The Fifth Element vs. Barrack Obama

"There are some structural issues with our economy, where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient, with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to the bank and use an ATM -- you don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you're using a kiosk, instead of checking in at the gate." -Barrack Obama

He goes on to explain that "what we have to do now...is identify where the jobs of the future are going to be...how do we make sure that there's a match between what people are getting trained for and what jobs exist? How do we make sure that capital is flowing into those places with the greatest opportunity...we're on the right track."

[Weep]

Mr. Obama, no, I'm sorry, but you are not on the right track. Millions of businesses, entrepreneurs, and employees are expertly pouring over countless bits of data in order identify need, satisfy that need efficiently, and are willing to take accountability for the results. You and your friends simply do not have the bandwidth for the task you propose. No person or administration does. The nature of the market, of reality, is spontaneous and dynamic. It responds instantly to new discoveries you could never predict. It rewards those who accommodate others best. It demands individual risk and real incentives. Obama, you are advocating the opposite: a command economy where you and your friends dictate the future. All history demonstrates that what you propose can't be done without rampant destruction, slavery, and death, to the degree it is implemented.

Whatever you decide, no matter how clever and well-intentioned, will deprive the market of the resources it needs to accommodate real demand. It will make the economy worse.

Reminds me of The Fifth Element scene in Zorg's office with the priest, Cornelius, debating the business of life.

   ZORG
Follow me.. Life, which you so nobly serve,
comes from destruction. Look at this empty
glass.

Zorg pushes the glass with his finger.

ZORG
Here it is... peaceful... serene...
but if it is...

[Zorg pushes the glass off the table.
It shatters on the floor.]

ZORG
Destroyed...

[Small individual robots, both free-wheeling
and integrated, come zipping out to clean
up the mess.]

ZORG
...Look at all these little things...
so busy all of a sudden.
Notice how each one is useful.
What a lovely ballet, so full of form
and color.  So full of..life!

CORNELIUS
They are robots!

[A SERVANT comes in pours water in another
glass.  Zorg tosses a cherry into it.]

ZORG
Yes but... by that simple gesture of
destruction.
I gave work to at least fifty people today. The
engineers, the technicians, the mechanics. Fifty
people who will be able to feed their children so
they can grow up big and strong.  Children who
will have children of their own, adding to the great
cycle of life!

[Cornelius sits in silence.]

ZORG
Father, by creating a little destruction,
I am, in fact, encouraging life!  So, in
reality, you and I are in the same business!

CORNELIUS
Destroying a glass is one thing..killing people
with the weapons you produce is quite another.

ZORG
Let me reassure you Father..I will never kill
more people in my entire life than religion has
killed in the last 2000 years.

[Zorg smiles, holds up the glass and takes a drink.
Unfortunately, he chokes on the cherry.  Unable to
breathe, Zorg starts to panic.]

CORNELIUS
(mocking)
Where's the robot to pat your back?

[Zorg falls, writhing, on his desk, inadvertently
hitting buttons which trigger a slew of little
mechanisms.  They pop out all over the desk. True
chaos reigns.  Even a cage appears, holding a
Souliman Aktapan, a fat multicolored beastie,
PICASSO, who seems surprised to be out in daylight.
He licks his half-dead master in thanks.]

Cornelius gets up and walks around
the desk.

Zorg motions for help.

CORNELIUS
Can I give you a hand?

Cornelius whacks him on the back.  The cherry comes
flying out.  Zorg regains control of himself. GUARDS
come running in.

ZORG
You saved my life... So, I'm going
to spare yours.
(to the GUARDS)
Throw him out!

The GUARDS throw Cornelius out.

CORNELIUS
You are a monster, Zorg!

ZORG
(complimented)
I know...

(There were a few script changes to the actual scene...)

