The Amazon publishing boycott: an unexpected effect.

A war has begun. It is a war between unlikely combatants. On one side there are the world’s physical bookshops and on the other, there is the online store, Amazon. It is not a war of weapons, or of blood, but still, in one sense, it is no less deadly, for these organizations are fighting to survive. Already the Borders book chain has closed up shop, in the USA. The remaining bookshops are certainly under strain. Yet, this war has only just begun. The latest move is the decision by Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and Indigo (the Canadian chain of 247 stores), to refuse to stock any book published by Amazon. They are basically boycotting all Amazon books.

Now, at first sight, this might appear to be a damaging move for Amazon. Any book published by Amazon will not be able to get distribution in these major chains. Thus, any book published by Amazon, would have restricted distribution, reduced sales and much lower likelihood of success than otherwise. Furthermore, any author considering a deal from Amazon Publishing, would have to reflect that their book would not be seen in major bookstores if he or she accepted the deal. This might lead authors to decline Amazon publishing deals. So, yes, at first sight this does appear damaging to Amazon. Yet, is it?

Consider this. If a book is not available in any of the major bookstores, a reader simply cannot buy it in a physical bookstore. Yet, this reader may very well have read of the book, in reviews, or online, or heard about it from friends. They may, therefore, wish to secure a copy of it. Where would they go...but to Amazon, of course. This would mean that the reader, on discovering that no physical bookstore stocks the book, would log on to Amazon and discover it there. They would then order the book from Amazon. What does this do? It is another step towards creating a habit in the reader, to buy their books from Amazon. Furthermore, the observed fact that all the physical bookstores did NOT have the book – but Amazon DOES, would reinforce the impression that Amazon is superior to physical bookstores in having a broader stock. Thus, this move by the major bookstores in boycotting Amazonian books, is actually an extremely self-defeating move. It would only prove to the reader that physical bookstores don’t have a wide range. This would increase the likelihood that, when moved to look for a book, the FIRST place that the reader will go to, would be Amazon. The major bookstores, by refusing to stock Amazon Publishing titles, are actually taking one more step towards their doom.

Remember this: most readers will not know of the war between Amazon and the physical bookstore chains. The only thing they will come to know is that the physical bookstore chains don’t stock the book they seek – but Amazon does. So, the only real effect of this boycott, is to lower the reputation of the physical bookstores. Clearly, the major book chains have not thought this move through. It is not the act of a genius of a general, but the act of a foolishly short-sighted person, who is behaving spitefully, rather than intelligently. Seeing this decision, I can only say that my estimation of the survivability of the major bookstore chains, has been lowered. I really do not think that they are being run by intelligent people. This decision is childish, short-sighted, and somewhat suicidal in flavour.

Also look at the bigger picture effect of this snub, by the major bookstore chains, on Amazon. Since Amazon is no longer allowed access to the bookstores, there is now no need AT ALL, for Amazon to permit the existence of the bookstore chains. Were Amazon’s books stocked in the major book chains, it would have reason enough not to compete too much with them, and to keep them alive, since their distribution abilities would then be useful to it. Now, however, with this boycott, the bookstore chains become superfluous to Amazon – indeed, they have become nothing more than direct competitors. In this situation, the best thing for Amazon to do, is to eliminate the competition altogether. I can therefore see that this boycott by the major bookstore chains, is going to have a contradictory effect. Instead of weakening Amazon, it is going to weaken the bookstores (for it will lower their reputation for being well-stocked and it will encourage online book purchases) – and it will also strengthen Amazon’s resolve to bring them down.

The major bookstore chains are likely to go out of business, in years to come, not because of Amazon, entirely, but because of themselves. They are not being led by wise men (or women) and their business strategies are actually self-defeating or suicidal, if viewed with a deeper understanding of all their ramifications. The major bookstore chains are doomed to die – not from competition, but from stupidity.

At this time, it looks very much like Amazon will win this war and that the major bookstore chains will leave the scene, one by one. This, however, could have been avoided if only both sides had worked out a way to co-exist. This could have been done quite simply: all the major bookstore chains had to do, was to stock Amazon’s books...then Amazon would have reason to keep them alive, or not to push them out too strongly. Now, however, it is very much a Last Man Standing scenario...and that “man” is almost certainly going to be Amazon.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Do words have value anymore?

