In many ways, human engagement with information happens in such a manner that, with the accumulation of information over time, the dataset constructed out of the latest volume of information has the strongest relationship of any kind with the consecutively next dataset – a Markovian trait.
At any point of time, the future state of the dataset is determined solely by its present one. In other words, with a discrete understanding, its nth state is dependant solely on its (n – i)th state, where ‘i’ is a cardinal index. Upon a failure to quantify its (n + i)th state, there is no certain state that we know the dataset will intend to assume.
At the same time, given its limited historic dependency, the past’s bearing on the state of the dataset is continuous but constantly depreciating (asymptotically tending to zero): the correlation index between the (n + i)th state for increasing i with the (n – k)th decreases for increasing k (for all k = i).*
Over time, if the information-dataset could be quantized through a set of state variables, S, then there will be a characteristic function, φ(n), which would describe the slope of the correlation index’s curve at (i, k). Essentially, the evolution of S will be as a Markov chain whereas φ(n) will be continuous, rendering (i, k) random and memoryless.
(*For k = i, (n - k) = (n - i). However, for a given set of state variables S, which evolve as a Markov chain, the devolution that k tracks and the evolution that i tracks will be asymmetric, necessitating two different indices to describe the two degrees of freedom.)
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Monday, 27 August 2012
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Woes betide the seafarer
Amidst the chaos of Kudankulam, the environmental desecration by SPIC and Sterlite, and widespread pseudo-legal sand mining, the fishing hamlets of Tuticorin may actually be fighting their last days of battle against inflation, thieves, the government, and nature itself.
Fishing in Tuticorin has been going on for a long time and is a major contributor to the region’s economy. Ever since the town’s port was declared a minor anchorage in 1868, trade centered on fishes, prawns, and pearls has been flourishing. Unfortunately, pearl-diving ceased in the 1950s for various reasons and fishing for prawns was banned by the Supreme Court in 2009, citing concerns of environmental preservation.
This left the fishing industry fighting a lone battle, and it has not done well. The most common sights upon entering a fishing hamlet in Tuticorin include fishermen unloading many thousands of fish caught in the day’s trip, unknotting and drying the nets for the next haul, sitting around and talking or playing cards, women collecting drinking water in large containers from the hand pump, and children running around without a care.
However, a plethora of issues underpin this pleasant picture, and even though they vary in intensity from hamlet to hamlet, they are all persistent.
Irrespective of the fishermen’s location, rising fuel costs are hampering their ability to catch more fish. As part of a central government scheme, of which the state government partakes, fishermen with mechanized fishing boats are supposed to avail a discount of Rs. 5.50 on the Central Excise Duty (CED) on every litre of diesel they purchase from bunks installed near the harbour for this purpose. That amounts to Rs. 37.90. However, the fishermen are provided only 300 litres of fuel per month, which they claim suffices for two weeks’ worth of fishing.
It is there that the vicious cycle of poverty amongst Tuticorin’s fishermen begins. For the following two weeks, the boat owners are forced to purchase fuel at the market price of Rs. 43.40, which shaves off an impressive part of their monthly income. At the same time, with the cost of fibre-glass and fishing nets increasing, a limit is imposed on their expenses which, in turn, limit their income, too.
At Thracepuram, an urban fishing hamlet near Tuticorin port, there are about 1,500 mechanized boats and 6,000 families that are dependent on them. Despite the cost of one mechanized boat having increased from a little more than a lakh rupees in 2001 to Rs. 7 lakh in 2011, the number of boats has increased. This is not an indication of prosperity, however, because even though more fishermen have been able to afford boats in the last decade, fishing has been unaffordable only for the last two or three years. In fact, it is notable that between 2008 and 2011, private lenders increased their lending rates from 8 per cent per month to 12 per cent per month.
In the 1970s, fishermen could catch the kumala, vanjaram (Indo-Pacific king mackerel), kanagatthai, oola, and vaaval (white pomfret) species of fish. Forty years on, only the white pomfret is widely sought after because it continues to have some export value (Rs. 400 per kilogram). In the same period, the fishermen’s dependence on mechanized weaving has increased. Not that net-weaving is an art, but because it is a laborious process that can sometimes take up to two weeks, they begrudge the Rs. 1,300 per net as being necessary.
The market where the fishes are sold does not interface directly with the boat owners but via a fishermen’s union comprised of representatives from amongst the fishing population, a situation observed in many of the coastal hamlets in the district. The union is responsible for negotiating the selling rates for export-grade fishes with the state government, providing storage facilities, and, on a minor note, settling local disputes. At the same time, an auction is also held as soon as a boat returns from its trip, where the fisher is able to sell his catch to a bidder then and there.
The opportunity for communal conflicts within these entities, however, further distorts the region’s economic and political arrangement. A common complaint has been the issuance of a fisherman’s ID card, which a fisherman can use to prove his identity in case he ventures far into the sea and is apprehended by the Indian Navy. The card, they demand, could also be used to streamline fuel, electricity, and rice subsidies and not necessitate separate applications for each of them.
The unions are controlled by those of the Nadar community. The fishermen, all belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC), insist that even though the fishers unanimously agreed to the introduction of the fisherman’s card, the cards are being withheld on communal grounds. Unfortunately, they also insist that they cannot afford to persist with their fight because they don’t have the resources for it. Instead, they have to fight to retain control in their own waters.
Ever since the introduction of trawlers, fishermen have suffered greatly for two reasons. One, the trawlers reduce the catch available, and two, they rake up the seabed, reducing its consistency and ability to support marine life. Because a majority of the fishing community constitutes small fishermen and few enterprises, larger vessels (not trawlers) invade common fishing space, pushing smaller boats away from their own coast in search of food. This has been the case in Tuticorin, whereby trawlers prowling in Rameswaram and Tiruchendur have resulted in the smaller vessels going as far south as Kanyakumari in search of fishes.
For all these reasons, alternative cost-cutting solutions are sought after, such as no longer venturing out deep into the ocean. This increases the fisherman’s dependence on those organisms closer to the coast, such as crabs, molluscs and smaller fish, which do not have good remunerative value. Those who have lived near the sea all their lives claim that the water levels are rising, too, and that in five years, the hamlets will be no more. They could be true, but it won’t be the sea that swallows them. It will be the nonchalance of the government that refuses to recognize these unspoken issues.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Just because they’re less dangerous than nuclear power doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous at all.
Alternate Sources of Energy (ASE) are any sources of energy that replace existing fuel sources without the same undesirable consequences. They are intended to replace fossil fuels, other high emitters of carbon dioxide and nuclear energy. The primary purpose of an ASE is to provide clean energy at a higher efficiency than that of conventional energy sources. While they are frequently touted to be the future, many of their demerits lack ample media representation or are ignored simply because they’re less dangerous than radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
However, with their increasing media presence, journalists need to be aware of the right questions to ask as well as some of the problems that are specific to ASEs. Here are the properties and disadvantages of five alternate sources of energy.
