Last night I sat here staring at this blank screen and wondered what to write so my husband today suggested something positive because things are bleak now for many of us. And I imagine for some very much more than others.

However as I cast about for inspiration last night I found this article about the real life case of Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'. A group of boys were marooned on an island in the Pacific for over a year and none of them died or killed each other, instead they cooperated, worked hard to survive and when one of them broke a leg, the group rescued and cared for him until he was better.

And while times were tough for these castaways when they argued they enforced strict time outs. But in all their story is about cooperation and friendship which allowed them to and gave them reason to survive.

There are many remarkable people on this planet doing extraordinarily courageous things for others, including mothers going through agony to give birth, who sacrifice their time, constantly put themselves last for the sake of their family... Somehow this is expected and seldom acknowledged - perhaps one day a year - perhaps.

Then there are the doctors and nurses working to save people's lives during this COVID-19 crisis, more than 200 dying in the world as a result to close contact with people sick with the virus.

It's too easy to focus on our differences and to hate those who we think don't belong in our camp. We see this so commonly with politics, when politics, imo, is meant to be nothing more than a public service, where politicians should only be motivated by the common good - not so, especially among republicans. But I have been unfriended, shouted at and blocked by Bernie Sanders supporters. The more vicious the attack I just assume they are Russian hackers trying to split the left so as a lefty I wouldn't be tempted to support Sander's if he won the nomination. And since this is how some Sander's supporters behave those who aren't Russian hackers want to belong to this group so they also engage in this behavior also; when in fact we all want the same thing, to end citizens united, single-payer quality healthcare for all, equal rights for everyone in this country and the world; and good quality free education at all levels for everyone. I also want quality services for all people regardless of where they live. I want to end debt slavery and a clean rich healthy environment that wildlife and humans need. We can do much better than we are.

And this is probably where our environment plays it's winning hand, it knows exactly how to shut us down. We humans think we are so clever, we don't think we need a clean healthy environment - this is rich old male hubris - and then we get COVID-19 and we all shut down. Well played mother nature, well played.

It is us that save the orphaned elephants and ostriches and allow them to be able to survive - together. It is us we need, we humans are pretty wonderful, full of kindness, courage and intelligence - and while mother nature may be winning this current round with COVID-19, we have evolved huge brains to figure out solutions and we will solve this. But mother nature only means to teach us a lesson. If she was done with us a nearby star would supernova and destroy us completely, something our big brains will never be able to save us from unless we have already left this solar system far behind.

But before I scuttle off, I would like to remind everyone of a quote from the guy who rescued those boys castaway on that Pacific island: “Life has taught me a great deal, ... including the lesson that you should always look for what is good and positive in people.”

We all need and depend on each other.

I was recently reading an article about COVID-19 being a disaster for women because women have to do most of the caring for the elderly and children. Indeed I find I have to provide more entertainment for the men in my circle of online acquaintances. People needing/expecting my attention and giving me little in return for it. In the end I find myself distancing myself from them because I find I just don't have the stamina to keep on giving when I know I will not receive any real benefit from giving so much of myself.

One woman said she needed space (time) to be creative but she had to communicate with a usually absent room mate because she felt obligated to pick up the slack. I felt her pain - I know I need time to prepare to write code and pursue my various creative activities.

Women form a fundamental glue by communicating with other members of society. Communication is essential to the nature of human existence - we need one another - but men, although they feel this, seldom if at all acknowledge it or those who provide this essential service, and then it's expected.

Like having babies and raising them - it's just expected - it's not an important service - IE to the economy - raising children is raising those that will inherit the economy and society. Those children will be taking care of you when you retire one day - yet women take those children and teach them language, teach them to dress, use the bathroom and manners. It is a vital service for our society. If men had to raise children there wouldn't be enough money to pay them to do so. Similarly if men provide the service of entertainment - they are paid way more to provide this service than women usually ever are. Look at late night talk show hosts - are any of them female? (I don't know - I seldom watch late night talk shows)

It is men who get to close the door on the rest of the world when they are finished communicating so they can then prepare to create something. This is why there are the Eulers, Descartes, Newtons, Fermats... men who felt the urge to think and write their ideas down. These men were infrequent enough, but they had that time because they didn't have to provide services expected from them like entertainment and child raring. And if a woman ever felt the urge to think and write her ideas down they were forgotten because we just expected it and forgot that they'd ever existed in the first place.

