A New Planet in Our Solar System?

Astronomy being a long-time interest of mine (as should be obvious by the number of related posts on this blog), I was naturally intrigued by the flurry of news reports on an announcement by astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown that their calculations show a large planet (which they rather provocatively are calling "Planet Nine") exists in the outer Solar System, far beyond Pluto and Eris. The proposed planet is believed to orbit between about 200 AU (300 billion km) at perihelion and as much as 1200 AU (1.2 trillion km) at aphelion, with an orbital period of between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years, a period comparable or even more than that of Sedna, which at around 11,400 Earth years has the longest orbital period of any known large object (for comparison, Pluto takes 248 Earth years to orbit the Sun and Eris takes 558 Earth years). Batygin and Brown estimate that the planet should be about ten times as massive as Earth, putting it between Earth and Neptune (17 Earth masses) in size, making it a super-Earth or more properly a mini-Neptune, a category of planet that has been found in many star systems but is (so far) unknown in our own Solar System.

Some of the initial headlines about this hypothetical planet were a bit exaggerated, to say the least. One even stated that a new planet had been “discovered” even though the article to which headline was attached made it fairly clear that it had only been predicted and is not known for certain to exist. As another article pointed out, despite the famous and impressive prediction and discovery of Neptune, no other prediction of a planet in our Solar System has turned out to be accurate, as even Pluto’s discovery by Clyde Tombaugh while searching for a planet predicted by Percival Lowell turned out to be just a fortunate coincidence. Neptune was discovered due to residuals in the orbit of Uranus, that is to say, Uranus was not moving as it should have been based on the gravitational effects of the Sun and the known planets, meaning that there was something else affecting it. As impressive as the mathematical prediction leading to Neptune’s discovery was, the residuals in that case were fairly substantial, allowing a precise prediction of the unknown planet’s size and position. Attempts to find other planets by similar methods have been based on much slimmer evidence that in many cases was later to shown to be wrong anyway (for example, the problems with Mercury’s orbit which led to predictions of a planet closer to the Sun disappeared when Einsteinian physics was applied, and the apparent remaining problems with Uranus’s orbit that led to predictions of an additional planet beyond Neptune disappeared after estimates of Neptune’s mass were corrected following Voyager 2’s encounter with the planet). In other cases, even at the time the supposed evidence upon which the claims were based was dubious, such as in the case of Nemesis, the claim that the Sun has a distant red dwarf or brown dwarf companion that is causing periodic extinction events on Earth by sending showers of comets toward the Earth from the Oort cloud in the far outer reaches of the Solar System. Many experts doubt the claim that extinctions occur on a regular, periodic basis, and some astronomers have pointed out that an object like the predicted one would have measurable effects on objects closer to the Sun, effects that are clear not happening. Finally, infrared surveys of the Sun’s neighborhood seem to have pretty much ruled out anything of Jupiter-size or greater to a distance far beyond that predicted.

So historically speaking the record for planet predictions, despite the one spectacular success in the case of Neptune, is pretty poor. However, in this case Batygin and Brown do seem to have a slightly stronger case than that made for most previous hypothetical planets. Their prediction is based on the odd grouping of the orbits of half a dozen extremely distant objects, including Sedna. They calculate that it is extremely unlikely that this correlation in orbits would occur by chance. One might argue that we simply haven’t found enough of the objects that may exist in that region of the Solar System to be sure that the correlation holds true for all or even most of them, but then the odds against our first discoveries out of a large population just coincidentally having similar orbits also has to be very small. Another factor perhaps just as strongly in favor is the fact that Batygin and Brown did not start out by looking for evidence of a planet; instead they were originally hoping to disprove a suggestion made by Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo that a large, distant planet might be responsible for the orbits of Sedna and similar objects. Instead, their simulations showed the opposite of what they expected. Why do their original intentions matter? Because even scientists can fall prey to confirmation bias. If a scientist starts out hoping to find a planet, they may tend to exaggerate the reliability of the evidence they are using. Since Batygin and Brown, at least by their own account, started out hoping to disprove the idea that there might be a planet, the evidence that changed their minds would have to be at least somewhat more convincing than for someone who was hoping to prove there was a planet.

If this planet exists, it is probably near to aphelion, the part of its orbit farthest from the Sun, which would explain why it hasn’t been found yet. If it is of the speculated size, it could possibly be seen in a good amateur telescope near perihelion (when it is closest to the Sun). A planet that bright would have been found long ago, perhaps by Clyde Tombaugh, who covered much of the sky after finding Pluto. But if this planet is at aphelion, its last perihelion was at least 5,000 years ago, long before telescopes were invented. At its probable current distance, it would be much harder to see and it may be lost among the stars of the Milky Way. Nevertheless, a determined search will probably find it – if it is there.

Of course, even if the planet exists and is actually spotted, it won’t resolve the controversy over how many planets there are in the Solar System. Brown takes what I must say (despite my great respect for his work in planetary astronomy) is somewhat juvenile pride in being the “Pluto killer”, since it was his discovery of Eris that led to the “demotion” of Pluto from full planetary status. But as I have discussed in the past, a good case can be made for a definition of “planet” that includes Pluto, Charon, Eris and a few other of the larger trans-Neptunian objects, or alternatively for saying that while Pluto et al may be called “dwarf planets”, that is still a kind of planet. As there are still many, including at least some astronomers, who still consider Pluto (and presumably the similarly sized Eris) a planet, the term “Planet Nine” given by Batygin and Brown to their hypothetical planet is, as I noted at the beginning, somewhat provocative. Nevertheless, if the planet really turns up, it will be a fascinating addition to our Solar System, even though it may be many decades before we are able to explore it more closely, considering how incredibly far away it is, even in comparison with Pluto.

Taiwan Election Recap: A New Direction for Taiwan

This past weekend, Taiwan held a general election for the presidency and the legislature. As in the US, Taiwanese presidents are elected for four year terms and are limited to two terms, though in Taiwan’s case both democratic elections for president and limitations on the president’s time in power are relatively new phenomenon, as the first popular election for president was only held in 1996 and the dictator Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo both held the presidency for life, the former having previously been the president of China before he and his followers were forced to flee to Taiwan after being defeated by the Communists. Taiwan has been ruled by the Chiangs’ party, the Kuomintang (KMT; Guomingdang in Hanyu pinyin) since the end of Japanese rule in 1945, except for the eight year period from 2000 to 2008, when Chen Shuibian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was president. Even during that time, the KMT maintained a substantial majority in the legislature (not to mention the fact that most of the bureaucracy and military leadership consisted of KMT loyalists), which put severe limits on what Chen could accomplish (though arguably he and the DPP also failed to use what power they did have well). Even after two decades of democracy, there are still many traces of Taiwan’s long history as a one party state under the KMT, which still holds considerable assets that it appropriated over the years (before it started to divest some of its property in the past decade or so, it was claimed to be the richest political party in the world, and it still would probably rank quite high). While the most extreme China-leaning people have left the KMT to form fringe parties such as the New Party, not only has the KMT retained the support of most voters with stronger ties to China (whether due to family background or a desire to make money there) and those who have a particular self-interest in being pro-KMT (such as corrupt businesspeople with ties to corrupt KMT politicians), it has also had the support of many more cautious (or timid) Taiwanese, who even if they prefer for Taiwan to retain its independence from China are nevertheless afraid to challenge it in any way, such as formally or even indirectly asserting that independence. The KMT has also tended to receive more support from minority groups like the Hakka and the Taiwanese aboriginies, who – not without reason – see the DPP as favoring the Hoklo majority.