COMMON DEMERITS
Most ASEs have some common disadvantages that come with the fact of being “alternate”
SOLAR ENERGY
Solar energy is harvested using solar cells
Each cell is a thin wafer of monocrystalline silicon that is implanted with electrodes. When photons in sunlight enter the silicon atom, they knock out an electron – this is called the photoelectric effect. The electron is then captured by the electrodes to transmit a small electric current.
A single solar cell can produce enough electrical energy to power one household in 24 years or more. Instead, huge solar farms have to be built, consisting of arrays of modules of cells, to provide for the hundreds of megawatts that nations need today.
DEMERITS
WIND ENERGY
Wind energy is harvested using windmills
A windmill is an ensemble of a steel tower, the blades and the wind turbine: when the blades are rotated by the kinetic energy of the wind, a turbine converts the kinetic energy of the moving blades into electrical energy.
DEMERITS
[caption id="attachment_20821" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Image from Wikipedia"]
[/caption]
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Geothermal energy is the heat energy of the earth.
There is a continuous loss of heat from the earth’s core into the mantle and the crust. There are also radioactive materials that contribute to the heating. The energy is stored in compacted rocks, underground water bodies, and subterranean air currents. In order to retrieve the energy, cold water is pumped down toward the hot bedrock and pumped back up again as steam, which is used to power a turbine.
Philippines, Iceland and El Salvador each produce between 25 to 30 per cent of their electricity from geothermal power plants
DEMERITS
BIOFUELS
Biofuels are fuels that have some amount of carbon that recently originated from a carbon cycle, i.e. derived from an organic source
Biomass is solid biofuel and is derived from wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, and dried manure. These products are compacted to increase their density and used as pellets which can be combusted.
Liquid biofuel includes methanol and ethanol. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline at 1:10 to increase the octane number of the fuel. Higher the octane number, the more the fuel can compress before detonating, the more energy is released per volume of fuel. Methanol can be used directly as engine fuel.
Biogases are those produced when organic matter is broken down by bacteria in the absence of oxygen. It mostly comprises of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and siloxanes (compounds of carbon and silicon) – biofuels can be burnt to release about 19.7 megajoule per kilogram
DEMERITS
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is the lightest element known to man and comprises approximately 75 per cent of the known Universe
Hydrogen is not a source of energy, like coal or the sun, but a carrier of energy, like light and electricity
The source of hydrogen’s energy comes form its extremely acidic nature and the way it explosively combines with oxygen to form water vapour
DEMERITS
However, with their increasing media presence, journalists need to be aware of the right questions to ask as well as some of the problems that are specific to ASEs. Here are the properties and disadvantages of five alternate sources of energy.
- Solar energy
- Wind energy
- Geothermal energy
- Biofuels
- Hydrogen
COMMON DEMERITS
Most ASEs have some common disadvantages that come with the fact of being “alternate”
- Cost – For the same amount of money, the amount of energy delivered is lower. If the investment in the energy sector can’t be increased, then growth rates will have to be brought down.
- Dependence on international supplies – Many ASEs requires raw materials that are situated outside the region of need. This dependence is also influenced by local factors, explained in the next point.
- Influence of local factors – In order to sustain the ASEs, local industries will have to absorb the demands placed on it for research and technology. Therefore, what ASE is consumed in the region will depend on what resources the region already has.
SOLAR ENERGY
Solar energy is harvested using solar cells
Each cell is a thin wafer of monocrystalline silicon that is implanted with electrodes. When photons in sunlight enter the silicon atom, they knock out an electron – this is called the photoelectric effect. The electron is then captured by the electrodes to transmit a small electric current.
A single solar cell can produce enough electrical energy to power one household in 24 years or more. Instead, huge solar farms have to be built, consisting of arrays of modules of cells, to provide for the hundreds of megawatts that nations need today.
DEMERITS
- Solar cells work at an efficiency of 14 per cent at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius
- This ideal temperature will not be available at all points of time, which means the efficiency is going to be less than 14 per cent most of the time
- Chennai receives about 6 kWh/m2/day – which means 0.84 kWh/m2/day will be produced in one day by a solar panel measuring 1 sq. metre
- The cost of energy production is $3.4/watt.
- For Tamil Nadu, which currently faces a 659-megawatt shortage, the cost of production will be $2.24 billion.
- Solar cells produce only direct current, or DC, which is not directly practicable. It has to be converted to AC, or alternating current, first, which will add further to the cost.
- To produce energy at a higher efficiency, metallic alloys instead of monocrystalline silicon will have to be used. Some examples are:
- Cadmium telluride - $1.76-2.48/watt, $550/kg
- Copper indium gallium selenide - $1.15/watt, ~$25,000/kg
- Gallium arsenide – $0.86-1/watt, $1,640/kg
- Of these, cadmium, tellurium, gallium, selenium and arsenic are all highly toxic poisons with known teratogenic effects (teratogenic means across multiple generations)
- All energy sources become feasible only when they can provide a continuous supply of energy. For solar farms to be able to do this, suitable storage systems will have to be provided. Further, solar cells are useless during the rainy seasons, and when sufficient sunlight is not available to provide any useful amount of energy.
WIND ENERGY
Wind energy is harvested using windmills
A windmill is an ensemble of a steel tower, the blades and the wind turbine: when the blades are rotated by the kinetic energy of the wind, a turbine converts the kinetic energy of the moving blades into electrical energy.
DEMERITS
- Wind stations are often built to generate different amounts of power depending on the wind speeds at where they’re located. Consequently, the sub-station grids that store the power temporarily must be equipped to support different amounts of power on the same transmission line. For this, they require something called a capacitor farm – which is extremely expensive to set up. But this is only a minor demerit, although it is something you won’t find politicians talking about.
- Wind stations work at an efficiency from 20 per cent to 40 per cent that depends on the wind speeds, and given the cost of each watt of energy is $2.12, one megawatt of output will require $8.5 million to $10.2 million worth of input. Even though the figure of a little over two dollars per watt is low, it has increased by 9 per cent from last year despite an increase in the demand for wind turbines.
- Wind farms produce a large volume of infrasonic sound which interferes with the human sensory system, causing nausea, severe headaches, temporary deafness, hallucinations and temporary blindness amongst all age groups of people.
- Current levels of research point that that wind speed doesn’t always increase power production. In fact, the chart shows that the energy generation as at its highest when the wind speed is significantly lower. As a journalist, when you’re writing a story on wind power, be careful not to consider the “high wind speeds” – first, compare the rated energy output of the turbine and then look for the corresponding wind speed
[caption id="attachment_20821" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Image from Wikipedia"]
[/caption]GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Geothermal energy is the heat energy of the earth.
