Space Technology » Nuclear Physics

Stress Test For Long Life And Health

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:56:44 +0000

By: Carl Walker
Stress is a big problem in modern day society. With the speed of life, mass flow of information, countless irritations, and the test of dreary news at 11; come many short-term and long-term problems. These include many physical side-effects that are suffered by many in large ways.

If stress is a big problem for you, the side-effects can indeed bring you a shorter unhealthy life. It’s far from unheard anymore of those passing away between the ages of 40 and 55 from conditions associated with those twenty or more years older than them. This is the test of the times.

Among the larger causes are heart conditions. An early heart attack in life can kill you! With modern medicine it’s possible to survive, however full recovery can be a long process that may never succeed. This is why many begin having a cardiac stress test earlier in life and in some cases on a regular basis.

A stress test is a fairly simple test in one sense. Often you have an ECG machine monitoring you, while walking on a treadmill. Another form of stress test involves administering a radioactive isotope (often Technetium Tc99m Sestamibi) and is called a nuclear stress test. The latter can bring a little more information.

Modern medicine has many remedies never known before in dealing with not only heart conditions, but also stress and many of its debilitating side-effects. As with anything, diagnosis is always the first step. It might require a test or more, but often problems later in life can be caught early and dealt with. Prevention is the best medicine.

Beyond the cardiac stress test, there are also a number of other tests available online that can help you better identify stress in your life, and from there you can start working on removing it to lend to a longer and healthier life.

Your health is really all you have. Take your time reading more on what you can do to make it last longer and healthier. The stress the test of time throws at you will draw from that. Where you are now is a great place to start.

Some areas that can help you fair better with a stress test are exercise, good diet, and great relaxing rest. The three work together as a natural human means of dealing with stress. Studying on these will find you many opportunities that can help you find a longer, happier, and healthier life.

Many find one way of burning off stress is good cardiovascular exercise. Working out both your aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) systems are wise. Learning more about these will undoubtedly bring you a lot more information on stress as well. Finish off with a hot relaxing bath, and see some of the stress stored in knots (that turn into cramps) vanish.

Today taking any stress test online may be yet another step to you dealing with your own stress levels. If you find out how to deal with them now you may find that later on you won’t be diagnosed with coronary heart disease after tests often including the cardiac stress test. Cutting down stress, fats, and other things that can clog up your arteries will definitely contribute to this better outcome.

In the end, if you take better care of yourself with some good exercise, well balanced diet, stress management, and rest; odds are in the long run you will fair better in your later years, and be happy as a result.

Check out http://loweryourstress.com/stress-management.html for more help and information on dealing with stress.

What On Earth Is Going On Here?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:52:55 +0000

By: Saleem Rana
It’s all a miracle, when you come to think of it.

All of it.

Billions of years ago, out of nothing, a universe evolved from a sound. The vibration of this “big bang” still continues to expand.

A planet evolved out of the masses of dead planets that would support life. As far as we currently know, no other planet in our galaxy supports life. There are rumors of space visitors but few of us have ever seen them, or their magnificent ships. It’s all hearsay, and since pictures can be doctored and governments tend to suppress things in a reflexive way, the more we think about it, the more confused we get.

Millions of creatures on this planet; some of them in the deepest recesses of the ocean; some alive in the depths of the soil; some flying in the air; some leaping across the tree tops; some slithering down the rocks; and then, of course, there’s us, living in concrete jungles, a species so intelligent that our closest biological parallel, the monkey, has the intelligence similar to that of a three-year-old human being.

We not only have an awareness of what is going on in our neighborhood but we have some pretty good ideas of what the rest of the galaxy looks like, as well as the universe as a whole. We have also developed enough mathematics and instruments to show us the smallest of things, a subatomic particle. To our surprise, we have found that it isn’t a thing at all, but a cloud of energy, a probability pattern that appears to dance in and out of existence and may even travel back and forth in time.

Where did all these creatures, so many, so spectacular, and so astonishing at times, come from, and why are they here anyway? What, for example, is the destiny of a rat? an earthworm? a culture of bacteria? Do they have a higher purpose, too, or are they just here to breed, consume, excrete, and die?

But it gets stranger still.

Biologically, you had a high probability of not being here in the first place.

Out of millions of sperms that completely happened to miss the egg, you happened to be the one who made that biochemical “handshake.” This, in turn, created a massive replication of very specialized cells that formed itself into a completely organized biological system of some trillions of cells. For the most part these trillions of cells appear to get along together and effortlessly run on autopilot for decades, maybe even three-quarters of a century.

And while all of this has happened and is still happening, you aren’t, as far as you can tell, taking an active role in running the show. Your liver, without a thought from you, seems to know exactly what to do to keep you around despite that extra shot of Vodka you took to cheer yourself up yesterday.

Again, out of billions of people, it only took the probability of two to meet to bring you here. In fact, those two people may not even have gotten along very well with each other; but still, you’re here, despite all the arguments they’ve had and may still be having with each other. Somehow you snuck in when they were in a good mood.

Spiritually, too, there was not much of a chance that you would show up here, either.

Assuming there is a spiritual dimension, there is probably a long waiting list to get a human body. The odds of getting one must be as astonishing as winning the lottery. After all, if there are billions here already, and all souls never die, then there must be an astronomical number in the other dimension. Since space-time is infinite, assuming they even have space-time there, the number of souls may rival the number of stars in the universe.

Out of all possible experiences, you had a select number that have shaped your personality to be the way it is. And out of the 60,000 or more thoughts you have had every day of your life, there are only a select few that you acted on to make your day the way it is today.

It’s all so strange and mysterious that there is a group of us, called scientists, dedicated to looking into it, and this group has become so specialized because there is so much information that now very few of us even know what they are talking about.

Another group has formed as well, called philosophers, who try to piece all the disciplines together to create a big picture, but even this group has become overwhelmed and broken up into splinter units, and we will never ever again have the grand schemes of a Plato, a Kant, or a Spencer. The idea of a grand unified theory of life has all but been abandoned. Of course, there are still a few renegades, like Ken Wilber, who still like to write a brief history of everything, but even these attempts are more about creating huge sweeping classifications, then really explaining anything. It’s not anybody’s fault really,

there is just too much to consider and still too much to discover to allow a neat, overall pattern to be envisioned.

Then there are other groups, called politicians, who work hard on writing the rule books based on the prevailing ideas of world domination. And, they are followed quite closely, by people whom we will politely call industrialists, who are trying to do the same thing, except that they use a different kind of paper to determine the rules on how the rest of the species should live.

But, of course, the quest for power, does not stop there. There are also the armed forces, the environmentalists, the activists, the musicians, the theologians, and every other imaginable social cluster that is trying to weave a coherent pattern out of their own particular world-view.

The main difficulty everyone is having is not getting a clear idea of what is going on.

In the days of ancient Greece, a sapient homo sapient, like Aristotle, could embrace a complete world view. He impressed everyone for centuries as appearing to know something about everything.

But today, we know, for sure, that he didn’t really know that much. Ironically, the awe that centuries of scholars had held him in was mainly due to the fact that very few people were willing to look into anything deeply at all. In fact, those who did ended up getting crucified or burned at the stake or some other gruesome finish.

Fortunately, along came epochs like the Renaissance and the Age of Reason where human curiosity finally broke the bonds of collective stupidity and original inquiry became acceptable again.

This, in itself, took on a massive momentum. After centuries of intellectual suppression, in this century, we ended up figuring out and inventing more than in the entire history of the human race. Today, the rate of knowledge is expanding at such a rapid rate each day that no one can keep up with it anymore.

A multi-talented individual, a “universal man” like Leonardo Da Vinci or Isaac Newton will never be known again. Unfortunately, this has happened not only because of the rate of expansion of knowledge but because toleration for genius has also faded. For example, someone like William Sidis, who in 1910, at age 11, lectured Harvard Mathematical club on “Four-Dimensional Bodies,” spent most of his adult life hiding from the vituperation of the popular press.

Albert Einstein did not have a great start either. However, after being scorned by the university system and being forced to take the menial job of a patent office clerk, he managed to break free of the prejudice against intelligence by coming up with such startling ideas that the dozen or so people who understood what he was talking about embraced it and he became the first really smart celebrity.

But even Albert Einstein, after his few shocking revelations, spent most of his life in bewilderment. He constantly argued with Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and the ever growing army of the exponents of Quantum Physics. In this battle of wits, he never really gained any ground because the mathematical and experimental evidence kept on showing the world of the very small to be constantly more bizarre than anyone had ever previously imagined.

Albert Einstein argued that “God does not play dice.” He believed that a grand, logical, aesthetic design should explain everything, but the evidence kept on piling up to show that God was indeed playing dice all day long.

Speaking of dice, even your own life, when you come to think of it, has been filled with many improbable interventions that rescued you from certain disasters, gave you insight when you needed it most, and created an entire pattern when you look back at it. No doubt, at the current moment, you’re witnessing another role of the dice, and despite how rational and sensible you’re trying to be things are working out in a most unusual way.

The probability of anything happening the way it has happened is so unlikely that about the only statement one can make about living on earth is that it is all a miracle.

At best, we only have a vague idea of what is really going on, and we have a way of muddling up our facts and inventing our own versions to explain the gaps, which only adds to the confusion. And we are not alone in this quest to keep things as befuddled as possible. Despite the astonishing discoveries of neuroscience, all educational systems throughout the world still operate on roughly the same educational paradigms invented a century or two earlier. And some even fail to rival that of the 17th Century.

Ironically, despite the beauty of this entire scheme of life on Earth, our internal agitation, both as individuals and as a culture, appear to have taken over for the most part. It appears that we are all simultaneously wrecking as much havoc as possible while crying for help. This is not a cynical comment. Evidence for it is as close as the nearest newspaper or Television or Radio News Channel.

Perhaps the greatest miracle is yet to come. At the current rate of overpopulation, pollution, nuclear arms escalation, genocidal outbreaks, archaic educational systems, rampant militarism, the machinations of multinational corporations, religious dogma, social unrest, economic spirals, environmental disasters, and the disappearance of entire species of flora and fauna, it’s going to take another miracle to keep the Earth itself from total collapse. Again, there are rumors of this as having happened before, and there are talks of civilizations like Atlantis and Lemuria which appear to have disappeared without much of a trace, apart from archeological artifacts, which could also be explained in any other number of ways. Like the notion of life on other planets, we have, at present, no clear idea if a flourishing civilization once existed before we showed up. (And, if we assume the idea of reincarnation, we may be the very same rascals who messed things up in the first place.)

In conclusion, then, whatever we make of the prevailing ideas of the earth, its confused inhabitants, and its possible future, one thing is rather clear: everything that exists has happened out of a huge improbability of it ever occurring in the first place.

What will it take for us, then, as a species, to appreciate the miracle of life and have more of it, not only for ourselves and other life-forms, but for generations of sentient life yet to come?

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul

The Development Of Acne – Where Does The Bacteria Grow

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:12:01 +0000

By: David Mclauchlan

Acne, a chronic disorder of the hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Acne is characterized by black heads, pimple outbreaks, cysts, infected abscesses, and (sometimes) scarring.

What is bacteria: Small single celled organisms from the Moneran kingdom. They are known as prokaryotes, which are classified together because they lack nuclear membranes. They are the most primitive living beings, but help in the nitrogen cycle.

