Jason’s Random Thoughts

Along with the unrelenting summer heat, news stories are often replete with strange tales and even stranger people. This summer is no different as former NASA astronaut and 6th human on the moon, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, claims that extra-terrestrial beings have visited the Earth on several occasions and there is a global cover-up of the situation in progress. Naturally, representatives at NASA were quick to play down the comments saying that they neither track nor communicate with non-human on this planet or anywhere in the universe. However, who are we to believe? A man who holds the (human) record for longest-ever moon walk, or a huge government funded organization that seems to be so cash strapped they can hardly afford to keep their vending machines stocked?

It really depends on whether you believe God stopped making intelligent creatures after Adam and Eve disappointed Him by eating from the Tree of Knowledge or not.

I wrote about this topic back in February when an abnormal number of UFO’s were reported in Japan, so I won’t discuss the same topics as I did then. Instead, it would be much more interesting to look at the types of comments people are leaving on News.com’s Australian website. Of the 104 responses that were recorded at the time, only four types of responses seem to exist for the subject: aliens don’t exist because it’s not in my preferred religious text, aliens have a strong probability of existing, aliens should help us clean up the mess we’ve created in the name of progress and, aliens are here and have been here for quite some time.

Aliens Don’t Exist, Dammit!

Of all the people that wrote comments adamantly refusing to believe that aliens exist, I think I could sit down and have a conversation with only one of them. This isn’t because I strongly believe that alien life exists in some form somewhere in the universe, but because I have a really hard time carrying on a conversation with someone who can believe something so passionately while backing it up with zero information … refutable or not. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for people that can take the words contained in a religious text and keep them close to their heart. However, for someone who has “learned” how to read a Bible, Qur’an, Torah or another text in a very particular fashion to glean meaning and insight into how we should treat ourselves and each other, I’m surprised that they cannot see the potential for something a little more fantastic.

Nowhere does it explicitly say in any (respected) religious text that I’ve read that extra-terrestrial life does not exist anywhere. Nowhere does it say that we are the sole intelligent beings in the universe, either. We were given domain over the Earth and all the creatures that swim, crawl, slither, walk or fly on it … but that’s about it. It says nothing (specifically) about other planets, star systems or galaxies. So to think that God was so impressed with His work that he stopped after the “colonization” of Earth would be a little egotistical.

If anyone knows of a religious text that explicitly states otherwise, please enlighten me. I’ve studied religions for years and not found direct evidence against the possibility of extra-terrestrial beings.

Aliens Should Help Us

The next group of people are the ones that I respect the least. They claim that aliens should help us with global warming, wars, famines, disease and just about everything else that has caused a headache or two for the human race. While some non-human entities may be capable of something approaching empathy and performing ideological acts for the betterment of a given species, why should it be the responsibility of another intelligence to correct our own mistakes? Unless they’re responsible for creating disease, floating islands of trash, or depleting the ozone layer, we should not be interfered with. How the heck can we expect to be taken seriously on an inter-planetary level if we’re just seeking bailouts?

The last thing Earth would want to do is become the Zimbabwe of the Milky Way. It’s bad enough we haven’t learned from our own recent past, so why complicate things by inviting non-humans to “guide us towards a higher degree of enlightenment.” While there could be some immediate benefits for the human race, the long term effects of such dependence would be our undoing.

Aliens Have Been Here All Along

Since before the written word, civilizations have claimed to have been visited by strange people who claimed to be from the stars, or would leave behind intriguing items. The Mayans mentioned the Popol Vuh. The Chinese met the Dropa. Other cultures met beings they referred to as giants who would often mate with the locals in exchange for agricultural tools, mathematics or other bits of knowledge. Are aliens truly responsible for the development and advancement of human kind?

Let me bust out my trusty Delorean and find out.

Seriously, though. To think that human advancement is completely dependent on the table scraps of another species would be an insult to every inventor and deep-thinker that has ever lived. While it’s true that some of our discoveries seem to have cropped up all over the world at roughly the same time (within 500 years of each other in most cases), to think that we’d still be living in caves and hunting animals with sharpened sticks without the aid of sexually promiscuous visitors who continue to steal us away to probe the asses of our species’ verbally challenged population is little more than fantasy.

Ah, but that’s just what “they” want us to believe, right?

