On the Precipice

This is America.

This is the land of xenophobia and robber barons.

This is the land of democracy and liberty and opportunity and this is the land that the Nazi party and South African leaders studied to develop their apartheid caste systems.

This is the land of diversity and downtrodden immigrants and of border walls and internment camps.

This is the land that rejected monarchy and dynasty and that embraces oligarchy and capitalistic aristocracy.

This is the land of religious freedom and of morality laws and cultural homogeneity.

This is the land of independence and of intimidation police, of difference and of hate crimes and gun violence.

This is the land of contradictory, clashing, competing values and concepts of the common good.

This is the land of free individuals and of dominion.

This is the land where half of our neighbors just voted for the most openly racist and hate-based presidential campaign in decades--and where half our neighbors voted against it.

I told my two boys this morning, when they asked if I was upset about the election, that I'm definitely not happy, but that we're lucky to be who we are, because this won't directly impact our lives all that much--and that there are many others who will face much more drastic and negative changes that we need to be paying attention to.

I wrote that the day after the election last week, when Trump was elected president. Now we wait to see if he is going to successfully implement all of the changes he has threatened--and what the country looks like when he is done.

InspiroBot

A couple of other things I shared to Facebook in response to the election:

According to a recent poll about the Age of Monsters, half the world's testable population believes it has definitely ended, while the other half believes it has just begun.

 - Sofia Samatar, Monster Portraits

Now that the election workers and voting machines are out of the building, this morning I finished resetting my library's meeting room for general use--chairs back in the closet, tables in their corner, etc. I also discovered this: in moving the flag and pole around, the eagle atop was broken. This election broke the left wing of the American eagle.

So.

My just-turned-eleven-year-old son is already moving on to Christmas, his school choir having begun preparing for their holiday concert.

"I remembered it all," he said after singing The Twelve Days of Christmas in the car. "I knew it last year, but had to review some today for it to all come back. I thought there was something about 'poison darts,' but that was the pipers piping. And I remembered frogs, but that was for the lords a leaping."

I'm just wondering about the method of delivery the true love chose for the poison darts . . .

We've been busy aside from the election, with a weekend trip to a new city as part of his birthday celebration, among other things. I've also read a few good books. Here's one.

How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future by Vaclav Smil. A description (not mine), followed by my thoughts:

An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish.

We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.

In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead?

Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future

Smil makes himself hard to dispute because he provides so much data to support his every assertion. Want to know how much steel the world produces each year, how it's used, and what pollution it produces? Smil has an answer. Want to know your average hourly risk of death while driving compared to flying? He has your numbers. He spends much of this book quantifying as many aspect of contemporary life as possible, working to understand the world with numbers.

And what conclusions does he draw that readers may want to dispute? Well, first and foremost, that we can't draw any firm conclusions about the future. That, and that change is generally much slower and more gradual than forecasters of all stripes predict. Most don't consider the multitude of complicating factors impacting how the world works, and thus oversimplify our situation and expectations. Climate change will not be as rapid and immediately life-changing as the common narrative proclaims, yet making the ultimately needed change of eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels is a much more monumental task than almost anyone realizes.

Smil is strident--almost combative--in making his case that the vast majority of futurists are misguided, but underlying that is his assertion that they are fundamentally under-informed. This book is his attempt to help us deepen our understanding. He's not the most engaging or entertaining writer, but his content is certainly valuable. It's a good book that everyone would benefit from reading.

Some excerpts:

Tornadoes kill people and destroy homes every year, and detailed historical statistics make it possible to calculate accurate exposure risks. Between 1984 and 2017, 1,1994 people were killed in the 21 states with the highest frequency of these destructive cyclones (the region between North Dakota, Texas, Georgia, and Michigan, with about 120 million people), and about 80 percent of those deaths took place in the six months of the year from March to August.

This translates to about 3 x 10(-9 power) (0.000000003) fatalities per hour of exposure, a risk that is three orders of magnitude lower than just living. Very few inhabitants of America's tornado-swept states are aware of this rate but they recognize--as do people in other areas subject to recurrent natural catastrophes--that the probability of being killed by a tornado is sufficiently small, and hence the risk of continued living in such regions remains acceptable.