This history is what makes the results of this election particularly dramatic, even if it remains to be seen how permanent the changes will be. The DPP candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, won in a huge landslide, winning 6.89 million votes to 3.81 million for KMT candidate Eric Chu and 1.58 for third party candidate and former KMT stalwart James Soong, who was making his third (and hopefully last) independent bid. To put this in perspective, Chen won for the first time in a three way race with only [40%] of the vote, and while he won a majority in a two person race in 2004, it was a very narrow victory in which he won just barely over 50% of the vote. The current president, Ma Ying-jeou, garnered over 7.6 million votes in a two person race in 2008, which is still the highest vote total, but while this was enough for a large victory margin of over 2 million votes, even this was less than the 3 million vote margin that Tsai won by this time. The only time a winning candidate for president of Taiwan has beaten the 2nd place finisher in the election by a greater margin than Tsai’s was in the very first democratic presidential election in 1996, when the incumbent Lee Teng-hui of the KMT won a four person race in a landslide, beating Peng Ming-min of the DPP, who came in second, by over 3.5 million votes. But that was an exceptional case, as even many people who disliked the KMT and were more Taiwan-oriented voted for Lee, who after he left office revealed himself to be strongly pro-independence. Amazingly, despite the KMT’s traditional dominance in north Taiwan, Tsai won the most votes in every county except the two eastern ones of Hualien and Taitung and the two small island counties located just off the Chinese coast.

Not only was Tsai’s victory an unprecedentedly overwhelming one for a DPP presidential candidate, the DPP also won a comfortable majority in the legislature, which as noted above the KMT had always maintained a majority in, even during Chen’s administration. In a legislature of 113 seats, the DPP ended up with 68 and the KMT with only 35 (though in one particularly close race the KMT candidate has asked for a recount). This is in some ways a more important change than just seeing the presidency change hands. While a lot of Western media reports mention Chen’s administration, few point out the KMT’s retention of the legislature during that time, even though it meant that the DPP never had full control of the government. Now that has finally changed, and the DPP will be able to fully implement its policies.

So how should this result be viewed? All in all, it is a positive change. It is good to see Taiwanese voters be a bit more assertive about their own identity, though I should note that this vote should not be seen as exclusively or even mostly a referendum on Taiwan’s relationship with China. While that played a big role for many voters who have been disturbed by the outgoing Ma administration’s pro-China policies, other voters simply voted for change due to dissatisfaction with Ma’s domestic policies or with the state of the economy and their own place in it. However, even voters who chose Tsai simply out of dislike for Ma and his heir-presumptive Chu had to be at least aware of the differences in her attitude toward China, even if she remained vague about her planned China policy when campaigning. So while Tsai’s victory was not all about asserting Taiwan’s identity, it’s safe to say that the majority of the people who voted for her were at least comfortable with the idea of placing more emphasis on Taiwan as an entity separate from China.

Perhaps an even bigger reason to celebrate the results of this election is that the KMT has definitively lost power for the first time ever, and a lot of terrible legislators lost their seats (just to name one, the legislator who underhandedly passed the service trade agreement with China out of the committee he chaired, thereby provoking the Sunflower protests, lost in this election). Indeed, for many politically aware people in Taiwan, the KMT’s loss is the real reason for celebration, not the DPP’s victory. While the DPP certainly has a greater number of good people among its incoming legislators (including two I am slightly acquainted with personally), by no means all of them are great, and many are still unknown quantities. Likewise, Tsai is not perfect (she even expressed admiration for the awful Margaret Thatcher, who was the UK prime minister when Tsai was a student there) and we don’t know how she will perform in office. But it would be hard for Tsai and the new DPP majority to be worse than Ma and the KMT.

But this election wasn’t just a contest between the DPP and the KMT, and here’s an area where my feelings about the election are mixed. Taiwanese have the great fortune of being able to vote not just for president and the legislator representing their district, but also for political parties on a separate party list vote, with each party nominating at-large candidates who would be elected if their party won enough votes (the two DPP legislators-elect that I’ve met were at-large candidates). There were 16 parties on the latter ballot, ranging from strange to terrible to extremely promising. The best of the latter was the Green-Social Democratic Party Coalition, which as the name implies was a coalition between the Green Party and the newly established Social Democratic Party. Several members of the latter ran in the district races in Taipei, including one woman that I know through my wife and a couple more of my wife’s acquaintances, one of whom came in a fairly strong second to one of the few KMT legislators to win in Taipei (traditionally a KMT stronghold), while the others did quite well for political novices from a new, relatively unknown party with a small advertising budget. But while the coalition itself got a decent 2.5% of the party vote, a substantial improvement over the Green Party’s showing in 2012, this was still well short of the 5% needed to get any of its at-large legislative candidates elected, and somewhat short of the 3.5% needed to get election subsidies. This is regrettable, as Taiwan really could use an independent, progressive voice in the legislature to counterbalance the DPP.

Actually, one could argue that such a party did get into the legislature this time around. Only four parties reached the 5% threshold: the DPP, the KMT, the PFP of James Soong (which despite heavily benefiting from Soong’s highly visible candidacy for president received just over 6.5% of the party vote), and the newly-established New Power Party. This latter party was also created to be a progressive “third force”, and in fact several of its founders were originally associated with the founders of the Social Democratic Party (my wife says that one of the latter once came to ask her about one of the former, another long-time acquaintance of ours, as he was asking her to join their group, which had not yet transformed into a political party). But like too many idealists the world over, they quarreled over tactics and ended up forming two separate parties, regrettably diluting their strength. One of their areas of disagreement was that the people organizing the NPP wanted to pick well-known individuals as candidates, while the SDP preferred long-time activists (though some of the NPP candidates were that as well). Another difference is the NPP, despite its declared intention to be a third force to counter both the KMT and the DPP, ended up working fairly closely with the latter, even coordinating so that with one exception NPP candidates didn’t run in districts with DPP candidates and vice versa. The NPP did also cooperate with the Green-SDP coalition in this regard, but the latter didn’t work with the DPP, preferring to maintain more independence from the larger party, though they clearly preferred the DPP to the KMT (their ads said that they wanted to “bring down the KMT and keep an eye on the DPP”).

While the NPP’s approach was less idealistic and perhaps insufficiently independent from the DPP, it has to be said that it paid off, as the party won 6% of the party vote, thereby electing the top 2 candidates on its at-large list. While this is less than the 3 seats that the PFP from the party vote (the PFP also won one of the six seats reserved for Taiwanese aborigines, for a total of 4), the party also won three seats in district elections, beating KMT candidates head to head in areas that traditionally lean strongly toward the KMT. Among these victors was another acquaintance, Freddy Lim, the lead singer of the death metal band Chthonic, who we know through his work with the Taiwan branch of Amnesty International (he was the branch chairman for several years). His victory in particular was an upset, as the part of Taipei where he ran generally votes heavily for the KMT (the KMT incumbent’s desperate mudslinging in the last weeks before the election – for example claiming that Lim “supported” the young man who murdered four people and injured two dozen more on the MRT in 2014 because Lim had expressed support for abolishing the death penalty – apparently failed to work). So while my own top choice for the party vote if I was able to vote in Taiwan, the Green-SDP Coalition, didn’t win any seats, the NPP, who would have been my second choice, did quite well.

Nevertheless, it still seems to me that a lot of Taiwanese voters failed to make proper use of their party votes. While I can understand voting for the DPP on the party ballot (they would have been my third choice, and some of the at-large candidates on their list were quite good), it still would have been better if more people had instead given their votes to one of the better small parties. Certainly if the US had a party vote I’d use mine to support a small progressive party like the Green Party or the Working People Party, as long as they put forward good candidates, since while the Democrats in general are vastly preferable to the Republicans, many of them still leave a lot to be desired. If more Taiwanese voted for groups like the Green-SDP Coalition or even the NPP (if they manage to remain independent of the DPP), maybe someday the DPP’s main opposition will come from the left, rather than the declining KMT.

