Some of the Things I Don’t Understand

By sovknight | March 24, 2008

In the many decades I’ve been a passenger on Spaceship Earth, I’ve learned a lot of things.  Some of these things required me to un-learn things that I’ve previously learned, and some of them have been learned with sacrifice or consequence.  All of them have contributed to making me a fairly intelligent person, although there are still a few things I don’t understand fully.  Things that are incomprehensible to me for one reason or another.  Not that I’m incapable of grasping them intellectually, it’s that I don’t follow the reasoning behind them.  Here’s a short list:

Vegans

I get it.  You don’t eat meat.  You don’t eat anything that’s ever had anything to do with an animal of any kind because you feel some moral obligation toward the creature.  No meat, eggs, milk, nothing.  I get it, I really do because I personally don’t eat vegetables.  None at all.  So I kinda know where you’re coming from, and a little bit of how you feel.  I’m not opposed to vegetables, and I know they’re a great source of all kinds of good stuff, I simply don’t like them. 

I recognize the health issues I face by not eating veggies.  But do you realize the health issues you face by not eating meat or dairy?  I know you know the excuses, but do you know the reasons?    The human body has evolved to eat and process meat and dairy along with vegetables and fruit.  That’s how it’s built.  Meat and dairy products are very healthy and provide proteins and carbohydrates and vitamins that your body needs to function.  Some of these cannot be had by fruits or vegetables, or even by supplements.  By forcing your body to live without these nutrients, you are malnourishing yourself.

I know that I sound hypocritical, but there’s a difference.  I can, have, and will eat a vegetable.  I’m not opposed to them for any other reason than I simply don’t like them.  I know meat used to be a living creature, but then again so did a vegetable.  I can understand not liking something because of texture or taste, but not eating meat or dairy and depriving yourself of essential nutrients because of some strange ethical belief?  I don’t get it.

Gas Prices

This is one of those things that has just got to stop.  There is simply no reason why gasoline should cost as much as it does.  Not only is it severely over priced, but the price keeps going up, all for no reason.

I read an article recently that some expert somewhere was quoted as saying that gas prices were rising because of “market speculation”.  Translating this, it means gas prices are going up because investors think gas prices are going to go up.  Am I the only one confused here?  This is ridiculous. 

I have a friend who used to work the oil platforms down in Houston, Texas.  He spent many years doing this, and is intimately educated on the process of oil and oil refinement as it pertains to gasoline.  He also keeps up on political issues and is intelligent and well educated.  I asked him not long ago how much a gallon of gasoline should cost, factoring in refinement costs and realistic profits for oil companies.  His answer, “about a buck.”

The real reason is simply greed.  Every American know that though, and no amount of horseshit shoveled by politicians and oil company executives and foreign leaders and everybody else is going to change that understanding.  Oil companies, backed by a statement from the President, have said point-blankly that price-gouging is not the reason.  Yet the oil companies have produced record profits continually, and the President is a heavy investor in oil.  We aren’t that stupid people. 

And despite what the wacky environmentalists say, there is no oil shortage.  None whatsoever.  There’s more oil in Alaska than all the entire Middle Eastern countries combined. 

It’s greed, pure and simple.  Too many people make too much money from the price-gouging, the artificial “shortages”, and the over-inflated value of oil for the price to ever be reasonable.  Most of those people are not you or me, and we get stuck with the check.

Advanced Algebra

No, I don’t understand it.  I hate hate hate Algebra.  I hate all Math, really, but I hate advanced Algebra with a passion.  Just give me the damn number already, and stop screwing around with all the letters.  X=Y is NOT an answer or solution to a calculation of any kind, no matter what you say.  AARRGGHH!

I’ve been at war with Algebra ever since I failed it in High School.  Twice.  It just doesn’t make any artistic sense.  I told my teacher repeatedly that I had no use, and will never have any use for it.  She said I was wrong, and that I’d find out after school what a valuable subject it was.

Guess what?  20 freaking years after High School I have yet to EVER use advanced Algebra even once!  HA!  In fact, I never intend to use it.  If there ever is any need for whatever reason why I would need advanced Algebra for anything, I’ll simply enlist a Math Nerd.  That’s what they’re for.  I’ll be over here being artistic, and you can keep your pointless letter/number combination game.

