No

“No” is a word that too many CEO’s need to hear.  The problem is that too many hire people that will agree with them or say “yes” or “great idea” or some other such yes-man technique as they either fear that their boss does not want to really hear the truth or they are cowards or simply not well informed. 

It is not only CEO’s that need to hear the word “no” but a lot of politicians need to hear it as well.

For instance, did Truman really need to drop not one but two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war?  I would argue that one would have been enough and I would also argue that it could have been dropped on a small island that we were loosing so many marines on or perhaps an unpopulated island. Leveling that island would have been enough to demonstrate our resolve and abilities.

The simple truth is that Japan was already war weary and the people of Japan did not want this war. We could speculate who and why things transpired the way that they did but the end results of those decision have still not fully played out.

Yes, Japan surrendered. But now any dictator or want-to-be dictator in the world set their sites on getting an atomic bomb too.  If the US had them than of course Russia needed them hence so many years of the cold war. Of course China would need them and of course any country with a dictator would need them as well!

Like Gunpowder, this is something that Einstein should have kept under his hat.  Any time anyone makes any sort of advancement in technology, the dictators of the world wonder how to use it as a weapon.   If one country has it, than they need it as well.

We have enough weapons of mass destruction to kill every living thing on earth many times over and yet we still keep trying to make something just a little more lethal.

No, that is not a good idea.  Wasting so much money and resources on finding better ways to kill is just so juvenile.  Now you put these weapons of mass destruction in the hands of irrational dictators and you place the entire earth and all of its inhabitants in grave danger.  Brinksmanship is not lost on today’s “leaders” who seem to be nothing more than your classic neighborhood bully who will gladly get someone else to do his fighting for him.

If a race of beings from another planet were to visit and watch some of our news or other “entertainment” they would most certainly put some sort of beacon around our solar system warning anyone else to stay the hell away!  We have entire countries to this day that are xenophobic in nature and bent on destroying anyone that does not agree with or cow down to them.   This is 2014 and this is going on today!

Imagine if you will the difference between you and the Chimpanzee. Where DNA is concerned there is exactly one percent difference between human DNA and that of the Chimpanzee.  That is 1%, that is it!  Now let’s talk about intelligence of humans compared to that of the Chimpanzee.  We think that we are intelligent because we have a space station, physics, music, weapons of mass destruction and of course we have E=MC2.  The Chimpanzee can make and use tools, stack boxes to get to a banana and even use tree branches to escape their confinement in a zoo.

If this race of Aliens were watching us they may very well compare us to their progeny when they are in kindergarten.
Their 1rst grade kids may come home from school with something that looks like your masters thesis while ours come home with macaroni art or clay ash trays.   To think that we are intelligent and that we could have anything to offer to a race of aliens that can traverse interstellar space borders on hubris.

One of our most beloved “inventors” was Thomas Edison.  What history does not tell you is that this man was anything but nice.  When Tesla came up with the concept of AC vs. DC as a way to power the city, Edison was furious. Instead of being an open minded person, he tried his best to discredit the idea.  One of the ways that he did this was to electrocute an Elephant in public trying to turn public opinion on AC.

While both men were “out of the box” thinkers, one needed some morals; the other needed some business acumen.

Some CEO’s of auto manufacturers really needed someone to say “no” to them.

The Chevy Vega with that crappy engine comes to mind along with the Pinto’s exploding gas tank.  GM using plastic parts in transmission was another not so bright spot in trying to make things cheaper.  Liquid filled motor mounts was another costly invention that failed and let’s not forget “air bag suspension!” “Not a better idea!” 

Bringing German engineering to Texas was really not too smart in the early days, as air cooled engines in 100 plus degree weather did not work so well.  The VW Microbus while a really cool looking van was not really very well suited for Texas or any place that was not flat.  They were so lacking in power that if one had to go up hill, they may very well not make it.  On top of that if the engine got a little oil and or grease on the housing and one did not take great care to keep it clean, it might very well catch on fire as was the fate of many of those vehicles.  It would be an interesting statistic to see what percentage of microbuses did not burn up compared to those that did.

Aluminum wiring for houses was another area where someone should have said “no.”  While aluminum wire conducts electricity better than copper and while it is cheaper than copper; that is where it stops.  When you connect aluminum wire to electrical outlets, switches and so forth that are not specifically designed for this, you increase the chance of fire.

Dissimilar metals have different coefficients of thermal expansion due to differing resistances of the metals. I have actually tracked down problems like this in a house that was made in 1957.  Using an old transistor radio tuned off of any station, I tracked the source of interference down to an electrical socket in one of the rooms of the house.  Removing the cover of the socket revealed a blackened terminal that was arcing right in front of me when a load was present. This arcing causes heat to be generated.  The heat can be sufficient enough to cause a fire to start.  Houses made in the late 50’s 60’s and 70’s in the US should be checked for such wire and if it exist, should be brought up to code.

Even though it would have cost the builder a few more dollars, they elected to save a few dollars on each house and use aluminum.  Someone should have said “no.” How many people have died in house fires caused by aluminum wire?

Ralph Nader, love him or hate him is such a person who is an activist for humanitarianism among other things.  Back in the day, I was not a fan because it was his activism which did away with the Corvair.

The 61 Corvair was probably one of the coolest cars to drive but also very dangerous.  Rear engine cars create an environment that would allow a car to spin out more easily as the weight was behind the axle.  Along with cars like this, his activism did away with the metal dash.  