-----

In recent year, lightning has killed fewer than 30 people a year in the US, and when assuming that the danger applies only when outdoors (averaging four hours a day) and during the six months from April to September (when about 90 percent of all lightning occurs) the risk equals about 1 x 10(-10 power), while extending the exposure period to 10 months lowers it to 7 x 10(-11 power) (0.00000000007).

-----

Modern economics will always be tied to massive material flows, whether those of ammonia-based fertilizers to feed the still-growing global population; plastics, steel, and cement needed for new tools, machines, structures, and infrastructures; or new inputs required to produce solar cells, wind turbines, electric cars, and storage batteries. And until all energies used to extract and process these materials come from renewable conversions, modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on the fossil fuels used in the production of these indispensable materials. No AI, no apps, and no electronic messages will change that.

-----

Informed looks at the three existential necessities of life--breathing, drinking, and eating--concur: there should be no unavoidable apocalypse by 2030 or 2050. Oxygen will remain abundant. Concerns about water supply will increase in many regions, but we have the knowledge and we should be able to mobilize the means needed to avert any mass-scale life-threatening shortages. And we should not only maintain but improve average per capita food supply in low-income countries, while reducing excessive production in affluent nations. However, these actions would only reduce, not eliminate, our reliance on direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies in the production of food for the global population (see chapter 2). And, as I explained in the first chapter, moving away from fossil fuels cannot be done rapidly. This means that, for decades to come, their combustion will remain the principal driver of global climate change.

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We value now more than later, and we price it accordingly. . . . This universal inclination to discount the future matters greatly when contemplating such complex and costly undertakings as pricing carbon in order to mitigate global climate change, because there would be no discernible economic benefits for the generation of people that would launch the expensive quest.

-----

Being agnostic about the distant future means being honest: we have to admit the limits of our understanding, approach all planetary challenges with humility, and recognize that advances, setbacks, and failures will all continue to be a part of our evolution and that there can be no assurance of (however defined) ultimate success, no arrival at any singularity--but, as long as we use our accumulated understanding with determination and perseverance, there will also not be an early end of days. The future will emerge from our accomplishments and failures, and while we might be clever (and lucky) enough to foresee some of its forms and features, the whole remains elusive even when looking just a generation ahead.

I didn't love it, but I'm glad I read it.

Something I wrote a long time ago:

Rhythm is more than just percussion instruments. We can make banging sounds by stomping our feet or clapping our hands or grunting our throats, of course, and that is where he started, but he made me open my eyes to even more. He showed me how to hear rhythm in everything, from the cycles of the moon and changing of the seasons to walking on the road and listening to a busy kitchen. It was only when I could appreciate the music of the unnoticed and mundane that he started teaching me how to make my own music.

Context in a bit.

Another book:

A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous by Caspar Henderson

A fascinating and joyous celebration of sound.

Henderson coined the word auraculous, in the subtitle, as a combination of aural and miraculous, and defines it as "wonder for the ear." In this book he takes a trivia-heavy deep dive into as many different types of auraculous as he can identify, from the sounds of the cosmos and deep space through the noises of thunder, volcanoes, and other natural phenomena to the calls and hearing of animals and humans. The echolocation of bats and whales, the history of bells, the mythical sounds of Hell according to our famous works of literature, and so much more.

It is a work of wide-ranging exploration, appreciation, and fun.

Excerpts:

The rhythms of night and day, season, tide and long-term change inform our own, and the way we perceive and live. There is a vast, pulsing harmony--its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.

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It has also been found that when bees bump into each other they go 'whoop!'. At first, researchers thought that this was a signal to the other bee to stop, but it now appears they are merely surprised.

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Evolutionary processes give rise to forms and capabilities that few if any of us would have been able to think up. Evolution is not only smarter than you; it has a stranger imagination.

-----

Tupa, the first father of the Guarani people, stood up in the middle of the darkness and, inspired by the reflections of his own heart, created the flames and the thin fog, the beginning of a song.

While he still felt inspired, he created love, but he had no one to give it to. He created language, but no one could hear him speak it.