There is a continuous loss of heat from the earth’s core into the mantle and the crust. There are also radioactive materials that contribute to the heating. The energy is stored in compacted rocks, underground water bodies, and subterranean air currents. In order to retrieve the energy, cold water is pumped down toward the hot bedrock and pumped back up again as steam, which is used to power a turbine.
Philippines, Iceland and El Salvador each produce between 25 to 30 per cent of their electricity from geothermal power plants
DEMERITS
- In order to find sources of geothermal energy, drilling and mining have to be deployed on a large scale, apart from scouting for underground heat sources with aerially deployed probes like satellites.
- Drilling costs are significantly high at $2.2 per watt
- There are high failure rates associated with drilling because 80 per cent of all geothermal energy is due to radioactive decay, which is hard to detect or determine from space. The lowest failure rate in the world is in Nevada, USA: 1 in 5 drills will find nothing of value underground.
- Geothermal plants that have to deliver in megawatts need to have sufficient infrastructure to support the continuous mining and pumping of water and steam. Effectively, the total averaged cost comes to $4 per watt – significantly higher than the cost of other ASEs
- The best geothermal sources are those near tectonic plates – any seismological activity will pose a significant risk to the plant and to those dependent on energy from the plant
- Underground air currents that are trapped in geothermal wells are released when the pockets are mined. These air currents are composed of 90 per cent methane, 5 per cent carbon dioxide, and other gases – these are greenhouse gases
- Releasing them into the atmosphere adds to global warming
- Removing them from under the soil destroys the soil composition and alters the ecosystem
- Since methane is lighter than air, the density of air above a geothermal power plant will be reduced, making the skies in that area unsafe for air travel
BIOFUELS
Biofuels are fuels that have some amount of carbon that recently originated from a carbon cycle, i.e. derived from an organic source
Biomass is solid biofuel and is derived from wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, and dried manure. These products are compacted to increase their density and used as pellets which can be combusted.
Liquid biofuel includes methanol and ethanol. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline at 1:10 to increase the octane number of the fuel. Higher the octane number, the more the fuel can compress before detonating, the more energy is released per volume of fuel. Methanol can be used directly as engine fuel.
Biogases are those produced when organic matter is broken down by bacteria in the absence of oxygen. It mostly comprises of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and siloxanes (compounds of carbon and silicon) – biofuels can be burnt to release about 19.7 megajoule per kilogram
DEMERITS
- Various environmental models have been discussed that illustrate the merits of biofuels, incl. high oil prices, poverty reduction potential, sustainable biofuel production, and low cost.
- All biofuels have a lower energy content than hydrocarbon fossil fuels – which means to produce the same amount of energy, a higher volume of biofuels will have to be used
- Methanol and ethanol are basic in nature and produce acidic contaminants upon combustion, which then corrode the valves and transmission ducts of the vehicle
- Methanol is hygroscopic – it absorbs moisture directly from the atmosphere – and so dilutes itself if not handled properly. This also increases the wetness of by-products of methanol combustion
- Even though biofuels produce no smoke when combusted, they contain more than 20 times as much greenhouses gases as fossil fuels – which means they will contribute more to global warming than the fuels they replace
- In order to produce larger quantities of biofuels, larger quantities of resources are necessary
- More water is needed
- More land is needed
- Increase in biofuel production will place some stress on agricultural output and water resources, resulting in an increase in the prices of vegetables, etc.
- Volatile organic compounds present in biogas, upon exposure to sunlight, react with atmospheric nitrogen to form tropospheric ozone, peroxyacyl nitrates and nitrogen dioxide – this miasma is commonly called a photochemical smog and causes emphysema, bronchitis and asthma
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is the lightest element known to man and comprises approximately 75 per cent of the known Universe
Hydrogen is not a source of energy, like coal or the sun, but a carrier of energy, like light and electricity
The source of hydrogen’s energy comes form its extremely acidic nature and the way it explosively combines with oxygen to form water vapour
DEMERITS
- The catalysts required to break down hydrogen, platinum and zirconium, are extremely expensive – an industrial alternative is to compress water to extremely high pressures and send an electric current through it and break it down into H and O – in this case, the compressor requires large amounts of energy
- Hydrogen costs $4 per kilogram at its purest and $1.40 per kilogram when it is derived from natural gas
- Once hydrogen has been obtained, it can be stored, transported and recombined at another location to yield large amounts of energy.
- In its natural gaseous form, every kilogram of hydrogen occupies an 89-litre tank – which is comparable to the fuel tank of a large truck
- Hydrogen can be compressed and liquefied to a liquid form, but an onboard cryogenic storage unit will consume large amounts of power.
- Hydrogen storage tanks have to be significantly stronger, and heavier, than normal tanks because high-pressure H has a tendency to corrode metals and leak into the atmosphere, where it explodes in contact with air
Just because they’re less dangerous than nuclear power doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous at all.
Alternate Sources of Energy (ASE) are any sources of energy that replace existing fuel sources without the same undesirable consequences. They are intended to replace fossil fuels, other high emitters of carbon dioxide and nuclear energy. The primary purpose of an ASE is to provide clean energy at a higher efficiency than that of conventional energy sources. While they are frequently touted to be the future, many of their demerits lack ample media representation or are ignored simply because they’re less dangerous than radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
However, with their increasing media presence, journalists need to be aware of the right questions to ask as well as some of the problems that are specific to ASEs. Here are the properties and disadvantages of five alternate sources of energy.
COMMON DEMERITS
Most ASEs have some common disadvantages that come with the fact of being “alternate”
SOLAR ENERGY
Solar energy is harvested using solar cells
Each cell is a thin wafer of monocrystalline silicon that is implanted with electrodes. When photons in sunlight enter the silicon atom, they knock out an electron – this is called the photoelectric effect. The electron is then captured by the electrodes to transmit a small electric current.
A single solar cell can produce enough electrical energy to power one household in 24 years or more. Instead, huge solar farms have to be built, consisting of arrays of modules of cells, to provide for the hundreds of megawatts that nations need today.
DEMERITS
WIND ENERGY
Wind energy is harvested using windmills
A windmill is an ensemble of a steel tower, the blades and the wind turbine: when the blades are rotated by the kinetic energy of the wind, a turbine converts the kinetic energy of the moving blades into electrical energy.
DEMERITS
[caption id="attachment_20821" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Image from Wikipedia"][/caption]
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Geothermal energy is the heat energy of the earth.
There is a continuous loss of heat from the earth’s core into the mantle and the crust. There are also radioactive materials that contribute to the heating. The energy is stored in compacted rocks, underground water bodies, and subterranean air currents. In order to retrieve the energy, cold water is pumped down toward the hot bedrock and pumped back up again as steam, which is used to power a turbine.
