It's the 12th of Elul, and that means that I need to post a 12th solution to a problem. Fear not- said post will come soon! I invite people to suggest problems for me to solve, though... c'mon, challenge me. :)
-Z
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Problem #11: The Situation in the Middle East
Problem #11: The Situation in the Middle East
Rabbi Ira Stone from Congregation Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Philadelphia once commented that, in the distant future, people would look back at the situation in the middle east today- HaMatsav, as they’d call it in Israel- and say that it was the result of the horrid job done by the French and (especially) British in dividing up the old holdings of the Ottoman Empire. Much as they did with their colonial holdings in Africa, the European powers created arbitrary national borders, ignoring the history of the peoples contained within. So, the British took a bunch of Sunni Arab, Shi’ite Arab, and Kurdish Muslim tribes, put them under a Sunni King, and said “hey- congratulations, you’re all Iraq!
More relevant to this post, the British also took their chunk of Mandatory Palestine (the French were assigned land which they dived into Syria + Lebanon), first said that “"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,”1 chopped off the larger part of it- east of the Jordan- and created a Palestinian Arab state... under the of a Hashemite family, imported from Saudi Arabia, who hated the Palestinians2. Again, brilliant.
But, that’s where we stand: Israel, the sole established democracy, and sole state with minority religious rights, surrounded by Arab nations with which it has either a cold peace- such as Egypt- or is in an official state of war- Syria, Iraq, etc. Note this, though: democracy. I note that because democracy is the answer.
The Democratic Peace Theory holds that democracies are less likely to fight wars against each other than other types of nations3. Immanuel Kant gives three primary reasons for this: the citizens of each democracy will recognise the others as legitimate; democracies give the ability to vote in favour of or against war; and, assuming that the democratic republics are capitalist, it’s likely that neighbouring democratic republics will be trading partners, and it’s bad business to shoot your trading partners. In short, if Israelis and Arabs are making money together, it would be highly stupid for them to start shooting each other.
Unfortunately, democracy can’t be imposed, as the US experience in Iraq should amply demonstrate. Rather, democracy must evolve from within. To take a neo-Hegelian (almost neo-Marxist) perspective, democracy develops in a country as the bourgeoisie acquires the wealth and experience to demand power for themselves, and the feudal dictators gradually cede some of their power as an alternative to revolution. The middle east today, while hardly a perfect analogue for Europe, is largely feudal. However, western oil money is giving the feudal leadership the ability to continue oppressing the potential development of middle class, secular, democratic leadership, thereby preventing the organic development of Arab democracy.
The irony, of course, is that if the existing powers today decided that trade with Israel was a better alternative to perpetual war with it, there’s no reason that the resources- human and natural- of that region shouldn’t make it stable and prosperous. But, diven the importance of Arab democracy, the best thing that could happen to the middle east today is actually peak oil, as it would deprive the ruling powers there the money by which they are preventing the development of democracies- and peace.
Endnotes
3. Kant, Immanuel. “Perpetual Peace,” 1795; this notion is raised by others, though, including Thomas Paine and Alexis de Toqueville.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Problem #10: Racism
Problem #10: Racism
Here's a big problem, but one with a small answer. OK, not so much a small answer, but small people as part of the answer: children.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, to solve any problem, we need to identify what its cause actually is. If you think that the cause of a disease is bad air, rather than germs, then you try to solve cure disease by moving people around, rather than cleaning things. In this case, the cause of racism is rather insidious, because it's an instinct: fear of the different.
Fear of the different is a very important instinct in animals because, especially if you're a small, prey animal, something different from you might eat you. This, in and of itself, makes fear of the different a very important, helpful instinct. Except... it gets misapplied.
Humans may look different, while actually not being different at all. The differences between any two chromosomally normal humans of the same sex are minute compared to the difference between any two given humans of the opposite sex, simply because men have a Y chromosome where women have a second X. But, and here's where things get complicated, people may look different, on a surface level (since, obviously, we don't see chromosomes with the naked eye). This can cause peoples' varied appearance to inappropriately activate the instinctive fear of the different, when there's no real difference at all.
The solution: raise children together, in integrated communities, especially in integrated schools. This way, kids see other kids, ones who look like them and ones who don't, doing the same stupid things that they, and all other kids, do. These kids will realise, on a gut level, that people are the same, no matter what the colour of their skin. They will understand, at a gut level, how stupid racism is- more to the point, racism won't even occur to them.
Of course, adults can screw this up, if they choose to teach their racist poison to the next generation...
Here's a big problem, but one with a small answer. OK, not so much a small answer, but small people as part of the answer: children.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, to solve any problem, we need to identify what its cause actually is. If you think that the cause of a disease is bad air, rather than germs, then you try to solve cure disease by moving people around, rather than cleaning things. In this case, the cause of racism is rather insidious, because it's an instinct: fear of the different.
