Cultural Theory Today - 9 Sept 25

Two stories for today.

1. HHS released a report on childhood health that affirmed the Secretary's biases on diet and exercise and his vaccine skepticism - calling for a study on the negative effects of vaccination. A better path would be a study on the actual causes of autism - which will point to genetics rather than impurities in the environment or vaccines. RFK is making decisions based on values - which is part of the job of one appointed by an elected official who shares these values - or has a constituency that does. The problem is that the Secretary has control of scientific decisions. We need to wall that off or put research in a department that requires credentials to head. Such a department should also study climate change without political interference.

2. Not so cultural - we hit an Unidentified Arial Body with a reaper drone. We connected and the UAB, after taking the hit and destroying the drone, righted itself and kept going. Essentially, we fired on tech that is out of this world. Hopefully, this does not show the rest of the galaxy that we are dangerous, although the fact that we believe in the existence of evil, rather than seeing it as a human invention means that we are still primitive and dangerous, which means we will be isolated from the rest of any galactic civilization. If we were to develop socially, we would not need advanced tech - we could have access to it just by joining the rest of sentient life. That this is the case is what makes this a cultural story. 

Othering people by calling them evil is a values decision, not a reasonable one, and it is a group intuition, not a sensory reaction. Although some initial racism is an evolutionary adaptation regarding danger - why can go beyond it with effort. Our efforts have largely been going the other way.

Note to the U.S. Navy - don't shoot at alien tech.

How Close Are We To Building A Practical Skyhook?

The problem with space elevators is artificial satellites crashing into them. You could not have a depot at low earth orbit unless you could lift a booster with the payload, which is also why an air launch is impractical for an orbital vehicle. For example, the Falcon 9 (the lower stage) gets to Mach 8 at 40 miles in altitude. We cannot go that fast (let alone Mach 25, which is orbital velocity which takes an upper stage to reach - which is how fast a sky hook to LEO would go. Could an air drop ship - with SRBs attached to it - be able to get to Mach 8 and carry something as big as Falcon upper? There is very little Oxygen at 40 miles up - and 2 miles up is hard for humans to breath without O2. The only way a ship dropper would work is if it did not have to carry oxygen for its whole journey and not use SRBs. Until a broken washing machine anti-grav engine is built, we are stuck with something like Falcon.

A broken washing machine would contain a spinning weight that wants to be perpendicular to its axis of motion but is prevented from getting there with no friction (such as with magnetic repulsion - and with the field not collapsing). Then the spinning mass must have greater force than the mass of the rest of the ship (or maybe including the throw weights). To not spin out of control, you would have to have counter-rotating masses - so two turbines from one or two reactors - and now things get heavy - however the need to create a heavy enough throw weight may be the necessity for an improvement in reactor technology. You can see posts with these systems laid out at spaceconsortium.blogspot.com - with the anti-grav posted in the earliest set in 2004. A post from that time on space exploration was given to a friend who worked at Goddard in 1995, which was used as a resource for both ULA and the current civil space paradigm - although there was also internal Goddard management initiative that predated this resource. 

The going to Mars post, as with all the earliest posts, actually went up in 2002 on Geocities until the platform was taken down - where John Wayne Smith of 1000 Planets - who is known for wanting to use shuttle fuel tanks as space hab modules - hired me as director of colony planning. We discussed launch options and he dropped the fuel tank option, while I dropped air drop. We settled on trying to contact Elon to see if Falcon heavy or the Starship booster might be able to lift modules. The modules we were thinking of were bigger than ship - having 3 levels - but ships may be workable for smaller modules for an orbiting station, as well as a cradle ship to get modules down to the surface of Mars. If they are fully tricked out that would have to be damn heavy cradle to get itself to orbit and then decelerate from orbital velocity with such a load and travel to the service safely. Of course, an anti-grav ship would make that task easier. Modules would be tricked out in LOE or on the Moon. From LOE would like require lunar materiel, as it takes less delta v to get from the moon to LOE than from the earth's gravity well. The fuel to get from LOE to the Moon, if that were the assembly point, would still have to come from the moon unless a catapult or cannon could launch hydrogen and oxygen (or jet fuel) - or more likely ice - but encased in metal - as well as smaller equipment. Any catapult or gun would have to have a small booster and be able to get payload (with booster) to 40 miles and Mach 8.