Many people think they know what causes acne, the inflammation of skin pores that results in problems such as blackheads, whiteheads or pimples, primarily in teenagers. There are a lot of misconceptions about acne though. Officially common acne is known as acne vulgaris. And in explaining it, the answer becomes bit complicated. Acne is an inflamed disease of the skin, and it has many causes, one of which is bacteria in the pores of the skin. The body in many ways becomes allergic to this type of bacteria. This attracts while blood cells to fight the allergy, and the pores become blocked. Oil secretions will build up and provide a breeding ground for even more bacteria. Then pimples will form. These red bumps resemble small boils, which fill with a nasty puss caused by the body fighting the infection of the bacteria.

There is probably no perfect cure for acne other than outgrowing it but there are a number nothing that can be done to lessen the physical effects. First, remember that for many years, people thought that acne was caused by poor hygiene and by eating certain foods. Fried foods and chocolate were especially blamed

for acne, probably because teenagers eat fried foods and chocolate commonly, but that may have been blaming the messenger for the message. There is no scientific evidence linking diet to acne. Also, while personal hygiene is important and a good thing, over washing can damage skin and actually make acne worse. But good hygiene and a good diet can’t hurt, and they might just help a little. Also using makeup that doesn’t clog pores but can at least assist the body in not making acne worse.

Treatments that kill the bacteria that cause acne included the use of antibiotics like tetracycline, doxycycline and minocyclne, which are taken orally. Also topical antibiotics or bactericides like Benzoyl peroxide or erythromycin can help. The bacteria also known as “P. acnes”, does however become resistant to the antibiotics eventually. However Benzoyl peroxide, an oxidizer, does not seem to generate resistance by the bacteria. While the acne will come back, it is a short term and temporary cure and is applied topically.

Exfoliating the skin can also help. This method can be done by using a cloth or a liquid scrub, or by using certain chemicals. Chemical exfoliating substances include salicylic acid and glycolic acid. Both of these agents cause a peeling of the top layer of skin, which prevents a build up of dead skin which blocks pores when combined with oil. This in turn, makes a breeding ground for bacteria.

Another over the counter remedy is salicylic acid, which softens skin and gets rid of dead skin cells, which in turn unclogs pores. Many face wash products contain this ingredient. Also sulfur contained in many over the counter products works well for many people. Another product is glycolic acid, which is found in anti-aging products as well as acne medicines.

There are also a number of natural remedies that can fight acne and the bacteria that causes it. Tea tree oil is gaining in popularity. It kills the bacteria and also reduces redness and inflammation. It works much the same as Benzoyl peroxide but causes less skin irritation and is carried at health food stories.

Fighting the bacteria that causes acne is of major concern for many medical professionals, and surely with time they will find more and better ways to do so. In the meantime, the treatments listed here can help many people.

Acne responds well to treatment, especially if treated early, at the onset of the condition.

For more articles by this author on this subject and over 100 other subjects visit his world of articles at

http://www.david-mclauchlan.com

The Army-ant in Technology

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:48:22 +0000

By: Harun Yahya

Then, when they reached the Valley of the Ants, an ant said: “Ants! Enter your dwellings, so that Sulayman and his troops do not crush you unwittingly.” (Qur’an, 27:18)

The “Valley of the Ants” refers to a special place and special ants. In addition, the fact that Prophet Sulayman (as) could hear the ants talking among themselves may contain striking references to future developments in computer technology. The present-day term “Silicon Valley” refers to the centre of the world of technology. It is most significant that a “valley of the ants” appears in the account of Prophet Sulayman’s (as) life. Allah may be drawing our attention to the advanced technology of the future.

Furthermore, ants and other insect species are widely used in advanced technology as models in robot projects and are intended to serve in a wide range of areas, from the defence industry to technology. The verse may also be referring to these developments.

Latest Developments in Miniature Technology: Army-Ant Robots

The best known project using ants as a model are the “Army-Ant Robot” projects being carried out independently in several countries. One study being carried out by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Virginia State University seeks to develop small, inexpensive, and simple physically identical robots that can be used as a robot army. Project officials explain these robots’ functionality in the following terms: “The way they behave as a group, in a coordinated manner, perform a series of physical actions, and take joint decision

s.” These robot armies’ mechanical and electrical designs have been based on the behaviour of an ant community. They are called the “army-ant” robots because of their similarities to their insect counterparts.

The “army-ant” robot system was originally designed as a “material-carrying system.” According to this scenario, several small robots would be charged with jointly lifting and carrying objects. It was later decided that they could be used for other tasks. One report describes other tasks to which they might be assigned in the future:

Nuclear and hazardous waste cleanup with robotic “swarms,” mining (including material removal and search-and-rescue), mine sweeping (both land and water), surveillance and sentry, planetary surface exploration and excavation. 1

In a report by Israel A. Wagner, an expert on ant robot technology, the ant robot projects were described in these terms:

Ant-robots are simple physical or virtual creatures designed to cooperate in order to achieve a common goal. They are assumed to have very limited resources of energy, sensing and computing, and to communicate via traces left in the workspace or on the ground, like many insects naturally do…

The distribution of work among multiple a(ge)nts can be made by either a central controller who sends orders to the agents, or by an a-priori agreement on a certain partitioning that, if obeyed by the agents, eventually leads to a completion of the given mission. A third way, used throughout the current work, is to design the behavior of individuals such that cooperation will naturally emerge in the course of their work, without making a-priori decisions on the structure of the cooperation. The specific application that we address is covering, which is also known as exploring or searching. This variety of names hints to the many applications this problem might have: from cleaning the floor of a house to mapping an unknown planet or demining a mine field. 2

As can be seen in these examples, an ant’s social lifestyle forms the basis of many projects, and the various ant-based robot technologies are providing benefits for human beings. That is why it is so important that ants and their valley are referred to in the Qur’anic account of Prophet Sulayman’s (as) life. The term “ants” in the verse may refer to an army consisting of robots, future developments in robot technology, and how robots will play an important role in human life. For example, they may perform many arduous tasks and thus make people’s lives more comfortable. (Allah knows best.)

——————————————————————————–

1- John S. Bay, “Design of the ‘Army Ant’ Cooperative Lifting Robot,” http://armyant.ee.vt.edu/paper/robo_mag.html.

2- Israel A. Wagner, “My Travels With my A(u)nts: Distributed Ant Robotics,” www.cs.technion.ac.il/~wagner/pub/thesis_abs_eng.html.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, HARUN YAHYA
Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar writes his books under the pen name of Harun Yahya. Ever since his university years, he has dedicated his life to telling of the existence and oneness of Almighty Allah, and to disseminating the moral values of the Qur’an. He has never wavered in the face of difficulties and despite oppression, still continues this intellectual struggle today exhibiting great patience and determination. For mor information pls visit: http://www.harunyahya.com/theauthor.php

Ship Building Trend – by Oladokun Sulaiman – Oladok12@yahoo.com

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:52:00 +0000

By: Oladokun Sulaiman

Introduction

Shipping is not a primary industry in the sense of agriculture or mining, nor a secondary industry in the sense of steel or chemical production. It is a tertiary or service industry that responds to the needs of the shipping public. As such of that, shipping represents the investment of billions of dollars individual, corporate, commercial and government itself.

From that, the major function of the shipping industry is to close the physical gap between trading nations by allowing the exchange of extra commodities. This activity is performed worldwide and links all parts of the globe in a network of routes, some of which are highly developed and heavily trafficked. Others used occasionally at certain times of the years. So, water borne transport is the cheapest means of moving large quantities of any commodity over long distance although it is in the main far slower than other forms of transport.

Owners do more than respond to the signals of the market. They continually assess the future needs of shippers and charterers investing their resources in terms of manpower and capital, in new ship design, technological improvement and additional ship capacity, realizing profits if they a re right and losses if they are wrong.

Lowering the cost of transportation since World War II has encouraged the specialization of industrial output by shifts in the comparative price advantage of domestic and foreign

produced goods and has opened remote sources of raw material. World economies have never been as integrated as they are now. Trade is the most powerful binding force in a world filled with incompatible political systems.

Trends in shipbuilding

According to Lloyd’s Register, the world orderbook for new ships, as measured in gross tons, decreased after June 1998. On June 30, 1999, the world orderbook for merchant vessels 100 gross tons (gt) and over consisted of 2,479 vessels totaling 53.8 million gt. This represents a 7 percent decrease from the 2,668 Vessels on order at the end of June 1998 and a 3 percent decrease in gross tonnage from 55.6 million gt in June 1998. The average size of merchant ships on order increased 4 percent from 20,829 gt at the end of June 1998 to 21,718 gt at the end of June 1999. South Korea jumped ahead of Japan to regain the dominant position in the world merchant shipbuilding market. South Korea accounted for 35 percent of the gross tonnage of merchant ships on order, followed by Japan with 32 percent and the People’s Republic of China with 5 percent of the international commercial shipbuilding orderbook (see Figure 22-1). At the end of June

1999, the United States ranked twelfth among shipbuilding

The world shipbuilding market continues to face serious difficulties, due to an imbalance of supply and demand. Past expansion of shipyards, mainly in Korea, but now increasingly also in China 3, has led to price depression. Year 2000 have been a recovery point due to high level of ordering and increase in price while year 2001 has led to a new reduction in prices.The year 2001 has been very problematic for the maritime industries world-wide: The Recession in the US and the terrorist attacks of 11 September has decreased the demand for sea trade and cruises, respectively. The decline in ordering affected the sectors of Containerships and cruiseships most, leading to a drop in overall market share for Korea and the EU, which are particularly strong in these segments.

The segment Liquified Natural Gas carriers (LNG) saw an increase in absolute order volume, however, this is still a niche market. Korean yards took most of the orders for LNG carriers. They hold 65 % of the relevant world orderbook, and 79 % of the new orders placed in 2001 went to Korean yards, despite the fact that Korea is a relative newcomer in the field and the building yards do not hold patents on the key technologies. Market analysis suggests that Korean yards made inroads in this area due to very low offer prices. Their ability to supply a large number of vessels at an early delivery date may have been important in getting a large amount of orders also.

company in the field and their data is also used by international organizations such as the OECD.

Challenges in technological developments in the shipping and shipbuilding industries over the last few years are summarized here by adding the latest information to what was reported.

1. Energy Saving Technology for Ships

In 1981, successful attempts to develop ships mainly very large ore/ coal carrier, which would consume 40 to 60 percent less fuel than conventional ships of comparable size were announced in quick succession and construction of such ships was started. At the same time, these techniques serve as stepping stones for further technological development in this direction.

2. Study on Technological Strategy

Expert from universities, the Ministry of Transport and the shipping , shipbuilding and ship machinery industries gathered and discussed a technological strategy for the coming years, based on the environment of the shipbuilding industry and the expected future image of the nation. The conclusion s they reached were:

· Social requirements and constraints to be taken into consideration are boiled down to building up a socioeconomic system harmonized with the environment, realization of secure and hazard-free life of high quality, realization of an advanced IT-oriented society and assurance of steady supply of energy, resource and food.

· Focus on energy conservation and human labor saving, themes corresponding to the above-cited general objective include conservation of the global and marine environment, pursuit of greater safety and reliability, application of advanced information technology and enhancement of productivity and reliability and sophistication of shipbuilding technology and creation of new demand to be met by shipbuilders.

3. Conservation of the Global and Marine Environment

Among the themes concerning the conservation of the global environment taken up by the United Nation Environmental Program (UNEP), those having direct relevance to the shipping and shipbuilding industries are the prevention of the marine pollution, the prevention of air pollution and the prevention of global warming.

