I think it’s time for a Twenty-First Century economic theory

Roughly speaking, there are two big economic theories in the world today: capitalism and socialism.  A lot of people spend a lot of time talking about the successes and failures of each.  Nobody really cares about my opinion, but it is that both are failing ideologies. 

Now some will be screaming “How has capitalism failed?” Well, let me ask a question.  Let’s say there is a company named WidgetCo that makes widgets.  These widgets are so wondrous that everyone wants one, and WidgetCo makes a lot of money selling them.  But they make their widgets so well that they almost never breakdown, and soon everyone who wants a widget has one, and WidgetCo goes out of business, leaving room for DoohickeyCo to enter the market with their groundbreaking doohickey.  Now, in the ideal of Capital C Capitalism, is WidgetCo a success?  I’d say yes.  They made a healthy profit off their widgets, how is that a failure?  But is that how things work in the real world?  In the real world, WidgetCo would make less quality widgets that breakdown, and then they’d stop making parts, or stop giving tech support, all to force people into buying the – basically the same but with some cosmetic changes – Widget2.  Then, since they have all the money, they corner the market on thingumabobs to prevent DoohickeyCo from making their doohickeys.  Is that the ideal of capitalism?  I’d say that’s more Capital G Capitalism (for greed).  An argument I’ve had for why the current system isn’t the greatest is that I never realized the point of capitalism was to create a plutocracy. 

Now, since I’ve had some valid criticism of capitalism as practiced, some will just yell, “That’s just because you’re a dirty socialist.” Wouldn’t those people be surprised to learn that I think socialism is failing as well.  I think Capital S Socialism is pretty good.  The problem comes with the implementation.  Say you start with the radical socialist idea that nobody should starve.  So you start with all the numbers from 2015, of where the people are, where the food is grown, how it’s transported and distributed, etc.  You crunch all the numbers and run simulations, and by 2017 you have the perfect system … on paper.  You then need to actually put it into place, which miraculously only takes until 2019.  But the end result is that in 2019 you have the perfect system in place to feed everyone … in 2015.  And then 2020 happens.  I think a lot of the horror stories told of socialism are a result, not of Capital S Socialism, but Capital B Socialism, for bureaucracy.  Just as with power WidgetCo can turn monopolistic, any socialist system can turn bureaucratic and then be unable – or unwilling – to change when the situation changes.

Here’s an idea for a better world.  Everyone gets 1000 Credits a month.  One bedroom apartments are capped at 500 Credits a month, and a month’s worth of groceries can be 100 Credits, if you get the generic cereal, for example.  Basic and emergency medical care is covered, but a lot of elective stuff isn’t.  To pay for all of this free stuff, all able people have to do X hours of community service each year.  You could either work for a few hours a week, or eight hours a day for a couple of weeks in January and be good for the year.  If you want a bigger apartment, or a car, or whatever, you need to get a job to earn extra money.  Some will cry that people need to contribute to society and they’ll point to some kid playing video games and just call them a slacker.  I wonder what those people think of these assholes who play golf all the time while the money their parents made makes more money.  Are they contributing to society?

I think my better world idea would be great.  I have no idea how such a system would be implemented, and know it would probably only work for a decade or two before technological advance would crack it apart.  It’s only a matter of time before autonomous vehicles will drive around checking for potholes.  When a pothole is detected, another autonomous vehicle will show up, block off traffic, and fix it.  And these autonomous vehicles will be built in automated factories, which will be supplied from automated mines.  In this system, does someone need to own all these vehicles?  Would we still need to pay taxes to pay for this system?  And this won’t just be for roads.  There will be robots building solar power stations, houses, picking food, transporting it all, etc. 

Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, died in 1790.  Karl Marx, often seen as the socialist poster boy, died in 1883.  Even if you think their ideas were perfect – they weren’t – they were Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century ideas.  We live in the Twenty-first.  Shouldn’t there be a new economic system that takes automation and bitcoin into account?  It doesn’t even have to be completely new.  I’d say this new system should be about 40% Capital S Socialism, 30% Capital C Capitalism, and 30% something new.  What do you think?

Short story – “Good for the Goose”

“Good for the Goose”

There was a soft knock at Matt’s front door exactly at 9:17 AM, the time listed on his notice.  Regardless of everything else, at least the overlords were punctual.  Matt squared his shoulders and opened the door.  An A-H stood on his porch.

