Monthly Archives: October 2013

Apparently we cannot keep our insurance plans

A fundamental flaw in ObamaCare is the premise that the Government is better able to make decisions for the people than the people are.  That is presumptuous delusion at best, and more likely insanity from overexposure to illegitimate power.  Liberty is one of the inalienable rights recognized by the Constitution, but the Government has deceitfully supplanted that with a 2,700+ page inconsistent, contradictory, monstrosity, cobbled out of legalese, and enforced by the IRS.

This is not right.  Americans were made to be free, and God help us, there will be a reckoning.

Speaking of health insurance plans, President Obama promised America “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”  Not so.  If you work for my employer, a major university, and you are covered under separate insurance or under your spouse’s insurance, you can no longer keep your plan.  Here’s what I received (emphasis in original):

Plan C ([Redacted] Alternative Coverage) eliminated

Plan C, also known as [Redacted] Alternative Coverage, which was only available to faculty and staff who could demonstrate they had primary insurance elsewhere or through a spouse/registered domestic partner, will be eliminated effective January 1, 2014.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires [Redacted] to ensure that all health coverage plans in which its employees are enrolled meet federal requirements, but the university has no way to ensure that plans not sponsored by [Redacted] are meeting those requirements. Because of this and other considerations, and because of the administrative complexity of the ACA for a plan like Plan C, the Employee Benefits Advisory Committee voted to recommend elimination during its September 2013 meeting.

All of [Redacted]’s medical plans meet ACA requirements. For more information, read the ACA October 1 Notice-Final that was sent to all employees.

I will find out about my new premiums in a few weeks, and I am confident they will not be going down.  ObamaCare is a step on the path to Marxism, which recognizes neither individual rights nor personal property.  This is categorically bad for America and it needs to be repealed.

Preparing for martial law

America is in an economic situation far worse than our government is willing to admit.  Although the government reports our national debt approaching $17 trillion, that is a cash-basis number that does not include entitlements.

Our liabilities, including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employee retirement benefits, add an additional $87 trillion to the figure, bringing us over $100 trillion.  That’s more than 550% of our GDP.

Economists are warning that unless we raise our debt ceiling, we will cause enormous harm to the world economy.  I’m hearing people who actually know about this, saying that collapse of the US economy is now inevitable.  Mr. Bernake’s “quantitative easing” was a shot in the arm that we have become addicted to but cannot sustain without further degeneracy.

Ultimately, every problem we have comes from trying to run our lives without God, and America has been very diligent in its efforts to kick God out and welcome Hell in.  Left to our own devices, we have created a mess that we are no longer able to get out of.  I’m inclined to believe those who say that our problems are now beyond human remedy, and not only in the case of the economy.

If the economy does collapse, we should be very concerned about the people who look to the government as their provider.  I have heard people who were on the scene in the wake of Katrina, discussing the rioting and chaos that occurred there.  Similar problems occurred in the ’92 Los Angeles riots and in many other places.  When people develop a dependency upon the government, and believe that the government owes them, but the supply line is interrupted, the result is lawlessness and rage.

If the collapse happens, we will probably need martial law just to maintain order.  I’m not interested in how to protect myself against what is coming:  I’m interested in being part of the solution.  The ultimate solution is for us to admit we screwed up, turn back to God, and ask him for help.  That’s actually easy both for him and for us, if we are humble enough to admit our mistakes, and fixing impossible problems is his specialty.

Here’s an incomplete but sensible prescription for anyone resonating with this:

  1. Find God and realign yourself with him.  He has an entirely different economy that cannot be shaken.  And for those who follow him, these will be some of the most exciting times in history.  If you only do this much, you are well on your way.
  2. If you love this country, stand up for righteousness, freedom, and life.  Vote and hold officials to high standards.  Demand integrity from yourself and others.
  3. Be gracious to people, even if they are your enemies.  We all need to make it through this together.
  4. Store up food supplies.  Even FEMA recommends this.  I like these people.
  5. Store up some water, and get a good water filter.  I like this and this.  Expensive but priceless.
  6. Get extra copies of the Bible and the US Constitution.  We’re going to need to hold this country together, and people will be in desperate need of good advice.
  7. If you are inclined and able, get some extra food and water to share with others.

None of this is intended to cause fear.  There are very difficult times ahead, but they can be the best of times for those who are walking with God.  Oh, and pragmatically, there should have been a little more emphasis on this bumper sticker.  I know it was intended to be sarcastic, but it’s actually very profound:

dont_redistribute_my_wealth

A Warning to the Government

In the midst of your political spats and machinations, closing down national monuments, threatening to arrest veterans, forcing people out of private homes because those homes are on federal land, and barricading national parks to force your way, pay very close attention to the choices you make, because you are badly overstepping your bounds.

You may think that you are in power to advance your standing, your party, or your ideology.  Not so.  It’s called “civil service” because it is supposed to be an act of service to the people, not an act of self-interest or self-preservation.  Anytime you put something else ahead of the best interests of the people, you are out of line, and you need to course-correct or resign your post.

Let me re-establish a few things which you seem to have forgotten:

  1. You exist by the leave of the People of the United States.  Turn to the first paragraph of the Constitution, and consider once again that We the People established you.  We can also remove you.
  2. Government-owned land is really just land which the people have entrusted to your care.  There are good reasons why we entrust certain things to you to oversee, but don’t forget that in this country, you are simply trustees acting on our behalf.
  3. Anytime you think that this country is yours to do with as you please, you are violating your duty and the trust we place in you.  Anytime you act out of something other than love for our country and humility toward the people, you are out of line.

