A few thoughts

Were you to board a spaceship,

head out from earth at 99.999999 percent of light speed,

travel for six months and then head back home at the same speed,

your motion would slow your clock, relative to those that remain stationary on Earth,

so that you’d be one year older upon your return,

while everyone on Earth would have aged about 7,000 years.

Brian Greene

If the Milky Way galaxy
revolves around the center about once every 250 million years
how long is a day to whom?

The opposite of a fact is falsehood,

but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Niels Bohr

If something started everything,
and as of the last consensually agreed upon educated guess,
the known universe is about 13.7 billion years old,
and the Sun, about 4.6 billion years old,
is one of 200 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy,
among about 80 to 100 billion galaxies in the known universe
which appears to include about 10 billion trillion other planets
and there is only so much stuff, much of which ends up turning into other stuff,
how old are we?

Who are we?

We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star

lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe

in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan

If Earth is spinning at about 1,043 mph at the equator
revolving around the sun at about 66,660 mph
moving around the Milky Way Galaxy at about 489,600 mph
headed towards Andromeda at about 180,000 mph
while the Local Group of galaxies is pulled toward the Local Super Cluster at about 540,000 mph
how fast are we surfing through the cosmos?

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.

But we can understand the Universe.

That makes us something very special.

Stephen Hawking

If most believed Earth was the center of the universe
before Copernicus theorized otherwise in 1514
and most people didn’t know the Milky Way was made of stars
before Galileo theorized in 1609
and most didn’t know about dinosaurs before 1855
while most were unaware of other galaxies before 1923
and we found the first planet outside our solar system in 1992,
do we probably not know much more than we think we know?

There is a theory which states

that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here,

it will instantly disappear and be replaced

by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today 

make up just 4 percent of the universe. 

The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, 

detect or even comprehend.

Space

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001),

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If life on Earth were one day...,
land based plants showed up around 10 P.M., or about 450 million years ago,
or at about 90.1% of Earths’ age,
asteroids big enough to cause large losses of life has hit about every 3 minutes,
or about once every 9.48 million years,
insects showed up around 10:30 PM, Dinosaurs - 11 PM,
'Humans' since somewhere between 200,000 to 2,500,000 years, about .04% of the age of the planet, 
about 20 seconds before midnight
while ‘Modern’ humans go back about 10,000 years, or about 0.0001% of Earth’s age,
...and what started everything showed up,
would he/she/it be very happy with what we’ve done with the place?

When they discover the center of the universe,

a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.

Bernard Bailey

If about 50 million years after Earth formed about 4.55 billion years ago
an asteroid about the size of Mars crashed into Earth
leaving the moon, which is about a quarter the size of Earth,
led to different kinds of  non 'air' breathing life about 3.9 billion years ago
until something started excreting oxgen, like our current vegetation,
which killed off whatever couldn’t adapt,
and about 99% of the thirty billion or so different kinds of everything that has ever lived on Earth 
doesn't exist anymore and left no descendants,
what are the chances of modern humans lasting how long?

Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes…but things vary, and adopt a new form.

Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this,

yet the sums of things remains unchanged.

Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD), Metamorphoses

If most 'everything' is made of many atoms
which may have very possibly been around before this universe,
which may continue to exist after the current universe is gone,
when something living dies or when an inanimate object disintegrates,
do the atoms become part of everything else?

Every atom you possess

has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms

on its way to becoming you.

Bill Bryson

If all the atoms in a human body are completely replaced with other atoms about every 9 years
and a child gets about half its DNA from each parent,
a quarter from each grandparent, an eighth from each great-grandparent and so on,
and the genetic code of everything alive and has ever lived is essentially the same only different, 
is everything on Earth relatively interconnected?

Is everything everything?

So when we say that 80% of the population can expect to be ancestors of all surviving individuals,

we are talking about their 22nd great-grandchildren…

[or] one four-millionth part.

Richard Dawkins

Professor of the Public Understanding, Oxford

If the genetic code of everything alive and has ever lived on Earth
is fundamentally the same but a little different,
did every living thing  basically come from the same beginning?

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe

is that none of it has tried to contact us.