4. Ship Safety and Reliability

From the second half of the 1980s, bulk carriers were wrecked consecutively, tolling many human lives and large amounts of resources. Safety problems of bulkers have been discussed mainly at the IMO and the International Association of Classification Societies (ICAS) and legislation for greater safety is in the process of development. Therefore, they create some solution for them to follow it, the solution covered;

· Enhanced Hull Inspection and Maintenance

· Fatigue and Corrosion of Hulls

· Monitoring of Hull Strength

· Modernization of Ship and Establishment of Management Systems

5. Application of Advanced Information Technology and Enhancement of Productivity and Reliability

A computer integrated manufacturing system (CIMS) for shipbuilding has been studied as a joint project of the academic community and private industry since year 1987. Realization of the system is an urgent necessity in order to transform the traditional labor intensive shipbuilding sector into a modern industry and eventually solve the immediate problem of labor shortage, especially of skilled worker. Because the reduced physical capacity of shipyards and the double hull requirement for tanker will inevitably reduce the numbers of vessels that can be built annually further improvement in productivity are required. From this CIMS, it introduces;

Design stage

Production planning and production management

Mechanization and automation

6. Advancement of Shipbuilding Technology and Creation of New Demand

Studies are under way focusing on the development of ultra-high speed cargo ships, and on infrastructure improvements including faster and more efficient cargo handling to match the speed of fast marine transport, all with an eye to a modal shift in the key aspect of logistic.

The volume of cargo traffic increase annually and basic physical distribution requirements for ever faster, cheaper and safer transport remain. Overland transport in particular, is beset by problems of congestion, labor shortage an air pollution from exhaust gas, giving rise to demands by society for a modal shift to marine transport.

Research efforts are also made for practical application of gigantic floating structures intended for greater utilization of oceanic space. It is hoped that shipbuilding technology be further advanced so as to create new demand to be met by shipbuilders.

Summary of market share –all ships type

According ships data’s collected from clackson research report, Japan, china (including Hong Kong ) , the republic of Korea , Denmark and Sweden are outstanding among the nations with maritime services for cross trades.

Other major trading nations are major importers or users of shipping services while maintaining a relevant ownership position and to lesser extent a national flags – for example the united stares come into this group. According to UNCTAD report the United States account for 13% of world trade while owned 5.9 % of world tonnage with only about 1/4th of such tonnage flying the national flag. Similarly France account for .5% of world trade and .0 % of tonnage ownership with flag having a share of ½ of this percentage.

Korean yards continue to price ships below cost while others are trying to improve their bottom line. Most major Korean yards managed to show a profit for 2001, due to high sales volume at expense of price.

The source mostly referred to in this report is H. Clarkson Ltd. 11 and its various subsidiaries (in particular Clarkson Research). While Clarkson is a well-recognized

Demands for shipbuilding

Research and development Forecast under analysis of cargo volume and correlation with fleet ownership generated has allows have also been a useful tool for various decision making process to meet market and demands call in maritime industry a swell as increased productivity and cost reduction in the construction of ships. So far, because of the complexity of the maritime industry- maritime structures and maritime transport services are largely interrelated, therefore, demands to meet productivities, efficiency of the construction of ships, Technology and Improvement of competitiveness depends on the following components

Organization

Human factor

In particular, in order to achieve substantial cost reduction, productivity gains, production process simulation under technological and organizational, this along side with other factors of labor and incorporation of new ICT tools for interconnectivity between different systems will be taking into account and incorporated as necessarily.

In addition to this the following factors has also influence the market of sea transport:

World Economy: the world economy with its output and trade is the most important single factor to generate demand for shipping and any crisis in the world economy reflects in the demand for shipping. Ups and downs of shipping demand are also proportionate to world trade. The world economy that may bring about change in the demand for sea transport through:

· The Business Cycle: The business cycle lays the foundation for freight cycles. Fluctuation in the rate of economic growth work through in to the sea borne trade, creating a cycle pattern of demand for ships. For example, two major recessions in shipping business in 1975 and 1981-1983, which co-incited with the recession of the world economy. These economic cycles arise from a combination of external and internal factors. The external factors include events such as wars or sudden changes in commodity prices such as crude oil, which cause a sudden change in demand. Internal factors refer to the dynamic structure of the world economy itself, which it is argued, leads naturally to a cyclical rather than linear growth path. Five of the most common business cycles are-

Concurrently, this make the designing and building of highly complex maritime systems, be it ships, floating factories or fixed structures, requires the best possible multidisciplinary approach that focus on

Simplicity (in lay-out and operation)

Robustness and reliability

Ease of maintenance

Low manning requirements

Inline with contemporary issue of sustainable safe and environmentally friendly ship operation, using

Design Tools.

Design Methods

Production Processes

Production Technologies

Commodities that have share of commodity for sea trade are raw material of agricultural industry, Metal Industry, Forest Product, Other Industrial Material, Other Manufactures.

The most important technical development was the unitization of the liner shipping business. The shipping industry has been so successful at exploiting this technical development that the cost of sea transport has hardly increased- Coal and Oil cost little more to transport.

It is generally considered that maritime capabilities, specifically of the ownership of substantial tonnage are essential for a county trade support and promotion. This report will highlight data’s of major trading countries, the relationships and impact between cargo and tonnage and the flag of registry in the mid 1990s than in 1940s.

Market trend

According to UNCTAD maritime review Japan, Korea’s china has made more than dramatic change that revolutionary’s shipbuilding. It has observed that shipping building and its associated industry is quite conservative, and they are more subjects to government influence and policies. This influence has provided fluctuation trends in the industry and of course the demand and supply for cargo are determinant for demand for new ships.

A summary of the balance of tonnage supply and demand for selected years appears in table – The total surplus tonnage in 2004 was about half that of the previous

year – 6.2 million dwt. This was largely attributable to the high level of vessel scrapping over the last few years and to increased employment of ships.

Supply

Tonnage supply in the oil tanker sector increased in 2004 by 12.3 million dwt to 298.3 million dwt as newbuildings delivered outweighed tonnage scrapped, laid up or lost (see table and. figure). This, combined within increased shipments and extended haulage,

brought down overcapacity to 3.4 million dwt or 1.1 per cent of the total world tanker .eet. In 2004, the total dry bulk. Fleet supply increased by 27.6 million dwt to 325.1 million dwt. Over tonnage for this type of vessel reached 2.1 million dwt, equivalent to 0.6 per cent of the dry bulk .fleet. For the conventional general cargo. Fleet, overcapacity stood at the same level as in the previous year, with supply exceeding demand by only 0.7 million dwt or 1.6 per cent of the world .fleet of this sector. The surplus tonnage of general cargo vessels has been under 1 million dwt for the last four years.

Policy change

Recent years have seen many countries coming up with revitalizing and their shipping building industry, in Nigeria cabotages law and ship financing scheme is recently established to encourage shipbuilding and ship acquisition. The US also introduced the National Shipbuilding and Conversion Act of 1993 and the expanded Title XI Federal Ship Financing Guarantee Program. .the same is introduced in other part

Demand

The correlation between cargo volume generated by different country groups and their fleet ownership is summarized in table 29. Developed market-economy countries generated 48.9 per cent of world seaborne trade in 2004, compared with 53.7 per cent in 1980. Over the same period, the tonnage share of the fleet of developed market-economy countries fell, from about 51 per cent in 1980 to about 27 per cent in 2004.

However, in addition to tonnage under national flags, there is also the tonnage of vessels owned by nationals of particular countries but registered under foreign flags, and the two together bring the share of developed market-economy countries to 65 per cent. The share of developing countries in world cargo turnover has remained at about 40 per cent.

Their tonnage owned and registered under national flags increased from 10 per cent of the world fleet in 1980 to 22.6 per cent at the beginning of 2005, Tonnage beneficially owned by developing countries has expanded to nearly one third of the total beneficially registered tonnage, bringing the total tonnage owned by developing countries to about 36 per cent of the world .fleet. The share of world cargo turnover generated by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe remained at about 3 per cent in 2004, unchanged from the levels of previous years but significantly less than the 4.7 per cent level of 1980.

These countries’ fleet position also declined from 5.5 per cent to less than 2 per cent in 2004. The socialist countries in Asia increased their share in world trade to 8.1 per cent in 2004, while they improved their share in world tonnage from 1.6 per cent in 1980 to 3.7 percent in 2004. In addition, these countries have a small share of their fleet registered in the open registries.

Information on the fleet ownership of the major trading nations appears in table 30. The major trading nations are also major owners of tonnage, which reflects the fact that in trade-supporting policies maritime transport can be exploited as a complement to trade. Maritime capabilities, specifically ownership of substantial tonnage, are generally considered essential for a country’s trade support and promotion. The table also

highlights the similarities and differences among the shipping services of the leading trading nations. Major trading countries such as Japan, China (including Hong Kong), the Republic of Korea, Denmark and Sweden are outstanding among the nations with

maritime services for cross trades. Other major trading

The information provided by Clarkson Research confirms the general downward

trend in ship prices. This applies to all standard ship types and reflects the generally

negative sentiment in the market, despite rising costs stemming from inflation, wage

increases and higher prices for raw materials priced in USD in all major shipbuilding

regions.

Source – clackson research

In accordance with market developments, Chinese shipbuilders have expressed their intention to aim for a large scale expansion of facilities, quoting South Korea as an example to follow. This is likely to lead to further price decline, unless China herself creates significant additional demand for ships. China being in WTO will equally creat effect in the market.

The index clearly shows the massive drop in prices following the Asian crisis of

1997/98 and the subsequent efforts to increase prices along the ordering boom in

2000. The (not very pronounced) trend towards better prices stopped in late 2000 and

for the year 2001 the trend was reversed as had to be expected with the number of

incoming orders falling. It is noteworthy that 2001 price levels did not keep pace e.g. with inflation.

With very limited ordering expected for 2002, price recovery will be difficult to

Achieve, although yards may be inclined to look for orders in those segments that

have been less affected by price erosion. Past experience has, however, shown that

this behaviour does not improve the financial results of yards, but rather leads to

additional price erosion in the targeted sectors, as long as the market is characterized

by over-supply.

New building

Yards, such as Hyundai (HHI), Hanjin (HHIC) and Samsung (SHI), did not benefited from large scale debt restructuring and which operate comparatively “old” facilities show (slightly) higher production costs under the debt-based methodology, while yards, such as Daewoo (DSME) and Daedong, did benefited from debt reductions and moratoria but operate comparatively “new” facilities show (slightly) higher production costs when basing the investigations on the depreciation approach. The two approaches give very similar results for the other two major Korean yards, Hyundai Mipo and Samho. Of course, results are also influenced by the financing terms of the individual projects investigated.

New ship builders

Source- European union

Prediction for future shipbuilding

If we go through the trend of the shipping and shipbuilding above, we can create and project a new development in next few years’ construction. Here, what I am thinking that influence to the shipping and shipbuilding industries.

1. Justification for Combined Carriers

In order to discuss the need flexible ships on certain of the world’s trade routes, the following section looks at the justification put forward by the shipping industry for the design and operation of combined ore, bulk, oil carrier or ore, oil carrier. These ships are designed to carry either oil or dry bulk on separate voyages at different times and are potentially more productive than pure tanker or bulk carrier.