Fear of the different is a very important instinct in animals because, especially if you're a small, prey animal, something different from you might eat you. This, in and of itself, makes fear of the different a very important, helpful instinct. Except... it gets misapplied.
Humans may look different, while actually not being different at all. The differences between any two chromosomally normal humans of the same sex are minute compared to the difference between any two given humans of the opposite sex, simply because men have a Y chromosome where women have a second X. But, and here's where things get complicated, people may look different, on a surface level (since, obviously, we don't see chromosomes with the naked eye). This can cause peoples' varied appearance to inappropriately activate the instinctive fear of the different, when there's no real difference at all.
The solution: raise children together, in integrated communities, especially in integrated schools. This way, kids see other kids, ones who look like them and ones who don't, doing the same stupid things that they, and all other kids, do. These kids will realise, on a gut level, that people are the same, no matter what the colour of their skin. They will understand, at a gut level, how stupid racism is- more to the point, racism won't even occur to them.
Of course, adults can screw this up, if they choose to teach their racist poison to the next generation...
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Problem #9: Lack of clean drinking water
Problem #9: Lack of clean drinking water
Sorry- here's a very simple, short post.
The two most important public health efforts in human history are universal vaccination, and clean water systems. In the days before clean water systems, there were basically 2 ways to avoid dying from drinking water: boil it, or add alcohol to it. This helps to explain the historical popularity of coffee, tea, and various alcoholic beverages. The Royal Navy had the “Grog Ration” - a dilution of ⅓ rum to ⅔ water- not because they liked their sailors drunk, but because they liked them alive!
If you wanted to save literally millions of lives in the world over 10 years, the most cost effective thing would be to sponsor the construction of modern, clean water systems in the third world.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Problem #8: Climate Change
Problem #8: Climate Change
This post will be very simple: climate change is coming, like it or not. Humanity has spent the last 250 years or so- since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution- pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Scotty would say, “ye cannae change the laws of physics!” And the laws of physics say that carbon dioxide creates a greenhouse effect. This isn’t a mystery, and nor are its results: the world is heating up. Statistics confirm this: the hottest years on record are almost all in the very recent past1. The North Pole has, literally, melted, forming a small lake2. Global warming is in the process of opening the legendary Northwest Passage3. And, most worrisome, some of the world’s great cities- such as Amsterdam, Osaka, New Orleans, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Mumbai, Shanghai, New York City, and Miami-.could well be put underwater by rising sea levels4, Beyond this, greater heat has been suggested as the cause of massive climate disruption, such as more and more violent tropical storms, and hotter heat waves. This, in turn, is likely to lead to population disruption, as people move from areas either put underwater or made unbearably hot. Population movement, in turn, can lead to greater violence, as it puts people into conflict with each other.
What can be done to prevent this? Frankly, I’m not sure anything can be done to stop it. The industrialised world continues to pour carbon dioxide into the air, and this continues to heat the world, causing more of the above effects. The best thing that we can do is- and here’s where this post connects to the one on peak oil- move away from carbon-based energy sources to ones such as water, wind, and solar power. Ironically, though, one effect of greater warming will be higher wind levels...
Endnotes:
Real Life Madness
My life has gotten insanely busy over the last few days. I posted Tuesday's entry today, and intend to follow up with Wednesday's tonight.
Problem #7: Peak Oil
Problem #7: Peak Oil
Note: this is, by necessity, closely related to the one for Day 8, discussing climate change.
First things first: oil, coal, and natural gas are all fossil fuels. This means two things: they exist because of processes that occurred long ago, and there isn’t any more being made. To be accurate, more oil, coal, and natural gas could be made, but I rather doubt anyone wants to wait the hundreds of millions of years that would be required for that to occur. This means that there’s a limited amount of all of them, and once that’s met, there’s no more. This makes fossil fuels the very definition of a non-renewable resource.
Peak oil is a fairly simple concept on its face: it’s a hypothetical date after which world crude oil production peaks and begins to inevitably drop since, as a non-renewable resource, it’s impossible to create more of it1. Now, the date of peak oil is impossible to determine exactly, as greater exploration and extraction techniques- such as the highly controversial one called hydrofracking- have increased the amount of oil that is available. However, peak easy oil- that is, the kind which can be extracted by drilling a hole on land- may be reached already. The decline in availability of easy oil, naturally, leads to increased pressure to extract difficult oil- such as via deep sea drilling, hydrofracking, and tar sands.
Peak oil is not some left-wing political plot; it is reality, and facts, as has been observed, are very stubborn things. Given this, a rational approach to peak oil should be a gradual transition away from fossil fuels to renewable sources. While renewable sources are ramped up in availability, difficult oil- and gas via hydrofracking- can provide a helpful bridge energy source. But, like it or not, oil isn’t going to be around forever, and continuing to drill for it in more and more dangerous locations won’t- and can’t- change this fact.
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