Why I Served

I joined the Texas State Guard in order to be trained in emergency response. The TXSG surpassed my expectations. It was an honor and a privilege to have been a Texan serving Texas.

I am a technical writer; and I usually work as a contractor. In the winter and spring of 2014, a local temporary agency placed me at the Texas Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Management (TDEM). I reviewed, edited, and wrote specifications for public bids on materials and services. I was directed to find out about the Texas State Guard because they staff Red Cross shelters for which they need computers and peripheral equipment. They also provide personnel for the evacuation and tracking of people leaving disaster sites on state-leased vehicles. 

My last project at TDEM was to bring into agreement two different sets of training materials on “Managing Spontaneous Volunteers at a Disaster.” Spontaneous volunteers are often called “the disaster within the disaster.” Even though they have good intentions, they are usually untrained and often unprepared to care for themselves. I learned that VOADs are Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters. If you want to be useful, join a VOAD. Unfortunately, I did not find one that offered the training that I was looking for on a schedule that I could meet. 

Then, I was asked to work for the Texas Military Department office of the Executive Director at Camp Mabry. I documented upgrades to a computer system. One day, I walked across the road to the Texas State Guard headquarters and asked the first person I met what I had to do to volunteer. Suddenly, I was surrounded.

Induction ceremony
22 November 2014

 We met a couple more times and talked about my background and their needs. I read a lot on the TXSG and TMD websites. The TXSG asked for at least three years of service. Having just turned 65, I could promise that. (Back then, the last day of service was prior to your 71^st birthday. Now it is the drill before you turn 70.) On November 22, 2014, I took the oath of office and was sworn in as a petty officer 3^rd class (E-4) in the Maritime regiment, but assigned to plans and operations in the headquarters command at Camp Mabry. My first billet was Future Operations (FUOPS).

While in FUOPS, I began learning WebEOC, the virtual emergency operations computer platform used by everyone from FEMA down to the fire department. I began attending classes in WebEOC and helping my fellow learners with the hands-on exercises. On October 7, 2015, I taught “WebEOC for Battle Captains” to the TXSG Officer Candidate School. It was the first of nine classes that I was assigned to teach, including four more OCS sessions. When Hurricane Harvey struck, I served 23 days as the primary WebEOC operator for the Texas State Guard Emergency Operations Center (TEOC). 

 

Meritorious Service Ribbon,
Brevet promotion, and Farewell
26 October 2019

Not being prior federal, I went through RBOT, the Regional Basic Orientation Training of the TXSG. The age-based requirements seemed easy enough, but I discovered that I could not do a single push-up or sit-up. So, I started with toe-touches. Fortunately, that was in January and RBOT was not until April. By then, I exceeded all of the minimums for push-ups, sit-ups, and one mile, for someone half or a third of my age. The last fitness examination was in December 2018. We were held to previous US Army standards and again I exceeded the minimums for someone one-third my age. For me, the physical fitness requirements were an important benefit to being in the Maritime regiment of the TXSG. Exercise has been routine these past four years, and I am lucky to be working now for a company with a gymnasium on site. 

Integral to emergency management, I learned and practiced the FEMA incident command system (ICS). Among the certifications I earned were Managing and Developing Volunteers, Risk Management, Continuity of Operations, Public Information Systems, and Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Insider Threats. 

In July 2016, the Texas National Guard asked the Texas State Guard for six clerk typists (now called operations specialists). I served 14 months as a full-time temporary state employee in the domestic operations task force. Mostly, I read, edited (and eventually wrote) orders. I also carried them from office to office, desk to desk, getting sign-offs. That led to a couple of interesting moments with an Air Force lieutenant colonel who did not understand why he was being tasked by a sergeant. I had to remember that my crows were not eagles. Also while working in DOMOPS, I learned to take care of officers. My first sergeant and I ran the coffee mess, emptied the trash, and cleaned the work spaces.

In July 2018, I became the public affairs officer (PAO) of the TXSG Maritime Regiment. I tended our Facebook page and published a feature story in the TMD monthly magazine. 

On January 1, 2020, the TXSG joint force command structure will be in place and TMAR will cease to exist. We are casing the colors at our annual ball next February.