In making the decision to invest in combined carrier tonnage as opposed to a pure oil carrier or dry bulk carrier, the ship-owner is presented with two possible operating scenarios. He can either combine voyages over a period by carrying dry bulk and oil in a sequence that keeps ballast to minimum or he can switch his ship between the dry bulk and the oil market sector. The independent ship-owner seeks to minimize his earnings by operating ships; therefore he must adapt management performance to combine flexibility with greater earning power.

2. Combined Voyages

The operation of combined voyages seeks to mix short ballast passages with longer loaded ones. It takes a different management style and effort to negotiate a series of contracts that will keep the ship employed to that normally found in bulk shipping company. The use a contract where the ship is not named in the document, but a promise is given to deliver the fixed amounts of cargo in given time periods makes it possible to plan the schedules of a fleet of this type of ships. The problem may be encountered where the cargo owner may offer a lower freight rate than that currently found in the spot market in exchanged for this type of commitment.

3. Spot Market Operation

The basic assumption underlying this philosophy is that the shipping market follows a pattern, which enables the time, when it is advantageous to transfer the combined carrier from oil trading to dry bulk trading to be calculated. This means that when tanker rates are high, the ship is traded in the oil market as a tanker, but when this rate falls there comes a time when the dry bulk rate will be higher it is the profitable to transfer to dry bulk trading.

4. Event Affecting Combined Carrier Utilization

5. Energy

Almost all commercial merchant ships are powered by oil fed plant. However, the oil crisis of the last few years has highlighted the need to research the likely power plant of the future. Amongst the many options, three alternatives to oil seem to have gained the most attention.

· Steam power

· Wind power

· Nuclear power

New project investigations

Since the last shipbuilding report six more orders (all placed in South Korea) were

investigated in detail, in order to establish the actual building costs. The investigated

orders are:

– VLCC, 48 120 cgt, to be built at Samho Heavy Industries;

– LNG carrier (series of 5), 71 850 cgt, to be built at Daewoo Shipbuilding and

Marine Engineering Co. Ltd. (DSME);

– LNG carrier, 69 675 cgt, to be built at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI);

– LNG carrier (series of 2), 88 500 cgt, to be built at Hyundai Heavy Industries

(HHI);

– Suezmax crude oil tanker (series of 4), 30 800 cgt, to be built at Samho Heavy

Industries;

– 5 762 TEU containership (series of 2), 42 835 cgt, to be built at Samsung

Heavy Industries (SHI);

DSME has become the leading builder of LNG carriers in the world, with sixteen ships on order, giving the yard an economy of scale unseen before. However, the detailed analysis undertaken revealed that for the construction of LNG carriers there are limits to the improvement in efficiency as some yard equipment needs to be duplicated, leading to high up-front investment costs. Furthermore, DSME managed to start as a new company in late 2000, shedding most of the debts of its predecessor.

Therefore DSME can operate a very large state-of-the-art shipyard without the massive initial investment costs being reflected in their product prices. Nevertheless DSME still stands at a debt to equity ratio of 279 % (estimated for 2001), and although it is currently cash rich due to high order intake in 2001, this is likely to be dissipated when those orders need to go into production and the actual building costs begin to be incurred. SHI remains burdened with a comparatively high level of debt (the debt to equity ratio for 2001 is estimated to be still more than 200 %) and this fact is reflected in their cost base. SHI also suffers from a lower productivity than its Korean competitors, leading to higher wage costs. In addition SHI did not manage to attract multiple orders as Daewoo and Hyundai did and this has to show in the unit costs.

After being able to dispose of some non-performing assets stemming from HHI’s previous engagement with other Hyundai subsidiaries, HHI seems now to be heading towards profitability. HHI’s debt to equity ratio is assumed to reach 183 % in 2001, but, as with all Korean yards, an assessment of the yard’s financial situation is difficult to make. Very few meaningful financial figures are given and published accounts are not very recent and have little or no annotations.

SOURCE CLARCKSON RESEARCH

Conclusion

The world shipbuilding market is characterized by a strong imbalance of supply and demand, that over-expansion of shipbuilding capacity in Korea has led to very low offer prices in most market segments and that the resulting losses for Korean yards, in some cases, have been compensated through financial restructuring which.

The world merchant fleet expanded to 895.8 million deadweight tons (dwt) at the beginning of 2005, a 4.5 per cent increase. Newbuilding deliveries increased marginally to 49.4 million dwt, and tonnage broken up and lost was more than halved to 10.6 million

dwt, leaving a net gain of 38.8 million dwt.

The fleets of oil tankers and dry bulk carriers, which together make up 73.3 per cent of the total world .fleet, increased by 6.1 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively. There was a 8.4 per cent increase from 90.5 to 98.1 million dwt in the container ship .fleet and a

7.6 per cent increase from 20.9 to 22.5 million dwt in the liqufied gas carrier’s .fleet.

The average age of the world fleet dropped marginally to 12.3 years, with almost 27.3 per cent of the .fleet 20 or more years old. General cargo vessels had the highest average age (17.5 years) and container vessels the lowest (9.4 years).

Registration of ships by developed market economy countries and major open-registry countries accounted for 27 and 45.1 per cent of the world .fleet respectively. Open registries increased their tonnage marginally; two thirds of this beneficially owned. Fleet

is owned by market-economy and developing countries. Developing countries’ share reached 22.6 per cent or 202.3 million dwt, of which 155.9 million dwt is registered in Asia.

References:

I. S.R.Tolofari (1989), “Open Registry Shipping, AComparative Study of Costs and Freight Rates”, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Amsterdam

II. Roy L. Nersesian (1981), “Ships and Shipping, A comprehensive Guide”, Penwell Books, Oklahoma

VII. UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transportation, 2004, Pg 19-53

MARINE TECHNOLOGIST

Chief Financial Officer Job Description

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:21:53 +0000

By: Gary Baker

Later, the world would be introduced to him via a hit motion picture. His name was Carl Brashear but I called him Chief – short for Master Chief Carl Maxie Brashear U.S.N. You may never have heard of him but there is a good chance you have seen the movie or a TV program about his life. His life inspired the movie “Men of Honor” and it stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as Chief Brashear. It also stars Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron and Hal Holbrook. But, this article isn’t about the movie. You can check that out for yourself and I recommend you rent it soon.

This story is about never giving up. There is already a lot of media talk about how 2008 is going to be a difficult one for business. And, you know what? If you believe that then I can pretty much guarantee it will be – for you. But, if you focus on a goal and tell yourself that you will never, ever give up then I can pretty much guarantee it will be a fine year – for you. So much of what happens in our lives has to do with how we believe and what we value. Chief Brashear epitomized the belief that you never give up. Here is a little of his story.

When he enlisted in early 1948 the Navy had barely been desegregated and after basic training he was assigned to an officer’s mess hall as a steward who served meals and polished the officers’ shoes. But, he wanted something more in life and while watching some divers working one day off an aircraft carrier, he decided that he was going to become a deep sea diver. He applied to school but was told that there were no R

20;colored” divers in the Navy. He responded that they were about to get their first. In 1954, he became the first African American to attend and graduate from the US Navy Diving & Salvage School. He later became a Master Diver and a Master Chief Petty Officer, the first in the Navy.

I met the Chief under strained circumstances. I was planning on being discharged from the Navy in November of 1970 after serving a little over three years. I wasn’t supposed to be discharged until a year later but I was one of thousands who qualified at that time for an early discharge. I was looking forward to starting my career as a civilian photojournalist when out of the blue, I got new orders. It seemed the USS Recovery ARS-43 needed someone with my set of unique qualifications and rank (at least that’s what my commanding officer told me) and I wasn’t getting out early. Instead, I was going to spend another year at sea and I would most likely be going to the Mediterranean for six months. I wasn’t happy.

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A few months after I had already reported to the Recovery, Chief Brashear was getting orders to report to the same ship to assume the role of Master Diver. It’s funny how life works out but the coincidence of us getting orders to the same ship would change my life. I wouldn’t appreciate how much until years later.

Shortly after getting settled onboard, I started getting to know the people I would be working with. One of them, a First Class diver by the name of George Caswell brought me up to date on the life of Carl Brashear when we heard he was going to be the new Master Diver. He told me the story of how in 1966, Chief Brashear had been working on the USS Hoist. They were recovering a nuclear bomb that had been lost when two of our planes collided while refueling near the Canary Islands. During operations a rigging line broke and a metal pipe flew and stuck Chief Brashear’s left leg below the knee and nearly sheared it off. He spent the next two years rehabbing his leg which was amputated. But, instead of being discharged or taking a desk job, Chief Brashear was determined to be reinstated as a diver. In April 1968, he became the first amputee to be certified as a Navy Salvage & Rescue Deep Sea Diver. Two years later he and I were to meet up on the Recovery.

As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t particularly happy about having to serve another year at sea. But, I made the best of it and quickly gained the support of the operations officer to whom I reported and my commanding officer. In fact, I was given permission to start a ship’s newspaper as we were leaving for a six month “Med Cruise.” Putting out the newspaper gave me a creative outlet and I enjoyed it very much since I had worked as a reporter and a photographer on a daily paper before enlisting. I typed on a manual typewriter using a two-ply spirit master and then ran it off on a ditto machine. The first few issues were mostly about the ports we were visiting with some current event news thrown in. But, it wasn’t long before I decided to start writing opinion pieces. We were somewhere off the coast of Italy when I wrote my opinion about the Vietnam War, President Nixon and the Uniform Code of Military Justice all in one issue.

As newspapers go, it managed to cause one heck of a lot of furor. My operations officer told me it actually caused a shouting match at dinner that night in the officers’ mess. The career men on board (which would include Chief Brashear) were not pleased by my opinions and several shared their opinions of me with me. The next day the captain ended up explaining to me that as a US Navy Petty Officer I was not allowed the freedom to express my opinions about either our commander in chief or the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I think it was my statement that the term “military justice is an oxymoron” that got them most wound up. That was the end of the ship’s paper.

That evening, after word of the newspaper’s cancellation got out, I was on watch in the Combat Information Center (my office) when I got a knock on my locked door. Looking out the peephole I saw it was Chief Brashear. He had never visited me before so I was pretty much expecting he had something to say about the newspaper. But, he didn’t mention it. He just said he was on the bridge and thought he’d stop in to chat. He then wondered if I would like to join him in the boatswain’s locker (his office) after I got off duty to “work out” with him. He had a look in his eye that told me I’d be out of my mind to accept that invitation. He apparently was also not amused by my opinions. I told him I didn’t think I would be joining him and he said okay and that was the end of the discussion. For the next few weeks, I stayed clear of him except when we had to work together and he ignored me except to give me a stare once in a while. Call it détente. But then something happened that changed everything.

Chief Financial Officer Job Description

The ship was short on its quotient of officers on board and the result was the officers had to stand 12 hours on and 12 hours off watches as Underway Officer of the Deck (UOOD). The UOOD is person who gives the orders on the bridge while the ship is underway. He’s in charge of giving navigation orders, avoiding running into anything, and assuring the safety of the ship and its sailors. One day, the operations officer was complaining about the watches when he flippantly said to me, “You should be standing UOOD watches since you teach us anyway.” It was true that part of my job was teaching new officers some of the things they had to know to qualify as an UOOD. I said I would be happy to do that if the Navy ever decides to let an enlisted person run a ship underway. I didn’t think anymore about it.

