Pregnant female soldiers.

Female soldiers in the US military get pregnant to avoid tours to combat zones. Some are also getting pregnant in a combat zone. 

Why did they sign up in the first place? If you sign up voluntarily to military service, you know you agree to all the risks and control over you. 

Who let them get pregnant? 

She did. Now, it can be suggested that female soldiers must be temporarily sterilized. 

Should they be punished?

Why not? Militaries punish their members all the time for many reasons. But then if you punish a pregnant soldier for getting pregnant, the child deserves an explanation. 

And women should be responsible enough, having gained all these rights and privileged status in society and military. 

Besides, breaking the rules in the military means breaking the contract and allowing possibility of punishment. So from a military standpoint, it's fine. 

Or, the alternative is to give them maternity leave or a desk job, even though that will put a strain on resources. 

It is in the inherent nature of all human beings to reproduce, even when you're getting shot at. 

For most other armies in the world, the simple answer is to limit specialties open to women, because these issues complicate management and resources. It does make sense, because what's going to happen if the infantry start getting pregnant, and a casualty has the potential to become two casualties. 

A more insane view is that when anyone in the military is a tool, not a person, and malfunctioning tools get replaced. So pregnant soldiers get out. If you think that is a ridiculous way to put it, then it still doesn't change the fact that an ideal army would compose of machines, not human beings. The issue of pregnant soldiers is just one of many issues that happen because we are human beings and soldiers are not ideal fighting machines many people like to think they are.  

My ideal military "war machine" would consist of all citizens who volunteer to be trained in a specialty. No separate book of rules, minimal pay, mostly part-time, just a set of standardized weapons, combat uniform, high common training standards and information network. Transportation are mostly convertible between military and civilian uses, so cost of running things are compensated. 

Rapid reaction forces are the only professional soldiers. 

Police accountability

It is obvious that excessive violence by police has become an issue in many Western countries. Perceived rise in crime rates and assault of police incidents have put many police officers on edge. 

There are very simple solutions to any issues of police brutality.

Every police you come in contact with must be recorded in serial number and full name. 

Every police encounter should be caught on dated and timed video and made public as soon as possible and without delay. Failure to capture full footage will result in severe penalty and questioning of all involved. 

Slow down the pace of all conversations. Everyone should be calm and using their brains. Police officers should not be itching to pull out weapons. 

All attempts of weapon use must be documented, determined to be valid and evaluated afterwards. 

Unusual weapons that are derived from methods of torture and which have no effective use in self-defense cannot be used by police officers to protect themselves. 

Weapons cannot be used to arrest. (meaning, police shall not knock people out, so that the person is not aware of arrest.)

Police complaints must have the option of complete anonymity.

Remember the police officers are supposed public servants who are appointed to protect and serve citizens. However, this is in conflict with the current mission to enforce the laws and orders of the government, which is most apparent when the interests of the government differs from the interests of the public they were meant to serve.

Police officers not directly involved in any incident cannot interfere, so that police cannot cover for each other. This prevents the police from becoming a gang, for better or for worse. The police cannot be a secret organization where procedures are kept hidden from public scrutiny.

Sprained Ankle

I never believed sprained ankles could be this serious. I always believed that they were simple issues that go away after a few days of rest, ice, compression and elevation, even if it meant that you couldn't do serious exercise for a longer time after that. 

I've sprained both ankles many times in the past, but never as badly as this. It was bad enough to make some scary tearing sounds soon after I came back to school from football. This alone is enough for the specialist to classify it as the nastiest type of sprained ankle. 

Grade III ankle sprains are complete tears of the ligaments. The ankle is usually quite painful, and walking can be difficult. Patients may complain of instability, or a giving-way sensation in the ankle joint.

However, I was still able to wobble around for a while, because the shock of it did not sink in and temporary pain relief had not worn out. But once I got home, I realized that I could no longer walk. That was a pretty nasty feeling, and the severe symptoms seemed to tell me it was a broken ankle. I now believe that not going home immediately was the worst decision I made, somewhat comparable to Guan Yiu being dragged around for more than a day after treatment. 

So off I go for a x-ray checkup. Everything was fine, I didn't break anything and I was taught how to treat the ankle properly. Got a nice bandage and a new big ice pack in the process. And a piece of paper that would give me school leave till the 27th (full week), when I would have to go get checked again. 

Two days after the injury, I decided that since disabled people with missing arms or legs ride anyway, I would try it, after completely immobilizing my ankle. It turned out to be a wonderful session, with the help from some other riders (to get in the saddle), my favorite horse and plenty of others to clean up after me. (There is a lot to do for the horse after riding. Like taking off the saddle bits, bridle, braces and whatever the horse is wearing, followed by showering the horse, drying off and feeding.) 

Perhaps the most important thing in riding with disabilities is to be confident as a rider, compensating for the disability and not let the horse poke fun at your inability to tell it to do certain things(If I don't have a right leg, then I would have to use the rest of my limbs really well, or else the horse would realize that you can't do anything if it were crazy at the right) when the horse refuses. Because I couldn't use my leg properly this time, I had to use everything else to tell the horse what to do. 

Monday came and it seemed like a busy day at school with 3 subjects. But I made the right choice and realized that the illusion of a healed ankle was only due to the prescription pain drugs, being wrapped up nice and tight and hopping to everywhere. I wasn't going to hop around that at school with lots of books in my bag.

Today is Tuesday and I woke up rather impatient about the ankle. My ankle was still very soft and obviously RICE is taking too long. To speed things up, I decided to try my friendly neighborhood Chinese medicine specialist. It was another very meaningful experience. 

It was apparent this guy had nothing in common with the other doctor/specialist. He was much more firm in the treatment. He was also much more confident about the condition. Of course, today is the 5th Day since injury and I had some time to heal. However, the swelling and pain still existed and the ankle was still soft, as expected. (Such ankle injuries are supposed to require at least 2 weeks of no walking and lots more time with support.) 

The treatment was fairly simple, consisting of wrapping lots of bandages saturated with some herbal stuff and then telling me to drink this stuff when I have time today. 

Took me only 3 minutes vs an hour. 

$150 vs a lot more, plus more in the future. 

"You can go try walk now" vs "Stay home and enjoy your leave."

