Magical/supernatural/religious thinking is an affliction.

I saw a bunch of posts going back and forth on Facebook. The topic was regarding so-called verbal insults of atheists against religious people. And the argument was that there are lots of religious moderates and while lots of terrible things have been done by religious people, some (or even most) religious people are not dangerous and evil and don't deserve to be insulted.

I do agree that one should NOT insult the people (in general) who harbor delusional religious thinking. I don't condone turning any criticism of thought/reason into Ad Hominim attacks on either side.

Not to say that there's anything wrong with insulting someone that one generally doesn't like - i.e. Its not Ad Hominim for me to say that Mitch McConnell is a stupid, dangerous, possibly evil, ignorant fool who not only doesn't deserve to be a Senator, he doesn't deserve to pick out his own underpants. He's a complete idiot and on top of that, I can easily and dispassionately deconstruct every one of his ridiculous positions on any topic. The two correlate but I don't say his arguments are silly because he's an idiot. I say he's an idiot because his positions are so ridiculous and his provably ridiculous positions and the danger he represents in spewing them as a Senator make me despise him.

Insults of the people suffering from religion aside - religious belief (and all magical thinking, all supernatural thinking, all credulity in things for which there is no evidence) is a mental defect, a delusion (i.e. a persistent belief in things for which there is no evidence, or for which there is evidence against). It is not generally recognized as a mental defect because it is so wide-spread. But - if everyone on the planet were addicted to alcohol (alcoholism) that would not make it any less of a disease. Everyone on the planet is mortal and therefore dying of at least 'old-age'. While it took centuries, 'old-age', (senescence) is now recognized as a disease, a cascade failure of systems which might be curable. In the same way, the disease of delusional credulity in things for which there is no evidence is a mental disorder.

I would not endorse personal attacks on theists, not on them as people, but it is fair to label them ignorant, because clearly they are ignorant of at least the fact that they are suffering from a delusion. Everyone is deluded about something, it's part of having an organic super computer like a mammalian brain - 90% of one's experience is generated internally. Our theory of mind, our sense of self, the ephemeral thing we think of as 'I', or being conscious - it's an emergent property of an organ designed to keep this mechanism functional and to propagate it's genome.

Having a working brain doesn't guarantee accurate perception of reality, it only helps inform the behavior of the animal far enough to achieve those goals of propagating one's genome.

But our brains are so complex now that we can expand our theory of mind and we can observe the mechanism that is doing the observing and we understand it's strengths and weaknesses.
(or... I should say we ARE BEGINNING to understand its strengths and weaknesses.)

We can KNOW when and where our brain's inherent weaknesses manifest and we can build mental tools (and physical tools) to keep us from succumbing to those impulses and urges which are now dangerous due to our scope and breath of destructive capacity. In other words, knowing how prone to delusion we are, the armor against it is to refute/refuse any claims which are NOT SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. The corollary is that humanity must not tolerate delusional, magical, supernatural thinking in any form. It is like giving everyone a nuclear bomb. It's just too dangerous to allow.

There is only one way to cure this disease and that is to give it no quarter, to constantly throw reason and logic and rational thought at it. To REFUSE to tolerate it.

And it is important to fight this because magical thinking - credulity in things that cannot be proved - open up too too far too many dangers.

Imagine for a moment if it was A FACT that if you performed a certain function or act, that you would DEFINITELY receive an immeasurable reward? Imagine for a moment that it was a FACT - and undisputed FACT that one human was worth something but another human was not? There is no evidence that killing infidels will get you to paradise. There is no evidence that christians are going to heaven and jews are not. Yet - if someone is afflicted with the disease of magical supernatural thinking - it is possible for them to be UNABLE to realize that it is NOT A FACT.

If it WAS A FACT that killing infidels was GOOD and if it WAS A FACT that killing infidels was the key into PARADISE then it is perfectly rational to kill infidels.

ALL religions, all magical thinking, all credulity, all moderation and tolerance of this disease opens up the possibility of an infected person believing things for which there are no evidence, i.e. thinking things for which there is no evidence is a fact.

Even simple, so-called moderately afflicted people are dangerous. Think of all the people who Pray instead of taking action? Think of all the people who tacitly accept ludicrous actions because of tradition? Who turn a blind eye to discrimination or to ostricization due to some superstition. Think of the Psychological Damage done to children who are terrified by delusions of hell and ghosts and other mumbo-jumbo. Think of all the DEATH And SUFFERING due to religious opposition to scientific research deemed 'against god's will' which includes a lot of vaccination research of the past.

This disease must be confronted and should not be tolerated any more than one should tolerate Cancer or Heroin addiction. Certainly those that are afflicted should not be abused or attacked ad hominim. But - the beliefs themselves deserve NO RESPECT WHATSOEVER and in fact DESERVE TO BE CONTINUALLY put under the scathing scrutiny of reason. The important thing is to not turn disrespect of the belief into disrespect in the person harboring the belief because that person is suffering from an affliction.

