Cyde Weys Musings

Hell yeah! Obama has opened up a 15 point lead over McCain. And hopefully, the lead will only grow larger over time. After eight disastrous years under George W. Bush, and now one candidate who represents a continuation of those policies versus one who does not, it’s pretty obvious what the American people prefer. We don’t want war against Iraq, we don’t want war against Iran, we don’t want continued violation of our civil liberties — we want change. Change that John McCain couldn’t possibly deliver.

Just a few days ago, I was talking with my officemate about micronations and how awesome the concept is (he had never heard of Sealand before). We both liked the idea, but didn’t exactly see how it would be possible. All of the land on Earth is already claimed, leaving no room to create a new nation in, and the Sealand approach, declaring a new nation on an abandoned World War II-era naval platform off the coast of England, isn’t exactly a widely applicable solution. How conveniently timed, then, that Ars Technica should publish an article on seasteading.

The basic seasteading approach is to create more platforms somewhat akin to Sealand, but to do so far out in international waters, where there is no pesky United Kingdom around to claim ownership. The first few seasteading projects will be pretty expensive, and will only be affordable by the rather wealthy. Don’t look to them to alleviate the problem of overcrowding in developing nations anytime soon — although living on one would sort of be like living in a developing nation, thanks to the very limited real estate and the basic nature of the amenities — facts of life likely to scare off all but the wealthy most dedicated to the concept. I feel an amazing draw to living out in the middle of the ocean, though, and if I could make a living on a seasteading platform, I think I’d like to do so for at least a few years. I should point out that my attraction to the concept is based far more from a survivalist/return-to-nature viewpoint than from a libertarian one.

The concept is perfectly doable with today’s level of technology; that’s the really neat thing. All that’s missing is the capital investment. The basic structure of the platforms is very simple: ballast tanks underwater, a narrow concrete pole at surface level to minimize wave contact, and then a spread out platform on top. Multiple platforms can be attached with cables, gangways, flexible pipes, and wires. If the concept really takes off, a bunch of platforms could go in together on an underwater fiber-optic Internet connection to shore, and then share the connection amongst all of the platforms using a local network.

The Ars Technica article pretty thoroughly covers all of the technological and governmental aspects of making seasteading work, but amongst all the talk of libertarianism and being free from governmental intrusion, I think it’s missing something important. The concept of seasteading isn’t attractive just to libertarians. There’s an undeniable novelty to living in the middle of the ocean in a close-knit community that appeals to some fraction of the population. The idea is very survivalist, very individualist, very science fiction. If it can be done cheaply enough, I don’t think there will be any shortage of people clamoring to get into one, especially on a less-than-permanent basis. It’s true, most people have too many connections to family and friends in their communities to move out into the middle of the sea — but who wouldn’t want to go for a month at a time? Talk about the ultimate get away from it all vacation!

And in the long run, seasteading will play an increasingly important role in human society. As construction techniques get better and economies of scale come into play, land on seasteads will be significantly cheaper than in many places on Earth. Eventually, millions of people may be living in seasteads not because they choose to, but because there is no room for them anywhere on land. The oceans take up two-thirds of the planet’s surface; isn’t the spread of permanent human habitation to them inevitable?

Oh, how amazing it’d be to be one of those first lucky few who go by choice.

Dennis Kucinich is introducing 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush on the House floor as I type this. The best traditional media coverage of it is by the Associated Press, but it doesn’t look like anyone else has picked up on it yet. You’d think this would be big news on CNN, MSNBC, etc.; certainly newsier than the everyday Britney Spears story. But we’ve long known they’re far from unbiased. As usual, the best coverage is on DailyKos.

By the way, I don’t want to turn the comments thread into an impeachment flame war, but to anyone trying to argue that Bush’s conduct does not merit impeachment: what exactly would, in your book? Has any American president in history broken the law to this degree? If we let Bush get away with all of his crimes, what kind of message will that send to future administrations? Nixon was forced into impeachment for a lot less!

Seven people were killed by a man wielding a knife today in Akihabara, a district in Tokyo. Eighteen total were stabbed. Imagine how much worse this killing spree would’ve been if guns were as readily available in Japan as they are here. I’m just saying.