The coronavirus has highlighted how quickly our society becomes out of control, as demonstrated by the panic buying, of all things, toilet paper. Our peace is fragile. This is compounded by the republicans light-hand on the steering wheel when society needs most someone saying they have this under-control - when it is very clear republicans had no control over the situation at all.

Then we have the sterling example of Rand Paul (a doctor!??) who did his best to spread the coronavirus. Let that sink in for a moment.

These empty shelves very much remind me of those soviet era breadline photos. Capitalism out of control? Toilet paper is one thing nice and useful but what about the real stuff, the stuff we are going to eat, milk for instance?

Whenever I have asked libertarians why didn't countries like Iraq and Afghanistan become paradises when those countries lose their govts, they will mutter something about stability, but we saw recently how quickly things spun out of control in the US with the toilet paper lines in our supermarkets, perhaps it's merely a veneer of stability in our society? Anyway it was clear corporations weren't interested in setting up in Iraq had it's govt removed by the US and decades after Russia removed the govt in Afghanistan the place had devolved into misery.

While most of the time things are fine, we can ignore the existence of govt most of the time, depending on what you do, but for me, it only becomes important when my husband is preparing our tax returns, so for a few days of year the government is miserable, but then a drive down the Big Sur quickly reminds us how much we love the California govt anyway - after all the landslides, the California made the roads safe to use again. I didn't see signs from the huge corporate headquarters not too far from the Big Sur saying how they'd contributed to restoring those roads.

Sure the govt takes a share of our earnings but we get a lot more from the govt than we get from the other corporations we deal with on a much more annoying and constant basis, like our internet provider which is flaky with outages and substandard service. Yes we could ring about our broken router but we already know what their service department will tell us and we haven't even rung yet. And we know whose problem it really is.

We pay far more in corporate profits then we do in taxes. Corporations must make a profit, govts do not. Corporations make a profit at the expense of the customer and as a result our internet and telephone system is appalling in comparison to the socialists systems of Europe with much better internet and telephone equipment.

The problem with libertarianism is that it founded on wishful thinking and lies. They have no proof any of the garbage they rattle off has any truth, most of it has never been tested. It's nothing but spin to bolster profits of rich old men. An example of these lies is they want to dismantle the public education system because they think it's expensive and it'd be a way to bring down US property taxes, perhaps. So they say public schools deliver substandard education compared to private schools. But if you remove public schools that are supposedly bad then private schools will be bad anyway because they'll have nothing to be better than. However if you under fund public schools then they will be bad and this is one way republicans are trying to bring about the demise of public schools so they will get worse with a self-feeding cycle.

The thing about libertarians is they don't like people telling them what to do, but I don't see the govt telling me what to do. Freedom is a state-of-mind and happiness is found in our relationship/bonds to other people, within which our freedom is negotiated.

A society is only as good as how the poorest/weakest members are treated in that society. we have to admit that there are states in the US where the society is terrible. Places where it's unsafe for colored people and women to be in those communities.

I have never enrolled in an MBA so I am going out on a limb here when I say that I think MBA thinking is causing many of our problems.

MBA graduates are welcomed by most businesses so they can optimize profits by steering from quarterly business report to quarterly business report by minimizing expenses and maximizing revenue without thought for the ramifications of immediate actions or long term consequences.

For instance, sacking staff to reduce the expense of their salary and leaving a skeleton staff to perform all the work. This might work in the short term, but the existing staff quickly become overworked and possibly sick. Those staff are turned over and replaced as necessary by cheaper staff. There is no loyalty to staff, except possibly those at the top.