So Tupa recommended the gods to build the world and take care of the fire, fog, rain, and wind. And he handed them the music with the words of the sacred hymn, so they could give life to the woman and man. Now the world would not be in silence at last.

So love became communion, and language took over life, and the first father redeemed his solitude in the company of the man and the woman who sing, “we are walking this land. We are walking this shiny and beautiful land.”

Another one I enjoyed but didn't love. I particularly like the excerpts I pulled out, though.

I especially like this bit from A Book of Noises . . . 

The rhythms of night and day, season, tide and long-term change inform our own, and the way we perceive and live. There is a vast, pulsing harmony--its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.

 . . . because it reminds me of something I wrote a long time ago:

Rhythm is more than just percussion instruments. We can make banging sounds by stomping our feet or clapping our hands or grunting our throats, of course, and that is where he started, but he made me open my eyes to even more. He showed me how to hear rhythm in everything, from the cycles of the moon and changing of the seasons to walking on the road and listening to a busy kitchen. It was only when I could appreciate the music of the unnoticed and mundane that he started teaching me how to make my own music.

That was part of the creation of Degolar, my blogging pseudonym, before I was a blogger. According to my Blogger profile I've been doing this since August 2005, which is about what I would have guessed.

A year or so before that, some friends and I started a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that lasted for years (both in-game and out). We all became really close friends, socialized much aside from the game, and extended the game beyond game nights. To help us stay connected, we started a shared blog for the game where we each used our character names. Then some of us branched out into other blogs. And that's where this blog came from and why I'm still Degolar, even though the game ended a long time ago.

At the very start of all of that, we began by creating our characters for the game. We each came up with a backstory for our characters to explain their origins and guide us in playing their motivations and personalities. I was the party Bard, and came up with a lengthy story. It was my attempt to personalize this general concept:

In the worlds of D&D, words and music are not just vibrations of air, but vocalizations with power all their own. The bard is a master of song, speech, and the magic they contain. Bards say that the multiverse was spoken into existence, that the words of the gods gave it shape, and that echoes of these primordial Words of Creation still resound throughout the cosmos. The music of bards is an attempt to snatch and harness those echoes, subtly woven into their spells and powers.

The greatest strength of bards is their sheer versatility. Many bards prefer to stick to the sidelines in combat, using their magic to inspire their allies and hinder their foes from a distance. But bards are capable of defending themselves in melee if necessary, using their magic to bolster their swords and armor. Their spells lean toward charms and illusions rather than blatantly destructive spells. They have a wide-ranging knowledge of many subjects and a natural aptitude that lets them do almost anything well. Bards become masters of the talents they set their minds to perfecting, from musical performance to esoteric knowledge.

I have no idea if a digital version of this exists any longer, but I still have the paper I printed for sharing and have transcribed that. Here is how Degolar began, some 20 odd years ago.

Degolar

Appearance

He is a youthful adult with short, brown hair and a slight beard. His skin is darker than most half-elves, but his eyes are the distinctive green one would expect. He is an athletic 5'1", with obvious grace, strength, and bounce in his step. He wears well-used leather armor and traveling clothes with many pockets and pouches. For the most part the garments are practical browns and grays, but there are flashes of orange and green here and there. He carries a metal-tipped quarterstaff, has a short sword and dagger at his belt, and has a drum flung over his back. He also wears an easy-going smile, and seems open and quite approachable.

Degolar's Tale

Lia was an especially independent and willful child. Though her family was often exasperated with her, they knew she was good at heart and would eventually find her place in the community. That's why they were caught so completely off guard when she ran off with a human. She was in her 90s, it was true, and a little rebellious and immature as all Elves are at that age right before they reach full adulthood, but they never expected her to be that rash. Raegar was his name. He was part of a group of traveling adventurers who were spending some time recuperating in the town on the edge of their lands. Lia and her friends would often spend time in the town to get some space away from the protective eyes of their families. It was a common practice. It was not so common, though, to not return from the town. Lia had a friend help provide a cover story, and it was a couple of days before her family realized she wasn't coming back. When they finally uncovered the truth, they learned that Lia had fallen in love with Raegar. Knowing that her family would never approve, she had decided to secretly join him when he left town. And she was right, they didn't approve. It took almost a month, but they finally caught up with the couple. Lia was brought forcefully back home and Raegar was warned never to come near their community again.