Aliens Exist, But They’re Not On Earth

This is the camp that I fall into. I strongly believe that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, but I don’t think there’s a foreign entity on this planet right now. This isn’t because of the technical challenges involved with sending a crewed vehicle through the void of space, or even the logistical challenges involved in dealing with an unfortunate death or discovery. Instead it’s because it wouldn’t make logical sense for any species that has come this far to stay put on our planet. We can be observed from the moon. We can be observed from somewhere beyond that point, too.

There’s plenty of information leaking from our satellite transmissions that, unless they needed a living and breathing sample of our species, they would not need to risk being spotted by our sensitive and oh-so-paranoid detection systems. We have countless examples of what happens when we interfere with another culture … even if it’s with good intentions or in the name of science. Anyone from a species that has conquered interstellar will, hopefully, not want to pollute their research with such a dangerous interaction between the observer and the observed.

The Secret’s In The Pudding, But I’ll Never Tell…

The conversations that often ensue as a result of mentioning UFOs or alien life are often all the same. In each case, you have someone from one of the four categories stating their opinion, followed by very little (if any) fact. The proof is in the pudding. While I believe that aliens exist, not once did I state a fact that proves such a thing. Which leaves us right back at square one.

When we don’t know something, we make something up that fits into our viewpoint of the universe around us. When we do find intelligent life in the depths of space one day, perhaps they can shed some light on our paranoia. Until then, we should focus on fixing our own problems rather than talking down to those who have a different opinion.

What’s your stance on the existence of E.T.s? Do they exist? Have they visited us?

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It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Doraemon. Although I was born just a few days before the first episode of the anime was aired, and was completely oblivious to the futuristic feline’s existence for the next two decades, the ever-resourceful blue cat won a place in my heart that’s sure to stay with me for the rest of my life. Why? Because, for those who are down on their luck, Doraemon is just what the doctor ordered.

This was certainly the case this past weekend as Japan’s Cultural Ambassador traveled to the Nonthaburi Province in central Thailand to bring cheer to underprivileged children at a welfare centre on Sunday. Meeting close to 200 orphans and mentally challenged children, Doraemon shared some of his favourite Dora-yaki snacks and said “Boku, Doraemon” more times than one might think necessary. Nobita was nowhere to be found, but I’m sure Doraemon was better off leaving his clumsy friend in Tokyo.

Japan Needs This Cultural Ambassador

Doraemon was appointed as Japan’s Cultural Ambassador last year at a ceremony by the Foreign Ministry. Since then, the 元気ねこ (energetic cat) has made several appearances around Asia in an attempt to foster better communication with other countries and brought a glimmer of happiness to those who might not enjoy the same luxuries many of us take for granted.

This comes at an opportune time, as Japan has taken a political beating in recent decades for everything from poor leadership to whale hunting to having four distinct writing systems. And this is just the stuff we’ve heard about this week! So, by visiting those in need and bringing just a few minutes of childish joy to a group of young people doomed to a life of poverty, Japan is saying “we haven’t forgotten about you.”

It’s an absolute certainty that we’ll see Doraemon visit more places in the near future and, hopefully, he’ll be given some leave to pull a wad of cash or a carton of textbooks out of his pocket. Just because the people he visits are considered underprivileged doesn’t mean they need to stay that way.

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Countries such as Canada and Japan have faced some pretty tough competition over the last quarter century in the domestic tourism business, but it seems that they have an ally in the fight to keep our hard earned money inside our own borders: the United States of America.

Nick from LongCountdown recently sent me a link to a Washington Times article that outlines one of the possible ways people will be kept “in line” while on a commercial flight and, not surprisingly, I’m quite pissed off about it. Luckily it’s just something that’s being discussed, but it wouldn’t surprise me if something of this magnitude was introduced after the next time a plane is used as a missile.

The device in question is essentially a wrist bracelet with an internal GPS, which will allow the US government to keep track of all passengers from the time they get on the plane, to the time they disembark. As an added feature, these bracelets will have the ability to shock someone severely enough to render the victim somewhere between unconcious and dead. While this might sound like a great idea if we’re flying between Earth and Hell, this is hardly the treatment that one should have to expect after paying ridiculous air fares, obnoxious fuel surcharges, airport upgrade fees, and concourse “food”. And that’s all the crap we’re forced to do *before* we get on the damned plane!

