Law: Spirit, Letter and Intent (Part III)

As a business owner its mind boggling to see the number of stupifying rules, regulations and nonsense spewed out of the government each year.

New FCC rules, rules exchanging video rental information, privacy rules.

For me its always best to find a place to conduct business that's away from this sort of activity.  Something that doesn't cross paths with all of this nonsense.

The "spirit of the law" is really what its all about.  In an actual sense (though in the "real" world this is dwindling) as well as in the spiritual world.

People no longer have a sense of the "spirit of the law" - they only see the "letter."

For example, laws exist that prevent companies from disclosing information about movies you rent unless you explicitly say its okay on a rental-by-rental basis.   The Video Privacy and Protection Act was created to prevent reports from uncovering you rented "Debbies does the Muppets" at the local video store during your Senate confirmation hearing.

This is a federal law that says if you hand the rental clerk (though soon there will probably be no more video rental stores - if there are any left around at all) a twenty and he prints out your neighbors rental history he, the clerk, is on the hook for a big fine ($2,500 USD according to the Wikipedia).

This law was passed in 1988.

Today Netflix wants to allow you, via Facebook, to share what you are watching.  So some setting in Netflix lets Facebook grab information about what you are watching at any given moment and put it out on your profile somewhere.

But, because you'd have to explicitly tell Netflix this was okay about each show or movie due to this 1998 law Netflix does not allow it in the USA.

Apparently the law requires "written consent" (see this) - though I would imagine that since email and electronic communications have been elevated to "offical" status a simple "check box" on the Netflix site would be sufficient.

But here it seems the "letter of the law" has triumphed.

It reminds me of an Orthodox Jewish office-mate I once had thirty some years ago.  Being Orthodox he once explained how "no work" was allowed on the Sabbath.

For example, you could leave the fan on before sundown (when Sabbath started - though it wasn't actually sundown either, apparently three specific stars had to be visible to mark its start).  But, since operating a on/off switch was considered "work" you were not allowed to turn it on and off until the Sabbath was over.

So I wondered about this.

What about lighting I wondered...?  Do you all sit around in the dark or light the entire Sabbath - not being allowed to operate the light switch?

Well, no, he explained.  That was taken care of in Talmudic law eons ago.  Learned Rabbi's decided that the model was a candle in front of the window.  You could have a candle, already lit, in front of the window for lighting (but you could not light the candle on the Sabbath - that was considered work).  But if the wind blew in and put the candle out that might be a problem so, they decided, it was not work (or whatever doing something on the Sabbath that's allowed is called) to close the window to prevent it going out.

In modern times this amounted to switches that had a light that was always on and a photocell.

Between them was a small model of a window that moved up and down.  In the down position the window blocked the operation of the photocell and switched the current off.  Open the current was allowed to flow.

The Orthodox folks, needing lights turned on and off, thereby simply operated the model of the window in  place of a light switch.  Doing this no one had to "work" on the Sabbath.

(Actually its far more complicated - especially these days - see this.)

So here we have centuries of learned writing (the Talmud) about how to get around the "letter of the law."

And we see this today with the complexities of old laws (and their "letter") designed for one thing being hijacked into problems for new things (like tracking Netflix viewing).

Sadly all of this complicates the "spirit" of the law. 

What was actually intended by the original Sabbath law (an original Mosaic law)?

Does all this contrivance to "work around it" itself not constitute work? 

Doesn't my appliance "work for me" on the Sabbath? 

Isn't picking up the spoon to eat food involve "work"...?

Soon it will be impossible to tell what the "spirit" of our laws are here in the US.  It will have been totally corrupted by conflicting legal nonsense.  And the "letter," with its inconsistency and overly broad reach, will create, as I posted before, a citizenry of felons and criminals.

In the case of Orthodox Judaism the arrival of Christ put an end to most of this "legalistic behavior."

Christ points out, in Matthew 5:20-44, the difference between following the letter of the law and following its spirit.  Christians are asked to follow the "high road" instead; in terms of understanding that the letter of the law is meant as a guide and that you should be living the "spirit" of what that law meant instead.  The Jews not following Christ are left to their old, legalistic devices.

So the issue of "legalism vs. the spirit" is actually quite old, at least 2,000 some years.

Today lawyers and courts are cast in the role of Talmudic scholars adding commentary to the "original laws."

But their hearts, I am afraid, are neither pure nor religious.

They use the "letter of the law" to find excuses for those that are criminals or for those who have broken the "spirit" of the law with a legalistic escape.

And the today law is not simple - its intention not clear or conflicted.  My office-mates Talmud was a small book he carried around (I am sure there's more too it - but the point is its not like the Federal Register where things made up by any number of people just accumulate).

How could someone even follow the "spirit" of today's US laws?

The Debt Memes

Most meme's, like the "Time Traveling Hipster" are harmless.

First there was TARP, now, in Europe, there is the EFSF.

The EFSF is a bill that boosts the European bail out fund to €440 billion from €250 billion.

Basically this is a fund, yet to be approved by other EU countries, that will drive the "bailout" of sovereign governments like Greece.  Just like the TARP fund in the US this bill does nothing to "fix" the problem of governments, banks, and people living beyond their means.  Instead it just provides a mechanism to loan them yet more money.

To me this concept of governments living off of debt is really a meme.  According to Wikipedia a meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."  In this case there are actually a couple of behaviors.  (At right/above is the "Time Traveling Hipster" - explained here. Divide the photo in half, right half center.  The guy looks "out of place" for the 1940's when the photograph was taken and is assumed by some to be a time traveler from the future.  This idea of time traveler's appearing in old photographs is a harmless meme.)

The meme first is living beyond your means.  This is a relatively new phenomena at the scale of countries.  Forty years ago I lived in rural Wisconsin.  Living beyond your means there meant embarrassment,  shame, and stigma.  There were generally only enough "means" to get buy.  Banks, run by smart men from the city, knew better than to loan money to greedy idiots with no jobs.

Now over my adult lifetime I have watched this meme grow.  When Mrs. Wolf and I were first married in 1977 there wasn't the notion of "credit cards" like there is today.  Some banks, department and gas (Shell, Standard) companies had credit cards good only at their own stores.  The minimum wage was about $2.50 USD per hour, rent was $175 USD a month, and a decent beater used car cost around $700 USD. Entertainment was a black and white TV with three channels, an occasional movie or a pizza night out.

Not long after we were married the run for "credit" began nationwide.  Once you got a real job (that was probably making about $12-14K USD a year in those days) you could acquire these specialized credit cards.  I think we might have had a gas card in those years.

However, by the 1980's we had bought a house and at that time the notion of "unsolicited credit offers" began.  This meant you could get a credit card of some sort (initially with a low minimum) by merely sending in an application in the mail.  In those years credit card interest was also deductible on your taxes.

Over the years we watched what this aspect of the debt meme did to people.  They lost cars, houses, families broke apart, there were divorces, they beat their children if they stained their designer jeans.  But hey, they had nice cars, houses, and TVs. 

