The Steussy Ranch

Gabi is now down with a sore throat, a sure sign that things are getting better for everyone else. Dan-dan and Camilla are both coughing a bit. Dad is much better, thank you. Aaron was in to see the doctor this afternoon and, though clearly feeling better, is not out of the woods yet. More medicine and a Friday morning return visit to the doctor.

Visits to Grandma’s this week are canceled. It looks like a full week of downtime for the Steussy’s in Budapest. At least I got a new copy of Civilization.

All of us were sick all weekend, Aaron the worst of all. Red, scratchy eyes; fever; cough. The bigger kids weren’t hit as hard. This is Aaron after he got back from the doctor this morning and started taking Ibuprofen. Much better now, thanks! The new trick is using his walker to get around and reading every book he can get his hands on. And opening the kitchen drawers.

These two talks are given by crazy people.

I’d read Ray Kurzweil’s books before, and he fully admits to being on the fringe of things. His core vision, that the rate of change is increasing (is a second order equation) but that people view the rate of change as constant (as a first order equation) is undoubtedly true. His extrapolations from that observation, however, seem rather far fetched at times. He is certain that some Baby Boomers will be effectively immortal due to vast improvements in medical technology that are just around the corner.

Susan Blackwell looks, acts and sounds crazy. Her central thesis is that intelligent life is not what it appears to be: it is a second order replicator. The first order replicator was the advent of life on Earth: life replicates itself, which puts it into competition with itself, with leads to evolution, which leads to self-improvement without need of a creator. With the advent of people, we now have cultural imitations, memes, which are constantly created and struggle with one another in a very similar way for survival. Digital networks are creating a third order replicator.

I nearly stopped this video three times since I felt it was so preposterous, but ended up feeling that there really is something here. It helps that the original idea was formed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, one of the best books on biology and evolution that I have ever read.

I have been reading about the TED talks for years now. Once a year, about a thousand influential speakers in different fields get together to discuss their area of interest or expertise. The tidbits I have heard have been fascinating. I just discovered that they are available on the web. Here are two that I found from my first two hours of listening…

The first one is about Happiness. I didn’t think that anything useful could possibly be said about happiness and this fellow cheerful goes on for twenty minutes proving me wrong.

The second is a Swedish scientist who does the most amazing things with statistics that I have ever seen.

I’ve watched about a half dozen of these so far. No doubt I’ll post a couple more as I find ones of interest.

I haven’t been able to find a website with this data on it, so I am going by what people have told me. The Hungarian national government has the following pro-family policies to encourage more people to have more children.

• When having a child, a woman can leave the workforce and return to her job any time in the three years that follow (employer must take her back).
• In the first few months, the national government will compensate the mother with 100% of her normal work wages while taking care of the new baby.
• For the duration of the three years, the national government will compensate the mother with 70% of her normal work wages.
• Free nationwide nursery school, daytime baby-sitting.
• Free healthcare (naturally)
• There is a “third child” bonus that I have heard of, but have not had it described in detail.
• As a family of five, we get a 90% discount (yes! we only pay 10%) for any public transit travel.
• All education up to and including university is free.

Compare this to the US.

• No outside support whatsoever, and only spotty, expensive coverage by insurance of childbirth costs.
• Projected costs to educate our three kids in the future runs to over $1 million if they attend private schools like their father did. Even if they go to public universities like the University of California system, the cost will still be over $300,000.

Results?

Hungary is losing population faster than any other European country. The US is gaining population faster than any other developed country.

Why do I think these results have happened? In general, though the cost of having children is enormously higher in the US, Americans have a more positive view of the future. American families think that their children will have good opportunities and a good life, and hence have more children.

One of the reasons Hungary’s outlook is more negative is the financial burden of supporting all of the programs outlined above. These social programs are expensive and need to be paid for, creating an enormous tax burden for the working population. Women who become mothers have a strong incentive to leave the workforce for six years (if they have two children). The programs are part of a larger social welfare system that produces the opposite effect it was designed for.

In general, my experience here is hardening the conversion to conservative/libertarian policies that I experienced when I lived in Prague and Moscow in the early 90′s. While I strongly support single-payer health care such as Canada has, I am otherwise in favor of a low-tax, lassie faire system of government.

We spent a three day weekend in Sopron in Northwest Hungary on the Austrian border. The place we stayed at, the Hotel Vadvirág (Wildflower), doubles as a horse stable and riding club. It is in a wonderfully rural area.

The dining area has outside seating for the summer, adjoining a large, well-taken care of green lawn with hedges, swimming pool (under construction), jacuzzi and sauna.

Breakfast at the hotel with the traveling Steussy’s.

Pony ride for Camilla. Dan-dan got his turn as well.

Esterházy Palace from the Hapsburg era. This is where Hayden did most of his life’s work.

Running along the top of a 12th century tower in Sopron.

Camilla is tired.

On Saturday, we drove through the Austrian-Hungarian border. We stopped for a moment to take these photos. During the day, we passed through two different checkpoints, both completely abandoned. On December 21, 2007 Hungary became a fully implemented signatory to the Schengen Agreement, which allows for passport-free travel between members. No one checks anything – you just drive/walk/bike from Hungary to Austria.

Being of a certain age, this is a truly amazing non-event. The Austria-Hungary border was the front line of the Cold War, guarded with barbed wire, walls, guards and dogs. This was the case for 15 years before I was born until I was 26 in 1989 (i.e. “forever”). My uncle was kicked out of Hungary in 1949 for assisting Hungarians to defeat the Soviet-imposed border.

I had only a few experiences of crossing the Cold War border:

1984 – By train from Munich to Berlin; and in Berlin, crossing to East Berlin for a day. This was joyriding as a college student. Dang, the guards were scary!

1987 – On a guided, Swedish bus tour of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) out of Helsinki. We were going to an arranged Jewish wedding and the only way to get a visa was to be part of an official tour. The wedding was staged so that the bride could move to the US with her two children.

Even after the fall of the wall, the border wasn’t so nice. The roads that passed through the Cold War boundaries were never upgraded, so they were small, unimproved two-lane roads. When driving from Prague to Monte Carlo in the South of France in 1993, I passed through one. There was a line of trucks several miles and (so they told me) three days long to get through the border. It was an eerie sight, late at night with lots of groups of truck drivers settled around folding tables playing cards and drinking while waiting for their turn in line.

It’s clear that the facility in this photo was upgraded to allow more traffic. But I certainly think it is much more useful and less intrusive surrounded by weeds, as cars and trucks speed by without stopping.

The world is a better place.

And Gabi wanted to shop in Austria, so we drove on in to get good deals on t-shirts and shorts.