That is far less complicated than anything orthopedics told me to do, and far more effective in my case. The pain is gone along with the swelling, and I have walked a fair amount today without feeling worse than this morning after using the ice-pack. Ankle strength has returned about 50% after a 3 minute procedure. This is even more amazing considering that I have not moved my ankle in 2 weeks and my right leg muscles have gotten stiff without any walking. 

Of course, this is not a fair test because the conditions were worse on Friday. But the issue is that the actual immediate effectiveness of the Chinese medicine treatment was greater, faster and cheaper than wasting away for two weeks and using up a ton of smelly bandages and ice packs. The only issue is that I didn't go to the Chinese guy last Thursday, which would be my ideal course of recovery.

I hope to make a full recovery before 2 weeks and go surprise my orthopedic specialist on Friday. I think I can make it. 

: )

Modes of the mind

I don't understand why people feel the need for someone else to make them do something.

I see that increasingly, people believe that they are small and helpless and they need external controls to make them change. They believe that they need to be "cured", or "someone needs to lead them". These people are all around you.

For example, it appears that hypnosis therapy has been marketed as a way to "reprogram" the subconscious and kick bad habits. It has been done in every habit, from smoking to seduction to procrastination. While all this sounds awesome to many people, the word "program" is already a severe, I have several concerns:

the safety issue. Almost all reviews of it claim that it is not harmful in any way. In particular, they stress that no one can be made to do anything against their will. Do you see anything wrong with this statement?

The term "will" simply means the conscious effort of the mind. But when the conscious effort is diverted (by the general process of hypnosis), then the person under the procedure is not in control. And suppose the hypnotized person does realize the immorality of what they are doing, there is still little he can do, as the willpower is controlled by the procedure. Worst still, people in a hypnotic state will most likely not reason, and therefore any sense of morality can be bypassed.

The next issue is that some believe that they are no longer capable of controlling themselves, or that a conscious effort cannot work. I'm sure there have been times when we just cannot help procrastinating and doing something else. Here, the actual situation is not that one is not capable of attention and must therefore be diagnosed of attention deficiency mental disorder, or must undergo hypnosis. What is actually going on is very simple. The person simply has things of higher order of priority for, say, watching music videos as opposed to doing homework. There is simply a higher demand within the mind for doing something else, or maybe that the work requires far more effort and stress than something else and the person is already overloaded.

What the person requires is not some reprogramming of their minds, or someone telling them what to do. What they require is a belief in themselves, that they are capable of making their own decisions and they can always be happy with the results.

Someday, some scientist may make education an entirely subconscious work. But when that happens, the individual will no longer exist and people under such a trance will not be human people anymore. Then, we the human race would be worse than any animal we currently believe to be superior to.

In our quest to understand more about ourselves and our minds, we must be careful that we do not see ourselves as mere programming objects and then become blinded by our own desires that we accept the belief that someone needs to "program" you.

Of course, in the end, it is a personal choice. Some may accept the objectification of their minds, but they must be reasonable.

The difference between feeling and emotion

Emotion: Outburst. 

Emotion is a general mental state that can be expressed in many ways.

Emotion can be the sign that you are having a feeling. You may express anger at something emotionally. 

Feeling: You take it in, you express the feeling.

The feeling comes from deep within. You only have to be a human being to feel it. It doesn't have to come out. 

I interpret feelings as deep thinking. 

Example: You can "feel" security and love, or anger and jealousy. 

One can argue that it is a matter of language definition, but that is grossly inaccurate. 

One can usually express why they are having a certain emotion, the same may not be true for feeling. 

Interesting post.

Sometime a long time ago when human beings and animals today were openly brutal and fought over resources instead of shared (the age of the zero-sum game), the game of the entire species was theoretically a zero-sum game. It was fight or run away or die. There was no such thing as cooperation, of sharing, of cooperating as a species. There was no other way.

It still is a zero sum game when it comes to the species and its survival. This is due to scarcity and the strategy adopted by the most powerful members of the species, to gain more power, influence and justify its own existence and dominance using their power. 

Much of human progress as I know it, has been done to solve the issue of win-lose situations. Yet progress has only let more win-lose situations occur, as win-win situations lead to win-lose situations due to the inherent uncertainty and eventual dominance of one party. Win-lose situations then occur, human beings try to solve it, and then the cycle continues.

I do not see this issue being resolved, as we would define it in human terms. What we mean by resolved is but the changing of the system from one state to another, whereby the second state is perceived to be better. 

That is the state of nature. We are fast approaching another of those win-lose situations as a species. 

SAT vs IB

SAT Math and Physics are nice.

But in chemistry is there is too many questions for 1 hour. There were 2 questions I figured out just before the bell rang, but because I was sitting directly in view of the invigilator, I didn't get to scribble it down, unlike many dishonest students from ESF schools.

None of the three are as strange as IB questions though. In sats, I sort of worked around questions I had no idea about and deduced the answer. IN the IB, it is completely regurgitation and much less fun. 

In the IB exams (short answer and multiple choice), it is far more of a direct issue once you know the "learning outcomes" and interpret in the lowliest manner what the question is about. IB exams are actually extremely gut level, being a "good student"(good at bs-ing) and knowing the facts.

In the SATs, I can get my way through the test even if I don't know half the curriculum they want me to know. Why? 

The difference is probably partly due to experience, but that is not the most important. The most important issue is how the SAT people set their answers. To cut things short, the answers are truly multiple choice, with a broad range of answer choices. I can typically eliminate 2 to 3 incorrect answers after reading the question.

The IB multiple choices are nasty because all the choices are very similar unless you know a lot about the subject.

One can conclude that the SAT is good for pretending you know a lot by skill, but the IB is good for pretending you know a lot by getting students to remember everything. 

Both systems are terrible in their own ways if you are actually trying to learn humanly, instead of cheating or becoming a robot*. I do not believe that to be a good scientist one must be able to regurgitate very quickly, because while the learning of science is such, innovating and discovering is so much more than more of the same. 

*You could argue that in the future, robots will be just like humans. But that's for another post. 

WAR = PEACE. This is the way the world is today

Mr Obama getting a Nobel Peace Prize. 

No, seriously, I had to check that it wasn't a hoax before believing.

So now, he is in the same league as other war starters and terrorists like Arafat and those Israelis...

How fitting. 

And when people get the impression that he is a peaceful president, he gets to dump more money and troops into Afghanistan, which is still a war-zone. 

If war=peace,

nobel "peace" prize = nobel "war" prize. 

Jokes aside, you know why this guy is getting a "peace prize"? Because he will and has introduce more world policies. But that is not peace. 