Although I might act like one at times, I’m not a psychopath. If I’m spending over half-a-month’s salary for the “luxury” of sitting in a cramped cabin with people who smell like ass for the 12+ hours it takes to get from Japan to North America, the least these people could do is treat us like paying customers.

Oh, I forgot. In America, you’re guilty until proven dead. This is true regardless of whether you’re Canadian, Lybian, North Korean or, oddly enough, American.

The Revitalization of Local Tourism

One nice aspect about this absurd rush towards “safety” is that fewer people will be willing to leave their countries or fly on American airlines. This could mean that commercial American aircraft will be making less runs to other countries, which will do wonders for the atmosphere. On top of this, people will get to see more of their home countries and/or fly their own domestic airlines. I’m sure that JAL in Japan and Air Canada in Canada will appreciate any extra business they might receive. Heck, anything to stave off the semi-annual bankruptcy declarations and government bail-outs for these companies will be a welcome change.

I’m looking forward to whatever domestic tour packages the local companies might put out in the near future. It should be fun to read “Why be treated like a criminal on your vacation? Come visit sunny Hokkaido!” There are quite a few places that I’d like to see in this country and, if I’m lucky enough to spend the rest of my life in Japan, it would be fun to visit every prefecture and major city before kicking the bucket.

Well … maybe not *every* city. Tokyo seems just a bit too crowded for my liking
The Better Air Safety Solution

If the governments such as those in America really want to keep the airways safe from terrorists, what they need to do is start having people board the planes naked. Completely and utterly naked. The advantage to this is the huge reservations that many will have about flying in the nude. Who would want to sit on a plane with a bunch of ugly old men? On top of that, with everyone covering themselves with their hands, who would want to touch anyone else? If that’s not enough, who would want to sit in a seat that some other naked ass was in? It’s bad enough that we do this with toilets … but something with a back and head rest would be quite a bit different.

Most of the world’s more extreme religious nuts all feel that the body is a dirty thing and should be hidden from sight. On top of this, many of the more extreme religious nuts will not want to look at the naked form of the opposite sex, as that would be like looking right into the eyes of Satan. They must resist temptation, after all.

So, after all the pat-downs, metal searches, X-Rays, sniffer dogs, and “random” extra security checks, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to demand that people disrobe and remain that way until they disembark at their destinations. If this isn’t enough, perhaps the US government could even insist we all have a bar code stamped onto our left arms.

And why not? This wouldn’t be the first time that a government of the world has done such a thing while transporting fellow humans.

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The Chicago Tribune recently ran an article discounting a position held by long-time comedian-turned-sociologist Bill Cosby that rap music and hip-hop culture is partly to blame for the “moral breakdown of the family” unit. Associate Professor at the Chicago State University, Yan Dominic Searcy, cuts right to the chase in the piece and, oddly enough, his position almost mirrors my own when it comes to the validity of Cosby’s recent book, “Come On People: On the Path From Victims to Victors,” co-authored by Alvin Poussaint.

I read this book a few weeks after it was published and, after just a few dozen pages, I was left scratching my head over the content. I’ve read dozens of sociology books on the subject of racial poverty in various countries, and to say that rap music is to blame for the state of America is about as insightful as saying cream cheese is responsible for America’s obesity epidemic. Sure, people who listen to rap music might go out and commit the same type of crimes they hear about in music or engage in various sexual activities with others, but most people won’t. Why not? Because the average person is smarter than this.

I’ve been listening to rap music since the early 90’s. I remember a time when LL Cool J sent ripples through the industry by saying “I don’t give a damn” in his hit Let Your Backbone Slide. We’ve come a long way since then, with artists like Eminem saying “I don’t give a fuck,” and 50 Cent talking about how “suckin’ his dick is the real career move.” But does such explicit language really corrupt today’s listeners?

In a word: no.

Twenty years of hip-hop has given me, a typical lower-class white man, some insight into another lifestyle in an entertaining and creative way. I’m not going to grab a gun, round up a posse and settle a score. I’m not going to go club-hopping to pick up sexually over-charged women who think it’s better to get through life on their back than with their brains. I’m not even going to flaunt any wealth I might acquire in an attempt to impress others or inspire envy. Though the music certainly “speaks to me,” it doesn’t control me.