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Non Human Animal Intelligence

This is a comment to the excellent Blog Post "News About Animal Cognition – Are They Too Smart for Honey Boo Boo?", written by Aline Kaplan in the Blog, "The Next Phase", the post itself a blog entry commenting on the NY Times Article " ", written by Frans De Waal and published on March 22, 2013

Great post.

I'm shocked that this is still news, I have seen research that hinted at much greater intelligence levels in non-human animals for decades. And there's been many developments over the years pointing to the depth and range of non-human animal emotional intelligence (which is perhaps even more important). Shocking to me is that human animals have emotionally bonded with non-human animals for centuries but have failed to consider that their non-human friends genuinely reciprocated.

Personally I blame religion/magical thinking - even Descartes postulated this soulless automaton ridiculousness based on a flawed delusional belief that human animals were somehow not only superior to others because of their position as apex predator but because a magic book written by Stone Age mental patients who heard voices and had hallucinations said their sky-daddy told them that humans are special and get to go to a wonderful place when they die but everything else just ceases to exist.

I recently recovered from Carnism myself so I know how insidious the psychosis can be, how it can affect a human and cause delusions. Having been raised to eat other sentient creatures, even though I was presented with the evidence of their cognitive abilities, and having been exposed to their emotional range, I failed to make the connection and even dismissed it when it was directly pointed out to me. I stopped eating animals because it became obvious that to eat animal meat, and consume the products of animals like their milk, is unhealthy for humans. I also realized that the amount of pollution and waste associated with consuming other animals was 7 to 10 times worse than eating plant based foods. It was only after a few years of not being a party to this terrible cycle that I was able to realize how deluded I was, to realize how I overlooked all the evidence that I was eating beings who could feel and think in ways that were similar to me.

Turns out there is a lot documented (not in rigorous lab setting perhaps but well recorded and documented nonetheless) data out there of non-human animals doing things that clearly show emotional intelligence and capacity to feel similar to human animals. Selfless acts of sacrifice for loved ones, depression, anxiety, fear, generosity, abstract planning, concepts of time, strategic planning, etc. Almost every rescue story you learn of in an non-human animal sanctuary illustrates a story of a brave and intelligent non-human animal doing everything it can to save its offspring, or to escape its torturous existence. They hide escape implements or loved ones from their captors, they capitalize upon spontaneous opportunity to flee, they can recognize a human willing to help from a human out to harm them.

For some reason (I blame this arrogance of superiority that religious thinking encouraged) humans feel they are special and they act as if they have the right to cause suffering and perpetuate torture that makes the concentration camps of the Nazi's look like vacation spots.

That's what gets me. We blanche at the notion of 6 million people tortured over the course of a few years, and we do this because we think this is morally reprehensible, because we empathize, because we can imagine the fear, pain, suffering of those victims. Yet 10 BILLION (yes, with a B) non-human animals are subjected to conditions as bad or worse than a Nazi camp every year in the USA alone. And all the evidence indicates they can suffer, they can feel pain, anxiety, depression, fear, empathy for their family suffering similarly, trepidation for the future, terror, etc... just like the humans in the Nazi camps.

Having been a part of that cycle for more years than I have not been, I'm as guilty as everyone else. I think this research is important but with the very real effects of the psychosis Carnism affecting most humans, plus the terrible influence of religion fostering not only Carnism but arrogant superiority and hubris, I don't know if facts alone will have much impact. Certainly in the USA it is clear that facts are not important to the average US Citizen.

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Building on the Nantenna idea from my previous post

Building on my previous post about nantennas and nano-emissive displays - and a little background on the way most electricity is produced today.

How electricity is produced: Hydrocarbons are burned (or using a nuclear reaction) to produce heat which boils water, generates steam, the steam is ducted into a turbine, turbine spins, causing a dynamo to rotate and that rotation produces electricity.

This process is pretty efficient, ranging from about 33% (on the low end, usually coal power plants) to almost 60% (high end using a combined cycle gas fired design).

But it is bulky. It has a LOT of moving parts. [diagram] A lot of maintenance. It is not really useful on moving vehicles. Like boats, submarines, space ships, etc.

So here's what I was thinking - if you can tune a nantenna type structure to convert visible light and IR spectrum photons into electricity at around 50% or 60% (theoretical nantenna efficiency limit is over 80%) then might it be possible to take a nantenna and configure it in some kind of heat flow path between burning hydrocarbons (or nuclear reactor) and a heat sink/radiator?

This may not be more efficient than the the most efficient turbine dynamos but it seems like it could be more efficient than coal and competitive to the most efficient means, BUT with the benefit of being much much smaller, much fewer moving parts, and therefore, possibly more advantageous for use in mobile power sources.

Think about how revolutionary something like this could be. Imagine for example, an RTG [diagram] using something like this instead of a thermocouple that might be between 2% to 7% efficient at converting the heat from the radioisotope to electricity. If you could use this nantenna instead of a thermocouple and if you could realize 30% to 60% conversion efficiency, then instead of building an RTG that produces 150W for 30 years, it could produce 3KW for 30 years. Imagine 3KW for 30 years out of a 300lb device with zero carbon emissions. Thats the kind of thing that could power an average household for 30 years with no additional costs and no carbon footprint.

