I grew up in pretty boring times. If you’re reading this and you’re under the age of 86, so did you, really.
And let’s be clear; when it comes to the march of human history, boring is good. “May you live in interesting times” is often attributed as an ancient Chinese curse; it appears to be as “Chinese” as Leann Chin, but the sentiment is dead-on. For most of human history (and the entire time before it), life was fascinating, brutish and short.
In contrast to most of human history, with its wars and plagues and cataclysms, human history as known to people alive today has been blessedly, wonderfully boring.
Some react to the boredom by turning the idea of the collapse of civilization into entertainment, from campy “zombie” fiction (The Walking Dead) to breathlessly pompous asteroid fantasies (Armageddon) to moralistic sermons about being our own undoing (The Day After Tomorrow) to conjuring genocidal invaders from the world of fiction (from the sublime Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 version, not the loathsome seventies one) to the ridiculous Independence Day). I find “end of the world” p0rn unseemly; I didn’t spend this much time and energy raising kids to laugh about the whole world collapsing. (And may I add “stop being an idiot”).
Others react by hedging their bets against what, throughout human history, seems to be an inevitable. sooner or later; stocking up on food, land, ammo and other supplies to ride out a bad spell the best they can.
What goes up must come down. Things tend to move from a state of order to disorder.
S**t Happens.
And it’s happening all around us.
And not only is it inevitable – sometimes it can be a very good thing.
———-
A couple of weeks back I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Williamson of National Review Online. We talked in re his new book, The End Is Near (And It’s Going To Be Awesome). Like all of Williamson’s writing, it’s as breezy and readable as it is intellectually beefy. He’s like a modern-day Paul Johson – and that’s a huge spiff.
I recommend you read it. Like, go get a copy. You’ll thank me later.
I’ll oversimplify; the book has a few major premises:
- Politics is the worst possible way to allocate scarce resources. Not because people are evil or democracy is wrong – but because while every other aspect of life has evolved, politics remains essentially unchanged over the centuries. Politics is a perfectly valid way of dealing with many of the human condition’s issues – contracts, justice, dropping bombs on people who try to kill you, issuing restraining orders and the like. But for purposes of driving the allocation of our society’s resources, it just doesn’t work.
- No, really. It’s a disaster. Our national debt is hanging around a years’ worth of our national GDP. But the unfunded mandates that nobody wants to talk about currently equal, roughly, the GDP of the entire planet. As in every single bit of economic output from every man, woman and child on the planet for a full year. Every Big Mac sold, every Android Phone built, every bag of rice hauled in from a paddy in Bangladesh, every Justin Bieber download sold, everything – just to pay our nation’s mandates. And most of the world’s other “advanced” economies are the same, and maybe worse – they have no senses of dynamism, little familiarity with the notion of “Creative Destruction”, and even nastier senses of societal entitlement than Americans have developed. Go ahead – tell a Greek that she can’t have nine weeks’ vacation.
- It literally can not go on. It’s like trying to run a family when your significant other is running off to Ho Chunk with the credit and debit cards six days a week. It is not sustainable. No matter how vigorously the world’s political bodies affirm their interest in building roadmaps and finding solutions, bla di blah di blah, it is virtually inevitable that the system is going to misallocate its way straight out of business. Only instead of a divorce or a painful stretch of credit counseling, it’s going to involve some degree or another of the government running out of money, presuming it stops short of taxing every Big Mac sold, every Android Phone built, every bag of rice hauled in from a paddy in Bangladesh, every Justin Bieber download sold, everything.
So eventually, and pretty much inevitably, government is going to grind to a halt.
And to Williamson, that’s the good news. Again, read the book. You’ll thank me. Because once you get government out of the way, things actually look pretty good. We’ll come back to that later.
And you can thank the good folks in New Orleans, Detroit and – soon, I suspect – Camden New Jersey for giving us a previous of how it’s going to work. Or not work.
And if you think about it, there is some good news in there.
More tomorrow.
Nothing to see here. Haven’t you heard the narrative? Detroit demise was due to Republican policies! You apparently missed the memo and neglected to check the bibliography.
Actually, I thought the party line on Detroit’s demise was that it was entirely due to white racism (not that there’s any other kind).
The good news is that government must, at some point, grind to a halt. The bad news is that those who endorse more government as a solution to all our ills are too often perfectly willing to make us into North Korea in the name of “fairness.”