Stupid Mrs. Wolf and I only had crappy stuff we could afford.

This all came to a head for me by the end of the 1990's.  I remember having bought something in one of those audio/stereo/TV/appliance stores and standing in the checkout line.  The guy in front of me didn't have room on his credit card for his purchase.  The clerk then explained how he was going to bill his credit card $29.95 a month for the next ten months so he could buy a $200 stereo or TV.  The guy walked out with his purchase.

This is second debt meme - leveraging your leveraged asset.  This of course spilled into the housing market with second and third mortgages on underlying bad assets.  This went on from the mid 1980's.  I remember one remarkable guy around 1988 or so who owed some 150% of the value of his house.

Later he was able to just "walk away" from his debt.  This always worked because you simply told the next creditor you "made mistakes" and, since they had money to lend and wanted a good return on it, they were glad to give you a "second chance."

This is the third debt meme - its not my money so I am not really responsible for it.

Over the last decades the children of all these people have learned from their parents - which is why the US and Europe in currently in a debt crisis.  These memes are very strong - irresistible like opium or gambling.  They are easily passed from person to person ("hey, where did you get that bigscreen TV?" Bob's appliance - no money down, years to pay...).

Today these people and their children are in governments all over the civilized world doing what they learned as children - to borrow money against assets they don't have or are already leveraged without concern for the consequences.

Of course the population is the same as well - and expects the government to "do for them" in the same way.  And since the government is "big and powerful" the populace expects it to do "big and powerful" debt.

The debt memes trump the "live responsibly within your means" meme every time.

Imagine everyone sitting around, cramped and jammed together watching that 20" color TV when they could be watching a 31" instead...

And, given all the new debt laws, restrictions, etc. its little wonder today banks won't lend money to people - even after they themselves were bailed out by the government.

The debt memes are like a cancer that spreads from industrialized country to industrialized country.

China will likely next be infected - in fact it probably already is but the symptoms do not yet show.  China is providing the "goods" that are fueling the "living beyond your means" meme.  When there are no longer means to live beyond China hits the wall too.

The EU is hosed.  They are busy now just consolidating debt into larger and larger bailout funds which sadly no one can afford.  However, being governments, they can always print more money in order to pay down debt.

Right now the stock market here in the US is bouncing around based on daily updates from the EU.  Soon enough the US debt "deal" from August will kick and have a negative effect as well (as nothing there changed either other than to kick the can further along into the next fiscal year).

The "industrialized west" is over-leveraged by some $15-20 trillion USD I think - and things will not get better until after the bloodbath of "writing down" some of this debt.  But even this won't "kill" the debt memes...

Law: Spirit, Letter and Intent (Part II)

Before our very eyes we are watching US law go from a spirit-based affair to rigid rules.

Originally the concept of law was straight forward: did you intend to commit a crime and did you know it was a crime?  If so you could be tried.  If not then it was not a crime.  Theft was, well, theft.  Whether you took a pig or a fence post the law said it was theft.

However, as time marched on things became less clear for a number of reasons.

As lawyers and court systems grew questions and opinions were written about situations to clarify them: I gave you a pig for a year and you did not give it back.  Is that theft or contract law?  A crime or a misunderstanding.  When common misunderstandings became repeated over and over new laws appears - either at the behest of the court or legislatures.

Technology changed things.  There were no electronic means of communication in 1776.  There were no large monopolies, like the "the phone company" that handled all the these types of communications - more laws ensued.

Drugs like heroin and cocaine became a problem and were outlawed in 1913.

New government enforcement bodies were added: the DEA, the ATF, and so on.

There were conflicts about who should enforce laws: was it local, state, or federal.

Laws, like drug laws, enacted at the federal level ended up being enforced by local agencies - so more budget and other laws were created to support that.

So where does all this leave things today?

With theft the idea is clear: do not take something that is not yours.

But what about a RICO statute to attack some sort of polluter?  What's the basic concept here?  There is the RICO notion: a criminal enterprise linking various elements with conspiracy, criminal acts and a business-like operation.  Then are polluters.  But the polluters are not criminal organizations...  So how does it all work?

What's the spirit of this law...?

The "criminals" in the case of RICO are doing things like organized theft or murder.  Isn't organized theft still just theft?  Of course. Aren't there already laws against theft?  Yes. 

Again, what's the spirit of the RICO law?

I think the "spirit" is to make the life of law enforcement easier.

Criminals and their lawyers can read statutes as well as legislators, cops and the DA.  So they can devise systems to circumvent law, i.e., by not directly committing a theft by, say, breaking the theft up into parts that only together make up a theft (say convincing little old ladies to get cash from the bank and then setting up fake roof repair businesses to overcharge them for work not done).  Each individual act in and of itself is not a crime - hence law enforcement is thwarted.  Only the over all scheme is "crime" per se - and then only if proven to be done with intent.

So government undermines everyone else rights by reducing the "universal" burden of intent with something like a RICO law - which lowers the burden of proof across the individual activities and expands the "spirit" of theft into their own definition of criminal enterprise.

So RICO basically manufactures a "virtual" mens rea.  Now in the case of, say, the mafia, this in fact may not be manufactured.

But what about RICO being applied elsewhere?

Since RICO can create mens rea out of nothing and allows disparate actions to be stitched together to make something a criminal act its application to someone like, for example, a polluter, makes it far easier to show that a crime was committed - even if there never was a crime in the first place.

Of course, the real problem is that today there is far less morality in play than, say one hundred years ago.

In the 1800's questions of people's character were still routinely solved with duels.

Were there still criminals, of course.

But, instead of the letter of the law to hold them in check there was punishment.

And punishment could be severe in those days.  Hanging, being "shot on sight," that sort of thing.

Now over time, and particularly since the 1800's, punishment was deemed to be "too cruel" so it was reduced.  Which, in turn, improved what criminal's saw as their "chance" to get away with a particular crime.

If I stole a horse I might get shot dead.  But as the law changed I now might only be in jail for 30 days (with food and shelter which I needed in the first place and hence why I stole the horse).  Suddenly the prospect and odds of stealing the horse don't look so bad.

In response, the government expanded the "letter" of the law, for example to address horse thieves.  Adding more pages of criminal law at the state, local and federal level.

So all of this leaves us with an "arms race" of the "letter of the law" against whatever an imaginative criminal might invent.  (This is why drug dealers collect the money on one street corner and deliver the drugs on another - the law says that you have to receive money in exchange for drugs if you deal - so if you only do one or the other there is less chance of being caught.)

Punishment often is not much worse (jail time) than life is to begin with - so the consequences of breaking the law are very minimal.

Meanwhile the government at all levels is expanding the "letter of the law" to include new and ever more specific crimes.  For example, identity theft.  Theft is theft.  But now its somehow different if its an "identity" that's stolen - as opposed to say stealing an actual person (isn't that also stealing an "identity")?

In any case, because actual punishment, relative to lifestyle, has been minimized the "cost" of that punishment is diminished.

