Do I really want to know?

 

(Image at https://www.bing.com/th/id/OIP.Wx237apHV7Um4GRHSklzGwHaE7?w=193&h=135&c=8&rs=1&qlt=90&o=6&dpr=1.6&pid=3.1&rm=2)

A YouTube podcast I’ve taken to is called The Rest is Science hosted by mathematician Hannah Fry and “content creator” Michael Stevens. In their entertaining one-hour dialogues, they explore questions like, “The Infinity Paradox” or “Would you Kill One Person to Save Five?”

“Who needs to know that stuff?” question naturally comes to mind. Yesterday, I got a lesson on magnetism: what it is, why the earth is a magnet, all served  with a side of migrating birds’ connection to magnetic forces. Some might protest, “Birds will migrate even if the earth’s magnetic polarity switches north to south, makers of compasses will quickly adjust their product to reflect it. All this whether I know it or not.”

There’s some truth in the “Ignorance is Bliss” adage.  We don’t tell children that the world lives on the brink of a horrible nuclear conflagration, do we? Would we even if it were true? And if television was airing an urgent message on a new pandemic and how to protect yourself, would you pay attention only if it didn’t interfere with an important hockey game broadcast? And would you pay more attention if you’d previously learned how the immune system reacts to bacteria and viruses and how science has invented vaccines to raise our bodily defenses, and how they work to achieve that?

Ignorance may provide bliss for the moment; it’s not that good at creating the wisdom that saves lives, or improves living conditions for the you and me (like air conditioners, let’s say). Lack of knowledge leaves us subject to speculation, guessing and conspiracy theories. I spent some time in the Roswell UFO Museum observing how misinformation and half truth could so easily indoctrinate people who lacked knowledge of the universe. [i]

But perhaps I’m sounding overly harsh. Perhaps, The Rest is Science appeals to me because I’ve a thirst for it. Some people are satisfied most by physical activity, some by the arts, some only have time to pursue sources of knowledge because of a demanding schedule of obligations. Most of us are born with wit enough to know that you eat the plum and not the stone, but not enough to follow the complicated conversation that complex knowledge demands.

In any case, if you thrive on new knowledge, try The Rest is Science on YouTube. Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens are easy to like, and knowledgeable as hell Wikipedia.

NAICA

Respond below or to gg.epp41@gmail.com

---

[i] See (14 Planets and Moons That Scientists Believe Could Support Life) on the search for alien life. Proxima Centauri B  is 4.2 light-years away, or 9,600,000,000 kilometers. The fastest speed ever achieved by a man-made rocket launched from earth is about 60,000 km/h. At that speed a trip between Proxima Centauri B and planet Earth would take at the very least, 18 years and 7 months, one way. What launched rocket could carry enough life provisions to maintain a crew for 37.2 years? And what plunder could they usefully carry back? And where would they get the enormous energy required to launch them back home?

A Kindly Hand

 

The Good Samaritan

Perhaps I’m missing the logic behind what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine, and now between the USA/Israel and Iran. Is it really only about narcissists caught up in dreams of personal greatness supported by sycophants who hope to catch some of that greatness by harnessing themselves to their coattails? Surely there’s some of that, but it’s much more, obviously,

There’s plenty of conjecture about the deep, existential meaning behind the turmoil being created. I read a defense of the American President’s actions in Venezuela as an act of God’s will; at the same time liberal Christian leaders deplored it as more nearly a manifestation of the Antichrist at work.

More immediately, I’m surprised by the postings on social media that urge Canada to purchase either the US-made F-35A or the Saab Gripen to bolster our defensive capability and align with our allies in providing military potential. The psychology of offering two alternatives to squelch debate on the much more important question of the militarizing of Canada at great expense, that I understand.  

For a small country to match the firepower of much larger neighbours is futile. Should Russia or the USA, China or India decide that they can no longer do without the resources Canada sits on, our military resistance might simply mean that the necessary killing and plundering to achieve the inevitable would be multiplied. Surely prevention of war through skilled and sincere diplomacy is a much cheaper, much more effective defense than a hanger full of muti-million dollar jets, missiles and drones.

At a time like this, it’s helpful to review the military history of Costa Rica. A small American country in a continent where the mighty USA is determined to revive the Monroe Doctrine,  making the USA the real and only America, with the remainder of the two continents its backyard, so to speak. Costa Rica abolished its standing military in 1949, the rationale being that its sovereignty vis e vis the USA could never be guaranteed militarily in any case. Also, Latin American countries had experienced the usurping of militaries by dictators as forces of oppression. Funding was diverted to domestic life enhancement; the country has found no reason to reverse the abolition decision of 1949.

Please read a short history of that choice at Why Did Costa Rica Really Abolish Its Military?

I’m loathe to raise this point, but surely the three deist religions need to re-examine themselves in the light of their own, often expressed role in peacemaking. We’re not experiencing an extension of the Crusades, per se, but  the mindsets fueling the Iran/Israel/USA War right now would probably not be happening except for the preconceptions built in by Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, each of which appear to have created and recreated the same God/Allah in their own image. Each of which have found ways to justify their positions in the current conflict embedded in their holy books.

Perhaps trying to explain wars logically is a fool’s errand. I can’t accede to the view that “as long as human nature exists, conflict will happen.” I’ve lived long enough to have experienced the empathetic, the sympathetic, the magnanimous generosity in human nature when language, culture or religious considerations are not inserted as being the essence of the moment. So I wrote a poem:

A KINDLY HAND

I was not then— nor ever was—

expectant that a kindly hand

would reach for me from up above

to rescue me from this or that

and set me down on firmer ground

 

But yet I sent a frightened prayer

from where I lay ‘mongst rocks and thorns

in a foreign ditch where few passed by ...

All hope seemed vain as darkness fell

that god or man would hear my cry.

 

I wept in fear and agony

and slept, and woke and slept again

but when the moon arose I saw

a figure hovering over me ...

I feared the reaper had appeared.

 

But no, a turbaned head now spoke

“As-Salaa-Alaikum,” was what it said

I answered him as I’d been told

“Wa Alaikum salam wa rahmatullah.”

He grunted, nodded, turned away.

 

I heard him groan to move the rocks

that kept me prisoner, tightly bound,

Unwound his turban, bandaged me

and voiced a sing-song melody

whose tone was all I understood.

 

He gathered sticks and built a fire

that spread a glow like summer sun

He sat me up, sat down by me,

We shared some Halvah, heavenly

and held communion, silently.

 

And I am now, will ever be

expectant that a kindly hand

will reach for me—not from above—

to rescue me from this or that

and set me down on solid ground.  

NAICA

gg.epp41@gmail.com