It seems the difficult fact often forgot is that people cannot be forced to save or help others. We know they do so in abundance when given the chance, but it happens despite the direction of well-intentioned dictators, not because of it. On a more basic level, ask yourself: "Am I helping someone else if forced to do so? Or, is it not myself, but the person commanding me that is actually helping." As the one being helped, "Am I genuinely grateful when the person who is helping me has no other choice?" Finally, "Do I help others more effectively when doing so of my own volition? With the possibility of recognition? With the possibility of profit?" I suspect the answer is yes. But also, "Do I resent the fact that my good and noble actions are not appreciated because the beneficiary knows I had no other choice?"

A command economy is one in which our conscience and dignity is yielded to external planners–we all become stooges, zombie-like characters. Individuals, instead of responding to the needs of neighbors using their own faculties, act on behalf of some false, non-dynamic theory of good. It perpetuates itself in a downward spiral, where accountability is lost, no one can be trusted, and all appeal to one supreme planner. A command economy can only win when everyone is losing (e.g. during a war). There is some solace in the fact that we can know, without the shadow of a doubt, that all coercive economic plans will deprive people of freedom and accomplish less than what would be accomplished otherwise. In this example, Obama's plans would unintentionally prevent the priest from slapping Zorg in the back. Or in the best case scenario, would diminish his incentive for doing so (I know, in this special case it would probably have been best to let Zorg perish–a touch of irony there).

In a larger sense, Obama is using the same logic employed to justify all great economic planners/plans (Mao's Great Leap Forward, Lenin's New Economic Policy, Hitler's Four Year Plan). His argument cannot easily be refuted, because not dictating seems less effective. Any electorate can be seduced by impossible promises–"Vote for me and I'll provide for you" rather than "Vote for me and I'll protect the conditions that allow you to provide for yourselves." It is well known that Democracies are prone to be vulnerable to choosing the former lie over the latter pragmatism. We all want something for nothing, and in large incomprehensible matters, we find it romantic to hope. This notion was clear to our founders, who agreed upon a Constitutional Republic rather than a direct Democracy. Majorities tend to believe a command economy will bring positive change without remembering that the results of the change are always disastrous. Subsequently, the individual will awaken to discover, in his delusion, he voted away what power he had to reverse it.

The problem is not new. It has been with us for ages. The argument against it requires subtlety to communicate, and the value and breadth of that argument requires little short of meditation to comprehend. Fortunately, there is one 19th century French economist who has done well to interpret and explain the economic portion of this greater truth, Mr. Frederick Bastiat. (Yes, I return to Bastiat).

Zorg uses the first part of Bastiat's Broken Window Parable (in his essay What is Seen and What is Not Seen) to justify breaking the glass. He argues it is good for the economy to destroy things, because it puts people to work and gives them purpose. Of this there is universal agreement. A war, for example, puts people to work and gives them purpose.

The disagreement between Zorg and Cornelius lies in what could be accomplished instead of cleaning up the glass, with the same resources. By looking only at what is seen (the robots cleaning the glass and the workers required to build them), and not what is unseen (the good that could otherwise be accomplished with the same energy), the argument is incomplete.

Zorg addresses the unseen with a presumption: "Fifty people will be able to feed their children so they can grow up big and strong. Children who will have children of their own, adding to the great cycle of life!" A well-intentioned, thoughtful, reasonable person might momentarily consider it vaguely plausible that indiscriminately killing as many people as possible could be done with the full consent and force of one's conscience. Of course, Zorg is an insane, murderous psychopath who needs no particular justification to slaughter any number of innocent people, and is using this parable to taunt the poor priest before killing him. To Zorg, the unseen is a population of people whose purpose is not their own, but his–humanity exists to serve his destructive fetishes. These children he speaks of will be his slaves. Cornelius calls him a monster, indicating he disagrees with Zorg's assessment.

The argument against Zorg's requires imagining some purpose more desirable than his own. Obama imagines a population whose lives are dedicated to a higher GDP. Our founders, and those who drafted the U.S. Constitution imagined a country where government didn't usurp the lives of its citizens.

Obama's assumptions demonstrate another popular fallacy: that a strong economy is necessarily evidence of success. This is not necessarily the case. In a dynamic free economy, a slowing would indicate the needs of the people had been met. Less demand would reveal a general reduction in want, which is a positive thing. It would also be a sign of increased self-reliance, something American patriots and writers have championed since the founding of our nation. With a few animals and a large garden, large portions of our population might live successfully, and in perfect happiness, without contributing one dollar to the GDP.