Fascism is alive and well in Washington, D.C. Metropolitan police are planning on creating “Neighborhood Safety Zones”, which is apparently another way to say “ghetto with limited access security checkpoints”. Your papers, please?

I love how the Interim Attorney General defends this fascist scheme by saying it has “been used in other cities”. None of those are examples it helps to create a comparison with, of course — I’m thinking World War II-era Jewish ghettos and modern day Palestine. And it says a lot about how bad the crime problem has gotten in this nation that we are seriously considering creating fenced-in urban ghettos. Apparently the real solution to crime — fixing the economic factors that causes crime in the first place — is too hard, so let’s just try ghettoization instead.

Since fixing economic problems actually takes long-term commitment, and interim fixes seem to be all the rage with the government these days, wouldn’t it make more sense to just put more officers on patrol in the most dangerous neighborhoods? Won’t an officer on patrol be a lot more useful in stopping crime than an officer stuck manning a checkpoint? The officer at the checkpoint won’t be able to see nearly as many of the goings-on of the neighborhood than the officer on patrol. Heck, he won’t even see the people entering the neighborhood on foot. Also, very few criminals are going to be stupid enough to commit crimes in front of a stationary police checkpoint, while the cop on patrol has the possibility of rolling up on a crime in progress.

Now allow me to change the tone of this piece from outraged to literary-allusionary. Upon hearing of this plan, I almost immediately thought of the lawless zones in Robert A. Heinlein’s novel I Will Fear No Evil. This dystopian novel posits that crime has gotten so bad in the future that the police have simply given up on enforcing law in some of the country’s worst inner city areas. Anyone entering those areas is leaving the protection of law, with posted notices to that effect, and is likely to face extreme danger from humanity’s worst criminal elements inside.

I fear that the creation of DC’s proposed “Neighborhood Safety Zones” is the first step towards seeing lawless zones in our own society. Sure, the police say they are only checkpointing people on the way in — but how long is it until they start harassing people who are leaving as well? Also, law will be enforced strongly at the checkpoints themselves, with the intent that the police won’t have to patrol that much inside the zone. It’s not a big step from this to a setup in which law is only enforced along the perimeter, creating a modern day Heinleinian lawless zone on the interior. The checkpoints themselves effectively send the message “if you don’t live within these boundaries, it isn’t safe to come in”. Creating a boundary between the outside and the inside is the largest and hardest step in creating lawless zones — and DC is jumping into it full force.

The worst possible outcome of this is if it actually works to reduce crime. DC could end up as a thoroughly segmented city, with documentation required at many checkpoints just as you’re driving through the city. What a terrible fate that would be — crime is down, but only because you’re living in a police state. It isn’t worth it to give up freedoms to that degree just to gain a little security (some old man said as much). And what a terrible message to send to all our international visitors.

DC needs to step off this dangerous path towards a city full of walled-off ghettos and put into place strategies that aren’t nearly so offensive to liberty.

Whew, it’s finally official*. Even though it’s long been inevitable, it’s a relief to know that Barack Obama has finally secured the number of delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination. I haven’t really made it a secret that I support Barack Obama, though I haven’t particularly talked about it on here often because political analysis isn’t exactly my thing. For political analysis, I would refer you to DailyKos.

So how am I feeling right now? Ecstatic! It’s time to take down John McCain now! On nearly every issue, he’s wrong when Obama is right. It’s a no-brainer to me, and to most of my peers as well. Of course, others will differ, and that’s their right, but I’m hoping there are more people who agree with me than agree with McCain, and so far that’s looking about right.

I also wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity to talk about how historical Barack Obama’s nomination is. No other western nation has ever had a minority as a nominee of a major political party for the top position (be it president, premier, prime minister, whatever). It’s historical. Many have beaten us in having women leaders, but we’ve beaten them to this. Only in America. It’s one of the few things that’s happened in the past eight years that makes me say I’m genuinely proud of my country.

*Technically it’s not finally official until the Democratic National Convention, of course.

I haven’t exactly kept it a secret that I’m a Barack Obama supporter (since John Edwards dropped out of the race, anyway). Now it’s all come full circle and John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama. So can we please quickly finish up with the remainder of this primary season lunacy and focus on John McCain?