Now it so happened that the operations officer was a tenacious kind of researcher. He checked into all the regulations and found that there were none that said you actually had to be a commissioned officer to qualify as an underway officer of the deck. You only had to pass a written test and be certified by the captain. Somehow, he talked the captain into allowing me to take the test. I passed it and the next thing I knew the captain had certified me as a UOOD and I was put on the watch rotation. In those days if we weren’t off rescuing or salvaging, we usually spent time running drills and also shadowing Russian trawler “spy ships” which made for some interesting watches as UOOD.

I was standing one of my first watches (it might have been the first) when Chief Brashear came up to the bridge. We were going through the formal ritual of changing UOOD’s which involved me stating that “this is Petty Officer Poole and I have the Deck and the Conn.” I remember looking at Chief Brashear who had a look of disbelief on his face. He had never seen an enlisted man be given the Deck or Conn underway. It was unheard of at that time.

The following day I found the Chief, once again, visiting my office to chat. He wanted to know how it came to be that I was standing an UOOD watch. And, he wanted to know how he could do the same thing. I told him how there wasn’t any regulation that said he couldn’t and that he could take the same test I took as long as the captain was good with it. I told him I’d help him with the things he needed to know that he wasn’t already familiar with and a few weeks later Master Chief Brashear was certified as an Underway Officer of the Deck.

From that point on we started talking about our lives and our futures when one of us had a night watch and things were quiet on the bridge. I told him how I was going to continue in photojournalism or maybe even studio photography. He told me about his life since being born in Kentucky the son of sharecroppers. He never once complained about the prejudice he faced in becoming a diver. He never bemoaned the loss of his leg. Instead, he talked about never giving up on your dreams and wanting to experience as much as possible in life. I learned that when he wanted to go to First Class Diver’s School, he couldn’t pass the first time because of the math, physics and chemistry needed. He had enlisted with only a grade school education. He enrolled in the Armed Forces Institute and worked for three years to master the necessary science skills. He got his GED and went back to First Class Diver’s School where he graduated third in his class.

He would get excited when I would talk about my future and he encouraged me to do everything and anything I wanted in life. He was one of the toughest men I have ever known. But, he was tougher on himself than anyone else. He didn’t know the meaning of “you can’t do it” and he pushed himself to withstand mental, emotional and physical pain that would break most anyone else because he couldn’t accept giving up. He taught me a lot about not letting someone else take away your dreams.

Master Chief Brashear died of respiratory and heart failure in 2006. How a man with a heart as big as his can die of heart failure is a mystery of nature. His son, Phillip Brashear, said at his funeral that even while dying, his father seemed unwilling to let go of a life built on determination. “Even though his lungs failed him, his heart was still beating.” Carl Brashear showed us all what a human being is capable of accomplishing when he’s faced with overwhelming odds. Think about that when you find yourself thinking about how 2008 is going to be a “tough year” for business. Go rent the movie, “Men of Honor.” You might find yourself saying, “Never Give Up.”

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Biometric Technology, are They New Toys for Children?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:43:41 +0000

By: Nancy William

As a mother, I can truly understand how parents across the world feel about their children. The parent-child relationship is a universal one. It crosses languages, barriers, and borders and speaks the same language of love and protection. All parents have the same goal – to protect their children from the problems of the world. Obviously, most parents would like their children to grow to be model citizens and they would never want their children to be associated with anything criminal. Fair enough… but (and of course there is a but to everything, isn’t there?) there are two sides to everything. The knife that we use to cut fruits and vegetables could also be used to kill! Does this mean that we should stop using it?

I believe it all depends on how people look at things. We can choose to be positive and to look at all the positive aspects of life, or we can choose to be pessimistic and to be threatened by every fly that passes by. (Flies can carry germs!)

Recently, I have been reading countless accounts of parents who are paranoid about fingerprinting their children, and so far I haven’t been able to understand what the real issue at hand is. We have made numerous technological advancements to make our lives easier. We believe that now, in the 21st century, we are more civilized than man has ever been. So why are we not able to accept certain changes which come due to new technology? Is it because we are inherently pessimistic and cynical? I’m sure that when Marie Curie discovered Nuclear Physics her intentions were clearly not to

create nuclear bombs. Humanity has benefited greatly from the development of nuclear science. Still, every time we hear the word nuclear we think of bombs and wars. It is the pessimistic nature of modern man that guides our thought process in this way.

It is true that fingerprinting has been used in the past for identifying criminals. However, the technology has evolved just as most technologies tend to do. It is rare to see someone today with a car phone or with a computer the size of an entire room. These technologies have evolved, and certainly for the better. Today, fingerprinting is generally used as a device to accurately identify people. In fact, there are a number of other biometric technologies available. Such technologies include signature readers, retina scanners and DNA samples. These have all been used to identify criminals at some point or another. But DNA is also used for many scientific tests and the study of DNA has advanced so greatly that medical science could not possibly think of doing away with it. If you were being treated for a sickness and your DNA needed to be analyzed for a possible genetic disorder, would you choose to die instead because DNA sampling is used to identify criminals? Of course this is an extreme example, but I doubt that anyone answered “Yes, of course!”

We show our children TV shows like Star Trek, The Jetsons, etc. All children have seen doors slide open and computers accessed by using fingerprinting technology “in the future”. Why can’t we realize that “the future” could be now, if we would only allow it to happen?

Parents are concerned that their child’s fingerprint will be stored in some kind of database. To be honest, I was also concerned about this at first. However, I felt that I should gather extensive knowledge about the technology before I shot it down without a second thought. I have done online research and contacted reputable firms that offer biometric technology like M2SYS, Motorola, NEC (citations to these websites are given below) etc.

M2SYS they are an American reputable leading company in fingerprint biometric technology and most of their clients are private firms, school, gyms, banks, clinics, etc. Motorola and NEC are big multibillionaire companies that produce high-fi biometric technologies for big government agencies all around the world.

These companies confirmed what really happens when an individual is fingerprinted. It basically breaks down into an initial enrollment process and an identification process. During initial enrollment, an individual scans his fingerprint for the first time. The biometric software recognizes certain unique, key points of this individual’s fingerprint. These points are then converted into a series of numbers, or a binary string. Then, each time the individual scans their fingerprint for identification, an algorithm is used to determine if the binary numbers match up with the fingerprint. If they do, then voila! The software provides instant and secure identification.

If you are still scratching your head at this point, you are not alone – I was too. Most of us will never understand the entire science involved in biometric identification. But what is easy to understand is this: every software company uses a different algorithm. There is not some magic, all-encompassing fingerprint algorithm that every company uses within their software to identify people. This means that if you had two children attending schools in different districts that were both using fingerprint identification by different biometric companies, and you accidentally sent them to the wrong schools (Mondays…) there is no way that either child could be identified. Their prints are not stored in some common database. All that is ever stored is a binary number associated with points of their prints that can only be accessed by the company that has provided the biometric software. These companies are not even associated with the government. They are mostly private technology companies just looking to sell their software solutions.

Biometric technology can be beneficial to our children by improving the security at schools and increasing the overall safety of our children, all with binary numbers which are useless to anyone but the private biometric company. I would advise every parent to do some research into the realities of biometric identification and to unveil the myth behind the infamous fingerprinting technology.

Of course if we want to think negatively, nothing is one hundred percent foolproof. Computers make our lives easier but they can be hacked too. However, if the biometric software is hacked, the thief would be disappointed that all he would receive were the useless strings of numbers. As one company put it, it would be easier to steal fingerprint data from something a child had touched than to design an intricate reverse algorithm; all to retrieve a useless series of points of a fingerprint.

Life is full of possibilities if we think positively and are open to new technology. I, for one, am more interested in my child safely growing up in a world full of amazing technological advances that my generation could never have even dreamed. I believe that this world is possible if we don’t hinder its progress by bashing advancements that we know nothing about. In the end, we may all have different opinions, but I am asking that we all gather knowledge about each new technology before we ruin a great possibility for our children.

Resources:

http://www.m2sys.com

http://www.nec.com

http://www.motorola.com

I am an administrative associate in a university and I wish sometime I could experience today’s education system, with all the technology involved to make our children lives easier and for them to have a better understanding about the world.

Rainbow Dream For Better Health

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:03:41 +0000

By: Stephen Becker

Light is eternal, mysterious, and profoundly related to all aspects of health. Although, that relationship largely eludes a scientific analysis. We know sunlight, or artificial light matching the sun’s spectral signature, is essential for pineal gland function, sleep/waking cycles, and moods. These facts support the therapeutic use of light.

In the extreme northern latitudes, the cure for depressed and suicidal people during the long winter of darkness is a short daily exposure to a full spectrum light box. Sleep disorders are treated with doses of light. Plants need full spectrum light to thrive. Beyond these few indications not much scientific evidence exists for the relationship of light to health. (As an aside here, light is a convenient but somewhat inaccurate term. Light is our sensory impression of photonic energy and not a quality of matter.)

Scientists have described the physical qualities of light. Atoms emit it when their electrons fall to a lower energy level. The energy released is in the form of a photon. Once that happens, the photons vibrate (which gives light its color), and travel at 186,000 miles per second. This continues until a black body absorbs their quantum charge. While photons instantly reach this incredible level of activity, they are also simultaneously in two mutually exclusive states. They are at the same time members of wave formations and individual packets. Finally, and among many other exotic characteristics, they are capable of being in two places at once!

Scientists are aware of these strange qualitie

s. The pioneers of quantum physics, Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr, were deeply perplexed by the other worldliness of quantum mechanics.

Yet, the standard, materialistic interpretation for quantum particles, strange though it may be, is not strange enough. Much more needs to be said about light.

The unreality of photons and all quantum particles is otherworldly. As if the physical weirdness were not enough, the only theory able to encompass the entirety of quantum mechanics interpreted their substance as no substance at all. Protons, electrons, neutrons, quarks, muons, photons, and all the rest of the quantum menagerie are not things in our sense of what things are. They are “probability waves”!

Einstein said the world is like a watch in which we can only see the hands. The inside of the watch cannot be accessed. Aristotle knew this; and, all philosophers know it too. The essence of reality is hidden from examination. We can only look at the tracks of quantum particles as they etch lines into cloud chambers. We never see the particles themselves.

The same is true in the macrocosmic world. We never sense the thing-itself, but instead receive an impression, resulting from the reaction between the object of our interest and an electromagnetic field. This interference pattern is then further distanced from the ground of reality by our interpretation of the sensory information.

Why limit our therapeutic scope to the second hand rendition offered by sensory impressions? We want to include as many of the healing potentials of light (and of creation in general) as possible, even if some of these potentials can only be rendered sensible by imagination and a magical vocabulary.

In a quantum sense material objects, energies, sensory impressions, ideas, dreams, the present, the past, and all possible futures are made entirely of light. Either the light is condensed into matter, a form of jelled light, or it is free photonic and luminescent energy. This is merely a restating of Einstein’s famous equation E=MC2. Matter and energy are different aspects of the same reality equation.

The light of stars (our sun) is the stuff of creation. Matter, all matter, is born in the nuclear heart of stars. The vastest potentials of life, the alpha and the omega of existence are found in the light. Sun worshippers know this. All life not only depends on the sun, but also comes from the sun. The magical insight is that all life receives its vital information in light code. Surely, this is not any more difficult to believe than what we already know to be scientific fact?

The positive and healing parts of light information in the biosphere can be condensed? We find this congealed and super healing light energy in high vitality foods, supplements and full spectrum lights.