Everyone tried to return to life as it had been before, but there were problems. Lia was heartbroken, of course, and blamed her family. Then there was the fact that she was pregnant. Lia's family may have been firm about wanting her to stay at home, but they weren't heartless. After the worst of her grief was over, they gave her a special place in the community and tried to raise me as one of their own. Even though Lia was a good mother to me, I knew from the earliest age that there was something different about us. She was younger than all of the other parents and lacked a husband. She never really had an answer when I asked about my father. And it didn't take long for me to realize that I was different than my playmates. The community did its best to make us feel included--I do believe that--but we finally came to realize that I wouldn't ever feel completely accepted and a part of things. When I was in my early teens, Lia decided we should try to find my father to see if he could give me a happier home than she had been able to provide. No one stopped her from leaving the community on her second attempt.

The road has been my only home ever since. We wandered all over the country, traveling from town to town; Mother told me she was following hints and rumors that were leading us closer to finding the man called Raegar, but I don't believe she ever had any real hope. We were in our third year of searching when we began sharing the road with a traveling troupe of performers. There had been musicians in my Elven home, of course, and all manner of storytellers, minstrels, and the like in the various cities and villages we had seen, but none had ever captivated me quite like this lot. Oh, don't get me wrong, I probably enjoyed entertainments more than the average boy--the bold deeds and fantastic adventures gave me dreams to fill the void where my father should have been--but these performers were different than any I had seen before. They had traveled through all kinds of exotic lands and had collected members wherever they went. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and more, light and dark skin and everything in between, clothes that ranged from outlandish to simple. They were the oddest mix of cultures, languages, and styles, yet they somehow made it all work. The very different-ness of it was a strange attraction to me. It was not only their performances, but their company on the road. I couldn't get enough. My mother sensed this, and decided that our journey should parallel theirs for a while.

We never spoke of it explicitly, but Lia and I both gradually came to realize that I was feeling more at home with this nomadic troupe than I ever had in our stable community. I was especially drawn to the music of Kand, a percussionist. The primal harshness of the drums was alien to the Elven music I had always known, but it spoke to me. And I soon learned that the drums could be subtle and melodic, too, and that there were other percussion instruments besides the simple banging of drums. While the storytellers and acrobats should have been much more exciting, the hypnotic simplicity of Kand practicing was more enticing to me than even their best performances. Kand seemed pleased with the attention and took more note of me than any adult other than my mother ever had. I don't know if Lia had never had any real hope of finding Raegar, had given up during our years of wandering, or had come to feel that Kand was a good enough substitute, but she decided that her quest was at an end. After observing my growing relationship with him, my mother asked Kand to take me on as an apprentice. He accepted, and I surprised myself by agreeing that it was a good decision. Lia left us to return to her home not long after, her face happier and her step lighter than I had ever known.

As with all apprentices, I was frustrated with the pace of my training. Kand did not start by teaching me to make music with the instruments, but to take care of them. He was a craftsman for our troupe. He not only made and maintained his own instruments, but all percussion instruments for the group. And wherever we stayed for more than a day or two he would find local work to supplement his performances. Under his tutelage, I learned to love and care for all manner of instruments from the many lands we saw. Each had its own unique sound, and he made sure I knew how to appreciate them before he ever let me bring music forth from them. He also taught me that rhythm is more than just percussion instruments. We can make banging sounds by stomping our feet or clapping our hands or grunting our throats, of course, and that is where he started, but he made me open my eyes to even more. He showed me how to hear rhythm in everything, from the cycles of the moon and changing of the seasons to walking on the road and listening to a busy kitchen. It was only when I could appreciate the music of the unnoticed and mundane that he started teaching me how to make my own music. But eventually he did. Kand taught me to use his drums as well as every instrument we worked on. Like him, I eventually became a full-fledged percussionist who could craft and use instruments from many lands.