I write. At one time, relatively few people wrote. In such times, words had value...and those who wrote them were viewed as special in some way. Indeed, there was once a time in which to be able to read and write would have been seen as almost magical. Now, however, everyone – well, almost everyone – can read and write. In fact, almost everyone seems to be doing so, simultaneously, on the Internet. Everyone seems to have a blog and everyone seems to be pouring their thoughts – such as they are – onto it. So, we have reached an age in which almost everyone is a “writer”...in the sense that they write. At this point, I am reminded of the line in the Incredibles cartoon, in which it is said something like: “When everyone is superhuman, no-one will be.” So it is today, with writing...when everyone writes, no-one is well regarded for doing so.

Yet, the ubiquity of writing is not my primary concern. The fact that so much of that writing is free, is. Blogs are free, in general. They are seen as something given away to the ether, for nothing. Do people value free writing in this way? It seems not. In an effort to defray my costs and input of time and energy into my blog, I urged people to make a donation...very few have done so. In fact, two people have. This does suggest that people, in general, do not place much value on that which they can get free (even if it cost someone something to put it out there.)

Some blogs are really well written. Some blogs are as well written as anything newspapers have to offer. This, again, is worrying for how it forms people’s attitudes to paying for writing: if they can get so much good writing for free, will they stop paying for good writing?

Then there is Amazon’s new promotion – the KDP Select programme. This is an initiative in which authors agree to offer their books on Amazon, exclusively, for 90 days, and then, in exchange Amazon will allow them to give their books away for...you guessed it...FREE...for five days each 90 day period. The idea is that by giving their books away for free, authors would be able to promote themselves. The theory is that, by doing this, authors will gain many new readers and will propel their other works higher in the rankings, as interested readers seek out their other works – and pay for them. Again, however, I am unsure of the wisdom of this. Writers who have participated in the KDP Select free giveaways, have seen their work massively pirated subsequent to give aways, as pirates pick up their work for free and load it up onto their torrent sites. Also some writers have seen relatively little change in the sales of their other works. Though, it must be said that some writers have seen significant sales of their works, subsequently.

My problem with KDP Select’s free books, is that it trains readers to believe that the real value of a book is zero. Readers, given access to a deluge of free books, will quickly come to value ALL books, at nothing. They will become people who believe that they have a right to access any book they wish, for precisely zero cents. This is already a problem with those who pirate books. They have a sense of entitlement to other people’s hard work, such that they feel they should never pay for it. In fact, some have an almost religious belief that it is “wrong” to charge for intellectual property. It never occurs to them that the creators of such property need to earn a living to allow them to continue to make such works. Without the possibility of a living from creative works, there will be no future creative works. The world’s supply of creative works will dry up. That, unfortunately, seems to be the destination of all present trends on price and remuneration for creative works. A world that does not pay for creative works, is a world that will not have any worth having – even for free.

The writing of a good book, often takes years, sometimes even decades to accomplish. Such books should not be given away for free, under any circumstances. Unfortunately, too many people are coming to value books at very little. They are willing to pay less and less for them. This is an act of massive collective stupidity, since it will destroy the very thing which they enjoy having (even though they don’t want to pay for it).

Blogging is dangerous. The KDP Select programme is dangerous. Piracy is dangerous. Each of these phenomena entrains people to believe that writing is free and not worth paying for. The cumulative effect of all of these influences, over time, may be a world in which there is no more shared culture. Many writers would choose not to share their work with the world, if there was no compensation for doing so. The question is: do we really want such a world? Do we really want a world in which creative people cannot make a living from their work? Do we want a world in which creative people fall silent? If not, then we should start paying creators for their works, on a consistent basis. They should be rewarded for the efforts they put into their work. So, I would urge you to ensure that you pay for the creative works you acquire – for not doing so, will usher in a future in which there are no more new such works. Is that really what you want?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Whitney Houston's death and a hollow life.

Whitney Houston is dead. Everyone knows this by now. To me, however, her death, from undeclared causes at just 48, is emblematic of a profound problem some people seem to have, even though they have “made it”. They live hollow lives. I shall explain.