Humanity’s first knowledge that they were not alone in the universe came when a billion Artificial-Humans appeared all over the world along with hundreds of giant spaceships.  It was also the sign that Humanity had been defeated in its first interstellar war.  The new masters of Earth – the Followers of the All – created the A-Hs to keep their new subjects in line.  They were of basic human shape with pale blue skin and deep green eyes.  All were bald and they wore no clothing, revealing no gender.

Without invitation, the A-H walked in to Matt’s living room.  It stopped before a large pile of books and various odds and ends in the middle of the floor.  In a soft tenor voice it asked, “Are these all of the forbidden items in your home?”

Looking at his feet, Matt mumbled, “Yes.”

Forbidden items.  At first many cheered the aliens for achieving world peace in a matter of hours.  Every ICBM, warship, tank, jet and gun from every military and terrorist group in the world was collected by the motherships using some energy field and returned as blocks of steel and other metals, “to be used for better purposes.”

But the cheering did not last long.  Any false religion – or product of false religion – was abhorrent to the Followers of the All.  Once they were done with the world’s militaries, the motherships began leveling every synagogue, church, mosque, and temple in the world.  The Kaaba, St. Peter’s Basilica, Ise Jingū, and Swaminarayan Akshardham, all were reduced to parking lots.  Historical structures were not spared either; Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, and the Moai of Easter Island were reduced to stones.  Even the evidence that it was an ancient observatory did not save Stonehenge. 

Once the motherships took care of the big things, the A-Hs were turned loose upon the people.  Lists of forbidden items appeared in every home.  On the list were: guns, pocket knives, decorative swords, any toys of a military nature, all meat products (since the Followers of the All were strict vegans, their subjects would be as well) and all books and movies concerning false religions or anything mystical.  This included the Bible, the Koran, Dianetics, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars.  Even The Godfather because it, “invoked a false name of the All.”

While Matt agreed the world would be better off without violent videogames and pornography – over the years he had signed numerous petitions to that effect and donated to politicians promising to curb these destructive elements – he couldn’t see the threat of angel hair pasta. 

The A-H raised its hand and a blue-green energy beam shot out from it.  The forbidden items glowed for a second then vanished.  Turning towards Matt, the A-H held out a small, black, hexagon wafer.  “You are credited with 13.7 Krells.”

Matt took the wafer and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Without reply, the A-H left.

For several moments, Matt stood with his eyes closed.  Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around at his empty bookshelves.  He had tried to be strong, but now he fell to his knees and sobbed.

***

I first posted this story in 2008 on MySpace.  In 2014, I reposted it on a site that went belly up a year or so later.  I then reposted it in 2018 on a site that – I think – is still around, but I think my profile has probably been deleted because I haven’t signed in in three years.  So hopefully this story will stay around for some time now.

There is a long history of groups of people trying to impose their religious beliefs on others, and I thought it only seemed fair if they had other beliefs imposed on them.  Of course, in any conflict – be in militarily or culturally – there are innocent bystanders.

Random Story – The headless gnome

This is just an odd little story from my life.

About twenty years ago, I worked the midnight shift at a convenience store.  The store was five or six blocks from my apartment, and to save money on gas and just to get out, I used to walk to work.  One night while I was going to work, something in the shadows of a bank parking lot caught my eye.  I looked at it, but I did not know what it was.  The first description that came to mind was a headless gnome.  It looked like a little torso – a couple inches high – with short legs that was walking towards me.

I don’t believe in ghosts, or goblins, or anything like that.  But for a second or two, I could not identify what this thing was, and I was just ….

It was a cat.  It was dark grey/black and in the streetlight shadows blended in perfectly to the parking lot pavement.  It had a white spot on its chest, which ran down its front legs.  With the rest of the cat blending into the background, this white spot looked like a headless torso walking towards me on stubby legs.

Once I saw the cat, I burst out laughing.  I’m pretty sure I doubled over, and couldn’t collect myself for a minute or two. 

Register to vote, check your voting status

I’m sure you’re sick and tired of hearing about politics.  But things are not fixed.  In fact, there is no end goal in politics because there will always be new problems that need solutions.  And while the 2020 Elections were the most important American Elections this century – so far – we can’t really say they are over.  With the fate of the Senate and the House up for grabs next year, you could call the 2022 Elections the 2020 Election Part B.  And then there’s the 2024 Election. 

