Obscura Arcana

Two thousand years ago, there were only a few hundred people in the world who had the means, opportunity and interest to investigate the world around them. Greece gave us men such as Archimedes, Hippocrates and Pythagoras who made significant advances in understanding the world around them. As time progressed, more advances were made, and more people were able to devote their time and energy to the process.

That progression has continued to today, perhaps with the occasional hiccup, where there are now tens of thousands of people seeking these advances. We call them scientists and engineers, mathematicians and doctors. For the most part, once a discovery is made, it is recorded and used by others, never to be revisited.

When Archimedes did his investigations, he was considering some pretty basic stuff. Basic mathematics and physics as well as some basic inventions. The most famous is the water screw, which can be used to move water uphill.

These days, we're at the point where we have so many people looking into the world around us that our investigators can focus on incredibly obscure stuff. Here are some article references from the site Science Daily (used without permission):

Mathematician Uses Topology To Study Abstract Spaces, Solve Problems
Scientists Test Rapidly Deployable Chemical Detection System Tested At Stadium
Discovery Of Metabolic Pathway For Parasite Could Lead To New Controls For Diseases
Study Finds Some Prostate Cancer Patients Potentially Overtreated
Hearing Loss And High-speed Dental Tools
High-maintenance Dynamics At Work May Affect Subsequent Performance
Bigger Solar System? Astronomers Debate Definition Of 'Planet' And 'Plutons'
Study Provides Evidence That Autism Affects Functioning Of Entire Brain
Mathematicians Maximize Knowledge Of Minimal Surfaces

Realize that these are not references to somebody's blog entry, full of speculation and insight casually-obtained. These represent structured investigations into understanding some facet of the way the world works. Money is changing hands to ensure that this sort of investigation takes place, and people devote a chunk of their lives to making it happen.

All this investigating of the universe around us, in ever greater depth and detail, is what has given us our health care, our electronic gadgets, our understanding of the weather, economics, you name it. As time progresses, people will continue to delve ever more deeply into more and more obscure areas of understanding. Imagine the notion that someday somebody is going to be investigating the relationship between quark structure and its impact on the sweetness of sugar. It'll be investigated "just because", and it may well lead to the invention of warp speed engines for spaceships. We don't know the significance of learning things, which is why, as a species, we keep learning about everything that we can.

Imagine the pace of discovery when there are tens of millions of scientists and engineers poking and prodding the universe to expose its secrets. New types of products and services will be appearing at an astonishing rate.

Software Laws

They say that when the one tool that a man carries is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I'm a software engineer, so everything looks like a software problem to me. When I look at our legal system, I see a system of contracts that bind our society together. It just so happens that software is viewed in the same light - contracts. Not legal contracts of software companies, but rather contracts of behavior for the various bits and pieces of software and how they interact.

When Congress votes on tax law changes, what if they were actually voting on changes to standard tax software? This would mean that everyone could run their finances through the proposed tax software to find out what it ends up meaning to them. Collectively, the nation could understand what the change means to the entire country. More importantly, it would result in changes to the law that were very specific and very concrete. That's because the law has to be implemented by a computer. Computers don't interpret the law, they apply the instructions that they have been given. If Congress voted on those instructions instead of words that can be interpreted, then the law remains very precise.

This sort of pattern could be applied to a number of areas in the legal profession. Instead of having wording that nobody but a lawyer understands, the law would be captured by software programs that people could run to find out what they needed to do in certain situations, and to find out about their obligations.

In this world of software laws, our personal information as well as our day-to-day activities would be made available to be used with the software to learn what waits for us down the road. We could also play with the future assumptions to see what we can and cannot do. What will my social security monthly payout be if I retire on a particular date? If I get that raise next week, how will my taxes be changed?

So far, I've been focusing on money concerns: taxes, corporate law, social security and such. That's because those are very concrete processes that should be rigorously codified. Tax law is codified by companies today, and why the federal government doesn't do all that automatically is beyond my powers of comprehension.

When we get to the level of offenses that involve a trial by jury, software and computers are far less of value. That's because applying the law becomes very much a matter of interpreting perceptions. Did the man actually see what he thought he saw? Was the car moving? Is their friendship as strong as is being claimed? The law can be very precise in defining the limits of proper action, but determining if the actions performed in a specific set of circumstances is something that only people will be suited to for a long time to come.

