Scott Adams Blog: From Blog to Reality: Three Interesting Things 01/16/2009

From Blog to Reality: Three Interesting Things

Jan 16, 2009 General Nonsense | Notify

Not long ago in a blog post I wrote that the world needs a web site where citizens can publicly debate important topics, with a feature allowing the best of the arguments to be voted to the top. And now we have it, although I would recommend some changes:

http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/home

It's a good start, but a better format would allow the moderator to pick the topics, state them in the affirmative as in "The government should do X" and then let the best pro and con arguments get voted to the top. The current design is a bit too scattered.

Next, as I wrote several times in this blog, the universe is starting to look more like a hologram every day. Now there is physical evidence, which I find delightfully creepy:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

If you read my book God's Debris, you might find an interesting analogy between what I called God dust and the holographic "pixels" of the universe that have been discovered.

Last, after blogging about the next financial bubble being in water, a commenter recommended an index fund of companies in the water supply business, ticker symbol PHO. So I loaded up on that stock yesterday morning after noticing it was way off its historical high, and the topic is out of the headlines because of bigger news. As luck would have it I caught the bottom of the overall market before it climbed back and made a 4.4% gain in a few hours

http://www.invescopowershares.com/products/overview.aspx?ticker=Pho#perfchart

Yesterday a US Airways jet lost both engines in a freak collision with a bunch of geese. Amazingly, the pilot made an emergency landing in the Hudson River and no one was injured. The jet is an analogy to the economy. This is how the hologram tells us we hit bottom and survived. Mark yesterday on your calendar; it's the day the economy started to turn around.

Disclaimer: Don't take advice from cartoonists on investing, religion or politics. Even a blind squirrel can find three nuts in a week.

Votes: +5

Comments

Copyright_2009

Jan 29, 2009

If the jet is like the economy, the geese are like...sub-prime mortgages?

gargamel9

Jan 19, 2009

Hi there scott...sorry for polluting your post but I just wanted to tell you about your recent comic with the plastic plants and the gnats toot. Its not everyday that I find all my corporate experience sumarised in just one comic.

I dont know if you nailed your economic predictions (I dont consider this a crisis but a change that we will need to addapt, as it is obviusly imposible to support millions of people that live by western standars of wealth, not even with cheap petrol that we will not have...and I think that puttin our faith in tecnology is really in the long run no different than trusting that god would save the people from the black death...(IMHO tecnology didnt avoid malthus theories it only postponed it with the inmense help of a cheap and miracolous source of energy that we will no longer have)). Also you tend to give a lot of contradicting predictions and then claim success for one of them that end up being true, which I suppose all people that talk about the future do.

But I like hearing an optimistic point of view so I wont complain much! Anyway you as always certainly nailed my corporate experience (and I humbly guess the experience of all cubicle dwelers). In that you are trully at your element...although I know you dont like being told to stick to comics (I read the book two times already) so all my appologies go with all my critics.

ina

Jan 19, 2009

I was visiting my better part - an investment banker - in London this weekend. On Saturday he declared out of the blue: 'everything will be going uphill from today' and kept repeating it throughout the day.
Now this.
Spooky.
And not for the first time.

luddite

Jan 18, 2009

have you been using affirmations to make stock picks again???

frankmatulich

Jan 17, 2009

Is there any way to search this site for a specific comic strip? Several years ago there was a strip where Dilbert was trying to order a chair or a recliner and I remember it pretty much "nailed" the furniture industry. If anyone can help me find this strip, I would appreciate it.
Thanks
Frank

grady25

Jan 17, 2009

The only problem with the log of good ideas, is that what is currently popular is so very lame. My guess is the best ideas will be buried at the bottom, especially those ideas that do not include legalizing marijuana. Dude!

trippy64

-1

Jan 17, 2009

after reading the comments form the "office of the president elect" web site i fear for the future, the inmates run the asylum. First of all, the need to create such an illusions as an "Office of the president of the president elect" means even the President-Elect knew he was unqualified. And his supporters ideas show his supporters are clueless. i didn't find one idea worthy of federal funding, since it is not of the federal government to be doing any of the suggestions.

I hope someone takes your suggestions and runs with it, it is a good idea, but then what of it? The end result will still be noise. elected politicians only care about the voice of the public if there is fear of losing the next election. otherwise, their own agenda wins.

jordanm

Jan 17, 2009

You're welcome!

