There seem to be a great number of social media posts recently on the subject of the meaninglessness of our lives. Some point to what they believe to be an absurd cycle of “eat, work, be entertained, sleep” that repeats itself endlessly until we become infirmed and ultimately die.
Personally, I see nothing absurd about any of this. Sure, our lives have no external meaning; it’s up to us to confer meaning to our existences by the choices we make. I used to say that I was put on Earth to solve corporate marketing challenges, the same way doctors are here to cure disease and cops are here to fight crime.
Also, this strikes me as a “first world problem.” Think for a moment how few people living in areas that are war-torn, impoverished, disease-ridden, or ruled by cruel tyrants, who have the bandwidth to concern themselves with the meaning of life and to bemoan its monotony.
I’m here for the same reason that any of us are: my parents had sex, and that’s essentially all that any of us can say, whether the pregnancy was planned or accidental. From there, it’s up to each one of us as individuals to make our way through the world.
There’s nothing about this that makes our lives absurd.
I met a guy earlier today who told me that wind and solar are controversial, and that some people say that the mining and manufacturing of wind turbines requires more fossil fuels that the turbines themselves produce.
I told him that I’m aware of such people; they’re called “professional liars.”
I explained the concept of EROI, energy return on investment, and surprised him by saying that the EROI of wind is somewhere between 18 and 30, meaning that each wind turbine you see as you drive along the freeway will generate at least 18 times as much energy as was required in its mining, fabrication, installation, maintenance, and decommissioning–all the way up to 30 times that amount.
The generation of disinformation of renewables has become a cottage industry. People are paid to make up and publish complete bullshit, so as to discredit the burgeoning clean energy industry, and keep Big Oil in place.
As bad as things are in the United States, they could always get worse.
Trump could succeed in his quest to be a dictator, Christianity could be taught in schools, and unvaccinated adults and their kids could trigger another epidemic.
In terms of our reputation on the world stage, however, things really can’t get must worse; the countries around the globe already regard us with a mixture of hate and derision.
Yet regardless of what the future holds, there will always be idiots who that believe that Trump is our savior, like the author of the meme above.
Good to see John Eastman disbarred in California; it’s a small measure of justice.
Criminal prosecution in the future?
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