Bill Watterson

Calvin and Hobbes

If there is more unknown than known
like what started everything and why or if what started everything is still around,
and we don’t know for certain what happens before life or after death,
what is the purpose of cognitive existence?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden

to work it and take care of it.

Genesis 2:15

Should we be able to think and do what we want
as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else doing the same?

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

If Earth became uninhabitable,
and 'we' had a spaceship big enough for some people and enough supplies
that could go 250,000 miles per hour,
and it would take about 11,276 years without stopping or hitting anything to get to the nearest star, 
where the chances of there being a habitable planet may be at most one tenth of one percent, 
should we take better care of what we have?

Once off the cliff, there is still hope if you keep running.

By running ever faster you may not fall.

Wyle E. Coyote

Don’t tread on others unless they’re treading on you, be unloved,
criticize if it won’t help, lose your temper unless it would be bad to keep it,
be a very good bad example, lead without permission, do guilt,
offend many to benefit few or let ego override intelligence.

Don’t do anything you don’t want done to you, unless you need to.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Exodus 20:13

Don’t think you need want or want more than you need,
confuse compassion with justice, consciously over-compensate for unconscious doubt,
over-adore wanted acquisition, do what you don’t want to get what you don’t need,
underestimate irrationality, or think more of what could have than what may be.

Don’t believe everything you think, conclude what you want because you want to
or confuse effort with result.

Don’t afflict inanimate objects with conjured meaning.

Don’t want what you can’t get, let obsession with righteousness metastasize into hubris,
rationalize faults by blaming others, think you know what you don’t,
do what you don’t understand, over think or swim with the incontinent.

Don’t let small mistakes become big ones
by eliminating what’s not working and doing more of what is, sooner than later.

You shall not favor a poor man in his cause.

Exodus 23:3

Don’t think you know what you don’t, conclude what you want because you want to,
say you can if you cant, obfuscate or say you’re going to and don’t.

Don’t self fulfill prophesy.

You shall not raise a false report

Exodus 23:1

Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you to get what you don’t need,
hide confusion with obliqueness, cut what can be untied, over-sacrifice need for want and vice versa,
catch falling knives, stereotypically generalize, resent, envy, slur, avenge,
ask a barber if you need a haircut, let what you own own you, lend need,
spend more than you make, build monuments, be selfish, unlovable or apathetic,
sacrifice future unhappiness for an unnecessarily pleasant present,
owe more than you can easily repay, succeed at failure or give up.

The true measure of a man

is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Samuel Johnson

Give your family a better chance to succeed than your forefathers gave your parents
and your parents gave you.

Make luck happen.

Create a higher likelihood of a better present by securing need and achieving want
in the shortest time with the least risk for as long as possible,
by thinking of what and when relative to what was
and what may happen after what could happen next.

Do the most good, in the best way, with as many people
for as long as you can.

To do righteousness and justice

is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice.

Proverbs 21:3

If there’s less risk and higher return in using a plan that matches circumstances
than trying to force circumstances to fit a plan,
relax, accept and embrace uncertainty, focus, hypothesize, experiment,
observe, acknowledge mistakes, compare, question the status quo,
consider the counterintuitive, anticipate anticipation,
find strength in weakness, weakness in strength and advantage in disadvantage,
know what you own, consult wisdom, accept and learn from criticism,
look within for faults found in others, embrace differences, respect momentum,
be incremental, bypass irrelevancy, protect your flanks, calculate risk,
prepare for instability when stable, reduce to the least common denominator,
rise above and control emotion, weigh choice, adapt, practice with someone better,
commit, accept responsibility, maximize what works, minimize what doesn’t,
tear band aids off swiftly, pay yourself forward and play to win.

Do the right thing when no one’s looking,
leave others better off for having known you and the world a better place than you found it.

Forget what you give, value what you get,
return what you borrow, replace what you break and forgive quickly.

Hope everything happens the way it does
and leave unanswered questions.

Have as much fun as soon as possible
with the least amount of risk for as long as you can.

George Hartzman

On demanding nothing and...

If an opposition of the a status quo demands nothing,
does the status quo have nothing give?

If the goal of a non-violent occupy movement with no demands
is to initiate positive change
... and the only way to initiate positive change
is to peacefully testify in mass without demands,
could occupation without demands increase the likleyhood
of creating positive change?