Music Reflects Reality

Eminem said it best in Sing for the Moment that “music is a reflection of self” and “we just explain it, and then we get our checks in the mail.” Rap and hip-hop doesn’t alter reality, it reflects reality.

Many of the truly talented artists grew up in adversity. Violence. Police harassment. Poverty. Drugs. Sex. We’ve all heard time again that if we really want to excel in something, talk about something we know. Well, guess what, Bill? These people are talking about what they’ve been through and what’s still going on in communities all over the world. Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Dr. Dre would not have gotten anywhere singing about responsibility, education, or building self-esteem with some lyrically twisted version of John Lennon-esque communal enlightenment. If the communities affected by violence, crime and excessive youthful promiscuity really want to change rap music, they need to change reality.

Of course, this is not something easily done, and would require a whole lot more than just a change in the lyrical lexicon.

Leave Sociology to the Sociologists

Societies have had problems since their inception billions of years ago, and are not limited to human societies alone. That said, the view Cosby and Poussaint portray is not one that should be published in books. Before reaching the halfway point of Cosby’s cynical compilation of condescendingly colourless crap, I was wondering why this was published in a book rather than on a blog. The statistical numbers that are quoted are so obviously tweaked to make it sound as though teen pregnancy, murders, and drug consumption is at an all-time high that you’d have to be daft to take it at face value. As Searcy points out, these issues have been on the decline since the 1970’s … an era that both Mr. Cosby and Poussaint should remember well.

Social ills are so complex and difficult to categorize that it cannot be solved with one grand solution. I completely understand that both Cosby and Poussaint want to see poverty-stricken individuals, regardless of ‘race’, make something better of themselves. But to put the blame on one subject, while ignoring the bigger picture, is an insult to every person that has read their book or lives in the ghetto. I’m a semi-educated white male who has never had to live through these conditions, but even I can see music is not the sole culprit, if one at all.

Sociology should be left to the sociologists. If the rest of us have an opinion, it should be said online rather than paper. There are just too many opinions and not enough fact making it into print recently, which only cheapens the value of books.

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In a world full of colour it’s sometimes amazing to meet people who have an incredibly black-and-white view of the world. Over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some of the most obtuse environmentalists, via email, who attended the recent summit in Thailand about their solutions to the emissions problem that we, as an ‘intelligent species’, are facing.

Several of the participating nations sent highly qualified representatives with more education than you can shake a stick at, but I don’t want to discuss their environmentally sensible and economically viable solutions. Instead, I want to share two of the most infuriating positions I encountered, with two flavours of one.

The Elimination of All Non-Biologically Fuelled Technology

This proposed solution was originally given a deceptively catchy politically scientific name designed to attract readers and broad support from the international community but, after the meet was all said and done, the concept was all but ignored for its stupidity.

The sponsoring nation, who shall remain nameless for the time being, was essentially proposing that every nation essentially give up on almost every technological advancement created since the advent of the horse and buggy.

For any nation to expect a species that has developed the tools necessary to explore the universe to suddenly walk away from centuries of advances in science, medicine, metallurgy and just about everything else that separates humans from squirrels is not just unrealistic, it’s absurd. If people truly want to live an Amish life, they’re more than welcome to make their way to the technologically stagnant communities and assimilate themselves into the culture. Pushing it on the world would be no different than trying to push a religion onto an unwilling population. The riots and outright disobedience for any legislation forcing people to give up the comforts they’ve become accustomed to would be far more than most police and military forces could realistically handle.

And there’s the other problem: which nation would reduce itself to infantry armed with muskets and cavalry armed with swords first? What punishment would be inflicted onto a nation that refuses to give up their automatic weapons, ballistic missiles, stealth technologies and spy satellites?

How about the incredibly wealthy? Will they shut down their multi-billion dollar, multi-national mega corporations and start up new, less profitable, ventures with their massive assets? Some might, but they wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Now, in defense of the presenting nation, they’ve lived off whatever technological scraps France left behind after giving up on their colonial ambitions in the 1970’s. Air conditioning is still something owned by the wealthiest 0.3% of people there, but very few people go hungry at night. However, to think that an entire planet would give up the very things that cause so many of our problems shows just how much some have to learn about the world.

The next solution is one that most of the planet could almost agree on, and it has the potential to fundamentally transform our terraforming capabilities to such an extent that entire planets could be “prepared” for our arrival years or decades in advance.