Light increases our choices for health and healing. By considering this larger view of nutrition we are empowered to go beyond the scientific measurements of velocity and vitamins, of color and carbohydrates, of the many wonderfully perceptive and helpful categories of the scientists, beyond the electron microscope, gram scale and metric ruler, to a world of immense possibility–the healing universe.

The author of this article is Stephen Becker, a principal in Vitality Science, a company dedicated to natural alternatives to restore and maintain pet health.

Can Nuclear Energy Be Peaceful

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:21:26 +0000

By: Irene Miller

Nuclear energy not just means bombs and deaths. This may sound too much on the Physics side but nuclear energy or energy per se is the result of reactions, thus converting matter to energy. One very popular source of this energy is the sun, which is said to be limitless and inexhaustible. It can be estimated that 16% of the earth’s electricity is provided by nuclear energy.

Before getting on the much-talked about topic in nuclear energy, one must know first its advantages. As stated earlier, nuclear energy is of much abundance. Coal and oil deposits may be exhausted as the years go by but nuclear stays on. Another pro is that it is cheap and not to mention free. It utilizes the sun as the source of energy. Power plants can also release more energy, using only a little amount of fuel as compared to fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is also said to be more environmental-friendly, as well-managed nuclear plants do not release harmful substances into the air.

And now, here come the disadvantages of nuclear energy. Nuclear weapons are dreaded weapons for mass destruction. Two powerful countries, Russia and United States, have nukes in their territories. One of the most dangerous aspects in nukes is radiation – it can cause cell damage and death among the populace when exposed to it.

And in line with peace concerns and peace talks among nations, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently issued a law regarding peaceful use of nuclear energy. President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan bans any operation with regards to the use of uranium enrichment o

r spent fuel reprocessing facilities within UAE’s boarders. The law is made to follow the criteria of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to support the implementation of Peaceful Nuclear Energy Programme. The statement is made by Wam, an official news agency. One important aspect in nuclear energy operation is the commitment of transparency of the nation involved. Wam also added that the UAE worked closely with the IAEA along with nations like US, Japan, France, and Russia who are known suppliers of nuclear weapons.

One good way of relating nukes to your everyday life through your finances. And just how would you do that? Think of your debts as nukes, where there is no transparency and is mishandled badly. Do not let it blow out of proportion so educate yourself about Lexington law facts. A Lexington law firm acts as the agency controlling nukes, so let it sort out the problem for you.

Irene Miller is a teacher. She loves words and plays with them.

A Point of View 3

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:58:37 +0000

By: Andy Cox

Now here’s the thing: If it’s the case that – abstractly-speaking – there will be ‘I-standpoints’ after my death (this conception must be abstract in the sense that I cannot ‘own’ it as to do so would render these ‘I-standpoints’ ‘other-standpoints’. ), and I myself will not survive this event as a conscious subjective entity capable of entertaining an ‘I-standpoint’ myself, then a rather startling proposition suggests itself; namely, that when those surviving me (what applies to one applies to all) experience consciousness, it would be ‘as if’ I myself was experiencing consciousness, because to experience consciousness is to have an ‘I-standpoint’, and yet what being me is all about is precisely this: Seeing the world exclusively through my own eyes, and having direct and first hand access to my own thoughts, feelings and volitions – as well as memories and perceptions. In short, having an ‘I-standpoint’. Remember, I am not arguing for substantive re-incarnation. All I am saying is that the experience of anyone (and therefore everyone) of those surviving me cannot be objectified by me after my death (that is to say, presented as an ‘other-standpoint’ to me). Hence, that ‘anyone’ would be positioned on the subject side of the subject/object divide. What would change this would be to have this ‘anyone’ objectified, or – to put it more plainly – scrutinized by a contemporary; in which case, what has been said of that ‘anyone’ will apply to the contemporary, and so on. Since I myself cannot know the worl

d other than as a subject (even viewing video footage of myself does not amount to presenting myself with an ‘other-standpoint’ as the video footage is a series of images, not a person), my ‘I-standpoint’ must serve as a model for comprehending how it must be for either of the foregoing qua subjects. What is paradoxical in this, of course, is that I am unable to describe this situation without objectifying the subjectivity of those I am currently entitled to designate as ‘others’. The difficulty here is akin to the difficulty with trying to imagine nothingness. This is an extremely elusive idea, and really needs to be ‘unpacked’ for it to be understood. To this end, I should like to present a ‘thought experiment’ and develop the argument via a series of propositions.

(a) Let me begin by asserting that I, the person writing these words (I shall call myself A) can only ever experience the world from an inside perspective – via an ‘I-standpoint’. But like a dog failing to catch its tail, my ‘subject/faculty I’ will always elude my attempts to objectify it.

(b) A contemporary (Let us call this person C1), like A, will have thoughts, feelings, and volitions, but A can never access these directly: What he perceives is an ‘other-standpoint’ – observable manifestations from which he infers that C1, like him, possesses an ‘I-standpoint’. Just as he can never pin down his own ‘subject/faculty I’, he can never directly access C1’s ‘subject/faculty I’, nor C1’s thoughts, feelings and volitions. To experience another’s ‘I-ness’ from the inside necessarily involves being that person, which is something one is a priori incapable of doing. Imagining how another may experience ‘self-awareness’ is am altogether different kettle of fish.

(d) Now imagine, after A’s death, a person B being born, and in the fullness of time acquiring an ‘I-standpoint’.

(e) What B then experiences can only either be directly accessed by him via an ‘I-standpoint’, or inferred by a contemporary of B’s (Let us call this person C2) via an ‘other-standpoint’: External signs suggestive of the thoughts, feelings, and volitions operating inside B.

(f) Let us suppose now that some cataclysmic event befalls the world, and only two people are left alive: B and C2. In this situation, only two ‘I-standpoints’ could exist. Additionally, were B and C2 to communicate with one another, our world would admit of two ‘other-standpoints’. (However, if B became extremely paranoid as a result of this disaster, and chose not to reveal himself to C2, whilst nevertheless keeping C2 under close scrutiny, then one would have to say that only one ‘other-standpoint’ existed. And no ‘other-standpoints’ could exist if B and C2 were unaware of each other’s existence). What is important in considering this hypothetical scenario is that doing so from a God-like perspective with both protagonists in our purview runs counter to the aims, conditions, and assumptions of our thought experiment. No third perspective is permissible. We are compelled to see things, as it were, through the eyes of B or C2 – ‘as if’ we were B or C2. And if undertaken seriously, this would entail taking heed of the dire needs likely to be felt by our two unfortunate souls.

(g) Now let us suppose C2 dies, leaving B entirely on his own; the only sentient being in the world. The only legitimate way in which to take stock of this situation is to imagine ourselves being B because no ‘other-standpoint’ of any description is possible, or indeed, any other ‘I-standpoint, including ours qua sentient beings imagining this scenario.

(h) However, there is a problem with this: In the final analysis, when imagining the scenarios outlined in (f) and (g), and imagining how we ourselves might feel and respond if placed in the hypothetical shoes of B or C2, we unavoidably override the identities of B or C2 and introject our own identities into these scenarios. Whilst this might help to convey the notion of a future being viewed from an ‘I-standpoint’, it also unfortunately simulates what substantive re-incarnation might be like, and this is not what I am seeking to demonstrate. Thus we need to find a way of minimizing, or even eliminating our empathic, or imaginative, involvement in this exercise. One way in which this might be done is to make the following bald, predictive statement (Its being predictive creates a barrier between us in the present and B in the future. More specifically, it separates A from B, whose lives, in any case, by definition cannot overlap ):

‘At some point in the future, only one person, B, will be left alive –‘B’ being the name/label attached to that person’

This proposition is not wanting in feasibility – after all, there must have been a brief point in time when only a single dodo existed. Mental activity would consist entirely of B viewing a rather bleak, silent world from his own ‘I-standpoint’, and experiencing thoughts, feelings, and volitions fundamentally informed by the world around him. But should I attempt to describe how this might be for B, I realise that once again I risk being drawn into imagining how I might feel and think in B’s situation. So I need to confine myself to merely recognizing that B will have thoughts, feelings, and volitions, and deign to describe what these thoughts, feelings, and volitions might be. However, it may be deduced from the proposition too that no ‘other-standpoint’ could possibly obtain. This being the case, there could be no question of any mental activity being inferred from external signs. It would be directly experienced, as it were, from the inside, just as happens with me (A), in regard to my own mental activity. Because a ‘subject/faculty I’ will be present in this situation, because a sense of ‘I-ness’ will pervade this situation, and because B’s ‘I-standpoint’ will be the only mental standpoint obtaining in this situation, one might say that it would be ‘as if’ I(A) was reincarnated insofar as the ‘I’ in this context amounts to a ‘subject/faculty I’ (The content or substance presented to A and B’s ‘subject/faculty Is’ – including the myriad ‘facts’ collectively and accumulatively contributing towards the sense of identity felt by A and B – would necessarily differ vastly between A and B. Hence my rejection of any substantive reincarnation occurring. I have used the term, ‘quasi-reincarnation’ in relation to the idea I have set out to contrast it with ‘substantive reincarnation’). Were C2 to have survived, rather than B in the scenario described in (g), then intrinsically, all that has been said of B may be said of C, mutatis mutandis. The only problem that crops up here is one that is ‘extrinsic’ in character: C being the name/label I have applied to a conscious, subjective being who is not B, but a contemporary of B for an unspecified period. With B’s demise, this name/label is, strictly-speaking, non-applicable. But as we are concerned with a putative individual, rather than the name/label applied to that individual, this point is of little consequence.

(i) To ratchet up the realism of my argument, I should like now to discard the idea of a world bereft of all but one or two individuals. Let is return to the pre-apocalyptic situation in which B and C2 live along billions of other contemporaries (Cx) in the hurly burly of the near future. The specifics of how this world is ordered at this point in time, and the specific identities of B and C2 (who are merely defined as existing after A’s demise and co-existing with B for an unspecified period respectively) are irrelevant to what can be drawn from this. And the conclusions to be drawn are those arrived at in (h). Since C2 could be anyone, what applies to C2 applies to Cx, all of B’s contemporaries.

(j) When I began setting out this ’quasi-reincarnation’ notion, I had in mind those surviving me. However, the implications surely extend to my contemporaries as well; an increasingly greater percentage of whom will in any case survive me the older I get. For in both cases, I am referring to people who are ‘not me’; notwithstanding the fact that in the case of those who remain after I am dead the designation, ‘other’, can no longer apply in the sense that they cannot be other to something non-existent (albeit they can be ‘others’ to themselves). And what are these implications? They are simply that an adequate view of the world should acknowledge the plurality of subjectivities around us, and that, in a broader sense, there is a sort of equivalence between subjectivities, even if I am intrinsically biased against this perception by virtue of being grounded in my own subjectivity.

