This is no joke! by Stefan Weckbach

The grand purpose of Common Sense is to plan for the future. Training the mind to have marketable skills, to save money incrementally to invest in something to generate greater returns (investment), to become involved with organizations that together represents influence to change the future from what otherwise is predicted to be less desirable.

As simple as a softball league. If a person were to rely upon who they knew, they might get enough people together to play a game a few times a year, with limited resources for improving personal skills. There would be no marketing of skills to obtain financial support. Play would occur in empty fields.

A league administrative structure allows for advertising to acquire a critical mass of players for playing a couple of times a week. Recruiting trainers/coaches to teach varying levels of skill enhancements. Marketing teams as advertising for businesses and funding park maintenance fees, uniforms, equipment, and in some cases paid referees.

Planning for the future is necessary, if we as a people want to avert total extinction events.

I believe the contrary to what you believe, that we must help every person to develop skills to better predict the future, and manage developments to ensure our developments occur. Not much different than building a designing and building a fighter aircraft. Managing the development of systems of systems.

But maybe I missed a point you were trying to make. If I did, can you rephrase your insight from a different perspective?

Money that sits in a Reserve is of no value to an economy, it is not actively moving. So people that hord money are not creating an economic vacuum. The more they hold on to it, the more their assets lose value. So most wealthy people reinvest their wealth to create greater wealth (ROI).

This generally means greater numbers of economic transactions; economic cash flows.

What I don't like is where large companies buy out smaller companies to remove competition and/or remove competing technologies; to allow price fixing. A form of monopolizing markets regionally.

A battery company produced a car battery that could be completely discharged by putting a wrench across the terminals and it would not blow-up. After being completely discharged the wrench is kicked off (hot) and after 30 minutes the battery recharged itself enough to start the car.

Union Carbide used its influence to block the Battery Manufacturer (Staff of Life) from being able to purchase the materials to build their battery. Not being able to fill their contracts, they were forced out of business.

I believe it should be illegal for any corporation/business/person to block access to resources needed by other businesses to produce their products unless the same restriction applies to all businesses/persons without exception. Businesses should ONLY be allowed to enter into mutually beneficial agreements to benefit both businesses.

Drilling for Oil as another example:

http://ecowatch.com/2012/03/07/homeowners-and-gas-drilling-leases-boon-or-bust/

Oil companies can destroy aquifers supporting an entire region, with no "real" legal liability. The only time justice is served is when individuals attack soft targets at the highest levels to destroy corrupt administration of oil/gas processing; largest investors, stockholders, representatives and senators that vote in support of oil/gas negligent efforts ... (terrorism/vigilante/...). Unfortunately most terrorists I read about seem to be unknowing puppets of large corporations and they attack useless targets that just weaken their own intents. Eh, just venting.

Large systems of people are needed to prevent oil/gas companies from locking out the ethical influence of individuals. The trend seems to be to steal resources, sell related products, deplete resources, steal other resources, sell products ...

Corruption = Unethical Allocation of resources and/or opportunities

Legal System Corruption = Illegal Allocation of resources and/or opportunities

The vacuum you cite seems to be most strongly related to corruption.

I look forward to having your insights explained from a perspective that I can relate to. I think there is something here, I just can't get my head wrapped around it.

Dear James,

thanks for your comments, which i try to answer as good as i can.

You are totally right that the grand purpose of Common Sense is to plan the future. Besides other effects of Common Sense, like the feeling of togetherness and safety in an uncertain world, Common Sense is more or less a natural feeling, because the human brain (in my opinion) is a social and cooperative organ.

My point in the essay is, that more and more people on the planet can't anymore plan their personal lifes, because they either have one (or more) precarious jobs to do to earn the money to pay their bills and feed themselves. For them, there isn't enough money to save for their retirement pensions, so they can neither plan the near nor the far future.

Many other people are jobless, not due to their missing education, but due to several factors. Besides automation of technical processes the main agenda for the last 10 years - at least in Europe - was to economize.

Now the situation after Lehman Brothers and various quasi-bankrupt european countries is, that we have about 18 Million people than cannot survive financially without their nation's help in the EU. The nations debts worldwide add up to approximately 50 Trillion Dollars. Social equipment and infrastructure comes undone.

I think in the united states of america, the picture is much similar. The money to finance projects like the instauration of infrastructure in the electricity-sector is - potentially - existent in amounts of tons, but is mostly allocated in financial derivates instead of having been allocated into Common Sense projects.

There's no sense for me to enable tons of jobless (insolvent) people a huge loan to buy a home, instead of financing this money in the mentioned infrastructural projects. The result now is more national and public debts besides more private wealth that is allocated further in an anti-common sense.

As i described in my essay, most people in the civilized nations are further and further forced to work for lesser and lesser salaries. The agenda is "economizing" all affairs of the human life. Will this also affect the financiability of science? I think it will. Only projects that can generate a grater return will be financed. Independent of what those projects could do to the environment, animals, people and to nature as an ecological system.