Solving Our Problems With Technology

Technology is a wonderful thing. Over the last few thousand years it has helped us make difficult tasks a thing of the past. Hunting went from a dangerous endeavor requiring dozens of men with enough combined strength and cunning to catch a wild animal, to something any child could do with a rifle and steady aim. Farming was once a labour intensive activity, requiring thousands of hours of labour to something that, while still difficult, can be accomplished by a single family and the proper machinery. Travel has gone from being something done only by the most intrepid, to something enjoyed by many as leisure.

So rather than make our lives more difficult by taking away the conveniences of our time, why not find technological solutions that will not only keep a capitalist system afloat, but stands to make our future colonization efforts far more automated?

Several of the industrialized nations are pushing to secure funds to promote technological solutions to our emissions problems. From orbital solar platforms to massive floating atmospheric scrubbers to geosequestration; no concept is being turned away. The advantages to such ideas are numerous but, at the end of the day, the main drivers for such measures are two groups of people: the incredibly wealthy and the incredibly lazy.

The incredibly wealthy earned much of their money by selling us things promoted to make our lives easier. Lazy people are lazy because they’ve become accustomed to those things that make our lives easier and don’t want to give them up. Gasoline is a prime example of this.

Looking again at our history, we’re not likely to change our habits or expectations any time soon. So this is a great reason for corporations and scientists to explore all possible technological solutions to the mess we’ve made here on Earth. However, given the enormous costs involved with researching and developing the new or advanced technologies required, some non-industrialized or so-called “third world” nations are demanding that the nations who made the mess also clean the mess, then make the cleaner technologies cheap and freely available to everyone in their nation.

Which brings us to the third extreme measure ….

Having Industrialized Nations Clean the Planet, While Everyone Else Plays Catch-Up

The farcical Group of 77 have, in no uncertain terms, expressed their objections to allowing any carbon emission caps to be placed on their nations. Some feel that since regions such as Europe and North America have had over 200 years of freedom to rape the Earth of resources on an industrial scale while blackening the skies with billions of tons of crap, they should have the same luxury while European and North American researchers devise cleaner industry technologies. Once these new devices and techniques are created, the G77 nations expect to reap the benefits of cutting edge 21st century power generators and personal devices at a fraction of their actual market value.

Somehow, I don’t see companies like Toyota making state-of-the-art vehicles available for €500 just because some countries do not have the need or desire to constantly improve their tools, techniques, or standard of living like many Western nations. But rather than get bogged down with the nuances between the cultural, regional, and political reasons for the disconnect between the wealthy and poorer nations, let’s stick with this unrealistic expectation.

Like everything else on the planet, technological advancement requires stability, education and resources. Almost every nation on Earth has resources of one type or another, it’s just the other two requirements that are often lacking in some of the less popular countries. Rather than bitch and moan about how Western greed and short-sightedness has caused some ecologically devastating consequences while, at the same time, screaming for the very same privilege of using cheap and dirty energy production, poor waste management practices, and horribly eco-unfriendly gas guzzling SUV’s, why not provide economic or social benefits for citizens that devise clever and easily maintained technologies?

Lord knows that most of the G77 nations have been taken advantage of for hundreds or thousands of years, but the sooner they stand on their own two feet and educate themselves, the better it will be for the environment and the global community at large. Perhaps then these nations will be in a better position to demand proper reparations for whatever atrocities they were forced to endure in the past.

The Only Logical Way Forward

We have proven time and again that the human race is both dynamic and quickly adaptable. We’ve overcome diseases, incredible geographical distances, insanely complex scientific problems and just about every major “Why?” question we’ve had in the last 5,000 years. There’s still a billion questions we need answers for but, at the end of the day, the quest for answers will keep us going until the end of time. To that end, one of the only ways we can solve our current emissions problems will be a combination of these opposing views.

Yes, it’s important for the already industrialized nations to curb their carbon emissions, just as it’s important for developing nations to choose ecologically sensible solutions for their development problems. However, implementing extreme measures such as technological abandonment or the careless use of less-efficient but cheaper solutions will do nothing for the long-term viability of the planet.

These measures were likely drawn up as a means of generating discussion and, if that was their intention, mission accomplished. My concern, though, is with the people who feel our looming global catastrophe can only be solved with black-and-white solutions.

What’s your take on these measures?

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