What about the science that could be done on satellites and on other planets using RTG's 15 to 30 times more powerful than they are today.

What about smaller nuclear powered submersibles, nuclear powered air craft, etc. The mind boggles at the possibilities.

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Nantenna and SED/NED Nano-Emissive Displays - Solar Power

Reference Links
Nano-Emissive Display (SED/NED TV)
Nantenna Solar Panel
So - I was thinking about this idea of nantennas - basically a super solar panel. The link to Wikipedia above outlines the basic concept. The thing that I am thinking - if you read the other link, about SED/NED displays is that the NED/SED displays exist, and basically are the nantenna process in the reverse.
the Nantenna, visible and IR light goes in, and it moves electrons in a circuit. In a SED/NED display - (which does exist already) - is electrons moving in a circuit making photos go out.
So - my thinking is that we ALREADY have nantennas, and they have the potential to be over 80% efficient. (current commercial PV solar panels are about 20% efficient, so that's 4 times more efficient).
Even if they can make one that's 50% or 60% that's still almost triple the efficiency.
I have read that the average home solar installation has about 5kw of panels - which is not enough to provide all the power for the house, but it offsets some of its power needs and occasionally produces a surplus. With a nantenna you're looking at the same surface area producing 15 to 20kw, which would power the house in question and its neighbors.
We gotta get on that.

UPDATE:
I expanded on the above in my next post:
Suggestions for research into other applications of Nantennas

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Suggestion to fix Social Security in the US

Social Security is a program that I think has market perception issues. It is further hobbled due to some flawed initial logic in its setup.

The market perception issues is that people think that Social Security is a retirement plan or that the funds paid into Social Security are one's own funds.


Social Security was created to be an emergency compassionate safety net for people who lived beyond the average lifespan but who did not have the means to save up for the period of their life they could not work, and further was conceived at a time where work was generally physical in nature. Further, the monies paid in to Social Security by workers are distributed to
individuals who are not in the work force any longer.

At the time of inception it was many people to each retired person collecting Social Security. Now I believe it is 3 working people for every recipient of Social Security.



The flawed initial setup logic is that the model did not include mechanisms to adjust for dynamic variables. Probably because the architects of the time did not foresee some of the variable parameters. At the time, I don't know if they would have foreseen a time when work would be mainly defined as an intellectual endeavor, a moving or reshaping of information, rather than physical labor. So they would not have foreseen a time where much older people could still be viable contributors to society in the work force, as they can today since it takes little physical stamina to be a knowledge worker. Further, I don't know if they could conceive a time where living to 100 was no big deal and insurance companies are not realizing that the first person to live to 150 is alive today.

I am a democrat, a progressive liberal, a humanist and I person who is generally compassionate and all for a society that cares for those in need and does not simply allow its citizens to suffer needlessly. However, I still see merit in a free market. I am not generally in favor of unnecessary hand outs.

Towards that end, here are some suggestions to enhance the Social Security safety net.

• Build a mechanism to allow for changes in longevity and definitions of productive capability. In the near term that might mean creating a stepped program such that persons within 5 years of retirement receive all existing benefits at the age previously set as standard, persons 10 years to retirement receive benefits 2 years later, persons 15 years 5 years later, and so on. Further down the road, for persons born after the new methodology is implemented, they become eligible for benefits at the apex of the actuarial bell curve for that birth date.


• Build a mechanism that allows for adjustment of retirement age based on the then current definitions of what it means to be an employable citizen. I cannot foresee what the workforce requirements 20 years from now will be, for all I know people can put a cap on their head and perform work in a virtual reality, and perhaps the best candidates for that future work reality will be people over 80 years old.


• Clarify that these benefits, as a safety net are not universally doled out equally but instead distribute as needs dictate. This does not mean participation is optional - this is a safety net by society for society - to help those in need. So - all citizens legally working are compelled to participate but set net worth thresholds by which the amount of benefit distributed after retirement is determined. If a person retires with significant financial resources (I am not going to propose here what the thresholds and levels should be, but only illustrating the concept), then that person has no need of Social Security benefits, further, a person who has reached an age where they are no longer able to participate in the work force but who has moderate means may need moderate additional benefits and would receive moderate Social Security benefits, and finally one of exceptionally meager means may need a greater degree of Social Security benefits.


• Finally - there is a wealth of information out there which illustrates how the current system is inefficiently operated, and which reformation can shave billions off the current costs, extending even the existing operational paradigm's viability for many more years. For example, Medicare is currently not allowed to negotiate better pricing on prescription drugs. Those types of bureaucratic inefficiencies need to be analyzed and logically/rationally addressed.

By making these reasonable and logical enhancements, by removing emotion and rhetoric, I think that we can establish a compassionate, responsible and sustainable program to ensure those citizens who need support after they can no longer participate as wage earning members of society, are sustained and supported in their senescense.


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