A New Power Plant
Let me submit for your approval a model of our economy. I base it loosely on something I read by Einstein, and lots of smart guys have doubtlessly pretty much thought this up before, and even smarter guys have surely thought up why it's full of shit, but let me just go ahead.
Back in the the hunter-gatherer days unemployment was near 0% because one either hunted, gathered, or starved. Life was a meritocracy. Technology, including agriculture, came about and gave us free time. It made it such that humanity's necessities could be produced with 1/3 of the labor. Of course, a parallel phenomenon was the emergence of a non-necessity producing class: that instead of everyone working 1/3 as much, only 1/3 of the people did the work, and these guys worked just as much as before. The 2/3 went on to become politicians and plumbers. This pattern persists today: if one's labor can be replaced by a machine, one isn't allowed to labor any less, but required to find new labor. Just ask a newspaper employee of the 21st century.
Without money, many would doubtlessly just have freeloaded on those who work to make humanity's necessities. In order to be fair to the farmers, who were doing all the work, money was devised as a promissory note that non-farmers were working, too.
So the skeleton of the economy is a bunch of people who need to find something to do. What humanity requires (food and shelter) is entirely manufactured by a small subset of the population. Money serves the purpose of proving that the money owner jumps through hoops. Now, humanity has improved greatly as a result of useful hoop-jumping; it now has air conditioning, penicillin, pistachio ice cream, and Gilbert & Sullivan. So it's not that hoop-jumping is completely useless; just, in a strict sense, unnecessary.
It seems that the alternatives were slavery, which no non-moron wants, or Communism, which induces hysteria in rich people. These are just versions of the hoop-jumping model with the parameters slightly tweaked. Proponents of the current version of the model point out that humanity gets more of the benefits of hoop-jumping faster by giving out more dollars to better hoop-jumpers. Detractors (like your faithful 'Dlogger) lament the instability (e.g. AIG), but never mind: it's basically the same model. The point is that humans have everything they need and may as well jump through hoops to earn their dollars and keep the economy strong. Any benefit attained from the labor of non-farmers can be regarded as gravy.
So when the economy is doing poorly the idea is floated to put people to work come hell or high water. Have half of the indigent dig ditches and the other half fill them back up. Give them all a paycheck which they will spend and help industrious businesses. Humanity will "suffer" through a period during which no benefit is gained through the hoop-jumping.
Which brings me to my idea for a new type of power plant. I walked the streets of San Francisco in December 2007, pestered by able-bodied bums (one with a sign admonishing me to "Support the United Negro Pizza Fund"). It occurs to me that these people aren't particularly lazy (i.e. they aren't much lazier than your faithful 'Dlogger, which may not be saying much) but that various disorders prohibit them from getting and holding jobs. These people may be physically dirty, addicted to alcohol, impudent, violent, demented, depressed, or all of the above, but it occurs to me that if you give them a hoop to jump through for money, they will do it.
So my idea is to line the streets of downtown San Francisco, or the city of your choosing, with stationary bicycles, the power derived from the use of which going to charge batteries. The bicycles should be enclosed such that the rider is alone and secure. After undergoing the meagerest of registration processes, which should not require any kind of home address or past working history, the peddler can commence recharging batteries for around $12 per hour. This peddling is to be done without supervision. This program will ameliorate at least four problems humanity faces.
It will give bums something to do, curbing violence and the hot gas spewed by those annoying people who ceaselessly clamor about the injustice of being asked for spare change.
It will help the economy by giving more consumers a paycheck. These consumers will likely spend nearly all of their money, and if it's a large enough pay rate, these benefits should extend beyond the liquor store.
It will help the environment. How much wasted energy emanates from your conventional gym's stationary bikes?
It will help curb obesity. This is not a huge problem among the indigent, but of course the program is not limited to them. I predict great popularity for a gym with negative membership rates.
The neo-fascist counter-argues that such a power plant would not be economically viable, but recall that we have already established that the benefit of hoop-jumping is all gravy. Give bums a safe, private environment in which they may be industrious without the vulture-gaze of an officious fair-skinned supervisor and they will thrive. So will all of us.
