Music

Today, while walking in a gentle snowfall, canned carols echoing in memory, I admitted to myself, "I don't understand music. I love it, and I don't understand it."

Five minutes later, I had the beginnings of a theory:

Music is the voice of the swarm intelligence.

Listen carefully, because the swarm intelligence is your ruler.

And don't be shy about being its voice yourself.

Just honestly sing out the message of your heart and

let the chips fall where they may.

You won't see where they fall.

Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada

Recipe for "Covid Cocklewarmer"

Try this if you are bored with being cooped up at home.
This is my peanut-butter coffee recipe, and as such, it is a caffeinated beverage that will activate your brain. If you are like me, your brain is always your best source of entertainment.

"Slurp! Praise the Lord and pass the antiseptic!"

© 2020 David Matthew Mooney

Both versions make one serving.

Store the tap water in a refrigerator at 4–6°C.

Do not serve hotter than 56°C or the mixture breaks like Hollandaise. (But it's much easier to fix: just let it cool for a bit and then swirl.)*

To go hotter than 56°C without breaking, microwave the water longer to taste and add a tablespoon of milk before shaking.

Instant coffee version:

• Add 300 mL of water to a mason jar free of scratches.
• Heat jar in a 700-W microwave at maximum power for 2 min 30 sec without lid.
• Add 1 tablespoon (15 mL) of sugar.
• Add 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of instant coffee.
• Add 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of smooth, non-separating peanut butter.
• Put on a glove or pick up a dishcloth for comfort in handling the hot jar.
• Close lid and shake the jar up-and-down vigorously for 15 sec.

Filter coffee version (preparation time, 10 min):

• Add 400 mL water to a mason jar free of scratches.
• Heat jar in a 700-W microwave at maximum power for 3 min 40 sec without lid. Aim for 75°C.
• Pour the water into a large plastic cup. Test the cup first to see if it is melted by the hot water; some are and some aren't.
• Place a filter containing 3.5 tablespoons of fine-grind coffee on the jar.
• Pour the water through the coffee.
• Remove the filter.
• Add 1 tablespoon (15  mL) of sugar to the jar.
• Add 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of smooth, non-separating peanut butter.
• Put on a glove or pick up a dishcloth for comfort in handling the hot jar.
• Close lid and shake the jar up-and-down vigorously for 15 sec.

Note 1: Do not add a hot mixture to a cold container and then shake. This will cause the container to suddenly pressurize at the first shake, with unpredictable consequences. 

This filter gives the slowest percolation and therefore the best kick of the three that I have tried. Don't bother to change the microwaving time.

*Note 2: Kraft "Extra-roasted" peanut butter <07-12-2021: and now, the regular kind> can be pushed to 60°C in this recipe without breaking, but the mouth feel is not as good. <07-25-2021: JIF is better.>

01-14-2022: Peanut-butter tea tastes like walnuts. It’s like somebody made a milk substitute out of walnuts instead of almonds. Not bad. It doesn’t curdle like peanut-butter coffee either, at least not at 72 C (162 Fahrenheit). I used double-strength green tea, but followed the rest of the above recipe.

Here is an update on my cocklewarmer setup, 2.5 years on.

Overpop Redemption

The world's many current problems are consistent with a state of overpopulation. The Reverend Malthus laid them out for us long ago: 

• The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.

Chapter 7, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798

T. R. Malthus

Nowadays (2020), we may add global climate change and global pandemics to the list. 

Clearly, people must change their ways. Governments can help, but direct actions consisting of just passing new coercive laws were tried in China and were eventually abandoned. Moreover, "The best government is that which governs least." (motto of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, founded by John O'Sullivan). By a parsimony principle I am fond of, what we want, then, is the minimum adequate response to Overpop. 

My suggestion is: Estateism.

Your "estate" is basically your net worth from all sources minus liabilities, usually considered at the time of death. By "estateism," I mean a life plan focussed on enriching your estate for the benefit of your nearest relatives after your death, as an emotional substitute for raising your own family. Is such a life plan necessarily "thin gruel," emotionally speaking? Not if you know no better--then it is sufficient, as I can testify. 

Governments can help lead the way by lifting all estate taxes from those who die childless and giving proportionate estate-tax breaks to those who die with fewer direct descendants than the national average. If near relatives young enough to reproduce are named as beneficiaries, they would pay no inheritance tax. 

The theory of kin selection by W. D. Hamilton suggests that this lifestyle makes evolutionary sense. Those who adopt it could represent the way of the future, termed "eusociality" by biologists. Many biological precedents for the workability of this idea are known, some of them in mammals. Estateists would be formally like the non-reproducing worker bees in a bee colony, but humans who adopt estateism cannot turn into insects. If you think that they can, tell me how that would happen, exactly; and no hand-waving, please. 

An estateist is free of the oppressive burdens of raising a family and need suffer no sleep deprivation due to the crying of some colicky infant. There is no attempt to balance work and family, which should make for a highly effective worker more than able to enrich his or her estate. The theory of kin selection, which seems to find an echo in the human "heart," is the intellectual anchor for such a life and suffices to give it meaning. 

03-19-2020: An objection can be raised to the foregoing that the inheritors of Estateist benefits will be tempted to expand the size of their families as a direct result, thereby offsetting the reproductive self-restraint of their Estateist relatives in fine Malthusian style. However, I doubt that human reproduction is as elastic as this scenario assumes, but the matter can be decided by mathematical modelling and computer simulations. In the event of bad news from the simulations, the effectiveness of Estateism as population control could be enhanced by testamentary stipulations on the uses to which the inherited wealth can be put, which would aim to prevent its use to support an abnormally large family instead of better nurturing of a normal-sized family. (The biological precedent for this is called "K-selection," an aspect of Life History Theory.) In that event, permitted uses of an Estateist inheritance would be such things as education, training, insurance, medical expenses, rehabilitation, and relocation.

04-14-2020: To this list I should add lawyer's fees--the sting of the Estateist.