Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

This book I read, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it's uniquely structured. The interweaving of a storyline and characters with deep examinations of theoretical fields within science, philosophy, engineering, seems really innovative. I don't know enough about literature to make that claim, though. 

One portion I like in particular is about grades. The narrator's past self, Phaedrus, teaches rhetoric at a college. He experiments with abolishing grades for a semester. He believes they're a hindrance to true learning, which arises only from voluntary, self-driven effort. Grades, in his view, mask this true learning by transforming it into a means to a goal; a degree, a quantifiable level of prestige, the grade itself. It's so phony it actively slows down "the cart of civilization," as the author, Robert Pirsig, puts its. 

For a while in middle school I didn't care about grades. Then I started wanting better grades because I realized they were important for one reason or another, but I couldn't figure out how to get them. This was a chunk of high school, and I reverted there for part of college (whoops). Finally I deciphered the maneuvers for As. 

I don't know if it was maturity. Or the classes got better, especially in college. Or I got smarter. Whatever the culprit, I didn't ever get over thinking grades were rotten deep down. I still think they're overvalued, the trophy of a game that does not test for what is most important, learning, instead rewarding a certain type of memorization and participation. Not that people who get good grades don't learn or have sight of what's important, just that the grades themselves are not fostering that process. 

Eh, it's all idealistic.

Anyways, the narrator refers to Quality as the essence of everything, the reality of us and all, the Tao (real one, not spoken one). He proposes that we cannot define "Quality"; it is. It fully encompasses both subjectivity and objectivity. This is an intriguing way of turning things over in the mind.

Nuclear Weapons

There are nine countries that have nuclear weapons. The following is that list along with the number of warheads in each respective stockpile, including retired but still intact warheads. 

 

Russia               6,372

USA                  5,800   

China                320

France               290

UK                    195

Pakistan            160

India                 150

Israel                 90

North Korea      35   

South Africa is the only nation to ever create then disband its nuclear weapons program. Development of a bomb began in 1974 amidst mounting international pressure to break the apartheid system. The U.S. relinquished its support for the program in 1976, but Israel remained steadfast, exchanging technology and raw materials with the segregationist government. UN Resolution 3379 called it "the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism."

The end of apartheid in 1989 marked the end of the nuclear weapons program as well. Under President de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela, South Africa signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and agreed to IAEA inspections in 1991.

Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery

There is a cemetery outside Tehran called Behesht-e-Zahra, "The Paradise of Zahra" in Farsi. (Yea, I linked Wikipedia. I feel bad because I know this encyclopedia isn't so reputable. But I could find almost nothing at all online about this graveyard. Only a bunch of media outlets re-publishing an AP story that I am using for the rest of this post. The report is also where I learned about this place. But I must say I'm a bit surprised at the lack of information on it. Not suggesting any nefarious reasons, just startled to see the internet not spilling over the brim with data.).

What caught my eye in this article was the size of the cemetery. There are around 1.6 MILLION bodies there. The graves cover more than a thousand acres.  It's in the news because the facilities are being overwhelmed with COVID deaths, bodies coming in at a rate higher than during even the butcherous Iran-Iraq War. They're digging fifty percent more tombs than usual. 

This made me wonder how old this sacred site must be. It is Tehran's main burial spot, after all, the capital of an ancient civilization prospering for over two thousand years. Actually, it was built in 1970. Tehran itself became the national seat of power in 1786, relatively recently in Persian history. Persepolis, in contrast, the Achaemenid capital, was created in the 5th century BCE.

2 plant things

1:
Late this summer, the stickiness appeared beneath pecan trees. Sidewalks, grass, cars, dirt coated in a gluey film. If we left the outdoor furniture in the wrong spot, it could be irreversibly gross. A few people explained different causations for this sap-seeming drip to me, but none seemed entirely assured in their theorization. 

Turns out it is aphids excreting sugar sucked from the leaves of the pecan. The excretion is called honeydew. Yellow pecan aphids, not to be confused with black-margined aphids (check the wings), bite into the leaf epidermis, consuming intravenous nutrients and water, which they release after digestion onto the good Earth below. Pleasant. 

2:

I have a curious plant in my room. I bought it five years ago. Never once has a leaf on it died, never once a branch withered. It consistently sprouts new stalks that arch over the side of its pot. Many stems have become so old, adding greater volume each passing season, that they dip dangerously low, an inevitable snap awaiting if left to the forces of gravity. I had to tie bunches of them together vertically to foster healthy growth. Which, amazingly, appears unrestrained. 

The plant is called Zamioculcas, or ZZ plant. Apparently another name is Zanzibar gem. I like that this species is from East Africa, because that region is close to home. 

