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SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2024 I had my recurring dream last night. I guess I should have expected it. It comes to me when I struggle—when I twist on my own personal hook and try to pretend that nothing unusual is happening. It comes to me when I try to be my father’s daughter. Today is our birthday— my fifteenth and my father’s fifty-fifth. Tomorrow, I’ll try to please him— him and the community and God. So last night, I dreamed a reminder that it’s all a lie. I think I need to write about the dream because this particular lie bothers me so much.

— Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Earthseed, #1)

Relaxing in a wickerwork sun chair, Zaphod Beeblebrox said, “What the hell happened?”

“Well, I was just saying,” said Arthur lounging by a small fish pool, “there’s this Improbability Drive switch over here…” he waved at where it had been. There was a potted plant there now.

“But where are we?” said Ford, who was sitting on the spiral staircase, a nicely chilled Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in his hand.

“Exactly where we were, I think…” said Trillian, as all about them the mirrors suddenly showed them an image of the blighted landscape of Magrathea, which still scooted along beneath them.

Zaphod leaped out of his seat.

“Then what’s happened to the missiles?” he said.

A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors.

“They would appear,” said Ford doubtfully, “to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised-looking whale…”

“At an Improbability factor,” cut in Eddie, who hadn’t changed a bit, “of eight million, seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight to one against.”

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry

'This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has, or had, a problem, which was this. Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nalied to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever.

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry

The contrast between consumer and producer identities points to two different ways of understanding the common good. One approach, familiar among economic policy makers, defines the common good as the sum of everyone’s preferences and interests. According to this account, we achieve the common good by maximizing consumer welfare, typically by maximizing economic growth. If the common good is simply a matter of satisfying consumer preferences, then market wages are a good measure of who has contributed what. Those who make the most money have presumably made the most valuable contribution to the common good, by producing the goods and services that consumers want.

A second approach rejects this consumerist notion of the common good in favor of what might be called a civic conception. According to the civic ideal, the common good is not simply about adding up preferences or maximizing consumer welfare. It is about reflecting critically on our preferences—ideally, elevating and improving them—so that we can live worthwhile and flourishing lives. This cannot be achieved through economic activity alone. It requires deliberating with our fellow citizens about how to bring about a just and good society, one that cultivates civic virtue and enables us to reason together about the purposes worthy of our political community.

— The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel

The tyranny of merit arises from more than the rhetoric of rising. It consists in a cluster of attitudes and circumstances that, taken together, have made meritocracy toxic. First, under conditions of rampant inequality and stalled mobility, reiterating the message that we are responsible for our fate and deserve what we get erodes solidarity and demoralizes those left behind by globalization. Second, insisting that a college degree is the primary route to a respectable job and a decent life creates a credentialist prejudice that undermines the dignity of work and demeans those who have not been to college; and third, insisting that social and political problems are best solved by highly educated, value-neutral experts is a technocratic conceit that corrupts democracy and disempowers ordinary citizens

— The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel

Proteinet som transporterer oksygen, heter hos blekkspruten hemocyanin. Den aktive gruppen som binder oksygenet, er to kobberatomer som bare klarer å binde ett oksygenmolekyl. Disse kobberatomene sitter dessuten gjemt inne i det enorme molekylet, noe som får en til å mistenke at dette ikke er en særlig effektiv måte å lagre og transportere oksygen på. Forskere har studert hemocyanin hos blekksprutarten Octopus dofleini og har funnet ut at vekten av et slikt molekyl også er noe større enn for hemoglobin. Hemocyaninblod som inneholder oksygen, er blått, men når blodet går tomt for oksygen, mister det blåfargen og blir gjennomsiktig.

I en artikkel på hjemmesiden til senter for sykdomskontroll og -forebygging i USA (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) fremhever journalist Bryan Breedlove at hemocyanin likevel er en mer effektiv oksygentransportør dersom sjøvann inneholder lite oksygen. I tidligere tider kan sjøvann ha inneholdt betydelig mindre oksygen enn det gjør i dag. Da var kobber trolig mer effektivt for å frakte oksygen, men kobber har blitt stadig mindre effektivt etter hvert som sjøvann har blitt rikere på oksygen. På et tidspunkt må det ha blitt mer fordelaktig for arter som brukte jern til å binde oksygen, mens arter som baserte seg på kobber, må ha blitt akterutseilt. I kalde farvann og i områder med lite oksygen skal det fortsatt være gunstigere å transportere oksygen med kobber. Da snakker vi enten om polhavene eller om områder i dypet som inneholder lite oksygen.

For å oppsummere vil en aktiv blekksprut raskere få oksygenmangel og bli fortere sliten enn arter som får sitt oksygen via jern. De blir altså tidligere utslitt enn fisk og sjøpattedyr som benytter hemoglobin til oksygentransport. Dette fører også til at flyktende blekksprut mye raskere slipper opp for oksygen, men til gjengjeld er de flinke til å kamuflere seg. De har måttet lære seg dette og andre måter å villede fiendene på fremfor å satse på en langvarig flukt. Da er det greit å kunne forsvinne sporløst rett foran øynene på motstanderne, eller i en blekksky.

— Blekksprut by Henning Røed