One needs no huge fantasy to grasp in which direction the economization of all social and human affairs will bring us, namely to the direct opposite of what many essay-authors here consider to be necessary (to enable a better future for as much people on the planet as possible).

James,

"So most wealthy people reinvest their wealth to create greater wealth (ROI)."

If I may butt in here, I would point out that a lot of that investment capital goes into government debt, which is public. So then it gets spent on many things, such as war and militaries, that have no investment value, but which the public must still pay off the bonds funding them. Even the various spin off attributes of government spending which do have potential to return value, are often sold off to private business. Without all this government borrowing, that wealth would lose value much more quickly, if it only had private borrowers to absorb it. The government then becomes part of the process by which those with excess wealth manage to use it siphon more wealth out of the public.

Regards,

John Merryman

Neither you Stefan Weckmann nor you John Merryman did tell me something new. When I discussed with Edwin Klingman who measures energy in Dollars, I didn't try to mediate but to look for some truly basic questions behind your concerns.

To Edwin and many others, Alfred Nobel was in the first place a wealthy man, someone who felt great by installing some sort of competition. Read what I wrote in discussions in particular to my own essay as to see that my experience caused me to devote to the question of responsibility for be or not to be.

I consider Armin Shirazi horribly wrong when he ascribes any evil to political ponerology. I even don't fully agree with those like e.g. Jonathan Dickau and Teyinder Singh who hope for solving the basic problems just by means of appropriate education and tolerant belief.

When I was allowed to teach I was forced for decades to also deal with Marxist dogmas. I could not defend my dissertation with "summa cum laude" because I used an expression of the class-enemy: Bruttosozialproduct instead of national income. I asked: How can money create new money? If you are interested, I will tell you my result and how it relates to the essence of my essay.

Eckard

Dear Stefan,

Discoveries and inventions tend to be permanently useful for the whole world no matter how much effort was needed to get them. On the other hand, money is used in order to distribute goods more or less according to the amount of labor required for each single product to be consumed. For instance, we all including the developing countries are still benefiting from Guericke's experiments.

The possible profit is the larger the more people are users. Therefore money can grow without fraud just with the size of market. Interest rates largely correspond to economic growth. Almost nobody seems to be prudent enough as to by ready for steering towards a reasonable limitation of population. I envision resistance against necessary additions of the principles of humanity by those who strive for profit as well as by those who see the world from the perspective of aggressive nationalism or/and of religious dogmas that demand as many children as possible.

Discoveries, inventions, and all like that make the world richer and require more intelligent responsibility.

Best,

Eckard

Dear both,

Currently, essays are on top which claim serving the world. I wonder if you don't agree with them and will vote accordingly ;). I was not heard when I objected that common sense tends to use the expression "save the world" with an ironic undertone. The question is: save from what?

Karl Marx observed cyclic economic crises and envisioned a general one because in capitalism goods are jointly produced but privately appropriated. The Latin word privare means to steal. Well, inequality might be unfair to some extent. However, is mankind and its basis the Earth really fundamentally endangered by economic bubbles and social inequality?

Or should we follow Shirazi and fight against political ponerology?

Or will loving-kindness save us from all evil?

Or should we accept our fate?

I think the name FQXi reminds us to strive for revealing more foundational questions. What might be wrong in our ideals of humanity and responsibility?

Some essays are dealing with growth of population as "alarming". Kadin's good essay didn't get much support because it collides with old doctrines. I agree with him: The logical contradiction between continuing forever growth and limited basics suggest a taboo question: how many people does humanity need?

My essay tries to reveal a related likewise unwelcome necessity: We all must outlaw nationalism and aggressive religions in order to save global peace.

Eckard Blumschein

Dear Eckard,

you raise many important questions. One of the less important ones is my voting. I am not fully through the essays and prefer to vote when i am done.

I am with John that money is treated as a commodity rather than a social contract. honestly i think that money rules almost all areas of human affairs today. Money talks and i consider this talk as the most aggressive religion on the planet. This does not mean that i want to abolish it, but to think about its destructive dynamics in worldwide society.

My essay's concern does not exclude other relevant suggestions to obvious problems, like Shirazi, Kadin or many others presented. I think one very important point here is to look at the interdependencies of the many problem-fields presented here on FQXI. This could complete the big picture.

I am with Sabine Hossenfelder that analyzing the problems isn't enough. The results need to be made public in a language most people can understand. The analyzing and publication is a task for the leaders of the scientific community. I really would wish that FQXI would carefully analyze the essay's results - via experts of the corresponding fields - and those who can subscribe it should do so. After this it could be published to the worldwide public.

Otherwise all our suggestions will be only of theoretical nature. Science has its responsibilities. It has high recommendation among most people. It should compile its knowledge concerning our present global problems and the validated solutions and take position. I know that most scientists fear the intervention with politics. But publishing a baseline study that has been subscribed by our most honored scientists should not be a crime or an intellectual betrayal. Shouldn't it?

