…it will take 24.9 million times more oil than the worst projected levels of the current spill to make the gulf toxic.

Ok, ok. I’m not usually for snap analysis of such serious issues as the current Gulf of Mexico oil crisis. Every effort to stop the leak should be made and any party determined responsible should be held accountable, of course!

But FWIW, I used to be a chemical analyst for an environmental laboratory and tested for petroleum related compounds on a daily basis usually against EPA regulatory limits. All I want to know how toxic this oil spill will make the Gulf of Mexico given the worst case scenario. So the following haphazard conglomeration of tidbits from internet articles and references will, at the very best, give a spotty, blurry and narrow view of the big picture of the Gulf’s future.

That said, here’s what I came up with:

Volume of oil spilled (worst case scenario) as x in gallons: 112.7 million

Volume of the Gulf of Mexico (gallons) as y: 660 quadrillion (2.5 × 10¹⁵ m³)

This makes a total concentration (x/y = C) of 0.000000000171 per one , or 0.171 parts per trillion (PPT). Caveat: This number represents a “uniform mixture” scenario, whereas oil is currently dispersed in specific areas of much denser concentrations drifting about, each causing their own unique havoc in specific areas, but hypothetically thinking down the road if / when the oil actually and inevitably mixes…

Lethal dose for gulf killfish (LD50): .00425 per one, or 4250 parts per million (PPM)

Factor needed to raise worst-case-scenario-levels of oil in the gulf to make entire gulf toxic: LD50 / C = 24900000 or 24.9 million times more oil than that.

Ok. Last disclaimer: In reality given that BP has used chemical dispersants and the like to help dissipate the surface oil (Which BTW would raise the toxicity level of the resultant crude oil product by a factor of 11), and if they used that same dispersant–called Corexit 9500—on all of the resulting leaked oil, then this would reduce the number of equally sized oil leaks needed for the above mentioned lethal dose to only 2.26 million. This is still not to make light of the drastic shock to the livelyhood of people living near the damage, or the drastic short and long-term effects of the oil on marine life and habitats there! But for those of us who believe we are the custodians of this planet’s entire ecosystem, yes we must work diligently to clean this up, but at the same time, this single incident will not, on a grand and ultimate scale, come anywhere near destroying the Gulf of Mexico.

Note:  Couldn’t find a study of oil toxicity on humans.  No volunteers i guess, but EPA does regulate Benzene in drinking water at 0.005mg/L or parts per million (PPM).  Here is the Material Safety Data Sheet (PDF) on crude oil which features more info like lethal doses (LD 50) of Benzene for rats, for instance (0.93 to 5.96g/kg or PPT).  It says that the level of benzene in crude oil varies but usually contains “small amounts of benzene, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) and compounds of sulphur.”

While this reader makes a point about the hazard of automobile accidents vs. that of terrorist strikes (the former, likely to be a far more deadly one, of course), the reality has more to do with the public perception of risk.  Peter Sandman, a prominent PhD in communications, developed the equation RISK = HAZARD + OUTRAGE (as described in the following paper by Rolf Schmid (PDF)):

Thus it is far more outrageous when someone tries to blow up a plane full of innocent people than when an ice storm causes an 80-car pileup.

One: a kind of an ILP module practice of placing web content of interest into it’s appropriate place in the Levels and Lines, etc. of the Four Quadrants.  So the end user would “map” the piece by tagging it using an interface that provides all the AQAL dimensions.

Two: a large, searchable database of the sum total AQAL-ly “mapped” web content by all of the users.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but this would be a great resource for any students, enthusiasts or academics of Integral Theory.

Three: sharing of, and discussion around, the submissions in the same vein as Reddit, or Digg (except Integral, of course! :).

Lemme know if you think something like this would be useful. I have created a beta version, for those who are interested (here it is). Feedback would be always and forever eternally appreciated.

Thanks!

-bryan

…why is it that, so far as we can tell, early religion had no real moral dimension?

