Polyphasic Sleep

Good evening,

I was recommended by a friend to check out a blog by Steve Pavlina, who chronicled his journey through something called polyphasic sleep. Pavlina began blogging about his experience in October 2005 and finished his initial experiment in April 2006. My friend has personally experienced the polyphasic sleep cycle a number of years ago and I believe it was in large part due to Pavlina’s blog.

Polyphasic sleep is a sleep schedule designed to allow humans to survive on only 2-4 hours of sleep each day but it is separated into approximately 30 minute chunks at regularly recurring intervals. This is in sharp contrast to the popular monophasic sleep that is dominated by most humans around the world; one, long chunk of sleep time per 24 hour period.

Biphasic sleep is popular in many countries which consists of a large chunk of sleep and then a nap sometime after a midday meal. This is primarily popular in a number of Asian countries and a few European countries where it is seen as a common tradition and a part of their culture.

If I were to ever decide to undertake this, I would document my experiences on this polyphasic sleep cycle. I would take naps at 01:00, 05:00, 09:00, 13:00, 17:00 and 21:00. I have been told that I should start with setting a timer for 30 minutes and then slowly decrease it until I find a time where I do not feel groggy upon waking.

The idea is that eventually the body will be deprived of REM sleep, the most important phase of sleep, and will compensate by almost immediately dropping into the REM phase and bypassing the other phases. While doing more research, it seems that after a period of time, I will likely experience intense dreams and possibly lucid dreams. Lucid dreaming is when the sleeper is aware that they are dreaming and can possibly gain quite a bit of control over what is happening within that dream.

This would definitely be an interesting experiment and it would allow me to gain approximately 5 hours per day of waking time which amounts to around 35 hours per week. I believe that the key will be to stay productive and busy, otherwise I risk getting bored and accidentally falling asleep before my scheduled nap. I have been told that the first week is a bit rough so I should probably keep that in mind before starting.

-IntellectForSale

Healthcare Issue: COVID-19 – Part I

Good evening,

The next issue I wish to discuss is one that has come to the forefront of the collective mind on a global scale. I will discuss different events and strategies associated with COVID-19 as well as topics such as self-quarantining, social distancing and panic buying over the next few posts.

First of all, I believe that it is general knowledge that, first known as the coronavirus, originated in China and then began to spread around the world. The spread began in late December 2019 and by mid-March 2020 the WHO officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. Italy has since surpassed China as the hardest hit, going into total lock down as the number of new cases in China have stalled. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and American President Donald Trump have agreed to close the border to non-essential travel. Canada has also suspended any foreign nationals from entering the country, except Americans, and have issued a number of travel advisories throughout March.

Prime Minister Trudeau has urged all Canadians to come home while they are still able. When travelers return to Canada from any country, they have been urged to self-isolate for at least 14 days. The reasoning behind this has been confirmed since, based on a recent study, COVID-19 has a median incubation period of just over 5 days. It also mentions that anyone afflicted with the virus will show symptoms at approximately 11-12 days after first coming into contact with it. Therefore, it makes sense that if you self-isolate for approximately 14 days, you have a high chance (97.5%) of developing symptoms approximately 2-3 days before that point.

Heeding the advice of health authorities, everyone should be self-isolating and if you develop symptoms, to stay at home and get better before coming into contact with anyone outside your home. Even if you do not feel like you are sick, it is important to self-isolate since you can still spread the virus without showing symptoms. Since most humans experience mild to moderate symptoms, there is no reason to go to the hospital unless it is absolutely necessary to prevent the spread of the virus further.

In reality, if we wanted to contain this virus quickly, efficiently and completely, everyone on the planet would quarantine in their homes for approximately one and a half months. This would completely destroy the virus since if it is not being spread, it cannot survive and cannot infect others. This would surpass the approximate maximal incubation period sometimes found and would allow enough time for the virus to run its course.

Of course, this would have immense economic, social, political and environmental repercussions; we have already seen massive reductions in global trade, the number of flights globally has fallen dramatically, the global stock market has been affected immensely and we are only about three months in.