In a nutshell, ‘quasi-reincarnation’ amounts to this: Before and after my brief life – the quality of which is largely dependent on the circumstances I find myself in – I am not floating around in the ether taking a detached view of events occurring below, as I do not exist, and am therefore oblivious to the quality of other people’s lives. The living on either side of my brief life span will be or would have been more or less cognizant of the quality of life of their contemporaries, and rather more directly of their own lives. A conscious, subjective entity, characterized in part by not being me (and since this applies to any, it applies to all of this person’s contemporaries), will or would have been a subject vis-à-vis all others; an ‘I’ looking out upon the world, and within upon his/her own thoughts, feelings and volitions; someone immersed in an ‘I-standpoint’ and regarding others as possessors of ‘other-standpoints’. Such a person (once again, meaning anyone existing on either side of my life span) will feel or would have felt an imperative to attain or retain happiness – a goal largely realized by optimizing the circumstances of his or her life. Perhaps my own life could have been more agreeable given more conducive circumstances; the latter being to some extent (though certainly not altogether) forged by those preceding me. In a reciprocal fashion – albeit the case that I can only receive from the past and give to the future – I could strive to improve the lot of those who come after me. Since my death will herald circumstances in which any ‘I-standpoint’ will ipso facto not be mine, it would be ‘as if’ I had been reincarnated. The ‘I’ component of consciousness – the very facility for being conscious, and specifically, self conscious – would now reside elsewhere and the ‘me’ component would correspondingly differ. One might characterise this as a ‘quasi-reincarnation’. Thus it would be as if ‘I’, the ‘I’ bit in ‘I-standpoints’ of individuals not being me continued to experience the need to attain or retain happiness, and alter circumstances in order to achieve this goal. I, the person here in the present, would not be around to objectify the former, to render that ‘I-standpoint’ an ‘other-standpoint’. In fact, no assertion which presented me then as a subject would make metaphysical sense (aside from those alluding to my ‘public identity’).

In point (f) of the thought experiment, I made mention of the need to take heed of the dire needs felt by B and C2. Here we can see how altruism might link up with the notion of ‘quasi-reincarnation’. Suppose any of us were B or C2 in the situation outlined in (f). We’d be assailed by all manner of needs demanding our attention, would we not? Our own lives are beset with numerous needs too, many of which are shaped by, or relate to, other people and society in general, as I explained earlier. What the thought experiment hopefully demonstrated was how another’s subjectivity might acquire ‘primacy’ in the peculiar circumstances of a ‘uni-subjective world’, where crucially, I (A) did not exist, and was therefore unable to objectify the experience of this solitary soul. Thus, whatever needs there might be in this situation would be directly ‘felt’, rather than inferred, and being felt would need to be addressed with some degree of urgency, depending upon the particular need.

The point I guess I’ve implicitly been approaching is that because I (A) would not exist at this point in time, it would be prudent for me to consider in my own lifetime how B’s life (or simply the life of anyone coming after me- since we cannot know how things will pan out in the future) might be improved or enhanced, because when B is left entirely on his own, the only consciousness or subjectivity around is his, and I (the conscious, subjective entity designated A in the thought experiment) could not then experience his predicament from the outside. B’s experiences would constitute the totality of experiences, and there would be nothing beyond his ‘circle of consciousnesses’, if one might construe this situation in topographical terms. At the centre of this circle would be his ‘subject/faculty I’ (an appropriate metaphorical description if ever there was one as a centre, being a point in space, cannot literally be perceived, no matter what microscopic resolution we deploy to this end), which means that the sense of looking out on the world from the inside would characterise the situation, exactly as occurs in my own life. Hence the observation that it would be ‘as if’ I were reincarnated as B. The ‘subject/faculty I’ when B alone exists would no doubt register the fear, loneliness, desperation, and the basic needs impinging upon the situation.

The thing is, being an ‘I’ involves more than just observing and understanding: Most crucially, it means wanting to be happy. Why should this be so? This isn’t something that is altogether clear. Perhaps the desire for happiness may have arisen phylogenetically as hominids began to develop ‘consciousness’ (along with constituent thoughts, feelings, and volitions). Feelings being motivators (the relationship between feeling and volition being rather incestuous), it may be that the desire for happiness served an evolutionary function. Whatever the case may be, as ‘Is’, everyone’s inner life is consumed with the desire to attain or retain happiness of one sort or another. This will be the case too when I ‘pop my clogs’, and when this happens it will be the happiness of all erstwhile others – and their thoughts, feelings, and volitions in general – that will constitute the entirety of ‘mental acts’ at any given time, if I may tendentiously put it this way in order to make the point. I will have become no more than a memory in the minds of my ‘significant others’ and a wider circle of acquaintances – a memory spluttering flame-like for a generation or two in the minds of others, until fading into obscurity. Some, by dint of exceptional works rather than memory as such, will figure in the minds of their successors for unforeseeable generations – from Socrates and Shakespeare to Genghis Khan and Jack the Ripper. My reference to significant others does, however, raise the notion of a sort of altruism rather different from the universalistic species I have had in mind up till now. I am thinking here of the preoccupation people have with their own blood-line; their own children, grand-children, and so on. Whereas a universalistic altruism is premised on the destruction of one’s own identity and capacity to experience anything, this other – let’s call it ‘hereditary altruism’ – stems from rather different motives and assumptions, Whilst hereditary altruism can involve genuine concern for one’s progeny, I think it often has to do with ‘egotistic’ impulses, such as obtaining vicarious satisfaction from the achievements of one’s children, trying to ensure the stamp of one’s existence is felt by one’s own descendents over time, or wanting to establish some sort of dynasty. In other words, universalistic altruism acknowledges, even embraces, the destruction of one’s ego, whereas hereditary altruism attempts often ineffectually or vaingloriously to preserve or salvage something of oneself. I would not wish to be too judgmental about the latter: Most of us are inclined towards some form of hereditary altruism, and the two species of altruism are not necessarily incompatible. It may be that concern for one’s own offspring extends to worrying about the same broad issues that would preoccupy the altruist of a more universalistic persuasion. Because, ultimately everything is connected, and the wider context within which we live has a bearing upon our individual lives. It’s rather like the recent Bush Administration grudgingly and belatedly coming to acknowledge that climate change – which affects everyone on the planet – merits attention because of its impact upon Americans.

At this point I should like to advance two further arguments in favour of altruism. First of all, let us consider the concept of ‘interest’; of how altruism might benefit people, me included. Once again, I need to stress that I shall do so on the basis that there is no afterlife. Let us return to the ‘dramatis personae’ of our thought experiment: Let us imagine that an entity (A), calling himself ‘I’, dies, and subsequently someone else (B) is born who likewise, and naturally enough, grows up to call himself ‘I’. (A) cannot argue prospectively that after his death he will have no interest in (B)’s welfare on the grounds that (B)’s welfare is irrelevant to him because he is able to differentiate between his directly experiencing his own happiness and his observing signs of happiness in a contemporary (we shall call the latter (C1)). Because it is only while he is alive that he is capable of saying that he has no interest in someone else’s welfare – be that person (C1) or (B). Once dead, (A) is simply non-existent. ‘Having no interest’ qua a subjective entity necessarily entails making the aforementioned distinction. A stone may be said to ‘have no interest’ in someone’s welfare, but on grounds altogether different, namely that the predicate of the proposition, ‘A stone has no interest in someone’s welfare’ is devoid of any meaning other than that a stone is inanimate. It does not mean that this person serves some end for the stone. Because a stone cannot have an end, other than ‘end ‘ proposed for it by some conscious, subjective entity, or agent possessed of a ‘will’, who might decide to pocket it, skim it across a an expanse of water, or push it into a bed of mortar. Post-mortem and having ‘returned to dust’ as the ‘Good Book’ so trenchantly puts it, our existential status is no different from a stone. What survives us – the memories others have of us (our ‘public identity’), our life’s works, and even our physical remains (or perhaps I should say our various organs) – may serve as ends for others. In other words, the proposition, ‘I have no interest in others because their happiness is inaccessible to me’ can only ever be true during the course of the subject’s lifetime. To redraft in the future tense as ‘I will have no interest in the welfare of others when I am dead’ is essentially unintelligible (except in the sense of not possessing an ability to have an interest in anything) – assuming there is no such thing as an afterlife – as the subject of the sentence will no longer qualify as a subject after his or her death. Secondly, standpoints being the mental take on something or other, it follows that those who have a standpoint are conscious subjective beings. As the only standpoints to endure after my death will be those of others, it is as surely fitting for me to pay heed to these, as it is to give consideration to the standpoint I am likely to entertain in regard to my own welfare in my twilight years, for example. Why should I dismiss the latter because right now I am not drawn to a quiet life, riddled with arthritis, nor preoccupied with my pension or heating allowance? Yet, what my own future standpoint and the standpoint of others have in common is their literal inaccessibility to me now; the personal identity issue doesn’t really alter this fact. Being concerned for my future welfare entails a similar sort of empathic understanding as that which is marshalled when I feel concern for the welfare others. In both instances, there is an element of objectification: I look upon my future self as someone other than me, as, of course, I do with others in the present, and then attempt to mentally colonise this construct – ‘me in the future’ – situating my consciousness within it, and testing how this plays upon my thoughts, feelings, and volitions. Consciousness, being ‘of the moment’, can never truly encompass the future in that direct, instantaneous way it does the present. The corollary to this is that we can never truly objectify the ‘now’; that elusive, interstitial zone between the past and the future. But that, as they say, is another matter.

I have to acknowledge that notwithstanding my intentions, it is quite possible that the altruistic ethic argument flounders here and there on account of that bete-noire of mine: analogical mis-reasoning. In my defence, however, I would say that what I had intended was to present a picture of how things seem (hence my reference to ‘quasi-reincarnation’), rather than uncover some ontological bedrock. Because, ultimately, I have been trying to argue the case for an altruistic approach to life, rather than involve myself in ontology; interesting though it may be. What I’ve attempted to do is present a picture of reality with which nearly all of us could concur when not in ‘philosophical mode’, and then argue that we could alter things to more fully realize the most fundamental goal of our existence: the attainment of happiness. Whilst it doesn’t follow that we therefore should do this – there may some oddballs around who would argue that we should not strive for happiness – I would suggest that if one agreed with the foregoing, then it would be reasonable to adopt an altruistic approach in furtherance of this goal. Whether altruism therefore merits being called an ‘ethic’ or simply a strategy – the proof of which lies in the pudding, as they say – is a moot point. Insofar as I might have a stake in the endeavours of others on account of what I have termed ‘quasi-reincarnation – one might question whether my own motivation to beneficially affect the lives of others merited the epithet ‘ethical’. Because it could be argued that there is a selfish element in all this: Apart from gaining some sort of satisfaction from actually helping others, the notion of having a stake in the quality of succeeding lives by virtue of quasi-reincarnation paradoxically suggests that it is ultimately all about looking after oneself. Life being a lottery, in that we may be born into all manner of circumstances, from the utterly disadvantageous to the blissfully fortunate, one could also argue from a selfish perspective that it would make sense to improve the circumstances of all in case one drew the short straw, as it were. On the other hand, insofar as the injunction to behave altruistically is extended to be universally applicable, as something we should all be doing, perhaps it does deserve this epithet. Essentially, I am proposing an agenda for us as individuals that entails improving the lot of others, and this, it seems to me, entitles it to be called an ethic.

So this then is my ‘Organic Model of Human Development’: It proposes that our humanity is contingent upon our physical make-up and that we have no afterlife; that we are fundamentally driven to seek happiness; that the sources of happiness, by and large, are located outside of us, not least in the manner in which we organize society; that a communist society will afford us optimal happiness on this earth because it won’t be fractured by the contradictions that run through present day society and will directly involved in meeting people’s needs rather than facilitating profiteering, and that an altruistic approach towards others makes sense insofar as the notion of a sort of quasi-reincarnation makes sense; this being the idea that, with my death, the world will be viewed from an ‘I-standpoint’, from an inside perspective by someone (in fact, anyone, and therefore, everyone) other than me, and that the sense of self awareness, of ‘I-ness’, informing this perspective means that it would be ‘as if’ I myself was looking out upon the world at this point in time and space.