With a lower cost of punishment there is more crime.

With the advent of lawyers aiding criminals by finding "work arounds" so criminal activities don't break laws directly, there is more crime.

So government, in response to this, create ever more detailed laws with less and less clear concepts of mens rea while trying to stop this crime - and hence creating more crime.

So all of this is really a vicious circle which spirals out of control creating more and more possibilities that "the rest of us" are criminals without even knowing it (just Google "three crimes a day" - see this as an example).

And since mens rea is diminished you can be a criminal without intent.

Law: Spirit, Letter and Intent (Part I)

1914 English Law (see Chapter 2)

(I happened upon this WSJ article today.  However, I had planned to write a discourse on "spirit" versus "intent" do to an interesting discussion with Mrs. Wolf the other day...)

When our country was founded in the 1700's one of the core legal principles in place was mens rea, or from Latin "guilty mind."

Our founders believed that we had to know what we were doing was wrong in order to commit a crime.

This is important because it ensures that the law, in order to be broken, must be "willfully" disobeyed.

If the law is not willfully disobeyed then no crime is committed.

From the earliest Biblical principles the "letter of the law" has been simple and clear: "Though shall not kill," and so on.  Concepts and laws that were easily understood by people of the time.

From the Biblical perspective things change in the New Testament where following the "spirit of the law" becomes necessary for salvation.

So what's the difference between the spirit and the letter?

Let's take "Though shall not kill" as a first example.  Pretty clear on its face.  If you are standing in the cattle pen and I walk in and strike you on the head with an ax and you die I killed you and I broke the "letter" of the law.  Now, what if you're standing in that same cattle pen and I, who am in the barn and cannot see you, release the bull who enters the pen, sees you, goes nuts and gores you to death?

If I knew you were there and had the intent to kill you?  I in fact did not kill you, the bull did.

I could argue the letter of the law as not broken - since "I" did not kill you.  But did I violate the spirit of the law?  I did if I knew you were in the cattle pen and I willfully released the bull in order to harm you.  In this case I violated the spirit of the law - I killed you but not directly.

On the other hand, had I not known you were there or had no intention of harming you then I did not break the law because the bull killed you through an unfortunate accident.

Before the last twenty or so years mens rea was used to distinguish between a crime and and accident.

When my children were small (thirty or so years ago) you could leave them in the car to enter a store or business for a couple of minutes, say to pick up a gallon of milk, to walk another child into a lesson, that sort of thing.  Typically you hand multiple kids with you and you could leave two or more at a time as long as you took the keys and made sure they were safe (windows down in summer, etc.)  Generally they were visible from where ever you were and "I've got kids in the car" was good enough to get you in and out quickly.

No one violated the law with this.  The children were not abandoned.  They were in my conveyance - a car - and therefore under my control - just as if they were upstairs in bed and I was outside on the back porch.

(About the only crimes in this regard were people who left kids in the car for hours with the windows up in the summer.)

Twenty years ago Mrs. Wolf sold a dog to a woman who had done something similar and was arrested.

The reasoning, I suppose, was that wacko's were everywhere and the children were not safe in the car alone (there were two) and, the dog woman had therefore willfully endangered her children.  Mind you the children were NOT harmed in anyway and probably more traumatized by the arrest than anything else.

I am certain the "letter of the law" had not changed in those ten years.

What had changed is that the mens rea was significantly reduced (from "willfully" down to "probably should have known better given the state of the world") and the "spirit of the laws" surrounding endangering children were expanded.  (Endangering children had a pretty high standard - children worked farms with bulls and other dangerous animals - and no one was arrested.  Mens rea required that you had a specific wish and willfully created a dangerous situation for your child - something that was extremely rare as mentioned above.)

Twenty years forward today and mens rea is basically equivalent to the sloppiest interpretation of the title of the law: "Endangering a child" now means that the child was place in a potential for danger where potential could mean anything that a prosecutor or cop or do-gooder might want to think up - and irrespective of any specific bad outcome.

The "spirit of the law" has become whatever the accuser might imagine it to be.

I myself observed this a few years ago with my dog.  Mugs goes most places with me except in the summer when its to hot to leave the windows down.  My truck has no air-conditioning (nor did my house at the time) so "windows down" was all there was as far as cooling.  (Mugs also works the farm with my by following the tractor - we work together with whistles and calls while I run dangerous equipment - dangerous for both of us.) Normally I would not take Mugs near the University (for the reason below) but in this case I was purchasing a bicycle and figured he could come along (it was a hot summer day).

I parked the truck in the shade at the side of the street, left the windows down as far as I could so he couldn't get out, and crossed the street to meet the guy with the bicycle.  I was in full view of the truck the whole time and gone for about 25 minutes.  Mugs sat proudly in the drivers seat so he could watch me.

During this time a woman pulled in behind my truck and was staring intently at Mugs.  She was there probably 10 or 15 minutes until I left with the bicycle.  My belief was that had I gone out of view for even a few minutes she would have promptly called the cops on me for "endangering an animal."

Did I break any laws?  No.  Mugs was in less danger than working the farm with me.  He was also cooler.

But apparently this woman, who knew nothing about Mugs, had decided I had placed him in danger.  Since I knew he was safe there was no mens rea nor did I break the spirit or letter of the law.  Yet I would certainly be in trouble had she called the cops.

(The woman's car windows were up meaning she must have had air conditioning in her car - perhaps that was my sin - having no air conditioning.)

In any case the point here is that Mugs was in no danger, under my control at all times (not running loose, not driving the truck and contained therein), and was not overheated any more that I would be had I sat in the truck with him (which I did until the guy with the bicycle showed up) and less hot than working the farm.

So now somehow I become a criminal because I do not fit what someone else's idea of intent or the law. 

The spirit of the law is also corrupted because any supposed danger is manufactured by an unrelated bystander.

Why do I say corrupted?

Because at the time the "endangering animals" laws were written endangering an animal was something far different than riding with Mugs into town.  Mugs spends virtually his entire life within about 15 feet of me - why would I want or allow him to be hurt?

But clearly this woman was suspicious of me and hence believed me guilty of or about to commit a horrendous crime of some sort.

And by reducing mens rea and expanding the "spririt" in loosest possible way do-gooders can bend the law away from its original intent.


She had expanded the "spirit" of the law to include whatever she thought it should include - which was me.

Medical Privacy: Screwing the Patient

Laws like this make everyone's life better... right?

Medical privacy...  Something everyone thinks that they want and need.  Yet few understand just how problematic real medical privacy, for example as created by the HIPAA laws, can be.

The first problem most people will encounter is the magic of a "missing person" - and no, not the kind you find in your typical Hollywood drama.  My mom, a senior living in a 55 and over apartment sees this frequently.

Someone you're friends with falls ill and the ambulance takes them away to the hospital.  Before HIPAA you simply called up the hospital, and when friend was better or could talk or accept visitors, you were told to call or stop by.

Today no one is allowed this information. 