Vaccine and Death

A vaccine-RELATED death was just reported. 

The teenager was one of four classmates who suffered side-effects at a school in Coventry after receiving the jab as part of the national immunisation programme.

The other girls suffered dizziness and nausea after being injected with Cervarix.

If you look it up, you can find more. 

It appears to be an allergic reaction. But if it causes allergic reactions in a significant number of people who have no idea this would happen and believed it to be safe, what else does it cause? 

The main issue here is that mandatory vaccination will cause many more cases of death. 

It is historically proven, and even more statistics that never made it into history (the testing of vaccines on military personnel who cannot legally resist the testing).

Accidental or not, people who passed any legislation that enabled these mandatory vaccination schemes must be held responsible, as must the producer be penalized, if there must be any social justice at all. 

I reserve my rights to refuse any medication or vaccine, "mandatory" or not.

Freemasonry

Freemasonry... is it evil or not evil?

Short answer: Freemasonry wants to believe that they are the enlightened, but in reality, they are darkness.

Long answer:

In the public media, freemasonry is being glamorized. Freemasons are showing off their membership lists, twisting power and freemasonry together to form the idea that you have to be masonic to be powerful.

On the internet, there are countless theories about them. Most people do not want to believe that they are dangerous. Most people do not know enough about them to make any judgment.

There are many degrees of freemasonry. A mason will move up the degrees. The higher you are, the more you know.
But you never get to know everything. You only know enough. It is secret to the outside world, there are secret orders within freemasonry, many secret causes.

But they all use the same symbols that are metaphorical of their beliefs.

Even if they were not evil in the beginning, the power they have will corrupt them.

The solution:

Fight organized crime so that they cannot exist outside the law.
Protect the rights of those who wish to break their oaths of secrecy.

And do that all fairly so that the witch-hunts are not repeated.

US applications.

It is obvious that US University applications are the longest out of all the countries that most people will apply to.

But with computer science, I see a dilemma. I want liberal arts, but I also want a decent computer science program. The most respected computer science programs tend to be at those Institute of Technologies and demand better scores in general. 

The advantage of the US, however, is simply that one can be undeclared in final majors and keep taking all the courses that keep options open for the first two years. I might end up doing some other science as a result. That is still a good thing, as I know my interests, but like all academic programs, I don't know how well I would fare in that system until I have had some time to get used to it, preferably with courses that do not directly deal with my major.

How exactly should human beings treat nature?

After looking at other peoples' ideas on this stuff all over the place, I realize that we really are somewhat blind as to our solutions. 

- Buy the area: That is the most primitive idea. People with a lot of money and who want some lasting reputation will often buy the whole place. 

Or they could simply be a business running some recreational activities. 

- Own the area: Equivalent to the first, but governments can be doing this. More permanent. 

- Brand the area a "national park", "UNESCO world heritage site", "geo-park"...:

This supposedly grants the whole place legal protection from some government agency, or Non-Governmental Organization like the WWF. 

- Don't do anything at all. Make the area public and free for all: This is often the case in the US, where tracts of land are large enough for no one to care about. It is protected solely by virtue and the way of life, the tradition and right to own and use firearms for hunting. 

Ultimately, I do not believe that getting the UN into the business of conserving parts of other countries is more unaccountable power, which by the UN's own definitions of "socio-political sustainability", are not sustainable. Any nation does not have to be limited by what it can do to its own land because the UN lays land rights on the area. 

Of course, UN listings do seem to be some matter of pride to anyone running the attraction, but there are many interesting places on Earth that do not need people to run, but are also not considered special.

So the message here is simply that nature does not need to be run by human beings, if we see our relationship with it and simply learn to enjoy and share it as public land. It will not work if people do not share nature and instead try to own everything as private territory. People will not learn what nature means if nature becomes property. 

And what would this look like in the Amazon Rainforest? If the average Brazilian went to the rainforest more for leisurely purposes, combined with swarms of "eco-tourists", they would quickly balance out the influence and rather one-sided interests of the "illegal farmers and loggers". 

If there were more people who run around wild places just for fun, then people will quickly realize what a contrast and relief it is to human society, by which I mean that at least in nature, there aren't dollar signs everywhere. 

It is my belief that in a prosperous place, people realize that they need somewhere to get away from the stress of a purely human environment. If they don't get away, people can become stressed, simply because things get a little too dull and regular. 

This ownership of nature will quickly become an issue, as some people on Earth will buy up land in more pristine areas for themselves(thanks to the cooperation of less powerful countries which seek to raise money), while others without the capital to do so will live in more concentrated areas. 

Hence it is best to have some sort of small representation and authority, probably as a national park, with somewhat free rules, just no acts of ownership. That sort of authority could probably help put out some fires, rescue people and do some research. So free land not as in free for all to grab, but free for all to enjoy. True, no one system can be completely protected from hooligans and arsonists. But we can have a better, freer one. 

I didn't know it was possible to publish twice in one go!

What are you doing now?

What are you doing now?

animal rights

I don't think we can grant them any rights to life, or know whether they have a natural right to life or not. Animals don't and usually can't make too many choices that will guarantee survival. We still got to eat some. We are not above nature and hence not the guardians of all animals, we are part of nature, we eat and live and die. We cannot leave nature, though we consider ourselves sophisticated. Because of these, I do not believe in animal rights.

And neither should we worship nature or the planet earth because we always end up formalizing it into some person god(s) or motif, and often end up fighting fellow human beings because you feel you are on nature's side. At this point, you have twisted everything with your ego. But this is what often happens.

What we can do with our intelligence and wisdom, is simply to respect animals and be part of this system. If you have to kill them, then thank them and let them understand we hold high regards for them and their species. While respecting animals may seem so crazy today, I didn't make this up. It is quite evident in Native American culture or in any hunter-gatherer culture prehistorically. 

Respecting your prey may even seem evil, if you happen to believe that all human actions are selfish and that such respect will be a sinister way of covering up guilt. This view doesn't work, because

1. there is no guilt. You kill for food or fun or hunting skill(the modern hunter). So no one is covering up anything.

2. if you see all actions as selfish and hence evil, then all that is said is that we can never be moral, whatever we do. That's not true. If it was, then the only more moral thing you could do is to kill yourself. And even that is selfish.

