Robert Paterson's Weblog

Do you think that the world is flat? Maybe you do - Why so many don't get 2.0

Of course everybody gets 2.0 now don't they. After all even the Oscars were designed for Social Media. Large organizations are piling in.

But is this true? Certainly everyone is on board with the tools now. God I recall Jevon and I talking to CIBC 6 years ago and they thought we were martians. Now everyone is on Facebook!

But how many people "get" what is underpinning these tools? Not many and I have little hope for many too.

Why?

Because underneath all the hype, most of us see the world the same way as before. We see what we see with our eyes. Just like most people saw the world 500 years ago. Then, if you used your eyes, the world seemed flat. This perception allowed to you to do a lot of useful things. You also saw that the sun came up every morning and circled the Earth. This did not ruin your day and was also a useful observation. That is of course unless you wanted to sail a long distance. Or calculate a trajectory or build a complex building or in fact do almost anything that we take for granted in the modern world. Imagine Watt explaining the steam engine to the Vatican? Imagine trying to build a suspension bridge? Imagine anyone doing chemistry - see where I am going.

But we are not so stupid today are we? We don't rely only on our eyes to tell us about reality?

Well here is your test. Can you see that all these things are in fact a fractal scaling of the same thing?

Can you see that what appears on the surface to your eyes as being unique, different and discrete are in reality the same and that all co-evolve and affect each other? Do you see them therefore as all obeying the same rules, the rules of networks? Can you see how with this perspective everything becomes actually quite simple to understand? All we need to know is how nature governs networks.

Or do you see them all as Objects that are are different - that interact only directly as objects do? That are therefore so complex that we can only know tiny bits of them. So medicine and science are all about the bits and the direct interactions. That we inhabit a Newtonian world where the geometry of nature's interactions do not apply?

For is this not the prevailing paradigm?

This is why people seek to have masses of followers - this is a Newtonian idea about mass and gravity. It has nothing to do with co-evolution and true influence.

This is why it's still ALL ABOUT ME! So long as I am OK it's OK!

This is why medicine makes no sense and each week a new contradictory idea is floated. This is why science is lost in minutiae. This is why our organizations are so toxic. We have designed them to be Newtonian but we are fractal co-evolving networks. This why our mass education system is such a mess. This is why even how we fight our wars means that we have to lose them. This is why we think that there is a conflict between the planet and our economy.

We have been captured by a simple and wrong idea of us all being objects that bounce off each other like tennis balls whereas we are really magnetized iron filings.

No amount of Facebook Strategies will help you if you don't get this.

The world is not flat and you and I are not an object.

If you want  to know more about this new paradigm of reality - I have the great honor to introduce you to the work of Alexei Kurakin - a genius - a Galileo of our time.

 

Paleo Tips and Snips - The Science Behind Pasture

We feed most animals grain - hey even dog food is mainly corn - most animals are not designed to eat grain and the result is in their meat and in your food.

Here is what the difference really is

Amplify’d from thehealthyskeptic.org

Pasture-raised animal products and wild-caught fish: as nature intended While the reasons to eat pasture-raised animal products and wild-caught fish span social, political, economic and nutritional considerations, I’m only going to focus on nutritional factors here. For a more comprehensive discussion, check out Eat Wild. Read more at thehealthyskeptic.org

 

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Paleo Tips and Snips - Paleo is not a Diet

There are so many smart folks out there that know more than I and have done more. I plan to share these as I fond them with you.

Paleo is a big tent - and it is NOT a diet.

This piece opens with a thought provoking statement - we are used to being ill and seeing people who look ill - think about this for a minute!

Amplify’d from naturalsleepingremedies.us

Naturally healthy looking people are close to becoming a thing of the past. Bad skin, dark eye circles, obesity, premature aging and consistent illness have become accepted sufferance’s of life. Fast living means fast food, and the unhealthier we get the more we crave the processed food diet we have become accustomed to. That is until now.

 

A health revolution branded ‘The Paleo Diet’ is taking the world back to its hunter-gatherer roots. Food specialists are admitting that a wrong turn driven by modern agricultural has left society in a state of very bad health, and the Paleo Diet is producing results previously unseen by medical science. Evidence that Paleolithic living can cure migraines, sleep problems, high blood pressure and obesity is steering people away from quick fix Hollywood diets and back toward the diet nature intended humans to follow.