Whitney Houston seemingly had everything. She had wealth, fame, success (at least formerly) and the respect that goes with it. She also had a daughter by Bobby Brown. Yet, for her all of this – which to most people would have been plenty – was not enough. She needed the exquisite pleasures of drugs too...and by all accounts lots of them. She became, for many years, consumed by them. This, to me, indicates that her life, for all its seeming fullness, was hollow. She must have felt there was something profound missing, for her to have to seek solace in chemical pleasures. Only a deep dissatisfaction with her life, its totality and meaning could lead someone down the path of a drugged self-destruction. Happy lives don’t end with drugs. They don’t even begin to take drugs. So, hers, in some way, was not a happy, fulfilled, pleasing life – she needed chemical support to feel what she felt she must feel.

Now, I am not going to single Whitney Houston out for this particular foolishness. Amy Winehouse is another recent example of the phenomenon. She too had a life that would seem to have been full and rich in many ways. She too, however, sought drugged oblivion, though her favourite was alcohol. Both died young, probably for much the same reasons...either the drugs themselves or the health consequences of having taken them, too long, too often.

The history of entertainment and culture in general is littered with examples of the same phenomenon – drug induced or associated deaths of famous, successful people. I should note that we do not know if Whitney Houston’s death was caused by drugs, but it does seem likely that they played a role, even if only as inducers of general ill health. Whatever the case, it doesn’t affect my argument. All of these people led what seem to the outside, to be full, interesting, rich, complete lives, filled with opportunities and experiences few have the chance to have. Yet all of these people were somehow hollow. Their lives were empty of real meaning, because they sought to fill them with the temporary pleasures of chemically enhanced delights. Had their lives been truly meaningful to them, they would not have needed such stimulation and would have avoided it, out of respect for the lives they had.

To me, it seems, that there is a profound failure here, a profound artistic and creative failure. If their artistic work had been pursued as intently as it could have been, then, it seems to me, it should have given their lives the meaning and the rewards they, in fact, sought elsewhere. Had they been absorbed enough in their creative work, then they would have had no need for drugs, because the work itself would have given them all the pleasure, meaning and reward they sought. Thus, their flight into drugs is a kind of artistic failure – a failure of absorption in work, a failure of personal intensity, a failure of drive, and a failure to respect their work and the ability to do it, itself.

So however many people come out to say how “great” Whitney Houston was – just as they said how “great” Amy Winehouse was, there is something which really should not be denied or ignored: they failed as artists and as human beings, because they neither respected and valued their work and themselves enough to avoid seeking self-destruction in drugs. Had they been more fully involved in their artistic work, they would not have craved such artificial pleasures. That they did, means that for all the “greatness” they achieved, that whatever they achieved was less than they could have achieved, had they been more fully focussed on their work.

So what we have with Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse and the many others before them, are people who probably never reached their true potential as artists, because they were focussed more on passing pleasures than the more profound (one hopes) rewards of their creative work. They could have been so much more than they were, had they had that self-respect and fuller absorption in their work.

However “great” therefore it is decided Whitney Houston was, I cannot help but feel, that the work we saw from her, was not as great as she could have achieved, had she been undistracted by the need for chemical pleasure. It should also be remembered that almost all such drugs induce brain damage of various kinds. Whitney Houston (and Amy Winehouse etc), became much less than they could have. That is the greater pity here, than Whitney’s passing. She could have made an even greater mark on the world, than she did. How much greater, we will never know...for the version we have of her, is the drug damaged one. We don’t know what a dedicated, drug-free Whitney Houston might have achieved. I am sure of this though...it would have been a whole lot more.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The proper penalty for piracy.

As most people know, online piracy is hurting the world’s creative industries. Illegal downloading of music, films and even books, is cutting into the earnings of creative people and companies around the world. Indeed, it is fair to say that online piracy is imperilling the very business models that allow these creative industries to exist. Musicians are earning ever less from their recordings; film box office takings are in decline and authors are finding that their books may end up being downloaded for free, more often than they are bought. The day is not far off, it seems, when creative people will not be able to make a living directly from their creative works, because of huge piracy. What will happen then? Well, it is simple. They will be forced to turn to other jobs. They will have to make a living NOT creating their works. When that happens, the world’s supply of books, films and music will dry up. So, what is at stake here, is the very future of human culture. If being creative doesn’t pay anymore and if people steal works for free, wholesale, quite simply the day will come when there will be no more works of any real quality, being published or distributed. Human culture will be dead.