3. It is true that we lead a selfish existence, but we do so like any other species. We can't change this. The world is a free place. If God exists, he meant that we should all compete but be in ultimate harmony. If he did otherwise, he would be an extremely busy communist.

As for conserving their habitat, that is a different story.

Iraq

It is high-time to pull out of Iraq now. If the Iraqis want that, so be it. Most importantly, it is their call, but also every soldier's and veteran's call and the American taxpayer's call, not Obama's call or some general's recommendations. It could even be the "insurgent's" advantage that the US leaves completely, but they are Iraqis too, and should be charged under Iraqi law if they choose to blow people up. And if the dead US servicemen were alive, they too would prefer their comrades serve peacefully and actually defend their country.

As far as I am concerned, most civilians are weary of violence and simply want to make their living in peace. They are just about helpless. Increasingly, they also want their own sovereignty and their own government that would protect them. Factions can go kill each other, but no one really wants civil war. And if they did fight, what is there for the US to do - do nothing, join in or kill both? Either way, US is going to lose support. If the US left Iraq on its own will, maybe the Iraqis will at least respect the US not as a useless occupier but with slightly better impression of it. The US has no moral obligation to deal with a civil war that has deep roots in factions many politicians don't understand and not caused by the US. Personally, I think at most, they want some more division and self-rule for their own factions. They don't have to fight to get it, unless the Iraqi government does not yield and chooses to deal with them.

As for leaving Iraq, No timetable necessary. Just ship everyone back to the US and call it all off. I'm sure the commanders can do it easily, and at low cost. By that, I also mean all those security companies. This has gone long enough and all the strategies just add to the spending. 

And while I have no problems with the production of drugs itself, I suggest the Afghan government could just buy off the opium poppy fields, curbing a large percentage of drug production and related crimes. Doing that could cut down "terrorist group" funds significantly, at least until they find another way. Right now, US troops are not allowed to do anything to the fields. 

As for the future after that, the US really needs to learn to keep fighter planes in the air all the time, and if 9/11 was in any way deliberate or connected to the US government, that they not do it again. No sane civilian in a free society decides to have full-scale war with others, even the most simple intuition will agree. 

People in all the countries on earth need to be free and learn to be far more active in their government's affairs, because that is the simplest and most effective way to prevent any major hostility. The UN or the League of Nations or any other global governing body, whether you believe in its principles or not, has stood by or not been helpful for many conflicts since its founding. At most, they try to pick up the scraps. The world has charitable organizations that are far suited for this. 

Flu Two

- Swine Flu will return, likely after September. The WTO claims so.

- "Tamiflu" and those other drugs may not work when it does return. (Actually, Tamiflu is already useless in some cases. Most also do not need it.) 

- In the way we live now, it is extremely easy to get swine flu. 

- Some people who already have swine flu will not show any symptoms.

- "Swine" flu is already human to human. 

- Swine flu has several strains geographically. Each may react differently to drugs.

The vaccine is not going to work. 

It is also untested. 

It will be given to the population. It will be compulsory, even if it is harmful.

It will cause the swine flu itself for some. 

It will lead to wider changes in the virus, which has a chance of leading to a much worse pandemic. 

Deaths are usually not be due to the virus itself but the cytokine storm triggered. 

Pharmaceutical companies will suck taxpayer money for vaccine and drug stockpiles. 

The economic effects will be disastrous if it coincides with economic problems. 

I am not being ambiguous. 

flu and school

It is surprising how fast things change. At math class today, everyone was gloomy about how school was going to drag on, and how we have to make that one case to shut down the school. We then tried to comfort ourselves by stating that maybe it wasn't so bad to be in school after all.

I slept on a desk for more than 3 hours, dreaming thermodynamics, thinking how i was going to do that experiment next week in chemistry. I actually managed to dream up 4 types of calorimeters, two of which I disappointingly found out have been patented because some chemist 300 years ago had struggled to find a better way to measure the energy of chemical reactions.

I woke up at 19:00 to get dinner and the tv said someone from South Island School was on the positive side.
Now I don't know what to do, because I didn't have any plans except for homework for the rest of the term.

Now, how do I hand in my english essay?

The thing about thermodynamics

Stuff can never actually "stop", because another process is necessary to intervene. That process may simply take the energy out, but then you increase the entropy elsewhere, so system still has or increased the disorder.

If you wanted to reverse a process, you must stop it first because it is going one way. The laws don't change in reverse, but they have continue doing what they do unless you stop them.

The interesting thing about thermodynamics is that thermodynamics has to do with all the changes and differences in heat energy and work. 

It takes a difference in heat to make a heat engine. Hence, according to thermodynamics, there is no way of extracting work from a reservoir(s) with no temperature difference. 

0-point energy is the lowest energy quantifiable or simply the energy remaining after all possible energy is taken away. This stuff means interesting effects when things are very near absolute zero, because they still possess some energy.

This energy is also supposedly in the vacuum.

I think this is interesting because whereas I have not found a device of this kind that has worked properly, the theory is there and it is scientific. 

paper

I could have probably written a much better topic - 

Are grenouille in Perfume and Noboru in Sailor evil?

disagreement.

It was interesting to watch a disagreement between Alex Yau and Ms Stringer on some new Chemistry topic. Even when the consensus was following the rules, some still chose to side with Alex. I decided to check the textbook and he was not correct. Yet, people continued to support the incorrect. 

I think they will be thoroughly confused when they do homework. 

model of work (I)

My model of work.... when is it the best time to work?

The definition of work is actually difficult to define. My definition of work is something that fulfills a need or want of fulfillment or consumption. As you may have noticed, this is not different from consumption, considered by many to be the opposite of work, because consumption is also the fulfilling of need and want. 

Prehistoric man (by which I mean, the hunter-gatherer) mixed work and free-time, even though it was eventually possible to do all the work at once. While the food was cooking, culture would be developed and people would sit and feel fulfilled. Nothing, or few things was considered work, because it was all just about enjoying life. Work was freetime and freetime was work. 

The modern office worker appears to work from 9 in the morning and 5 in the evening. They appear to work, because work is predictable. In the process of fulfilling the need to work, one inevitably realizes the needs to do something else to fulfill other needs. This is because that in the process of working, few needs are being fulfilled at the present moment. It will take a relatively long time for him to receive his paycheck and eternity for satisfaction. While prehistoric man was able to feel the excitement of hunting, and feeling good about his weapon and the stalking of his dinner, there is nothing the modern counterpart can do to relieve himself, except to do things that could get him fired. 

