Month: October 2025

 

We have had high occupancy vehicle lanes for a while here in Atlanta but have now moved to dynamic pricing to reflect the perceived value associated with shorter times on Interstate 85.  This highway is about six lanes wide on each side in many areas, but it still congests to a standstill during morning and evening rush hours.

I never use those toll lanes even when the traffic is at a standstill.  There is something just wrong in my mind paying $5-10 to save ten minutes or so, but it tickles me to see them grind to a halt as well … with no refunds for the fact that too many people are in them.

These lanes are called Lexus lanes by the locals because that is the typical car brand that uses them.  We drive a Lexus but don’t use the lanes.  I might feel different if I were trying to get to work or had some time dependent issue, but it just galls me to think how much people are spending for convenience.

Maybe I am just out of touch because Disney just announced “Lightning Lanes” that give patrons no-wait access to rides and attractions, thereby avoiding the lines.  I stopped taking my kids to Disney because we spent half the day in lines, so I guess this makes sense, until you realize the surcharge is $300-400 a day per person for this privilege.

Why is it that Disney gets a pass on things like this when they are under the gun by the woke gang to eliminate so many characters that are the bedrock of the Disney stories we grew up liking.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is under fire for obvious reasons as are many other wonderful stories from our childhood. 

How can society say it wants affordability, equity, and inclusion then encourage class discrimination like this?  Plus, where is the moral outrage by those who can afford these fees to the obvious price gauging since there is no way this privilege costs Disney this amount.  This is clearly pricing for the perceived value of convenience and not reflecting the costs of providing the service.

If you only have a few hours in the park, this makes some sense but fails on so many other levels in my opinion.  But perhaps there is something to be learned here for the electric power industry.  We have priced electricity based upon the costs it incurs to provide it.  Is there a market for premium power choices, and possibly for better reliability?  If so, can utilities who have been regulated to keep prices in line with costs charge for something that may just reflect value rather than incurred costs? 

It seems especially odd to me that the trend these days is to avoid price transparency … the push to advanced electric rates seems to have stalled at the alter of convenience.  If you can’t recover costs for this, why not pursue the path of pricing for the convenience people are seeking.

Lots to think about, and possibly some concrete lessons to learn from Disney.  Let’s see.

Perhaps you remember that line from the 1986 Top Gun movie. I guess it is only natural to enjoy going fast … but I also remember the energy crisis of 1978 where we were asked to conserve fuel by driving slower. Do you remember when speed limits were reduced to 55 mph on the Interstate highways to save gas and of course save lives if there were crashes?

We are hypocrites today when we hear wailing that we need to reduce our carbon footprints, yet we are increasing speed limits. There is now a 41-mile stretch of Texas State Highway 130 between Mustang Ridge and Lockhart that has a speed limit of 85 mph, the nation’s fastest. At least nine states allow drivers to legally cruise at 80 mph on highways.

Engineers know the resistance goes up exponentially faster as speed rises above 60 mph. Here is a short table of the relative energy required based upon the carefully researched range estimates for my Tesla Model S. It shows that at 80 mph, you are using 34 percent more fuel than at 65 mph. If we say we care about our energy future, why are we so comfortable allowing such high speeds on our highways?

By the way, I feel like I am going to get run over if I stick to the posted speed limits, especially with people behind me driving like racecar drivers, weaving in and out of lanes to gain a few seconds’ advantage on their trip.

President Jimmy Carter became unpopular because he did the right things, asking people to slow down and to be a bit less comfortable in their homes by lowering thermostats during the winter and raising them during the summer. Every degree reduced the energy for heating and cooling by about 8 percent, so it matters. Three degrees equates to a 24 percent reduction in heating or cooling energy use.

In previous blogs, I have pointed out how egregious it is to consider supersonic flights for domestic travel. Do we really need 100-inch TVs? How about all those SUVs and all-terrain monster trucks rather than small cars or perhaps golf carts for local streets in communities designed to avoid our current commuting and recreational consumptive patterns?

I fully understand how modern whaling methods replaced the seemingly outdated and inefficient methods of the 1800s. However, no country today seems focused on sustainable fishing methods in the big oceans, so we are depleting them quickly. To see this yourself, watch the new movie, David Attenborough’s Ocean, which may be his last, and I would rate it his best.

Convenience and the pursuit of near-term profits seem to dominate the user perspective, so why are we saying we all should be doing our part to live sustainably on this planet?

I volunteer at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, over the summer where I explain to visitors the challenges of being a whaler and navigating the planet’s oceans. I share the evolution from reclaiming valuable and useful material from the bodies of dead whales when they washed up on shore.  But, as demand for these products increased, they moved to near-shore whaling, and then to factory ships that processed the whale out at sea. As a result, whalers depleted the near-shore whales, then the ones within a day or so’s sail, which led to the factory ships and voyages typically lasting 3 to 5 years. Had petroleum not been discovered in 1859 in Titusville, PA, there would be no whales remaining in the oceans.

Why wasn’t anyone paying any attention to the pattern back then?

Why aren’t we paying attention to the pattern in our lives today?

One of my favorite politicians is Senator Kennedy from Louisiana who has just published a book by that name. The subtitle is provocative as well: And why Washington never will. Watching him on YouTube is always interesting since he asks such good questions and makes such obvious points. Here are some of the “one liners” from his book:

• “If you trust government, you obviously failed history class.”
• “I believe our country was founded by geniuses but is being run by idiots.”
• “Always follow your heart . . . but take your brain with you.”
• “The water in Washington won’t clear until you get the pigs out of the creek.”
• “I have the right to remain silent but not the ability.”
• “Common sense is illegal in Washington, D.C.”