Often a person taken away from her apartment complex is simply never heard from again - unless a family member happens to stop by the apartment complex to collect their things. 

Why? 

Because HIPAA makes it a crime to disclose all medical information - including information about whether or not you are even in a hospital.  Did so and so die?  Are they in the hospital?  (Often seniors are sent to nursing homes to recover from things like surgery - something also covered by HIPAA.)  So even if you physically go to the hospital yourself you cannot find people or what happened to them.

(You needn't worry about your DNA, however.  Law enforcement can still collect that because somehow its miraculously immune from HIPAA laws - even though its your personal medical data.  In fact, I wonder if law enforcement is required to follow HIPAA laws with DNA evidence???  I bet not...)

So rather than being able to call ill friends, to visit them, to do anything with them that might help their recovery friends are left wondering if you are still even alive.

If this were the worst of it, it might not be so bad, but it doesn't end here...

A little Googling and you will find articles like this describing ludicrous situations where people's "medical identity" is stolen for things like surgeries.  Cases where the hospital bills people for amputations which obviously have not been done.

But the insidious nature of HIPAA is not revealed until people try and correct these types of medical frauds.

First off, unlike the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) there is no equivalent Fair Medical Information Act.  The FCRA gives you the right to dispute any issues you may find on your credit report: inconsistencies, bad reports that are not your fault, and so on.  Not so for medical records.

For example, Joe Ryan (see the article link above), who had his medical identity stolen found that because his true signature did not match the phony one the medical information thief used to steal his identity he could not correct his medical data.

Nice!

The first sign of something truly stupid, in this case a law, is that prevents it you, the person the law is trying to protect, from accessing or correcting your own information. 

The problem here is that HIPAA is not about you at all - its about big pharma and its access to you and your information.

Basically HIPAA is a set of "ground rules" that says "as long as you play by these rules you can do whatever you like."  No matter how asinine that might be.

The second sign of something truly stupid is that it makes everyone a criminal.

As you can see from this article "even talking in the elevator" about someone's protected medical data can be a crime.  So now nurse Suzy, who needs a quick "up or down" on whether some test result came in for you will have to wait around for a day or two until a formal, secret meeting can occur so that this information can be disclosed.  God knows Suzy doesn't want to go to jail so instead of quickly making a determination on what to do to treat you or your sick child she'll just wait a few extra days to do it the "right way."

Of course, in the mean time, you or your kid might just die.

Don't you want the medical professionals to talk about your case?  Maybe they could figure you what's wrong with you if they did...  But HIPAA discourages that by making even casual conversation a crime.

Even leaving a paper on a desk can break HIPAA laws - like opening your case file when you go to the window in the doctors office and the janitor happens by...

The third sign of something stupid is that it tries to replace common sense.

Common sense says that if you're a doctor and you treat little Johnny for VD (there's a term you don't hear much of anymore) you shouldn't go running around shouting to the roof tops that that's what little Johnny has.  Make's sense right?

Just like the body man who fixes Mrs. Smith's car once a month because she keeps having fender benders.  If he publicly ridicules Mrs. Smith for being a careless driver he'll lose her business.

Common sense says that privacy, a privilege to be enjoyed by everyone, should be preserved.  Common sense, however, also says that storing everything about your medical data in Fort Knox is going to make using it and accessing and fixing it expense, tedious, and slow.

I wonder how all this will be paid for?

When little Suzy comments on the elevator to Dr. Joe about Mrs. Smith's "case" and they both end up in jail because Mrs. Smith's husband's lawyer is on the same elevator -  who will pay?

Did you guess it will be you?

Soon medical malpractice will have to include clauses (if they don't already) for "disclosing HIPAA information."  And this will flow to auto insurance companies, pharmacies, hair dressers, and God knows who else...

Cha Ching!

And since nurse, aids, receptionists, janitors, etc. can all inadvertently touch this data under the guise of a "doctor's care" they'll all have to be covered...

Cha Ching!

An because, unlike, say, a botched boob job, where the consequences are at least documentable, how will anyone be able to guess the financial value of someone inadvertently disclosing that Mrs. Smith's boob job was botched in the first place.  More lawyers, more experts, more witnesses, etc.

Cha Ching!

Which leads us to the final sign of stupid: A law that creates negative consequences that far outweigh the initial value of the law in the first place.  In this case across the board cost increases for the benefit of lawyers, insurance companies, and so on that will do nothing for you but raise the cost of medical care without adding any real value beyond what common sense would have done in the first place.

In the olden days "theft" was "theft" - whatever you stole.  Today there is "medical identity theft."

But, as the name says, its still "theft."

Are we so stupid we need a law to distinguish between dog theft and cat theft?  Bird theft and boat theft?

Apparently so.

And apparently we also like to pay double or triple for the privilege...

Faster than Light...

Kurt Gödel

An article posted here describes repeatable experiments at CERN where the speed of neutrinos exceeds the speed of light.

Einstein defined the speed of light as the universal speed limit.

Supposedly nothing can travel faster than light...

But some things measured by physicists do.

For example, the information about "spin" with entangled photons.  Here special pairs of photons are generated where within the pair the quantum spin of each is opposite.  If there is no attempt to measure spin then the photons can be separated great distances and, when the spin is measured of one, the spin of the other is instantly known.  Instantly meaning faster than light.

We do know that gravity affects light.  During a solar eclipse certain stars which are "behind" the sun an appear because the light around the sun "bends".  This was one of the first "proofs" of relativity using gravitational lensing done by Eddington in the early 1900's.

The question is was Einstein right?

I think the answer here lies outside of what we currently know.

All of our physicists today work inside of the "gravity well" generated by our sun, surrounding planets and star systems, and galaxy.  That is, the same gravity lensing predicted by Einstein and measured by Eddington is universally present in our world and we cannot make a physical measurement without its presence.

I argue this is like always using a "bent ruler."  What you build always works relative to other things built with the same bent ruler - but in absolute terms the measurements are not "right."

Quantum physics offers similar troubling concepts and, for one, it does not "explain gravity."

In fact, as far as I know, there is not direct evidence of how gravity works.  Of course there are theories and measurements - but no basic understanding yet.

A physicist name "David Bohm" addressed some of this in his writings over the years.

Basically Bohm describes physics today as three blind men inspecting an elephant for the first time.  Each experiencing at a different part.  Subsequently the three attempt to reconcile what they experience.  Can they do it?  How would they perceive an elephant without prior knowledge?

He uses another analogy as well: cameras focused on a aquarium from different angles.  Can you prove that the different views are of the same things?

Physics is defined by mathematics.  Mathematics provides a system of rules for organizing evidence but does not guarantee that the there is any form of "completeness" to the evidence.  We create mathematical formulas that describe accurately what we see - be we don't see everything.  Just as Newton created Newtonian physics for perfect balls moving through perfect spaces, F = ma, and all of that.

His work did not take into consideration relativity and though his mathematical models worked they only addressed what he knew about when he constructed them.