It was an honor and a privilege to serve. For most of my time in uniform, our commanding general was Gerald “Jake” Betty. Soon after I joined, our office was disassembled and eventually restored brick-by-brick by the historical commission. (They even built replica panes and returned the original glass.) During the hiatus our headquarters was moved to a trailer and some other unused spaces. I attended many briefings for the command group and general staff. BG Betty ended every meeting with three mandates: Do your duty. Take care of your people. Go home with your honor. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Volunteering in an Emergency: What to Expect 

Your State Defense Force

Hurricane Tejas

Hurricane Harvey

THE NIGHT SKY WITH NATIONAL G

The author, Andrew Fazekas, is somewhat liberal in his definition of “backyard” astronomy. I live a mile from a major shopping center. I do go out in the backyard and I have seen the Orion Nebula often and more recently just found the Andromeda Galaxy. The author seems to implicitly accept that the “backyard” is somewhat darker than the edge of the suburbs. It is only from there that the backyard astronomer can view all 110 Messier objects (which are nicely arrayed in a 10 x 11 table of pictures). But they are available to the dedicated amateur and that is the audience for this book. 

Astronomical guide books all provide the same basic information. The Moon, the planets, the interesting stars in the constellations, nebulae in our galaxy, and galaxies beyond ours are all out there. All of the star guides start with introductory comments, some basic celestial navigation, and then take you from the Sun and Moon to the planets in order and out into deep space. Of course, you  expect and get four seasonal sky charts to hold overhead. This book does much more for you. 

I found some problems with the arrangement of information in very small spreads of one, two, or three pages. The Table of Contents and Index have proved unhelpful and I resorted to sticky notes to mark some references. Perhaps we will have to wait for information to arrive as VR hypercubes. 

The National Geographic Backyard Guide
to the Night Sky, Second Edition,
by Andrew Fazekas,
2019, 288 pages, 22 x 13.5 mm, $24.99.

The typography is another problem: a small sans serif font on colorful glossy pages. You will not be able to read this in the dark with a red light. So, you will not take this in your pocket when you are outdoors. This book is for doing your homework, charting your course, and gaining knowledge before you go out to view and discover. 

Finally, the price was kept down by the binding: the pages are glued in, not perfect bound. If you press the book flat to scan or shoot a spread, you will break the binding and pages will soon fall out. This is a book that must be taken care of; and for all of the useful information it provides, it deserves that.

Those problems aside, this handbook combines a textbook survey of astronomy with instructions on viewing the objects of interest. The facts in the narratives are recent and current to date. Among the topics are sprites (verified in 1989) and Hawking radiation. 

Not everything in the sky existed millions of years before we came along. Artificial satellites (including the ISS) and rocket trails also are addressed. We see a lot of stuff out there when we are observing, and it is all worthy of our attention, if only to differentiate the human artifacts from the others.

You will also find good information on choosing and using telescopes, binoculars, and cameras, including your cell phone. It takes far more patience than equipment to pursue asteroids and minor planets, double stars and star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Seeing in the Dark: Your Front Row Seat to the Universe

Asterisms 

Turn Left at Orion 

Burnhams Celestial Handbook 

The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope 

Nerdvana: Working with Engineers (and a Scientist)

Since mid-July, I have been working for an industrial manufacturing firm. We make machines that make things. Of course, everything runs on software. So, we have a lot of the usual folks, but in addition to them, we have real engineers, and even a physicist.

Entertaining moments can be as simple as dropping a disk magnet down a copper tube and watching it float to the bottom. 

One of the guys has been collecting and disassembling microwave ovens in order to re-purpose the induction coils. With enough of them, he can make an array of electro-magnets to lift a person off the ground. (We are still waiting on that.) One of  the first projects was a spot welder. The cellphone charger does not work very well; I suggested that he should hook it to one of the Xebex machines in the gym. The other day, we went out back and watched him burn wood. 

More than you ever wanted to know about Figure 2B on Quora here:

“How many volts does the output of a transformer of a microwave have?”

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Where All the Children are Above Average 

She’s Such a Geek! 

Teaching Ethics to Student Engineers 

Big Bang Theory: More Friends than Seinfeld 

World Peace Through Massive Retaliation 

Physics for Astronomers: The Works of Steven Weinberg

The telescope is a wonderful instrument, but if you do not know what you are looking at, you have not gained much. The stars are pretty at any magnification. 

[This article originally appeared in the October 2019 issue of Sidereal Times of the Austin Astronomical Society.] 