Recently, the founders and operators of Megaupload, (Kim Dotcom and his co-conspirators), a website enabling online piracy, were arrested and are being charged in connection with their wholesale theft of copyrighted works. What, I wonder, is an appropriate punishment for such people? As I write, I am unaware of the penalty, but it seems to me that only one degree of penalty is appropriate. Online pirates should be sentenced to mandatory life in prison, as a minimum sentence. By mandatory life, I mean that they will never be released from prison until they have died. In my view, this is an appropriate punishment because their actions are killing world culture – they are acting so as to deprive all of humanity, of the benefits of creative work, by making such work thankless and completely unrewarding. So, I would urge prosecutors and the judges of the Megaupload conspirators to seek the maximal sentences. Indeed, perhaps they should be sentenced to time in jail, consecutively, for EACH ILLEGAL DOWNLOAD. That would guarantee complete life sentences. Furthermore, their ENTIRE assets should be confiscated and redistributed to those they have pirated. These sentences of life in prison, and complete confiscation of all assets should be applied to everyone who worked with the pirates in connection with the theft of copyright works. This is to discourage anyone from working for such employers or becoming involved in any way. Every single person involved should spend the rest of their lives, in jail.

The degree to which the arrest of the Megaupload conspirators will deter other pirates, will be determined by the severity of their sentences. Those sentences must be as severe as possible, in every way it is possible for them to be severe. Leniency, in the face of online pirates, will only hasten the end of human culture and its distribution. The most effective answer to online piracy will be the global hunting down and prosecution of everyone who has ever been involved in a piratical endeavour, followed by their complete impoverishment and a life sentence to boot. Were this done, online piracy would quickly come to an end, as such “entrepreneurs” factored the probability of a life in prison, into their assessments of the viability of such a business model.

I hope, for the sake of us all, that the Megaupload conspirators receive hefty sentences, preferably life. Then again, the pursuit of pirates should not stop with one company. All companies which enable such endeavours should face the same fate as the Megaupload conspiracy.

I realize that many people disagree with my view. I have seen much online comment in support of Kim Dotcom – indeed some even seem to think he is some kind of hero. I guess that these are the people who regularly download pirated goods off the Internet. They see Kim Dotcom as their enabler and thus worthy of support. They fail to see that their own actions are suffocating the very producers of the works they admire enough to steal. There is great irony here. Those who are motivated enough by their liking for cultural goods, to actually steal them, are creating a world in which, one day, there will be no new cultural goods left to steal. They are destroying the very thing they hope to steal.

We are left with a very simple choice. We can, as a global people, allow pirates to continue their “work” unhindered. Doing so will mean the eventual end of all cultural publication and distribution. Or we can punish the pirates so severely that, overnight, this particular “business model” vanishes, out of sheer fear of the consequences.

Jail the online pirates for life – and save world culture. It is that simple.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The hidden cost of the Iraq War.

Everyone knows that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven costly. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize Winner, puts that cost at over 3 trillion dollars, in a Washington Post article, The true cost of the Iraq War, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html

What people don’t know – including Joseph Stiglitz – is that the true cost is the opportunity cost of what might have been done with that 3 trillion dollars, instead. I would like you to consider an undeniable fact and an uncomfortable one: it is undeniable, that the Iraq War, was largely over the control of oil. Had Iraq no oil, it would also have had no war. It is uncomfortable, for many of us, to also note that the world’s oil is running out. There are arguments over how long the oil will last – but it cannot be denied, except by the insane, or oil company propagandists (the same thing), that oil is finite and running out fast. Typical estimates are that we have no more than 40 years left at present rates of consumption before the end of oil. Without replacement energy sources, advanced human civilization will, thereafter, be impossible. Sadly, not enough is being done to prepare for this eventuality. The world’s politicians, as usual, lack foresight – or perhaps just don’t care about such seemingly distant events.

Now, at present, the world consumes about one cubic mile of oil per year, and another two cubic miles of oil energy equivalent, per year, for a grand total of three cubic miles of oil per year. See this Wikipedia article for these facts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

Thus, one third of the world’s total energy comes from oil. Without it, modern civilization would look a lot like the 18^th century or so – with no energy for the machines of the Industrial Revolution and beyond. One would have thought that this future inevitability (if nothing is done about it) would occupy the minds of our leaders. Unfortunately, that assumes that our leaders have functioning minds – but close observation puts this in question.