My life with Kand was more than just a musical apprenticeship, however. We were part of a troupe that was seeing the world, and it seemed I picked up skills and knowledge from everyone I encountered. I learned many of the songs and tales from the other performers in our company, as well as the craft of presenting my own. Sometimes I would exercise with the acrobats when I got restless at night. At Kand's urging, I even spent time practicing every day with the stick-fighters. He wanted me to be able to protect myself if needed, but we performers didn't have the military skills of swords and bows like my Elven community had. We had to take care of ourselves with less flashy weapons like daggers, slings, and staffs. So I did. And, of course, I learned from the road. I learned how to survive as a stranger in town, how to pick up useful bits of information in a tavern, how to read a crowd and make use of its mood, how to go unnoticed when necessary. In short, I grew up to become a full-fledged member of the troupe.

After years had passed, I was finally invited to take my place among the performers. I was to the point that the only way to keep improving my craft was in front of an audience. I was ecstatic. I still played second to Kand and the other percussionists in the troupe, but I was one of them. It was only after I had been playing with them for a time--after the initial excitement had worn off and I started really paying attention--that I realized we made more than ordinary music. When we really performed well, we made magic. We could reach more than an audience's ears; we could speak to its hearts and souls. I began to understand why we never lacked for money, and why the life never got old. We could make actual magic, the same as any wizard with years of study, but our magic came from our music and craft instead of dusty books.

Kand taught me how to channel my newfound power and give it a practical use, then told me my apprenticeship was finished. He had taught me all he could, and I knew enough to continue developing my skills on my own. I stayed with the troupe after that, enjoying the life I had grown into, but I never felt as content after Kand's pronouncement as I had when I was still his apprentice. The magic had stirred something in me. I wanted to explore my potential, see what else I could learn outside of our normal performances. I wanted to experience adventure and heroic deeds instead of simply telling of them. My restlessness grew over time, until the day came that I said my farewell to Kand and the troupe that had been my home for years.

We had come across a group much like, I suspect, the one Raegar had been in. They, like me, were in search of excitement and new experiences. When I said farewell to Kand, it was only because I had found a place in a new company. We left the city and well-traveled paths to find adventure, and we found it. I won't go into all of the details, but I will say I learned many new things. I put my performing skills to use in ways I never imagined. I improved my stick-fighting skills by using them to keep myself alive in combat. And I found I had a greater affinity for magic than any of the other performers I had known. I can even make some magic now without music or stories. I have tried to learn from all of my encounters, just like I did from my troupe and the road, and have found I'm still an eager student. I want to keep learning more magic, create more heroic tales, and find more adventure. I want to become skilled in the ways that only a life of excitement can teach.

I was also glad to rediscover this bit of what I wrote, because in many ways it is a foreshadowing of one of the major themes that has developed over the years on this blog:

These performers were different than any I had seen before. They had traveled through all kinds of exotic lands and had collected members wherever they went. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and more, light and dark skin and everything in between, clothes that ranged from outlandish to simple. They were the oddest mix of cultures, languages, and styles, yet they somehow made it all work. The very different-ness of it was a strange attraction to me. It was not only their performances, but their company on the road. I couldn't get enough.

As I shared, for example, just last post:

On my drive to school a recent morning with the boys:

[Older]: "Ugh, our neighbor put his big 'Trump' banner back up."

Me: "Yeah, he did, and that's okay. We want to be able to put up the signs we like, so we want him to be able to put up the signs he likes."

[Older]: "What matters is that everyone has the right to have their own beliefs, even if we don't like them."

Me: "Exactly. We want people to be allowed to be different than us. That's what's most important."

Diversity makes us better.

Finally, one other thing I've read recently: The Book of Stolen Dreams by David Farr.

Intrigue and adventure abound in this skillfully told tale of young teen siblings caught up in the resistance efforts against a repressive regime. A fictional setting with a slight bit of magic, but otherwise quite grounded in reality. Farr is a gifted storyteller with excellent pacing and plotting and a light, witty touch. I was entirely transported into Rachel and Robert's world, the worries, hopes, and fears, and delighted in their successes. Top notch.

I share because I particularly like this bit of description:

She had some inner quality, a contact with the mysteries of life that lay hidden beneath the certainties of science and road maps. It meant she sometimes got lost in the real world, of course, because her brain was somewhere else. She was, he thought, a bit of a poet, touched by magic.

In contact with the mysteries of life, a bit of a poet, touched by magic.