The Inability of Humans to Understand Growth

Albert Bartlett is a modern day Malthusian on a mission. Bartlett is physicist who claims that “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function”. He points out what is undeniable: that at current growth rates the world population will have to decline within a period of historical rather than geological time (i.e. not that long), or we will not have enough room to stand up, let alone farm, and that this decline can only come about through a finite number of means: contraception, abortion, disease, war, famine.

With this knowledge, people who are against contraception, the item on this list which will cause the least suffering, are extremely dangerous.

If you believe that the exponential rise in population which coincides exactly with the use of fossil fuels has something to do with fossil fuels; if you believe that the geometric (i.e. non Malthusian) increase in the efficiency of farming through oil based products has something do with oil, then its even more imperative to start listening to people like Bartlett.

Unfortunately a large percentage of the population would rather believe that the cause of our prosperity is due to either the Dancing Wuli Masters, the ascendancy of Mars in Capricorn or the miracle of the image of Jesus Christ in a damp stain on a shit-house door in Ohio. Many of the same people think that we absolutely must breed like rabbits because a garbled, Greek translation of a late Bronze Age folk tale, called The Bible, modified through centuries of the game of Telephone, says so. Is it surprising that these people fail to understand the exponential function?

19 comments science

The Second Best French Song Ever

Charles Trenet sings La Mer, followed by Bobby Darin’s classic cover (only a slightly sub standard recording of it), Beyond the Sea, below.

14 comments music

Scootermania

Two brands have dominated the history of Scooters: Lambretta and Vespa.

The larger and more decorative Lambretta is often considered more desirable for vintage scooter enthusiasts, however, I have always preferred the minimalist simplicity of the snail-like Vespa from the early 60s, which seems to better capture the spirit of modernism rather than Mod.

This documentary traces the history of Viaggio and Innocenti scooters from post war Italy to mid 60s Britain. It has some particularly great period footage from the 50s.

8 comments gear, history

Dog on a Skateboard vs Baby in the Pulpit

American Christianity is increasingly weirder than Christianity in other countries (except, I am told, Brazil, although I have never visited). When I was younger, this video of a infant preaching in the hellfire tones of a death metal band would have been an alien artifact from a backwater Bayou. Today, it would fit comfortably on the cultural flagpole of ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’. Perhaps the fact that this one year old does a fairly good impersonation of a Baptist preacher says more about the intellectual culture of evangelical sermons than the infant’s prodigy.

This is the point where you might think that I have posted exactly what I said I wouldn’t – the equivalent of a 30 second clip of a dog on a skateboard. The difference is that encouraging dogs to perform human acts like skateboarding is more amusing than cruel, whereas encouraging children to perform adult tasks like preaching or fellatio, is inhuman.

This seemingly bland video sums up for me, something very serious, the rise of nationalism in the guise of an artless bastardization of a religion that was pretty fucked up to start with.

via Atheist Media

6 comments religion

Tony Wilson Interviews The Smiths

Tony Wilson’s Factory Records defined the Manchester music scene. All the more amazing because he famously passed up signing Manchester’s biggest band, The Smith’s. Wilson claimed not to have regretted it: “Mr Morrissey had a great talent and was a truly horrible human being who treated others very badly and I’m over the moon that I never had to work with him”.

With the benefit of hindsight, the highlight of this interview is the brief chat with, the man who wrote the tunes rather than the words, Johnny Marr, rather than Morrissey (I wonder if Wilson is deliberately trying to wind him up by calling him Steven). Morrissey comes off as pretentious, but perhaps this was before he decided that Smith’s lyrics were deliberately funny.

This is where Morrissey and Wilson are fascinatingly similar. Both had grand ideas that were quite often pretentious but like natural showmen, both were clever enough to adapt to how what they did was perceived. Wilson was cocky enough to name a small record label in an industrial town, after the world’s most famous art studio. Today, Wilson’s Factory is as famous as Warhol’s.

As an example of Morrissey’s showman-like adaptability, I can’t help but think that his lyrics were originally intended to be serious, but when the DJ who launched them to fame (John Peel), assumed that they were witty and ironic, Morrissey played along rather than lose face. Whether this is true or not, almost doesn’t matter, since perhaps creativity is just knowing how to edit accidents. In the end, the wit and irony became real, even if the style had originated as accidental camp.

Popular songs will never be all bland after a line like: I was only joking when I said by rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed.

Thanks Tom

1 comment music, nostalgia

Music for Ejection Seat Test Videos

I’ve posted a list of ejection seat videos over at Oobject today. The top clip stood out because of the oblique choice in music. It features extremely calm oriental sounds of the type used to represent ‘a taste of the orient’ in a commercial for: (a) a Chinese restaurant; (b) a spa; (c) somebody about to get a Kung Fu beating. As a backdrop for the extreme violence of a fighter jet ejection, it works surprisingly well, while the more obvious choice of Blur’s ‘Song 2’ is used for the second clip.

Interesting that such different pieces of music can be used quite effectively, for the same thing.

8 comments gear

Eames Lounge Chair Debut in 1956 on NBC

Charles and Ray appear on a very dated TV show presented by a creature with a very dated accent to launch a chair which looks as modern today as it did then.

In two parts, second part here.

3 comments architecture, nostalgia

Sarah Palin’s Church

In case you were wondering. Unless the majority of people defy history and vote for a black man and the President exceeds a normal life expectancy, the world’s most powerful person will be someone who attends this, otherwise harmless, children’s playgroup of a church.

18 comments religion

21st Century Jet, Making the Boeing 777

The Triple Seven has been eclipsed by the Dreamliner and the A380, however, this fantastically comprehensive documentary shows just how important a plane it is. Part 1 of a mammoth 5 hour joint PBS/BBC production about the making of the 777.

3 comments gear

New York Slum Images

Quite often, I hear people complaining that New York has lost its edge and that it has been ruined by gentrification and Yuppies. The people that I hear this from have tended to be middle class white people.

Here are some pictures of New York in the 70s and 80s, when I remember visiting the South Bronx and it looked worse than my early memory of Beirut. Not much to romanticize about, unless you look back wistfully on poverty rarely seen outside of the ‘developing’ world and people shooting up through bloody, shoeless feet. The gritty creativity of downtown New York, was a theme park hell, whereas further north there was the real thing.

There is a consensus these days, that rising oil prices spells the end of suburbia. However, few people under 40 in global cities such as New York and London have any memory other than the improvement of inner city areas. Here real estate costs soared through tenement and terrace gentrification, rezoned industrial building conversions and more recently cartoon loft condo dwellings. But in a country with few socialist programs outside of free tennis courts, and a financial services crash which will lop a sizable chunk of New York’s local government revenue, the Brownstone and brick frontiers could easily retreat as they have done in the past.

2 comments society, world