Great for short term profits and that's all that matters, to them. The functioning of the business is still going on as best as possible but the business might eventually be sold off or just die and that fits with MBA Darwinian thinking. Survival of the fittest and being cut-throat is all included in MBA business thinking.

We especially see this in how they manage their waste. They just dump it away from anyone who might matter. They grease palms of politicians rather than clean up after themselves. The greasing of palms is more than hobnobbing in the right circles, boys meeting up over drinks, at business meetings all around the world, desirable and enjoyable for those who participate. This might be put down to the cost of doing business, rather than an expense per se, and explained as future savings (or Orwellian doublethink).

That might be great for the business in question but then many businesses are avoiding dealing with their waste it becomes a serious burden to the environment, other humans and other living creatures trying to survive in the waste, and we aren't even talking about CO2 or other greenhouse gases, as much as the MBA graduate might wish us to just not use that term and deny their existence.

But there are corollaries to the MBA thinking, the lawyer blame game - which is preventing Japan from cleaning up the mess of Fukushima. Lawyers for the nuclear power plant are blaming the nuclear power plant manufacturer for the disaster as they play pingpong with legal documents - and still no one has done anything about the disaster. Lawyers are very efficient at playing such delay games and meanwhile we moved on, for most of us it has been forgotten.

Then there is the skill of avoiding responsibility by letting businesses go bankrupt (some that cause massive damage to the environment and the water supply). This is the game Donald Trump loves to play; and Gary Southern tried to play, but at least he got a wrist slap, unlike Rick Snyder. I still can't see what benefit Snyder got from switching the water intake to the polluted source in Michigan. Perhaps hoping the people would drink the pollution rather than let it get into the lake? I don't know, but it seems unlikely.

The only certain loser in MBA thinking are people and the environment; and until we start putting ourselves and our home, this planet, our earth, over profit margins, we will continue to lose and while pollution is kept well out of sight of the rich and powerful, eventually this will hurt them as well. As I read someone say once, when all the water has been polluted, we won't be able to drink oil.

MBA thinking will eventually destroy the very thing it's seeking to protect. Even the world bank is saying pollution is hurting economic growth. One of the universal laws of the universe is everything is recycled. The universe recycles everything, our environment recycles everything, eventually. I don't think our society will be stable until recycling is incorporated into all of our business models. Because our model at the moment is dig it up, use it for a limited amount of time and then throw it away. While we are watching much evolution in technology, we aren't seeing anything sustainable - and while MBAs are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of continuous profit margins, we and our environment is groaning under the weight of them.

This includes the sugars that are included into many of our foods. They are added so we want to eat it and want more of it, despite it causing obesity, tooth decay, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer's.

MBA thinking is killing us. Profits uber alles.

Ms Carter was recently released from prison a few days ago for involuntarily killing her 'boyfriend' Conrad Roy.

She told a female friend two months after his death that she ordered him back into the truck where he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Why would people think he'd obey her 'orders'?

I know people have told other people to commit suicide, perhaps not all the time, but it has happened. In some states of the US people have been prosecuted for urging others to suicide. In many cases there is documented evidence.

But according to HBO's series 'I love you now die' there is no actual evidence other than her boasting about it to a friend; when her friends were very selective about what they believed about what she said.

The whole thing to me sounds like blaming the female rape victim for her supposedly having so much power of males that the female is responsible and to blame for the male raping her in the first place. Did Michelle Carter have so much power over Mr Roy that her telling him to get back into the truck was an order he must obey?

I find this all rather insulting to males that they have no self control. The rapist is a complete victim to females that he had no control over the situation, you could almost say she raped him - and no doubt some men would say this is true. Similarly Mr Roy could have hung up the phone, turned off his phone or even blocked her calls completely if he hadn't decided to commit suicide.

In my opinion it is nothing more than blaming the victim for the situation they had no control over.