The mistake science today always makes is that somehow it knows about everything when it makes declarations to the public.

But it doesn't and cannot ever.

Even mathematics is not powerful enough to be "complete" in and of itself and even though it is itself developed with sound logic and reason (see this on Kurt Gödel and his incompleteness theorems).

Humans always strive to see things as "complete."

Very few people like to have unfinished business "hanging over their heads."  I think this tendency perverts science in the sense that no one wants to here that the billions of dollars spend, on for example, CERN, on produce more questions.

Similarly complex science always gets distilled down so "joe average" can understand it - after all his taxes are paying the bills and if "joe" doesn't understand something about what's going on then there will be no funding.

So we "simplify and dumb down" what's being studied and discovered so it makes "sense" to "joe."  And in the process meaning is lost.  Particularly the meaning of "we don't really know."

Einstein's (and Newton's) discoveries suffer from the same "processing" by news media and the educational system. 

Einstein can only theorize about what is known at the time.  Since he lived a century has passed.  In that time we have gone from rural bumpkins on farms to highly educated city slickers with cellphones, cars, computers and all the rest.  Our knowledge has advanced as well - quantum physics was developed since Einsteins discoveries - and have challenged some of his ideas (and him as well "God does not play dice").

I suspect that as more time goes by and more knowledge is collected the next Newton or Einstein will appear and make better theories and formulas to describe what's known in even better detail.

But that will not ensure that we know "it all."

And, after all, studying human consciousness was considered quackery until very recently.

Yet how can we understand the world around us if we do not understand the very essence of what we ourselves are.

Doesn't our own consciousness affect our understanding?

How can we understand without knowledge of what understanding is?

I predict that more physics will be discovered and developed to explain more of what is known.

But I doubt there will be an explanation of "everything" because, unless we make mathematics better, it cannot be used to support physics - it breaks down.  And while we can beef it up with more axioms and rules Gödel proved that this merely creates a new and different set of unexplained elements.

Personally I think to key to all human knowledge lies in the meaning of Gödel's proof of incompleteness.

That key is realizing that his proof says we, our conscious selves, must exist outside of mathematics and physics - otherwise how could we "conceive" of proofs such as his about mathematics.  Its says our conscious minds are more than mathematics can ever be - and more than science as well because science is based on mathematics.

Harris: Helping Big Brother Track Your Cellphone

Intrigued by this report at the WSJ describing a system call "StringRay" for tracking cellphones I did some research.  (This required some work because apparently Harris is not too interested in people like you and me knowing what they do, how they do it, where they are, etc.)

The "StringRay", as well as related products "KingFish" and "StringRay II" are cellphone tracking devices used by local, state and federal governments in the US to track cellphones without need of a warrant.

Unlike the typical "get a warrant, get carrier data" tracking typically used these devices work in a unique and questionable way:

All cellphones maintain communication with cellphone towers by periodically sending small bits of data back and forth with the towers.  As the cellphone moves from place to place it goes in and out of range of various towers.  When a tower and cellphone are first "introduced", i.e., the phone appears for the first time in the towers range, the phone and tower "shake hands" so that the tower is aware of the phones presence.

Once the tower knows where the phone is the cellphone system knows where to route the call.

Now things are actually a little more complex than this because tower ranges overlap, there is interference, etc. but the basic idea is that tower knows where the cellphones its talking to are in a general sense, i.e., inside some radius around the tower.  If multiple towers are aware of the phone then, by using the relative strength of the signal at each tower one can triangulate to where the phone might be.  (This is typically what's acquired by law enforcement.)

The StingRay devices, on the other hand, allow law enforcement to "act" as if they themselves were a cellphone tower and asking all the cellphones in the area to register with it.  So if some crook has his cellphone "on" - even though he's not talking - the faux tower run by the cops knows about his cellphone.  By coupling this with directional antenna technology you can easily track someone.

These devices are portable, they run on 12V DC, and have associated antennas that can be used to get a "fix" on your location by measuring signal strength to your phone.  (Your phone has a unique ID that all the towers know outside your phone number - I am not sure how the StingRay is able to track you but there is some way to associate your phone and number.)

Since law enforcement is its own cell tower there's no need to get a court order to run the StingRay, i.e., they don't have to ask AT&T for information about you.  They simply collect it directly from your phone.

(Its hard to imagine how local governments circumvent FCC regulations for this but...)

This device is made by the Harris Corporation and sold exclusively to governments of all sorts in the US (see this sole source award for the US and this for the City of Miami).  There's also a handy GSA number



for the Harris contract which means that any federal agency can buy one.

So, from the City of Miami PDF, we see that this system costs $51K USD.  That includes everything you need for warrantless tracking of cellphones (directional antenna arrays, pc adapters, a 12V interface for powering the device from your car, etc.)  There's even spec sheets and contact information for the salesman.

As you can also see from the link for Miami Harris operates out of a P.O. Box for this type of equipment.

I wonder why?

(Harris used to sell something called a "Datacraft Computer" which, fortunately, history has mostly forgotten.  Google cannot even find a picture of one.)

So tracking you, listening in on your calls, all of that, is only $51K USD away - a small sum for any city with big drug or crime problems.  I imagine that anyone with money and the right "connections" who could actually find these Harris folks might be able to buy one of these.  After all, it is only money...)

Not everyone, however, is enthusiastic about this technology, for example the Electronic Freedom Foundation published this about these devices.

Personally I don't see how some detective in Miami Florida clears the FCC for operating this type of device - at least I would presume that there is a reason real cellphone companies like AT&T and Verizon spend millions or billions to buy the same bandwidth...

(BTW, the StingRay covers both CDMA (Verizon-type) and GSM (ATT&T) phones on all bands - so no one is safe.)

I also wonder if my cellphone, if within the reach of the StingRay, is being tracked as well - even if law enforcement is not interest in me per se - because my phone would register as well...?

I would think this violates my 4th Amendment rights... which are "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

One imagines that these guys sit around in unmarked cars eavesdropping on whatever they can pickup waiting for the "criminal" to "make a move..." - after all there are probably hundreds or thousands of phones active in any given urban towers range.

Of course, if you're really that concerned about things just turn your cellphone OFF and/or take out the battery.

You could also run Skype.

Hell, you could also write you own secure VOIP application (but they could still track your location).

OnStar: Your Car Rats You Out!

Arrest Me Now!

So now your friends at GM and OnStar are changing the "terms of service" for your OnStar unit in your vehicle to include tracking your vehicle by GPS at all times - regardless of whether or not you use OnStar.

Isn't this nice.

In addition, they have added more terms to allow them to sell this information.

(See a decent write up here.)

So let's suppose you're zipping along on the Interstate and you roll past a speed trap in your shiny new GM car with OnStar.

No longer does the cop hiding in the bushes need to zap you with a speed gun.

Instead, from the comfort of their plush tax-payer appointed offices they will simply punch up the  coordinates on their computers of a place where people are known to speed.