Of course we can’t be sure yet that the KMT is permanently in decline. The party still has a substantial base of support, and as noted earlier many in the bureaucracy and military leadership are KMT members or at least lean toward the KMT, though perhaps their predominance is not as overwhelming as it was a decade or more ago. If things don’t go well for the DPP, the KMT might make a comeback. Of course, that will be even more likely if the party manages to reform itself, something it hasn’t shown much capability of doing. But if it does, and in particular if it can reorient itself to be more populist and more Taiwanese, it might still have a long future. It’s true that if it completely abandons its pro-China bent it may lose some support from those Taiwanese who are strongly pro-China themselves. But then this group is a shrinking minority, at least if we are speaking of those whose pro-China leanings are ideological in nature (amoral businesspeople wanting to make money in China may be another matter, though the slowing of the Chinese economy may change some of their minds), and many of them have already abandoned the KMT for the even more extreme New Party, which regrettably managed to get over 4% of the party vote (not enough for seats, but enough for subsidies). However, they may have been helped by the chaos in the KMT, which as I discussed in a post a few months ago replaced their original candidate, Hung Hsiu-chu, with Eric Chu in part because the former’s exceptionally strong pro-China attitude was hurting the party in the polls. Those KMT members who actually preferred Hung may have ended up turning to the New Party, boosting their support, and if the KMT reforms as it should, they may just stay there. While I’d rather see groups such as the New Party disappear entirely, if they remain a fringe party that absorbs the pro-China extremists, perhaps they serve some purpose after all.

One other disappointment about the election came from the votes for the six aboriginal seats. Another acquaintance of ours ran for one of these, but while he improved on his showing last time, he still fell well short, despite being supported by many politically active aboriginal people, including most of the aboriginal singers and musicians I know. Instead, it was mainly the same old, mostly poorly performing legislators who got elected. We can only hope that Tsai’s policies toward the aboriginal people take their real interests into account, and that she listens to the voices of the young activists, rather than the hidebound conservatives who still hold most of the formal political power. Perhaps by the next election, more of the aboriginal electorate will become aware of how their current “leaders” are failing to protect their interests and will vote for new leadership. In the meantime, aborigines and non-aborigines alike can at least look forward to seeing what progress Taiwan can make without the KMT in charge.

What I've Been Reading: July 2015 to November 2015

As was the case for the first half of this year and much of the previous one, my reading pace has been slowed down by my tendency to use my commuting time to check my email on my phone and work on various projects on my laptop rather than to do my reading. However, I still have managed to get some reading in. The books described below are ones that I've finished in the latter half of the year, and there are a few others that I should manage to finish soon.

Voices and Powers by Ursula K. LeGuin
These two novels are sequels to LeGuin’s Gifts and the second and third in her Annals of the Western Shore series. Each novel has a different main protagonist, though Orrec and Gry from Gifts play a major role in Voices, and the two of them, together with Memer, the protagonist of Voices, appear briefly at the end of Powers. In terms of dramatic setting, Voices is probably the most “typical” of the three books, as Memer is an adolescent girl living in a city occupied by a hostile army, and she comes to play a role in the effort by the people of the city to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. But as might be expected of LeGuin’s thoughtful writing, Memer learns that things are not completely black and white and that violence is not always the best way to accomplish things. Powers tells the tale of Gavir, a young man who grows up as a slave in a city-state somewhat reminiscent of ancient Greece or Rome that is at almost constant war with its neighbors (though which ones varies due to constantly shifting alliances). Though at first glance, the family that Gavir belongs to treats their slaves very well, almost like members of the family, we soon learn that there is a dark side even to the best master-slave relationships. This novel has less conventional action than Voices, being more of a tale of personal discovery, but it has its share of drama and terrible tragedy.

All three books share to some extent the central theme of the power of books and the written word, as the protagonists are all readers living among people who mostly read less well than them, or not at all, and their reading ability plays an important role in the story, particularly in Voices and Powers. Reading is at the center of Memer and Gavir’s lives and their interactions with both the literate and the illiterate people around them. As for these other characters, many of them are also quite complex and well-developed. Interestingly, the most one-dimensional characters in any of the three Western Shore novels are the chief villains. Even more complex than most of the characters are the pictures of the societies, which, as in all of LeGuin’s novels, are drawn in vivid detail. Overall, both these books are up to LeGuin’s usual high standards and are well worth reading.

Freedom in Exile by the Dalai Lama
The autobiography of the man who was born Lhamo Dondrub but is now better known as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is very interesting reading. While I knew the basic outline of his life and, having read one of his books (Beyond Religion) and heard a few of his speeches, I knew something about his views on many issues, it was quite fascinating to learn the details. Of course anyone who knows even a little about his life knows that the Chinese claims that he is an inveterate anti-Communist and anti-Chinese radical are complete nonsense, but it was interesting to learn the details of his attempts to reach some sort of accommodation with the Chinese Communists, including his meetings with Mao Zedong and other leaders, and of his opinions of various political and economic systems – as he also says in his other book, he considers himself half a Marxist in terms of ensuring that wealth is distributed fairly, though he found that Communism as practiced in China fell far short of its lofty ideals. I only recall one occasion in the book where he slips into negative (though understandable) stereotyping of Chinese people in general; for the most part he bends over backwards to make the point that despite the terrible way the Chinese government has treated his people, he bears no ill will toward the Chinese. Though of course he regards Tibet as a country that was historically independent of China, which it in fact was, he reiterates a willingness to compromise with China on the issue of Tibet’s status, even though justly he could (and some might say should) insist on full independence.

The Dalai Lama’s stories of his childhood are quite fascinating. He grew up mostly secluded from the general populace, though he did occasionally slip out and from an early age showed a keen interest in ordinary people and their lives. While it must have been quite strange to be treated as almost a living god, it seemingly didn’t turn his head, and once his situation was transformed by first the Chinese invasion and eventually exile, he was quick to eliminate many of the formalities that had grown up around his positions. Possessing a lively curiosity and a rational mind, he unsurprisingly developed an interest in technology and science. He isn’t entirely free from unscientific beliefs, however; he expresses some faith in the powers of soothsayers, though he also makes it clear that he knows not everyone shares his belief – indeed, his own expressions of belief have a bit of ambivalence about them. Certainly for the leader of a religion who grew up surrounded by a considerable amount of what I would frankly regard as superstition, he has a much more logical and scientific mind than would be expected; indeed more so than most Westerners. While one might learn as much or more about the Dalai Lama’s philosophical views from other books he’s written, this autobiography is an excellent way to learn about his own take on his very eventful life and about the recent history of Tibet.

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
MaddAddam is the third and final book in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy about a dystopian near future, continuing the story that started in Oryx and Crake and continued in The Year of the Flood. Like those two novels, MaddAddam is told partly in the post-apocalyptic present and partly in flashbacks to the time before the plague that wiped out most of humanity, causing the collapse of civilization. In this novel, the focus is on Toby, who also was one of the two main protagonists of The Year of the Flood, and Zeb, who also played a major role in the second novel. The parts of the novel set in the present are told from Toby’s viewpoint, and they are interspersed with Zeb’s account to Toby of his life up to the time they met as members of the group called God’s Gardeners, founded by Adam, Zeb’s brother (though there is some question as to their precise genetic relationship). Jimmy and Ren, the main protagonist of Oryx and Crake and the second main protagonist of The Year of the Flood, also appear, though Ren’s role is relatively minor.