Can not demanding anything allow an unnamed movement
to evolve and re-evolve?

How can you win
if you don't have demands?

How can you lose?

Is the only way for a status quo to "win" against a demandless subculture
to eliminate the occupation by outlasting it,
or by force?

Could the only way for a demandless subculture to lose
be stopping started?

Is an offer of negotiation by a status quo
a win for a demandless occupation?

Is an uncalled for concession a win?

Could renegotiated undemanded concessions
indicate positive change?

How should Americans respond
if the economic and political leadership of both major political parties
in the greatest nation in the history of the world
overtly lowered and covertly hiked taxes simultaneously?

"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent"

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

What could happen if a generation
of underemployed, underpaid, educated and indebted young adults
became disillusioned by their elders’ financial mismanagement
and sought to identify and punish those responsible?

Is dissent the highest form of patriotism?

Have the educated underemployed
instigated most rebellions?

In times of economic volatility
do the wealthy fight to preserve the status quo as some rich become poor
giving some underprivileged a chance to prosper?

How many advanced degrees are awarded annually worldwide
compared to American graduates
are there job openings for new workers to fill
and how much pay will who accept where for what, when and why?

What could happen if high school graduates
can’t afford or finance higher education
while indebted graduates can’t find jobs paying enough to cover bills?

What could happen
if a new generation of middle class college graduates can’t find jobs?

Have the powerful created symbols for the powerless to destroy
to turn tyranny into nationalism?

Have the powerless created symbols for the powerful to destroy
to create dissent by turning apathy into perceived oppression?

Can a nonviolent movement
survive against an information censoring violent opponent?

Is it worth giving unlimited power to a few
to create perceived safety for many?

Is stability a legitimate reason to repress justified dissent?

Should economic plans designed to fix large, complex predicaments
rely on those who created and profited from the initial problems
who may not have wanted to identify and confront them
when they were small, relatively unknown and lucrative?

If eighty-three of the nation's 100 largest corporations
had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007
and some of the companies received federal bailout funding…?

"Capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all

but a kind of socialism for the rich"

James Grant

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If the government habitually bails out overextended businesses
is it good business to overextend?

If the government manipulates financial markets
to stimulate demand by lowering housing supplies and foreclosures
after too many borrowers acquired too much unsustainable debt
would intervention reward some borrowers,
homebuilders, appraisers, lenders and securitizers
who caused the problems in the first place?

Should shareholder and debt investors reap profits
from money borrowed from a nation’s children
to save companies responsible for creating the need to be bailed out?

If the natural cycle of laissez faire capitalism
revolves between risk and aversion
what should happen if government intervention perverts the process
to forestall short term economic pain?

At what point do bailouts do more harm than good?

Is the government penalizing well run businesses
by rewarding poorly managed firms with taxpayer money?

Can bailouts perpetuate problems instead of solve them?

Did some economic and political leaders bail themselves out of mistakes
with trillions of debt and newly created money
handed down to the unaware of following generations?

Did some stabilize financial markets in the short term
to defend political legacies and financial interests
regardless of long term consequences?

What is a capitalist democracy that subsidizes to eliminate failure?

Is the federal government stabilizing the economy
by borrowing from relatively younger voters and their children
who may not reap the prosperity of their parents?

If power can corrupt a few
can apathy devastate many?

If democracy is government by the people, plutocracy by the wealthy
oligarchy by a few, aristocracy by nobility, theocracy by clergy
corptocracy by business and autocracy by one
who has what where, and who’s on who’s side and why?

Should the majority protect the weak from the powerful?

If the National Football League’s revenue
comes from television contracts, licensed paraphernalia, and ticket sales
and divided up between the teams in two conferences
and special interest and corporate contributions
are relatively divided up between two political parties
depending on who currently holds more power
do most fans and constituents tend to cheer for their team
even though the financial foundations of both systems
enrich both sides of the same businesses
who exclude all and/or most of the nonaffiliated from participation?

Why are there only two powerful American political parties?

What should the electorate expect
from leadership dependent on the status quo?

Has the two party system
reached an unsustainable level of incompetence?

Can the wants of a few who know
outweigh the needs of many that don’t until a majority figures it out?