Philippines, Iceland and El Salvador each produce between 25 to 30 per cent of their electricity from geothermal power plants
DEMERITS
BIOFUELS
Biofuels are fuels that have some amount of carbon that recently originated from a carbon cycle, i.e. derived from an organic source
Biomass is solid biofuel and is derived from wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, and dried manure. These products are compacted to increase their density and used as pellets which can be combusted.
Liquid biofuel includes methanol and ethanol. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline at 1:10 to increase the octane number of the fuel. Higher the octane number, the more the fuel can compress before detonating, the more energy is released per volume of fuel. Methanol can be used directly as engine fuel.
Biogases are those produced when organic matter is broken down by bacteria in the absence of oxygen. It mostly comprises of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and siloxanes (compounds of carbon and silicon) – biofuels can be burnt to release about 19.7 megajoule per kilogram
DEMERITS
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is the lightest element known to man and comprises approximately 75 per cent of the known Universe
Hydrogen is not a source of energy, like coal or the sun, but a carrier of energy, like light and electricity
The source of hydrogen’s energy comes form its extremely acidic nature and the way it explosively combines with oxygen to form water vapour
DEMERITS
However, with their increasing media presence, journalists need to be aware of the right questions to ask as well as some of the problems that are specific to ASEs. Here are the properties and disadvantages of five alternate sources of energy.
- Solar energy
- Wind energy
- Geothermal energy
- Biofuels
- Hydrogen
COMMON DEMERITS
Most ASEs have some common disadvantages that come with the fact of being “alternate”
- Cost – For the same amount of money, the amount of energy delivered is lower. If the investment in the energy sector can’t be increased, then growth rates will have to be brought down.
- Dependence on international supplies – Many ASEs requires raw materials that are situated outside the region of need. This dependence is also influenced by local factors, explained in the next point.
- Influence of local factors – In order to sustain the ASEs, local industries will have to absorb the demands placed on it for research and technology. Therefore, what ASE is consumed in the region will depend on what resources the region already has.
SOLAR ENERGY
Solar energy is harvested using solar cells
Each cell is a thin wafer of monocrystalline silicon that is implanted with electrodes. When photons in sunlight enter the silicon atom, they knock out an electron – this is called the photoelectric effect. The electron is then captured by the electrodes to transmit a small electric current.
A single solar cell can produce enough electrical energy to power one household in 24 years or more. Instead, huge solar farms have to be built, consisting of arrays of modules of cells, to provide for the hundreds of megawatts that nations need today.
DEMERITS
- Solar cells work at an efficiency of 14 per cent at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius
- This ideal temperature will not be available at all points of time, which means the efficiency is going to be less than 14 per cent most of the time
- Chennai receives about 6 kWh/m2/day – which means 0.84 kWh/m2/day will be produced in one day by a solar panel measuring 1 sq. metre
- The cost of energy production is $3.4/watt.
- For Tamil Nadu, which currently faces a 659-megawatt shortage, the cost of production will be $2.24 billion.
- Solar cells produce only direct current, or DC, which is not directly practicable. It has to be converted to AC, or alternating current, first, which will add further to the cost.
- To produce energy at a higher efficiency, metallic alloys instead of monocrystalline silicon will have to be used. Some examples are:
- Cadmium telluride - $1.76-2.48/watt, $550/kg
- Copper indium gallium selenide - $1.15/watt, ~$25,000/kg
- Gallium arsenide – $0.86-1/watt, $1,640/kg
- Of these, cadmium, tellurium, gallium, selenium and arsenic are all highly toxic poisons with known teratogenic effects (teratogenic means across multiple generations)
- All energy sources become feasible only when they can provide a continuous supply of energy. For solar farms to be able to do this, suitable storage systems will have to be provided. Further, solar cells are useless during the rainy seasons, and when sufficient sunlight is not available to provide any useful amount of energy.
WIND ENERGY
Wind energy is harvested using windmills
A windmill is an ensemble of a steel tower, the blades and the wind turbine: when the blades are rotated by the kinetic energy of the wind, a turbine converts the kinetic energy of the moving blades into electrical energy.
DEMERITS
- Wind stations are often built to generate different amounts of power depending on the wind speeds at where they’re located. Consequently, the sub-station grids that store the power temporarily must be equipped to support different amounts of power on the same transmission line. For this, they require something called a capacitor farm – which is extremely expensive to set up. But this is only a minor demerit, although it is something you won’t find politicians talking about.
- Wind stations work at an efficiency from 20 per cent to 40 per cent that depends on the wind speeds, and given the cost of each watt of energy is $2.12, one megawatt of output will require $8.5 million to $10.2 million worth of input. Even though the figure of a little over two dollars per watt is low, it has increased by 9 per cent from last year despite an increase in the demand for wind turbines.
- Wind farms produce a large volume of infrasonic sound which interferes with the human sensory system, causing nausea, severe headaches, temporary deafness, hallucinations and temporary blindness amongst all age groups of people.
- Current levels of research point that that wind speed doesn’t always increase power production. In fact, the chart shows that the energy generation as at its highest when the wind speed is significantly lower. As a journalist, when you’re writing a story on wind power, be careful not to consider the “high wind speeds” – first, compare the rated energy output of the turbine and then look for the corresponding wind speed
[caption id="attachment_20821" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Image from Wikipedia"]
[/caption]GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Geothermal energy is the heat energy of the earth.
There is a continuous loss of heat from the earth’s core into the mantle and the crust. There are also radioactive materials that contribute to the heating. The energy is stored in compacted rocks, underground water bodies, and subterranean air currents. In order to retrieve the energy, cold water is pumped down toward the hot bedrock and pumped back up again as steam, which is used to power a turbine.
Philippines, Iceland and El Salvador each produce between 25 to 30 per cent of their electricity from geothermal power plants
DEMERITS
- In order to find sources of geothermal energy, drilling and mining have to be deployed on a large scale, apart from scouting for underground heat sources with aerially deployed probes like satellites.
- Drilling costs are significantly high at $2.2 per watt
- There are high failure rates associated with drilling because 80 per cent of all geothermal energy is due to radioactive decay, which is hard to detect or determine from space. The lowest failure rate in the world is in Nevada, USA: 1 in 5 drills will find nothing of value underground.
- Geothermal plants that have to deliver in megawatts need to have sufficient infrastructure to support the continuous mining and pumping of water and steam. Effectively, the total averaged cost comes to $4 per watt – significantly higher than the cost of other ASEs
- The best geothermal sources are those near tectonic plates – any seismological activity will pose a significant risk to the plant and to those dependent on energy from the plant
- Underground air currents that are trapped in geothermal wells are released when the pockets are mined. These air currents are composed of 90 per cent methane, 5 per cent carbon dioxide, and other gases – these are greenhouse gases
- Releasing them into the atmosphere adds to global warming
- Removing them from under the soil destroys the soil composition and alters the ecosystem
- Since methane is lighter than air, the density of air above a geothermal power plant will be reduced, making the skies in that area unsafe for air travel
BIOFUELS
Biofuels are fuels that have some amount of carbon that recently originated from a carbon cycle, i.e. derived from an organic source
Biomass is solid biofuel and is derived from wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, and dried manure. These products are compacted to increase their density and used as pellets which can be combusted.