All in all, MaddAddam meets the standards set by the previous two novels, and if anything may be slightly stronger than The Year of the Flood. There is at least one apparent minor inconsistency between this book and the previous one regarding the fate of Adam, presumably because Atwood simply changed her mind, but this is insignificant and could perhaps be explained away. The only bit I found slightly disappointing was the way the fate of the three characters who disappeared on an expedition at the very end of the novel was handled. Even if the group believed that the explanation of what had happened to them was accurate, you’d think they’d send another group out to check, just in case there were (perhaps injured) survivors on either side. It seemed a bit odd for them to just make an assumption and leave it at that. However, despite this flaw, the book is otherwise a good conclusion to an excellent trilogy of novels, one that I’d recommend to readers of any sort.

Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
Ecotopia, first published in 1975, is a very interesting book that in some ways is more of a manifesto for an ideal society than a standard novel. The basic premise is that part of the United States, specifically northern California, Oregon and Washington, has broken away and formed the nation of Ecotopia. The new country is founded on radical, idealistic principles with respect to ecology, politics, economics and indeed virtually every element of society. A journalist from the United States visits Ecotopia several decades after its independence to do a series of investigative reports on the country, which has been largely closed to Americans since it was established.

Ecotopia, as the name implies, embodies ecological principles under which humans’ use of nature is kept in careful balance. Highly artificial materials (such as most plastics) and exploitative materials such as metals and fossil fuels are dispensed with and replaced by natural materials. While animals are still eaten, they are hunted with simple weapons like bows and arrows, and care is taken to avoid over-hunting. Wood is used for a lot of things, including construction, but forests are planted to replace all wood used.

The society of Ecotopia is likewise very different from that of the US. Women and men are completely equal; indeed, women were the main driving force behind the country’s establishment. Social relations have been completely transformed, including everything from sexual relations to the raising of children. Government is highly decentralized, and large cities have been broken up into more manageable sizes. People are guaranteed basic necessities, and work to get luxuries. Schools involve a lot of independent, hands-on work by the students, including spending time exploring nature. Even relationships are quite different, with American prudishness about sex largely dispensed with, though people still form strong pair bonds (it’s even mentioned that there is no stigma about same sex relationships).

What plot there is in Ecotopia has to do with how the American journalist, William Weston, grows in his understanding of Ecotopian society and particularly how he gets involved in a relationship with an Ecotopian woman who aids him in this process. But the plot is not really the point here. The main purpose of the book is to present a comprehensive picture of a possible society founded on principles of environmental sustainability and social and economic equality and stability. While some aspects of the book date it somewhat – for example, while fossil fuels are rejected by the Ecotopians, this is because of their polluting and unsustainable qualities, not because of climate change, which is not even mentioned (the concept was known long before the book was published but had not really seeped into the public consciousness) – it is also remarkable prescient in some ways, including some of the products the Ecotopians make and some of the ways they obtain energy. Some of the changes in the way people behave strike me as a bit dubious, not so much because they would be undesirable, but because, as author Iain Banks said with regard to his futuristic society the Culture, they seem a little difficult to obtain without some sort of genetic engineering to fundamentally change some of the negative aspects of human nature. But with a few exceptions most aspects of Ecotopia do seem like they’d be a vast improvement over modern, capitalistic society. In general, the book is a thought-provoking look at some ways society could be made more sustainable and equitable, and could provide the starting point for some interesting debates.

Paris Agreement on Climate Change

In my last post, I talked about the climate conference in Paris. Now the summit is over and an agreement was reached by the attending countries (regrettably not including Taiwan, thanks of course to China, which acts as if it would rather see human civilization collapse due to runaway climate change than recognize Taiwan as an independent nation) to limit the global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius, with a goal of holding the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degrees. This is in many ways an impressive, landmark agreement, as it is the first time that almost all the world’s nations have committed to fighting climate change and set specific goals to mitigate its effects. For this reason, the agreement is being widely celebrated, not only by the leaders who signed it but by many environmental groups and non-governmental organizations. However, there has been some criticism of the agreement as falling short of the truly revolutionary transformation that is needed and for lacking in specific binding steps that countries must take within specific time frames. While I haven’t read the agreement or even seen a detailed summary of it, from what I’ve heard, there is merit to both the positive and negative views of it.

It is certainly fair to say that the agreement is about as good as or even better than could have been realistically expected, considering factors such as political inertia, diversity of interests, and outright obstruction from some parties both inside and outside the negotiations. Past climate conferences have not produced anything nearly as far reaching as this agreement, and the fact that a goal of limiting the temperature increase to less than 2 degrees was included was a pleasant surprise, as the conventional wisdom before the summit was that a 2 degree limit was the best that was likely to be agreed to. As I understand it, the agreement also talks of a target of reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, a big improvement over the vague declarations of the past. It seems that to a point at least pressure from NGOs, civil society, and the nations that will bear the brunt of the effects of climate change, particularly the small island nations whose very existence is in danger, was able to push the negotiators in the right direction.

On the other hand, those who say the agreement falls short have a point as well. Global temperatures have already risen by about 1 degree Celsius over pre-industrial levels. Even if we stopped all production of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane immediately, temperatures would still continue to rise for some time afterwards, as the gases already produced would remain in the atmosphere (though methane persists for less long, leading some to point out that stopping methane production – including putting a stop to fracking – would have more immediate benefits as far as limiting temperature increases). Scientists have stated that in order to keep temperature increases to a manageable level, global fossil fuel use needs to have peaked no later than 2020, only five years from now. Given this situation, it is fair to question whether an agreement that doesn’t actually require countries to take immediate action will be able to meet its stated goals. Countries are required to report on their progress every five years, but as far as I am aware, there are no sanctions or penalties for failure to make progress. In other words, while the stated goals may meet expectations, there is no guarantee that they will actually be met. Also, while there is general talk of lower net carbon emissions to zero, there is apparently no specific mention of one necessary step to reach that goal, namely eliminating or at least heavily reducing the use of fossil fuels. Finally, the aid being offered to developing countries by developed ones falls short of what they are likely to really need.

It should be noted that one reason for the lack of binding measures and sufficient funding for developing nations is the US Republican Party. US Secretary of State John Kerry openly admitted that the main reason the US negotiators didn’t want specific language of this sort was that it would mean that US Congress – dominated by climate changing denying Republicans – would have to review the agreement. So while Kerry and US President Barack Obama aren’t to blame for the agreement’s shortfalls (at least no more than most of the other similarly overcautious leaders), the Republicans and their supporters, along with the fossil fuel industry and certain oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, are largely responsible for the agreement not being all it could have been. Though to some extent it is not surprising that those who have a vested interest in today’s fossil fuel industry would be reluctant to accept the need to change, it is still extremely irresponsible and selfish, and in some instances possibly even criminal, such as in the case of Exxon’s funding of climate change denialism despite having been warned by its own scientists of the threat of climate change as early as the 1970s and 1980s. As for those who are actually delusional enough to not accept that there is a problem, some may eventually come around, but in any case anyone in leadership positions who is either unable or unwilling to accept the science should definitely be voted out or replaced so they can’t continue to obstruct efforts to make change.

Despite the major caveats discussed above, the agreement should be viewed as an important step in the right direction. While it could be a lot better, it is a global acknowledgement of the seriousness of the problem and provides a framework for further progress. What’s important now is that we all work with the many activist groups focused on this issue to put pressure on our governments to not only fulfill the commitments they made in this agreement but also accelerate their progress toward a clean energy future while we all work to change our societies to make them more sustainable. If we are to avoid potentially disastrous consequences, we have to immediately start building on the limited progress that the Paris Agreement represents.