Normally, I’d say that we deserve a break from politics, especially after the totality of 2020.  But there is a tyrannical element that thinks that they lost in 2020, not because the voters rejected their ideas, but because there were too many voters.  They will use every legal – and even illegal – trick in the book to make it harder for people to vote in upcoming elections. 

Right now, one of the best ways for you to counter this is to register to vote if you’ve just turned eighteen, or if you’ve never bothered to register before.  To have any say in what the government does you have to vote, and before you can vote you have to register.  Information for this should be on your state’s website. 

Even if you are registered, you should still periodically check your status.  Some states have a place on their websites to let you check, but other states make it a little harder.  The reason you need to check, is that while voter rolls need to be updated because people move or die, too often actual voters are “accidentally” removed.  The sooner these “mistakes” can be found, the sooner they can be fixed.

I know we all need a break from politics, but right now there are people working to muffle the voice of the people in favor of certain interests.  And they won’t rest.

What I would do if I ruled space

What I mean by ruling space is if I had control over all space activities: NASA, the China National Space Administration, SpaceX, etc. all had to do my bidding.  If it goes into space – be it a military satellite, a science mission to the outer solar system, or scientists doing experiments on a space station – I have the final say.  If I – somehow – had that power, this is what I’d do.

One of the first things I’d do would be to have a review of all rockets.  To be blunt, not all rockets are equal.  This review would weed out the not so good ones.  Any rockets that release massive death clouds of toxic fumes if they fail will be phased out.  The remaining rockets would be ranked on things like: reliability, cost, launch rate, etc.  The idea would not be to cut things down to one or two rockets.  That’s a bad idea.  I’d say more like twenty or so, with different fuels and launch capacities. 

Some nations want to have their own rockets for national pride.  And that’s great and all, but is it really best to spend billions of dollars to reinvent the rocket when – if there is some power that lets you do this – you could spend a fraction of that to launch your payloads on already existing rockets?

I might also start work on a universal rocket.  Basically, this would be a set design that could be built in four or five factories in various countries around the world close to a launch pad.  This would make it easier for customers because they’d know exactly what they need to do for their satellites.  And then they’d just have to get it to whatever launch pad works best for whatever orbit they want.

Now that I have the rockets sorted out, where will people be going?  My first idea is to have several new space stations.  These would probably be of an expandable module type, and would be larger than the current ISS, with a crew of, probably ten.  They would be specialized, one for biomedical, one for material sciences, one for little bit of everything.  My idea is these would have a “home port” which would be the primary launch site for crew and supplies.  So if you were doing research on the biomedical station, you’d launch from Florida, but if you were doing materials research, you’d launch from a Chinese spaceport. 

There would also be orbital hotels, brothels, retirement homes, etc.  I’m sure there are plenty of ideas for zero-g sports, some of which might actually be fun, so there will be stadiums.  Once we get lots of people into orbit, there’s no telling what will be needed or developed.

I’d also work on stations in lunar orbit.  These would be part of my return to the moon to stay plan, which I think would be my main space focus.  The point would be to have multiple research stations across the lunar surface studying the moon itself as well as how best to live there.  That knowledge would led to larger bases and eventually cities.  The idea from the start would be for the moon to eventually become an independent nation(s).

And what of Mars?  I support the scientific exploration of Mars, but I don’t think we are ready for a crewed Mars mission.  When we can go for a couple of years with a self-sustaining life support system on a space station, then I’ll feel more comfortable.  And when we do get to Mars, I just see research stations, not cities.  I don’t buy into the whole we need to colonize Mars thing.  (See my book The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars for more details.) 

As to robotic missions, I think we should have orbiters around every planet, dwarf planet, major satellite, and big asteroid.  If there’s a surface a rover can survive on, there should be dozens of rovers.  There should also be missions to comets, interstellar objects, interstellar space itself.  And there should be dozens of telescopes for every wavelength, from gamma rays to radio waves. 

As ruler of space, I would do everything I could to get humanity the knowledge it needs to fully become a spacefaring civilization.  I think that would be the best thing anyone could do.  What would you do if you ruled space?

My thoughts on suborbital tourism

Meh.