Liquid biofuel includes methanol and ethanol. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline at 1:10 to increase the octane number of the fuel. Higher the octane number, the more the fuel can compress before detonating, the more energy is released per volume of fuel. Methanol can be used directly as engine fuel.
Biogases are those produced when organic matter is broken down by bacteria in the absence of oxygen. It mostly comprises of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and siloxanes (compounds of carbon and silicon) – biofuels can be burnt to release about 19.7 megajoule per kilogram
DEMERITS
- Various environmental models have been discussed that illustrate the merits of biofuels, incl. high oil prices, poverty reduction potential, sustainable biofuel production, and low cost.
- All biofuels have a lower energy content than hydrocarbon fossil fuels – which means to produce the same amount of energy, a higher volume of biofuels will have to be used
- Methanol and ethanol are basic in nature and produce acidic contaminants upon combustion, which then corrode the valves and transmission ducts of the vehicle
- Methanol is hygroscopic – it absorbs moisture directly from the atmosphere – and so dilutes itself if not handled properly. This also increases the wetness of by-products of methanol combustion
- Even though biofuels produce no smoke when combusted, they contain more than 20 times as much greenhouses gases as fossil fuels – which means they will contribute more to global warming than the fuels they replace
- In order to produce larger quantities of biofuels, larger quantities of resources are necessary
- More water is needed
- More land is needed
- Increase in biofuel production will place some stress on agricultural output and water resources, resulting in an increase in the prices of vegetables, etc.
- Volatile organic compounds present in biogas, upon exposure to sunlight, react with atmospheric nitrogen to form tropospheric ozone, peroxyacyl nitrates and nitrogen dioxide – this miasma is commonly called a photochemical smog and causes emphysema, bronchitis and asthma
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is the lightest element known to man and comprises approximately 75 per cent of the known Universe
Hydrogen is not a source of energy, like coal or the sun, but a carrier of energy, like light and electricity
The source of hydrogen’s energy comes form its extremely acidic nature and the way it explosively combines with oxygen to form water vapour
DEMERITS
- The catalysts required to break down hydrogen, platinum and zirconium, are extremely expensive – an industrial alternative is to compress water to extremely high pressures and send an electric current through it and break it down into H and O – in this case, the compressor requires large amounts of energy
- Hydrogen costs $4 per kilogram at its purest and $1.40 per kilogram when it is derived from natural gas
- Once hydrogen has been obtained, it can be stored, transported and recombined at another location to yield large amounts of energy.
- In its natural gaseous form, every kilogram of hydrogen occupies an 89-litre tank – which is comparable to the fuel tank of a large truck
- Hydrogen can be compressed and liquefied to a liquid form, but an onboard cryogenic storage unit will consume large amounts of power.
- Hydrogen storage tanks have to be significantly stronger, and heavier, than normal tanks because high-pressure H has a tendency to corrode metals and leak into the atmosphere, where it explodes in contact with air
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Flight of the magus
In the beginning, there was a Universe, lush and abundant, a paradise inhabited by the opportunities of boundaries and ragged pathways and winds that blew this way and that without giving pause, a world where a man could understand wakefulness and fatigue both, satisfaction and deprivation both, because it was a world that put his will to the test again and again. With the assistance of a memory that moved forward whilst its head remained turned to the past all the time, men knew where they did fall and where they did sprint under the light of dispassionate stars, and within the strange bounds of disappointment and elation men understood who they were, as if they had looked into mirrors and seen faces, as if they knew what the world knew of them.
A time came when the world began to fade, when the ground was no longer what those who still walked upon it had known it to be, when lay dust was picked up by the raging winds and whipped into the skies above, when ultimately the moon was red and bleeding. Trees began to be stripped off their leaves and rivers flowed far from their courses, gouging valleys and gorges out of the world's floor, and before long, mountains lay prostrate on the ground, flattened into a dismal stretch of boulders and soil that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ugliness they had boasted of before. Men were beginning to lose direction, walking in search of what they knew was dying and dying in their presence and yet, both knowing and unknowing what lay beyond the horizons once guarded by an old face of nature: they strayed into unknown territories that contained no borders, no sense of progress but the moon and the sun that traversed the skies for ever and on.
The unwillingness to embrace fatigue against the threat of permanent change, the hopelessness that consumed victory each time they looked behind their shoulders to a world they knew had once been, men kept walking. It was akin to toil, nay, it was toil itself, but the memory of the world's knowledge moved them into newer lands. The Universe was closing in around them, bringing them closer and closer to their brothers; they constantly found themselves in each other's company whether they turned north toward the cold or south toward the warmth. And when hope and will began to walk together, to take measure of the treacherous plains stretching before all their eyes, they were one in murdering an identity that had once existed, that had once known walls. Where did the walls go? Who pulled them down? Why did the world have to fade at all?
The answers lay in the hidden memories of their feet, beneath their leathery, distance-worn soles, in the pedestrian muscularity of their shins and knees, which could still recall the thousands upon thousands of miles that had been tread: the world had changed to change man with it, and significantly yet, had changed because it knew the face of man thoroughly and withdrew its restraints and laws, its pervading sense of order, to a womb within itself, so they may gestate their until the day came when man would be lost again, so that the face he had befriended would fade and recall the Universe to its original duty, to a preternatural body that would nature nature. It was a cycle that lasted for days one time and centuries on another, but the cycle moved through space, time and the mind, where everything else took proper shape.
Almost forgotten between these two entities, perpetually depressed under the burden of their strange purposes, lay a span of time incredibly short and hungry, as if a fold that had been fighting a tenuous battle against whatever held it there, be it hope, be it will, or be it a memory of ice. What lay there, so, was a monster, a beast brought to lay dormant until a moment was upon some chosen ones by an expedient force from history, burgeoning with power and, therefore, open intentions toward dissonance, it resounded like echoes from the future, seeping into the present through impudent doubts. Some called it the Oldness, others the First Form, the aging skein of the first mountain that man had clomb, impugned within its soul the first evening they had spent together, man and nature, loss and possession, light and shadow, a memory upon which was founded a necessary darkness that sought to steal faces.
There was no way it could resurface and survive; its place was within the earth whence it had first come, and it had returned, awaiting the return of a friend, so that, once more, they may know the embrace of the earth.