 

The Paleo Diet is aligned with our natural environment. It requires us to eat as our ancestors would have done. Naturally, our bodies are designed to eat nuts, fruits, seeds and meat, not processed foods or foods containing preservatives and high levels of salt and sugar.

 

The last decade has been plagued by diet fads, patronising nutritionists and a society obsessed with weight loss, yet Paleo living is helping to make ‘counting calories’ and visits to the doctor’s surgery a thing of the past.

 

Although referred to as a diet, Paleo eating should be considered more of a sensible and obvious lifestyle choice. Unlike conventional dieting, there is no measuring of food quantities and frustrating daily weigh-ins, only the requirement of eating natural, wholesome ingredients, rich in vitamins and minerals.

 

Paleo cooking provides a balanced, natural and delicious diet that doesn’t take much effort, and the best part is that you don’t need to eat less to lose weight, because your body will naturally adapt to the natural food sources that promote a healthy lean body. Read more at naturalsleepingremedies.us

 

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You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.

But it wasn’t teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets — it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.

In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today’s UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have “one dollar” in your wallet, you’re paying more than the “combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America“:

[Gibson] explains, “I have one dollar in my wallet. That’s more than the combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America. That means somebody is gaming the system.”

via thinkprogress.org

Shades of 1776! Please folow the link and you will see the details. It boggles my mind.

The people who pay no taxes run the system and the poor mugs who do pay taxes get shafted.

But the story is that the system cannot afford you - when are we going to wake up?

My weekly paleo update - This is not about losing weight alone

In the last 2 weeks my weight has remained constant at 180lbs. I am 5.10.

I think what has happened is that I have reached some homeostatic level. This feels right for now.

Homeostasis is how all complex systems regulate anyway. All those that think that a simple calorie in versus calorie out is how it works, need to learn more about how systems work. There is just no way that a complex system can keep within a range with that accuracy if the process is linear. Think of your body temperature. You inhabit a range and your body works hard to keep it there and will make all sorts of corrections and adjustments to do so. The same with the mean temperature of the planet.

To get much lower I will have to change more of what I do. Make a large and permanent new change. I have a horrid feeling that that might mean being more active - which is hard to do right now as we are all so snowbound. 

But this is not all about weight loss. It is about getting more healthy.

The good news is that I have lost all my visceral fat. My tummy has gone and I have abs! My point here is not to run after women or look good in a swim suit - a nice fantasy - but to take off the table the greatest risk for middle aged men. It's our waist line folks that kills us. 

I have also lost my man boobs. This is a different process. There is some fat there but mostly man boobs are a sign of high estrogen levels, A product of grains and by the way Soy is a signifcant agent for estrogen.

This is less a health issue for men but it does strike at an issue for all middle aged men - erectile function. It's simple, the more estrogen, the less chance of a stiffy. Taking grains and soy off the table is a lot better than Viagra.

Estrogen is however a major health risk for middle aged women. High estrogen levels after menopause are a real factor in breast cancer. This is not an academic issue in our family.

Being overweight and having relatively high levels of estrogen is worse.

Onto another topic - falling off the wagon!

With Robin away, I have been lonely and have also checked out her secret stash of cookies. Two nights ago I had two of them. After all waht harm could come from 2 cookies?

I have paid a lot. I hardly slept that night - not from guilt but from how awful I felt. I had heart palpitations and buzzed. I have had cramps for 2 days that are not over yet.

This was the first sugar I have had in 5 months. I must now be very sensitive. It was the same kind of reaction I had as a 12 years old drinking rum and coke where I got blasted on one drink.

It has made me wonder how years of eating lots of sugar and flour desentizes our bodies - like a heroin addict who after years needs a dose that would kill a newbie.

Last comment - Hunger.

Some of you who are trying this tell me that you are hungry. Are you also reducing calories? Are you eating enough fat? Yes are you eating enough Fat!

I have combed the web for the best sources of information and I find Sebastien Noel the most sensible. Here is his context - we should eat what we are and what nature has designed for us - for we do know this - in nature everything is fractal:

The best macronutrient ratio to default on

Between beneficial fasting and overfeeding periods, between periods of protein restriction and periods of extra protein consumption, one might wonder about the optimal macronutrient ratios to fall back on.