I remember telling a woman on twitter once that she hated women and she scoffed saying that that was nonsense because she was a woman; but indeed, such beings exist.

I have written about this before but I wanted to emphasize the making of a female misogynist. In this article, the author talks about the image of female misogynists. I would say that most female misogynists come in the form of 'I am equal to men but other women are not', or 'no woman is equal to a man, including myself and my daughters'. An example of the first kind is Phyllis Schlafly - someone who uses women's hard fought for rights to take those rights away from women. The second kind is pretty much any evangelical religious woman who believes women should be submissive to their husbands.

Anyway, I wanted to discuss creating a female misogynist. I only have anecdotal evidence but it seems women who have been brutalized by a man somehow and she seeks a woman, IE her mother/sisters..., and they have given her no sympathy. I have heard of a number of examples of such women.

I don't know what turns men into misogynists. However it may be men who cannot get sex - the classic incel; they were bred that way by misogynistic mothers (I have known some of these) or something else.

I have known a number of gay men who hate women.

I don't see why all women must be stridently feminist although I do think all women should be treated as well as men are and want equal rights. Feminism isn't trying to make men inferior to women, what I believe most feminists want is to get rid of social hierarchy.

Sometimes some men leave me scratching my head. And being supposedly smart doesn't necessarily exclude all men from being incredibly stupid. For instance this article, it sounds like they have thought their deep thoughts and decided that humans invented language for profound reasons, this juxtaposition between humans being able to create symbols in different manners somehow makes us exceptional and thus language evolved.

Clearly these men never raised a baby, or they may well be fathers but never really had anything to do with their kids because pretty much any mother will tell you why language was invented - so we can communicate basic human needs. Most mothers have experienced the frustration of trying to figure out what is the difference between a cry of pain, hunger or discomfort. That discomfort may come in a multiple of varieties, meaning diapers need changing, extreme tiredness, perhaps even boredom, or the need for exercise... and yet the baby has only one mode to communicate all of that - crying.

Anyone trying to communicate with a child learning language knows the frustration of trying to figure out what the kid is saying when their sentences are ill formed and they still can't pronounce certain sounds.

Yet men think language evolved so we could express profound thoughts? I do not think so.

Men's genius at understanding simple things is often staggering and isn't limited to language, let's have a look at how men think learning happens. In this article the awful technique of training artificial neural networks is discussed.

The skinny on training artificial neural networks is you expose the neural network to the same examples over and over again until the artificial neural network kinda repeats what you showed it back at you - and by 'kinda' i really mean 'kinda'. This is nothing like how humans learn - yeh okay you may not remember the letter 'g' the first time you see it and are told it's a 'g' when you're a child, but you don't have to be told upwards of 2000x unless you have some kind of learning disability, and when I said 'kinda', you wouldn't be happy if you told your child it's a 'g' and the child came back and said it's probably a 'g' but it's only 78% certain. You might find that pretty exciting because we know in our heart that nothing is certain, but the reality of human learning is a 'g' is a 'g' - that 78% is definitely meant to be 100%. But artificial neural networks, despite all the hype really aren't that good at simulating human learning. Meanwhile that 78% that the neural network has learned comes at the expense of learning the letter 'z' and 'q' - which are quickly forgotten by the neural network because they don't appear very often - and the 78% certainty of it being a 'g' doesn't even mean something as sophisticated as the neural network getting it confused with an '8' either.

Yet AI is being hyped as the next best thing since sliced bread. Probably because those of silicon valley believe that the first to market - which is probably true unfortunately because customers can play follow the leader because they know they aren't experts. The reality is, the experts aren't experts either.

I guess the name says it all. Aliens have become a problem - they are illegally entering the country and ruining everything forever, according to the political right, especially the illegal kind.

It is probable that the right specifically use the word 'alien' to refer to people without an appropriate visa or citizenship to invoke feelings of fear in the population, but why is the concept of alien so frightening?

I would put it down to the idea that the word alien is most commonly applied to extraterrestrial beings who supposedly abduct people in the middle of the night to perform awful experiments on them.