Here in his book:

Whenever we look at a “primitive” religion, we are looking at a religion that has been evolving culturally for a long time. Though observed hunter-gatherer religions give clues about what the average religion was like 12,000 years ago, before the invention of agriculture, none of them much resembles religion in its literally primitive phase, the time (whenever that was) when religious beliefs and practices emerged. Rather, what are called “primitive” religions are bodies of belief and practice that have been evolving—culturally—over tens or even hundreds of millennia. Generation after generation, human minds have been accepting some beliefs, rejecting others, shaping and reshaping religion along the way.

The problem is looking at religion as an independent system free from the other pressures of life which spanned multiple eras (each of which have their own life conditions, and their own collective worldviews to adapt to them). As one Redditor put it in response to my suggestion to learn about Levels of Development:

Now, now - refined superstition in chart form is superstition all the same.

Basically equating superstition as equivalent to Religion.  Not that any given religion today doesn’t involve some superstitious content, not my point, rather fundamentalist religion today (the one that gets all the New Athiests in a tizzy) stems from the religion of the Agrarian age, and not earlier.   Imagine trying to “not steal” in a hunter gatherer society come wintertime.  Or to “not kill” in a horticultural age when no one you knew has any form of education, and there is no rule of law to stop an individual or group from pillaging your livestock, your house, or your family.  It wasn’t until a society develops a rigid code of conduct which tempers chaos within a group, that fundamentalism appeared. As Nicholas Wade puts it:

to instill, through group cohesion, morality within a group and hostility toward those outside it. So in very early human societies, groups with strong religious behavior would have prevailed over less cohesive adversaries. We are descended from the religious groups, the argument goes, and that is why everyone harbors a religious instinct. …

Or harbors Blue meme (a developmental stage) in Spiral Dynamics:

Blue - Rule/Role Self - age 7–8 years. Later Mythic
Nation States, Authoritarian - starting 5,000 years ago
Life has meaning, direction, and purpose with predetermined outcomes.
Quest: ultimate peace.
Method: follow the given rules, don’t exceed your role…
Pitfalls: archetypal role identification, script pathology, fundamentalism, fascism,etc

So a basic difference between the religion of the Archaic or Magical (superstitious), and the Mythic one of today’s fundamentalists. Believing in myth to substantiate morals is not the same as believing in voodoo magic to curse your enemy. Ken Wilber:

Laotzu was 900 years old when he was born. According to the Hindus, the earth is resting on a serpent, which is resting on an elephant, which is resting on a turtle. Those kinds of mythic approaches aren’t wrong. They’re just a stage of development. Look at [Swiss philosopher] Jean Gebser’s structural stages of development. They go from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral and higher. Magic and mythic are actual stages. They’re not wrong any more than saying “5 years old” is wrong. It’s just 5 years old. We expect there to be higher stages. There was a time when the magic and mythic approaches years ago were evolution’s leading edge of development. So we can’t belittle them.

Bottom line is that to categorize all belief as belief in magic, superstition or childishness is too much of a generalization.  If one is really a proponent of evolution, then it takes a little intellectual honesty to see that religion itself is evolving right along with humanity.  A problem must be accurately diagnosed to most effectively deliver a solution, and I see too broad of a brush being swept by anti-theists.

How to dealThe ever-controversial Stuart Davis offers up a coping mechanism to deal with what is, in the end (or rather, the beginning), fundamentally (pun intended) a part of us all, and when it’s ugly side rears it’s head in the media:

The ‘answer’ to fundamentalism is not to get rid of Religion, but to get religion to evolve. How can we help Pat Robertson discover his hidden Father Thomas Keating? Will Francis Collins agree to mentor Sarah Palin? I’m kidding. But I’m not. The answer to low levels of religion is higher levels of religion. The real work ahead of us is religious development, not just embarrassing people into forfeiting their belief system (they will just trade it for an equivalent one anyway). If tomorrow, all the religions in the World magically vanished, we’d face the same dangers of low levels of consciousness in high positions of power.

• Plotting upvotes vs. downvotes by submission yields a predictable upvote vs. downvote ratio–practically a 2 to 1 average.
• Bias is inherent in Reddit’s ranking algorithm since submissions that get more downvotes than upvotes don’t make it to the top. There are definitely (although relatively few) outlier submissions with greater-than-usual upvotes vs. downvotes.
• One can’t conclude that the algorithm (unless you actually know the code) actually filters submissions near this ratio.  If not then the voting Reddit community at large votes rather predictably within limited deviation along the above trendline.

