The Wayward Axolotl

When I was 9 years old, I lived in an apartment complex at the edge of a small town. Behind the complex, there were hills covered with bunchgrass, sagebrush and a few old ponderosa pines. In those days, kids ran wild from dawn to dusk. We rode around on our bikes, played games, went exploring in the hills, etc. In the process, we learned about life. In the summer, there were lots of grasshoppers. They would often lay their eggs in cracks in the road. I would sometimes kneel on the road and watch them pumping their eggs into those cracks, oblivious to my presence. Once a female grasshopper is committed to laying her eggs, she stays there until the job is done. I have always been close to nature. I spent much of my time as a kid outdoors, exploring the landscape and observing plants and animals. I found those grasshoppers interesting for their own sake. But the other kids in the apartment complex enjoyed killing them. They made a game out of running over the grasshoppers with the...

Written in June, 2004. I am sitting on a log on the beach. It is a beautiful, sunny day in June. The sand is warm on my feet. I often come here in the afternoon, to gaze at the view and think. To the north, across the bay, you can see over the flat expanse of Delta to the skyscrapers of Vancouver. Beyond them, the mountains rise out of the haze. They are blue at this distance, with a few patches of snow still clinging to their peaks. It is low tide. The beach is sandy, then pebbly, and then the mudflats begin. At low tide, they stretch into the bay for a mile or so. A heron is standing in a tidal pool not far away, looking at me with one eye. Let’s go out on the mudflats. The pebbles are painful to bare feet. But then the cool mud is soothing. This is an estuary into which several creeks deposit their loads of silt. To the north, the Fraser River sends a big curling plume of muddy water into the ocean. Some of that plume curls back and settles down here. In a thousa...

Two days ago, Donald Trump called for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the US. Predictably, this caused a storm of protest from leftists, liberals and mainstream conservatives. Will it hurt Trump’s popularity with his base? Probably not. Will he win the Republican nomination? Probably. Will be become president? Maybe. I don’t agree with any of Trump’s off-the-cufflink proposals. I don’t think building a wall between the US and Mexico is necessary or practical as a way to stop illegal immigration. I don’t think that stopping all Muslims from entering the US is a practical way to deal with the problem of Islam. I don’t think that “parts of the internet should be closed off” (whatever that means). However, my views are not that different on the first two issues. In my opinion, the US should prevent illegal immigration and deport all illegal immigrants. The US should also drastically reduce legal immigration, and be more selective about it. So, although I don’t agree with T...

At the end of each DNA strand in your chromosomes, there is a sequence of base pairs that repeats over and over: TTAGGG. That sequence doesn’t code for a protein, but it has an important function. It causes the strand to fold on itself, which prevents it from unraveling. That sequence is the telomere. The concept of God has a similar function. It is not useful as a description of reality. It might appear to be simply memetic garbage, but it has an important function. It holds together a system of memes and prevents it from unraveling. Religion is a way of propagating knowledge down the generations. It is a package that holds accumulated knowledge, especially values. The symbols and rituals of religion are merely packaging for values and traditions that have important functions. Religion is an anchor for the values of an individual and the organizing principles of a society. It provides a foundation for thought and communication: an endpoint of reasoning and debate. It holds ...

A walrus and a carpenter were walking along the seashore one beautiful summer evening. “We should take off our shoes so we can feel the sand between our toes.” said the walrus. “That’s a fine idea, old friend.” said the carpenter. They took off their shoes and continued on their way, letting the waves wash over their feet. The carpenter was in a philosophical mood. “What do you think about life, the universe, and everything?” he asked the walrus. “I am a nihilist.” said the walrus. “There is no purpose to life, no meaning to our existence, no truths that we can know, no values to guide us.” The carpenter thought about this for a few minutes. “But earlier,” he said, “didn’t you suggest that we go for this walk?” “Yes,” said the walrus. “That was my idea.” “And didn’t you suggest that we take off our shoes?” asked the carpenter. “Yes,” said the walrus. “I thought it might be nice.” “How did you decide that we should do those things, instead of something el...

Most Social Justice Warriors know nothing about the long history of our movement. Many believe it started just a little while ago. The truth is that the struggle against oppression has been going on for all of human history. This is a little story about the fight for social justice. It happened long ago, not the 1960s but the 1560s, in a town called Szigetvár in what is now Hungary. The great community organizer, Suleiman the Magnificent, the leader of the #TurkishLivesMatter movement, organized a big protest against the Christian white supremacists of Europe who refused to accept undocumented refugee immigrants into their lands. He organized a large group of 150,000 refugee protesters, and they headed north, determined to speak truth to power. After many long days of travel, during which the magnificent leader had to be carried in a litter because of his obesity, the protesters arrived at the city of Szigetvár. It was defended by more than 2000 white supremacist haters, und...

In the 30 years from 1980 to 2010, the population of Africa more than doubled. That is a natural rate of growth for a human population without environmental constraints. Actually, it is a low estimate, because there were famines, horrific wars, and deadly diseases in Africa during those years. Also, many people in Africa had access to modern birth control. Nevertheless, the population doubled in less than 30 years. So, doubling every 30 years is a very conservative estimate of a natural rate of human population growth without war, disease, famine and modern birth control. Many populations have grown faster than that. Now consider how that rate of growth would increase a population over time. In 30 years, the population would double. In 300 years, the population would double 10 times, so it would multiply by 1024. In 1000 years, the population would double roughly 33 times, so it would multiply by about 8.6 billion. In 10,000 years, the population would double 333 ti...