I was struck, on reading the Wikipedia article, by an interesting coincidence. The estimated cost of creating a cubic mile of oil energy equivalence, from wind power, is 3.3 trillion dollars. That is about the money spent on the Iraq War. Now, the Iraq War was about securing energy, as oil, for the USA (whatever else they might say it was about, that was, of course, the true motivation). The USA was so concerned about its energy future, that it decided to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to secure more oil supplies. It also thought it worth spending 3 trillion dollars to do so. Curiously, that 3 trillion dollars was about the cost of one cubic mile of oil, at 2008 prices (120 dollars per barrel). So, the Iraq war has cost, so far, enough to buy the world’s entire annual oil production for one year. It has also cost enough to create an independent alternative energy source, from wind, equal to one cubic mile of oil per year, for the lifetime of the turbines (20 to 30 years).

Thus, it can be seen that, had the American leadership been intelligent and wise, they could have foregone the Iraq war and spent the funds they would have spent on it – 3 trillion dollars – on creating energy independence for the United States, such that the United States would have no need for an external energy source, ever again.

The decision to go to war in Iraq was not a rational one. It was one derived from very narrow thinking, that did not see the broad context in which the decision was embedded. Nor did it see the alternative means of achieving the ultimate goal – energy security – that existed. It is clear that little intelligence was applied to the decision – no-one paused to reflect on whether there was an alternative way to achieve the unstated goal: energy supply for the USA.

I wish to propose a general principle: The principle of irrational resource wars:

Wars over oil or any other energy source are irrational, since the cost of the war, is always going to be greater than the cost of creating an alternative energy source by investing some of the funds that would have been spent on the war.

America could have secured the energy equivalence of 20 to 30 cubic miles of oil (the lifespan productive capacity of the wind turbines they could have built), for the cost of the Iraq war. I do not think that Iraq’s total oil reserves are likely to amount to as much as this, since the total world reserves are not going to be much greater than that. (Proven oil reserves are at 43 cubic miles of oil…after that runs out, we are in a post-oil world). Indeed, this article in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves suggests that Iraq has just 8.26% of the world’s oil reserves. That would be equivalent to just 3.55 cubic miles of oil. America could have secured 8 and a half times as much energy, for the same investment, as it did in Iraq – and at the cost of no human lives at all.

From this analysis, it can be seen that the Iraq war was irrational – it had great cost in financial and human life terms – yet, there existed an alternative that would have secured permanent energy independence for the United States, had it been implemented.

Never forget this: War is dumb. There are always more intelligent alternatives, to achieve the same ends – unless the end is death itself.

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China's confession of guilt.

China has implicitly confessed its guilt in the matter of human rights and the suppression of dissent. It did this in the most public and clear manner possible: censoring President Obama's Inaugural Speech.

When President Obama referred to communism and later to dissent, Chinese TV stations cut away from his speech. The matters they censored included these words: "Recall that earlier generations faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions," and "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Later, China did a clean up job on websites, taking down all references to the offending words.

No clearer confession of guilt could there be, than to react in this manner to those words. Why would a government seek to prevent its people from hearing those words? It would only do so if: a) the words applied to China and b) if the people of China would realize that those words applied to China. The action, in itself is a plain confession of guilt.

Look at what is being confessed to: "...those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent..." These words are harmless in the ears of those who have done no harm: they only wound those to whom they apply.

There is hope, though, in the Chinese action - for it shows that they are aware of their own nature. It is harder to reform someone who persists in believing that there is nothing wrong with themselves. In China's case, they are all too aware of what is wrong with them - they just don't want their people to know, too (if they haven't already twigged).

I am left to wonder what China's people think of a state coverage of the Inauguration of a superpower President, being censored. What would they conclude? What would they think they are missing? Would such censorship backfire and spread mistrust of their own government?

It seems to me that a state that does what China is doing is a state that has a short future. There is only so long that a people can stand being manipulated in this way. The censorship, in itself, tells the people what is being done - and that should be message enough to let them know what is happening, even if they never get to hear President Obama's words to them of hope.

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