Friday, September 26, 2008

einstein's quest

Tom Friedman came to Duke last week and talked about his answer to everything. Essentially, he believes, there are five or six major problems in the world, and energy independence (cheap, renewable, plentiful electrons, he calls them) is the solution that will make them all go away. Some problems that he labeled were petrodictatorship (the idea that oil enhances powerful dictatorships and reduces freedom), climate change (duh), overpopulation, ( see climate change), and biodiversity. He had many problems, and a single solution that would take care of all of them. Killing six birds with one stone, you might say.

Well, it seems to me that that this six birds one stone idea should apply in many different areas. And it seems that there should be an overarching solution to the many problems ... infinite problems, one solution. Free trade purists have latched on to free trade as the solution that will cure all of the worlds evils - unfortunately, they are wrong, as free trade has proven itself over and over again to be a tool for the rich and powerful, exploiting the poor. Religious zealots have proclaimed that if everyone would just recognize jesus/allah/buddha/whatever other deity, as their lord and savior, then we would have heaven on earth. This is probably true. If everyone was just like Jesus, we would live in a pretty sweet (although sometimes very confusing) world. Unfortunately, nobody is just like Jesus, because nobody is God. We're all human, and we're greedy, we have trouble valuing anothers life as much as we value our own, we're xenophobic, we want many things, etc. And, you know, a lot of people don't believe in Jesus. Its illogical, makes no sense, its unanalytical idealism, and its vaguely southern.

Okay, so whats the solution to the problems?

it appears that the biggest problem is the distribution of wealth, and inequality. We have six billion minds on this earth. but only about 20% of them are actively participating in solution finding, because the other 80% of them have crappy educations, are females in an oppressed world, have underdeveloped brains because of severe malnutrition as a child, or have to spend their time working to survive instead of working to help others survive. But redistributing wealth is silly because it would just get unequally distributed again in the future, or it would piss a lot of people off, or it wouldnt work the same way communism didnt work.

So, what if money just didnt exist? What if everything were free? What if...robots did all the labor, and all humans had to do was consume responsibly, be educated, and every once in a while go update the system?

I guess you would have the problem of overconsumption. But we could just discriminate against fat people, and people who had ginormous houses and lavish things -- bc if money didnt exist, it would mean you didn't earn it -- it would mean you'd taken it away from the common good. It would be socially valuable to live responsibly. People could spend most of their time having fun, or working out, or reading, or watching movies, or whatever. They could still produce, for the social value of fame, they just wouldn't get paid to do it.

this all sounds like an economist's worst nightmare, i'm sure, but eventually we'll get to the point where robots do most of the work, and the person who owns those robots reaps most of the benefits while the workers who were replaced by the robots gets nothing. Taxing the shit out of that capital and redistributing it the poor is one way of dealing with the issue, but that makes people feel worthless and pisses off the robot owners. Lets just eliminate money.

Einstein spent his life on a quest to find the answer to everything. Douglas Adams, in a Hitchikers Guide, said the answer to everything was 42. Adams is one of the only people who has proposed a real solution. I say we take 42, we run with it, and we call it the elimination of money (only after, of course, we can automatize everything, and robots could legitimately produce and make everything we needed sustainably).