In 2004 when SpaceShipOne flew into space, I was excited.  It felt like the dawn of a new era of spaceflight.  Soon thousands of people would have visited space.  In July 2008 I even wrote a story – One Can Hope – where writers were given seats on the twenty-fifth flight of Virgin Galactic (in March of 2011) in appreciation of their work in spreading the idea of commercial space.  It was an extremely long shot to get some notice and maybe win a ride someday, since somehow getting a free trip is the only way I’ll make it into space.  I was so interested in suborbital flight, that in 2010 I even donated $50 to Copenhagen Suborbitals. 

And then years passed.  I don’t know if I’ve grown wiser, or just more jaded, but I no longer see the grand future of suborbital tourism I once saw.  Before I figured thousands of people would take such hops into space.  Now I think only a couple hundred will, at most.

Back when I was about ten, there was an air show of some sort at the local airport.  For $50 or something, my parents and I even got to go up in a little Cessna.  I sat in the front and my parents sat in the back, and at one point the pilot offered to let me fly, but I was too scared to try.  My thinking of a decade ago, was that suborbital trips – while not like flying around in a Cessna for fifteen minutes – would become something well off families could do on a vacation.  Not anymore.

I don’t have the exact figures, but to me it feels like the price of a ticket for Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin to stay profitable limits them to only a few hundred passengers.  I used to have visions of weekly flights, but now if either of them gets to once a month, I’ll be surprised.  And I think part of why I’m no longer excited is because it seems like you could spend $X and float in space for a few minutes, or in a few years you could spend $100X for a week in an orbital hotel.  I thought suborbital trips would give these companies the experience to make orbital trips.  But SpaceX just skipped the suborbital stuff. 

My predictions for the future of suborbital trips is … bleak.  I expect Copenhagen Suborbitals to fly a few times.  And then their rocket and capsule will go into a museum.  I expect Virgin Galactic to make twenty to thirty flights over the next few years, and then quietly fade away.  I expect Blue Origin to “win” in that they will fly more often and for a longer time.  But the main reason I think that is because – I feel – they are set up better for microgravity experiments.  Companies and universities will want to test run their equipment to make sure it works before launching it to a commercial space station.  And I expect these experiment flights will keep Blue Origin going for another year or so before they shut down.  If anyone is still flying suborbitally in 2026, I’ll be surprised.  And anything beyond that will be in the Copenhagen Suborbitals style. 

I think the “failure” of suborbital tourism is because it took so long.  If Virgin Galactic had started flying ten years ago, it would have been a different story.  I remember years ago hearing that Virgin Galactic was working on an orbital version, but I guess that’s no longer the case.  I know rocket science isn’t easy, but if they had started flying ten years ago, maybe they could have developed an orbital version by now, really starting a new era in spaceflight.  But instead we have an interesting, but ultimately pointless side story of spaceflight.

Moon landing sale!

I am a big supporter of returning to the moon; I think it’s our best way of becoming a spacefaring civilization.  And even though it happened before I was born, I love Apollo 11, even thinking that July 20th should be a holiday.  So to mark this year’s anniversary, I’m having a sale on four of my ebooks.  Two of them deal with the moon, but I’m including the other two as a bonus.  So between Sunday July 18th and Thursday July 22nd, you’ll be able to get the following four ebooks for free.

The Moon Before Mars

 

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as inspirational as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be.

A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories

 

Hopefully, in the not too distant future humans will return to the moon. We will build bases and colonies, make farms and factories, and live, love and learn. A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories contains five short stories that are all set upon the moon. They give the tiniest glimpse of the possibilities awaiting us there.

Lonely Phoenix

 

Partway to a new colony world, board member Geoffrey Ames is woken from hibernation by the caretaking crew of the Lucian. They require him to look into the matter of their fellow crewman Morgan Heller. Morgan’s claims – such as being over 1500 years old – would normally land him in the psychiatric ward, except he can back up some of his other claims.

Brain for Rent and other stories

 

Brain for Rent and other stories is a collection of five of my short scifi stories to give a sampling of my writing. The collection includes: “Brain for Rent” about a ne’re-do-well failed writer with a conceptual implant who discusses his work with a young woman thinking of getting an implant herself. “The Demonstration” is about a different young woman wanting to show off her latest body modification. “Self Imprisonment” offers one solution of safe keeping the backup copy of yourself. “The Best Job Ever” is about a necessary – yet unpleasant – human/alien interaction. And the collection ends with “Why Stay?” which explains why, after years of fighting the humans, the robots just deactivate.