But our vision of aliens have changed over the years, where aliens have mostly been aggressive seeking to invade and take our planet, and sometimes their aggressive nature has manifest in our technologies, like with the X-files, a common thread was that aliens presented as black oil.

Aliens have pretty much presented themselves as aggressive or something to be feared with two notable exceptions, Star Trek, especially the original series, which was very much emblematic of the 60s; the other except was Kubrik's 2001 where aliens are a kind of beneficial force, and the movie Contact - where aliens serve as a kind of mirror for humanity.

And I think this is the purpose that aliens really serve for us, they are a metaphor for our hopes and dreams, our fears and technology.

Regarding our technology, earlier this year there was a rash of articles saying aliens might attempt to communicate with us via DNA, which has advanced our understanding in a number of ways. I still think we have much to learn about DNA, things like that it is a kind of hologram that must be read across a number of chromosomes at once, not just down the lengths of chromosomes, one at a time like when it is being reproduced.

I think our fear of aliens is based on our fear that aliens will be just like us - or attitudes when we colonized landmasses like Australia, the Americas, the islands in the pacific and else where. Western arrogance had no respect for the natives of these lands and introduced western diseases, claimed and destroyed their lands, ruined the native people's culture, traditions and harmony with the land.

We are afraid aliens will be just like us, coming with their superior technology and then wipe our culture out.

I suspect when we meet aliens they will be nothing like us and would rather be more afraid of us.

When Hitler set up fascist Germany along with those working with him, in my opinion, despite how misguided they were in their marginalization of various ethnic groups, they, the fascists, thought they were acting to benefit Germany. They were no doubt wrong and hurt Germany quite a lot when they were doing so.

On the other hand we have Trump, very much working from Hitler's playbook, marginalizing various ethnic groups for the amusement of his base, being cruel because he can - I think he probably enjoys being cruel, and doing other things to please to his base, and including upsetting 'liberals' because for some of his base that is all they want - is the so called 'liberal tears'.

I don't want anything so mean-spirited and trivial as 'conservative tears'. I find this astonishing because as a 'liberal' I want what's best for everyone, or the long term benefit for the majority of people and for our home, this planet. Curiously enough on Twitter I have seen a number of people gleefully rejoice in 'liberal tears' and I have found the retort of 'is that all you want - something so trivial? Because I want a better world for all of us, not just liberals.' This shuts them down completely.

But I am not the first person to make a comparison between Hitler and Trump, and some even borrow directly from Hitler. Republicans have made the comparison, along with others. If you want to find others, do a google search.

No doubt even Republicans, in general, think that benefiting the rich benefits America (somehow - and I guess it might if you believe in so called trickle down economics - which genuinely does not benefit people of average or low income) and so although they too are misguided they still think they are benefiting America in a convoluted way. My take on republicans is they have bought the notion of short term profit margins like quarterly reports - and they are only focused on the next profit/loss statement. So making huge amounts of money for the rich now benefits the rich now. They aren't interested in long term - they can't see beyond the next quarterly report of their profit/loss statement. This is  very bad long term for us and the planet.

Anyway I digress.

Trump is only benefiting himself and those of his base who are satisfied with merely 'liberal tears' - along with the awful treatment of Kurds, Latin Americans, other immigrants and refugees. Imo Trump only really enjoys the cruelty and he'd sell his base out in a heartbeat if it was to his benefit. All his base really wants is the show and just don't care about whatever long term consequences there may be.

This is really a statement about his base and how privileged they are to think they are unaffected by Trump's actions. It is also a statement about politics - it has become nothing but entertainment, and all we are doing is electing a celebrity, not someone who is trying to serve the country, not someone who realizes the complexities of trying to plan for the future and do the best for everyone. Politics isn't for the amusement of the privileged or for short term profit alone.

It's true that the science isn't settled about what will happen as more and more carbon dioxide CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere because our climate has changed in the past and will change and change again in the future. But given that we can only run this experiment once, we better get the answer right.

