Elasticity

You can't fix systemic failure overnight, or even in five years. You either blow it up or wait a generation. Neither choice is pretty.

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Hypothesis

The media has been reporting several incidences of large numbers of birds or fish dying all at the same time.

My guess: atmospheric levels of toxic gas clouds, left over from this summer's volcano in Iceland, floating about or getting carried into the water because of rain. Just a guess ...

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Blind Alleys

Knowledge follows paths, as each new person adds to it. Some paths lead to advanced understanding, some just lead back onto themselves.

Knowing the complete space of knowledge from an invalid path is irrelevant, and possibly mis-leading. For once most people have framed their view of the world, they are stuck there forever. If that view is a step forward, then they to can move forward, but if that view is a backwards step of some kind, then that is were they end up.

We cannot know, with any branch of knowledge, whether it leads forwards, or backwards. We can only guess, and infere that it has either open a few doors, or closed them. In that way, everything we learn is in some way is dangerous to our being, if we are more likely to be trapped by that knowledge.

Fortunately, humans, many of them, are not necessarily stuck. It is a personal choice, one of freewill, to be able to question even our most dearly held assumptions. To some it comes easily, but it is available to us all, if we choose.

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