Paris Climate Summit

The most important thing going on in the world right now is the climate summit in Paris, which will help determine whether or not we will be able to avoid or at least ameliorate the severe disruption that will result from anthropogenic climate change. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have already reached 400 ppm (they were less than 300 ppm in the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution was first getting into full swing), methane levels are also rising, and the average global temperature has already increased by about one degree Celsius. This year has seen an almost constant stream of record hot months, and is certain to be the hottest year on record, beating out 2014, which is the current record holder. Even if the current summit produces an unexpectedly strong, binding agreement, we will almost certainly see a further increase in the average global temperature of about 1.5 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, even the more modest target of a 2 degree Celsius increase, regarded as the maximum that we can afford if we want to avoid catastrophic disruption, will prove difficult to meet if the world’s political leaders don’t start showing more boldness than most of them have demonstrated so far. Humanity has to decisively break free of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means standing up to the wealthy and politically well-connected oil and coal interests, and we also need to make major changes in how we feed everyone. Without immediate steps along these lines, we’re likely to see temperature increases of over 2 degrees Celsius, possibly much higher.

Even a complete lack of action would not result in anything like the extinction of humanity, much less all life on Earth. For that matter, the planet’s natural climate balancing mechanisms, such as the carbon cycle, will probably eventually undo much of the damage. But the key word is “eventually”; we’re talking about thousands or even tens of thousands of years, a short time period as far as the Earth is concerned, but a very long time in comparison with human history. This is why the argument made by climate change deniers that what climate change is occurring is not big deal because the climate is “always changing”. The problem is that thanks to us, it is changing as much in just a few centuries as it might normally in many thousands of years. The Earth and Terran life in general can adapt to these changes, but it will take a long time to do so. The changes that will result just within this century from continued inaction will in the meantime flood low-lying areas all around the world, including cities and densely populated areas that are home to hundreds of millions of people, crops that feed hundreds of millions more will have their production disrupted, some small island nations will disappear entirely, and many species will become extinct. While humanity as a whole is adaptable and will almost certainly survive, suffering will be widespread. In fact, if change is severe enough, modern human civilization could be in danger. While some of humanity will probably be able to go on as usual even if millions die and hundreds of millions are made homeless, it’s possible that disruption will reach a scale where even the world’s developed nations will descend into chaos. After all, it’s highly probable that the climate change that has already occurred contributed to the current problems in Syria. If global temperatures rise by as much as 4 degrees Celsius, the world may end with a dozen places as messed up as Syria and tens or even hundreds of millions of refugees trying to get into the world’s wealthy nations. This is even aside from the changes experienced by those nations themselves, including densely populated areas becoming uninhabitable. Can human civilization endure the strains that will result? Maybe, but it’s far from certain.

I’ll admit that I’m fairly cynical about whether we will be able to hit even the 2 degree target, which is already on the high side. There’s still too much apathy and outright resistance by the foolish and the selfish. But this doesn’t mean I agree those who just throw up their hands and say we can’t do anything so we shouldn’t bother trying. Every little bit we do now may save millions of lives in the future, so we should do as much as we possibly can as soon as we possibly can.

Current Events: Paris and Beirut, Two National Elections And China-Taiwan Meeting

There have been a lot of big news stories around the world in the last few weeks. The latest is of course the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut (though the latter got considerably less attention, and not just because the death toll was smaller). Attacks like these call for a well thought-out response, not simplistic, ignorant “solutions”, but that hasn’t stopped some people from suggesting the latter. Many, for example, have tried to blame the refugees from Syria who have recently fled to Europe in large numbers, with a number of right-wing governors in the US declaring that they don’t want them in their states (despite lacking any legal authority to contest the federal government’s decisions in such matters) and some Republicans attempting to keep them out of the US altogether, even though the attack was largely carried out by EU citizens. One passport found at the scene appears to have belonged to a Syrian who entered Europe as a refugee, but some have suggested that this may have been a deliberate plant by ISIS, which generally rejects passports and other trappings of modern nation-states but has an interest in turning Westerns against refugees (who they hate) and in getting the West to treat all Muslims as enemies, thereby creating the religious war they want. In any case, if one or even a few out of hundreds of thousands of refugees turn out to be violent radicals, it’s no more reasonable to blame the rest of them for what happened in Paris than it is to blame all white people in the US for the terrorist act of the Charleston shooter. A bigger source of danger remains homegrown radicals, of whatever ideology, whether it’s people like Roof in the US, Breivik in Norway, or the hundreds of French citizens who have gone abroad to fight for ISIS and then returned to France (though even the latter should not all be assumed to be dangerous, as many left due to disillusionment and in at least some cases have rejected radical ideology). In fact, most of the Paris attackers who have been identified were French or Belgian by birth or upbringing, and French President François Hollande, in contrast to the repellent posturing of many conservative American politicians, has emphasized that France has the “humanitarian duty” to take in all the Syrian refugees it had agreed to admit.

This attack does seem to differ from atrocities like the ones in Charleston and Norway, which were committed by individual lunatics, or even the Charlie Hebdo attack at the beginning of the year, which was committed by a few local crazies largely on their own initiative, in that it seems from what is known so far that it may have been at least partly planned and coordinated from abroad. Nevertheless, even if ISIS was directly responsible for the attack, this if anything should mean we should be even more sympathetic to the refugees, since, as others have pointed out, the people who seem to have been responsible for the attack are the same people the refugees are fleeing from. Ironically, the response of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was considerably more moderate and reasonable than that of many xenophobes in the West. While it may not be surprising that he would strongly condemn attacks by ISIS, a group that is currently one of Hezbollah’s biggest enemies (indeed, one of ISIS’s biggest accomplishments is making enemies out of everybody, something they’ve just reinforced by attacking a Russian airplane, a Shiite neighborhood in Beirut and a major Western capital in quick succession), it is notable that with reference to the attacks in Lebanon, he called on Lebanese not to blame the Syrian refugees in their country, and Lebanon has many times more Syrian refugees than any country in Europe. If only Western right-wingers would show as much sense.

The truth is, if ISIS or other extremist groups based abroad want to launch attacks on the West, it is much easier for them to use local radicals or get into the country as tourists or business travels than to enter as refugees. The idea being promoted by conservative Republicans that Syrian refugees are a threat to the US is absurd. Refugees go through many checks, far more than others who come into the country (not to mention the right-wing radicals like Roof, who are probably more of a danger), and there are virtually no cases of any refugees admitted since 2001 being involved in suspected terrorism in the US. The people of Syria have had to live with attacks like the one in Paris on an almost daily basis for several years now, and yet some people’s response when they come seeking refuge is to turn them away on the unlikely chance that a minuscule fraction of them may be terrorists, or to only admit those belonging to a particular religion? It’s not only ridiculous, it’s frankly disgusting, and I’m glad that US President Barack Obama didn’t mince words in criticizing such calls. It would be just as logical to stop allowing Norwegians into the US on the off chance that one might be like Breivik, or to stop allowing Christians because they might be like Joseph Kony. To call for stopping all Syrian or Muslim refugees from entering the US or other Western countries, one would have to be ignorant, cowardly, or morally bankrupt – or some combination of the three. When we stand in solidarity with the people of Paris – and Beirut – we should also speak out strongly against those among us who are playing into the hands of ISIS by making this out to be a conflict between the West and Muslims in general. This is not a fight against “radical Islam”, it’s a fight against all violent and hateful groups, whatever their religion or ethnic origin, including any who threaten violence against peaceful Muslims or refugees in the West.