Giant servers somewhere in Detroit or India will spin up the list of GM cars, their speed, direction of travel and the identities of the owners and transmit them to a flying officer (or unmanned drone) that will collect whatever it needs via a video feed showing you breaking the law.

Some officer down the road will get a list of cars to pull over and ticket or, if you're lucky, a ticket will be mailed right to your door.

Of course this can all be cross referenced with prior acts, arrests, etc. as well as any in-progress crimes.

Should you have been near any felonious acts the local police database can cross-match GM cars with the location of the felonies so that the police know who to visit.

You may cry "no, no!" this is private information.

But you'd be wrong.  Once the police suspect you of committing a crime then the floodgates open regarding what information they may collect in pursuing a criminal.

Think of it this way: If you video yourself stealing gas from the gas station and post it on youtube - even if you're personally not directly visible - its still evidence of crime in progress.  Once the police see the video they can, for example, go to the gas station and review other video or witnesses.  Similarly GPS data indicating that people are speeding is no different than an officer on the side of the road seeing you zip past at what looks like an illegal speed. 

Its a reason for them to become interested in you.

In Canada and the US there are places where there are no longer toll gates - just cameras.  Same idea.  Same legal elements.  GPS and VIN numbers are just as good from the friendly GM servers.

But I am sure that things won't end there.

Think your spouse is cheating?  Just sign up for a home-based tracking system that lets you run a simulation of where your car has been on Google maps over the last two days.

Divorce lawyers will love this...

If poor little Jr. wants to "park" with his girlfriend all the police need do is find the cars located in the range of the local "lovers leap".  If anyone is there a quick and easy bust.  (While their at it they can grab the kiddies cell phones and arrest them for sexting too.)

Want to commit felonies?  Then bulk buy (from hackers) stolen GPS/VIN data and distill the data down to locate folks making night bank deposits, picking up valuables, etc. (We all know how safe this sort of data is from hackers, right?  Just ask poor old Scarlett Johannson who had nude photos of herself stolen from her own cellphone.)

And don't forget that OnStar can simply disable your vehicle if they so choose - say at the behest of your ex-wife who tells the police you've kidnapped little Jr.

And of course we all know that the cellphone data stream used by OnStar is completely unhackable - right?

Just try Googling "onstar data stream hacking"...

You find this, for example...  Need I say more.

Just imagine what skilled, professional Lithuanian, Anonymous, or Russian hackers can do with this stream of data.

Your car will rat you out...

And if you think that "randomized GPS" data will keep you safe you're a fool.

Just find the GPS location of your driveway.  Then create a small circle around it and watch for movement of GPS locations.  Bingo - we know who you are...

With the new "push" smartphone services your cellphone can pop up ads as you drive by the local pizza joint...

Ever wonder why it gets harder and harder to get your old clunker through the annual state safety inspection?  Ever wonder about "cash for clunkers"?

Its not the emissions, the environment or your safety they are concerned with.

Nope.

Big brother wants shiny new cars on the road with OnStar so that watching over you will be that much easier.

Debt: Killing as Effectively as Cancer and Heart Disease

Second attempt at suicide by fire in 15 months.

I have been reading with horror how the people of Greece have been reacting to the austerity measures put in place by their government.

In case you live with your head in the sand Greece has a significant sovereign (government) debt, like the USA - something like 120% of GDP (as opposed to 100% here in the US).  Unlike the US no one has much faith in the Greek economy which is rife with corruption, kickbacks and tax evasion.  Greece's government was borrowing some 20-30% of its annual needs each year and the debt had ballooned out of control (here we borrow something like $20K USD for the $42K USD the government spends each second).

Over the last few years the remainder of the EU (European Union of which Greece is a member) has struggled with how to overcome the "Greek problem."

The citizens of Greece have significant problems with the austerity measures put in place by the Greek government - measures put in place to allow them to borrow even more money as if this will solve the problem.  But what's interesting is the effects this is having on the Greek people.

One effect has been an increase in suicide rates.  People, whose lives are tied to the cutbacks and whose businesses have struggled because of the crisis (and not just in Greece but the remainder of Europe), are now committing suicide at nearly twice the pace (up from 6 per 100,000 to nearly double that).  However, the suicide hotlines have experienced a ten-fold increase in calls - the discrepancy here caused no doubt by the social stigma in Greek society associated with suicide.

The suicide victims fit more or less the same profile: male, 35 years or older, financially ruined, no longer able to fill the role as provider for their family.  Typically these victims have their own businesses, often started from scratch with bank loans.  As the economy in Greece has contracted their banks have withheld further credit and their customers have stopped paying (not until offering checks post-dated months in the future as payment).

Compared to this chart death by suicide in Greece will soon reach the US death rate for stroke.

If it increases much more the suicide rate will begin to approach the US breast cancer rate (see this).

(Note that if you believe that most Greek suicides are masked as accidents to prevent stigma the rates are already near or above the US breast cancer lever.)

As far as the EU is concerned this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Greece will get worse before it gets better and other countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal) all have similar debt problems.

What is truly horrific here is that this is just the suicide rate.  What about the crime rates?  What about the domestic abuse rates?  Many in Greece turned to various fraud schemes to try and save their businesses before they went bust - only to ultimately attempt or commit suicide.

The US spends $16.5 Billion USD annually according to this report.

This is less than Greeces annual budget deficit of 17 Billion Euros.  But to "fix" the problem will cost far, far more...

So what does this mean?

This means that debt (personal and governmental) is just as dangerous as breast cancer if not more so.  If the true death rate in Greece from suicide is at the 10x level more along the lines of what's reported by suicide hot line numbers that would mean debt kill as effectively as most serious forms of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

This implies that by creating a "faux success lifestyle" of success through debt the government is literally killing its citizens as effectively as cancer.

Here in the USA the borrowing is on par with Greece - yes we are not yet insolvent but the pain required to fix the problem will be no less serious - meaning that people will die.

That's right - fixing the US debt problem will kill people in significant numbers - because true austerity is required to get things under control.  (Though I suppose that at least this administration thinks its okay for the "35+ year white old male" to take the hit...)

Our debt crisis here in the US has merely been placed on hold for a few months.

And cutting off low-income people to save money will be just as deadly as squeezing middle class business.

Like heroin debt is a silent killer - but debt is more effective and deadly.

Debt has become the government's drug of choice for addicting and killing its citizens.  Citizens who clamor for more debt even as the tendrils of death lap at their feet.

As a nation we have come to believe that we will never have to "pay the piper."

But that's a deadly lie.

Those targeted by "suicide" in Greece are those who should be at their peak earning power and driving the economy forward.  Instead they are literally being killed off by that same economy.

This is why our government fears "paying the piper."

The problems will here be far more severe than those in Greece...

Life and Death on the Farm

When I was six or seven years old there were still many "farm families" in the area where I lived.  A "farm family" usually had 8 or more children.  On Sunday they often took up a whole pew - mom and dad on the left, the children arrayed oldest next to mom or dad down to the youngest who could stand.  Babes in arms were held by mom or older sisters.