There is much that computers and software can do for us today in the legal world. They would help us to make our laws precise, so that anyone can find out what the impact is on their life. The laws may remain obscure, exception-laden and convoluted, but they would be precise, and Americans could toy with the software to find out the consequences of various actions.

Let's keep law experts around for the places where there remains wiggle room of interpretation, but let's use the computer for the parts where we don't want any legal wiggling at all.

Cavemen

I really don't care for home maintenance, particularly the exterior. The very purpose of a home is to keep us dry and warm, yet we build our houses out in the open where wind, sun and rain can beat on them mercilessly until they need to be fixed. That means maintenance. That's just plain screwy in my book.

So I've decided on a solution to my problem. I'm going to bury my house.

Well, not my current house. I live in a townhouse, and if I was going to bury a house, it would be a ranch, a single story building. Dig out a basement, then use that dirt to cover the top of the house and to nicely slope down the sides, leaving the house essentially at ground level - just buried under a few feet of dirt. The traditional roof would be replaced by lawn or landscaping, and the top of the house would have to be built to accomodate the massive load of soil that would be up there. There is no siding on at least two sides, but the front and back of the house can still be exposed to whatever degree desired. I'd cover most of it because of the reduced maintenance.

If you want to have higher-density housing, create a house that's 20 feet wide and 60 feet long and place a bunch of them in a row, like townhouses. Keep a few feet of dirt between them and you've got a row of underground homes, nicely packed together. And they all have a 20'x60' yard on top. It'll use a lot more real estate, of course.

Burying a house is not done just so that I don't have to paint the exterior. That three or four feet of dirt on all sides of the house gives some nice advantages. The temperature remains far more uniform than in a house being baked or frozen by mother nature. It'll be easier to heat and cool. Also, other curves that mother nature tends to throw at us, such as hurricanes, hail and perhaps even tornados, will be weathered better by a home that has "dug in". It also makes the house QUIET. Very little noise gets through a few feet of dirt. You can turn up the volume on your home theatre without annoying your neighbors, and get some sleep when the fire department roars by outside.

The most obvious downside to burying a house would likely be light. I figure that's something that can be tackled with judicious use of high tech lighting, such as LEDs, which are very cost-effective and can be snuck into the house pretty much anywhere. It would make for a bright and cheery interior, even permitting color changes such as reddening of the interior at dawn and dusk. The home would still retain two views, out the front and out the back. The rooms of the house that most demand a view would be moved to the open ends of the house. For example, having a view from the kitchen and from the family room would be desireable, while having a view from the bedrooms or a home office - while nice - is definitely not a critical item. After a few more years, we may not even need the windows to get the views. Wall-sized display panels showing a view from a camera anywhere in the world might permit you to wake up to a live view of El Capitan in Yosemite.

A second downside to burying a house is that nobody can see it. Rather, all the glitz and glamour associate with having a fancy home is lost. Nobody can see the thing. You buried it, for pete's sake. Landscaping would have to take over to show off on the exterior of a home. With all that landscaping, a wealthy neighborhood is going to have some wonderful natural views instead of having views of other family's houses. It'll also make a view of a hillside full of homes far more appealing.

Fire in such a home would have to be addressed very seriously because the residents don't just hop out the nearest window. The structure would have to be very carefully designed to ensure that no matter how a fire starts, that everyone can get out safely.

Flooding is something to consider as well. Could a home be made such that it can be made watertight? For all I know, a watertight underground home would lift right out of the ground like a balloon if it was inundated by flood waters. But that watertight sealing might be the best thing going as a way to defeat tornados in the midwest and hurricanes in the southeast. I have no idea how well an underground home would perform in an earthquake.

Another unintended consequence to such a home is that it becomes a kind of bunker. That might sound great if you're a tad paranoid, so you're safely ensconced at home, but what about the poor police when they need to arrest violent criminals that have holed up in their bunker-like home? The police would have to develop new breaching techniques that permit them to get through several feet of dirt quickly and then enter the structure. There's little doubt in my mind that burying a bunch of homes changes the checks and balances of our society.