Of course, this is not the case for many. Many people are happy with their work. But every business on earth suffers from a huge amount of lost productivity. 

Now, get back to work.

part 1 end.... to be continued.

Internal memo #1

How do we get more people to see this bog (that's what it is, right now)?

I want the opinions of more people, because this is only a two way exchange. It would be more fun. Right now, there are not even spammers that come around!

I think putting this on some directories would be good.

Literature paper.

Yay, world lit paper finished.

I hope someone someday would cite my paper and build on the ideas. It currently stands at 2,000 words. Shouldn't be hard to scale back for IB requirements.

However, I know there will be problems because I didn't follow any IB criteria.

Problem Solving

1. What do you do when you see the problem?

2. How do you approach the problem?

3. How much time do you spend on each question?

4. What questions do you go for?

I got a suitable bid in the first time, but then I managed to misinterpret Alex's little revision session and I though Blackwood was 3NT and Kingwood as 4NT. 

weather

Yay, it just started to rain and thunder was reported. First rain since the pool opened.

They say cloud and sunny, now they say thunderstorm. 

I hope it rains real nice tomorrow too. 

Oops, looks like it stopped.

Global Warming is to be enjoyed.

yay, people are getting heat-stroke... I declare this officially summer, even if it starts to rain tomorrow. 

I would actually enjoy it if the sea level was to rise 6 meters right now, because then, the Cyberport flats would have to move out of my way due to the waves flooding the lobbies.  Also helps evaporation anyway. Cyberport becomes atlantis. 

I'm learning to enjoy the heat right now. 

Check this out.

For starters,

Press: "Do you feel anything when you shoot a terrorist?"
Soldier: "Recoil"

Today's kids are obedient and nasty. 

Check this out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=1

These kids have decided that they want to help the state kill people for a living. 

Most disturbing of all:

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”" This is coming from a 14 year old.

OK, I like FPS games too, but this is just an example of what it comes down to IN REALITY. This is Hitler Youth RIGHT NOW! Not a theory.

Also, I like shooting. But I have never shot at anything remotely resembling a human being. 

I do not have a problem with teaching firearm safety at a young level, but senseless robotic violence training is completely absurd. 

I would be much happier if kids were trained to defend their homes and know their second amendment rights, than help government crack down on civil liberties. 

I am quite convinced that there is some brainwashing going on in these programmes too. 

Materialism

The want is perhaps the cause of every tragic event of the human race.

Wants are infinite. We as human beings want everything. It is just a simple drive to the unachievable infinite, that everything that ever existed wants to attain. Even the universe, with its expansion, wants to be infinitely big. 

The want is defined as something desired but not necessary for biological survival. I define it as the uncontrolled, irrational, undefinable expansion of perceived need.

Human want, as crazy as it has always been, is logical. If you have a nice car, you will want a better car, because you says "Why not?" and you perceive the temporary gratification when that want is created. And after a while, the "why not?" question comes up again and you go back to the store and gets something perceived to be better. The same applies to anything of your choice. 

To create more, human beings have created societies, economies, firms, corporations, agriculture and more wants to create more. Human beings ceased being hunter gatherer tribes and became agrarian societies with cities. This in itself was perhaps the biggest trigger to the whole story of human beings (I don't want to miss the females out on this point) and their want. Once human beings were detached from nature and its finite resource and need basis, population was allowed to increase very dramatically and so did human want, for now, because people could now produce as much as they wanted. Humanity had found the way to expand its wants to the utmost capacity of his/her biological self.

The advancement of the agricultural society also allowed the advancement of creativity, and greed. The establishment of the state also enabled the establishment of a social hierarchy and centralized power - the king. The king was able to use his power to take from others by force through taxation of people's income, while he did not need to produce. His existence is justified for by the existence of other kings - people are told that if they did not have a king, then all shit will break lose, human progress of thousands of years would be lost, and everyone would die. 

At the same time, they realized that they could pillage others to satisfy their wants, that by now, would have consumed them.

From there, to facilitate the want, people have created a monetary system, and wants have spawned more wants, and more tragedy so on. 

I am not saying that wanting is wrong, even though I know a lot of people may agree. I am saying that when human beings, individually or collectively, lost touch with nature, that bad things of some degree happen to everyone. Our wants have lost touch with nature, and we do that at our peril. This is contrary to what we seem to believe - that the natural world is outdated and we are more advanced than nature.

to be continued...

Post-exam talk

I really get tired of people, especially girls, who for better or worse, will complain for at least 20 minutes after an exam about, supposedly how badly they did in the exam. Now, I think at least part of this is true. 

We have all had those questions that we weren't completely sure about in all those exams. But the problem with all the complaining is that they DON'T WANT THE QUESTION TO BE SOLVED. The first thing they do is chat up their friends and gossip about exams. The social part is fine, but the self-pity is most horrific. 

 Most do not look for answers, they look for an emotional, hyped up response. And if you come out of the exam looking unlike that, then well, you don't fit in. And I am glad for it.

It is not that I don't have feelings. I do. I feel amused at the exam. And this hype is telling me that I have deeper feelings that most, because in the rush to launch into the emotions and hype, one cannot have deeply profound feelings that build up during a 2 hour exam.

I hope you understand what I am talking about.

Don't worry about the "swine flu".

Instead, worry about your own government, which will do everything to "save you for your own safety". 

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

In 1976, swine flu came around and that immediately became headline news and government quickly concluded that anything of this sort could become a worldwide plague that would wipe out many people.

But the reality was that only one soldier had been killed by the flu and many others had not been affected by the flu despite infection.

A costly program of vaccination/inoculation was started country-wide. 

Many more people died from the vaccination than from the flu itself. (25 confirmed vaccine kills to 1 flu kill)

The moral of the story is that the flu, though deadly, is not nearly as bad as the fear is creates. 

As of this time, I do not know of any other deaths in other countries besides Mexico. Some of the infected in the US didn't even have to be hospitalized.

Of course, this flu is much more widespread than the other one. But it is obvious that sub-standard medical care and close proximity of swine and humans are to explain why Mexico has suffered so many more deaths. To add to that, people are somewhat afraid to go to hospitals for whatever reason, because the conditions are poor. 

The media has blown this "pandemic" up way more than what it actually is.

NEvertheless, it is no reason to do nothing to prevent infection.

work. future. freedom.