-IntellectForSale

Transportation Issue: Public Transportation

Good evening,

The issue I wish to discuss is public transportation and if the government, both provincial and federal, should be increasing the amount of spending in this area. I will be focusing on larger cities where public transportation is more widely used.

The main argument for public transportation is that it allows for the mass transit of individuals that would then not be using other modes of transportation such as gasoline powered cars, bicycles, walking and so forth. Without looking into specific studies, it should be common sense that the more humans riding public transit such as trains and buses, the fewer the number of other vehicles out on the roads. This means less harmful emissions, less congestion and more money that is kept in your pocket.

A monthly bus pass in large cities in Canada seem to cost around $100, significantly less money than it would take to gas up, maintain and park a car in a crowded urban environment. However, the trade off is time and convenience. Buses and trains are on specific schedules, stopping at specific places on specific days, which may change depending on if it is a holiday or if a major event is going on such as a hockey game or a concert. For many this is inconvenient and you would need to actively plan your day around them; it is a headache but not something completely outlandish.

For those who have never owned a car, this is just a fact of life and they just accept that this is the way that it is. For those who own a car and may be forced to use public transit due to a collision or loss of a job, the loss of that freedom to go wherever, whenever they want is astounding. Those with the luxury of having a steady job and sustainable lifestyle will likely not hesitate to spend the extra bit of money to own a car rather than ride public transit. For many humans, this is just not possible.

Therefore, I believe that the government should increase spending on public transportation to aid those who are less fortunate and may not be able to spend the money on a vehicle but still need to keep to a busy schedule. I do not believe that this will have much of an impact on current vehicle owners, other than having to be taxed slightly more. It is also possible that changing public transit significantly enough will actually draw in regular car owners, even if it is only for five days a week going to and from work.

One of the biggest examples for how properly fantastic public transport can be is Europe, in general, and Japan. Bullet trains, ferries, buses along with great energy efficiency and scheduling make these places some of the best in the world to live without a personal vehicle. The scheduling in Japan is so precise that two seconds off course for the bullet train makes international headlines.

The environmental impact of more energy efficient, electric or hybrid public transit alone should give the government enough reason to seriously consider the increased spending, at the very least in large metropolitan areas.

-IntellectForSale

Domestic Policy Issue: Net Neutrality

Good evening,

The next issue I will be discussing is net neutrality; this is the principle that internet service providers treat data on the internet the same and not give any special treatment to websites regardless of the user, content, etc.

I believe that internet service providers should not be allowed to speed up access to popular websites regardless of the fact of their owners paying a higher rate. This would allow traffic to be diverted away from less popular websites, where owners pay a lower rate, to more popular websites, even if the less popular website has the content the user actually needs.

The internet can be a great place and is a vast system filled with ideas and information that the world has not seen the likes of in the past as it is in its form today. While the internet has a dark and light side, we will only be discussing net neutrality and even so, only briefly.

Large corporations should not be able to use their wealth and power to sway or intimidate the changing of opinions and the actions of smaller corporations or service providers into doing something that would benefit them; either directly or indirectly. The service provider should be responsible for keeping a level playing field among all.

This is especially important when it comes to creating competition among corporations to sell their product or idea to consumers. If a larger corporation has an edge just because it can pay more to these service providers and divert traffic away from smaller businesses starting up, then consumers will not be getting all the information that could lead to a more thought out and well informed decision on how to proceed. Corporations have been found in the past to slow down file sharing, limit access to certain applications created by competitors and restricting access to certain websites altogether in an attempt to boost their own web pages.

Another problem is that if we do not have complete net neutrality then this could lead to humans around the globe having access to mostly biased, ill-researched and poorly presented information and ideas. This could create confusion and help spread bad or downright wrong information to others, and the affects could be quite damaging, depending of course on the type of information one may be looking for.

If one corporation cannot keep up with the market and cannot generate new and exciting products for consumers, then it should not be allowed to pay internet service providers more money to hinder its competition. If a sports team can no longer compete at the top level to win a championship, then it has no business purposely taking out other teams and hindering their progress; if you cannot compete adequately then you deserve to be at the bottom of the food chain.

-IntellectForSale