Of course, our economy is not slow because we lack need or want. It is also not slow because we lack resources or talent. It is slow because we lack trust and incentive. Entrepreneurs feel the need to gain Obama's blessing, or be destroyed by the economic favoritism given to their competitors. Business leaders all understand the Broken Window, and hesitate to invest in growth considering the extra risk inherent to a society with a Zorg-like President. We cannot know how far technology might have advanced without the economic destruction caused by Bush's TARP program or Obama's "Stimulus." We cannot know how much prosperity was squandered, or how many lives damaged by these plans. Similarly, we cannot know how many lives would be saved without The Great Leap Forward or Communism in One Country.

We see "radicals" in the Republican party objecting to these plans, but we know they do the same thing when they are in power. They do so because this is what governments do, to the degree they are able. If we are to learn anything from the Fifth Element, it is that Bruce Willis kicks ass, but aside from that, we should be fortified in the complete confidence that the Fifth Element is not government, but something entirely different...

The Art of Infant Filmography

Motion picture unfettered from the hindrances of intention.

License Agreement

Here's a real License Agreement to some freeware I just downloaded.


Perhaps we are not all doomed after all.

"We have arrived"

A couple Italian scientists recently discovered how to produce energy using LENR, a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction. It's otherwise known as "cold fusion." According to Edmund Storms, in this article from Cold Fusion Now, "there’s no doubt that it has the potential to really be a serious competitor for a primary energy."

In other words, we have just found an inexhaustible source of cheep, clean energy. In Storm's words "we have arrived."

I don't mean to sound melodramatic. This is a breakthrough for humanity that rivals the containment of fire, or the wheel, nitrogen beer widgets. If the reports are accurate, there are no byproducts except trace amounts of copper that result from the fusion of hydrogen and nickel, and no harmful radiation is emitted. The reactor that was demonstrated in Italy required 400 watts of input and generated 12,400 watts of power released as steam. They (Rossi and Focardi, who discovered this) plan to combine 100 units in order to build a 1 megawatt reactor in Florida.

It's hard to exaggerate the possibilities. They are absolutely mind-blowing, and I've noticed such things tend to scare people off. Why is that? I guess some don't like to get their hopes up for fear of disappointment. Not me. I have never been disappointed whilst getting my mind blown. I guess it's just a matter of knowing who/what to believe. Well folks, this appears to be real.

Here goes: this singular discovery has the potential to:

• Satisfy the objectives of even the most fanatical environmentalist, eliminating carbon emissions and all other byproducts from energy production. This is a pollution-free, entirely green energy source.
  
• Eliminate dependence on foreign oil, liberating humanity from the need to wage war to procure scarce resources in foreign lands.
• Allow us to grow an unlimited supply of cheep, organic, wholesome, natural, clean, fresh food, replacing the need for GMO, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Really? Yes...

  Putting a farm outdoors has one big advantage: free energy, the light and heat from the sun. Unfortunately, it has many disadvantages. You get too much light and heat, or not enough. Things go catastrophically wrong. Insects and rodents eat the food. Crops must compete with weeds, and fight bacteria. Floods wash away seeds and fertilizer, and cause mildew. Farms suffer from droughts. Crops are reduced when it does not freeze hard enough in the winter, or wiped out when it freezes too late in the spring . . . With cold fusion, we can eliminate these problems by bringing food production inside. This will save an immense amount of land, it will reduce water pollution, and it will let us grow unlimited amounts of cheap, organic, wholesome, natural, clean, fresh food. This will be one of the biggest bonuses of cold fusion. -Infinite Energy

• Build computers, cellphones, cars, and houses that never need recharging.
  
• Build airplanes and helicopters that have an unlimited range.
• Exploit countless other advantages we could scarcely imagine today.
  