UPDATE: Reddit discussion here. Also a log x log chart after the jump.

Note: Wouldn’t we hope these faces to be common amongst those of Iran’s new generation? Shouldn’t they have our full support?

My wife had convinced me to go to an Iyengar based yoga class a couple of years ago, and I made it through a single session (only stopped going because of time constraints). There I mentally began cutting through all of my conditioned judgements about the practice (too new-agey; isn’t this just for girls? etc.), and remained enthusiastic. Recently we purchased a copy of B.K.S. Iyengar (otherwise known as the “father of yoga” in the West) and decided to do a routine after work–I figure the 300 week course outlined in the book would satisfy my yoga ambition. Here’s some sample slides of the week 1 course:

Pretty simple at the get-go (BTW That’s him! That’s Iyengar!)

Crikey! This stuff does challenge.

While engaging in the stretches, I also began to see what it was that yoga was “getting at.” Aside from it being a rigorous workout, when done properly it is both a guide to honing the body’s (and therefore mind’s) capacity for balance, and it also revealed to be a deep meditation rooted in discipline. Turns out doing yoga really does satisfy me and I have to say that I definitely feel euphoric after a bout.

Forward to Light on Yoga By Yehudi Menuhin:

“The practice of Yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony. With unflagging patience we refine and animate every cell as we return daily to the attack, unlocking and liberating capacities otherwise condemned to frustration and death.

Each unfulfilled area of tissue and nerve, of brain or lung, is a challenge to our will and integrity, or otherwise a source of frustration and death. Whoever has had the privilege of receiving Mr Iyengar’s attention, or of witnessing the precision, refinement and beauty of his art, is introduced to that vision of perfection and innocence which is man as first created-unarmed, unashamed, son of God, lord of creation-in the Garden of Eden. The tree of knowledge has indeed yielded much fruit of great variety, sweet, poisonious, bitter, wholesome according to our use of it. But is it not more imperative then ever that we cultivate the tree, that we nourish it’s roots? And furthermore how dangerous is that knowledge to those who, ill at ease with themselves, would rather apply it to the manipulation of other people and things than to the improvement of their own persons.

The practice of Yoga over the past fifteen years has convinced me that most of our fundamental attitudes to life have their physical counter part in the body. Thus comparison and criticism must begin with the alignment of our own left and right sides to a degree at which even further adjustments are feasible: or strength of will will cause us to start stretching the body from the toes to the top of the headin defiance of gravity. Impetus and ambition might begin with the sense of weight and speed that comes with free-swinging limbs, instead of the control of prolonged balance on one foot, feet or hands, which give poise. Tenacity is gained by stretching in various Yoga postures for minutes at a time, while calmness comes with quiet, consistent breathing and the expansion of the lungs. Continuity and a sense of the universe come with the knowledge of the inevitable alternation of tension and relaxation in external rhythms of which each inhalation an exhalation constitutes one cycle, wave or vibration among the countless myriads which are the universe.

Yoga, as practised by Mr. Iyengar, is the dedicated votive offering of a man who brings himself to the alter, alone and clean in body and mind, focused in attention and in will, offering in simplicity and innocence not a burnt sacrifice, but simply himself raised to his own highest potential.

It is a technique ideally suited to prevent physical and mental illness and to protect the body generally, developing an inevitable sense of self-reliance and assurance. By it’s very nature it is inextricably associated with universal laws: for respect for life, truth, and patience are all indispensable factors in the drawing of a quiet breath, in calmness of mind and firmness of will.

In this lies the moral virues inherent in Yoga. For those it demands a complete and total effort, involving and forming the whole human being. No mechanical repetition is involved and no lip service as in the case of good resolutions or formal prayers. By its very nature it is each time and every moment a living act.”