Understanding the views requires learning astrophysics; and that is hard work. Think of it like basketball. One of my physics professors was answering homework questions at the blackboard. “I don’t understand number 3. …. How do you do number 5?... What equation do you use for number 1?...” He was going along and then he stopped. “You people would go out in the backyard and shoot hoops for 45 minutes and not make a single shot and still say you had a good time. How long did you spend on number 4? How many ways did you try to solve it?” It was a valid argument. On the other hand, you could have Michael Jordan or LeBron James come to your backyard and be your coach, but the honest fact is that you will not ever be good enough to play in the NBA. Still, you can improve your skills and your appreciation of the masters and their game. And so, too, with astrophysics, if you want to “show good game” (whether or not you turn professional), let the greats be your coaches. 

This past July, our guest speaker was Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. His topic was “Gravitational Wave Astronomy.” Dr. Weinberg delivered a layman’s overview of the development of the field and its current state. Having done my homework before the lecture, I was impressed by his clear, concise, and cogent explanations. So, I went to the UT libraries and checked out four of his books.

They had nine copies of Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1972). Two are missing. One is in the Life Sciences Library Hall of Noble Words. One is at Perry-Castañeda Library. The rest are in the Kuehne Physics Mathematics Astronomy Library. The great body of mathematical discussions are beyond my skill level – like having to play guard against LeBron James: the moves are easy to explain, but doing them is a workout. However, Weinberg’s narratives are understandable and compelling. He takes the reader where no one has gone before. He has his own framework for presentation, different from the traditional teachings.

Weinberg maintains that Einstein’s preference for Riemann geometry and our respect for Einstein have limited the ways that we choose to approach these problems. Instead, Weinberg begins with the equivalence of gravity and inertia. That, he says, allows us to understand quantum events in ways that the geometric approach cannot.  

Over the course of 633 pages, Gravitation and Cosmology ties the historical development with the modern discoveries. The histories of the theory of gravity, non-Euclidean geometry, and the principle of relativity open the book. Part One closes with a detailed examination of the special theory of relativity from Lorentz transformations through the discovery of antiparticles. 

Part Two covers the General Theory of Relativity with a treatment of the equivalence principle that is so important to Weinberg’s framework. He also provides mere outlines of mathematics including tensor analysis, covariant differentiation, and div-grad-curl. These are only to make the text complete. Other books are better at explaining the subjects. And, just to note, Einstein went back to the books to learn tensors; and it is recorded elsewhere that Einstein’s wife at least checked his math if she did not actually do his homework for him. 

Part Three explains General Relativity, including Post-Newtonian Mechanics and Post-Newtonian Hydrodynamics. (The physics of moving water allows us to approach the problems involving huge bodies of discrete particles.) Part Three Section 10 Chapter 8 addresses the Quantum Theory of Gravitation which was the topic of Dr. Weinberg’s lecture to us on July 12. In the book, it is marked with asterisk meaning that you can skip it. Back then, it was just theory. Gravitation waves were predicted by relativity and quantum mechanics, but would not be detected for another thirty years.

Weinberg by David Levine for NYRB.
This drawing appeared in
"Nature’s Biggest Secret,"
October 21, 1993.
Framed prints are for sale from
The New York Review of Books.

The last third of the book, Part Five, is dedicated to Cosmology. The greater mass of that consists of the so-called “Standard Model” what we in the backyard call the Big Bang Theory. Weinberg takes you from “the first three minutes” to the synthesis of helium and to the formation of galaxies. The book closes with considerations of other models. 

Dr. Steven Weinberg is tireless in taking physics to the public. He summarized the Standard Model in The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (Basic Books, 1977). If you go to the website of The New York Review of Books and put his name in the search box you will find that he is quite popular. (Use quotes and the full name “Steven Weinberg” to narrow the results.) He wrote seven major essays for them, six on physics, one on politics.

Weinberg is quite outspoken on social issues, especially as they impact science. Among his other books is Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (Harvard University Press, 2001). He does defend against religion and creationism, but most of the book is a defense of science against post-modernism. To Weinberg, the philosophy of science is worth studying, and defending it matters. 

Weinberg’s The Discovery of Subatomic Particles (Scientific American Library, 1983) creates a bridge between a physics textbook and a popularization. His narrative history from the Greeks through the electron of the 19^th century and up to the hadron of our day is easy to read. In the text, he presents the standard equations as verbal statements. “Electric force on a body = Electric charge of the body on which the force acts X Electric field.” However, the Appendix delivers all of the equations in their standard forms. In the Appendix, Weinberg starts with Newton’s Second Law and ends with particle collisions. 

