25184 Jeffrey Campbell has this to say to the Cadet Wing - an article for Veritas magazine

An opportunity to write for the RMC alumni magazine "Veritas" presented itself:

I am currently in Trenton working on the AERE Practical Phase (APP) 1&2 at 429 SQN (C-17s). I will soon head to CFSATE in Borden for the AERE Officer Basic Course (AOBC) which will finish in June 2016, after which I will receive my first (second) posting. I am also working on my MBA through RMC using the Individual Learning Plan.

I hail from the class of 2012. My first posting was to graduate school at Carleton University through the Post-Graduate on Scholarship program. This delayed my phase training by a few years because I did not graduate until 2014. However, PG was a smashing good time! It was well worth it in my humble estimation. Get that book learnin’ in your head while you are young.

I have to start by acknowledging how many of you must feel now.

When I arrived in first year, the college was an intimidating institution. Through the years, I became more familiar with the place and grew personally and professionally within its structure. More and more, it fell to our year to lead and shape the institution. Eventually, I felt squelched and confined within the bubble of RMC like a plant whose roots have filled its pot. I began to see RMC in the context of the real world. If this were not a common experience, there be no countdown to graduation!

Each in our own way, each starting at different times, and each with varying intensity, my colleagues and I yearned to burst the RMC bubble and graduate. At the time, these feelings were frustrating and they fed our apathy and cynicism, especially in fourth (or fifth or sixth!) year.

Now I grow in a bigger garden. I can see that a small pot forced us to grow closer together. Our roots entwined and became inseparable. In this life, happiness is a direct result of strong relationships. The connections you will have made at RMC are your treasure. RMC has made me wealthy indeed.

With the benefit of hindsight, I look back at RMC and am more aware of the advantages of having been in that pot. I had the privilege of laughing, complaining, crying, and celebrating with some of the finest men and women that I am likely ever to meet. They are not merely friends; they are family.

At this moment, I could travel almost anywhere in Canada and find a friend with whom to stay. Consider the camaraderie of the Old Brigade and you will agree that this will still be the case when I can count 30, 50, 70, or 90+ trips around the Sun. Why is this possible? When people overcome adversity together it builds a connection. For each in their own way, RMC played the role of that challenge which bonded us to one another. What was it for you? Double exam day? Extra drill for a dud-ly endeavor? Fitness frustrations? Barman blues? Shoes unshone? We have passed through these together.

A wise man told me that you will not remember much in your life except for when it involves the people around you. As you graduate, I urge the fourth years to consider not what they have gained, but who they have gained. For the rest, use the time you have left to interweave your lives with those around you and make the most of that small pot.

How to find the love of your life

What everyone wants

To be in love with someone is to have another being in this vast world to comprise one's other half. It is to live outside of oneself in a way which much be felt to be understood. Love imbues life with purpose and grants a sense of belongingness without substitute. To love is to live as two people.

Is there such a thing as 'true' love or does love come in varying hues? I will not pretend to know. In any case, love is not a constant; its feeling weans and waxes with time. How then, can one say with confidence, "This is the love for me - I have found the one," when, at times, love is such an uncertain emotional venture? In heated moments, doubt surfaces above love's rippling surface and begs the question, "What if there is someone better? What if this is not the one?"

The insight of the Marriage Problem
The secretary problem, also known as the marriage problem, considers the selection of a candidate for the position of spouse. Choose the first girl met, and chances are that there will be a better match out there somewhere in the world. Contemplate too long, and the happy marriage, though begun with an optimal spouse, will not endure for long as you will find yourself too far on in years and too close to death. There must be a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where enough women have been met to have become experienced enough to learn what is preferred while still being young enough to spend the rest of your life with the successful candidate!

Consider:

A store has just opened in New York City that offered free husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:
“You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors to choose from. You may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the 1st floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs
The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely Good Looking.
“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims. “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the Sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 71,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that you are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

The despair of the marriage problem
Let me start by explaining that my own love is one which I ironically stumbled upon in high school after she and I had simultaneously dropped a chemistry class. At the ripe age of 17, I knew nothing of women or love, a condition which remains to this day. At time of writing, we have thoroughly enjoyed eight years together and have survived many calamities which life has presented.

What is troubling is that I have not followed the wisdom of the mathematical solution to the marriage problem, which is more or less to inspect the first n/e out of the n candidates and then choose the first one which exceeds all those seen so far. I had only experienced a few women. How could I be sure that there was not someone far better out there for me?

If love is so important and powerful, I want to get it right. I could not find a flaw in the optimal wife-selecting algorithm, and so this troubled me for some time. What to do then? Should I break it off just to gain more perspective? What if I discard the love of my life? This forced me to realize something very important about life.

A practical solution
If I am selecting numbers written on paper, then this mathematical thought experiment makes perfect sense. I should apply the proper theorem and maximize my chance of obtaining the largest number (the best wife). But when I thought about my own relationship, it did not seem so straightforward. If I choose a wife, is she just a 50 or a 63 or a 37? Surely, some women are better suited for me initially, but what happens next?

