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:
Sustainable Energy and the Environment
Biotechnology and Life Sciences
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.
View My Stats
This eerie warning came to my mind when gallant KG introduced Queensland floods…the OTHER story
one man's recounting of flood ravaged Queensland, Australia. In it, Gary Briggs of Dalby writes of the numerous [malicious?] institutional hardships piled onto the natural hardships visited upon both those needing help and all good Samaritans seeking to help them. KG, having read of the inanities suffered rather than revolting or even just risking a fine by telling the officious retards to stuff it, arrived at a sad conclusion that I could agree with in part. If I am a bit more optimistic, I pray you'll allow me that failing.
Well, here's where Pascal reveals weaknesses and regrets that, I pray, might help readers find solutions he failed to achieve.
Hold on KG. I understand your frustration KG, believe me. I bet you and I could match stories.
The lowlifes are given PULL by those who are gaming the system at the top. We have been left PUSHING. Guess what works best?
The 60s radicals used to speak about “getting it over the Man.” Who of our teachers ever explained that Marxism/Leninism was always targeting “the bourgeoisie,” and that means “the middle class?” We’ve been conditioned to not know we were targets, and at the same time “to suck it up like a man.”
If you have ever read the accounts by former Left brigader, David Horowitz, you know that in the 50s the Left had summer camps where they trained their “red diaper babies” how to assault Western institutions. Who on the Right offered classes in countermeasures? Nobody. We were subjected to the Left indoctrination centers even if a few of us resisted it. So now we are woefully two or three generations behind and far removed from generations that were NOT so indoctrinated! I sometimes feel like an undereducated, definitely unprepared remnant.
Individuals do not stand a chance without building their own blocs. The Left is filled with cowards who hide behind laws the Right is inclined to respect from the start — except for the unequal treatment that the gamers have CONDITIONED us to accept.
Nemesis may have trained his own kids to think clearly, as I have my grown brood, but it is not enough. I learned the hard way what it means to have failed to build blocs and train them to withstand — for the sake of our posterity and not just for ourselves — the forces who hate liberty. Maybe it is because I did not want to believe that such forces still existed — I don’t remember now. I do remember that I simply thought that right thinking people would rally behind me. I failed to foresee that there were schemers in the neighborhoods and city, and that they had loads of ways to undermine weak blocs.
I know what you might be thinking, because I think it myself all the time. I vacillate between “It’s too late” and “is it really too late?” I will simply relate to you something a wise man once said “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
I wasn’t kidding when I suggested that men like Nemesis should be sought out to train the local kids how to put down the con-men. If they fail to seek out such teachers — and protect those teachers — THEN we will all deserve what we get.