You have not heard about this on the news, probably because of the big disappointment following the scientific community's inability to reproduce the Fleischmann and Pons experiment in 1989 (which worked, btw, just not predictably). Since then cold fusion has been regarded by everyone, media and scientists alike, as junk science. No one wants to touch it - not because it isn't true, but because its 'too good to be true.'

Fortunately, over the internet, we can watch these historic events out of Italy unfold, and observe humanity restore itself to a peaceful, mutually beneficial species free from war, want, or strife.

But first, these guys need to get a patent. So far their attempts have been rejected(!) I guess proving something is scientifically feasible is difficult when dealing with breakthrough science - it's not like this stuff is already in textbooks. Anyway, after they get a patent and these things start rolling off the assembly line, there will be a stampede. Slowly, the denial, paranoia, insanity, and other expected collective irrationality will ended, and we will quite possibly be left with a new palette of creative tools with which to design our existence. I, for one, welcome and encourage them.

Wisconsin Commentary

I was going to construct a whimsical tale to illustrate the absurdity, but truth is stranger than fiction here. Besides, it's less sensational than just plain dirty.

There once lived a good, honest, noble people who desired to protect their natural rights. They wanted to protect their property, their lives, and their ability to pursue happiness. So, they pooled their money and established a government. It worked well. Everyone chipped in a portion of their earnings, and they built things that benefited everyone. They built courts for justice, and roads for transportation. Then, they hired teachers to educate their children. Generations grew old and died, and more teachers were hired and more roads were built using a portion of the money people had earned. Everyone's life, property, and ability to pursue happiness were protected.

Then, the public workers and teachers got together and asked for more money. The people's elected representatives said "OK, here's more money to build things we all need and educate our children." The teachers and workers were delighted. They wondered if they could get more money, so they asked again. The taxpayers...the people who employed these workers and teachers...said "fine, take more of our money for what you do because we think you are worth it." Then, the workers and teachers asked for benefits like pensions and health care and a whole bunch of things. And, the people still said "sure, you're doing a good job." Then, one day, when the public workers and teachers asked for even more money, the taxpayers said "I'm sorry, we simply can't afford to pay you more. We're out of money." Instead of trusting the testimony of the elected representatives, for some reason, the public workers and teachers didn't believe them. They really wanted that money. They even felt like it was their right to have the money that other people earned.

(While, of course, education has an actual value, the way society had been governed set the compensation of teachers not on merit, but on a scale of experience and education level. Other compensation, in the form of benefits, rested not on effective teaching, or experience, or education level, but ability to get together and threaten the public with lack of education altogether in the form of a strike. This would not have been conceivable a century earlier when local communities and parents handled education.)

So, all the public workers and teachers got together and formed a gang to take the taxpayer's money anyway. They called it a "union." The union was smaller in number than the taxpayers, but it was organized and determined. It spared no expense in time and effort to get that money. Because they caused such a ruckus and only asked for a little bit of money at a time, the taxpayers' representatives agreed to give them the money even though many people who were employing them with taxes said they couldn't afford it.

Since the union method worked, people were naturally attracted to unions. More unions were formed, and more money was asked for, and more money was confiscated from the taxpayers, and this became very lucrative for union members so even more people joined unions, and before long, half of the people in the population were part of a union, determined to pilfer as much money from the taxpaying people as possible.

When the taxpayers formed their own unions, the public worker and teacher unions, who had learned to be effective with the whole 'union' thing, demanded the privilege to gang up on the taxpayers' representatives so that they could confiscate as much money as possible against the consent of the taxpayers. They called this "collective bargaining," and it worked very well at confiscating property from neighbors against their consent and distributing it to union members.

A couple generations went by and soon hardly anyone could make much money unless they joined a union to gang up on the legislators who represented the taxpayers, who were growing smaller and smaller in number compared to the union members. Furthermore, the teachers, who liked the way unions confiscated property from other people for their own benefit using coercive means, somehow failed to educate the young people about the methods they were using to make a living. Consequently, a generation of young people grew up assuming the privilege of taking other people's money without their consent was a 'right,' like a right to one's property, life, and pursuit of happiness, instead of a privilege. At the same time, they were depriving taxpayers of their property and pursuit of happiness by using unions to gang up on representatives in order to confiscate other people's earnings.