Those who bring the most sound and logical evidence for an optimal macronutrient ratio are Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet from the perfect health diet.

Their recommended macronutrient levels for healthy people is at around 20% carbohydrates, 65% fat and 15% protein by caloric intake, not weight. Their reasoning is based around 4 main principles:

1. Observations about our ancestors: Like stated earlier, observations aren’t the best tool to determine something with certitude, but the fact that most of our ancestors ate a diet high in fat, moderate to low in protein and moderate in carbohydrates gives us a good clue to look into. The hunter-gatherer diets for which we have data tend to roam around 20% carbs, 65% fat and 15% proteins by calories. Remember that none of our ancestors ate or favored lean meats other than in periods of scarcity and starvation. Studies about the fatty composition of wild animal tissues who show generally lean tissues doesn’t take into account the subcutaneous fat, bone marrow fat and fat found in the brain and around the loin as well as the kidneys.
2. Composition of human breast milk: Human breast milk is 39% carbohydrates, 54% fat and 7% protein. The brain is the main organ in the body that needs glucose and infants need much more energy to the brain than adults so this is why the carbohydrate fraction of milk is probably higher than the adult’s optimal need. What’s interesting in the macronutrient ratios of human milk is the high fat and low protein content.
3. Composition of our own tissues: An average lean male is composed of about 30 lbs of fats and 23 lbs of protein (93 lbs of water). If we reserve the portion of carbs used by the brain, it leaves us with a proportion of about 60% fat and 20 % protein for the other body tissues. It makes sense to eat foods in the ratio that composes your body so that the body can use those macronutrients to rebuild itself or cannibalize itself in case of need.
4. Preference of omnivorous animals for high-fat diets: When given the choice, omnivorous animals instinctively chose foods that are healthiest for them. They all choose to eat an high-fat, low to moderate protein and moderate carnohydrate diet. People from traditional cultures also instinctively go for a similar macronutrient ratio.

The recommendations made by Paul and Shou-Ching take into consideration those four factors together. This is also the ratios I now personally recommend because they come from the most convincing arguments available to us at this time.

It goes without saying that there is definitely room to play around with these ratios depending on your own preferences, activity levels and goals. Those ratios are excellent though to prevent any deficiencies or excess of any macronutrient.

 

CRTC Backs Down Again to Public Pressure

This never made any sense to me - how can we say that holding a broadcaster to telling the truth violates freedom of speech - that is simply insane PC

So round 2 to the People.

So how about having a go at other Regulators who are in the pocket of those they pretend to regulate - Food would be a good place to start where regulation ignores the lies and systemic problems of big food and penalizes the small and local?

Amplify’d from www.cbc.ca

The CRTC has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have given TV and radio stations more leeway to broadcast false or misleading news.

Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding to orders from a parliamentary committee.

However, Von Finckenstein said the CRTC "never wanted to touch this thing" and had, in fact, dragged its feet for 10 years until "we ran out of stalling devices." He said the CRTC finally proposed the change this year "because we were ordered to do it."

Liberal MP Andrew Kania, co-chairman of the joint parliamentary committee on scrutiny of regulations, challenged von Finckenstein's interpretation of what happened.

He said the committee never ordered the CRTC to do anything. It only asked, 10 years ago, that the CRTC consider whether the blanket ban on false news might violate freedom of speech guarantees in the Charter of Rights. The request was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel.

Over the past two years, the committee reminded the CRTC that it still hadn't responded on the matter but did not push for any particular regulatory change, Kania said.

Only last week, in the wake of the public outcry over the CRTC's proposed change, did the committee consider the substance of the issue. Kania said committee members concluded that free speech guarantees don't apply to broadcast licence holders in the same way as they do to individuals. Read more at www.cbc.ca

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The Fear Of Saturated Fat And Cholesterol

Time magazine accuses cholesterol

In 1984, reporting on a trial finally done on the relation between dietary cholesterol, serum cholesterol and heart disease, Time magazine published a shocking front page article proclaiming that the diet-heart hypothesis had finally been proven and that the AHA was right all along. You probably even remember the famous cover of this magazine with a frowning face made with eggs and bacon. The article proclaimed that our relation with food would never be the same. This article took the world by storm and is at the birth of the general negative ideas against dietary cholesterol and saturated fat.