Actually, I thought the party line on Detroit’s demise was that it was entirely due to white racism (not that there’s any other kind).
Not entirely due to white racism, mnbubba.
Capitalism was at fault as well.
I would argue that America is caught between Scylla and Charibdis. On the one hand, America is still a place which readily embraces the new, so change is easier here than in most countries. But has a habit of regulation and social welfare systems made us less responsive to the market, less able to change?
On the other hand, while we have a lot more social welfare than in the past, the US has never been very good at government-directed economic efforts, at least relative to some other countries. The US is too big, there’s never a consensus, the states have too much power to obstruct, etc., etc. Take the adoption of the metric system as a case study. So while the central government in the US is more powerful than it ever has been (due to the cold war, civil rights era, and federal welfare programs), it’s not powerful enough to affect any real improvement in our economic situation.
So the US could expose its citizens to more of the cruelties of the market, and those people would respond nimbly by becoming more competitive, better and faster than most countries who embrace change less readily. The Republicans would like us to do that. OR the US could give more power to the central government, fix healthcare through central control, build more infrastructure, adopt more industrial policies, and generally try to be more like the Germans or Japanese. The Democrats would like us to do that. But half the country is deeply opposed to moving in each direction, so we’re sitting in the middle, with a sluggish poorly regulated market economy, an inefficient, ineffective social welfare system, decaying infrastructure and second rate general education.
the states have too much power to obstruct, etc
Feature, not a bug, Emery. And the second rate general education is a result of greater and greater centralized control. In education and elsewhere you’ve got big, fat bureaucratic fingers trying to micro-manage mechanisms they don’t understand. In the real world, such inefficiencies get killed off; the bureaucratic beast “evolves” by adding another layer of blubber to it’s nearly impervious skin – and blames a host of others as it chokes on its own suet.
The United States was built with an explicitly federal system where the federal government was given very limited responsibilities, with far greater rights and responsibilities falling on the states, localities and individuals. The federal system works best when the federal government preserves negative rights of the citizenry and the states, while states and localities focus on positive legislation like social programs and economic management.
But management of social programs in detail, most infrastructure spending, and all positive economic management is best handled by the states and cities. First, because the states can tailor their programs much more specifically to a much less diverse population and economy. Second, because of the overall freedoms of commerce and movement guaranteed by the federal government, and because of the need to balance budgets, states are eventually forced to back away from inefficient and impractical policies, or face the loss of investment dollars and their best and brightest citizens to other states.
Making the federal healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid) and unemployment programs into block grants to the states would clear the way for a tremendous wave of reform. I guarantee you that 50 or more flowers of reform would bloom, some more austere than Singapore, some more generous than France. And eventually we would settle on sensible solutions that fit each state’s desires, because in the end the states are all forced to be relatively sensible. The federal government can throw money at a problem, but it cannot create and reform efficient social and economic programs. It is constitutionally incapable. The US needs to re-learn that lesson.
I was thinking about your statement of “under 86 living in unexciting times” and was going to chime in with–except for the time the heavy triple A started coming up over Bosnia, or the radar altimeter went off at 800′ 10 miles behind the ship in the Persian Gulf, or the scramble horn went off at Langley sometime around midnight, but then I remembered American Pie and felt like the band geek saying “this one time at band camp….”
Hope your having a glorious summer up North.
fingers
I’m an anti-metric system guy, Emery.
The base unit (meter) is 10e-7 of the distance from the equator to the pole. Yes, I know it’s officially defined different than that these days, but that was the original idea. It’s entirely arbitrary, a relic of the days when the Frenchies changed Notre Dame into a Temple of Reason.
Dividing and multiplying by ten is easy, but base ten is arbitrary as well.
Dividing, multiplying, adding, and subtracting fractions is a necessary skill for our 21st century workforce.
Screws and drill bits go down to 1/64″. This is a finer measure than the metric system’s 0.5mm.
If you drop by Powhatan Wingo’s place to borrow a wrench, you are getting one that is traditional SAE measure.
Well, one thing that we learned is that there are at least 30 more cities that are headed the way of Detroit, due to unfunded pension liabilities. I’m preaching to the choir by pointing out that both Minneapolis and St. Paul are on that list!
I may take you up on that PM. I’ll be on Kona in August for the Billfish Tournament.