I restored an old Victrola not too long ago. While the genius of the device “again thanks Edison” is impressive, looking under the hood so to speak is what impressed me more.

Under the deck is a large spring and a governor consisting of weights that move out the faster the turntable spins.  This governor is quite an impressive piece of mechanical engineering. The weights resemble steel balls that when expanded, slow the rotation down.  Much like a ballerina bringing her arms in, speed up; so too the governor of the Victrola.  This is where the phrase “balls to the walls” came from.  The idea was of course to go fast enough to cause the balls of the governor to expand far enough to hit the casing “walls” around them.

Anyone in power of anything needs a governor. Even Bill Gates needs such a thing, although I suspect it is his better half.  We all need someone to challenge our decisions from time to time.  Some would argue that religion serves in such a capacity, others would argue, that is why we have laws. 

So if we had neither; what would we be like as a people today?

One only has to study history to learn the answer to this.  The problems are that we are too busy doing other things to look back.  If I were to tell you that early man hunted, killed and ate each other as matter of day to day life, some of you would not believe me.  Some of you would say that you had heard of it in the deepest darkest parts of Africa a long time ago.  It amazes me that we have survived our animalistic instincts and tendencies.  

If I were to tell you that there was a group of people that considered torture an art form, you might shake your head.  Certainly not you decry..  [1]

If reading about the Assyrians does not give you nightmares, read about some of the 25 most brutal torture techniques. [2]

[3] Vlad the Impaler was someone history should learn from.  Real nice guy!

History is full of this stuff.  When we hear on the news that someone was murdered in some drive by shooting or some crime of passion, by histories standards, that isn’t nothing!  I don’t mean to diminish their acts but by yesterday’s standards, that is child’s play.

There is a culture that is into bondage and such and one has to wonder if it is a leftover from earlier times when nothing was off limits.

The very cross that people wear around their necks is a miniature copy of a device that was made for torture.  The traditional way to punish a criminal in those days was to nail them to that cross.  This made it very difficult for them to breath so they would let them suffer for several hours before they would come along and break their legs so they could no longer support themselves, thus suffocate.

When they execute someone by lethal injection they are executing them on a device that looks like that very cross, just a little wider place to place the body, soon to be corpse, arms stretched and tied and feet held in place while the paralytics enter into the body and stop the bodies ability to breath.   Some say that this is too kind and that they should be killed in some horrific manner.  Really, does that sound familiar?

These documents are hard to read.  This is important stuff as this is where the human race came from.  This is where you and I came from.  This is where Stalin and Hitler and many other modern day killers, came from.

We are capable of horrific acts!  We can choose.  We also come from the likes of Brahms, Ptolemy, Aristotle, Plato, Chopin, Pythagoras, Newton, and Voltaire to name just a scant few.

I often wonder about these violent video games that some play.  They are very much simulators for war, violence and the conditioning of the brain to accept such things.  We come from a very violent past and much like the alcoholic, steering clear of such things is probably a good idea.  

We have thousands calling for stricter gun control.  Do they think that laws regarding guns will affect criminals?  It is a knee jerk reaction to violence, nothing more, and would serve nothing other than emboldening the criminal element among us.

Japan would never invade the mainland and it was never their plan.  Why?  They knew even back then that most Americans had guns.

If you think that I am full of shit, ask yourself “why these video games are developed in the first place, who thinks up this stuff.”  Than ask yourself, “why do they sell so many of them, why are they so popular.”

Pornography fills something inside us that is basic and part of the programming.  Violence does the same thing both in movie and of course video game and I would argue that some people who practice it for real have the need for the adrenalin etc that it releases.   

It would be an interesting experiment for someone to develop video games where one can capture and torture their victim in ways mentioned below.  Complete with screaming and gnashing of teeth and so forth.  As sad as it is, I would bet that they would sell.  The interesting part would be to see what demographic buys them, how many hours they “play the game” and how does it affect them. I would argue that it would condition them to be “monsters in the making.”  The world needs less of this stuff, not more of it.  That is my humble opinion.

Science makes arguments against the existence of God.  A belief in God humbles one and I think assist us with being moral.  Some will claim that they are a good person and don’t need such a belief to “be good.”

If you use God as an excuse to stop asking questions than that is a problem.  Where there is mystery, a question to be answered, than search for that answer.  Science and God must necessarily co-exist.

The links below are to some sites that speak of evil people and or techniques used to torture people.  These are a scant few that history is full of.

All through the history of man, violence prevails.  Some of the violence is mystical in nature and some is downright evil.  The American Indian tortured white man by some horrific means as did the [6] Chinese torture people as did the Japanese. [5]

When you read about some of this stuff, it really makes you wonder why God would allow this?

[1] http://faculty.uml.edu/ethan_Spanier/Teaching/documents/CP6.0AssyrianTorture.pdf

[2] http://list25.com/25-most-brutal-torture-techniques-ever-devised/

[3] http://www.vladtheimpaler.info/the_impalement.html

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captives_in_American_Indian_Wars

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

[6] http://www.ishr.org/Methods-of-torture-in-the-People-s-Republic-of-China.1047.0.html

These links are a drop in the bucket.  That is the sad part.

No, no advanced race or being would come here looking for anything from us.  They might come here to enslave us, eat us, kill us and take our resources much like we exterminate insects before we build a house on the land they occupied. 

Unless they like music, or poetry or our understanding of math and science and physics I would not hold much hope for a friendly meeting.

As always I welcome your thoughts, input, and of course enlightened conversation regarding this or any other blog that interest you.

-Best to you and those that you care about.