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Thursday, July 11, 2002
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Chris Lucas writes: Our complex world includes many levels and types of value. We have the systemic values of distinctions, A or NOT A, the extrinsic values of comparisons A > B and the intrinsic values of wholeness A + B. But we also have a further type, and that is the holarchic concept of wholes within wholes C(B(A))), a multi-level approach which we can call 'whole systems' thinking. We normally, in our societies, treat individual levels in our reasoning, whether abstract labels (e.g. Arab), single variables (e.g. cost) or complete entities (e.g. a partner). This tends to obscure the real inter-connectedness of our world, the way in which all these values and levels link together, not only within the three dimensions of space, and the one of time, but also in the fifth dimension of scope or emergence (growth and evolution). In this nested (fractal) dimension we look to discovering the whole contents of our system, we reverse the analytical reductionist zoom-in tendency of recent specialist science and generate instead a zoom-out transdisciplinary synthesis of the dynamic component interconnections, we create rather than destroy. Creation is a value-add step in which the whole is more than the sum of the parts that make it up, for example an aeroplane flies, but none of the components can do so, a girl skips, but none of her cells can do that. This synergy is what adds value levels to the whole, we need new concepts, new criteria to judge the system, new functions have become apparent, new opportunities - this is very much an active view of the world, in comparison to the passive 'detached observer' position often taken. In this valuation metaview we emphasise the twin reciprocal roles of all teleological entities (analogous to the Yin and the Yang), where we are both agents of action towards our environment and agents of opportunity within the environment of others. This is a coevolutionary form of human valuation which has some interesting perspectives to offer upon many traditional ethical or moral problems. (07/11/02) | |
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Medard Gabel writes: Our abilities to detect famine before its most pernicious onslaught is similar to our ability to detect hunger or an infection in an individual human. Waiting for the infection to rage out of control or putting the life of the patient in jeopardy, is similar to how we deal with famine. To eliminate the ad hoc nature in which famines are currently dealt with in the world-usually a terminally late effort that begins well after the onset of the now preventable disease-an International Famine Relief Agency would be developed. Its function would be to both amass a large grain reserve (not unlike in function to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the United States) and to use this food for emergency aid in times when global weather patterns, political conflicts or other disruptions in food supply cause the spectra of famine to rise in some part of the world. The Famine Relief Agency would be charged with the responsibility and empowered to deal with famine in both the curative and anticipatory mode. An annual budget of $2 billion would fund a Famine Early Warning System; purchase of grain and other food reserves; and shipment, delivery and distribution of food. The amount of food accumulated in reserve would be a function of the severity and extent of famine in the world at any given time. In years of plenty, the reserves would be built up; in years of shortfall and famine, more of the budget would be spent on distribution of food stocks. Both activities-the purchase of grain in times of plenty and the distribution in short-fall years-would act to stabilize world grain prices. ... What would it cost? The International Famine Relief Agency could be funded with 32% of what just the US spends on candy each year. The Increased Fertilizer Availability Program could be funded with just 11% of what Europe, Japan and the US spend on cosmetics. Together, all three programs-famine relief, fertilizer and sustainable agriculture-total $19 billion per year for ten years, which is 2.4% of the world's total annual military expenditures or 1.9% of the world's annual expenditures on illegal drugs. This amount is also about 55% of what the people of the US spend on weight loss programs each year. The cost for eliminating starvation and malnutrition in the world is also about 75% of what European governments spend annually on subsidies to their farmers or 38% of what Japanese farmers receive. (07/11/02) | |
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ICU Nurse Alwin Hawkins writes: the World Health Organanizations figures for rates of infection in 2001, and we get 4*10^7 people people infected with AIDS. Then let's look at the cost of anti-retroviral therapy. Using the cheapest Indian manufactured medications, we get USD$800.00 per year, or USD$14.28 per week. So to treat every person in the world with AIDS using the cheapest drugs = USD$5.7*10^8 per week. But that's just for the medication to treat the virus. ... The people who are infected will continue to infecting others unless there is a massive screening and education campaign to stop the spread. And that means more money. ... Can the wealth of the United States stop the AIDS epidemic? Perhaps it could have, when we first discovered HIV. ... But short of an effective vaccine, all the US can do is pour gasoline on a wildfire that is rapidly burning it's way around the world. ... (I just flashed on that section of Dune when the Imperial Truthsayer says, "But for the father, nothing." Only in this case I'd say, "But for the mothers and fathers...") I don't think you'll ever hear public officials talking about these matters. It's politically impossible to outright condemn 40 million people to death, so I suspect the politicos will continue supplying the world with pretty words while waiting for a more effective measure to control the disease. (07/11/02) | |
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As the old joke goes: How are doctors and plumbers alike? ... They both bury their mistakes. ... This week the Senate approved the burying of our nation's nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Whether this scheme to bury another one of our human problems will be successful or not is still unknown. But I can't help but think that nuclear energy whether for war or peace was a mistake. As they say, knowing how to build a nuclear weapon is knowledge, but knowing not to build one is wisdom. (07/11/02) | |
6:53:28 AM 
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© TrustMark
2002
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
7/31/2002; 3:04:40 PM.
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