Anti-Climatic

If you search "climate bill killed" on the internet right now you get a lot of "who killed the climate bill" articles. The most interesting link I found is from the publication Foreign Policy. Ironically, the most interesting responder of the 6 people asked was Paul Saunders, who served under George W. Bush.

Makes you wonder where that voice was a couple of years ago.

Regardless, if you read through all these comments, including former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who is a bigger blowhard than a vuvuzela, you can sense a consensus. At least I have, and that is: Americans are a bunch of fucking morons.

Not just Senators. Not just those who sit in the White House. Not just those in Congress. No, Americans, i.e., you, and me, and everyone you know. The people who pull the levers and push the buttons, they're pointless. If they had constituents that gave a shit they would pull the other lever!

It's not them; it's you.

The gist of these articles is basically how Americans don't want to do anything that takes current sacrifice. Real shocker. If you believe the environment is a problem, congratulations, for you are probably not a complete moron. If you don't believe it's a problem, congratulations, you know how to read this, and yet probably never made it through college. OR, you just don't want to know.

And that's basically the situation here: those who REALLY CARE have no power, and those who don't know, or don't want to know, find the "science" of it all too difficult to understand. It's the Environmentalist versus the Deer Hunter. Then again, maybe the deer hunter just ignores it all, even if he/she could understand it all. Rather just not know.

Of course, we have the very smart people working in big business who know full well climate change is a problem, and some relatively smart people who work in industries where their job may be affected, and they are against the bill too. They say things like, "we can't be sure" and "why should the United States be the only one..." Shit like that. Excuses, if you will. Anything to avoid the possibility of stopping the supposed economic engine of the United States at their expense.

Sidenote: I'd be so much happier if you'd just ADMIT IT, rather than saying stupid things. At least there would be honesty in it.

Some say if the economy was better right now it would be easier to pass. Probably true, I suppose, but at the same time why that even makes a lick shit of difference is so far beyond me. You either believe it's a problem, or you don't. The time to act is when you know something is a problem, and not when it's convenient, hence the title, and Inconvenient Truth (for all it's flaws/not really important).

I can say so many things about the idea of being against an energy bill, such as we are truly a selfish society, and we really don't care about anything but the now, and that we don't give a shit about our children's children, blah blah blah, but that's been said. Instead, I'll give you my quick take on climate.

I call it the "Yeah-You-Totally-Beat-Me-Down-With-Your-Selfish-and-Stupid-Beliefs Belief"

We're fucked. That's just the reality. At some point we'll respond to climate change, but of course it will be too late. Like when we didn't build schools in Afghanistan after we used them to stop the Soviet Union. We're two big buildings short right now because of it, and many peoples' lives. When we don't properly spend to support levees. When we don't have proper legislation in place to monitor financial transactions. When we don't make sure off-shore drills are maintaining safety requirements. Yeah, we're really fucken good at getting all uppity AFTER THE FACT.

The United States Motto should be, "When things get really, really, really bad, WE'LL GET CRAZY ON YOUR ASS...just tell us when it happens..."

We're not real good at spending on things BEFORE bad shit happens. But something really bad is going to happen, rest assured, and then we'll act! Captain Fucken Moron to the rescue!

Again, it will be too late, and we'll waste a shit-ton more money trying to fix it when you can't stop the pain. We're basically a nation that smokes three packs a day, and one day when we get cancer, we'll send in THE BEST doctors, who will keep us afloat for a bit...but then we'll die. Maybe the cancer goes into remission, but it likely comes back. That's what being American is all about. It's about being the Marlboro Man.

So my take on climate change is simply: Fuck it.

Seriously. Fuck it.

We're not a serious nation to do what is necessary, and we're never going to stop big business and their Republican lap dogs from thwarting climate control. So why waste the time? What's going to happen in the end? Are we going to give the planet 100, 200, or even 300 more years? Is that even a lot in the grand scheme of things? No, it's not. This Earth needs a reset button, and prolonging the planet by fifty or one hundred years is practically pointless because our children's children's children are going to get royally fucked anyway. So why not just speed up the process at this point? It'd probably be best just to nuke ourselves NOW. That would at least be responsible.

Seriously, we're not going to do anything about it because we're way to selfish to act. It's a fact. We're American, and it's our right to be selfish-asshole-scumbag-douchebags, and we do it better than anyone ever has. A call for a constitutional amendment to get the "selfish-asshole-scumbag-douchebag" clause in there, but even if it's not there now, I'm sure Scalia can find a phrase that practically states it. It would be ironic if he didn't.

So just let the issue pass; move on to something that is going to effect us immediately because those are the only things Americans will ever truly try to fix, or at least pretend to care about.

Robots

CBS Morning News did a segment today on the future of robots, and how they are already active in so many parts of our lives. For example, robots performed countless colonoscopies in 2009.

The segment then delved into the military aspect, and the future use of robots. There are already Predator drones, which have robot aspects, and bomb detectors which defuse weapons, so it's not as if we're far off from robots taking a more active role.

My biggest fear regarding robots, and maybe the military as a whole, is having robots take a much more active role in fighting wars, almost to a point of not needing actual soldiers. This would be a disaster.

It is already apparent that Americans don't care about the loss of life when it comes to foreign soldiers, especially supposed adversaries. One can argue most Americans don't really care about our own soldiers, judging by the lack of coverage given to those who have fallen (I could argue they get less coverage than the living). If we arrive at a point where robots could fight wars for us, in place of soldiers, it would be much easier for Congress and Presidents to get us into conflicts without public outrage.

Most people are unaware of the backlash wars on foreign soils create, and when robots start fighting wars, we'll be even less connected. Of course, we'll cause ourselves even more problems.