Yeah, Hillary Clinton, everyone knows you’ve lost. You made a valiant effort, and no one can take that away from you, but in the end there could only be one winner and it wasn’t you. It’s time to accept that, graciously admit Barack Obama’s victory, and endorse him so that we can all focus on John McCain now. This latest win in West Virginia? Meaningless. Keep in mind Barack Obama won ten primaries with larger margins of victories than that. That’s why he’s so far in the lead.

Give it up already. Becoming President Pro Tempore of the Senate, which you’re likely to do if you don’t continue pissing off fellow Democrats, is no small accomplishment. Hundreds of millions of United States citizens never get to be president of the country. It’s okay to be one of us regular “hard-working” folks.

I have a few choice responses to this news: Georgia Law Bans Retailers From Selling ‘Pot Candy’ To Minors

1. There’s actually a marijuana-flavored candy? Seriously?
2. Would this be the first time in America that a flavor was made illegal? I thought the point of weed was that it got you high, not that it had a funny taste. Does banning the taste make sense?
3. When I was little, we went to Amish country on a school field trip and one of the things we picked up at a large market there was cigarette-shaped candy. It even had a hole down the middle, and when you blew into one end, a puff of powdered sugar was released from the other hand, as if you were really smoking. Seeing as how cigarettes actually, you know, kill people, and lots of them at that, wouldn’t it make more sense to start by banning products like these?

I return you to enjoy the rest of your day’s scheduled lunacy.

It really pains me to see how easily we’re letting the terrorists win. We’ve done more damage to ourselves in reactionary blind fear than they ever did to us with their singular large successful attack on American soil. All it took was to have an opportunistic president in power willing to respond to the attack not in an appropriate way, but in the way that maximized his own power.

And so we have to deal with nonsense at the airport every day. It’s not making us safer, but it makes the less smart amongst us feel safer, and it also serves to keep Americans under a “healthy” level of fear. After all, you can be convinced to vote against your own interests if you’re scared out of your mind.

I read a good article in the Washington Post today called “Here’s How America Looks to the World” by Josef Joffe. He covers not only the nonsense that goes on in airports, but also the very real ways in which America is only hurting itself by making it harder for foreigners to visit. In turning into Fortress America, we’re dissuading many foreign tourists and students from coming here, and large international conventions are switching to places like Canada because it’s become so difficult for people to gain even temporary access to the United States.

This article is incredibly important, but unfortunately the Washington Post is one of those backwards newspaper sites that hides content behind a registration wall, so here’s the full text:

Read the rest of this entry »

When I last tackled biofuels, my opinion of them was pretty much uniformly negative. So, what’s changed in the interim? Not much, just even more evidence that biofuels are evil (and I don’t use that word lightly). The New Statesman published an article on Thursday titled How the rich starved the world, and as soon as I read it I knew I had to discuss it here.

The article contains some pretty stunning statistics that I didn’t have in my previous post. Between 2004 and 2007, global corn production increased by 51 million tonnes, while the consumption of corn-based biofuel increased by 50 million tonnes in the United States alone. Add to that all of the corn used for biofuels in other countries and you can plainly see that, in the past three years, the amount of corn available for consumption worldwide has actually decreased. No wonder food prices are rocketing, and no wonder starvation is becoming a bigger problem worldwide.

If that were the sole extent of the problem, though, it wouldn’t be terrible. But it’s not. Next year the US consumption of corn for biofuels will rocket up to a ridiculous 114 million tonnes, which is one third of the entire production of the US. Using corn for biofuel doesn’t even save money and it doesn’t help fight climate change either — the only reason for it is the criminally myopic laws recently enacted by Congress. And hope isn’t on the horizon either, as all of the current presidential candidates are paying lip service to Big Agribusiness. This issue represents too much Midwest money and too many Midwest votes to pass up, even though burning food to power SUVs while millions starve verges on a stereotypical mad scientist level of evil.

So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to continue burning our food for use as fuel in what is easily the worst decision in decades. Food prices will get more expensive here, but we’ll mainly just hear lots of grumbling from the lower class who don’t really get much political representation anyway. But these effects will pale in comparison to what will happen in developing nations. Millions of people will starve to death as food prices continue to rise. Can any politician who’s voted in favor of biofuel subsidies and mandates really live with the knowledge that they’ve caused the deaths of millions of people? Is securing Midwest influence more important than doing what is right?