You can find pithy sayings by Dr. Weinberg in Wikiquote. Most of them are about subatomic physics. Interesting as they are to ponder, they will not make good bumperstickers. 

Five hundred years before Galileo the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (known in the Latin West as Azophi) catalogued the Andromeda Galaxy. He knew that it was a cloud among the fixed stars but did not know what it was. By the time Edwin Hubble settled the question in 1925, astronomers had been informed by Newtonian mechanics, Maxwell’s Equations, Planck’s quanta, and Einstein’s General Relativity. Physics is hard work. The pay-off is understanding what you are looking at—and why the looking is important. Dr. Steven Weinberg explains it all. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Steven Weinberg on Gravity Waves

Feynman’s Rainbow 

Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins 

Genius 

Science in the Middle Ages 

Is Physics a Science? 

BAND OF BROTHERS

For me, the theme was leadership seen through the experiences of 2LT (eventually Major) Dick Winters. The corollaries included the importance of training, and the bonds that we form by facing challenges together. When my wife was out of town visiting relatives, I made the time to watch Band of Brothers. Then, I read the book. The movie was a good instantiation. The book provided more depth and detail. The advantage to the DVDs is being able to watch the words and run it back to catch what you missed. I renewed the book twice and checked it out again. And I still watch episodes again when I have the theater to myself. I cannot imagine seeing this once on HBO-TV and getting half as much from it. 

Producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg hired good writers and directors who developed and projected additional dimensions from Stephen Ambrose’s history. But that history is the foundation. And Ambrose relies on other works such as The Face of Battle (John Keegan; Penguin), The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (J. Glenn Gray, University of Nebraska Press), and Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of the 101^stAirborne Division (Leonard Rapport and Arthur Northwood, Jr., Infantry Journal Press). In the Acknowledgements and Sources, Ambrose explains how the book came to be written in response to criticisms from the men of Easy Company. Ambrose was employed by the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans. At the time he met the men of the 506^thParachute Infantry Regiment, he was working on a biography of Richard Nixon. As a result of that initial meeting, Ambrose met the men many times to record and review the interviews that are the bedrock of the book and therefore the HBO series.

Actor Shane Taylor (b. 1974) portrayed
T-4 Eugene "Doc" Roe.

Based on the personal remembrances that highlight each episode, actor Damian Lewis (English, upper class, and Eaton according to IMDB here) did yeoman’s duty portraying Richard Winters. The other actors all created or re-created their characters well enough, even though I feel that they were all too old for their roles. Acting is hard work and it takes practice. So, finding competent teenagers for this was apparently impossible. But that’s who they were: kids.  By the time they jumped at Normandy, 1LT Dick Winters was 26. Their nemesis Capt. Herbert Sobel was thirty when he drilled them at Camp Toccoa.  

Capt. Sobel (Wikipedia here) gets better treatment in the book than in the movie. According to Wikipedia, it was his son, Michael, who came to his defense in the courtroom of history. In the book, some of the men of Easy Company say that his training at Taccoa kept them alive in Europe. In the movie, we see only the martinet who can neither read a map himself, nor allow his NCO to do it for him. That being as it may, even in the unarmed forces of the state guard, we fight as we train and we train as we fight. I know from personal experience that units who bust their humps together at drill are competent to serve the people of Texas. Individuals who sit around, drink coffee, and swap lies are hospitalized when the event surpasses their expectations. 

 

On another level, the men of Easy Company were just being reflective and gracious. No one had to specially thank Major Dick Winters because his leadership was humane, just, fair, forthright, foresighted, and insightful – and demanding. He was a good combat officer. But why was he? We can investigate all of the parameters of personality—all of the aspects of environment and heredity—and never reduce the problem to a single cause or even to a matrix of elements. The fact remains that he was. 

As an extreme circumstance, war sets the stage for drama, and every story is a mirror. Some reflect better than others. As an epic, the HBO production of Band of Brothers is a hallway of dark and light, metal and glass, orthogonal and angular. The book is a map of that concourse. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Peace is More Powerful 

Armies Without Weapons 

2LT Frances Y. Slanger: American Nightingale 

Soldiers of Peace 

More on The Forever War  

Soldier’s Heart by Elizabeth Samet 

TURN THE SHIP AROUND

“Ahead two-thirds,” said the Captain. “Ahead two-thirds,” repeated the officer of the deck. The helm did nothing. They sat there, both of them, unable to comply. The Captain’s previous ship did, indeed, have a control input for two-thirds power. This newer submarine did not. The order could not be carried out. The real problem was that the officer of the deck and the two helmsmen all knew that, but would not contradict an impossible order. It was time to “turn the ship around” and turn followers into leaders.