It takes an unbelievably small amount of care. I water it once every few weeks. I add soil once a year. I have it next to a large north-facing window. Its glossy green leaves and olive-colored branches keep multiplying. 

Tupaia

I came across this article a few months ago citing evidence of Polynesian contact with South America about a thousand years ago. I began reading about the South Pacific islands and the people who populate them. The settlement of the Polynesian triangle is an accomplishment enormously underrated in human history. It is truly one of the greatest feats our species has performed. 

Sea People by Christina Thompson is an informative read on the subject. It basically chronicles the European interaction with Polynesia. For centuries Europeans could not understand how or accept that people reached these islands in wooden canoes without a writing system or metal tools. No maps, no compasses, no Western navigation techniques. The main conclusion of the story is that the timeline and process of the exploration is pretty much exactly what the Polynesian people had been saying it was all along. 

A Tahitian man named Tupaia embodies the brilliance of Polynesian knowledge. He guided Captain Cook around the region after they met in Tahiti. Tupaia was exceptional, a tahu'a,  meaning "a master, expert, or authority." He was proficient in "cosmology, politics, history, medicine, geography, astronomy, meteorology, and navigation," even picking up painting and cartography despite never touching a pen or paper before meeting Cook. All his expertise was saved and transmitted orally except a few documents he created on the Endeavour, Cook's ship. The man was adventurous and confident enough to join an expedition of recently-met foreigners heading to unknown lands for an unspecified period of time. He's the type of historical figure you wish to share a meal and conversation with. 

Neom

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is building a "city of the future". Dubbed Neom, this $500 billion+ project is central to the Vision 2030 plan to shift the Saudi economy away from fossil fuels, transforming the country into a tech and tourism hub. The national sovereign wealth fund, which recently made headlines for investing in the electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors, is financing the diversification.

The official releases on Neom are epic propaganda. Its youtube page posts inspiring, sensual videos that, at least for a moment, make you want to believe the dream. Among the wonders promised for the new city, planned to be 33x larger than NYC, are an artificial moon, flying cars, and phosphorescent beaches. The sleek public interface of the whole project intends to fill the viewer with awe. The entire concept tries to associate the Kingdom with a clean and exciting future, not with what it actually is, a horrendously oppressive religious autocracy led by a family of oil-rich spoiled brats. 

No elucidation is needed to describe the various repugnances characterizing the Saudi government and its present head, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS). From war crimes to extrajudicial murder to totalitarianism, the House of Saud, backed by American weapons and consultants, continues to be an utter disgrace to humanity. 

Analogous to other Saudi endeavors, Neom is founded on human rights violations. The Neom brochure claims the city is "conceived on a blank slate," an impudent overlooking of the al-Huwaitat tribe that has lived in the desert region for generations. 20,000 people are slated for eviction. Indigenous activists have been threatened, imprisoned, even killed. 

Beyond this despicable land-grab, the details on how Neom will achieve its goals, to revolutionize 16 economic sectors, are exceedingly vague. Rhetorical platitudes like "embracing innovation," "advanced systems," "unprecedented commitment," and "enhancing quality," litter the processions. Success depends on attracting the world's best and brightest, an assumption far from given. The inherent exclusivity goes without saying; Neom is basically a glitzy research park catering to a tiny, elite segment of the global population. Can it really be called a city?

The same logic, build and they shall come, was used for the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh. It is a delayed, expensive failure. This similarity is unsurprising given the involvement of the same consultancies for both developments. I think it's fair to say that Neom, projected to open in 2025, has a high chance of being another colossal letdown for the Kingdom. 

The Saudi royalty is trying to create a future where they retain their feudal grip. Western mercenary consultants sell them gaudy plans as the answer. One can only hope MBS mismanages the public investment money until a breaking point, when this stain of a family recedes from the fore. 

Automating agriculture

The cover story for the September 2020 issue of National Geographic is about robots. The author shows robots already working alongside humans in multiple different sectors. Agriculture is one of those. 

Farming may seem old-fashioned, entrenched, an industry resistant to change, but it has long been a driver of human innovation. The earliest farmers in Mesopotamia, more than 10,000 years ago, began a relentless tradition of progress. Take a look at the sophisticated farm machinery used today. These tech developments are responsible for dropping the percentage of the American labor force engaged in farming from over 70% in 1820 to less than 2% in 2020. Robots are the next step in this heritage. 

On farms right now, robots pick apples and milk cows. The Nat Geo article mentioned that growers are modifying lettuce to make harvesting easier for robots. Drones and data collecting rovers gather statistics to streamline operations. The presence of these machines is increasing at a breakneck pace. 

