Win-Win for the Sus Worshippers

Nearsighted is farsighted. This will make sense, I promise.

A good example. Figurative nearsightedness of technical managers was never more literally inflicted than in the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The short version: Normal checks and rechecks of the focal point of the primary lens were forsworn, while polishing of the lens surface to perfection was dictated as essential. As things turned out, this did lens itself to creation of a spectacular new billion dollar project: the mission to provide corrective lenses for the Hubble. From the standpoint of those who acquired those extra taxpayer dollars in order to save the dollars already expended on Hubble, the nearsightedness inflicted on Hubble was very farsighted indeed. It could not have worked out better had that been their original intention.

Sorry NASA. That's the skeptic in me joking about the outcome with Hubble. There's is no evidence the shortsightedness was deliberate. That any surviving program managers may have been happy, albeit with clandestine joy, to have such a serendipitous justification for a follow-up program, does not negate the fact that the blurred vision of the managers was the most likely cause for the carelessness. Some higher up succumbed to the arrogant assertion that double-checking the most important technical matter was an unneeded expense. After all, who could believe that the primary optics for a JPL managed space telescope -- NASA'a most publicity centered project since Apollo 11 -- could ever be screwed up? Hubris in La Cañada? Never! Heh.

I wish I could say the same -- about there being no deliberate nearsightedness -- about those pressing the Sustainable agenda. If only life was always like that, and that Hanlon's razor always applied.

Hanlon -- meet Heinlein! We live in a world where we have many influential people who believe that "no problem is insolvable with fewer people."  The power and influence of Sus worshipers to foment programs that incrementally decimate humanity should trouble anyone who has some faith that God will provide.


Your man on the ramparts received an email from a (formerly) great engineering school. As you will see, you may infer that the department of chemical engineering wished to impress its alumni. And impressed I was. Impressive was how proud they were of their perspicacity for snatching a share of green funds.  

Your alumni advisory board and the department are proud that it is again ranked among the top 10 in the country.  We aspire to sustain this recognized level of excellence. To prepare our students for the many, multi-faceted roles that chemical engineers play today and will play in the future, the department, with the full support of the alumni board, plan to undertake three new initiatives with targeted investment in the following programmatic areas:

1. Sustainable Energy and the Environment

2. Biotechnology and Life Sciences

3. Complex Fluids and Nanotechnology

There must be some devil who is laughing over this. He laughs at how agenda item 1 leads smoothly to "wonderful" influences on item 2.  So that you may understand this devil's Newspeak/doublethink, let's review the Orwellian slogans: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Now Malthusian Sus worshipers and misanthropes may add "life is death."

So now, let us see how "nearsighted is farsighted."

Back in Washington DC, and maybe in every nation in the world, the Statists are determined to reduce the overwhelming entitlement debt they face. So what did they do once they cornered the government?

They increased the debt by taking on the debts that accrue from a national heath plan all while promising good health for all? How much more nearsighted could that be?

Wait. Wait.

Those entitlements were building up long before healthcare was nationalized, and even long before DC decided it was a good idea to overwhelm the financial system with home ownership and easy credit for everyone no matter their ability to repay. That lent to them the meme "too big to fail" and the concomitant TARP and then Stimuli without accountability. Oh how nearsighted! And don't forget the Medicare Ponzi scheme and the Social Security Ponzi scheme -- surely they were nearsighted too? -- only much earlier.

Wait. Wait.

Of course the Statists could reduce that debt were there some catastrophes, one that cascaded into a massive dive in the numbers of those entitled. Hmm. Nah -- that's too far outside normal expectations for a natural castastrophe.

So let's see.

Now that they had nearsightedly limited the number of outlets providing: employment, food, shelter, healthcare, what other recourse do they have? All that's left to do is for the command and control center to begin cutting off those services: a little here, and a little there, and a little everywhere.

Hey: Sustainability philosophy + "Life" sciences = Win-Win. Where will they find such farsighted noblemen?


Clever devil.