Best wishes in the contest,

Stefan

Eckard,

Population certainly is a legitimate issue, but the question is how to deal with it. There are three examples. One is simply to kill off enormous numbers of people, as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. did. The problem is this really doesn't accomplish the overall purpose of saving the planet, given the levels of destruction, not only of the environment, but of any social cohesion which would be necessary to work together to solve these problems.

Another would be to do as the Chinese have done and limit the number of children as a government policy. It will be a while to really see the long term effect of this, but given the shape of the environment in China, it doesn't seem part of an adequate program.

The other is how western countries have managed to do it and make large families economically less viable and socially unfavored. Given this was not an intentional policy, it seems that the issue of population might be something approached indirectly, as a matter of incentives, rather than by force or direct prescription.

As for aggressive nationalism and religions, there is no way to not have people band together in like minded groupings and aggression is a simplistically effective policy. What people need to understand is that on broader scales and long term views, these tactics can backfire, but like many of the proposals here, that might be well in the future. People do naturally gravitate into groups and since the largest tend to form around the most basic common denominators and the oldest around concepts that were first relevant millennia ago, sometimes it's a matter of waiting for those systems to break down in the face of problems they are not able to deal with, before real change can be effected.

Stefan,

Politics permeates science as well. The best you can do is put the ideas out there and hope they take root. If it's going to happen, eventually it will happen, but sometimes it takes a lot of persistence to make it happen.

Regards,

John

Dear Mr. Weckbach,

I thought that you put a great deal of effort into the writing of your essay. When a bank makes a loan of say $1 million, it creates an additional credit of $1 million for its own use. The debit and the credit balance. Interest is charged to fool people into believing that that is the way the bank makes money.

regards,

Joe Fisher

Stefan,

I support of your position that suggestions that are "utopia-like aren't helpful." I get your point on "fiat money" and its impacts on the 1% and the 90%.

The confusion I have is on what you see as the remedy.

Are you proposing that the 1% do MORE philanthropy like investing in "energetical infrastructure"?

Also, is my solution here a practical one, for you?

Thanks,

- Ajay

Dear Stefan,

Very important and actual problem for Humanity and your suggestions. I think that this no joke problem associated with the modern scientific picture of the world in which too large "bubbles" and too many speculative "foam". Physicists have to "dig" deeper meanings , and the economists change then look at the problems of global economic. " Freiheit ist Einsicht in die Notwendigkeit" (Hegel ). For realizing this, we must enter the teaching of "Philosophy" in the school and for future physicists - in more depth to give "The Philosophy of Physics" and "The Philosophy of Mathematics". Nature confirms to us that the Philosophy - "the rigorous Science" (E.Husserl ), so it is important to better to economists listen the Voice of the Earth. Earth has long been crying from the economy of existential chaos. I also liked your responses to comments. You are absolutely correct emphasis on "openness" and "closeness". You are absolutely right that "Science has its responsibilities". New Generation tells us: "We start the path ". High score.

I invite you to read and evaluate my essay .

I wish you good luck!

All the Best,

Vladimir

Stefan,

Bizarrely I read and noted I'd commented on your essay a week ago and certainly rated it (highly) but now can't find the comment. Perhaps it's the quantum spooks! Did I mention the hierarchy of truth function logic (TFL) I generalised in my 2012 essay? I also loved your comment; ""Only via finding logical contradictions it is possible to leave ad absurdium the claim of pre-determinism" and most issues being due to wrong analysis.

But anyway, I've just noticed your additional question on my own blog, viz;

~

"You wrote

"A timed pair experiment with rotating analysers will falsify the hypothesis."

Just to make it clear for myself - of what hypothesis do you speak here? I ask you for explaining the hypothesis to understand what you mean in this context. Please also explain how that hypothesis is falsified.

You wrote

"The classical experiment in the end notes has been reproduced and can be again, by anybody."

What does the mentioned experiment say about the ontological status of your main theme, namely entanglement in QM? How is this saying then justified in physical terms?"

~

My hypothesis is that there are no real 'singlet state particles', or even 'collapse to' such states. That assumption is replaced by "the handed spin 'found' is reversed by reversal of the detector EM field and it's electrons (the opposite photomultiplyer then clicks)." The trajectory may not be 'real' but may be a wavefront, sum over paths, with the Non Linear Schrodinger equation and density description, but is none the less helicity. I show it simplified to a sphere, which then as BOTH spins (N/S poles) so which hemisphere spin is 'found' depends on orientation.

ENTANGLEMENT Is then simply the propagation axes being on the spin axis. The spin or 'equatorial' planes are then also the same. The setting angles are then subtended from that plane, the points on the surface giving the local latitude 'circumference' so speed, and speed change with latitude is a cosine curve. (measurement is then transfer of OAM anywhere on that circumference).

Essentially the states found are detector dependent, but always remain random up/down. The Experiment must use individual pairs to prove that. So called 'weak measurement' is blind to it. Does any of that NOT seem to make sense?

Best wishes

Peter