I'm not going to worry about whether or not I'm correct on any one thing or issue. The whole point here is to give me an outlet to develop my thoughts regardless of how they hold up to the academic world. Chances are I may even contradict myself from time to time. And guess what, that'll be OK. If things get too far fetched, then I guess I'll be looking for the edit or delete button. So, thats this in a nutshell. Oh yeah, one last thing: Don't expect things to be organized into neat paragraphs, expect to have lots and tangents about other things, and keep and open mind when you read. I do go back and make some minor edits to what I write (usually to expand on an idea, or remove obvious grammatical errors), but for the most part, I'll keep this in its raw form. Read More!
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