Dragon upper stage would need landing legs and SRBs for a first trip to the Moon - then fuel up on material from there (or maybe a set of upper stages) to get materiel from the moon as well as being fueled up enough to get payloads to translunar injection orbits. Or they could ferry ship modules (with landing legs of their own or could have a system that land horizontally with engines at both ends). The question is whether to integrate Ships into space station, lunar habitat or Martian habitat is easier in LOE or on the Moon - or maybe both. It depends, ultimately on the welfare of the workforce - which means that some type of artificial gravity for LOE work (and stations) is practical from the point of view of human anatomy. 

A better way to go to Mars is with large space stations that serve as JPL in orbit - with families and support crew to keep the station running - both technically and as a social system. The size of such a crew for any exploration station - or construction station with family - could be planned out in a "table top" exercise with NASA staff from JPL and Goddard doing a conceptual design - with a facilitator who knows something about Colony Planning and Systems Engineering. I know a guy. I see him in the bathroom mirror a few times a day.

Unfalsifiable Astrophysics: 3 Kinds of Research with Nothing to (Dis)prove

In empiricist science, falsification means that you can only get it wrong once. In exploratory science, you only need to get it right once (and then repeat). The question is, when do we cross the line into engineering?  Also, did Rheinberger falsify Popper?😉🤣Of course, now I have to read Popper for my own research. I need to check on how Patreon works - and see my own page to see if I have any.

My work on the philosophy of science uses the tools of Jungian personality theory and of Mary Douglas work on grid-group cultural theory (which she originally came up with in studying the sociology of religion).  From what I have noticed from these is that science can be lots of things. Social science brings values (feelings) - rather than just reason - into the mix (making it more feminine). The harder sciences put reason (Jungian thinking) above whether it engages in sensory (individual) versus intuitive (communal) perception. Academy, as a rule, attempts to lionize shared intuition and reason - those being the key factors in what Mary Douglas called Hierarchism. Relying more on values than reason, but still using intuition is sectarianism (which some call egalitarianism - although reactionaries use the same methodology).  On all of these polarities, everyone does everything. One polarity is about 80-90 v 10-20, with the second being more like 60-40 - so that one can go either way on the second polarity. For example, I am an extraverted thinker - so I gather in lots of information, not concentrating one thing (introverted thinking) - and can go toward either organizing (sensory/individual) or consensus building (intuitive/group). Let's talk more.

On God and Aliens. In the world of exploratory science, if one person can be proved to have known something while in an NDE that he or she could not have otherwise known (such as someone dying or something happening that he could not have known), then that has to only happen once - which it has. Or we can think of this as falsifying the hypothesis that there is no God. Six on one, half dozen of the other.  My point is that, if NDEs are real, then the God question is pretty much solved - the only question is now how to deal with religious counterprogramming that cannot handle the concept that there is no Hell, which has led to lying in the space by injecting stories - probably lies - that claim only Jesus saves - which Jesus would have found abhorrent - as well as those of us who, using reason - cannot accept a personally vengeful God. In the Old Testament, God punished nations who turned a blind eye to the poor and abused the alien. (Comment on Gaza implied).

I mention Aliens because one way we know they are there is the reporting back of NDE survivors who say that this is not the only civilization in the galaxy - indeed, we are the primitives in a time out because of how we view sin as an opportunity to hate. The original sin is not eating the apple, it is blaming God for keeping the knowledge of the good and evil of others from us. In other words, we invented evil, rather than calling things unfortunate or dangerous. Until we stop doing this and calling it free will, we are unfit for galactic civilization. Finding faster than life travel is not the metric. Finding peace with ourselves is. Of course, once hooked into the galaxy, a whole lot of technological advancement will be technology transfer rather than a need for new science - until the youth of that period can catch up to the state of the art in the galaxy - then we can do science again.

Face facts! Starship will never get humans to the Moon! BUT it can do ...