@bosshoss429
A pension should be an annuity priced at a fixed total cost. The monthly payment should be based on life expectancy and retirement date, with the retirement date set to any point after age 60. Let people choose their retirement date, but the cost should be neutral to the government.
Off thread metric system topic (created by Emery, shocka) but… a few years ago I was traveling the world as a trainer for my employer, a maker of replacement parts for machinery. I took a lot of time to convert all of the specifications to metric from our standard inch dimensions on all of my slides and handouts. As I gave the first presentation to a group in Sydney, I could see the participants appeared confused and were pointing at the screen and clicking away on calculators. I stopped to ask if there was a problem and one audience member asked if I could just give the presentation with inch dimensions as that is how they understood, presented and sold the parts to their customers. I told them that I was under the impression that people around the world looked down on us Yanks because we continued to use the system King George saddled us with. One old Ozzie piped up that they were using a system given them by the same bunch that also gave the world the guillotine with roughly the same result. So I closed by metric presentation and gave the presentation with inch dimensions from then on. Not one person in the metric part of the world I toured ever asked me to convert it to metric.
I would argue that America is caught between Scylla and Charibdis.
Dennis Miller you are not. You are still a repugnant EmeryTheSoci@listDegenerate. What the freak are you doing in this country? Why don’t you live for the haven of the countries you speak of here: US has never been very good at government-directed economic efforts, at least relaive to some other countries. Soci@lism and planned economies have worked soooo well in those countries. Why do you insist on subjugating and enslaving people? Is there not a moral bone in your degenerate perverted body? That was a rhetorical question of course – you don’t.
“fix healthcare through central control”
Name one country that has accomplished that.
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I read a column once that discussed how the English system often makes more sense in a computer (binary) world than the metric. Think about it; 2^3 ounces to a cup, 2 cups to a pint, 2 pints to a quart, 2^2 quarts to the gallon.
2^4 ounces to a pound. About 2^11 pounds to the ton. 3*2^2 inches to the foot. 2^5 * 165 feet to the mile. 2^3 furlongs to the mile.
Which will give you less opportunities for error when calculating on a computer? Hint; it’s not the guilllotine system.
JPA wrote:
Dennis Miller you are not. You are still a repugnant
Yet another mention off topic, but JPA, that’s an awesome workaround to Mitch’s spam triggers/filters
soci@lism
At least as far as cars used as entertainment are concerned, much of the world still measures in miles per hour and miles per gallon.
Fingers,
I was thinking about your statement of “under 86 living in unexciting times” and was going to chime in with–except for the time the heavy triple A started coming up over Bosnia, or the radar altimeter went off at 800′ 10 miles behind the ship in the Persian Gulf, or the scramble horn went off at Langley sometime around midnight
Oh, no question about it; you’ve had an interesting career!
But I was referring to “interesting times” in the Taoist sense of “wondering if my house, city, ethnic group or society itself will be changed, or here, when I wake up?”.
, but then I remembered American Pie and felt like the band geek saying “this one time at band camp….”
You obviously had a lot more fun at band camp than I did! (Wait – I was never in band…)
Hope your having a glorious summer up North.
So far so good! And you too – hope the Gulf Coast is treating you well!
fingers
@jpa
Turn that frown upside down big-guy. ;^)
I also suggest a remedial class in reading comprehension.
Emery, I have decided why I find your various pronouncements on how the government should operate to be so annoying. You seem to see government as some sort of tool to achieve a utilitarian function. You are like a fellow who chooses a painting by how well it will stifle a draft that makes him less comfortable, or who believes that conversation is best when reduced to giving and receiving orders.
The problem with the US government at the federal level is that it is ugly. Fixing it is not a matter of legislation, it’s a matter of aesthetics.
I like to stimulate conversation. I do have a knack for that.
Almost as well as the government stimulates the economy.
Just trying to bring a little sweetness and light to Mitch’s Militia and his band of True American Patriots™
bring a little sweetness and light
Light of oppressive, murderous regimes, you know, the Soci@list Utopia.
One does not require comrpehension reading your screeds, EmeryTheSoci@listDegenerate, but a barf bag. You and your views are on display with every vapid and insipid word your spew.
Let me introduce you to spell-check 101. Embrace the technology my friend.
/”comrpehension”/ > Comprehension
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/05/07/mac-101-enabling-built-in-spell-check/
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/2nd-comprehension.html
Good advice from “Pacific Rim”: Don’t chase the rabbit.