Regarding the typical concern of job displacement, there is actually a pronounced labor shortage in the U.S. and elsewhere that's forcing farmers to automize faster than in a normal labor scenario. Also, repetitive labor is easily programmable but the common sense adaptability of humans cannot be replaced in the near future. I think robots can help people focus on higher level tasks instead of grunt work. Plus it seems unreasonable to expect tech to slow down for the purpose of saving jobs; it never has before, why would it now. 

High-tech, sustainable agriculture is a promising flagship of our 21st century fight to keep this planet livable. Autonomous farm robots must be a large part of this movement. We imagine robots roaming the shops and streets of Tokyo, driving us to work, serving our meals. We'll see them combing our fields too, interacting not only with us but with the Earth itself. 

The Morality of Economics

I read an article for an EdX class I'm taking called Theo-Humanism. A former theology professor shared the course with me (he's teaching it).

The Secular Religions of Progress describes how economics was initially philosophical. Scholars contemplated how best to organize the marketplace to achieve the highest level of welfare. Through an understanding of humanity, societies, and our relationship with nature, economists believed the most fruitful theory could be enacted. The subject's foundation came from such theological inquires, not mathematical truths. How can we reach an ideal condition on Earth through economic means?

Now, though, economics has a set of assumptions that seem misaligned with essential realities. The basic goal is presumed to be maximum growth in perpetuity in every possible way. Economists aren't moral philosophers who study what is ideal for prosperity, but instead technocrats directing policy and resources towards this one goal, growth. Is this really what we should aim for anymore, especially in industrialized countries? Are the ways we define welfare still accurate?

I think there are rumblings of change in public discourse. Andrew Yang has spoken on this topic, and the Happiness Index has gained traction as a better metric for success than classic economic metrics. Given the problems we face today that have not and probably will not be solved by growth (climate change & environmental degradation, rising rates of Deaths of Despair, racial inequality, populist authoritarian governments, international migration, proxy wars), the need to re-evaluate how we organize the economy appears prudent. Maybe that means returning to the roots of economics itself. 

Holden Caulfield & The Underground Man

While reading The Catcher in the Rye, I realized Holden Caulfield reminds me of the narrator in Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, a short novel delving into the psyche of an egomaniacal civil servant in 19th century Russia. 

The two characters have different backgrounds. Their surrounding environments are similarly distinct. Yet they express analogous mental and material qualities; swings from smug narcissism to self-loathing in disturbingly short amounts of time, social alienation, professional/academic failure, vanity, loneliness. They carry overwhelming spite for a society they can neither succeed in nor live without. 

I asked one of my philosophy professors about this relation. For his class I read Notes from Underground. He sent me this paper by Lilian Furst on the topic. It's a really good analysis. She points out the parallels in form as well as content between the two works. Both are first person narratives with a conversational, rambling tone set by an untrustworthy and contradictory speaker. The reader quickly becomes aware that she is being lied to. The perspective she sees is clearly through deluded eyes.  

In Furst's words:

"The Underground Man and Holden Caulfield alike oscillate between solipsism and irony, hope and indifference, the grotesque humour of detachment and the bitterness of lost illusions. The underlying conflict is between the self-esteem that devolves from their proud sense of their own pre-eminence over the average man in intellect and sensitivity on the one hand, and on the other the self-denigration that drives them masochistically to magnify their physical defects and almost gloat over their failures."

Pantanal (fire pt 2)

Wildfires are not limited to the western U.S. At the moment, the Pantanal is burning at a record rate as well. The Pantanal is a massive tropical wetland, the largest in the world. It lies in Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, and is the size of Washington state. Apparently its biodiversity rivals the Amazon rainforest; it has megafauna like jaguars, capybaras, caimans and anacondas, along with the many insects and birds and fish that one would expect in marshes. The flora must be spectacular. 

Seasonal rains flood the area, transforming the ground into swampy grassland. Such a dramatic annual sequence reminds me of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, where a similar flooding event vitalizes the local ecosystem. I wondered how this terrain could catch fire. 

The culprit, from what I understand, is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). This phenomenon involves the movement of warm and cool water in the Atlantic Ocean, similar to El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. Heated equatorial waters move north, then chilled temperate waters move south. This changes sea surface temperature, which influences rainfall and climate. These cycles are long-term; I've seen estimates ranging from 30 to 80 year cycles, much longer than El Nino or La Nina cycles. We are currently in a warm phase, which is fueling drought in South America by pulling moisture north of the equator (more hurricanes north, more fires south). How climate change impacts this natural variation remains to be seen. 

Another interesting ocean system related to AMO is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Info on that can be found here. These grand complexes, influenced by volcanoes and planetary motion and greenhouse gases and sea ice and salinity and time and many others things we don't even know are connected, invisibly shape the world around us. They are omnipresent, and in some ways omnipotent.