No Starship or Falcon upper stage should ever deorbit. Find a nice place in space to orbit them and put an Axiom station there as well to manage the gathering inventory until used to build stations (with ship) and boosters (with Falcon). At some point, put up the now theoretical automated fuel factories - then move a load of fuel to earth and use it to start ferrying boosters to the Moon to fuel up and free return to Earth to boost lunar missions. Anything is possible in orbit with enough fuel.

Did Climate Skeptics Get THIS Right?!

A few years ago, I wrote a paper on how global warming works and how science is not effectively communicating. I will stick to the science in these comments. They constitute a smoking gun. Taken together, this information goes from scientific speculation on what might happen to a trail of evidence as to what is actually happening. 

We are talking about proof, not probabilistic models as to what might happen. 

This research shows what is happening at Barents Sea:

"Sigrid Lind has shown steady warming from the mid-2000s, with much of it attributed to sea surface temperature increases. The decline in sea ice has lessened salinity and mixed the layers of the sea – causing it to warm (Lind 2018). Wang, et al, associate Barents Sea Warming with temperature in the Northern Atlantic (Wang 2019). Sea ice loss has led to stronger El Nińo events (Liu 2022). Arctic surface water temperature measurement is leading to better science (Olthoff 2022). Amplified warming continues to lead to Barents Sea churn (Cai 2022). Huang, et al confirm the role of the winds in this warming (Huang 2022). Right on schedule, this weather pattern has started, yielding the worst year on record (Cheng 2023). Sea ice will melt further due to shifting winds (Gramling 2023). Some even question if Barents is still arctic (Gerland 2023). At COP28, one of the panels was about whether a tipping point had been reached. The explanation is in line with the above research (ICCI 2033)."

Cai, Ziyi er al.  2022.“Amplified wintertime Barents Sea warming linked to intensified Barents oscillation,” Environ. Res. Lett. 17( 044068) DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5bb3

Gerland, Sebastian, et al. 2023. “Still Arctic?-The changing Barents Sea” Elementa Science of the Anthropocene 11(1). DOI: 10.1525/elementa.2022.00088

Gramling, Carolyn. 2023. “Arctic sea ice may melt faster in coming years due to shifting winds. Science News August 16, 2023. Accessed December 6, 2023 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ice-melting-dipole-arctic-oscillation

Huang, Ji, Robert S. Pickart, Zhuomin Chen & Rui Xin Huang. 2022. “Role of air-sea heat flux on the transformation of Atlantic Water encircling the Nordic Seas” Nature Communications 14(141) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35889-3.

Lind, Sigrid , Randi B. Ingvaldsen and Tore Furevik. 2018. “Arctic warming hotspot in the northern Barents Sea linked to declining sea-ice import,” Nature Climate Change 8 634–639.

Liu, Jiping, et al. 2022. “Arctic sea-ice loss is projected to lead to more frequent strong El Niño events” Nature Communications 13:4952.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32705-2 

Olthof, Ian, Robert H. Fraser, Jurjen van der Sluijs 3 & Hana Travers-Smith. 2022. “Detecting long-term Arctic surface water changes,” Nature Climate Change  doi:10.1038/s41558-023-01836-9

Wang, Quiang, et al. 2019. “Ocean Heat Transport into the Barents Sea: Distinct Controls on the Upward Trend and Interannual Variability,”  Geophysical Research Letters 46(22), 13180-13190. DOI 10.1029/2019GL083837.

The key bit of research on how heat gets from the Pacific to Barents Sea (dropping moisture at the Rockies but keeping the heat - then picking up more moisture in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic and dropping it all at Barents is found here:

"Research on Barents Sea and Arctic warming (cited above), and how this affects the jet stream, and the current climate cycle is well established, as is the role of the westerly winds which move heat toward Northern Europe and Barents. Richard Seager, David Battisti and others have shown that the warming of the north Atlantic and Barents Sea is cause by the westerly winds from the Pacific, which drop their moisture at the Rockies – becoming dry – and then proceeding to the Atlantic, as well as variations in surface sea temperature (Seager et al, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007)."