Interrogation and Torture

Torture is never justified. It is sickening. It is unusually cruel and never justified. It is useless. It is ridiculous that people cite cases in which victims under torture have revealed bits of information. In reality, the chances are extremely low and usually, when the torturers are that angry, the victim is either guilty or will admit to everything to get out of the situation. It is ineffective. Justice, by which this has been conducted for, is not served. 

Physicians should be banned from participating in any form of torture. Physicians are people trained to help sick people. They should not be involved in harming or killing people.

If anyone agrees with torture, I will assume that they are ready to be tortured with every and any procedure developed by the CIA. Can anyone even imagine what it would feel like to be waterboarded up to 200 times? And I am certain that cannot be the only thing done to prisoners. 

Meanwhile, people are talking about technicalities about memos and who wrote them. The whole system needs to be investigated for legal violations, based on US law and all international treaties the US has signed. 

All this crap boils down to one thing. The real reason they do this is simply to try and convince the victim that they are under total control of the people doing the torture. It is a sadistic and childish game. An atrocity committed under the name of liberty and justice. 

An Inconvenient truth

In general, I think a significant portion of time is wasted on AG talking about his political campaigns, what his family was doing, the condition of some river and his belief that the US had a democracy. In other words, irrelevant things intended to emotivate the viewer into a state of urgency and sadness. AG then builds on this and turns it into alarmism. 

And then, he turns alarmism into government restrictions. That is not to say that governments should not do anything about pollution and emissions. However, carbon taxes and deliberate goals based on shakey evidence that it will help is useless, unimaginative and hinders development of everyone. The only good part of this presentation may be the promotion of relatively independent energy sources like wind-turbines. Property rights, health rights, responsibility, free information, adapting to change and ingenuity are the things that have allowed human beings to deal with problems, not larger and larger and more unaccountable government powers.

So what do I think? I think, at the most basic and well-found level for me, that there is something strange going on with the climate. All the "heat-waves" and disasters are concerning. Climate is changing. But I am also aware that climate was changing long before I was around. Likewise, I am aware of the data that shows that the average temperature is going up.

A scientific argument can be made about greenhouse gases. Water vapor is overwhelmingly the worse greenhouse gas, in both quantity and what it can do. I can prove this to you. Cloudy days tend to be very stuffy and hotter, compared to a very clear day, partly because humidity, but also because the cloud will trap radiation in. This is very similar with what fog and smog and buildings can do as well.

Clouds also remove a significant amount of heat because vaporization requires a significant amount of energy. If global warming is as significant as the IPCC says (0.6 degrees, error 0.2), then quite a lot more water will be taken up and certain areas will be cooled. 

This already makes the effects of CO2 small. How much CO2 are we putting out, compared to the stuff coming out of the sea? The only way this whole thing would make sense is if they formed a hypothesis, stating that strong positive feedback will force more greenhouse gas out due to the current 0.6 degree rise. This needs to be clearly demonstrated. If this is not proven, then I will stick with my prediction that the averages are only going up about 1 degree, with 0.5 error. 

The results of such an increase would lead to only a handful of effects, which damage can be neutralized if people were more alert and prepared. But that would be the result of only CO2 generation, partly human and partly natural, and not crazy positive feedback that authorize the use of exponents. 

People always like to talk about the "delicate balance of nature" and how we may disrupt it. Yet, they never realize that nature changes and has always adapted to changes in variables. Sure, these changes may not be good, and are not what we want. But fearing change or using fear is irrational. Instead, the focus must be on adapting to the change. If you can see that the Himalayan glaciers are receding, then one needs to take steps to deal with this. The main thing that needs to be done is to not panic in any way, because panic has always been more dangerous than the event itself. 

Note that I have no intention of denying the phenomenon of global warming and human-caused pollution. I would very much prefer if we didn't destroy rainforests or put so much toxic chemicals into poisoning ourselves. It does me no good in denying global warming. I am just asking questions. 

Last of all, I am displeased that the school has decided to use "An Inconvenient Truth" as part of the Physics course. I hope I do not have to see this for Chemistry as well.   

A new world currency and a government.

Interesting how they are finally putting that in the world's view. 

Interesting how I was talking about it more than one year ago.

Unfortunately, this is coming true.

Tim Geitner and Barack Obama denies the new world currency.

Then, Tim Geitner agrees to the new world currency.

Which one should we trust?

In the first case, he is speaking to us. We are skeptical. He knows that he cannot advance as quickly, or else the rejection would come quickly and strongly and bring too much attention to it.

In the second case, he is speaking to the people who support this move, whom he has affiliation to. They want to move towards a much more global system.

China is talking about it too.

I say that they are going to put this option on the table and when the time is right (eg. Dollar goes down), they will take this option and use it. 

What interesting and dangerous times we are in.

HKAYP Bronze Final Walk: Helicopters, AYP Silverers, Sharp Peak and other things

3 hours ago, we finished Bronze AYP Final! Guan Yiu, Alex Yau and I just finished leading/helping this year's Bronze AYP Group 6 through the walk. 

First of all, it was quite amazing. It was fairly short a walk, but the weather made a big difference. The temperature for the first day was hotter than expected, being rather sunny and windy up at Ngam She Tsim but stuffy. At the base of Sharp Peak, it was so windy that some had trouble standing up straight. My hat was almost blown off.

On the first day, we were helping out Ms Stringer with Group 10 - a small group consisting of 2 boys and 2 girls. My first impression was that they were rather separate and quiet, but it turned out that a pair of them were very romantic, strolling down the beach to Ham Tin while holding hands. They were quite a coherent group, able to make decisions on navigation problems quite quickly. We decided to teach them back-bearings and some other techniques, and they were able to use them to plot their location fairly accurately, even though the wind was extremely strong. To give you an idea of its strength, imagine yourself being pushed by someone. To sum up the situation, someone commented that the wind was so strong it was affecting the needle of their compass.

Their route was average in difficulty. There was some bushwhacking (where you have to push nasty, springy bushes away) and some bushwalking (just walk through the vegetation) before lunch. But there were also some rather crazy routes that they decided to take in order to avoid going anywhere near Sharp Peak. So instead of going down the ridge down to the beach, they decided to take a treacherous route that contoured the very steep ridge. Indeed, the path was so thin that I was certain it was made by cows that, like Group 10, were afraid of Sharp Peak and its spectacular ridges.