For a class in Complex Organizations, taught by Ron Westrum in the summer of 2007, we were assigned It’s Your Ship by Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff (2002). Both commanders faced the same problems. The crews were under-motivated and as a result the ship was rated unsuccessful in operations.  Capt. Abrashoff  solved the problem in the best way he knew: he empowered his subordinates to take charge of their areas of responsibility. They were rewarded for being pro-active, rather than waiting for orders. When Abrashoff’s billet changed and the ship came under a new captain, it all pretty much fell apart and things went back to the bad old ways. On the other hand, Capt. Marquet claimed to have effected a cultural change on board which continued after he cycled out. The difference is that Capt. Marquet got passed empowerment.

Empowerment is top-down. It does not begin with the actor but with that agent’s controller. That manager is often several levels above; and no one between is empowered to make the changes at the lowest level of action. So, Capt. Marquet did not empower anyone. Rather, he let them take on their own chosen responsibilities. 

It was not easy. Missing from their experiences was an actual picture of what was required. No book or cinema they knew told them a story like the one they were expected to act out. All they knew was the U.S.S. Ustafish, the previous submarines they used to be on. So, when the Captain asked his chiefs – the frontline supervisors, chief petty officers, and others immediately above and below in rank—if they really wanted to be in charge of their areas, they all said, “Aye-aye!” without understanding exactly what would be required of them now.

Capt. Marquet made the time and effort to lay out what they would take on and give up. He underscored the fact that authority is not responsibility. You can delegate authority. You cannot delegate responsibility. 

Ultimately, when his chiefs failed (which they did early in the new process), the responsibility remained his alone. (See, also, the same lesson explained in detail in Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Winnick and Jocko reviewed here.) Marquet created the culture of authority aboard the Santa Fe by encouraging everyone to think out loud, to speak their thoughts. The new watchword was “I intend to…”. 

That was one of several procedural changes that Capt. Marquet initiated before the failure at the helm. He was moving in the right direction. 

It paid off during inspections. Operators occasionally attempted to perform the wrong action. Everyone makes mistakes. However, thinking out loud and not acquiescing to someone else’s error prevented mishaps. The Santa Fe passed her inspections and exceeded expectations. 

Learn to think like the next higher level was another lesson here. But it goes back a long way. Gen. Jim Matiss said it best: “The battlefield has its own accounting system.” In both the book and the movie of We Were Soldiers Once and Young (reviewed here) Lt. Col. Hal Moore is training his mobile infantry; and as they deploy from a helicopter, he grabs the sergeant, throws him to the ground and yells, “You’re dead!” He then points to the astonished corporal and says, “You’re in charge!” Oh… now what…?  

Capt. Marquet found concrete methods to realize his theoretical intentions. When people gathered to discuss a problem, he would wait until they had it framed and then he would leave the room. He asked, “How would we know if the crew were proud of the boat?” At the beginning, ahead of their first inspection, he told them to use “three identifiers”: Identify the visitor; identify yourself; welcome them aboard the ship. At first only about a tenth actually did that (though it was noted very positively on the evaluation). By the last inspection, it was routine. They had become proud of the boat. 

That was an unintended consequence of another change in culture: embrace the inspection. Instead of suffering through it like everyone always does, ask the inspector: How did another ship solve this problem? 

For myself, the book had two other invaluable lessons. The first was Don’t train: learn. On board the Santa Fe, learning opportunities were everywhere every day. Instead of parceling training into a time slot to be checked off, everyone was encouraged to be curious, not just questioning. The other was Don’t brief: certify. In other words, beyond assuring your managers that everything is OK, prove to yourself that it is. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

BNOC: Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Training Course 

Venture Capital 

Entrepreneurship 

Engines of Creation 

A Successful Imitation of Alan Turing 

ANOC: Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Training 

Crisp Greens at the Wheatsville Co-op

Usually, I do the shopping on Sunday, but with the Labor Day weekend, Laurel and I ran errands together on Saturday. So, we were introduced to Grant Richardson from Crisp Farms in Smithville, about 40 miles east of Austin. They sell sprouts and other greens to retailers and they sell tilapia direct to processors and other users (though not to retailers).