Too bad money is all an illusion (delusion?)

"Last, after blogging about the next financial bubble being in water, a commenter recommended an index fund of companies in the water supply business, ticker symbol PHO. So I loaded up on that stock yesterday morning after noticing it was way off its historical high, and the topic is out of the headlines because of bigger news. As luck would have it I caught the bottom of the overall market before it climbed back and made a 4.4% gain in a few hours"

EMU

Jan 17, 2009

Hm. Well known blogger recommends investing in water, water stocks go up and lo, he had bought the index so that he's in for the ride.
You might want to check with a lawyer before you make a habit out if it...

On the other hand, is there a chance that DNRC members get early tips on which stocks are going to be blogged about on dilbert.com?

Sorry, bad day today...
Lots of Greetings!
Volker

rjburchett

Jan 17, 2009

Have you read The Holographic Universe? Or The Crack in the Cosmic Egg? (Don't judge the one by the other.)

ThisSucks

Jan 16, 2009

Scott, your disclaimer says we should not take advice from cartoonists on religion. Why not? Who should we take advice from on religion (i.e. who is more qualified than you)?

frankmatulich

Jan 16, 2009

I am trying to locate the Dilbert Strip where Dilbert is trying to buy a recliner. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Frank

arbyisme

Jan 16, 2009

Amazing, a flock of 3-15lb honkers can bring down a 70 ton manmade behemoth. Poultry Power.

charlesfunnish

Jan 16, 2009

lancecraft - I started crying halfway through your post. Please be more sensitive to readers who get frightened easily when thinking about the universe.

TY.

lancecraft

Jan 16, 2009

Chembot- your observation that the two hologram ideas or mutually exclusive gave me another idea. Sorry Scott if this is turning into a college days round table (ala That 70s Show) with an unspoken smoke wafting up between talking heads complete with, "yah, so wut your sayin bro, is....um, what were you saying?"

With Hawking's admission that information (ie energy, matter, etc) is not lost with the fizzling out of a blackhole and that all information is retained, that effectively turns our universe into a giant computer where information goes in one end, survives the trip to the other end, and change can then theoretically be measured with sufficient expertise in retrieving said info. We could then be a hologram of some former existence, passed on from some other past or dimension, preserved in this giant computer we call our universe, and headed toward some unknown destination possibly predetermined (i hope) by us.

ouch. I think I am spraining something...

Zuluwarrior

Jan 16, 2009

Scottie,

What if we (the humans) are the geese in the holographic crash analogy? Some get pureed, some keep flying.

I'm still flying.

Shaka

chembot

Jan 16, 2009

If I understand both the article and your idea of the holographic universe correctly (probably not, but I'm compelled to respond anyway), then they don't seem to be about the same thing. Your theory essentially states that the universe is a simulation from a long dead civilization to enable us to live on unaware of the fate of our corporeal bodies. It's a hologram like you might think of from the science fiction realm. The article is describing a universe shaped like a bubble where the contents of the interior are merely projections of the surface of the exterior. While it's a difficult idea to get your head around, it's not so different from other weird universe theories proposed in cosmology like the big bang or donut theory. While both ideas include holograms, the origin of those holograms is different.

Iacopus Caesar

Jan 16, 2009

Classic logical fallacy: argument by analogy

The plane crash was a wonderful event, insofar as it happened without any loss of life or even any major injuries, but it does not follow that the economy is on the upswing.

lancecraft

Jan 16, 2009

Smokefoot- at first I thought this too, but in rereading you see that the blurriness is only because the interior of the projecting sphere must posses the same number of 'pixels' as the expanding shell but in a greater volume, solved by increasing the theoretical size of said interior pixels. Expansion should not make them even bigger, but it would eventually make them farther apart. Reality shouldn't there by blurr into obscurity, but diffuse into oblivion.
That is until to apply my theory that the expansion will eventually spread and fall back on itself, much like a fountain shoots outward, but eventually falls back, only this fall back circles back to the center. Note, this isn't contraction. This would explain why the universe may seem to speed up and seem to expand even farther when in fact it is headed back to the source.

auralcircuitry

Jan 16, 2009

"...it's the day the economy started to turn around."

You, Mr. Adams, are right. One can feel it in the sense of relief, in the way that we all have been grasping for a shared experience that gives everyone a sense that it will all turn out okay.

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