A time came when the world began to fade, when the ground was no longer what those who still walked upon it had known it to be, when lay dust was picked up by the raging winds and whipped into the skies above, when ultimately the moon was red and bleeding. Trees began to be stripped off their leaves and rivers flowed far from their courses, gouging valleys and gorges out of the world's floor, and before long, mountains lay prostrate on the ground, flattened into a dismal stretch of boulders and soil that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the ugliness they had boasted of before. Men were beginning to lose direction, walking in search of what they knew was dying and dying in their presence and yet, both knowing and unknowing what lay beyond the horizons once guarded by an old face of nature: they strayed into unknown territories that contained no borders, no sense of progress but the moon and the sun that traversed the skies for ever and on.
The unwillingness to embrace fatigue against the threat of permanent change, the hopelessness that consumed victory each time they looked behind their shoulders to a world they knew had once been, men kept walking. It was akin to toil, nay, it was toil itself, but the memory of the world's knowledge moved them into newer lands. The Universe was closing in around them, bringing them closer and closer to their brothers; they constantly found themselves in each other's company whether they turned north toward the cold or south toward the warmth. And when hope and will began to walk together, to take measure of the treacherous plains stretching before all their eyes, they were one in murdering an identity that had once existed, that had once known walls. Where did the walls go? Who pulled them down? Why did the world have to fade at all?
The answers lay in the hidden memories of their feet, beneath their leathery, distance-worn soles, in the pedestrian muscularity of their shins and knees, which could still recall the thousands upon thousands of miles that had been tread: the world had changed to change man with it, and significantly yet, had changed because it knew the face of man thoroughly and withdrew its restraints and laws, its pervading sense of order, to a womb within itself, so they may gestate their until the day came when man would be lost again, so that the face he had befriended would fade and recall the Universe to its original duty, to a preternatural body that would nature nature. It was a cycle that lasted for days one time and centuries on another, but the cycle moved through space, time and the mind, where everything else took proper shape.
Almost forgotten between these two entities, perpetually depressed under the burden of their strange purposes, lay a span of time incredibly short and hungry, as if a fold that had been fighting a tenuous battle against whatever held it there, be it hope, be it will, or be it a memory of ice. What lay there, so, was a monster, a beast brought to lay dormant until a moment was upon some chosen ones by an expedient force from history, burgeoning with power and, therefore, open intentions toward dissonance, it resounded like echoes from the future, seeping into the present through impudent doubts. Some called it the Oldness, others the First Form, the aging skein of the first mountain that man had clomb, impugned within its soul the first evening they had spent together, man and nature, loss and possession, light and shadow, a memory upon which was founded a necessary darkness that sought to steal faces.
There was no way it could resurface and survive; its place was within the earth whence it had first come, and it had returned, awaiting the return of a friend, so that, once more, they may know the embrace of the earth.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
The third-world contingency problem
Matrices are used to represent curves on the Cartesian plane. Consider this matrix:
1 0It's a 2x2 identity matrix that can be represented on the Cartesian plane in terms of the x and y coordinates.
0 1
x yOn the Cartesian plane (or a graph paper), this can be represented by a line that goes from [0,0] to [1,1] with a slope of 45 degrees. Now, this is a two dimensional matrix where x and y are the dimensions. Let me add a new dimension, z, of depth. Now, if I were to represent the same line in space, it would be
x 1 0
y 0 1
x y zTo imagine this, think of a graph sheet where a line is drawn from [0,0] to [1,1]. By adding the z dimension, this line is drawn from [0,0,0] to [1,1,0]. To paraphrase, it is a line in a 3-dimensional space with a direction. In the first case, the line was a line: because of the starting point, the ending point and the slope being defined, it was scalar. Now, by adding one more dimension, the line has become a vector. This is a popular notion in mathematics: when an entity exists as a scalar in n dimensions, it will exist as a vector in n + 1 dimensions.
x 1 0 0
y 0 1 0
z 0 0 0
In order to prove this theorem, the origin of the n + 1 vector space must be found. Considering the above 3x3 matrix as a determinant and using Kramer's rule to solve it,
x y zIt becomes evident that-
x 1 0 0
y 0 1 0
z 0 0 0,
D = 1 0 0Thus, the solution as given by Kramer's rule:
0 1 0
0 0 0
Dx = 1 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
Dy = 0 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 0
Dz = 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
x = Dx / DIn doing so and substituting the [z,z] value with 0, 1 and -1, the value of the D determinant goes from 1, 1 and -1. In other words, the value of D on the number line goes from one side of zero to the other side. Since the number line is one dimensional, it has 2 directions within the dimension: positive and negative. Therefore, the same line which was a scalar in n = 2 dimensions now becomes a vector in an n+1 vector space because it now has directions as well as magnitude.
y = Dy / D
z = Dz / D
This problem, along with its many requirements and conclusions, is used widely used in economics. Before I state the problem, however, there is one more important concept: the Laplace transformation. Every vector space, in order to exist as a vector space, must conform to the basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. If it conforms, then it joins the vector space club.
Say there is a vector space denoted by V5 (i.e., having 5 dimensions). It conforms to the basic operations as well as 5 parameters of its own, three of which are length, breadth and height, one of which could be time, and the fifth one could be, for example, weight. All these dimensions are possessed by, say, a chair.
In order to transform this V5 space into a V6 space, the following rules must be met:
- The V6 space must conform to the basic mathematical operations
- 5 of the 6 dimensions of the V6 space must be length, breadth, height, time and weight
Take the chair. It has dimensions in a V3 space, a time component in a V4 space, and a weight component in a V5 space. In the V6 space, it may now assume a monetary value component.
Now, here is the problem:
Developing nations all around the world have a contingency plan for crises that is defined by 3 conditions: intrinsic non-monetary (Inm) parameter, extrinsic monetary (Em) parameter, and globalization(Glo).
Most economics models today, if not all, deal with the variations in Inm and Em exclusively. However, we know from reality that the variation in Inm and Em are not independent. To whit, if there is no rain during a particular season, the agricultural produce volume falls, agricultural exports fall, the imports increase, inflation within the country rises, the purchasing power parity falls, the income of the earner goes from enough to not-enough and foreign direct investments fall.
So, why can't economic models deal with them together? In mathematical terms, the solution for the [Inm, Em, Glo] vector space is found by excluding the set [Inm, Em], while in realistic terms, the [Inm, Em] space exists very much.
This is done so because of two reasons:
- The matrix denoting the relation between Inm and Em has too many parameters: there is no one factor that yields a proportionality relationship between Inm and Em.
- The relation between Inm and Em is a relation and not a function, a function being defined by a set variation pattern. While, one day, Inm and Em might be defined by a function f1, the very next day they become instances of another function, f2.
So, how is an economic model that deals with [Inm, Em] formulated?
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Rich man poor
I have 500 bucks,
But I can't have a Frooti!
This absence of change sucks,
This ugly Communist beauty!
But I can't have a Frooti!
This absence of change sucks,
This ugly Communist beauty!