We bought the Spice is Nice and Make it Mighty varieties of sprouts. We found them both to be a lot fresher than the other brands we have learned over time to pass up. We have grown our own sprouts in the kitchen. It is fine as far as it goes. As much as we enjoy working in the kitchen, we enjoy other work more. So, the Crisp Sprouts are an easy choice.

You can find their story on their website (https://www.crispfarms.com), of course. Their production mode is organic aquaponics. It allows them to grow all crops all year. They also have even closer control over the growing environment.

Father and son Bob and Chris Nagelhout developed the business plan for “a sustainable aquaponics farm that utilized a closed loop, zero waste design for growing organic produce and humanely raising tilapia to be shared with their community.” In 2017, they brought in Grant Richardson whose master’s degree is in environmental engineering.

In addition to the sprouts, they grow four lettuces (romaine, butter, green and red leaf), kale, chard, collards, spinach, and bok choy, along with  parsley, basil, oregano, cilantro, and mint.

(For other reviews and reports, put “Wheatsville” or “food” in the search box.) 

Previously on Necessary Facts

Ayn Rand and Star Trek 

Art & Copy 

The Fourth Star 

Turn Left at Orion 

Number Theory as an Adventure 

The Future of Money

In the future, we will recognize money created by individuals, rather than by organizations. Individuals such as Taylor Swift, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Oprah Winfrey are certainly in positions of visibility and trust to enable that. 

(This is based on “The Future of Money,” delivered for the Maynard Sundman/Littleton Coin Lecture Series, at the American Numismatic Association “World’s Fair of Money” in Chicago, on August 14, 2019.)  

Third-party trust services such as Paypal could enable everyone to issue their own personal money. We have had reporting mechanism such as Moody’s and Barron’s for over 100 years. And of course, we now have Equifax, TransUnion, Experian. But they are only the inheritors of the Bank Note Reporters of the early to mid 19^thcentury.

Money markets could be radically restructured by some new reporting mechanism. In a session on the future of law at the Armadillocon-41 science fiction convention in Austin last week, it was suggested that the blockchain mechanism could allow evolving contracts. So, too, would a blockchain identity manager allow you to always show the spendability of the money you issue.

The New Approach to Freedom by E.C. Riegel
and Flight from Inflation by E. C. Riegel

 The idea of personal money was explained in two books from the 1930s. A New Approach to Freedom and The Flight from Inflation by E. C. Riegel. They would have remained even more obscure than they are had they not been touted to the libertarian community by Harry Browne, the author of How to Profit from a Monetary Crisis and other books consumed by gold bugs. For that he was the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000.

Economists define money as being a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Those are already decoupled. The dollar is not a good store of value, but it is a unit of account for multinational corporations, even those headquartered outside the United States. In the future, and actually right now today, money will be defined by something you have, something you know, or something you are. 

I assert as my own theory that alone on an island, Robinson Crusoe would need money, just as he needed language and for the same purposes. We will see that money and language are tightly bound. Robinson Crusoe would need to know whether it was more efficient and effective to catch fish, gather cocoanuts, plant wheat, or hunt pigs. She would need a way to track his efforts and successes in order that he could survive and thrive. He needs mechanisms for accounting for his work and for storing his effort. Having an abundance of dried fish, the realities of supply and demand and of diminishing returns might induce her to seek wild fruits or edible tubers, both of which might become cultivated crops. But without money – even intuitively -she has no way to know. You might think that Robinson Crusoe has no need for exchange, but whether he eats a fish now, dries it for later, or buries it to condition the soil are exchanges.  

During the great fairs of the Middle Ages, bankers met to clear their books of assets and liabilities and they reconciled their accounts without ever touching a coin. We speak today of virtual currencies but the system of pounds-shillings-pence was invented by medieval bankers to come to grips with a huge array a plethora of local coinages whose weights and finenesses changed over time. This was facilitated by a new form of enumeration, so-called Arabic numbers conceptually different from Roman numerals. That system, incidentally, was at first declared unlawful by the very Italian cities whose successes depended on it.

Every civilization has had merchants. The Sumerians had a commercial colony among the Hittites. What made capitalism possible was the invention of the mathematics of risk. Chance became measurable. Predictable outcomes could be monetized and sold in the first stock exchanges. Modern banking and the insurance industry both began in the coffee houses of London. 