Imtheochaidh soir is siar
A dtáinig ariamh an ghealach is an ghrian
Fol lol the doh, fol the day
Fol the doh, fol the day
Imtheochaidh an ghealach’s an ghrian
An duine óg is a cháil ‘na dhiadh
Fol lol the doh, fol the day
Fol the doh, fol the day

Fol lol the doh, fol the day
Fol the doh, fol the day

Imtheochaidh a dtáinig ariamh
An duine óg is a cháil ne dhiadh
Fol lol the doh, fol the day
Fol the doh, fol the day :):.:….

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In looking at all those sub-prime mortgages and how complicated they are, as well as how dependent the system is on computers, etc., I would think the financial system is definitely at the orange level of development in cognitive function.  However, in seeing how the system was administered toward short term gain and turfing the responsibility to someone else once their money was made, I think the people were more in the red level of morality.

It definitely can be blurry when trying to decipher between Orange and Red, especially when it comes to greed, but I think a starting point in this determination could be in considering the relative cost one is willing to undergo in order to gain financially. Red seems to be much more immediate and does not consider certain legal ramifications or anybody’s opinion-or physical well being for that matter. At first glance this seems to fit the corporate perpetrator’s profile well, but I think true egocentrism’s (Red’s) likely place in this mess was maybe more the predatory lenders perhaps. Those who dealt directly (face to face) with gullible borrowers. I think consequences are a good indicator of what level is being expressed. A Red offender goes to jail, and Orange offender gets a fat bonus while the system collapses. I really don’t think Red can produce the complex culture (LL) required in corporate dealings—there are just too many hoops to jump through, and rules to adhere to, for instance. Orange thrives by:

A). A fraternal-type “Good ol boy” system where we all benefit by helping each other out (LL). This type of culture “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” distinguished by people who are “in” or demonstrate success according to Orange values I.e. High-Status positions, material wealth, “winning” personality, etc. It is this culture that makes possible the “revolving door” political-economical system of corruption (NOTE: the “good-ol-boy mentality, I think originates with Amber, but that’s a whole other post). For example Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary was Former CEO of Goldman Sachs. We all know how many former CEO’s head up major government committees or sit on governing boards. This culture requires one to do their share of “stepping on people,” “brown-nosing,” “back-patting,” in a non-violent yet sheerly competitive nature. Smearing, and back stabbing are definitely within bounds if you truly want to win. I just don’t think a Red-centered person could ever tolerate this kind of environment without lashing out!

B) Justify with evidence in a rational manner (LR). How many times has it been cited that “Housing prices will always go up?” I would assert (someone correct me if i’m wrong) that there was massive think-tank research reports that documented how this trend is permanent. I know I could–right now–start researching that trends prior to 2007 showed constant increase in real estate value. I would cite the steady increase in population growth in most areas, as well as factor in future projections including future loan purchases which would drive prices up further. These theses could all be backed analytically by the right statistics I’m sure. Thus in the end it was Rational (Orange) to believe that all of this is not just appropriate, but a total win-win situation! “Need more proof?” says the Paulson as Goldman CEO in ‘06, “Look at our ever increasing stock price.” How Orange can we get with this? Way more, because they all gained massive wealth which only Orangely solidified their convictions.

I think Orange saw the whole situation as “win, win”–an Orange ideal slogan in fact. “Regulations, you say? That’s only for for people who abuse the system. We don’t because we create real value!” Who could deny this? Anybody who did clearly wasn’t “in the loop.” And sure enough there were plenty of Representatives and Congress people “in the loop” to deregulate, just help them get elected again. You see, EVERYBODY constantly “wins” if they “play along”!!! Everybody in the “loop” was a “winner.” I think I’m gonna be Orange color blind after this mess! BTW check out Peter Schiff a guy who forecasted the economic collapse up against the euphoric Orange culture that saw no error of their ways.
As far as the UR quadrant I still need to do my homework. I mostly assumed it to be pretty much strictly the bio-physiological quadrant, but then I saw Part One of the recent Integral Life presentation and it gives more. Did you watch it? I found it to be tremendously heady, but I’m stubbornly beginning to accept that the AQAL model is heady by default. All I can say is that the only higher-Level manifestation I did see pertaining to this whole financial mess was in the UR quadrant and you mentioned it: Gucci is clearly the only Indigo brand around.