Creationists

Seems I can do nothing but sigh in this case.  This is the 21st century last I checked, yet some people still cling to beliefs that were outdated centuries ago.

Religion is a different topic for a different time.  There’s simply too much to say about it for now, so I won’t go into it.  I’ll say this though:  Isn’t it about time to put away the superstitious nonsense once and for all?  I’m not talking about faith or belief or any of that.  Worship all the gods you like in whatever fashion you see fit, but understand a few things too.  There is zero, and I mean ZERO evidence in creationism and mysticism, and OVERWHELMING evidence in evolution and science.  The answer is all around you.  You have but to open your eyes (and your mind) and look.  This isn’t about faith, it’s about fact.  Creationists, I don’t understand you.

The “Green” Movement

This will be my last topic, because this post is getting a little long.  I have to start watching that.

The Earth is billions of years old.  Yes Creationists, I said billions.  Deal with it.  In that time, she has gone through all kinds of situations.  Floods, fires, volcanoes, tsunamis, ice ages, warming, meteor impacts, plagues, infestations, populations, extinctions, rebirths, continental drift, sunspots, shifting magnetic poles, radiation baths, ozone depletion, poison atmospheric conditions (oxygen),  earthquakes, hurricanes… the list is endless.  Almost all of these situations are violent to some degree, yet the earth is still here.  You could also argue that these situations are also normal and beneficial in their own rights.  But beyond that, the earth is just fine.  Doing pretty well, thank you.  You see, the earth is a vast organism in its own right, constantly changing and adapting and evolving (Creationists, I’m glaring at you).  It’s a very organic process, and it’s very balanced.  For all the bad things that happen, good things happen too.  That’s how it is.

The earth goes through periods of warming.  It also has periods of cooling.  This again is normal behavior for a complex organism in a state of balance.  It has to be.  Right now, for example, we are evidently going through one of those warming periods.  It could last a while too.  Maybe hundreds of years.  The earth doesn’t care, she deals with this all the time.  Many times, in fact. 

We humans, in our ignorance and our arrogance, seem to think we are causing  it.  Well, there’s an off chance that we may be exacerbating it by an infinitesimally small fraction of a percentage, but our impact is quite negligible to the earth itself.  The earth has been through far worse than us, more times than we can possibly fathom.  The earth laughs at our carbon emissions and spits them back in our faces.

There are crazy people that think we’re destroying the planet.  These crazy people are stating that we need to be “green” and protect our environment, otherwise the planet is in severe jeopardy from our SUVs and our discarded McDonald’s cups.  “The planet is slowly dying” say the crazy people, and as proof of their ideas, they make up horrible fatalistic scenarios like “global warming” and “ozone depletion”.  The earth doesn’t give a shit about these things, believe me.  She’s seen them all before.

Global warming is a natural condition of the cycle of the earth.  We just happen to be here to see it.  There is a likelihood that we won’t be here to see the end of it, however.  Not unless we learn to adapt to it.  If the earth wants to heat up and melt all the icebergs and flood the oceans, there isn’t much we can do about it except learn how to deal with it.  Our trivial technology isn’t causing it.  The best we can do is learn to adapt our technology to live with it.  We cannot destroy this planet.  Not with any technology we have now, or have ever had in the past.  To think that is the embodiment of arrogance, and it’s that arrogance that’s the real danger. 

Protect the environment.  Sure, why not?  Do it for us though, and not the planet.  Do it the right way too, not with politics or propaganda or rock concerts.  We could probably do with fewer giant SUVs hogging the road, and it’s a good idea to discard your trash in the proper and provided receptacle.  Still, quit freaking out about it.  Quit telling me I’m not “green” and look after yourself.  Quit making up doomsday scenarios that you can’t even give justification for in any scientific sense.  And stop giving credence to all these Chicken Littles crying out about how the sky is falling.  If the earth wants to crush us with falling sky, she will, regardless of however many Toyota Priuses we drive.

Earth doesn’t care.  If we wipe ourselves out, she’ll simply seed another life form to take our place.  Don’t think so?  She’s done it before.