Something you are. Mattie Kuhn called herself Ma Kiley for 40 years. She was a boomer, telegrapher who moved from job to job. Much like computer programmers today, and especically considering those times, a large percentage of telegraphers were women who moved from job to job. 

Ma Kiley was a member of two unions, one for railroad telegraphers, the other for telegraphers at banks, hotels, and other businesses. The unions were not recognized by management and owners, of course. But the union members recognized each other, and maintained their solidarity. If a boomer could not afford a railroad ticket, a sympathetic railroad conductor might acknowledge the membership pin worn by union members and find seating for them.

In our time we have other media to carry the same workload of transferring values among people. It can begin with ritual gift exchange, especially for those times when cash would be so awkward.

When thinking about the future, I recommend the works of people who have been proven right over time. It so happens that the free market economists of the Austrian school shared many of the same misconceptions about money presented by Karl Marx. 

Instead, I recommend urbanist Jane Jacobs. She said that the first cities did not evolve from farming villages created when pastoralists settled down. She said that the first cities grew out of camps where hunter gathers met to exchange their surpluses. From those cities, farming expanded outward. The simple fact is that tractors are not manufactured on farms. When crops fail, farmers go hungry but the city just imports food from farther away. She made those and other predictions that were supported by later excavations of Çatal Hüyük in Turkey and other sites. She also said that contrary to Peter Schumpeter’s theory of “creative destruction” very little is actually destroyed by innovation.

Jacobs pointed out that when steam machinery began to supplant literal horsepower, the craftsmen who had been making brass fittings for horse tack put their lathes and hammers to work turning out fittings for industrial machinery. This was supported 40 years later by George Selgin’s book Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775–1821. So, I assert confidently that as much as the future will bring unpredictable novelties, many of the structures and functions that we have in our social institutions today -especially money- will continue to evolve. 

We will always have coins, notes, and cards. A hundred years from now, people will not be spending uranium coins on the streets of Chicago. But do not be surprised if an asteroid colony begins to issue advertising trinkets made from rhenium, osmium, iridium or whatever it is that they have a lot of and want to sell. Money may take different forms and formats. But we will always have an affinity for tangibles. We already have coins shaped like guitars and baseball gloves. This will only continue. 

Nothing teaches arithmetic like money. Would you rather have two shillings or 25 pence? And if I gave you a shilling five for a box of sweets at a farthing each could I get five dozen or maybe six? In the future, people will do blockchain calculations in their heads, perhaps with the aid of silicon, maybe with enhanced RNA. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Ma Kiley: Railroad Telegrapher 

Objectivism and the Gold Standard 

Mere Gold is Not Enough 

Gresham’s Conjecture 

Supplies and Demands 

Dealers Make the Show: Armadillocon 41 Day 3 Part 2

Of course, it is all about us, the writers, along with our editors and publishers and the illustrators they (and we) hire to tart up our prose and poetry. But the table fees charged to dealers pay for all of that. Show memberships (gate receipts) are just an additional fraction.

In these days of self-published ebooks on Amazon, the relationships between writers and publishers are fluid. It was developing for about 20 or 25 years as printing continued to automate. But today, the work you want the publisher to do for you is a matter of contract. The author has as much bargaining power as the publisher.

It used to be that the author got an advance on sales and against that royalities of about 20% from those sales. The publisher issued press releases, scheduled radio interviews and perhaps signings in bookstores. But typically the advance did not cover royalties. A year or two later, the publisher would ask when your next manuscript will be ready and you would promise a date. You just smoked your second cigarette. 

Authors and Publishers Carol and Phillip T. Stephens

Now, the author has many choices for taking on parts of the work they can do in our interconnected age. The publisher does other work. The royality split is negotiable. But self-publishing is now commercially viable. The concept of "books printed on demand" goes back to the late 20th century. Here and now, printers are consumable devices, not people. And with Kindle, iPad, and their competitors and who needs paper? 

Allen Kaster's Infinivox publishes to disk

But I have an old friend with 20 books on Amazon and he cannot afford a car. For all the time and effort in formating for ebooks, you still have to finesse the advertising and publicity.  Our nation's motto is E pluribus unum. Literally, of course, it is From many one. I translate it as One out of many, i.e., just one in a million.  If you want to be seen and heard, you have to stand out from the crowd. 

Self-published author J. Darris Mitchell learned to draw
butterflies and other cute beasts in order to deliver
distinctive autographs to his fans.