My prior blogs about trying to fix stupid all point to the same conclusion: don’t bother because you can’t … no one but God can do that and, in most cases, God doesn’t seem to care or be concerned.

I recently lead a Sunday School class on the Book of Jonah which included a puppet show performed by my wife Susan on the comparison of the story of Pinocchio and Jonah. You can watch that on the video and the podcast section of this website https://geektheology.net/podcasts (The podcast is at the bottom of the page and titled Sarah the Puppetarian.)

My point was that the Book of Jonah is proof you can’t fix stupid. Jonah is instructed by God to preach repentance to the archrival of the Jews, the Ninevites. Jonah decides that it is futile and attempts to flee in the opposite direction by sea. God sends a storm which alerts the ship crew that someone onboard had sinned (so nonbelieving crew had more faith than Jonah) and Jonah finally admits he is the culprit, so they throw him overboard upon which he is supposedly swallowed by a big fish … call it a whale … after all, who knew a whale was not a fish way back then.

After three days, this smelly prophet is cast up on the beach and reluctantly starts to preach to the Ninevites who almost immediately agree to humble themselves before God and repent … he didn’t get more than about a third of the way through the city … and even the King orders everyone to get right with God.

What does Jonah do? He gets pissed off that God didn’t punish these evildoers and proceeds to have a pity party under a tree provided by God to protect him from the sun, so God then sends a worm to eat the roots of the tree so it withers and dies. We are left at the end of this brief book with a prophet who witnesses the power of God but is so disappointed at God’s mercy he can’t do anything other than wallow in his despair.

Why is this book in the Bible library? I think it was to prove to everyone not only that we can’t fix stupid, but that God can make things right even with stupid people.  Simple advice: pray for them and let it go.

I finished out the Sunday School lesson with a review of the movie Forest Gump where the message that hit me after seeing this movie again was that our natural emphasis on intellectual ability misleads us. While some may object to the characterization of Forrest as demeaning, on balance, the movie emphasizes that the truth in life is in the simple acts of kindness and generosity.

True happiness is summed up in his life: love your neighbor and seek their wellbeing above your own. Forrest never lost his love for Jenny since the first time they met on the school bus and she offered him a seat. Forrest never lost his love for Lt. Dan even though Dan repeatedly wanted to die in the family tradition of wartime heroes.

Most importantly, Forrest never became obsessed with success or any earthly treasure. He lived his life simply and lovingly. The world might define his intelligence as inferior, but perhaps that is the point. I grew to see Forrest as brilliant for the way he lived his life.

His mother continually tried to tell him that he was no different than anyone else. She was wrong … Forrest was very different, and specifically because he didn’t have the distractions others have. Forrest was a far better and a far more godly person than anyone else in the movie or than many of us have met.

You could say he had a simple faith … that of a child. Nope, sorry … I think he had a profound faith because he could always see a path where he could make a difference. He didn’t wait for others to take care of him. He took care of himself and others, even when they didn’t want or respect him for that.

Reward was not his motive … at least not in the sense of earthly reward. It is so ironic that with all his success, his finishes out his life cutting the grass … for free. What a life well lived.  A good lesson for us all, especially at this time.

Once upon a time, long ago, I found myself in a counseling session with a psychotherapist trying to save a failing marriage. My engineering brain had concluded that, even though my spouse was “making me crazy” with her erratic behaviors and tantrums of rage that I needed to get my own emotional life in order. So, I braved the encounters and tried to do the soul searching in earnest.

While I discovered a great deal about myself, I became rather irritated paying someone to repeatedly ask the same question: How did that make you feel? Yes, I know why he did, but I almost never heard a question that moved beyond the surface and reflected on what I had been saying with any level of empathy.

What prompted this blog was an article in Nautilus on whether computers can learn to express emotions: Artificial Emotions – Nautilus. As I read it, those experiences from five decades ago resurfaced. That therapist made me feel he was an automaton.

When I asked AI to explain why that question is so often used, I got this:

The question “How did that make you feel?” is a common one, especially in therapeutic contexts, and is often used to encourage self-reflection and emotional awareness. It prompts individuals to connect their internal emotional experiences to external events or situations, helping them identify and understand their feelings. Therapists may also use it to help clients explore their emotions, express them, and potentially learn new ways of coping with them. 

So, there we have proof … a computer can indeed seem to express emotions. But, just like humans, these can be surface interactions rather than deep connections. The marriage I mentioned ended with her grounds for dissolution that I was boring and unintellectual. Yes, you read that correctly and you can ask my wife Susan whether I am making it up … but no, I am not. That was her grounds for divorce. But I digress.

Susan participated in a psychological experiment when she attended college where she was paid to listen to incoming freshmen and at first try to help them but halfway through the experiment to not offer any advice … only ask the same question: how did that make you feel?

The results of her research project were startling perhaps. The students initially hated her and thought she was stupid, but then felt she was wonderful when all they did was listen and ask that question.

As I ponder what I am learning from AA’s Twelve Step meetings, I see a parallel. Simply offer people a safe venue to express how they feel and what they are coping with and share with them how you have had the same challenges … validating them.

The Serenity Prayer is part of these meetings: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Ironically, IMHO there is definitely room for a robot to replace counselors, especially when only superficial relationships are needed.

Given most of us live our lives on that surface … counselors be afraid … be very afraid!  AI will replace you.  So … go deeper.  Listen more intently and reflect that listening by asking better questions.