Rich man poor
I have 500 bucks,
But I can't have a Frooti!
This absence of change sucks,
This ugly Communist beauty!
But I can't have a Frooti!
This absence of change sucks,
This ugly Communist beauty!
Sunday, 7 August 2011
The forces that move
The following is my assimilation of Dr. Prabhat Patnaik's fairly straightforward lecture delivered at the Asian College of Journalism on the 5th day of August, 2011.
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
Notes:
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
- The rise in numbers of the poor in western Europe
- Transitional problems in developing nations
- Institutionalization of equality
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
- Drop in unemployment - If the worker didn't have a job, he didn't stay unemployed in the that place. Instead, he moved to another place where he could be employed.
- Raise in standard of living for domestic workers (already discussed)
- Marketing of capitalist production - Countries slow to the awakening of capitalism suffered the "displacement" of the local markets because commercial proliferation of more-developed countries resulted in the encroachment of local markets
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
"Labour market institutions [can be] seen to inhibit the clearing functions of the market by weakening the demand for labor, making it less attractive to hire a worker by explicitly pushing up the wage costs or by introducing a negative shadow price for labor."
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
*
Notes:
- Superimposition - In those countries that developed capitalism later than the rest, the destruction of the old communities and the formation of the new ones were parallel processes, which was not the case with the early developers. So? So the pre-cap. communities were not fully broken down during the onset of capitalism, leading to a superimposition of the two. The early developers didn't have this problem.
- Fail-safe - Capitalism, when faced with challenges by the new and supposedly "pro-capitalist" community, makes compromises with the pre-cap. communities
- The difference between affirmative actions toward efficiency and affirmative actions toward equity, and why the former is mandated while the latter is not
- Poverty as a social construct
The forces that move
The following is my assimilation of Dr. Prabhat Patnaik's fairly straightforward lecture delivered at the Asian College of Journalism on the 5th day of August, 2011.
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
Notes:
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
- The rise in numbers of the poor in western Europe
- Transitional problems in developing nations
- Institutionalization of equality
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
- Drop in unemployment - If the worker didn't have a job, he didn't stay unemployed in the that place. Instead, he moved to another place where he could be employed.
- Raise in standard of living for domestic workers (already discussed)
- Marketing of capitalist production - Countries slow to the awakening of capitalism suffered the "displacement" of the local markets because commercial proliferation of more-developed countries resulted in the encroachment of local markets
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
"Labour market institutions [can be] seen to inhibit the clearing functions of the market by weakening the demand for labor, making it less attractive to hire a worker by explicitly pushing up the wage costs or by introducing a negative shadow price for labor."
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
*
Notes:
- Superimposition - In those countries that developed capitalism later than the rest, the destruction of the old communities and the formation of the new ones were parallel processes, which was not the case with the early developers. So? So the pre-cap. communities were not fully broken down during the onset of capitalism, leading to a superimposition of the two. The early developers didn't have this problem.
- Fail-safe - Capitalism, when faced with challenges by the new and supposedly "pro-capitalist" community, makes compromises with the pre-cap. communities
- The difference between affirmative actions toward efficiency and affirmative actions toward equity, and why the former is mandated while the latter is not
- Poverty as a social construct
Thursday, 9 June 2011
The morality of money
Let us clarify our moral position towards money.
Wherefore the hungry hand recedes from the market upon the doorstep of which it has laid down a product of its skill, thereunto extends the healthy hand the money that stamps the seal of fair exchange.
- It is unfair to blame the egoism of an egotist on the money he or she possesses.
- It is unfair to blame any evil inflicted upon the undeserving on the money that enables it.
- It is unfair to blame the failure of the working on the profits he or she may have first aspired for.
- It is unfair to assume that money may not purchase happiness or love without knowledge of all of one's recourses.
- It is unfair to conclude that money does not make the world go around irrespective of whether it may or may not.
- It is unfair to foist the status quo of the human condition upon the desire for money.
- It is unfair to include money into theocratic disciplines so as to justify its purpose in the hands of man, woman and/or child.
- It is unfair to exclude the institution of money from the successes of mankind.
- It is unfair to blame money whilst grieving the loss of money.
- It is unfair for any one man, woman and/or child to claim money is ephemeral.
- It is not wholly fair for all men, women and/or children to claim money is ephemeral.
- It is unfair to renounce money and, therefore, claim to have renounced materialism.
- It is unfair to hoist solely the blame of violating law upon money when it also facilitates the creation of law.
Wherefore the hungry hand recedes from the market upon the doorstep of which it has laid down a product of its skill, thereunto extends the healthy hand the money that stamps the seal of fair exchange.
The morality of money
Let us clarify our moral position towards money.
Wherefore the hungry hand recedes from the market upon the doorstep of which it has laid down a product of its skill, thereunto extends the healthy hand the money that stamps the seal of fair exchange.
- It is unfair to blame the egoism of an egotist on the money he or she possesses.
- It is unfair to blame any evil inflicted upon the undeserving on the money that enables it.
- It is unfair to blame the failure of the working on the profits he or she may have first aspired for.
- It is unfair to assume that money may not purchase happiness or love without knowledge of all of one's recourses.
- It is unfair to conclude that money does not make the world go around irrespective of whether it may or may not.
- It is unfair to foist the status quo of the human condition upon the desire for money.
- It is unfair to include money into theocratic disciplines so as to justify its purpose in the hands of man, woman and/or child.
- It is unfair to exclude the institution of money from the successes of mankind.
- It is unfair to blame money whilst grieving the loss of money.
- It is unfair for any one man, woman and/or child to claim money is ephemeral.
- It is not wholly fair for all men, women and/or children to claim money is ephemeral.
- It is unfair to renounce money and, therefore, claim to have renounced materialism.
- It is unfair to hoist solely the blame of violating law upon money when it also facilitates the creation of law.
Wherefore the hungry hand recedes from the market upon the doorstep of which it has laid down a product of its skill, thereunto extends the healthy hand the money that stamps the seal of fair exchange.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Damage Assessment (EWP)
Note: This article is part of the EWP
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Creative spark
The escalation of commitment can be quite a dreadful thing. Just a little more than a week ago, I set out to write a short story simply because I felt like writing fiction. Drawing inspiration from Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Against The Day’ and the names of particles in the Standard Model of particle physics (along with a working knowledge of the LHC at CERN), I first set out a simple header-plot (which is what I call the template from which I work upward). Once that was done, I checked it to see if it read well. It did.