What the model declares is that we, the living, become a sort of compost enriching the lives of those who follow us. Once we die, all that truly remains of us are memories, memorabilia, and the achievements we have racked up in our lifetimes. It is really only the latter that have any dynamic continuity. The buildings we built, the fields we tilled, the inventions we brought into fruition, the books we wrote, the social institutions promoted: these are the things that will be incorporated into the lives of those that follow us. Whether slight or momentous, it is our achievements, our contributions to the welfare of others, to human progress, that ultimately matters. Because it is our achievements that lay the foundation for the happiness of others. Crucially too, nearly all of us have the capacity at some time in our lives to reproduce, and in bringing fine young sons and daughters into this world with the potential to contribute positively to this foundation as well, we contribute by proxy. But, as ever, there is a catch in all this: Our contribution may not in the end firm up this foundation, but, on the contrary serve to undermine it, whatever our intentions might have been. Sometimes we are barely cognizant of this because it is society itself that subverts our achievements: Just as one may spend a lifetime adorning the palace of a tyrant with sumptuous works of art only to shore up the institution of tyranny, so may our endeavours in life effect – even if intended in good faith to ameliorate the harshness of other’s lives – a prolonging of a system such as capitalism which lacks any semblance of moral purpose, and increasingly leads to the misfortune of millions. And, of course, some people weaned on the cynical amorality of capitalism will simply not give a damn about future generations, excepting perhaps their descendents whom they might be more inclined to view in dynastic terms. The altruistic ethic enjoining us to contribute to the happiness of these future generations (albeit predicated upon the somewhat paradoxical notion of a ‘quasi-reincarnation’ – which unintentionally hints at benefits to ourselves) therefore really only becomes meaningful in a society no longer at odds with itself, and no longer disposed to exploiting the generosity, compassion, and helpfulness which most of us have in is (Anyone doubting this might wish to reflect upon the millions of hours of unpaid overtime people work in this country – now more than ever – and not usually for ulterior motives. Moreover, it’s worth noting that millions too also get involved in some form of voluntary work from time to time). Such a society would facilitate the expression of such altruistic behaviour, and reconcile the individual with the collective. But that is in the future. For now, one could argue that simply striving to realise this future in itself constitutes an act of altruism. Because the scale of the transformation effected by humanity collectively opting to embrace a communistic form of society would be something without compare in human history, it is reasonable to describe this decision as the most significant act of altruism there could ever be.

Something else that might be said about this model is that its focus is very much on the world, on what we can see and touch. It eschews ‘pie in the sky’ fantasies about a paradisiacal life in the hereafter, not just on the grounds that that no evidence can be advanced for such a life, but also because an obsession with this detracts from efforts to make this world a better one. Moreover, the peddling of such fantasies often serves the interests of those who benefit most from the current dispensation, and can dissipate the urgency for radical social change. One might say that the model turns Pascal on his head, arguing that it is a far better bet to reject religion and concentrate the mind on bettering circumstances for all, so that no matter where or when we are born, these would be conducive to happiness. There is a sort of comfort to be had from such a belief. No fear need attach to dying. Such fear is something that religion infects us with from an early age with all its misanthropic, and frankly sadistic, talk of sinners being cast into eternal hellfire for failing to pay obeisance or display sufficient devotion towards God (though why a God should demand obeisance and devotion from his sentient ‘handiwork’ is beyond me. There is something almost perversely vain in God stipulating that he should be worshipped). And even if turned out that there was such a thing as a God, surely those who live their lives in accordance with an altruistic ethic are more deserving of approbation than those who don’t, notwithstanding any disinclination to believe in God or an afterlife.

Having said that, the foregoing exposition of the model has not explicitly touched on atheism, although this is something which is probably implied in the first of the propositions I presented, concerning non-survivalism. However, although a number of illustrious atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, have argued the case for atheism forcefully and eloquently, I do feel that simply disbelieving in the existence of a God hardly constitutes an adequate world view (if we take a ‘world view’ to mean a conceptual framework in terms of which a person tries to interpret reality in toto and chart his or her way through life, which incorporates a key proposition or a set of key propositions, and which – ideally – is broad yet not overly complicated, internally consistent, intelligible, does not fly in the face of facts, and which addresses the nature of Man and the world). Per se, atheism does not set out a vision of how we should live, and it puzzles me when some atheists seem more concerned to emphasize their conventionality in order to prove that atheism does not exert a corrupting influence on morality when, really, atheism ought to go hand-in-hand with a fundamentally unconventional view of who we are, what we want from life, and what should be done to realize our dreams. To uncritically accept the mores and orthodoxies of contemporary societies – apart from their religious aspects – seems a rather odd thing for atheist to do, given that these mores and orthodoxies are often underpinned by religion (Refer to my earlier discussion of the role of religion in society). It’s not that I disagree with all of these mores and orthodoxies – who could fault the Christian injunction to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’? But if we accept that there is no God or afterlife, why should we then acquiesce in orthodox worldviews that have not wholly disentangled themselves from their religious origins, and which lend support and give legitimacy to the status quo? Because it is the status quo that denies most of us the ‘Good Life’. If there is no God or afterlife, then clearly we should not feel bound by these orthodoxies, and promote instead a worldview view that accords with our longing to enjoy this ‘Good Life’. In other words, we (and that has to mean the majority of us – I cannot factor in the whims of every social misfit) need to say, ‘Right, we cannot look to a God to advise us and this is the only life we have, so lets find a way of ordering society so that we can makes for the greatest happiness for the greatest number (with as little distress to the demurring minority as possible)’ In my view, communism/socialism is the only way in which this could be achieved.

Apropos the model, I said at the outset that its components propositions (which more or less amount to what I jokingly called the roots in my intellectual stew at the beginning of this essay) cohere satisfactorily. However, I don’t think that the validity of each is in any way contingent upon the validity of any of the others. Going back to my stew metaphor, the ingredients of the stew do retain their identities: One might choose not to accept the atheist stance, or my critique of analogy, but still find substance in the idea of establishing a communist society. However, I do feel that the stew would be the poorer for that, and might amount to something less than a world view, as I’ve suggested in the preceding paragraph.

There is, of course, one thing that casts doubt on the usefulness of the model altogether: I remember once watching a programme on supervolcanoes; a rare but potentially cataclysmic natural phenomenon that supposedly nearly did for mankind once in our distant past. And this triggered the thought: How are we meant to reconcile ourselves to the very real possibility of our species being wiped out? Recent shifts in the earths crust beneath Yellowstone National Park in the US, for example, could presage just such a catastrophe. So could we learn to live with it?

In the preceding pages, I have suggested that individual lives draw on progeny, memory, words and deeds for meaning and purpose; we have no need for an afterlife. There is comfort or discomfort enough in the probability that other lives will flower (or wither) on our legacy. And I have tried to explain, having become nothing we could never experience this flowering or withering; such appreciation could only be exercised by the living. Thus a sort of quasi-reincarnation operates; ‘quasi’ because strands of personal identity are not flung out like fishing lines, with the possibility of landing another subjective reality.

Individual lives and the effects of those lives are two very different things; the latter being able to outlast the former by centuries and long after attribution had ceased to be possible. Indeed, it is conceivable that some effects may stretch to infinity, their influence being exerted over successive generations rather in the manner of a homeopathic dilution. Others might even have an accumulative effect, such as that exerted by the proverbial butterfly whose fluttering is felt as a hurricane thousands of miles away. Shakespeare was right to find consolation in the timelessness of his sonnets. But so much else endures of the effects of individual lives, from the banal to the abstruse. Moreover, it is those tangible carriers of our genes, our children, who in acting upon the world around them indirectly leave the imprint of our lives upon this world too by virtue of the influence we have had on them, particularly in their formative years. Hence the importance attached to parenting. But really, we need to look beyond our nuclear families, and see things in global terms: it is what one generation leaves to another that truly matters. As things are, we are bequeathing a world that is becoming increasingly impoverished and degraded because everything is contingent upon the need for a few to realize a profit. My belief is that in a society founded on common interest and common ownership, and informed by an altruistic ethic, the opposite will occur: The world we shall leave to our children will become increasingly conducive to happiness.

With mass extinction, however, any legacy is itself extinguished: the raison dêtre for everything is lost. So how might we come to terms with this very real possibility? This is something I’m afraid I cannot convincingly answer. It may be that one day our species will slip the knot that ties us to Mother Earth and embark on multi-directional migrations out of our solar system, thus hedging our chances of survival. Perhaps too all that has been said may apply mutatis mutandis to other sentient life forms in the cosmos, were they to exist. And who knows, fragments of this world view might still make sense to someone or something if in aeons to come, other universes were to bubble into existence. But that, of course, is arrant speculation: It could be that we lack the most elementary conceptual tools to comprehend how things will unfold in the far future. The very notion of life might then embrace meanings way beyond our current understanding, and even species as genetically linked groupings of individuals might no longer exist; having given way to prolix new forms of life.

However, with regard to the possibility of our own extinction as a species, I do not believe that we have it in us to fatalistically accept the sword of Damocles hanging overhead. We will always strive and contrive to find ways of bettering our lot or our chances in life. We are wilful creatures and therefore always inclined to keep an eye on the main chance. Because in one way or another to will is to search for something perceived as better, ironically, even if that something is one’s own death.

There is something tautological in this: what is better is preferable, and what is preferred is willed. We cannot will away our will and willing implies wanting to change circumstances, or resisting that which would alter circumstances we do not wish to change. Will is an irreducible given of our existence. We cannot will what we do not will. Even our rashest actions – those that threaten the apocalypse – may be construed as extremely short-sighted, but nevertheless proactive or reactive attempts to further our own perceived interests; in other words, expressions of will. But now more than ever, it is time for humanity to step back and consider the consequences of its actions and decisions. Humanity has now to examine its very modus operandus, and the assumptions that sustain this.

So long as we continue to perceive ourselves as having to lead a gannet-like existence on a barren rock of a planet where we must elbow out our neighbours if we are to gain a relatively secure purchase on some narrow ledge, we will be missing the point. It is our neighbours that are the key to our salvation, as we are to theirs. In short, it is our social nature that provides the basis for our welfare, our advancement, and ultimately, for our happiness. This mutuality, however, will only ever find full expression in a harmonious society, and it is my belief that only a genuinely communistic society, where the fruits of all our labours are freely available to all, will enable us to live happily with each other. Present day society is more inclined to exploit and subvert our interdependence.

It has been pointed out that if earth’s timeline were a day, the existence of humanity would correspond to less than a minute. We could so easily be wiped out, and in a fraction of the time we ourselves have been around, all evidence of our existence would disappear too: From our sturdiest concrete and steel structures to our most hallowed and delicate documents, all would inevitably decay and crumble. Man’s hollow boasts of having dominion over nature seems so pathetic, so inconsequential against the vast canvass of the universe, one can but pity our small, furless bipedal species, possessed of a pedigree truly shamed by that of the ancient and venerable cockroach. However, it is not just nature that could wipe us out: The modern age has presented us with this terrible power as well. Whether by omission or commission, we could destroy ourselves in all sorts of ways, and may yet succeed in doing so. But the corollary to this is that now more than ever we have the ability to engineer an altogether different and happier outcome – if we so desired. Like the individual strands of a rope, our individual lives could impart strength, continuity, and indeed joy to those around us if society undertook to rid itself of the divisiveness and contradictions fraying its make-up. Such a rope would span eons.

2009