The government that was created to protect property was now being used, on behalf of a minority, to confiscate it from the majority.

Then, another generation passed, and the government was bankrupt, because everyone knew you could make the best money for your effort if you were part of a union. And there wasn't any money left to afford any of the roads and bridges and things that benefited everyone (just the union members). So, the people paying for the public workers and teachers got together and said: "we really think it's fine that you take so much of our money, but we would prefer it if you didn't gang up on us and use coercive means to deprive us of our property without our consent."

Then, the union members stopped working and marched on the capital demanding their 'right' to confiscate other people's property and slept on the floor and engaged in other pathetic, desperate means to gain the sympathies of the population, reduced to bums and beggars.

And this is how a once good, honest, and noble people was reduced to a pitiful mob of loathsome, confused, angry knaves.

I just can't even stand it. I'm sorry. If they are educators and don't understand what is going on, they have no business teaching. If they know what's going on, how dare they set this example for their students. Yes, Wisconsin is a sedentary moose in a shallow pond that has been collecting leeches for decades. Killing off the moose isn't the objective here. If they were protesting for the survival of their families and livelihood, I could understand. COME ON PEOPLE. Taking away the legal privilege to gang up to confiscate the property of neighbors is not worth 5 minutes sleeping on a marble floor.

The only silver lining is that Wisconsin teachers are less dangerous at the capitol than in the classroom.

Quote of the Day

Inspired by events over there across the St. Croix...

A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Apparently the employers of Wisconsin's government (the taxpayers) are exercising their 'rights.' I say more power to them.

Busy Doing Things

My father used to say: "It's not what you say, it's what you do." Well, he said it at least once. He is what you might call the 'strong, silent type.' He proved to me long ago that fear and love are not opposites, but one-in-the-same, and even difficult to distinguish from one another. It made for a humble and temperate youth. At some point, probably in college, I realized that I did learn from his example exclusively, yet couldn't remember anything he ever said other than a few stories. I liked the stories from his childhood on the farm. I didn't know if they were true, other than the testimony from his brothers, always having some fleeting resemblances to my father's version. It was a fact that stories were and are novel and inconsequential compared to what he did/does/is (even if telling stories is some tiny part).

Is it really "not what you say?" Not at all? At first I found that disappointing. If this is true, and what you say means nothing at all, it means terrible things for aspiring authors. It means nothing you say or write has merit. It means all verbal communication is vacuous and trivial. It means you can say anything you want. Hey, wait. What was that? It means you can say anything you want! That's a nice spin on it...

Complete freedom! The U.S. Constitution even backs it up. "Freedom of speech," motherfucker! Stories, lies, damn lies, statistics, it's all fair game. If it ain't defamation, go for it...sweet. If it really "isn't what you say," knock yourself out. Right?

But, in that case, what's the point of saying anything at all? Why waste the time mumbling this after that (unless you're a commercial screenwriter). If it ain't for cash, and it leads nowhere but to more words, it's all in vain. What's the point? Hm. Vanity.

Is that the true meaning? Maybe what is said is all in vain unless you actually do something. It is true, that actually doing something can be inspired by what is said/written. Or, perhaps what is said is the reason the thing was done. But, at that point, is it important that anything was ever said in the first place? After the building has been built, what use are the blueprints? Hm. Well, to make another building, I guess. But, if something was done because what was said was reasonable, it certainly would have been reasonable even if nothing was said in the first place. Or, is it possible that a thing that is done requires previous spoken/written reasoning in order for it to be reasonable? I don't think so. An action, it seems, is either reasonable or it is not, regardless of what is said about it, before or after.

Maybe "it's not what you say, it's what you do," simply implies a disastrous inadequacy of language to accomplish anything at all, or possibly as much harm as good. Or, maybe more harm than good, in which case I am in trouble. But, I believe that writing, is, to some extent, doing, so much as it results in something done. And, if what is done is good, and somehow aided by the writing in some way, it is not altogether in vain. I guess that depends on whether you think vanity can be good. Another post. Well, time to go do something.