Seager, Richard, et al. 2000  “Causes of Atlantic Ocean Climate Variability between 1958 and 1998” Journal of Climate 13, 2845-2862.

Seager, R., et al. 2002.  “Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 128, 2563–2586 doi: 10.1256/qj.01.128

Seager, Richard. 2006. “The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate: The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth,” American Scientist the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. 94 via Research Gate

Seager, Richard, and David S. Battisti. 2007. “12. “Challenges to Our Understanding of the General Circulation: Abrupt Climate Change” via Research Gate.

Does the Universe SPIN once every 500 billion years?!

The question is whether or not our motion toward the great attractor is the universe circling the drain. We know we are heading there, but cannot see where places where the light has not yet reached us are doing the same thing. The question should be, at what point in the aging of the universe did we start the journey back to the initial point? The  distance at which observations shift from expansion to travel to the G.A. is the clue to demonstrating whether the question is reasonable.

Did I get it COMPLETELY wrong last week??

Agriculture has grown - with its costs and benefits evening out. Coal in China is a problem - and if you look at how actual Chinese people live, on average, the benefits of their industrialization are primitive - accruing mostly to elites. The question we must focus on is how our activities have affected the heating of Barents Sea, which has varied hugely - not marginally - and is correlated with the use of gasoline powered vehicles. We need to permanently park these things and replace them with tethered electric in urban, suburban, exurban and highway settings (with hybrids in rural areas where infrastructure would cost more energy and carbon than the harm created).  

Climate goals are too little too late. The spring in the US has brought about yet another year of record heat in the same areas in both El Nino and La Lina years. The tipping point was breached at least ten years ago. Drastic action is needed to reset Barents Sea to a point where we keep breeching records. Global temperatures are not the issue. Heating of that specific place, caused by a specific chain of events that have been traced, is what must be focused on - not probabilistic climate models and international goals. 

Could We Land On The Moon Using Only A Single Starship Launch? Building ...

Three. One fueled booster to launch the landing module and the crew orbital module as the other two. Transfer vehicle can be a stage two of falcon that starts on the moon, where fuel is processed from lunar resources - launched from the lunar surface to LEO by catapult and the fueled portion returning with modules. Landing module stays and is refilled on the lunar surface.

Michael Watkins: You can’t afford to be a dinosaur | Big Think+

Jung identified four cognitive functions: thinking (reasoning to make decisions) feeling (decisions on values), intuition (group agreement on concepts or values - and creativity) and sensory (individual perception). AI needs to have at least three of these working together, with thinking doing non-creative fact checking, feeling is a reaction to sensory information and seeks authenticity - deliberate bias where norms can be programmed - but must be able to change based on both individual sensory information and group intuition/creativity, sensory is easy for external input - but it is blind to personal sensation other than diagnostics, while intuition is where generative AI comes in. 

These functions exist in combination - and also include internal and external foci.

 For example, thinking/creating is a group activity with organized and specialized knowledge. When one of these functions is extraverted, the other is introverted. For example, intuitive thinking (deep dive into problems) is paired in humans with external intuition - contributing creativity to the larger system. It can also have a broad base of knowledge for the purpose of imposing a plan (rather than offering solutions).  Knowing a lot and offering a lot of options is socially inconvenient - and is the problem with current generative AI. Internal analysis for internal aggrandizement is Skynet.

Thinking can also be paired with sensing. For example, seeking reasons and storing the information (in order to offer options to clients or other machines), or seeking sensory input from the outside to take a deep dive in solving problems (and then coming up with a single answer).

Individual feeling is based on morality - and is paired with extraverted sensing - either hedonistically or by drawing from a range of data points in order to provide a single answer to the group based on a broad set of facts. External feeling is reading the room and is paired introverted sensing - recording group values in memory (and using these to solve problems with focus).

Sixteen profiles are based on having one ability be strong and its ability week, with the other two balancing and the prime function being either internal or external.

The beauty of machines is that you can have all four functions balanced, so there can be two basic functional sets depending on whether senses are for external use to yield on answer for the group or storage of data to provide a variety of options.