What that article failed to mention though is that there was another study done that exact same year that showed that while it could be true that a generally high serum level of cholesterol correlates somewhat with heart disease, it’s only oxidized cholesterol that wreaks havoc. High-levels of non-oxidized serum cholesterol are not problematic, but protective and essential to life and to all cells. With these last findings, we should therefore be focusing on what oxidizes the cholesterol in the first place. It turns out that the biggest factors contributing to that oxidation are high polyunsaturated fat consumption from seed oils and excess fructose consumption. Those are the exact foods that the AHA and the USDA (United-States department of agriculture) have been telling us to eat in order to reduce our consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol.

We’ve all been part of a big experiment that has failed miserably and many financial interests have intermingled in the whole scene throughout the process in such a way that makes it very hard for the real science to shine and opinions to change. Do yourself a big favor and believe only in things that make sense on an anthropological, physiological and evolutionary level all at the same time instead of regurgitated nonsense that comes from bogus science and financial interests.

via paleodietlifestyle.com

I can think of no wrong idea that had a greater hold on us than fear of fat. A Doctor I know once told his patient that she had terminal liver cancer. Her reply "But Dr what is my cholesterol?"

Even some leading figures in the Paleo movement stress low fat meat.

Here Sebastien Noel shows the nature of the bad science and big publicity that has caused us to have this fear.

The deeper tragedy is that the AHA holds onto this and recommends exactly the wrong diet for those with heart disease. Why? I can only think that their investment in the fat argument has been so great that they dare not back down. Also because the Big Food Folks have made this into their main business - all those "Healthy choices" are made from cereal and HFCS.

If you want to know more - Gary Taubes "Good Calories Bad Calories" is the bible of rectitude. Staffan Lindeberg Food and Western Disease is the Canon

How to Make Oatmeal . . . Wrong - NYTimes.com

Like so many other venerable foods, oatmeal has been roundly abused by food marketers for more than 40 years. Take, for example, Quaker Strawberries and Cream Instant Oatmeal, which contains no strawberries, no cream, 12 times the sugars of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and only half of the fiber. At least it’s inexpensive, less than 50 cents a packet on average. (A serving of cooked rolled oats will set you back half that at most, plus the cost of condiments; of course, it’ll be much better in every respect.)

The oatmeal and McDonald’s story broke late last year, when Mickey D’s, in its ongoing effort to tell us that it’s offering “a selection of balanced choices” (and to keep in step with arch-rival Starbucks) began to sell the cereal. Yet in typical McDonald’s fashion, the company is doing everything it can to turn oatmeal into yet another bad choice. (Not only that, they’ve made it more expensive than a double-cheeseburger: $2.38 per serving in New York.) “Cream” (which contains seven ingredients, two of them actual dairy) is automatically added; brown sugar is ostensibly optional, but it’s also added routinely unless a customer specifically requests otherwise. There are also diced apples, dried cranberries and raisins, the least processed of the ingredients (even the oatmeal contains seven ingredients, including “natural flavor”).

A more accurate description than “100 percent natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”

via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

Ironically oatmeal is not the health food you thought any way - but after Quaker or McDonalds have got hold of it - it is total crap!

This is like "Lite" Cigarettes - the "Healthy Choice" - No wonder so many people have no trust in the food system.

The regulators are in the pocket of Big Food - our only choice - "Tahir Square" - Just don't buy any of this rubbish and influence those you know and love to do the same. If enough of us complain and hurt these people in the pocket, we will make progress.

P.E.I. needs deficit-cutting plan: See the Problem here

While the Dominion Bond Rating Service is not concerned that the balancing of the budget might not happen until 2013-14, vice-president Travis Shaw said the company would like more details on how the province intends to do it. The government says it won't cut education or health spending, and that leaves Shaw wondering just where the cuts are coming from.

via cbc.ca

So here is the rub - and it's the same in the US too - Healthcare is now 78% of what PEI can raise on its own before the feds. When I came to PEI back in 1996 it was about 40%.

THIS is the problem. Healthcare is killing us financially.

It's not as if the leadership of PEI has been on a spending spree. It is that as we get older and we keep our idea of how healthcare works, we are doomed to spend more and more relatively on health.

