How Accountability Will Save America

I'll keep this brief.  More taxes are not going to save the economy and they are not going to lift up the poor.  They will perpetuate the same old system of governmental failing we have seen time and time again.  I could show you a laundry list of tax increases in American history that were followed by an increase in national debt (but you probably wouldn't read it).  Why would more taxes be different this time?  It won't.  You can't keep throwing money at a dead horse and expect it to win the next race.  The problem in America is with accountability.

Preventing Death 101

There is one statistic that I don't have to make up.  Sooner or later 100% of people will succumb to some sort of death or another.  To paraphrase the title of the first Doors biography, "no one is getting out of here alive."

The number one problem facing earth's population is death.  As such, I am proposing my own organization, that I encourage you all to join.  (I might name it Human's Against Human Aging or HAHA.)   This organization will be dedicated to preventing death where ever it is found and funding other organizations that also stand behind this cause. It is obvious that trying to prevent death alone is a losing battle (take every individual who has gone before us for example). However, if we pool our brain power and our resources we might end death (at least for some) by the end of the 21st century.  I know this seems like a bold (perhaps fantastical) goal, but it can be fully accomplished (if we divert resources away from other fantastical goals such as preventing global warming, diets that really work, or putting our faith in the debt creating political class).  Below I discuss several measures currently underway that will help to accomplish this goal.

A New Way for Science

Out with the old.  In with the new.  This is the adage that fits the proposal that I have for a new way to train scientists.  Why, you may ask, do I think I am an expert on the training of scientists?  Lets be clear, I am no expert on scientific training, but I have been trained scientifically in various ways.  I have two bachelors degrees and am nearing the completion of my PhD, I have also worked in various laboratories that were run in extremely different ways.  This gives me some perspective on the pros and cons of these types of training. So what is this new way to teach science and why is it better?

Putting the Scientist in Charge

Science is the foundation of all human knowledge and yet scientists are often not at the center of business and financial decision making.  I have been racking my brain with this issue and think that if our society is going to have continued success we should make science a central principle that informs all that we do.  So why is it that we don't live in a science-centric society?

How to Fix the Economic Suck

I won't bore you with the details of how sucky the economy really is.  What I will discuss is one solution for fixing it, by pointing at one of the biggest suckers of all; the public sector.  But briefly; what is the economy and why do we care? Well, in order  to not quote the all powerful Wikipedia, I will simply describe the economy as everything that you do to interact with others in a specific area.  This is a broad definition, because both everything you do; consume, re-purpose, or create, can be included as long as its an interaction. And the area can be a geographic one or even a diplomatic or artificial one; say the internet economy as an example.  Furthermore, we often add some sort of financial or monetary attribute to our definition of the economy, and economics is the study of the distribution of wealth, typically in the form of money; but can be the allocations of goods, resources, or other commodities as well.   One report suggests that Americans are 40% poorer than they were 4 years ago.

A Pitch for Parabolic Education

I have been thinking about the state of education again.  This is not surprising since I have spent the majority of my life in one education system or another.  My parents were both educated educators, so they got me started even before preschool.  My dad was a reading specialist among other things and my mom still teaches special ed, probably because I was so special to teach.  I still remember a rather boring book that I sat down to read by myself called "Gregory's Dog,"  pronounced George-ory to me since I had a bit of a deficiency in attention.  But I am not here to debate early childhood education, it is a good thing, and the more of it the better.  Our early brains are like sponges and should be allowed or encouraged to absorb as much as we can before we have to fend for ourselves in the ruthless world of shopping malls and freeways in which the majority of us sadly reside.  What I am here to debate is college.

Part 5: Water, Air, and Other Such Essentials

In the end, survival in the depths of space will require the same things that survival here on Earth does.  That is; success in any hostile environment requires three things; innovation, versatility, and Wikipedia.   For example, you will need to bring objects with the versatility to be more than one thing, you will need to bring your own innovation to turn one or several objects into something else in a pinch, and you will need to bring Wikipedia; the entire encyclopedia of human knowledge, to help you find a solution quickly rather than reinventing the infernal wheel with only five minutes of breathable air left in your dying space craft.  I mean, the Discovery Channel has a lot of shows suggesting that its hard to find water in the desert, but I would hate to be the poor sap trying to find it in the vacuum of space.