Category: Uncategorized

The human body (the same goes approximately for most other animals) is composed of 65% oxygen, 18.5% carbon, and 9.5% hydrogen by mass. Although hydrogen is less than 10% of the mass, 62% of the number of atoms in the human body is hydrogen because it is the lightest element in the periodic table of elements.

Most of the hydrogen and oxygen goes into the water that is the primary building blocks of all cells. How much of the human body is water depends on the age and gender of the person. Infants are 75% water, children 65%, adult males  60%, and adult females 55%. Infants are cute, and they are mostly water. Coincidence? I think not. We were all infants once and we like water. Continue reading “CO2”

Some of my friends take astrology seriously. I could never quite understand their fascination. I admit that I don’t know the foundational principles of astrology. Can they explain them to me? No, they can’t. They just believe that astrologers know the principles. That brings me to the epistemological question: how do the astrologers know what they claim to know? To me it appears that there cannot be any conceivable way to arrive at that knowledge.

But just because something is inconceivable to me it does not follow that it isn’t valid, true or real. To a primitive the science on which our modern technology is based would be inconceivable. However, modern technology and the science on which it is based are explainable. The average human is quite capable of comprehending the principles that is currently known to man. Admittedly the discoverers of those principles were not average at all — they were extraordinarily cognitively endowed. But once discovered, the principles are easy enough to understand that one may even wonder what all the fuss is about. Continue reading “Astrology”

On a mailing list I was on someone asked if “this crisis going to increase Government role in society? That would be a terrible outcome!” That was back in April. My reply was the following. I am posting it here, for the record. It’s been four months since I wrote that, and unfortunately the government response has been as I had feared. [Begin quote]:

In a world of uncertainty, this much is as certain as it gets: the government will use this pandemic to grab even more power, push even more centralization of authority and greater political control over the productive capacity of the economy. This will further impoverish the people, and push the nation further along the road to serfdom. The babus and politicians are thrilled at the opportunity to increase their permit-quota-control-permission rule. They are salivating at the treasure they will extract without any concern for the blood they will inevitably extract out of an already impoverished people. Continue reading “Pandemic and Power Grab”

Humans are endowed with a cognitive faculty unique among all animals — we have the ability to not only lie to others but we can also lie to ourselves. Self-delusion surely imposes a heavy cognitive burden but there must be some reason that the capacity evolved. It must have some survival value. Perhaps it is better to believe in an illusion rather than admit a truth that is too unpleasant.

That could be the reason that criminal politicians are often held up by their followers as epitomes of virtue and goodness. Mark Twain claimed that once a man is reputed to be an early riser, he can safely sleep till noon. It appears to be general knowledge (or even common knowledge) that politicians are crooks but people are able to believe that their favorite politicians are saints. I love a neat little story I read in a delightful little book, Adam Smith Goes to Moscow, by Walter Adams and James Brock. Continue reading “Delusions”

Last month, in a momentary lapse of reason, I decided to post a simple poll on twitter. I had been pondering the matter of secularism and thought it would be fun to know what others thought about it. I posted the question “Is a secular state justified in discriminating amoung citizens on the basis of religion?”

It was a stupid question. The answer is implied in the question; it’s a trivial question. It’s akin to asking, “What material is a steel tumbler made of?” and giving four choices: steel, glass, ceramic, plastic. Nothing can be gained from it other than the knowledge of how many people are too retarded and have trouble comprehending a simple sentence. Continue reading “Secularism”

Pure joy is the sound of music. I agree with Nietzsche that “without music, life would be a mistake.” Among my favorites in the Western classical tradition is Richard Strauss’s masterpiece Also Sprach Zarathustra. It was featured in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here it is:

That bit is as short as it is powerful. It’s hard to improve on it. But Deodato jammed to it — and how. Listen. Continue reading “Also Sprach Zarathustra”

For the last couple of weeks, I have been making the claim to my friends that the Chinese SARS-CoV-19 virus pandemic will be over by June 2021. I predict that by the end of 2020, there will be at least one safe and effective vaccine available in sufficient quantities to drive down the infection rate to the point that the virus is essentially eliminated.

Predictions are easy to make. Like calling spirits from the vasty deeps, anyone can do it, as Hotspur pointed out to Glendower. Continue reading “The End of the Pandemic”

My normative ethical position has a simple side-constraint[1] which is that it is immoral to enslave people or to impose costs on them. Enslaving people entails using them for one’s own ends, and it is a violation of rights of others. Each individual has a right to his body, labor and talents. Using a person in service of one’s own ends is impermissible. Here nothing is said about what ends one may pursue. The only imperative — a categorical imperative and not a contingent imperative — is that enslaving others is a violation of their rights to self-ownership.

I subscribe to deontological ethics.[2] That means, one is morally obligated to do one’s duty, whatever that may be. This is distinct from consequentialist ethics which hold that the right thing to do is whatever has good consequences. One variety of consequentialist ethics is utilitarianism which views moral actions to be those that result in the greatest good for the greatest number. Continue reading “What I Believe”

The world today is quite different from the world of 1945, when the last world war ended. The map above broadly identifies colonies of the Western/European powers. (Click on the map to embiggen.)

Great Britian, an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe, is around 210,000 sq kms. In 1945, in just the Indian subcontinent, Britian colonized an area 22 times larger than its home territory, or around 4.5 million sq kms (India – 3.3m, Pakistan 0.9m, Bangladesh 0.13m sq kms.)

Practically all parts of the world at some time in the not too distant past have been under the control of the European powers — Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands and Belgium. Britain has been the most successful. The list of countries that were at some point controlled by the British is really long. Here’s a list (from this wiki page.) Continue reading “Was the British Empire Good for the World”

I am sad to  learn that Ennio Morricone passed away today in Rome. He was 91 years old. During his career as a music composer, he scored the music for an unbelievable over 400 movies.

I’ve been a fan of his music for over 40 years and had the pleasure of introducing many of my friends to his music. People familiar with the tunes of “sphagetti westerns” such as “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” generally don’t know the name of the composer. Of all the music he wrote, my favorite is the score for the 1986 film “The Mission.” The basic musical theme is outlined in the song “Gabriel’s Oboe.” Listen. Continue reading “Ennio Morricone. RIP.”