The descent to sea level was very extraordinary. Imagine 8 people sliding on their bottoms down a SMOOTH dusty slope. The dust cloud that occurred was so bad everyone was almost blind after that. Alex made an effort to "surf" down the last part, but still landed on his bum.

We had to do similar descents down 6 more of these before we got a proper path. 

On Day 2, we were attached to Group 6, a group of sporty year 10 boys. They were not very cooperative and there were several times in which we almost went down the wrong route. Luckily, we didn't have to do any bushwhacking with them, because I was certain they were going to turn a bushwhack into an 3-day camp. Mr Sheriff was one of the unlucky member of staff to have been forced to bushwhack on the first day. I believe they were doing the same thing we did, only that they at least had time to get out before it was dark. If they decided to do Sharp Peak, I'm sure they would have ended up like us.

Their route was quite direct, following fairly straight bearings to follow, hence allowing them to walk blindly. They covered 25 km in total during the trip, with more than 3 km being road-marches.

So did Guan Yiu, Alex Yau and I go up Sharp Peak? No. We actually had 4 chances in which it was possible to slip that in. But they were all turned down. Here they are, in order.

1. At the base of Sharp Peak, we tried to convince Ms Stringer and group 10 to wait 15 minutes while we dropped our bags and ran up. Guan Yiu used his crybaby tactics, Alex tried false reasoning and lying (two minutes up first part, two minutes second part, ...., here you go! 15 minutes) and I suggested that maybe another group will come around and we will join them. All were turned down before we even got there, because Sharp Peak looked like it was growing larger and larger as we approached. 

2. When the group was debating whether to abandon the plan to go up the ridge or take a bushy, sketchy contour path, Ms Cowland called to ask where we were. She insisted that that it was already too late, and that it wouldn't be fair for us to force others to wait. We tried the same things, but they got turned down by a warning from Ms Stringer, who said that no one would be there to rescue us if we rolled off the mountain.

3. When we got to the Ham Tin Restaurant, we asked if we could drop our bags and run for Sharp Peak. It was 17:00 by then, and the teachers already had some ideas to keep us occupied. Again, Alex tried his 15-minute sprint argument, but Mr Gardner tested his physics and distracted him.

4. On the second day, we came up with a plan. We tried the whole thing again on Group 6. But the fierce wind (even worse than yesterday) was so bad you couldn't talk to someone only 1 meter away. Imagine what it would be like on the top of Sharp Peak. Incidentally, the peak was covered by a cloud that was moving quite fast. 

World without war?

There's nothing wrong with private property rights. What is wrong is the thieves who seek to conquer men. And hence the New World Order. Make theft legal. Make everyone poorer and poorer. But theft is unjustified in the first place. If the defense and thief are equal, the defense prevails. Unjustified war, initiated by the thief, can therefore be made inefficient and useless. And hence, justified war, declared by the defense for protection of private property, will not happen. However, there will always be those who seek new ways to take from others. War is only one way. You will not abolish war simply by abolishing private property. You will create another war. What about a war in defense of my freedom to own property and to be an individual, and to not be ruled by tyranny and to live my life as I want to? Most people do not want war today. They make no real gains from war. Only a small number of people profit, at the expense of everyone else. Through deception and the apathy of the masses, these elite are able to create wars. By holding these people accountable, you can stop people from starting preemptive wars and invasions. In general, until we realize that we are able to BETTER fulfill our potential as human beings by the understanding and conquest of nature rather than the conquest of fellow men and their achievements, we will never cease to steal or kill others to steal. But war to defend one's property or liberty is well defined, and not a all-out plunder. And these conflicts will not be represented by government (hopefully) and hence not have access to an army. Which means that we will always have struggle and competition between humans, but we will not be killing each other for it. It is possible to have a world without war.

HKAYP Silver Final

Prediction:

According to some sources, this Pak Sin Leng will take us about 6 hours to get through. With large rucksacks, it is clear and it will take longer. It doesn't look like much on the map, but this is 8 peaks in one go. 

And the climb straight up to one of the peaks, it is actually a climb because it is supposedly very steep and rocky at the top. 

It will also be hot/extreme weather because I doubt there will be any trees around for shade.

If you want to make up the distance, do at least 9 km on the first day (expecting 9 hours), do 20 on the second day and 10km on the last day. Choose some gentle hills for the last day, because legs will not be in very good condition. 

Also, figure out the transport in the area. We don't really want to be out late on the last day, because we got school to look forward to the very next day.

Just a thought....

Suppose someone has been declared dead. When do the cells of the body start to die?

When I see a dead body, are all the cells dead inside? (especially the ones from the vital organs)? Common sense tells me that not all of them are dead. Brain tissue may have already started died(according to first aid course, they are the most sensitive), but what about lung tissue?

I have no knowledge of this, but from what I know about plants, plant cells don't start to stop functioning until many hours later. I consider that "alive".

Respiration... how long does it take for cells to use up all oxygen? How long can a cell survive without oxygen?

Barrack Obama to become the most disappointing President?

Just a possible prediction. Obama could become the most disliked president when his stuff doesn't work. However, the MSM will deal with that because most people don't think anyway. People who invest and have lost a lot and those who will lose in the future will hate him.

I think anyone on top will want to come up with a good plan to come up on top of this crisis. Obama is only one tool. But he is an important asset, because he is almost "worshiped" by the crowds.

Guns and freedom.

Guns are impossible to take back when you give up the rights. 

British now want their guns back. When the citizens have guns, burglars have to assume that they have guns in the house and are ready to use them. This makes everything risky.

One of the most important freedom is the freedom from tyranny. Freedom really is the right way to go. Guns help a lot, BECAUSE the government will always have to assume that every person is armed and is willing and able to defend their lives and property. So the next time you think that it is nonsense, think again.

I will write about how it is not advantageous to discuss liberty when big government is around, but I do it anyway.

Why do people have children? Why are people today having less children?

This is an interesting question about life. As we all know, no one lives forever. Nor does anyone stay the same age forever. And especially for females, no one is capable of reproduction forever, nor does anyone keep their looks forever. 

So reproduction for HUMANS is not a life goal we must/are programed achieve. Humans don't have a defined goal in life. But at the same time, reproduction means a lot to human beings. It is a way of passing down not only genes - that's an important part, but may not be the most important for humans. 

Humans had children in the past to pass down culture, tradition, the family name, family VALUES and wealth. These things no longer seem to be as important today, even though I believe that values is an important thing. Nowadays, people have kids to start a family (important here - when you have a kid, you start a family), because they want to be parents, or maybe they felt that something was missing from their life, that they are not fulfilled. Or, they may just love kids.

