So we were drunk a few months ago...

[queequeger]

and my friends and I were talking politics and philosophy, like usual. Afterward, though, I wrote a little blog about one of my ideas because my friend didn't understand my point (it was probably a little disjointed from all the gin). I just stumbled on it this morning. Wondering if anyone had any thoughts on it?

There is an episode, or maybe a movie, of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which there is a group of ailing colonists (or what have you) to which the Enterprise is offering aide. While on the planet surface they are palavering with one of the leaders, and the leader mentions that many people are becoming ill because they have too few blankets for the number of people they must support. To this, the Enterprise crew members are astonished. The idea that there aren’t enough of such simple supplies is something that seems outlandish to them. So, of course they teleport up to their spaceship and replicate a veritable crap-ton of space-aged blankets for the colonists by pushing a button.

ST:TNG is an example of what we (at least I) believe to be an ideal society. One that is a sister, if not distant cousin, to what we currently call socialism or communism. It seems absurd to its citizens that there would be any tired huddled masses. There might be masses, but they’d all have nice space-beds to sleep in and ample seating to avoid ‘huddling.’ It’s awfully simple when you have replicators who make food out of your waste and tennis rackets out of your old gigapets.

The problem and the oddity
It is my firm opinion that socialism would be the ideal form of government. From each his ability, to each his need; or however it goes. However, the main argument against the practicality of such a government is a simple but convincing one: human nature. Humans will put in minimum effort to get what they want. If everyone puts in minimum effort, there will not be enough for those who can contribute nothing (those that any good government is responsible for: the cripples, retarded, old and young who cannot work for themselves). So, the system collapses. Of course communism doesn’t work. Look at Russia! They suck ass!

The Ugg and Mugg example

Every political scientist knows that the reason they can be political scientists, I can be a hippie, and George Bush can be an asshole, is that our move from a hunter-gatherer type society into one that gets its food from cows and farms of mutant tomatoes has freed the manpower. If you’ve not heard this before, I’ll take a moment and explain. If there are 10 people in a hunter gatherer society, all 10 people have the job of survival. Their 9-5 is picking berries that aren’t poisonous and throwing sticks at buffalo trying to kill them. Their free time is, of course, spent fucking and fighting, ignoring their children, and hating people who are different from them, so they have no time to philosophize or make governments. Even if you take out the Shamans, the crippled (if this particular society chooses not to throw sticks at the crippled as well as the buffalos), and the other what-have yous, 9.9 out of 10 savages spend their whole day feeding themselves.

Take the same 10 people in an agricultural society. Ugg discovers that he and Mugg can actually choose where the non-poisonous berries grow, and can keep the buffalo in cages and throw sticks at them at their leisure. So, while Ugg and Mugg grow berries and milk buffalos, Oocha and Hoocha and the rest of the 10 can do other things. Philosophize, make governments, invent a sharper stick, live off of welfare, whatever. So, because we freed up 8 of the 10 (through learning), the society advances as a whole.

Now, this happens even today. Large companies have taken over farms, and with the aid of modern transportation, super huge meat cleavers, and lasers and shit, they’ve come up with a sickeningly efficient version of throwing sticks at buffalos. So now, you have all the food production being done by about .5 or 1 out of 10 people. So Mugg’s ancestors can leave it to Ugg and move on to bigger and better things.

Yes, I know out of work farmers don’t put on a white jacket and operate on people. Mugg didn’t move on, he died sad and out of work. But Mugg’s sacrifice was for the better of society, because Mugg’s kids aren’t farmers anymore. They’ve put on the surgical mask, or maybe they make the surgical mask, or maybe they’re the gangbanger who shot the patient. Either way they’re contributing to our Gross Net Society Profit.

Ugg-bot 2.0

Now, let’s take Ugg the farmer, put him in one of those ridiculous rubber suits that Tony Hawk used to mimic himself on Tony Hawk’s Pro Sk8r. Let’s take everything he does and run it by computer. Call it Farmertron. Let’s do the same for the janitor, the blanket maker, the Wal-Mart employee, the Post Office employee (as if they weren’t robots already). Now what we’re looking at is effectively labor-free everything. The only real jobs we need are the ones maintaining the Ugg-bots and the Muggotrons. So, with technology the work that was done by 9.9/10 is now done by .1/10.

But wait, Ugg, Mugg, Oocha, and the whole gang are jobless? We can’t have layabouts! What the hell, are you trying to create a welfare state? Put down the GOP digest for two seconds and think about it. At least one or two out of every 100 people has the desire to make robots and program computers. They could provide the basics of life for the other 98 in this Star Trek: Ugg Frontier.

You remember being asked by your guidance councilor ‘what would you do for a living if you could do anything?’ That’s what this is. Study biomechanics, write poetry, run up and down a field carrying the skin of a dead animal while hitting other large men, maintain the Uggbots if that’s what you enjoy. Fuck, build shit out of clay for all I care just get out of my office. There will be one or two people who’s dream job is robotics and computers to maintain the Farmertron fleet.

How does this tie in with socialism, you fucking hippie?

People love to be lazy. Technology lets us do this. We’ve seen offices become more efficient with computers, we’ve seen surgery become more precise with lasers, and we’ve seen Darnell pimp hoes faster than previously imaginable with his new iPhone. Technology improves the Gross Net Society Product at exponential levels.

So, when we develop sufficient technology, and actually devote ourselves to advancement of political theory (as a people, not just bored folks like me), we will create a system of socialism that, with the aide of robot blanket-makers, food-makers, and giant-plasma-screen-TV-makers, will see to it that humans can put in the minimum effort they so love, and no longer feel they need everything in the world. Because for all intents and purposes, they’ll have it.