A Perfect Storm for Genius

Facts and misconceptions are taught together. It’s one of the most basic tenets of knowledge in any field that is worth studying since there are obviously gaps and unanswered questions in… well, pretty much everything. 

Few would argue that the “genius” tag is not overused or, at the least, that it isn’t misused. But, to paraphrase Richard Price: the path of theory is, in the beginning, pointed down a reasonable path. Along the way, well-intentioned yet misguided minds guide the theory down the only path they can see, making assumptions along the way that lead the theory into a “wall”: a contradiction. Eventually, the pressure builds as evidence is proved on both sides of the contradiction.

A great historical example was the pre-Copernican astronomical assumption that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System. The astronomers developed extraordinarily complex sets of equations to describe the motion of the Sun and the planets around the Earth to massage the theory into the illusion of working. However, as measurements became more precise, the contradictions started to arise. Then, of course, a genius in the truest sense in Nicolaus Copernicus disproved a fundamental and widely accepted assumption to reveal a simple and (non-relativistically) perfect theory of planetary motion: the Earth orbits the Sun. 

The knowledgeable reader may point out that Copernicus had predecessors or that he mistakenly thought the Sun was the center of the Universe, but the wiser reader will see that the point still stands. Of course, raw genius was much more clearly exhibited 3 centuries later when a Swiss patent clerk proved that Maxwell’s equations held and the Lorentz transformation was not a result of electromagnetic instrument distortion, but a result of a relative rate of time. That’s another story.

In both instances, a genius was caught at the right place at the right time. Simply put, they were among a handful to tens of people who could have deduced what they did under the circumstances. It’s a combination of luck and genius.

Today’s information rich environment is nearly optimal for genius. As a breeding ground for misinformation, contradiction, and (sometimes) fact, the Internet is the collective well-intentioned misguided mind of humanity pushing their hopeless contradictions into a neatly wrapped package for a genius to tear open and disprove foolish assumptions. 

Simply put, the “right place, right time” element has almost been removed from the list of roadblocks that could prevent a genius from solving a contradiction. This seems like the right time to point out that a great list of unanswered questions has been compiled by Science and can be found here. 

I have made a decision today. I will no longer be angered or bothered by the foolish and seemingly destructive inaccuracies of the talking heads on the Internet and in the media. While it may seem that they are powerfully misguiding humanity into oblivion, I recognize that they are only doing the prerequisite work for a true act of genius by parading a contradiction as the conclusion of a set of facts. The most relevant non-scientific example of this is Barack Obama succeeding George W Bush.

The Perfect Storm

If we make it to the eye, then we just have to get through what we already went through...

Whenever I think I’m too doom and gloom on the economy, I see a story like this one that reminds me we’re in for a long haul here. When the Yuppies have stopped buying, it’s time to be scared. In fact, could this be the end of Yuppies as we know them.

As a cultural historian, I’ve studied the gradual decline of Yuppies since their most recent peak before the burst of the dot-com bubble. They’ve seen this crisis coming for quite some time, since they were the first to realize that their free-spending credit-paved roads to happiness would, sooner or later, come to an abrupt cliff. They invented “Hipsterism” which cleverly embraces overpriced cheap-looking clothes in preparation for the times where they’ll have to rely on cheap cheap-looking clothes to survive. And it’s pretty much the same thing with beer (PBR) and cigarettes (American Spirits). They should rename ‘Urban Outfitters’: ‘Transition to Forced Poverty’. Of course that would be too direct for this crowd, but I digress.

In any case the deflation of the dollar, the rapid decline in market capitalization tied to deflation, and the sudden decline in home equity that caused the deflation in the first place has led to a scenario where the US Government has to print money and spend it to produce a counterbalancing inflationary force. Virtually all agree that this spending should be long-term-investment based.

The preceding paragraph is, more or less, a wet dream for Progressives. In fact, it’s a Perfect Storm for our esteemed President-Elect. He’ll have (almost) unprecedented opportunities to spend large sums of money on programs and institutions that have a chance to fix things. What could be better? It’s like being a venture capitalist with unlimited funds, which I think would be the best job in the World if it ever existed. Fantastic.

So when unemployment rises from the current 6.5% to 12-15% (with a significant gender bias of a much higher percentage of unemployed males, much more to come on this), the crime rates go through the roof (it’s clear to me now that a good economy was the biggest factor in post-abortion crime rate reduction), and we start realizing what really happened here, the Government will have to spend cash left and right to dig us out of this thing. It’s the Perfect Storm for Mr. Obama.

When my friend’s 9 year old kid asked me about the financial crisis, I told him very simply (and do correct me if I’m wrong): everyone thought there was a lot of cash everywhere, and then they realized a lot of that cash didn’t exist. This cash was created when housing prices went up, and then it disappeared when they went down. When people realized this, the value of cash went up and the government had to create new money out of thin air to avoid the value going up too fast. Then he asked me if the government can just keep printing money until it’s all better. I told him that’s the basic plan.

Beard for Barack

 

put the shades on and grow the sideburns until they connect, man, trust me

 

 

Many of you know that Barack likes to fashion himself, to an extent, after Abraham Lincoln who was famous for his no-moustache beard. Many of you might not know that Lincoln didn’t grow a beard until after he was elected in 1860. He grew it in the 4 months between the election and inaguration (which was on March 4th back then). 

There are many theories concerning why Lincoln grew it, but nobody knows for sure. There was a little girl who told him he would look better with a beard, and wives would convince their husbands to vote for him (women couldn’t vote remember). But it was more likely that Lincoln felt like he was “going to war”, and beards and facial hair were a popular battleground choice of both the Union and Confederate soldiers. Beards are manly.

Personally, I think he grew it because he was sick of Mary Todd’s bitching and he wanted to use the scruff to scratch up the soft parts on her body. There’s gotta to be a word for that, let me know if you know what it is.

By my count, Barack has 10 weeks. This is plenty of time for him to shred those pretty-boy looks that got him elected and get tough with some man hair. And, in all seriousness, it would probably take him almost all of that time to grow it. 

Fuckin A, times are tough and it’s time to get tough. It’s time to bring the beard back to the White House (for the first time since Benjamin Harrison famously maneuvered himself in between two Grover Cleveland presidencies. Here’s the beard type chart. I think his best options (in order) are the Chin Curtain, the Proper Goatee (no moustache), and the Hollywoodian. He has to avoid the moustache at all costs.