Consider the trades and businesses that exist because home exteriors are exposed to the weather. All forms of roofing would be unneeded. The industries that support siding, including insulation, decorating facings and sidings would be severely cut back. The industries that permit the construction of the heavier load-bearing roofs would do well, as would researchers trying to figure out how to keep the dirt that is in contact with the structure from doing the same thing that the weather did.

Given the rising cost of oil, the solution of going a little bit subteranean really jumps out at me as a good idea. We started out in caves and we may well end up there by our own choosing.

Now to consider the merits of trading in my truck for a horse.

Spending Wisely

In the late 1800s, there were men of such power that they rivalled or exceeded the power of the federal and state governments. The processes and measures of capitalism permitted individuals of sufficient tenacity, skill and perhaps willingness to push laws to the breaking point to assemble single dominant business entities within a number of industries. Sugar, tobacco, steel and, perhaps the most widely-known trust, that of oil; the trust of John D. Rockefeller. Standard Oil.

I did not say that these were men interested in community, health, wisdom and enrichment of their neighbors. They were tough, savvy businessmen who tackled the chore of assembling wealth and of controlling power. Using the techniques available to them, they were able to employ their basic character to amass that wealth and power. The point being that there was no natural feedback mechanism to inhibit greed nor reward any semblance of service to the community. Businessmen pursued business.

The very lack of a feedback mechanism is the focus of my interest here. I've noticed that there seems to be no correlation between the power that we grant people and their role in our society. Consider actors and athletes who make tens of millions of dollars. Because they entertain us, we give them vast sums of money. Because they have vast sums of money, they can contribute their money to (or found) organizations that have an impact on our society. I find that chain astounding; because someone has a talent for entertainment, they are entrusted with an ability to impact our society.

There is nothing at all saying that an actor is any more or less capable or desirous of good for the community than is anyone else. However, there is nothing inherent in being an actor that infuses wisdom for knowing what is good for the community into the actor. The same is true of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. These men have acquired vast stores of wealth, not unlike the trust barons of the late 1800s. Yet their ability to operate a company gives them no particular insight into proper techniques of social development.

In days gone by, if you disagreed with the social agenda of the corner storekeeper, you didn't buy from his store. That's because you knew who he was and what he stood for. A dollar spent in his store was a dollar that he could use to do something that you disagreed with. Today, corporations and other "entities" accumulate money in the course of thier operation, and that money butresses social agendas of their choosing. We, as consumers are voting for changes to the social agenda of America when we purchase goods and services, yet we have no idea what social agendas we're voting for.

In a similar way, if a large enough group of people with a characteristic trait comes into being, they become a demographic. Businesses market to demographic groups. The newest demographic groups that come to mind for me are the homosexuals and the hispanics. Businesses legitimize demographic groups by catering to their world view. For example, no company in its right mind tells homosexuals that homosexuality is a bad thing. Homosexuals don't buy from companies like that. Companies declare homosexuality a lifestyle, and show advertising and marketing with homosexuals living a happy, well-adjusted life, as American as apple pie and baseball. The same is done for any group that a business targets, whether homosexuals, technophiles, hispanics, or flag-waving gun enthusiasts.

This is done, obviously enough, in order to pursue that most basic of capitalistic goals: having customers and making a profit. That pursuit erodes the social fabric of the nation, as it has been doing since the second world war.

I brought up the disconnect between how money gets into people's hands and how it is then used in our society. In the case of businesses, there is no disconnect at all. Businesses are about making money, and so the actions of their employees are focused on that goal. A marketable demographic comes into existence and companies will market to that demographic. That very marketing alters the social fabric because it plays on the perceptions of people in that demographic. Once a company has money, it then turns around and uses that money to push the lawmakers to structure laws that favor their business plans. The feedback loop is inherently towards greater profit for companies. Any benefit to the community is typically incidental.

This article, sadly, isn't trying to pursue a solution, only to observe the weaknesses. Individuals who have nothing inherent in their lifestyle to make them worthy of altering our social fabric are receiving power when they are handed large amounts of money, to be dispensed as their will and wisdom dictate. Businesses, whose agenda is unrelated to the inherent well-being of the nation or any individual's wisdom, are the custodians of the wealth of the nation, and their agenda will take the nation wherever profit leads them.