Now since there are many things acting upon our environment some people think this is a call to do nothing - like it's out of our control - but we know that's not true. We are one of the actors and we have a lot of control over what we do and what we will permit. For instance they've found plastic bags in the depths of the ocean and in Antarctica. We have a large impact on our planet and each time we cut down a tree we are impacting our environment. So we are being disingenuous to think our environment is completely out of our control.

So while the science isn't settled on climate change, this is not a call to do nothing. In fact it is the opposite, it is time we take responsibility for the well being of our environment and if the sun is causing climate change (which I doubt) we should be doubling down on our efforts to ensure the climate stays stable - for purely the sake of self-preservation.

Why? For a start a) there is no where else for us to move to. While we are looking to building habitats on the moon and Mars, we are still a long way off from being able to live there and b) we will still be dependent on the earth for our technology and food for a long while to come.

Yes, our technology is dependent on our civilization on this planet earth. Apparently there is no single person on earth who knows how to make a computer mouse - everything from the tiny circuit board in there, the laser, the plastics that make up your mouse, and all the code - plus then the people who know how to make the plastics and mine the materials for the circuit board, they very probably don't know how to grow all the food those people need to eat or the coffee they drink while they are creating those circuits and plastics and then assembling your mouse - and that's just your mouse. Then there are clothes, the technology to move about and the entertainment you might want when you are living on Mars, plus then there are all the other people you need to make up your world, whether they are medical personal, people you work with, people you love or the people who brew your coffee at your favorite coffee shop.

So let's do a cost-benefit analysis on climate change. This is definitely the kind of thing you might find mixed in with your quarterly stock report so here goes:
We have 2 options, do nothing about climate change, or do all we can.
And the climate scientists might be right or they may be wrong. Either way they have been studying this - kind of like if you get cancer, you don't go to your barista for advice. Why is it we don't trust climate scientists? I have a PhD in data science, I know I am no expert on climate science, but I am a scientist. When scientific consensus is that we have a problem, I am not going to disagree with them.

So the experts say we have a problem, if they are right and we fix our environmental problems, then great. We get a bunch of new technology, we get to continue living and can continue to use our technology. Plus we get a clean environment. This is the responsible and adult thing to do. The downside is some old rich guys are out some money but they are old and will be dead soon because they are old.

If the scientists are right and we don't fix the environment - old rich guys will remain rich which won't benefit them much because they're old and will soon be dead anyway. The downside is we and our technology are fucked. We are already experiencing extreme weather events.

If the scientists are wrong and we don't fix the environment - old rich guys will of course remain rich. We get to continue to live in the filthy mess that rich old guys want us to live in.

If the scientists are wrong and we do fix the environment then we get a whole bunch of new technology and we get a clean planet to live in. Sure old rich guys may be out of some money but they'll be dead soon anyway.

In my opinion there is no downside to fixing the environment and it is the responsible thing to do. We have the knowledge and skill to manage our environment and we will be dependent upon this planet, whether we set up colonies on the moon and Mars, for probably centuries to come.

We can't afford to live in denial despite all the money there is in denying the problem. We need oil for much transportation that our technology doesn't cover yet. Plug-in hybrids work well for the average family who can afford one. But our plug-in hybrid tech may not cut it for ships, trains, planes and semi-trailers. However we have CO2 recapture technology which we could use for fuel rather than drilling for oil.  The environment will thank us and this recaptured CO2 fuel could be used for transportation plug-in hybrid doesn't work for, otherwise we can store the CO2 underground while we work on solving our emissions problems.

In many ways our understanding of ourselves and our environment is just beginning - our technology is cool but it also is quite primitive in that we don't have recycling built into our manufacturing - we bring products to market that are designed to be thrown into landfill too soon. When our manufacturing and development recycles itself in accordance with the principles of the universe, IE the universe and our environment recycles everything in time, will our society be sustainable, then we will be able to live on new worlds.