The time of the average worker is a resource. Indeed, it was revealed that Nike measures the time taken to perform each step of production precisely to 4 decimal places (in seconds). This may sound ridiculous, but in such a fast-paced, money driven world, efficiency is everything. It can mean the difference between winning a contract bid or losing a billion dollar profit.

OK, getting back to kids and reproduction. If time of the average individual is so scarce, where will you get the time to take care of the kid? You don't. So you go off to a daycare center so as to centralize the babies. But what's the fun? Not 

Children are also getting more and more expensive to raise. To fund about 20 years of full-time education, the amount of money is very large. Also, with the inflation of currencies over many years, savings is hardly a way to come up with the money. Today, it takes a large chunk out of wages to provide for a kid. And in many situations, it takes two incomes to provide for everything. (depends on where you live)

So, people react in several ways to these problems. They will either not have them, or they will have less(for many, this means the minimum- 1 kid), OR they will invest the money. All these measures show one thing - having kids and coming up with the money to raise and educate the kid is quite a risk. 

WHY BOTHER?? The kid could grow up to become a punk anyway. 

At the same time, people don't feel that they have anything worthwhile to pass down. Family tradition? You're an ancient fart! Family values? What, are you Catholic?

So, why should one not want to have children? Because of many reasons...

- they hate kids - this reason tends to be rare.

- they are homosexual - they can still adopt, but my simulation tells me that homosexuals may tend to be more polygamous (multiple sexual partners) and less likely to have very long-term commitments.  

- they hate the opposite sex.

- they want full sexual freedom, forever. Monogamy is not their thing. They want to have many partners. 

- They want to be single. 

- Some women seem to believe that because by never reproducing, they will always look as good. Could be true, but it depends what you mean by good. If you mean attractiveness, then one tends to trade it out for a more mature, wise look.

- They hate commitments to anyone. 

- They have sworn to be virgins for their entire life. (What a pity, I'm not sure why nature gave you genitalia then...)

- they are ME ME ME and me! They don't want to share. (Put in nicer terms, they want to be financially independent.)

- They feel that they have other things better to do.

- they are not financially capable of providing for the kid.

- they can't find a partner for it.

- They want to live out their political beliefs.

Some of this MAY be attributed to the fact that the new younger generation come from a higher percentage of one-kid-only families. Many of the traits above are very much impossible to carry in a small family with few people. A big family with many siblings allows for a large group of people, and a large group of people may have more things in common. This sets up a basis for faith, religion and value systems, in which children are born to believe in. While people are not deterministic, I think people who grow up having no siblings may in turn choose to have a small family size themselves, partly because they may see no merit in having many kids. 

And where does this leave us? It may mean that in a society with people who only have 1 or 2 kids, successive generations may in turn have only 1 or 2 kids, with any number higher being rare. the trend may continue for a few generations to coe, given that there are no incentives or economic or social to encourage having more kids. 

But will just a fashionable trend of having kids be enough? People are still rational in the end, in the sense that they will do what they believe is good for them. Taking drugs may be a very irrational thing to do, but it depends on what perspective and how deeply you consider something you look at it. They usually want to have a quick answer to depression or they want to be happy - sounds reasonable. But what about the addiction and the dependence? So you have my rule - people are always rational, from the mal-investors to top CEOs, but the problem is that they are stupid (or put more precisely, they are not perfectly clever), they are lazy-ass and they are not all-knowing. With this in mind, this applies to every human being, regardless of how clever or stupid they are, we are all human- incapable of being always correct! And even if we were perfect, random and chaotic systems will always exist and will always own us. That's the beautiful truth of life.

However, whether this is actually a valid point remains to be seen. The reasons for the current birth rates tend to be other factors. 

As a side-note, I would also like to say that when I say have x number of kids, it can include adopted kids. They count too.

----

Update Feb 1st, 2009

Geography is supposed to be a free subject. If Einstein was a geography, I'm sure we will have better explanations for many phenomenon. 

Higher education, jobs are probably the main reason why someone from the UN said "Economic Development is the best contraceptive".

This update will be mainly about human females. As I said, males are out of the question because men are not time-dependent. They don't lose fertility much as they get older. Their ability to get a mate tends to increase.

This is because higher education and careers take a lot of time to build. And it isn't a part-time job, which means that often, long-term relationships will take the back seat. By the time such a career is built, they will be at least 30 years old. I know this sounds completely crazy and offensive by today's standards of political correctness, but (I'm not a politician) this means that they do become

- less attractive

- less fertile

- more demanding

- will want someone who is higher in status than they are.

So males are less likely to want to have them as mates, and are less likely to be fitting. The women will also find that the men are less likely to be as qualified as they are. This is because the men left over who can't get a mate will tend to have a lower status or be less desirable by female standards.

So what do the men do? They try to get the best younger women, taking their time. What's the hurry anyway?

And as a side-point to the children issue, these women may find it difficult to find a mate, given today's mating trends. And more feminist laws will be passed to punish the men, encourage inter-gender AND intra-gender competition/conflict and put the government in a bad financial situation.

But what are the solutions? I think 

the most likely thing that will happen is some will get smart and seek mates earlier. But with the current mindset that many have, it's unlikely. Higher and higher education which leads to the careers, careers mindset will continue. Some demand student loans to get to university, further complexing the financial situation. The bubble will burst in the long term.

But in about 80 years time, the world may find that having children can be profitable. Once there is significantly less labour force around, it will give many reasons to people to have more babies. With the current economic situation, most people may find they become less wealthy, their retirement is less safe and hence to make their life more complete, having two kids is the optimum number.

But there is a problem to this. Will the culture change? Will mating rules change? Will women continue to fall into the "trap"? Will the people around to breed at that time change their mindset? What will this "financial tsunami" do to the economy and to the behavior of its participants?

Sidepoint: Will homosexuality make a difference? Not yet. But if homosexuals are legally allowed to marry and adopt or even have children, it may open up as a choice to some people and especially women. 

We are at a very special time in history. There are now be people who will never have offspring, and a society which accepts a variety of sexual and mating behavior. 

And Thomas Malthus is wrong. The population won't die out. It will just go into chaotic behavior or simple harmonic motion or the people learn to breed less (doesn't happen), until the problem is fixed.