Presented Without Proof(an exercise for the reader)

So many opinions.. so much discussion.. so much controversy..

Every now and then (and today, at 12:40 PM I still haven’t headed in to work yet) I like to pass an hour of time by going to the New York Times opinion page and clicking on everything with a remotely interesting headline.  Lately this habit has become more fun because of schadenfreude–

Well, really, it’s not schadenfreude– I was unemployed myself just months ago– as it is a sort of Vonnegut-like glee at catastrophe.  The whole world seems to be going to hell, and you see it in the unemployment numbers as well as the torturous debate about new media, which is really a debate about the future of knowledge.  What inspired me to post today (and here begins the eponymous spouting off) is the symmetry among the various themes of culture, economy, and ecology, the latter vis-a-vis the weak but still transformational climate change bill which, weakened as it is, will never make it past the (appallingly timid) US senate.

Of course, climate change is an issue which is dear to my heart as well as my profession.  Activists and researchers alike have had to come to terms with two crucial facts: first, global change is occurring and will have unpredictable (and potentially cataclysmic) effects regardless of any mitigation efforts we could conceivably enact.  Now, of course, there cannot be any such thing as scientific proof that cataclysm will occur, only that cataclysm has occurred, at which point it will be too late.  Second, many people, including possibly a majority of Americans, either do not understand or are not significantly concerned about the possibility of global change.  In a democratic society, the twentieth-ranked issue is ever unaddressed.

What does this have to do with new media and old economies?  Well, superficially, the similarities are not insignificant.. we see a continued outcry of opinion and concern..people see that shit is going down.. and yet nothing is changing.  In the copyright debate people are arguing for an extension of copyright privileges to prohibit linking; in economics, the watered-down stimulus has “failed,” and even with taxpayers on the hook for $12T, Wall Street bonuses “may reach 2007 levels”; and cap-and-trade legislation has somehow to be constructed in a way that it will not raise consmer prices.  Raising consumer prices is the whole point of cap and trade– to provide economic incentives to spur new investment and changes in behavior.  This is Econ 101.  And I haven’t even mentioned health care or the state of public education.

And so the months roll past and the bloviators argue.  Nothing changes.  And nothing will change.  Except newspapers will, one by one, go bankrupt.  Knowledge will become more contingent, less researched, more opinion, less fact.  The ocean will continue to acidify, having possibly “detrimental” effects on the ecosystems that provide the basis for the marine food chain.  Maybe that won’t affect fish stocks.  It’s hard to imagine, honestly, that that wouldn’t affect fish stocks.  And as the ranks of the effective unemployed crawl towards 20% of the US population, just as health care costs continue to escalate and education once again becomes a stepping stone for the privileged few towards greater privilege, simultaneously the revenues that fund public agencies dry up and services vanish.. In California, the state with nearly a 2/3 majority of liberal democrats in the Assembly, the government stopped paying people with cash today and we’re careering toward a libertarian wet dream.  Private everything!

By the way, property values in Santa Barbara have not dropped and I am still spending 60% of my take-home on rent.  Plus it’s not entirely clear whether I’m going to get an 8% pay cut (or even if the state will start paying me with an IOU).

So sitting back and watching (and occasionally spouting off) is really all I can do to maintain my sanity.

In other news, I’ve had “Thriller” stuck in my head for four days and my humming is threatening Abbie’s sanity.