Sometimes that can mean finding the right crowd to be among. Science fiction is a genre of literature but it is also a culture, a community. The same is true of mysteries and romance. Unlike so-called "mainstream" authors of the New York Times Best Seller list, as a writer, you start out with a audience looking for you. 

Self-published author Rie Sheridan Rose makes Armadillocon
on her way to Worldcon. This year, it is in Dublin, Ireland.
In 2017 it was in Helsinki.

I worked with a technical writer who was doing it just because it paid the bills. He had no passion for the art. His heart was in his novels. He wrote two but has not sold them because "they are not ready yet." I have placed over 300 magazine articles because long ago I took Robert Heinlein's advice to never let a story sit unsold. If it is rejected, send out it to another periodical. Today, despite the weakening of periodical literature in hard copy, some book publishers still produce anthologies; and not every story is a reprint. It is another venue for the writer.

Sabetha and Nicholi promote the Chronicles of the Seventh Realm
books at nakbaldron.com 
They have four on Amazon, and one coming out. 
You can read Salt and Steel for free on their site.

Writing is an enterprise. However, our capitalist society suffers from an anti-capitalist mentality. Ludwig von Mises pointed out the duality in the success of murder mysteries that portray the ruling class as shallow and sordid, thereby bringing immense incomes to the creators and merchants of cheap fiction while "serious literature" is hard to sell. Mises had no problem with that himself. He was only explaining the phenomenon.

Emmy (left) and Breanna (right) promote Fan Girl Creations
on Etsy, Facebook, and Instagram.
They invent and deliver decorative promotional items.
(Every storyline needs one.)
You can read an interview with them on Shuffle here.

For myself, among the challenges in writing fiction is that I find reality more compelling than the stories in my head. Yet, I like to think that my success comes from the fact that even computer documentation tells a story. My goal is to draw the reader into a new world where they are an interactive player who is rewarded for solving puzzles and unraveling mysteries. Work done results in gold accumulated. 

Lilian Butler (far back) creates jewelry, much of it from coins.
She also works with enamel and wire to create
"things that make you go Ooh!"
Oddly enough, we have yet to actually meet
at the one numismatic show we both attend.

Unlike "summer reading" most of these books are slim, often novella length or not much beyond. In hard copy, they sell cheap, typically $10 to $20 depending on the work's length and the author's optimism. Among the many advantages of a book is that you can get it autographed. I bought five at this show and they are all signed. 

Charles Siros attends the show as a retailer, but he also works
on the show committee. Usually, he staffs the registration desk.
This year and last, he also was my contact 
for setting up the rooms in my break-out sessions.

Readers are members of a community. Anthropology and sociology offer contexts for understanding how communities exist, survive, and thrive. Humans long ago left behind the small band in which everyone did everything for themselves. Division of labor exists in the simplest tribes today. Civilization would be impossible without it. "Jerry Emanuelson's Mathematical Proof of Ricardo's Law of Association" used junior high algebra to show that if two people divide their work and specialize, they create more than they can working alone, even if one person does both tasks bettter than the other. 

Artist Brad Foster (Jabberwocky Graphics) has been a Guest of Honor
at this and other scifi cons. He illustrated my presentations on
John Leonard Riddell which I will publish in 2020.

When you tell someone that you are a writer they often say that they would like to write, too. But of course they do not. It seems easy. That makes it hard to sell my work to people who think that they can write. Business analysts are the worst. At least programmers (devops) know that they cannot write and do not want to. It is why Cyrano de Bergerac's duel with Valvert brings me simulataneously to laughter and tears: "You say that I have a big nose. Is that the best that you can do?"

Texas A&M University's Cushing Library
houses a huge collection
of science fiction.

But I have the same problem with fiction. I feel inferior to the fiction writers who not only invent not just worlds but universes and then pull us into them with attractive words. Writing about real objects and actual people is easier. Wikiquote points back to Lord Byron. 
Lord Byron: Truth is always strange; stranger than fiction. 
Mark Twain: Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't.
G. K. Chesterton: Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
Leo Rosten: Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.

If only my hair were longer. 

John Picacio had his own table here
and also ran the Art Gallery.

Otto (L), Banquo (C), and Arnie (R)
retailers and resellers d/b/a Realms of Fantasy Books.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Ayn Rand and Star Trek
Firefly: Fact and Value Aboard Serenity
The Ferengi Rules of Commerce
Star Trek (not too Far) Beyond