A wise man once told me of a great engineer who designed electrical circuits. Once the engineer designed and built his circuit, he flooded it with current until some part burst into smoke. That part would be improved and strengthened, and once again the circuit would be stressed. The final design was impervious to any likely source of damage; it was reliable and tested.

True love is not something to be happened upon. It is something to be designed, forged, stressed, and improved. True love is not waiting out there to be found. The love of your life is created after you have forged a relationship with a person who has put in as much effort as you have. Frequently, the design of love springs to smoke and it must be patched. But love becomes stronger for it.

Ripe fruit cannot be found in a world of seedlings. The love of your life must be built on foundation of tears and joy and framed with struggle and overcoming. It must be cried over, fought for, and lived for. And when people look in from the outside, they will wonder how you, so luckily, found the love of your life.

Merivale Awards Ceremony Speech 2014

Today I spoke to a crowd of more than 500 people for the first time, which was quite a thrill. When speaking in front of a packed cafeteria, the number of people may as well be infinite because you cannot count them nor make eye contact with them all. That means that I now can cite evidence to use against my future self's nervousness for any public speaking engagement short of a presidential address. I was invited to speak at the Junior Award Ceremony at my former high school, Merivale High School. Sure, I was nervous, but it would be too ironic to back out of giving the following speech merely due to fear:

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of the award winners for their achievements!

It is an honor to come back to my high school and make an attempt at some words of wisdom. I only want to talk about one thing today. I want to tell you a secret that I slowly realized over the years and why it matters to you.

In grade 12, I was applying to post-secondary schools. I had to pick a school, pick a program, pick a specialization, pick options, pick internships, pick part-time jobs… Too much picking for a ripe 18 year old.

At the time, I felt like I should already know what to do with the rest of my life. BUT I DIDN'T! Honestly, I had barely any idea. But looking at all the people around me -- I thought, you know, they seem to know what they are doing. These 30, 40, 50 year olds seem to have a grip on things. How did they know how to do all this picking when they were my age?

Long story short, I ended up at the University of Ottawa studying commerce. It was at that time that a friend of mine decided to join the Army Reserves because he wanted to try it out. The recruiting centre is near uOttawa, so he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him while he went to check it out. Since it was January, I said "Uhh no, not really, it's like 5 Kelvin outside." He said “that’s warmer than 4 Kelvin”, and added that we could get Booster Juice on the way so I conceded and went for a walk because I really like Booster Juice.

Long story short, I ended up joining the Air Force as a pilot and went to the royal military college to study electrical engineering. You can bet that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

But here's the thing -- to begin pilot training, every candidate has to go in a punch-buggy sized simulator that moves around as you steer and fly some courses to prove that you can handle a steep learning curve. Some of the other candidates were much older than me, but when I spoke to them, they told me that they were nervous and apprehensive. How could that be? Shouldn’t they have it all figured out by now? Some of these people even already had pilot licenses!


In Kingston, at the Royal Military College, we were thrust into leadership roles for which we had no experience whatsoever. We were placed in front of dozens of people and expected to be the commander for the day. None of my peers knew what they were doing. I certainly didn’t.
Long story short, the first time I ever had to give marching orders, I ordered a “right turn” too quietly and a block of evenly spaced humans people slowly but steadily marched into the side of a parked white van. Luckily, no casualties other than my self-confidence.

Even now, when I was asked to talk at this ceremony, my first thought was "that’s crazy, I don’t know the first thing about public speaking." “How does anyone talk in front of that many people?”

So here's the secret and if you remember, just remember this one thing. Every person I have ever met has no idea what they are doing. They have no idea what they are doing.

My point is that if at this stage in your lives, you feel afraid, nervous, uncertain – or if you ever feel that way at work or in school later in life, this just means that you have embarked on an adventure and that you are growing as a person.

If you feel comfortable and safe about everything in your life, then you are not growing as a person. Growth is risky. Growth is nerve-wracking. Growth is uncomfortable. But success is worth it.

The best thing you can do with your high school years is get used to being nervous and uncomfortable. Find one thing per month that you might fail at and give it a shot. If nobody else knows what they are doing either, then what’s the worst that could happen?
 When you set out on an adventure to expand yourself, any adventure that suits you, big or small, tell yourself that everyone felt this way, feels this way, and will feel this way. Even those who succeeded and those who are great. It makes the fear afraid. The only ones who never felt this way are those who never tried.

In the end, it went superbly and several parents even came up to thank me personally, which surprised my pessimistic instincts and was a distinct honor. Today's lesson: never back out of something just because you are afraid of what might go wrong. You might miss what goes right.

Fear is Irrelevant

Remember your fear on the first day of school

What if I they don't like me?

What if I it's too difficult?

What if I fail?

Remember your fear on your first day of work?

What if they don't like me?

What if it's too difficult?