I those day it was common for "children who died" to be buried on the family farm.  Most of my farm friends had lost a sibling in some way - disease, birth defects, and so on.

I was talking to a friend the other day who grew up as the "youngest" on a family farm around the same time.  He told similar a similar story including how he remembered that a couple of siblings who had died as infants or small children that were buried "somewhere" on the farm.

In grade school I knew a girl who's dad had found someone dead behind their barn twenty or thirty years after "that bad winter in '38."  No police, no crime, just the skeleton of some old bum who didn't make it through a hard winter.

Now what's interesting here is that in those days - a mere forty or so years ago - the commodity of life was handled much differently than it is today.

That's not to say it wasn't precious - it was just hard.

Today my friend's dad would be in jail for not reporting a death, and these families would all be broken up by the state - mom and dad would be in prison, the siblings all sent off to foster care.

Why?

Because they had not properly reported the death, and no doubt conducted a burial without a license.

Felons all most likely...

But were these people criminals in any way?

No, of course not.

They lived like nearly all of humanity had for the last one hundred fifty thousand years - doing the best they could to survive.  If a child died, you hand another one - particularly on a farm - where everyone was necessary for the survival of the family.  If you found someone that had died a long time ago, you buried them.  Anthropological mom and all that.

Most of these farm kids had no contact with anyone outside of their extended family until they reached school age.

Today this is still the case in countries like India where efforts are underway to identify everyone in its population - many of whom are poor, have only one name, have no knowledge of how old they are, when they were born, and so on.

At the bottom of all this is this: "When did it become a crime not be civilized?"

I put civilized in italics because I wonder who was more civilized.

The farmer of 1958 or the "modern man" of 2011.

The farmer of 1958 paid the taxes for the development of the space program, the interstate highway systems, bought and paid for things that drove the industrial and computer age of the 1960's and 70's.  They (the farmers) wondered about what was happening to the world they lived in (I was there at the kitchen table listening).  Were computers a good thing?  Was Medicare a good thing?  Was so much government a good thing?

Little did they know that their very lifestyle that had built and paid would turn against them.

Make them criminals and their lifestyle a crime.

In the '50's and '60's people worked and they worked hard.  They took care of their own and themselves and their children.

Today people don't work as hard, don't take care of their children like they did then, and let the state server as their "family" - covering their expenses, their medical care, and so on.  Legions of "social workers", police, local, state and federal bureaucrats make decisions and rules covering everything from fertilizers that can be used to how farm animals can be treated to just about everything else.

Today the "social pressure" of video, TV, and the internet press everyone to be the same.  The old farmers were all different, were all independent, were all uninterested in being "just like everyone else."

Today's concept of "family" is far, far different from the one I grew up with - one with several generations living under one roof or in a small enclave.  Living and working together for their own common good.

Are we really better off today?

With children raised in daycare by people we don't know?  Is his better than the kids sitting in the car at the side of the field while dad plowed the back 40?

Today everyone takes everything for granted.  

Farmers sold what they ate for the profits they could get - if the rains came and the crops grew - you bought food that the farms had raised for they themselves to eat.  Today you have a poultry farm where the chickens cannot even walk.  No one working the poulty farm eats what's produced there unless they go off the factory for "processing".  And the animals are pumped full of "chemicals" to make them healthy.

There was not need for endless bureaucrats to help you raise your child.  You did it yourself, often with little help, using skills you gained watching your parents and relatives raise their children.  You had a vested interest in the child - both as your child and as a member of the "family" - the "family" that would work the fields to feed you and the rest of humanity.

You made your own decisions and lived by them.  Life and death were constant companions along the way.  No one had the nerve or felt it was their place to "second guess" your decisions.  They were your decisions and you lived with them.

At least until someone from the government showed up to pay you not to live this way, not to grow crops.

Today I have to call the local chain store about an appliance I ordered.  I speak to a computer that, just like a person, transfers me to another extension with yet another computer, which transfers me to India so I can have someone there tell me that I called the wrong number or made the wrong menu choice somewhere along the way and I have to start over.

Soon no Indian's at all will be involved - I'll probably just talk to a computerized voice in India instead.

The appliance I will buy might last a decade.  When I bought the house I was living in in the late 1990's there were still working appliances there from the 1950's - they weren't great but I could still use them and they still did their jobs.  The appliance I will pick up today (if it even shows up) will probably not last ten years and, to make it last that long, I will probably have to buy an extra "warranty" to help it along.

But it has really good insulation the salesman tells me.  I guess that means ten years hence when I heave it into the scrap yard it will be lighter than it might otherwise be...

I call back and ask for "merchandise pickup."  Some guy in the warehouse answers the phone.  "No, the appliance truck is not in until after 1:00 PM or so."  Well at least I know when to call.  Why did I have to call India to find this out.  This guy is sitting less than two miles from my house and no doubt has to unload the truck, log the items on it into a computer, and line them up along the wall.

What are the chance my appliance is going to be on the truck like its supposed to be?

Probably 50/50 at best...

Seizing on the Shortcomings of Medicine

Hoxsey

I've always heard a lot of stories about how animals can detect disease and its always fascinated me.  I suppose this goes along with my interest in proper nutrition and health.

Recently we had a guest at our house. This person has developed, later in life (40ish), a seizure disorder.

Now as it turns out this person's dog is quite adept at letting the spouse and family know when a seizure is eminent.  He comes over and persistently nudges the elbows of those nearby to let them know.  The dog is quite accurate.

Of course stories abound about this sort of thing though until recently there was not much interest in it on the part of medical science (even today the actions of the dog are usually put down with the same force as alien abduction stories).  However, there is now a growing list of scientifically known "smells" associated with diseases.

For example with lung cancer your breath odor can have the order of ammonia or fish caused by methyl hydrazine (from this).  These odors are not strong and perhaps only detectable if you have a dog's nose.

Another interesting aspect of this was hot red peppers.

This same house guest apparently has a set of symptoms that alert the family that of a potential seizure: specific speech patterns, specific actions - perhaps not noticeable if you don't know the person but apparently fairly obvious if you do.

At any rate this person was over at the house a while back on a "pre-seizure day."

The activity of the day at the house was "salsa" (as in the eating kind).

Mrs. Wolf makes a mean salsa and acolytes come for instruction and to aid the process in return for gifts of salsa.

Now Mrs. Wolf herself is not a fan of "hot" but our pre-seizing friend was so Mrs. Wolf kindly agreed to allow this person to "cut up the hot peppers" which had just been harvested from the garden.  After about 20 minutes of handling the hot peppers the pre-seizure symptoms vanished.  This was a surprise to all present and quite obvious.

A little Googling later this link was discovered.  From the link: "The co-administered group that received KA and 1mg/kg of capsaicin showed significantly decreased behavioral seizure activity and body temperature for 3h and also remarkably blocked intense and high-frequency seizure discharges in the parietal cortex for 3 days compared with those that received KA alone." [underline my own]

How interesting.

