MEMBERS & VISITORS:
DESPITE HIGH HOPES, WE’RE REALLY STUPID
As I carefully watched two different bugs amble by me as I monitored the dove, raven, chickadee, hawk, wasp, fly, rabbit, and prairie dog traffic above, under, and around me I marveled at the miracle of their very beings. Their teeny weeny little brains and nervous systems can simply run circles around the most modern and sophisticated command, control, and communication systems of mankind. I recalled reading that self-driving cars (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/business/self-driving-autonomous-cars.html) would probably be delayed up to ten years because we couldn’t write reliable enough software to anticipate all of the things that other humans or animals may do which are in close proximity to the self-driving vehicle.
My two little actors I filmed could climb, avoid any obstacle, navigate any terrain, smell, speak various dialects of “bug”, reproduce, swim, fight, see, self-repair, refuel, dig, build a home, hide, and be movie stars! I recalled paratarsotomus macropalpis, a mite from southern California, travelling at 0.225 metres per second (0.5mph). This may seem slow, but with a body length of 0.7mm it equates to an extraordinary 322 body lengths/second. The F-16 aircraft, made by Lockheed Martin, in its fourth-generation, is often referred to as the Fighting Falcon. The F-16 can travel at speeds faster than Mach 2 – that’s more than 1,500 mph=7,920,000 ft/hour=2,200 ft/sec= 44 body lengths/second. If scaled up to F-16 size this little mite traveling on the ground would leave a real F-16 in its dust. (322 bl/sec vs. 44 bl/sec)
What, you may ask, does this have to do with geoengineering? Nothing. Except perhaps that in our arrogance and supposed superiority in knowing how this world was put together we’re gonna’ screw up so badly that we may never recover and we’ll prolly take down these magnificent little critters with us… Be humble dear ones.
Prof. Oku J. Singer, Mechanical/Solar Engineer
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