What if I fail?

Remember your fear on your first date?

What if she doesn't like me?

What if it doesn't work out?

What if we break up?

Remember every time you were afraid

What if fear is normal?

What if everyone is afraid?

What if fear is no excuse for inaction?

Now remember your success.

Your graduation

Your career

Your marriage

Terrified. You were terrified

Until you succeeded.

You have always been afraid that you wouldn't succeed

Until you did.

And still you made it through.

Remember how you made it.

Next time you are afraid, tell yourself

Those who came before were afraid

Those who come after will be afraid

I am afraid...

And yet

Those who came before succeeded

Those who come after will succeed

I will succeed

Fear is irrelevant

Give Me All the Facts!

I think that our governments will do the right thing after they have exhausted all other alternatives. With that said, I recommend watching this ted talk.

This talk's main argument is that you cannot defy economics for long. The speaker lost $150 million investing in wind energy and argues as a result that renewables just aren't there yet. Instead, he suggests that we will proceed to using natural gas as an energy bridge to renewables.

When I Google the definition of economics, I usually get something about the production and consumption of goods. I think this definition is too specific and misses the point.

Now that I am studying machine intelligence, a key question emerges. How can machines learn? It seems that the best way to answer this question is to ask, "How do humans and animals make decisions?" We use economic theories and game theories to produce machine 'brains.' Thus, I think economics is the study of how groups and individuals make decisions about almost anything. Even when the decision is emotional, a sort of emotional economics is taking place. We always try to maximize whatever it is that we value the most, valuing the future in whatever way we think is proper. i.e. is a reward tomorrow better than a reward today?

Because this is true, we vote with our wallets. Regardless of what somebody tells me they think is important, I won't believe them until I see how they spend their money. I have many friends who rant and rave about the Alberta tar sands, yet they consume disproportionate amounts of gasoline, jet fuel, electricity, consumer goods and so on. They cause the Alberta tar sands to happen. They would not be willing to pay slightly more to use Bullfrog Power. It is clear then that their priorities are different from what they would have me believe.

The question then is how can we convince people -- most of whom think like this -- to act in line with the 'beliefs' that they claim that they have? 

People choose to consume oil and coal because they are made to look cheaper than the alternatives. They are still heavily subsidized in many places, the most externalities are multiplied by zero (most like because they are hard to count). I laugh when I hear someone say that coal is cheaper than oil -- maybe it is if you don't count all of the things that matter to most of humanity.

You can't defy economics for long. Natural gas is now becoming cheaper than coal or oil so I think we will move there next, unless thorium reactors becoming cheaper themselves.

I think that if natural gas becomes our energy bridge, it will prove that our economic system is distorted. I don't say that the economic system is broken because it is quite proven that a free market will choose whatever is 'best.' Remember that 'best' is whatever people actually want most - not what is a lofty goal of society. This might mean that we make iPads instead of feeding the world's poor. It only happens because most people see no reason to care about the world's poor. Can you deny reality?

The question then is: how can we make people care about the things that are in the long-term interest of mankind? If we view people as players in a game, then economics are the rules of the game. We always follow these rules. Therefore, world governments need to ensure that the real costs of our choices are clear.

If there is no price on carbon, then we are saying that we think that climate change is not really a problem right now.

If coal plants can cause acid rain and poison nearby inhabitants without being fined or charged, we are forcing people to conclude that acid rain is not that big of a deal and the people living nearby probably didn't matter anyway.

If people can demand oil so much that we decide to invest billions ravaging Alberta's environment, it must mean that we do not value Alberta's environment.

My main point then is clear: if we value something, then we must put a value on it --  a dollar value. Corporations don't do what is ethically right or nice, they are psychopathic constructs that optimize dollars over some period of time. Coal plants don't have parents to teach them that slowly poisoning people for profit is naughty.

Governments (read: you and I) must assign value to everything. How can you compare things accurately if they are not quantified? Once we do this, the 7 billion clever minds will do the rest. If we end up valuing long-term human survival and happiness, we will achieve that. If we value short-term happiness and the demise of our grandchildren, we will achieve that too.

So if we lay out the options and assign a cost (with uncertainty) to coal, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, thorium fission, uranium fission, etc. then we can choose some collection of them and discard the losers based on the objective interests of humanity. I think they all deserve to play by the same rules.

This is not a trivial task, since our values and interests differ so greatly. But right now we are simply excluding some values, while including others. Instead, if we include them all, things will change for the best. I say this because most people on Earth have children at some point. I don't think it is possible to have children and thereafter live with disdain for the future without having some mental defect.

I originally wrote this because Gord asked me what I thought about thorium fission. So to answer your question Gord: if thorium fission is as good as it sounds (and I've read about it too and it does sound promising) then we will inevitably do the right things after we try everything else first.

I am optimistic. The reach of education and information has never been so pervasive and will only improve as humanity marches onward. If we are more educated, we will demand more than just a partial edition of the facts when making our decisions.