A final note on Paris: Lest it be forgotten, at the end of this month leaders from around the world will be meeting there to address climate change. Not only are the terror attacks not a reason to delay or reduce the scope of the meeting, they actually should be an extra incentive to take action. After all, as I have talked about before and others such as US presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have noted, there is a direct link between climate change and the Syrian civil war via the severe drought the country suffered in the years leading up to it, creating mass unemployment, internal migration, instability and suffering that helped fuel the discontent that Assad’s bloody response to turned into a full scale rebellion. If we don’t do something about climate change, even more suffering and instability will no doubt create even more conflict, with radical groups of whatever ideology feeding off of it. We’ll have to hope that the world leaders meeting in Paris fully understand this and it helps push them to agree on real steps to deal with climate change.

Another significant news item is the national elections that took place in Turkey and Myanmar (Burma). In Turkey, regrettably, the AKP, the party of the country’s nationalist and increasingly authoritarian leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regained its parliamentary majority, having lost it in the elections in June. Erdogan first hindered efforts to create a coalition government, making new elections necessary, and then he openly campaigned for the AKP, both actions contrary to his position as the supposedly neutral president of the country. What’s more, he instigated an unjustified conflict with Kurdish rebels in order to inflame nationalist passions. Despite all this, it shouldn’t be overlooked that Erdogan’s victory, while unexpected by the pollsters, was not as overwhelming as many headlines might lead one to believe. The AKP won just under 50% vote, far more than they deserved to get, but still less than an absolute majority. While they won a sizable majority of seats, they still fell short of a supermajority, so Erdogan will only be able to make the constitutional changes he wants (such as, naturally, strengthening the power of the president) if he can get some cooperation from other parties. The party which saw the greatest reduction in votes and seats was the right-wing nationalist MHP, a group at least as bad as the AKP. The more left-leaning CHP, the biggest opposition party, actually gained two seats and saw a slight increase in votes. The Kurdish party HDP lost a considerable number of votes and seats, but not nearly as many as the MHP, despite being demonized by the AKP as being associated with Kurdish rebel groups and having turnout in its strongholds reduced by the conflict engineered by Erdogan, not to mention having a peace rally attended by many of its activists targeted in the deadliest terrorist attack ever in modern Turkey. Also it should be remembered that the performance of the HDP in the June elections was also a surprise to many observers, so their performance this time was closer to what had been expected in June. So really the AKP didn’t get a victory as sweeping as they might have, considering that the election was considered “unfair” by many neutral observers. Still, it was a disappointing result. We can only hope that Erdogan and the AKP are not able to do too much more damage to Turkish democracy and relations with the country’s Kurdish minority before the next election, and that enough Turkish voters choose to reject the AKP when the time comes.

Another election was held this past weekend in Myanmar (Burma), the first in which control of the government was at stake. Before it relaxed its grip on power, the military dictatorship which had previously ruled Burma drew up a constitution which reserved a quarter of the seats in parliament for military appointees, kept key ministries (including, of course, defense) in military hands, and gave the military the right to take over under certain circumstances. They also included a provision barring anyone who had been married to a foreign national from the presidency, written specifically to prevent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose late husband was British, from becoming president. This election was the first for which all of the non-military seats in parliament were up for grabs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won an overwhelming victory, winning the vast majority of contested seats, enough to gain an absolute majority. Unlike after the last freely contested elections in 1990, also won by the NLD in a landslide, this time the military seems to be willing to accept the results. Considering the military’s still substantial power, the NLD will still have to reach some accommodation with them; while changing the constitution to reduce the military’s power and allow Suu Kyi to become president might be a possibility, it would have to be done with care, lest the military decide to seize absolute power again. There’s also the awkward situation that will prevail in the meantime, in which Suu Kyi will be the clear leader of the ruling party and the dominant individual in the government but cannot hold the position of highest formal authority in the country. But the real test for Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD is not how they deal with the military, but whether they finally start acting to protect Myanmar’s Muslim minority, particularly the persecuted Rohingya. Unfortunately, their record so far in this regard is poor; the NLD didn’t even field a single Muslim candidate. While some extremist Buddhist monks even accused Suu Kyi and the NLD of being “Islamist” because they are not sufficiently Islamophobic, the unfortunate truth is that Suu Kyi has remain mostly silent on the almost genocidal oppression the Rohingya have been subjected to. Will she act differently now that she has real power? That remains to be seen.

Lastly, there was the recent meeting between Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou and Chinese president Xi Jinping. While Western media sources tended to play up the significance of the meeting, it really didn’t amount to much. Here’s part of a comment I posted about it on one of the articles: "Ma's main purpose in having this meeting was to boost the poor prospects of the KMT in next year's elections, and if that doesn't work, to undermine the future DPP government by setting bad precedents through talk of "one China", a concept most Taiwanese don't subscribe to. Given his extremely poor poll standing and virtual lame duck status, his actions shouldn't be seen as representing Taiwan or its people. China's government and its supporters always claim that people on both sides want China and Taiwan to unify. This is probably true of people in China, given the decades of nationalist propaganda people there have had to swallow, but in Taiwan most of the "one China" propaganda has been ditched and most Taiwanese don't want to unify with China. If China really believes its own claims that Taiwanese do want to be part of China, then they shouldn't have any objection to Taiwan having a referendum on the subject. It's because they know that unification would not win that they threaten violence if such a vote was held.... Maybe Ma Ying-jeou really wants to be Chinese. In that case he is free to move to China when he leaves office. But Taiwan's fate is up to the Taiwanese to decide. Anyone else with any sense of justice will support their right to self-determination. As for those Chinese who thanks to the nationalistic education they have received can't let go of the idea that Taiwan is China's, they should ask themselves, why should it really matter to them personally what Taiwan's status is? If Taiwanese don't share your loyalty to the idea of "China", do you really think you can or should force them to? Everyone should be free to live as they wish, as long as they don't interfere with the freedom of others -- which is what China is doing by trying to force unification on an unwilling Taiwan."

Despite this apparent attempt by Ma to boost the KMT’s candidate in the race to succeed him, polls afterwards showed that it didn’t help, and most people were not impressed with the meeting itself. While there is still some time to go before the election, there seems to be a very good chance that the KMT will lose the presidency and possibly even its legislative majority, which has not happened since the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949. While the DPP is far from perfect – one reason I hoping that one or more of the left-leaning third parties such as the Green Party do well – it would be good to see the KMT finally lose power in Taiwan.

KIC 8462852 And the Likelihood of Finding Alien Civilizations

Over the past few weeks a number of articles have appeared in various news sources about the star KIC 8462852. This was one of the thousands of stars observed by the Kepler telescope in its search for extrasolar planets. For those who are unfamiliar with Kepler and how it works, the telescope observed stars over a long period of time, watching for periodic dips in their brightness that indicated the presence of planets passing in front of the stars and blocking a tiny portion of their light. Kepler’s initial observation period came to an end when two of the reaction wheels used to maintain the stability necessary for precise observations failed, though since then it has been re-purposed for more limited observations. The initial haul of data is still being analyzed and has already resulted in the discovery of hundreds of planets. Some of these planets are super-Earths (planets not much larger than Earth, as opposed to gas giants like Jupiter), and a few are in the theoretical habitable zones around their stars where liquid water could exist on their surfaces, though we as yet have no way of knowing if it actually does.

What stood out about KIC 8462852, a star somewhat larger than the Sun (spectral class F3 as compared to the Sun's G2) that is about 1480 light years away, was that the observed dips in its brightness were too substantial to have been caused by a planet, and they were irregular. In other words, in the two observed dimming events, which came about 750 days apart, the star dimmed, brightened and then dimmed again several times. This is extremely odd, and astronomers have struggled to come up with an explanation that fits the data. This uncertainty led a few astronomers to note that there was an additional possibility that didn’t involve natural phenomena. This was that the star was surrounded by some sort of alien megastructure designed to capture the star’s light for use as an energy source. This sort of construction has been proposed as a theoretical possibility before, with the most complete version being what is known as a Dyson sphere (after Freeman Dyson, who helped popularize the concept), which would totally surround the star in order to capture all or nearly all of its light. This is obviously not what is being observed here, but as Dyson himself later noted that a solid sphere or even ring around a star was "mechanically impossible", so a practical Dyson sphere would have be something like a swarm or bubble of constructs around the star, so the possibility remains open. Furthermore, some have pointed out that the megastructure could be incomplete (whether because it’s still under construction or because it is abandoned and derelict). In any case the idea is that it is something like a "Dyson swarm" that is being seen here.