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe

if the people tolerate the growth of private power

to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself

That, in essence, is fascism

ownership of government by an individual

by a group or by any other controlling power"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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Who writes most of the legislation regulating corporate America?

If candidates raise money for TV and print advertising
are political campaigns indirectly paying the salaries
of those relied on for unbiased analysis?

Why would those controlling information dissemination
want to promote political candidates proposing more regulation
military industry accountability, high income and corporate taxation
campaign finance reform and pharmaceutical advertising restrictions?

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation

the first thing to be bought and sold are legislators"

P J O'Rourke

Do some politicians pacify the electorate with platitudes
while promising the status quo to those enjoying legislated benefits?

If a few contribute
the majority of large campaign donations that many can’t afford
who works for whom
and what do the few expect in return that most probably won’t receive?

Can special interest groups manipulate consumer behavior
by influencing government with campaign contributions?

Has corruption of the political, capitalist and information systems
negatively influenced economic performance and consumer behavior
through legislation, budget appropriation, regulation and taxation
to benefit a few at the expense of many?

Why do most who argue the relatively wealthy pay more taxes
than most as a percentage of income
exclude Social Security, Medicare and other federal, state and local income,
sales, property, toll road, license, permit, communications
entertainment, fuel, transportation and utility ect…taxes?

What % of income does who really pay?

Was it justifiable for the baby boom
to promise themselves trillions worth of unfunded benefits
like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
for future generations to pay for?

Why would some of one generation
want to covertly confiscate another’s wealth?

If you found the present negatively affecting the future
should you try to fix it?

Do

Thoughts of the past and future are dependent on existing in the present.

If we think, we are. We were who we think we were. We are what we think we are.

If nothing doesn’t change, we may or may not be who we think we’ll be.

If what was, is, or will be is uncertain, the only certainty appears to be present thought.

We may not actually know some of what we think we know.

What we don’t know we don’t know is more than we think.

What is may have been before the beginning, and may still be after the end.
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Some of what we need, we don't know or can't choose to do, like hunger or thirst.

To exist in the present, we must have acquired enough need in the past to make it happen.

Need appears to be thought, sustenance, hygiene and a temperate climate.

Threatened need alters thought.

The less you think you need, the easier it is to take care of.
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Want is everything else, but you have to acquire need to get it.

Over-prioritizing present want can sacrifice future need.

If want is not how much but how happy, Wealth = Happiness

If want depends on purposefully not understanding need, what looks obtainable may not be.

Want can be eliminating unneeded.
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In time, we "do" in the present, so doing nothing is choosing to do something.

Create a higher likelihood of a better present by securing need and achieving want in the shortest time with the least risk, by thinking of what to do and when, relative to what was and what could happen after what may happen next.

If thought is both logical and emotional, what we do is too.

If what we think was derived from choice or influence, what we think is may not be.

If emotion occurs before thought, reaction can precede comprehension.

Some of what we think we know, we don’t.

Don’t think you need want, want what you can’t get, or think you know what you don’t.

What to do should be an optimal point between need and want.
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There may be less risk and greater return in learning from other people’s mistakes before having to learn from your own.

If there’s less risk and higher return in a plan fitting circumstances, than circumstances fitting a plan; acknowledge, adjust and overcome.

If not thinking isn’t, it’s not about what could’ve been or what may someday, it’s about what we do now.

Have as much fun as soon as possible, with the least amount of risk for as long as you can.
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Think, Need, Want & Happiness

I doubt, therefore I think,

therefore I am.

René Descartes

You were who you think you were.

You are what you think you are.

If some of what will, can, can’t or won’t change,
you may or may not be who you think you’ll be.

You may not know some of what you think you know.

Are the only two certainties that there are at least two players, you and everything that’s not?

Craig Fehrman: "Thomas Jefferson's personal Bible"

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826)

was an American Founding Father

who was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

"Jefferson referred to "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence,
he preferred to keep his personal beliefs to himself,
a reticence that lined up with his philosophy
of individual freedom and religious tolerance.

Don’t make bets you can’t afford to lose when confronting an opponent with unlimited resources who can arbitrarily change the rules.

I don't care if I follow your rules, if you can cheat, so can I.

 

 I won't let you beat me unfairly, I'll beat you unfairly first.

