The Institute for Sustainable Technological Research and Development

The Institute for Sustainable Technological Research and Development (ISTRR) would be an organization that focuses on providing resources for and funding to groups and/or individuals that are working towards creating sustainable technologies. In terms of defining what sustainable technologies is, technologies that promote the reduction of waste, energy consumption, or help the environment qualify under this definition. Promoting research in these areas will contribute towards not only reducing environmental damage and global warming, but also possibly help pave the way for colonization of different planets.

Realistically speaking, I personally feel that colonization of different planets very far from happening, and not likely to be achieved at a large scale during our lifetimes. However, I do believe that our generation can help contribute towards the technologies that will make the colonization of different planets and commercial space travel possible. More specifically, in order to effectively colonize planets that at the very least, take months to travel to, colonies will need to be able to sustain themselves. In the short term, the ISTRR looks towards helping the environment by finding sustainable ways to produce more energy. In the long run, the ISTRR is hoping to be able to help with the endeavor of space colonization by providing resources to scientists in the present to discover ways to produce energy more efficiently or reduce waste. In this sense, the organization is unique because there are tangible short term and long term goals that the organization works towards developing.

Anima Mundi Development Partners should support the ISTRR because of the impact the organization will have on the course of history. In the same way that the advent of air travel has changed the course of history and positively benefitted society, the traveling of the stars could have a similar potential impact. Even when considering the present, the introduction of more sustainable technologies could potentially be enough to create a noticeably positive impact on the world in itself.

Part. I: World We Dare to Imagine

In thinking about how I would go about changing the world, I thought about the biggest problems that the world was facing right now. Since there are so many areas that the world could be improved at the moment, I couldn't necessarily pick any singular problem outright. Some of the problems that I identified that really stood out to me were global warming, overpopulation, and an exhaustion of the world's natural resources. In finding a solution that addresses all of these issues, I looked to the people that I admire for inspiration. The best solution that I could reach was one that Elon Musk is working on right now. If I didn't have to worry about money, I would choose to change the world through space exploration and the colonization of different planets.

I'm focusing more on problems such as global warming, overpopulation, and exhaustion of the world's natural resources because these problems are more easily understood than other problems. Increased natural disasters that occur as a result of global warming and a struggle for necessities that result from overpopulation and the constantly growing consumption of finite natural resources are issues that people all over the world can agree are detrimental to the lives of not only those around today, but also future generations. By solving these issues, a large majority of conflicts in the world could be mitigated. In a broader sense, once these issues are solved, more resources could be devoted to solving other issues.

From the perspective of people living in third world or developing countries, social issues such as racism and discrimination seem relatively unimportant because these people are struggling to survive due to a lack of food. I know it seems a bit farfetched, but my reasoning behind how space exploration and the colonization of different planets can help these people can be explained through backwards induction. The colonization of and migration to different planets reduces the population on Earth, and allows resources to be distributed more evenly among the people on Earth. Additionally, by reducing the number of people on Earth, overall carbon emissions are decreased and the Earth is left better off overall. Once resources can be distributed more evenly on Earth, people in third world and developing countries can have more secure and regular access to necessities. When these people are no longer worrying about how to gain access to necessities such as food and water, they can more effectively turn their attention towards other issues that are negatively impacting society.

EXTRA CREDIT Random CHESS Post

In my last random post, I promised that I would talk about chess again, so here's that promise! I actually had to stop playing chess for a little bit because of midterms, but now I'm playing again and I think I've hit a slump. I've pretty much exhausted all of the opening and gambits on YouTube and I've been stuck at my rank for quite some time now, so I think I'll need to get a book to learn some really obscure and awesome strategies. Earlier this year, around March, I read a book by Bobby Fischer that went over some basic mating patterns and how to avoid setting yourself up in them and I was able to pretty much immediately see results after finishing the book. I'm not sure if it's because I was pretty at chess back then, but I was surprised by how much my rank improved. This time around, I don't think I'll improve as much as I did back then since I would reach the ranking level of masters after only reading 2 books, but hey fingers crossed. 

One thing I want to get out there about chess though, is that you don't actually have to be extremely intelligent to be good at chess. Contrary to popular belief, the best chess players don't actually rely on fluid intelligence (being able to think and adapt to new situations and come up with solutions). Good players actually rely heavily on crystalized intelligence (capacity to memorize). The best players simply have hundreds, or more likely, thousands of scenarios memorized. For each of those scenarios that they have memorized, they know the best move to use. When I first heard about the reliance on memorization, I was skeptical. But honestly, after playing for so long, I can safely say that this statement is true. One game I remember between Garry Kasparov and someone else (I can't remember his name) demonstrated this perfectly. In an interview following the match, Kasparov stated that he was surprised on move 26 because his opponent had deviated from Kasparov's recollection of how the game should have progressed. In other words, the game had progressed exactly according to how Kasparov recalled from memory, until the 26th move when his opponent made a blunder. Memorizing all of these combinations sounds challenging, but trust me, if you play chess a few hours a day everyday for years on end, you start to memorize patterns, consciously or subconsciously. I'm not saying I'm a great chess player either. I'm about the rank of the average competitive chess player. But now that I am ranked fairly well,  I can finally see how impactful crystallized intelligence is on your level of play. 

Third Base Post 2

I found Born on Third Base really interesting! Similar to what I talked about in my first post, Collins addresses a wide variety of issues that surround wealth. Most of these topics covered, such as climate change and tax "evasion", are very loosely related to one another. The only common connection between all of these topics is that there is a large amount of wealth surrounding all of these topics.

When Collins talks about tax "evasion", my inner accountant cringes. Collins is using the term completely incorrectly. When people donate to causes and receive a tax deduction, this is not considered tax evasion. Tax evasion is a felony, and an example of this is when the IRS tells you that you owe $100,000 and don't pay it. In contrast, a tax deduction reduces the amount of taxes that the IRS tells you to pay. Charity donations are deductible, and so are payments made for treatment of life-threatening diseases. People who donate money to charity and are required to pay less taxes aren't "avoiding" taxes anymore than people who pay for cancer treatment and receive a tax deduction. Similarly, wealthy people who move to other countries in order to avoid taxes also stand to lose too. In these instances, these people essentially forfeit their U.S. citizenships and are no longer granted all of the rights that other citizens are given. These people can't travel to other countries that are allied with the U.S., because they would likely be extradited and their investments are not protected by the financial regulations in place that prevent scams.

There are also some other things that Collins talks about that I don't really agree with, but I respect his opinion. He makes his decisions based on the experiences that he has had in his life, and the things that he's learned from them just as I do with my decisions.