Great! The next step was to define the characters’ personas, which, for me, doesn’t take much time because I ‘wing’ it (yes, you read that right), as I do the plot itself. The only things I decide beforehand are the only things I really enjoy deciding in the short-run: the names of the characters and the locales. Anyway, on the 7th of March, I began to write my story. (Download: session I)
Incomplete inspiration – hallucinating an abundance of opportunities – willingness to experiment – hesitation to lay out full plot
Reality hits
After two days or so, I realized to my horror that my narrative was going full speed ahead while the dialogue and character and plot developments were going nowhere. Back then, I had recently been criticized for indulging myself with too much prose at the risk of turning the whole endeavour pedantic and droll-like. In order to set it right, I scrolled back to the top of the page and began to edit what I’d written.
You see, I don’t edit my works much. I understand how an article or a story can be polished again and again and how there are so many techniques for that, but I’m a hesitating pacifist – and that means I get angry first and then calm down. So, if I gave myself time to calm down, I’d probably come up with something extremely blunt and literarily non-penetrating. Now, since I was editing this story, I began to have a bad feeling about it. My ideas and my intentions change so much within the same ideological bounds that there was a chance for a paragraph to turn out like a semantic singsong. (Download: session II)
Celebratory indulgence – brakes applied suddenly – improper attitude towards editing – thinking faster than writing
Battle for revival
The third challenge, and also the last one, I was left to confront now was the scripture of dialogues. I’d sucked at it in the past and had always strived to keep it at a minimum. Now, however, since the story seemed to be going good even though an indication of sunk costs was beginning to present itself, I decided to go for it.
Now, there are two kinds of dialogues that I’ve observed in stories. The first is between two people who are both active participators in the contents of the talk. This is the easiest to write because all you have to do is a conversation with yourself (which writers and philosophers do a lot) and then break it into two halves, one for each interlocutor. The second type is when two people are talking but only one of them is actually paying any heed to what’s being discussed, a type that is very important in most books written because if everyone listened to what was being spoken, there wouldn’t be a plot worth expounding for reams on. If you read the draft, you’ll be able to easily deduce that I struggled at writing the lines. (Download: session III)
Over-analysis – struggling to generate "flow" – very systematic approach
Desperate experimentation
The two ensuing sections of the story were actually written in the neighbourhood of 00:00, March 13, and opened up my eyes to the mistake I was doing: it seemed that if I started to script the dialogues, I was reluctant to take up the narrative, and if I started to script the narrative, I was reluctant to take up the dialogues. This resulted in conspicuous fault lines appearing all over the text – discernible easily to the reader to the point of him being able to read my mind, to the point of my work of “fiction” becoming transparent to his eyes. Also, in order to mask my own logical proclivities – which are strong enough as it is – I took the trouble to NOT be aware of the whole plot myself. This, in turn, awarded me with the liberty to experiment with what the two characters were saying to each other. This is a risky way to go about writing anything since, with the sunk cost fallacy being a real possibility, it could drain you of your creative faculties. (Download: session IV)
Retaining the option of "killing" a project as need be – consumed by occasionally trivial fears
Surrender
The last few paragraphs are what speak truly and openly of my defeat: the sentences are too long, the choice of words defer to a subconscious lack of precision, the uneven amount of attention paid to different parts of the same setting hint at the absence of decisiveness. Game over. (Download: session V)
Sunk costs – fractional kill – diminishing returns
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Fog index: 16.72
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Creative spark
The escalation of commitment can be quite a dreadful thing. Just a little more than a week ago, I set out to write a short story simply because I felt like writing fiction. Drawing inspiration from Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Against The Day’ and the names of particles in the Standard Model of particle physics (along with a working knowledge of the LHC at CERN), I first set out a simple header-plot (which is what I call the template from which I work upward). Once that was done, I checked it to see if it read well. It did.
Great! The next step was to define the characters’ personas, which, for me, doesn’t take much time because I ‘wing’ it (yes, you read that right), as I do the plot itself. The only things I decide beforehand are the only things I really enjoy deciding in the short-run: the names of the characters and the locales. Anyway, on the 7th of March, I began to write my story. (Download: session I)
Incomplete inspiration – hallucinating an abundance of opportunities – willingness to experiment – hesitation to lay out full plot
Reality hits
After two days or so, I realized to my horror that my narrative was going full speed ahead while the dialogue and character and plot developments were going nowhere. Back then, I had recently been criticized for indulging myself with too much prose at the risk of turning the whole endeavour pedantic and droll-like. In order to set it right, I scrolled back to the top of the page and began to edit what I’d written.
You see, I don’t edit my works much. I understand how an article or a story can be polished again and again and how there are so many techniques for that, but I’m a hesitating pacifist – and that means I get angry first and then calm down. So, if I gave myself time to calm down, I’d probably come up with something extremely blunt and literarily non-penetrating. Now, since I was editing this story, I began to have a bad feeling about it. My ideas and my intentions change so much within the same ideological bounds that there was a chance for a paragraph to turn out like a semantic singsong. (Download: session II)
Celebratory indulgence – brakes applied suddenly – improper attitude towards editing – thinking faster than writing
Battle for revival
The third challenge, and also the last one, I was left to confront now was the scripture of dialogues. I’d sucked at it in the past and had always strived to keep it at a minimum. Now, however, since the story seemed to be going good even though an indication of sunk costs was beginning to present itself, I decided to go for it.
Now, there are two kinds of dialogues that I’ve observed in stories. The first is between two people who are both active participators in the contents of the talk. This is the easiest to write because all you have to do is a conversation with yourself (which writers and philosophers do a lot) and then break it into two halves, one for each interlocutor. The second type is when two people are talking but only one of them is actually paying any heed to what’s being discussed, a type that is very important in most books written because if everyone listened to what was being spoken, there wouldn’t be a plot worth expounding for reams on. If you read the draft, you’ll be able to easily deduce that I struggled at writing the lines. (Download: session III)
Over-analysis – struggling to generate "flow" – very systematic approach
Desperate experimentation
The two ensuing sections of the story were actually written in the neighbourhood of 00:00, March 13, and opened up my eyes to the mistake I was doing: it seemed that if I started to script the dialogues, I was reluctant to take up the narrative, and if I started to script the narrative, I was reluctant to take up the dialogues. This resulted in conspicuous fault lines appearing all over the text – discernible easily to the reader to the point of him being able to read my mind, to the point of my work of “fiction” becoming transparent to his eyes. Also, in order to mask my own logical proclivities – which are strong enough as it is – I took the trouble to NOT be aware of the whole plot myself. This, in turn, awarded me with the liberty to experiment with what the two characters were saying to each other. This is a risky way to go about writing anything since, with the sunk cost fallacy being a real possibility, it could drain you of your creative faculties. (Download: session IV)
Retaining the option of "killing" a project as need be – consumed by occasionally trivial fears
Surrender
The last few paragraphs are what speak truly and openly of my defeat: the sentences are too long, the choice of words defer to a subconscious lack of precision, the uneven amount of attention paid to different parts of the same setting hint at the absence of decisiveness. Game over. (Download: session V)
Sunk costs – fractional kill – diminishing returns
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Fog index: 16.72
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