 

Ender Wiggin

Fictional Military Strategist

Chess I

The chess board is the world
the pieces are the phenomena of the universe
the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature
the player on the other side is hidden from us

Thomas Huxley

Are the only two certainties
that there are at least two players
you and everything that’s not?

Do erased mistakes replicate faster?

If…the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus
and in reality the result was grossly less,
Winston’s job was to change previous versions,
so the old version would agree with the new one.

George Orwell

Doors

The secret of happiness is freedom.

The secret of freedom is courage.

Thucydides

If life is a room of open doors leading to other open doors,
do what you and/or others do or don’t, determine what doors stay open
or lock you in or out?

When one door of happiness closes another opens,
but often we look so long at the closed door,
that we do not see the one which has been opened.

Helen Keller

If positive thought outperforms negative,
can faith in open doors be better than fearing them closed?

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end,
with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.

Admiral Jim Stockdale

I believe

I believe in my family, and for giving them the chance to succeed that my father gave me, and his father gave him.  I believe in people being better off for having known me and in not doing to others what I would not have them do to me.  I believe in telling the truth and in saying what I’ll do and doing what I say.  I believe in living in the moment.  I believe in simplicity and that sometimes attachment is suffering.  I believe in doing the right thing when nobody is looking.  I believe in living my dreams and in hope, charity and the goodness of others.  I believe in the achievement of excellence in what I do.  I believe that what I think is who I am.  I believe in love and forgiveness.  I believe that the future will be better than the past.  I believe in myself and in laughing and trying to be the human being that my dog thinks I am. 

Think About It XX

Can reality not be

or be more than you think?

 

If just under the speed of light travel slows time,

and an hour can be experienced in a minute,

can a minute be lived in an hour?

 

Here we are and it is now.

 

Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

 

H L Mencken

Is everything just right?

Think About It XIX

Is yesterday tomorrow today?

 

Does time exist independently

of human consciousness?

 

Were you to board a spaceship,

 head out from earth at 99.999999 percent of light speed,

 travel for six months and then head back home at the same speed,

 your motion would slow your clock

 relative to those that remain stationary on Earth,

 so that you’d be one year older upon your return,

 while everyone on Earth would have aged about 7,000 years.

 

Brian Greene

Think About It XVIII

If there’s no certainty of what was, is, will be, or why,

is the only certainty present thought?

 

Is the present a point of no return?

 

I doubt, therefore I think.

 

I think therefore I am.

 

René Déscartes

Think About It XVII

If two people interpret artistic event in different ways,

and one asks another what they thought,

can there be wrong answers?

Past experience,

to the extent that it is part of memory at all,

is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight

to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.

 

John Kenneth Galbreith

Think About It XVI

Would the universe have to be recreated

to make a doughnut from scratch?

 

If the Sun,

which could burn out in about five billion years,

revolves with another 100 to 400 billion stars

around the center of the Milky Way galaxy,

about once every 250 million years,

in a universe with ~140 billion galaxies,

how long is a day to who?

 

If Earth spins ~1,043 mph at the equator,

revolves at about 66,660 mph around the sun

around the Milky Way at about 489,600 mph,

towards Andromeda at ~180,000 mph,

towards the Local Super Cluster at about 540,000 mph,

how fast are we surfing space?

Could everything be simultaneous?

 

Is everything but the here and now

supposition?

Think About It XV

What are you remembering

if you don’t remember but then do?

 

Could everything have already happened,

and you’re just remembering it?

 

Is the present a place you’ve never been?

Is yesterday a certainty,

if the past is dependent on the present?

 

Could the present and past

be from the future?

Think About It XIV

Could desire be future memory?

 

Could you be awake when you’re sleeping

and dreaming when you’re awake?

 

Things are not what they appear to be,

nor are they otherwise.

 

Buddha

Think About It XIII

When you recall,

are you remembering,

or are you remembering the last memory of a recollection?

 

Is present experience relative to the past,

or memories of the past?

It’s a good thought.

 

Karly Hartzman

On Reincarnation

Is what you used to look like,

what you see in a mirror?

Think About It XII

Is what’s happening, happening,

or what you tell yourself is happening?

 

Could the future be reverse obsolescence?

 

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

 

Socrates