TIMBER
“How much of a cut tree is sold as timber?
“For the average hardwood tree cut
down to make lumber, half the total wood volume is left in the woods as tops, limbs, and
logging residue; about a quarter is lost as sawdust, slabs, and edgings in the sawmill;
and one-eighth disappears as shavings and machining residues, leaving about one-eighth of
the original volume to be sold as timber.” —The Handy Science Answer Book, 2nd ed.,
compiled by the Science and Technology Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh,
(Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997), p. 237.
TIME TRAVEL
Although “time travel” is a popular theme in science fiction (usually more aptly referred to
as fantasy fiction) it is scientifically impossible, and even logically impossible.
Of course people, and the world as a whole,
are constantly “moving into the future” in their everyday existence. And something seemingly
closer to the instantaneous effect imagined for time travel into the future could occur through
methods such as biological stasis or hibernation for a certain period, which might conceivably
allow a person’s consciousness to suddenly jump from one time period into a far future
time period. But this is no more philosophically startling than the fact that when we go to
sleep each night and then awaken in the morning our consciousness has jumped 7 or 8 hours
“into a future time”.
But time travel into the past is absolutely
impossible. The standard refutation of the idea is the “grandfather paradox”: If it were
possible to travel into the past it would then be possible to kill your grandfather in his
youth, thus preventing your own birth and your ability to move backwards in time. In short,
the idea leads to a logical contradiction. It assumes that the past was both a certain
definite way (fixed), and also that it can “later” be changed into something different (which
means that it was not fixed).
Any sort of real time travel, either to the
past or to a discontinuous future, involves breaking the chain of
cause and effect in the development of the world, and
is therefore a scientifically incoherent notion.
TIPPING POINT
A common term for what we Marxists would call a qualitative
or dialectical leap.
See also:
DIALECTICAL LEAPS—Popular Terms For
“Most of us are already familiar with the baseline observations made
by [Anthony] Barnosky and [Elizabeth] Hadly: The climate is changing fast, and the rate
of species loss is accelerating. We know that sea level is rising faster and that both
storms and droughts are coming faster and stronger as a result....
“But Barnosky and Hadly, professors
at UC Berkeley and Standford, respectively, have more to tell us about these woeful
occurrences. They report on a recent realization in ecology: that what seem like gradual
environmental changes can turn on a dime, creating large, sudden change we don’t expect.
These are the tipping points, ‘and they happen because, in all walks of life, gradual
change accumulates slowly until it hits a certain threshold, and then all hell breaks
loose.’
“Tipping points happen, and we’ve
all experienced them.... Many such moments are points of no return.... The world has
once again begun to change in a way, and at a speed, that signals that a new planetary
tipping point is just ahead.
“Recent research into tipping points
reveals that they are ubiquitous.” —Mary Ellen Hannibal, “Future Shocks”, San Francisco
Chronicle, June 19, 2016. This is a book review of Tipping Point for Planet Earth:
How Close Are We to the Edge? (2016), by Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly.
“TITLE INFLATION”
The recent rampant corporate practice of changing workers’ job titles in grandiose ways, as an
alternative to raising their wages and/or benefits.
“There’s one place where inflation shows no sign at all of letting up, said
The Economist: The market for puffed-up job titles. Many companies employ someone whose
job includes ‘greeting all visitors at the front desk.’ You may think you are meeting a
receptionist. But no. This would be the ‘director of first impressions,’ or perhaps, if you
are so lucky, the ‘lobby ambassador.’ Title inflation happens more regularly during down times;
when a company’s money is tight, ‘a bump in title is a way of recognizing someone’s efforts
cheaply.’ But the outcomes can be laughable. Titles are ‘conjured up to stand out from the
crowd—chief evangelist, director of storytelling, chief innovability officer.’ The person at
the deli counter refers to herself as a ‘sandwich artist.’ Inflated titles also look great
until everyone has them. ‘A senior VP is someone in middle management; an assistant VP is three
years out of university; an associate VP has just mastered the alphabet.’
“Title puffery can even produce adverse
hiring outcomes, as fewer people (particularly women) apply for jobs with senior titles, even
if they are made up. ‘The worst offenses’ are the labels employers give to their staffers,
calling them ‘colleagues’ or ‘team members.’ The intention is clear: ‘to disguise the cold
reality of corporate hierarchies.’”
—“The Chief Title Officer Will See You”,
The Economist, as summarized in The Week, Dec. 23, 2022, p. 34.