Ramifications of economic ethics and morals on the environment

Finally found the stuff for developing Google Apps (not Android) again. The free business accounts don't seem to have the link. So you have to look under the Account Settings of your personal google account.



Under Services, you'll see the App Engine, and, to the right of that, "My Applications". That's the link.

Waffling between starting with Java, which I have some experience with, Python, which I have played with, and Google's Go, which I really am not particularly interested in, myself, but, .....

SPLASH!

CRASH!   POW!!    

GASHAN!  GASHEEN!

Okay, okay, I'm still a little backwards on the Japanese onomatopoeia. Not reading enough  manga, I guess.

Daddy! The turtle's out! 

He knocked the tank over!

A family friend who has made an accidental hobby of raising turtles gave us one of the progeny a couple of years back.

Actually, gave us several, but the first two, well, they got stolen when we were keeping them out front. (We hope they went to a good home, anyway.) She later gave us another, and we keep that one on the balconey, and it's getting too big for the tank we have.

So we put water in an old medaka tank and put that on the lid of Spencer's tank, so he can't get out. But today he pushed the lid open far enough to knock the tank off the lid. It was time to go change his water and let him out for some exercise.

Cruelty to turtles. Yes. We can't afford a proper tank, with air pump and filtration, etc. I'd post pictures, but I don't want to get attention from the SPCTA. Bluntly speaking, I don't really make enough money to keep a turtle.

I don't really make enough money to keep a turtle.

There's something wrong in the world when an ordinary Joe can't make enough money to raise two kids and a turtle. 


What's that got to do with the economy and the environment and ethics and morals?

Well, we are getting to the point of having so many people that there's no more place for the critters. But the critters are important for the environment.

No, I'm not a tree-hugger in particular. I just notice that further refinements of our technologies are taking is, in every field, right where?

Biology.

And you say, so what?

Well, whether you call it nature and evolution or whether you call it God, we have a world full of advanced technology that we didn't invent. But we have convinced ourselves that,

if our hand ain't touched it, there ain't no point.

So we get tunnel-vision, focusing only on the inventions of our own hands.

But we keep finding that the things our hands haven't touched yet are the things that have the most value to us.

So, there's the conundrum, the dilemma:

If the economy does not expand, it contracts. If it contracts, scarcity reigns, and control freaks take over.

But we are clearly hitting limits.

Do we really dare risking having to re-boot the environment with our own crude technology?

Leaving a whole lot of questions begging, modern apartment buildings are too small to raise pets, even if the rules allowed it. But we have come to a point that the animals have no place besides where we are living.

Sure, we can talk about how vultures in the financials market force all the builders of apartments to do it as cheaply as possible, but that's just an excuse. Look in the mirror when you say "vulture". Look in the mirror when you excuse your corner-cutting on the competition and your investors.

Today's bottom line is important, but so is tomorrow's.

We need apartments with room for pets, because we, as a society, need the pets.

We need them for the future of the ecology, even if we think we can so casually squeeze people psychologically.

We need to move families out of apartments when we can, to houses with room for gardens, because the economy needs people who are somewhat independent, and because the ecology needs more plants.

We need to pay the guys at the bottom of the wage ladder more so that they can do this kind of stuff that keeps our society from imploding.

And we can afford to do it. The extra money is there, if we refuse to be scared of the mirage of the wolf at the door. If we have to see wolves, there is a wolf in the house and it is eating us alive because we refuse to let other people have enough economic room to make choices.

It is our duty to ourselves to quit trying to squeeze every last dime and penny out of every transaction.