Most likely, though, the explanation is something far more prosaic. Even the astronomers who have talked about the possibility that what is being seen at KIC 8462852 is an alien artifact have emphasized that the true explanation is likely to be something natural. The leading theories seems to be a unusually large swarm of comets, presumably disturbed by a recent passing star, though some question whether it is possible for a large enough number of comets to account for the data to have been disrupted, or simply dust, though astronomers are not sure why a seemingly older star (KIC 8462852 is thought to be at least as old as the 5-billion-year-old Sun, though there is still some uncertainty about that) would have so much dust around it. Despite the difficulties with both ideas, dust seems to be the most likely cause. Certainly we should want to see a lot more evidence before leaping to the extraordinary conclusion that aliens are the cause, or even anything more than a remote possibility; as Carl Sagan once said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

But all the talk about KIC 8462852 does bring up once again the long-running debate over life in the universe, and specifically the likelihood that there are alien civilizations capable of space travel (obviously necessary to build any kind of structures around even the local star) out there somewhere. Of course, there are a lot of uncertainties involved, spelled out most clearly in the famous Drake equation. How many habitable planets are there? How many of those have life? How many planets with life give rise to technological civilizations capable of space travel? How long do such civilizations typically last? Everyone has different answers to these questions, but no one knows for sure. However, I’m willing to give my own take on the matter, even if I can’t claim to be an expert.

From all the planets we have discovered over the past two decades, we can estimate that there are over a hundred billion planets in the Milky Way, which is home to several hundred billion stars, many or even most of which are likely to have planets. Most of these planets will not be at all Earth-like, but it still seems likely that there could be billions in our galaxy that are similar enough to Earth to be considered habitable. The next question is how likely it is that life has arisen on these planets. We’re still not certain exactly how life arose here (though we’re getting closer all the time) and we still haven’t found definitive evidence of life originating anywhere other than Earth. Given how pervasive life is on Earth, though, I would not be surprised if we find traces of it elsewhere in the solar system, such as on Mars, Europa or Enceladus, and the fact that life seems to have appeared fairly early in Earth’s history is also a positive sign for how likely it is to arise in the first place.

But so far we are only talking about life in its most primitive, single-celled form. There is a rather large leap from this to a technological civilization capable of space travel. In fact, even if life in general turns out to be fairly common in the universe, we may find that on the vast majority of planets it consists entirely of single-celled organisms. After all, life existed on Earth for over 3 billion years before multi-cellular life appeared around 600 million years ago. To put that in perspective, life appeared within a billion years of the Earth’s formation and quite soon after the end of the hypothetical Late Heavy Bombardment era, during which it may have been difficult for even primitive life to survive (and even harder for any traces of life that may have arisen to survive for us to find), but for the vast majority of Earth’s history, there were only single-celled organisms – no plants or animals of any sort, much less intelligent life. This may indicate that it takes special conditions that are not easily fulfilled for multicellular life to evolve, and on many planets where life appears, these conditions may never arise.

Even if multicellular organisms appear, there is no guarantee that intelligent life forms will evolve – particularly intelligent life forms capable of constructing spaceships. Multicellular life had been on Earth for over half a billion years before humans evolved, so obviously intelligent life takes some time to appear. Of course on Earth there have been periodic mass extinctions that have wiped out most life, essentially setting back the evolutionary clock, so it isn’t as if we’ve had half a billion years of continuous evolution. On the other hand, other planets are likely to also suffer from periodic mass extinctions, and intelligent life would have to evolve in the periods between such events, which might be difficult if they were more frequent than they are on Earth. And even if intelligent life evolved, it would not necessarily be capable of developing advanced technology. It is often argued that dolphins are highly intelligent, but even if they are as smart as humans, they obviously can’t build spaceships. For that matter, even humans existed for hundreds of thousands of years before developing advanced technology, and we couldn’t have done that without the right raw materials (for instance, sufficient amounts of iron that could be easily mined). Then there is the obvious danger of an advanced civilization destroying itself in a relatively short period of time, just as we could end up destroying ourselves (or at least sending ourselves back to a low level of technology) through nuclear weapons or catastrophic climate change. After all, we've been capable of space travel for only half a century. That's 0.025% of the time modern humans have been around, and 0.000001% of Earth's history. For us to have a chance of encountering (even from a distance) any alien civilizations, some of them would have to last a lot longer than that.

So there probably are a lot of barriers to advanced technological civilizations arising, to the point that they may only appear on a tiny fraction of habitable planets. But on the other hand, if there are 10 billion habitable planets in the galaxy, even a one in a hundred million chance that an advanced civilization had arisen and survived long enough to be around now would mean that there would be a hundred such civilizations. That’s not a particularly huge number, considering how large our galaxy is, and if they are that rare we may have trouble finding them, especially if we keep in mind how huge the distances between stars are - even talking to any aliens living in the KIC 8462852 system would take 3000 years for a single exchange of messages. As for alien civilizations in other galaxies, they would be so far away as to be completely inaccessible even for any form of communication, unless wormholes or other forms of exotic travel turn out to be possible. Still, while it seems too much to hope that KIC 8462852 will turn out to have advanced alien life, it almost certainly does exist somewhere else in the universe, and probably even exists somewhere else in our galaxy. Whether we will ever find it is another matter; however, I am all in favor of continuing to look.

More Election Fun

Having commented recently on the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, it makes sense to talk a little about the Democratic candidates as well, especially since they recently held their first debate. Actually, I made a few observations on them a few months back, and much of that still stands. Furthermore, it is still in my opinion a bit early to be obsessing to much about the US presidential race, as there are still several months until the primaries actually start. However, given the importance of the US president, it is worthwhile to start taking a look at some of the people vying for the position, particularly those who have reasonable positions on the important issues. I’m also going to comment briefly on the Taiwanese presidential race, where there have been some bizarre developments.

If I were to judge the Democratic candidates purely on their current stated positions, Martin O’Malley might have to be my first choice. His policy positions on important issues like climate change, economic inequality, gun control, and reining in Wall Street are as good as or better than those of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. However, some aspects of his record as mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland bother me, and in any case his current prospects are not that great. Sanders is the best prospect for radical, progressive change, which is something I think the United States needs. His positions on the majority of issues are excellent, and as I will discuss further in a moment, he does really seem to be different from your average politician, even on the left. His main weakness is on guns. Though this is perhaps quite as vital an issue as climate change, income inequality, or getting money out of politics, it is still something that is reaching a crisis point in the US, and as I have noted in the past, it is connected with other issues, such as the high numbers of people being shot and killed by the police (to reiterate, though as Black Lives Matter activists correctly state, there is a very clear racial disparity in such incidents, it is also obvious that if guns weren’t so pervasive in the society, police would be much less trigger happy, regardless of the race of the suspects). While Sanders has a far better stance on gun control than anyone on the Republican side, some of his past votes were poor judgment at best. In fact, guns are another of the many issues were there needs to be a radical change in direction, and unlike on other issues, Sanders seems unlikely to provide it. Nevertheless, his excellent views on so many other issues go a long way toward making up for his weakness in this area.

