PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

<p>The Great Depression lasted almost a decade in the 1930s. It seems a long time ago now, and has little relevance except that it was the largest of a long string of economic downturns that have periodically punctured the ever-increasing financial bubble that is the American economy, and for that reason it is endlessly invoked, analyzed, and debated. The most contentious issue is how it end...

<p>Of the 5.6 million businesses in the U.S., 99.7% of of them are “small,” most just Ma & Pa running a restaurant, bluecollar service, or some other shoestring enterprise. The owners work long hours with few vacations, and barely get by, if they do at all since half of small businesses fail within the first year. Unfortunately, as hard as being in business is, somehow these striving ent...

<p>What is patriotism anymore? Let's review the concept:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">America's old values of God, guns, gas & GIs have become anti-values.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">The Pledge of Allegian...

<p>Be very suspicious of Westerners that choose to live in Southeast Asia; the language, food and chaos are totally alien to our culture; not to mention the living conditions. It's the epitome of being a nice place to visit but... There's very few reasons why Westerners would voluntarily choose exile; it seems likely that most expatriates are prohibited from going back to their home country,...

<p>How come American foreign policy is even more confused and obtuse than American domestic policy? It's because foreign actors can participate in American politics via campaign donations, along with a sympathetic entrenched bureaucracy. For example, a nation, Iran, would like to develop nuclear power but America says "no," not based upon some kind of strategic goal or desire for d...

<p>The word “hate” has new meaning inside politics; a verbal Molotov-cocktail hurled to burn down any discussion and put the accusers in control: “hate” speech is any speech they don't like, “hate” groups are any organization they don't like, “hate” crime is paramount to all other crime because it is so hateful. Yet hate still retains the essence of the old definition: others wishing ill on...

<p>The National Guard is the original State-based militia, controlled by the governor. People don't join the National Guard for the money; that's a good thing, it means the enlistees are doing it out of a sense of patriotism, or at least that's a large component of their decision. Mostly, the National Guard operates on American soil because the Posse Comitatus Act prevents domestic federal t...

<p>America's armed forces are 3<sup>rd</sup> in size in the world, about half of China's military, but size doesn't matter in modern warfare. America spends 17% of its GNP, almost a trillion dollars a year, on its military; no other nation even gets close, and the American Military-Industrial Complex is as vast as it is lethal. There are popular videos on YouTube that hypothetica...

<p>There's a lot of military fetishing in America but it's just a job. There's nothing special about people who become soldiers: they aren't stronger, they aren't braver, they aren't more patriotic, they don't deserve special recognition and respect any more than other jobs; but for a nation based on liberty, using a draft to force people into killing other people and potentially being kille...

<p>The U.S. military has approximately 1.3 million active-duty troops, and another 865,000 Reserves; one of the largest fighting forces in the world, having 200,000 troops deployed in 170 nations. They are 10% of the nation's voters, but are not a reflection of the population as a whole: 17% of the U.S. population is Black but they compose 27% of the military, probably because they have fewe...

<p>“America First” is cheerleading for nationalism; the concept that America must serve the needs of its own citizens and country before considering what other nations and peoples want. To generations of Americans raised with the concept of liberty: making decisions for yourself and reaping the rewards or suffering the consequences of your own actions, nationalism makes logical sense, but it...

<p>Patriotic symbols & pageantry are from a time gone by, naturally appealing to conservatives, but in a sophisticated and interconnected world they seem quaint and anachronistic; in fact, patriotism itself is being challenged. Flags are complex symbols, and to most children, saying the Pledge of Allegiance is little more than chanting, militaristic even, especially when accompanied by a...

<p>Once upon a time, for about 50 years really, from the end of WW2 to the beginning of the new millennium, Americans, the ones that felt comfortable in America anyway, worshiped at the alter of the 4-Gs: God, guns, gas & GIs. In fact, that’s the calling card of Conservatives today, most of whom remember those days with a feeling of nostalgia. Unfortunately, the 4-Gs were overthrown duri...

<p>Science is difficult to understand so reviewing the concepts is extra important:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Complex Systems are too complex to predict, and life is complex.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Ever...

<p>Apparently, people in government don't watch popular movies; someone should explain to them that we've got generations of kids raised on spaceships, aliens & blasters. When people think about space, it's space ships that carry astronauts, not satellites, and it's Star Wars, not earth bores. Given that man landed on the moon 50 years ago, Buck Rogers prospects seemed like a sure bet, b...

<p>The star, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light years away: could we watch an Alpha Centurian TV show that started 4 years ago? Yes, but Alpha Centauri is moving towards the earth at 46,000 miles an hour, so the TV show would be fast forwarding, just like if Alpha Centauri was moving away from the earth, the show would be playing in slow motion. However, if a spaceship from Earth was passing Alpha...

<p>Everybody agrees that someone on an asteroid 1 light-year from earth could watch through their telescope what you ate for breakfast a year ago but they can't agree how long it took for you to eat it? There seem to be a lot of intelligent people who misunderstand Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and think time actually slows down; that satellites & astronauts age slower when they are i...

<p>Does a First World society need engineers? Ambitious nations sure think so: looking at engineering students training in American universities, you find a large proportion of them are foreign nationals, tuition paid for by their home governments so they can return to make their own nations better. However, in the U.S., careers in engineering, which used to be attractive, are not so much an...

<p>Careers involving Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics, STEM, attract men; women too but in much smaller numbers. <span lang="en-US">The worry over the participation of women in STEM is epitomized by engineering, which has a high of 22% of female chemical engineers and a low of 8% for mechanicals. </span>Because of this unbalance in gender representatio...

<p>TED Talks, short for Technology, Entertainment & Design, are a phenomenon not unlike the New Age craze, but subtler about their indoctrination. They are incredibly popular and usually include pre & post events like a night-time run, and champagne party. They profess to be exemplary speakers from their highfalutin, specialized fields of study, or perhaps meta-humans passing their w...

<p>The “Black Swan” theory of events correctly points out that just because a thing has never happened does not mean it cannot happen, even though people often make that assumption when doing predictions, and even if predictors had postulated that such events could happen, since they have not yet ever occurred, their probability cannot be measured, which means that any predictions made witho...

<p>It's easy to confuse Chaos Theory with Quantum physics because the concept is the same but Chaos Theory predicts things that will happen while Quantum physics suggests things that can happen. They are both based on probabilities but Chaos Theory is deterministic, meaning that with given inputs, you know the time, place and size of the outputs. For example, the dynamics of steam is chaotic...

<p>Newtonian physics is rather simple: action equals reaction; good for building cars and civilizations, but most of nature is incomprehensively complex, so that the only way humans can model them is with statistics, which is the probability that an event will occur times uncountable events. Though there are some complex systems that can be controlled, the vast majority cannot, and no Top Do...

<p>Healthcare is a big topic; let's review the sliver of it we've covered:</p> <ol> <li> <p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Americans are going to have to get used to socialized healthcare because it's different than what they have now.</p> </li> <li> <p lang="en-US" s...

<p>Pontificating on abortion has never changed anyone's mind. Given that there doesn't seem to be any compromise, the solution, if there is one, can only be determined by philosophy, specifically Socratic questioning that might lead us to the answer. For example, i<span lang="en-US">f a fetus could be transplanted into an artificial womb, is that okay? Should it be a forced t...