This person has also had an obvious and significant life-long craving for "hot" food of all sorts.

So my guess is that this person emits some odor the dog can smell when about to seize and that capsaicin in hot peppers has some positive effect on this process in that it reduces whatever is causing the seizures in the first place.  Interestingly the mood of this individual was significantly effected by the hot peppers as well.

(Certainly these are just random observations and no one should be doing anything but what their doctor tells them to do...)

How have we gotten this far in the wonderful world of modern medicine with these sorts of things (odors for detecting illness and natural substances that have affects on serious problems) being noticed?

I think a large part of the problem here is that capsaicin is freely available at the grocery store.  Imagine if it were to be found to be as effective as prescribed medicines.  Imagine if folks with seizures were able to process the hot peppers and use them to prevent seizures on their own.

Medical "science" has worked hard during the last century to make sure folks cannot do their own at home medicine.

Perhaps the most famous story about this is "Hoxsey" (see this link and this link but be prepared to accept an "I agree" disclaimer).  There are many fascinating books ("When Healing Becomes a Crime" is perhaps the most well known) written about this as well (see this).  Basically Hoxsey observed that his cancer-ridden horse went out and ate things from the field he normally never ate - and his (the horses) cancer vanished.  Hoxsey's elixir was based on the observations of what the horse ate.

Hoxsey, perhaps more importantly than his treatment for cancer, battled the then newly formed AMA over "practicing medicine without a license."  Today this treatment is still available in Mexico - the AMA having "won."

But isn't the job of science, in particular "publicly funded science," to explore the unknown - to prove things are right or wrong?  Regardless of who makes them or what the cost?

I find it fascinating that no one at the FDA is worried about proving relationships between freely available things and disease but spends millions or billions of dollars working with "industry" to make up products which are unnatural, have horrific side effects, and, for the most part, only benefit the companies and share holders at the end of the day.

I find any science where the well documented "placebo affect" cures or affects 1 in 3 patients in some positive way a faux science.  After all if they don't know why or how 33% of the people cure them selves then how can they know their medicines are having any effect at all.  (Even in double blind studies where people do not know they are taking medicine they are still taking a "pill" which may trigger the placebo effect even if it does nothing.)

The Death of "Accident"

 

(Side Note: This series of posts is dedicated to those who are still interested in learning from their own actions.  Who want to be able to do this without criminal consequences.


Sure the actions below look dumb - but there's real physics that goes along with what you see.


Society has taken away the ability of young men to learn from their mistakes - in fact it does not all them any mistakes at all - because today "mistakes" makes you a criminal.


This series of posts is dedicated to showing that the world we live in today is a better place because of the kind of things depicted in the videos below.)

When I see this kind of thing there is only one question in my mind?

How bad will the ending be?

But the real question in today's world is if someone get's hurt will this be an "accident"?

Wikipedia defines accident as "a specific, unpredictable, unusual and unintended external action which occurs in a particular time and place, with no apparent and deliberate cause but with marked effects."

Unless you've watched both videos by this point can you predict exactly what's going to happen?

The merri-go-round might come off its mounting, somebody might fly out, the motor bike might catch the ground and take off, virtually anything could happen...

So after you watch these videos you see what is the presumed "unintended external action" - a guy flies off the merri-go-round - usually with spectacular results.

Forty years ago as a kid we used to see this kind of thing all the time - not this specific activity - but ones like it: a car full of what my grandfather used to call "snotfessers" (a word which until right now Google has no record of) would pull up along side you on your bicycle and give you a push, M-80's in a mail box, drag racing, and so on.

Sixty years ago in my father's generation similar things were done - motorized bicycles that could do sixty, "riding the rails", etc.

All of these things had "unintended external action" but rarely were they crimes.

In researching this I purchased a series of books containing reprints form a magazine called Popular Electronics.

This magazine, out of print now, was the direct cause for me being involved in computers and software over the last forty or so years (I've employed a lot of people because of this magazine).  My grandfather had a subscription and he would give me the old magazines when he was finished with them - this was in the mid to late 1960's.

One of my favorite features of the magazine was something called "Carl and Jerry" by John T. Frye  (I bought reprints of these stories as research for this blog).  Carl and Jerry are two fictional boys in the 1950's (were the series starts).  Both have a love of electronics, ham radio, building electronic projects, and getting into a bit of trouble.

Though not exactly the kind of trouble pictured in the videos above.  More like the "geek" version.  Waking up neighbors at night with loud noise, altering local weather, all kinds of things.  These two often have "accidents" with their attendant "unintended external action."

In the case of Carl and Jerry the results of these actions are for the purpose of education.  (Like the link to physics above they used their experiments to gain knowledge.)

As in "Why?" do the "unintended external actions" happen and what can be learned from them.

Today there are no longer "accidents" - only crimes.

Launch a homemade rocket and the FAA, FBI and black heliocopters will come to your door.

Build a radio transmitter with a bit too much power and pretty much the same will happen.

So, if you're a young male with a penchant of this sort of stuff what happens to you?

You stay home and play "Black Ops" or "Call of Duty".  Mom stays off your back and you don't end up with a police record.

In the 1960's my cousin and I did a lot of "Carl and Jerry" type stuff - often with explosives and electronics or combinations thereof.

We would be convicted terrorists today - and I mean that quite seriously - and we never got involved with really interesting projects...

But those same skills and passions helped me to employ hundreds of people over the last few decades.

And so the real question is why does society no longer value experimentation and innovation as it did fifty years ago?

Why is "safety" overriding virtually all aspects of life?

While Carl and Jerry may have triggered more than a few police visits during their fictional exploits no one saw their actions as criminal.  Ditto with my cousin and I.  Sometimes our parents used to watch what we did.

Safety has consequences just as recklessness.

Safety prevents you from gaining knowledge about what happens at the "limits" of some activity.

Safety limits the thrill - which may be the point of the activity.

Safety teaches that stepping "outside the box" should be avoided.

So our society is cutting off the very innovative actions that made it great.

The "Carl and Jerry's" of the world are retired today - and no one is taking their place.

Why?  Because when the police come to your home and see "Scientific Paraphernalia" from the front door (say a 1960's chemistry set) they can burst in, arrest you and take your science away.  Why?  Because you might be making meth or something dangerous.

Government bureaucrats are filling the void like little Dutch boys sticking their fingers in the dike of ideas: no, no that's not an accident, that's a crime.

No more rocket science (unless your a billionaire).

You see, "Carl and Jerry" always knew right from wrong, they had a mom upstairs from their basement lab that would beat the shit out of them if they really did something wrong.

And they knew this.

At the same time this "mom" also knew that her boys in the lab were learning what they could learn no where else - and with that knowledge came at least some objective danger.

She knew that they would grow up to apply this knowledge for the good of all.

Today's mom has traded away all of this so little Jr. can sit in front of a video game, probably created by a Carl or Jerry, eating processed cheese doddles and becoming obese.

I think today's kids got the bad end of this deal...