To the Democrats, I say this:  Everyone knows that the current dispute is over the funding of ObamaCare.  Do the right thing and ditch it.  America hates it, Congress and the IRS don’t want to be subjected to it, and the Government has proven itself far too incompetent to be able to manage our healthcare.  Admit defeat in this, and regain a bit of our trust.  The only really big thing that the government handles well is the military, but that’s probably because the military is so full of people who love the United States and are willing to serve it.

I note, with deep annoyance, that the Senate is not taking calls from constituents, the government shutdown serving as a pretext.  The Senate has failed to do its job, has chosen to side against the will of the American people, and now refuses to hear about it.  I dare say that the right of the people to contact their representatives is an essential government service.  What on earth are the representatives doing, if not available to represent their constituents?

On artificial brains

Every so often, the research community comes alive with excitement over some new announcement of animal brain simulation, and tantalizes us with promises of a full human brain simulation.

First, there was the rat brain, simulating 10 thousand neurons and 10 million connections at a molecular level, and with an apparent ability to self-organize.

Then, there was the cat brain, with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses.  Or not, according to the rat brain camp, which denounced the claims as “shameful and unethical.”  But the cat brain camp stressed that they had “not built a biologically realistic simulation of the complete human brain.”  Pity those who think research is devoid of high drama.

Somewhere along the way came a simulation of the human visual cortex, with 1.6 billion neurons, and 9 trillion synapses.  Simulating the entire cortex, assuming the availability of sufficient computing power, would require a nuclear reactor just to provide the roughly 1 billion Watts of electrical power.  The brain makes do on about 20 Watts.  I leave it to our best and brightest to figure out how we would cool such a behemoth.

Call me skeptical, but I don’t think we really understand intelligence yet.  We create enormous simulations of things that have some ability to self-organize, in the hopes of stumbling upon intelligence.  But would we even recognize it if we saw it?  The premise is that if we just make the simulation big enough, it will begin to work.  On the other hand, researchers don’t learn without trying.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) research is not entirely without merit, because it has certainly produced useful tools for us, including simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, neural networks, and more.  But I don’t believe we have a good understanding of what intelligence is.  I don’t even think we fully understand what computing is, at a fundamental physical level.  We certainly know how to perform computation, but we lack a rigorous physical understanding of what information is, let along how it interacts with physical hardware of any kind.

When it comes to brain simulation, I’m not the only skeptic.  Researchers do not know what level of simulation—molecular or neuronal—is appropriate for brain simulation.  I suspect that intelligence and sentience are radically different than what the AI researchers assume.  And while there is certainly value in learning from nature, mimicry may not be a good long term goal. Nature and humans both build structures, but do so in very different ways, taking trees and houses as a point of comparison.  And humans are frequently inspired by nature, but ultimately seem to have different objectives than nature, and therefore build differently.

So are these brain simulations worth the enormous funding that they command?  Time will tell.  I think we probably will eventually develop artificial intelligence, but I also think artificial intelligence will look as different from natural intelligence as houses do from trees.  I’d like to see someone start building a “house.”

Neil Steiner

October 8, 2013

I note with annoyance that the Senate is not taking calls from constituents, the government shutdown serving as a pretext.  The Senate has failed to do its job, has chosen to side against the will of the American people, and now refuses to hear about it.  I dare say that the right of the people to contact their representatives is an essential government service.  What on earth are the representatives doing, if they aren’t available to represent their constituents?

“No one ever taught me how.”

… To pray for her soul, that is.

It’s not uncommon for Hollywood to shock me, but this shock was one I was not prepared for, and much too close to home.  Really?  Really!?  In the movie Gravity, Dr. Ryan Stone is stuck in orbit with no propulsion available, and facing slow but certain death from oxygen starvation, but when confronted with her imminent death, she fails to grasp for whatever spiritual handhold she can find.  That’s just bad writing.  The fear of death is something that every mortal innately understands.  Dr. Stone certainly spends enough time in the movie grasping for physical handholds, and sensibly so.

But there she is, realizing that she’s going to die, with no one to mourn for her, no one to pray for her soul, and never having been taught how to pray for herself:  “No one ever taught me how,” she says.

gravity-sandra-bullock-slice-11-300x200
Warner Bros., 2013

The thing is, even though Ryan Stone is just a movie character, if she doesn’t know how to pray, it apparently means that her writers don’t know how to pray.  And that fault is mine and that of my fellow Christians.  It means we haven’t told people where to find unfailing salvation.  For anybody reading this who 1) isn’t a web crawler, and 2) hasn’t already prayed for their soul, you really need to get this truth.  The most basic prayer you need is:

Jesus, help!

You might think God wouldn’t listen to you, or can’t be bothered, or wouldn’t be willing to help, but that is the very opposite of his nature.  Not only is this a theologically solid prayer, but it’s one that God straight up tells us he hears:

And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  (Acts 2:21, also Romans 10:13)

Even non-Christians are aware of the power of Jesus’ name.  There are many, many stories of people around the world from diverse cultures and religions who have called out to Jesus when facing certain death, and have been miraculously saved.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the very name Jesus means “The Lord is Salvation” or “He Saves.”  Many of these people subsequently became Christians because of what God did for them.

Yes, I know it’s popular in America these days to ridicule that belief, but I’ll take the ridicule if it helps people hear the truth.  And no, this is not a credulous, uneducated, moronic, frightened, grasping at straws on my part—it’s a truth as rock-solid as the God who made the universe.

This is just a starting point, but if you didn’t know even this much, start here.