Back in the the hunter-gatherer days unemployment was near 0% because one either hunted, gathered, or starved. Life was a meritocracy. Technology, including agriculture, came about and gave us free time. It made it such that humanity's necessities could be produced with 1/3 of the labor. Of course, a parallel phenomenon was the emergence of a non-necessity producing class: that instead of everyone working 1/3 as much, only 1/3 of the people did the work, and these guys worked just as much as before. The 2/3 went on to become politicians and plumbers. This pattern persists today: if one's labor can be replaced by a machine, one isn't allowed to labor any less, but required to find new labor. Just ask a newspaper employee of the 21st century.
Without money, many would doubtlessly just have freeloaded on those who work to make humanity's necessities. In order to be fair to the farmers, who were doing all the work, money was devised as a promissory note that non-farmers were working, too.
So the skeleton of the economy is a bunch of people who need to find something to do. What humanity requires (food and shelter) is entirely manufactured by a small subset of the population. Money serves the purpose of proving that the money owner jumps through hoops. Now, humanity has improved greatly as a result of useful hoop-jumping; it now has air conditioning, penicillin, pistachio ice cream, and Gilbert & Sullivan. So it's not that hoop-jumping is completely useless; just, in a strict sense, unnecessary.
It seems that the alternatives were slavery, which no non-moron wants, or Communism, which induces hysteria in rich people. These are just versions of the hoop-jumping model with the parameters slightly tweaked. Proponents of the current version of the model point out that humanity gets more of the benefits of hoop-jumping faster by giving out more dollars to better hoop-jumpers. Detractors (like your faithful 'Dlogger) lament the instability (e.g. AIG), but never mind: it's basically the same model. The point is that humans have everything they need and may as well jump through hoops to earn their dollars and keep the economy strong. Any benefit attained from the labor of non-farmers can be regarded as gravy.
So when the economy is doing poorly the idea is floated to put people to work come hell or high water. Have half of the indigent dig ditches and the other half fill them back up. Give them all a paycheck which they will spend and help industrious businesses. Humanity will "suffer" through a period during which no benefit is gained through the hoop-jumping.
Which brings me to my idea for a new type of power plant. I walked the streets of San Francisco in December 2007, pestered by able-bodied bums (one with a sign admonishing me to "Support the United Negro Pizza Fund"). It occurs to me that these people aren't particularly lazy (i.e. they aren't much lazier than your faithful 'Dlogger, which may not be saying much) but that various disorders prohibit them from getting and holding jobs. These people may be physically dirty, addicted to alcohol, impudent, violent, demented, depressed, or all of the above, but it occurs to me that if you give them a hoop to jump through for money, they will do it.
So my idea is to line the streets of downtown San Francisco, or the city of your choosing, with stationary bicycles, the power derived from the use of which going to charge batteries. The bicycles should be enclosed such that the rider is alone and secure. After undergoing the meagerest of registration processes, which should not require any kind of home address or past working history, the peddler can commence recharging batteries for around $12 per hour. This peddling is to be done without supervision. This program will ameliorate at least four problems humanity faces.
It will give bums something to do, curbing violence and the hot gas spewed by those annoying people who ceaselessly clamor about the injustice of being asked for spare change.
It will help the economy by giving more consumers a paycheck. These consumers will likely spend nearly all of their money, and if it's a large enough pay rate, these benefits should extend beyond the liquor store.
It will help the environment. How much wasted energy emanates from your conventional gym's stationary bikes?
It will help curb obesity. This is not a huge problem among the indigent, but of course the program is not limited to them. I predict great popularity for a gym with negative membership rates.
The neo-fascist counter-argues that such a power plant would not be economically viable, but recall that we have already established that the benefit of hoop-jumping is all gravy. Give bums a safe, private environment in which they may be industrious without the vulture-gaze of an officious fair-skinned supervisor and they will thrive. So will all of us.
posted by john at
9:48 AM
1 Comments