Of course, despite Sanders’ high poll numbers and the huge crowds he has been his drawing, the pundits still consider Hillary Rodham Clinton the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, especially given her strong performance in the debate. Though many progressives have decidedly mixed feelings about Clinton, her stated positions on the majority of issues are solidly progressive, and at least one article I read noted that her voting record as a US Senator was actually slightly more progressive than Barack Obama’s. Perhaps in part due to pressure from popular left-wing Democrats like Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Clinton’s positions on many issues have moved noticeably further to the left in this campaign. However, she is still overly cautious on many issues, showing a reluctance to push for radical reform. If she is elected and manages to actually carry out everything that she says she want to do, it would certainly make things better in the US, but perhaps not as much as is really needed. Still, if she wins the Democratic nomination, I will support her. Even in the primaries, though I think Sanders and O’Malley have better positions overall, I am not necessarily rooting that strongly for them to beat her. I think she’s a stronger candidate than O’Malley, and her stance on guns is better than that of Sanders. Also, just the fact that if she won she would be the first woman to be US president is a point in her favor.

I should also note that one negative about Clinton in the eyes of most on the left is less of an issue for me, and that is her relatively hawkish stances on foreign policy. I think she may be a little more inclined to rely on military force than is wise, as I definitely think that military force should be an absolute last resort. That said, I don’t think it should be completely ruled out, especially in the face of major humanitarian crises like the war on Syria. I don’t mean that I think US ground troops should be put into Syria or Iraq, or even necessarily that a no fly zone in Syria is a good idea at this point. But if I were US president and I could be convinced, after hearing all the arguments on both sides, that a no fly zone would save civilian lives and was unlikely to make things worse in the long term (such as by exacerbating the already bad relations between the US and Russia or by creating even more chaos in Syria), I would certainly consider it. In other words, while I agree that in most cases US intervention doesn’t help and often even makes bad situations worse, I do think we shouldn’t completely rule anything out if it has the potential to save lives. So while I’m still undecided as to the best course of action in Syria, I tend to think of myself as falling somewhere between Sanders and O’Malley on the one hand and Clinton on the other hand.

But to go back to Sanders, I would like to mention one instance in which he demonstrated how he is different from your average politician. One of the most talked about moments in the debate was when Clinton was once more being grilled on the emails she sent as Secretary of State – the ones that the Republicans, abetted by many in the media, have been trying their best to turn into a scandal – and Sanders stepped in and defended Clinton, saying that people were tired of hearing about “your damn emails” when there were so many important issues facing the country. Not only was this part of Sanders’ narrative about keeping his campaign focused on substantive issues, rather than the meaningless trivial things the media loves to obsess about, it also demonstrated how uninterested he is in point scoring. The average politician would pile on when a rival is on the defensive, but Sanders seems to be genuinely determined to keep the focus on what can be done to solve the problems the US faces. This is definitely very refreshing, as is his call for a political revolution, rather than just incremental reform. Still, at this point I haven’t completely made up my mind between him and Clinton, or for that matter between the two of them and O’Malley.

I have not forgotten that there are other candidates running for the Democratic nomination. But Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, aside from having no real chance at winning, are far less progressive than Clinton, the least progressive of the three top candidates, and don’t have anything in particular to recommend them. The most interesting candidate aside from the three discussed above in Lawrence Lessig, who as I have mentioned before I actually met and spoke to once around a decade ago when he was in Taiwan promoting Creative Commons. I agree wholeheartedly with his goal of dramatic campaign reform to get money out of politics, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him getting some traction in the race. He certainly should be allowed to join the next debate, as he probably has at least as much support as Webb and Chaffee, and he is a much better candidate. However, he is still a long shot, and I think it’s unlikely that he has a realistic chance. Finally, there’s Joe Biden, who people keep talking about as a potential candidate. While I like Biden well enough and would almost certainly vote for him if by some chance he won the nomination, he is also less progressive than Clinton (if to the left of Webb and Chafee), and I don’t see any point in him entering the race. If, rather than electing the first woman president of the US, we’re going to elect another white male, at least it should be someone really progressive like Sanders or O’Malley.

But while there are still many months to go before the nominees in the US presidential race will be decided and over a year until the general election, Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections will take place only three months from now, in mid January, so we’ll have a new Taiwanese president before the Democrats and Republicans have even officially nominated their candidates. But as close as the election is, there’s just been a major change in the race. The ruling KMT (Kuomintang/Guomindang/國民黨) several months ago went through its official process for choosing a candidate by means of a primary. Only one candidate, the right-wing legislator Hung Hsiu-chu, entered the race, so she won by default and was officially nominated by the KMT in July. However, she proved a terrible choice. Her campaigning skills left much to be desired, and more importantly, she showed herself to be even more pro-China than the mainstream of the KMT, which is already far to prepared to accommodate Taiwan’s bullying neighbor. Unsurprisingly, she fell well behind in polls against the candidate of the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party/民進黨), Tsai Ing-wen. A few weeks after Hung was nominated, former KMT official and past presidential candidate James Soong entered the race, making dubious attempts to position himself as a moderate. With a split in conservative support, Hung polled even worse, running far behind Tsai and not that far ahead of Soong, with even their combined support eventually dropping below that of Tsai. Finally, the KMT decided to replace Hung as their candidate, holding a party conference in which Hung was replaced by party chairman Eric Chu by acclamation – in other words, they didn’t even hold a vote.

If there is a recent example from anywhere in the world of a major political party changing their presidential candidate less than half a year before the election, particularly in such a clearly undemocratic manner, I’m not aware of it. What’s more, Chu’s decision to “accept the task” makes a mockery of his past assertions that he would serve out his current term as mayor of New Taipei City (not that he would be the first politician to violate such a pledge). While having Chu as president would not be quite as awful as having Hung, it wouldn’t be any improvement over the current president, Ma Ying-jeou, who’s been pretty bad (Chu has been fairly lousy as our mayor too), and I certainly wouldn’t want to see the KMT get rewarded for their dubious changing of horses in midstream by a victory. I hope Tsai (who is far from perfect, but would at least be a substantial improvement) wins by a substantial margin, even though it’s unlikely to be as much of a landslide as it would have been with Hung as her opponent. Somewhat comically, in the meeting at which Hung was replaced, Chu warned against the possibility that the DPP could win both the presidency and the legislature, claiming that would mean there would be no checks on the DPP’s power. This was rather ironic, since the KMT has held both the presidency and a large legislative majority over the past two terms (not to mention all the years it ruled Taiwan as a one party state before democratization in the 1990s), though it’s certainly true that Taiwanese have suffered due to the lack of checks on the KMT’s power. The best thing that could happen to Taiwan is if the KMT lost power permanently and the main opposition to the DPP came from new forces on the left. While this is unlikely in the immediate future, this election could be a start. As it happens, I am acquainted personally with at least three people running for legislative seats this time. All three are running as outsiders (two as members of small, new progressively-minded parties, and one as an independent), and while it’s far from certain that any of them will get elected, it would certainly be nice to see them and others like them in the legislature to keep the DPP and KMT honest, or at least as honest as they can be, which is not very in the KMT’s case, as its recent actions have once more shown.

Finally, there are actually some elections going on now - those for the Tibetan government in exile. The winners will certainly have a challenging job, not only trying to find a way to deal with China's unending malice, but also trying to fill the Dalai Lama's shoes as leader of the Tibetan people. It's interesting that one candidate for prime minister is openly suggesting that the Dalai Lama's moderate course be abandoned and full independence once again be declared the ultimate goal of the Tibetan people. As much as I respect the Dalai Lama, I think there is something to be said for aiming for independence, and I think it would be good if the Tibetans can have an open discussion about their options.