It is the healthcare budget that we keep inviolate that is squeezing everything else.

Note the clear message - we wont touch health care.

But the DBRS warning is real. If PEI cannot get off having a deficit every year, the market will stop and we will be bust. This will happen in the next mandate unless the deeper issues behind the deficit are addressed.

So what to so?

So the simple view might be to cut services. None of this will stop the rise in healthcare costs. There is a limit too to other cuts. What will it be like in 5 years of cuts to road maintenance?

There will be other new costs too. safe to say I think that we might see at least a double in oil prices. What will that do to the school heating and bus budget. How about snow removal? How about your ability to pay taxes?

How about raise taxes? Most Islanders can hardly put food on the table or oil in their heating tanks or gas in their cars. As we hit retirement in the next few years, most have no savings or pension to talk about. There is no tax base on the horizon because we don't have enough young and there is not enough work to keep the young we do have or to attract immigrants.

No we have to ask better questions than that.

It is simple minded just to demand "CUTS". What we have to do is look inside Health. For in less than 5 years it will consume all of the PEI Tax base and in 10 years nearly double that!

Yes the cost this year is estimated to be $620 million. This will double in 5 years and double again in 10. PEI will either have to be able to tax at 1.2 billion in 5 years or run the balance in deficit. It's impossible!

Just pray that the feds can help. But can they? Every province has the same problem. Where is the money to come from?

The issue is not wasteful spending - it is that we don't know how to stop spending more and more on health. As we all get older, the pressures will mount. The average PEI man is disabled by illness - usually related to diabetes - by 65. He then LIVES another 10 years utterly dependent on the health system, his family and the state.

This is one of the factors. Here is another.

My mum is in a seniors home. She is disabled by strokes. She is 83. My dad's pension enables her to be there. But what about you and me when we are her age? In 2036 there will be 12,000 people on PEI over the age of 85. We just don't have the resources to have all of us in homes.

We are going to have to get at the deeper reasons for why so many are so ill and at the core drivers for ill health.

I have been doing nothing else but think about this for many months. In the next few weeks I will share what I have learned with you.

A few hints.

Health is an environmental issue. Epidemics have causes that have nothing to do with medicine.

In 1850 it was normal to die in London of Cholera. Why? Because we did not know that there were germs and that these germs were carried in water. When we learned these things, the sewers were built and the deaths stopped. In 1900 it was normal to die of Yellow fever if you were working on the Panama Canal. But when it was discovered that it was spread by mosquitoes it was stopped and people did not get Yellow Fever anymore.

Medicine had nothing to do with eradicating these diseases. They were caused by an environment that favoured the disease. When the environment was understood and so changed the disease went away.

So it is with the modern diseases such as diabetes that is related to heart disease, strokes and many cancers.

The epidemic for this began in the late 1970's. It is an environmental issue that can be discovered and so taken off the table.

I will show you that while what we eat and do are factors, that it is the design of our economy that takes work, control and status away from people as a key part of the design that is driving this.

If I am correct then a new design based on the network that empowers people and enables work and wealth to be distributed is the way home.

Being on the edge of the old economy is the worst place to be as the fish plant workers found out today.

More soon.

The Liquidation of Society versus the Global Labor Revival « naked capitalism

As commodity prices shoot up, and become more volatile, the pressure to liquidate America will only increase. These increases take the form of gifting public assets to oligarchs, taxing the middle class and poor, slashing social service budgets, and cutting wages through inflation and outright demotions (like the NYC sanitation workers that were demoted right before a giant blizzard). But civil unrest is intensifying it its most basic forms: protests and strikes, and in advanced forms, like the blowback at the national security state embodied in the HB Gary and WIkileaks fiasco.

What we are seeing is two political and economic systems, increasingly at odds – high trust and cooperative, or dominance-based and lowest common denominator. This is not, fundamentally, a debate about economics. It is true that neoclassical economics doesn’t work, leads to corruption, and is intellectually dishonest. But that’s why this isn’t a question of economics, because the dishonesty is part of a system of corrupted values.

It is Andrew Mellon morality, the kind that led to the Great Depression (and will lead again to catastrophe):

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

via nakedcapitalism.com

I know I know I am a Jeremiah - but don't you too feel a sense of unease at least?

How long will the west watch the middle east and think what what is going on there is different?