Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Evolution of Universes

The suitability of our universe for the evolution of life is incredibly unlikely, which means there were, or are, many failed (or failing) universes.

This implies that a diversity exists in universes, such that some support life and others don't--or perhaps suitability for life falls along a spectrum. 

If it's somehow possible to create universes, and it must be possible since there are universes, then it's possible that the life in some universes will figure out how to do it.

Universes in which life learns to create new universes will likely create them to be similarly hospitable.

Such hospitable universes, as such, would then, over "time" increases as a proportion of all universes.

Given enough time, virtually all universes may be hospitable to life.

If the universes most suitable to life create universes faster still, as they might since there will be more life within them to do this, then given enough time any given universe can be assumed to be teeming with life.

Given the immensity of the cosmos, it would be incredibly unlikely that we should happen to exist at it's relative youth.

This point is further emphasized by the exquisite harmonies we find in our own universe, and thus we may assume it to be the most "recent" in a very, very old line of progenitor universes.

We know this universe is suitable for life. But what's even more fascinating is that our best guess is that it isn't even rare. Rather, our universe is likely to by one among countless others that are teeming with it. 



Monday, May 5, 2014

Open letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler

May 5, 2014

Dear Chairman Wheeler,

Ordinary Americans have had a hard run over the last 13 or 14 years. We’ve seen economic bubbles burst, our retirements and savings lost, and our tax dollars squandered on expensive foreign wars. Successive waves of banking and media consolidations have left banks too big to fail and the media with interests conflicting with those of the public. In this time we’ve been compelled to accept increasingly invasive security measures in our airports, in our shopping centers, and even our schools and homes. With each passing month, new leaks of classified documents add evidence for the regrettable conclusion that we, the United States of America, are now a surveillance state. And now a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions have irreversibly shifted the balance of ultimate authority in this country from the broad base of the public to a small, but deep-pocketed and well-connected elite. The one thing we really had going for us has been the widespread adoption and of the greatest tool for the promotion of intellectual freedom, free thought and free speech, since the movable-type printing press: the Internet.

In no time in history has human kind ever come so close to realizing John Stewart Mill’s ideal of an efficient marketplace of ideas. All that we have achieved in this venture, from the vast repositories of universally accessible knowledge to communication tools which have given voices to the voiceless, have been made possible through the historic enforcement of so-called Net Neutrality rules. It is the digital expression of the democratic ideal that something revolutionary, something wonderful, can come from anyone anywhere. And time after time it has.

Mr. Chairman, as you consider the adoption of new rules undermining the principle of Net Neutrality, please keep in mind that this decision could very well be the hammer that drives the nail into the Democracy’s coffin. The long term consequences of such an institutional change are always difficult to predict, but we know that enormous corporations lobbying for the changes will be in a position to remake the Internet in a way that disproportionately reflects their narrow economic interests. We can expect fewer people making decisions over what and how people access information, which will inevitably translate into diminished access for the little guys. Perhaps worse, the presence of such “gate keepers” creates opportunities for corruption and collusion between large power brokers who desire to influence the content of public discourse to suit their interests.

Our legislators are unresponsive, now firmly in the grip of corporate power and can no longer be counted on to do anything in the public interests that runs against the interests of their patrons. In court, our rights are only as good as our lawyers, and they have better ones. So many of us don't even realize how important this issue is the future of our country. Not coincidentally, the cable and public airwaves are dominated by a handful of unimaginably wealthy companies that control virtually everything that passes through them, save the Internet. It’s our last bastion of true equality and freedom. Save the Internet. No "fast lanes". Treat all data equally

Thank you for your time.

Submit your own comment to the FCC (14-28) proceeding number : http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=hvz4a