The War On Bullshit

Why is the healthcare industry hemorrhaging money? Why is the military being used to fight ideas, when ideas can’t be killed by bullets? Why is the legislature unable to make laws that make sense? How can 12 years of basic education produce an unthinking populace? How can a man believe in his god, but not in himself? How can the “free” market enslave humanity to rational immorality?

In the immortal words of every cynical, sardonic, apathetic adolescent, the world is fucked up.

And it’s not because of stupidity, religion, avarice, sadism, immorality, hedonism, drugs, terrorism, global warming, the clash of cultures, imperialism, abuse of power, overuse of force, or the flying spaghetti monster. It’s not because people are born good or evil or gullible or jealous or greedy or reckless or lazy or irrational or too rational or emotional or idealistic or straight-jacket-crazy.

The true cause is subtle. Far. More. Subtle.

In every developed nation, human existence is regulated by laws. Each law is written by lawmakers, most of whom are ex-lawyers elected to political office, often for a short time. The system of laws has thus haphazardly grown, been trimmed back, grown some more, and eventually become inextricably intertwined in a self-contradictory, indecipherable, regulatory labyrinth. And every once in awhile some wannabe Theseus comes charging in to kill the minotaur at its center, only to find that there is no minotaur, just a bunch of people doing their best. The problem, you see, is not simply that laws are long and confusing and interconnected in ways no one understands.

The first part of the problem is that laws imply the design of the systems that enact them. The education acts imply the structure and makeup of schools, academic programs and school boards. The healthcare legislation implies the configuration of the hospitals, physicians, insurance companies, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies that comprise the healthcare system. The economy, military, political process, police force, and even the neighborhoods in which we live are structured and organized according to legislation.

The second part of the problem is that lawmakers are primarily experts in lawmaking; NOT experts in education, healthcare, economics or any other domain for which they are designing the system! The rules pharmaceutical companies must abide by are predominantly written and voted on by people who don’t know anything about chemistry, biology, scientific research or medicine. The rules of the economy are written and voted on by people who don’t know anything about economics, labor markets, business ethics or financial markets. Doesn’t this explain why the copyright legislation is so screwed up?

The third part of the problem is that lawmakers have no expertise in the design of complex systems. Knowing lots about buildings doesn’t make you an architect – you have to know how to match the design of a building to a specific purpose. An expert in design knows how to make the form fit the environment. This is the same reason so much open-source software has poor interfaces. Being a great programmer does not imply knowing anything about designing interfaces. Similarly, being a great lawyer does not imply knowing anything about structuring a taxation system to empower, not oppress, a people.

We as the developed world asked lawyers, people who’ve spent their careers writing legal briefs and coming up with arguments, to design the socially-constructed, artificial reality we inhabit. It’s not their fault they’ve done a piss poor job. They were, and are, completely unqualified! Honestly, what the fuck were we thinking?

To drive the design of a social system through the legislative process, three kinds of knowledge are needed: knowledge of laws and lawmaking, knowledge of the social system in question, and knowledge of design. For example, if we want to write a bill about healthcare, we need: 1) someone who understands the system of laws (a lawyer), 2) someone who understands healthcare (a physician), and 3) someone who understands how to structure a complex system to meet certain goals (a designer).

To take a more complicated example, consider copyright legislation. Since copyright involves ethics, money, intellectual property, information technology, taxes, cryptography, marketing, engineering, the culture of young people, the parent/child legal relationship, criminal penalties… holy shitballs! Besides a lawyer and a designer, we’d need a whole panel of experts to design a sensible copyright system and embed it in legislation. But does the government bring in a panel of experts? No. The laws are written by lawyers and lobbyists.

Every major social system that constrains human existence is designed at the highest level by people who have no clue how to design anything, who aren’t experts in the things they’re designing.

And that’s why the world is so screwed up.

Last week, I gave a few good reasons to get the hell out of America. Originally, I’d intended to keep the list down to five, but why stop there? There are almost as many reasons to expatriate as there are awesome facts about Chuck Norris. Here’s a few more:

1. You’ll have longer vacations… in MALLORCA.

One of my friends recently went on a vacation. She drove to Fredericksburg, Texas. You know where Fredericksburg is? Me either, because it sucks. Meanwhile, my friends in Germany get to take kickass vacations to Hungary and Mallorca.

Not only that, but they get to take those kickass vacations for longer. I don’t know about you, but I’d like longer vacations in Mallorca. Or maybe France. Hell, anywhere but Fredericksburg, Texas.

2. Your food will be better, but you won’t be fat.

Let’s face it, American food is terrible. The only reason you can stand the vile taste of a Big Mac is because you probably haven’t had frikadellen, or a delicious doner kebap.

Doner kebap - the most awesome Turkish food that they sell on every damn street corner in Europe.

Not only is the food awesome, but you won’t get fat eating it, either. America is the fattest country in the world, and our food doesn’t even taste very good. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather eat refried camel nuts than a hot dog.

3. You’ll have a much better chance of being on equal footing with your neighbors.

Income is distributed much more evenly in many developed nations than here in the USA. Here, the top one percent of the nation hold nearly 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. Meanwhile, other countries in Europe (as well as Canada) tend to have more even pay - in other words, you won’t drive through some grimy ghetto full of poor people, turn a corner, and run into Al Gore’s mansion. Just check out this list. Now, I realize all you die-hard free market capitalists probably don’t think this is a good thing, but you’re wrong. Get over it.

4. Europe will kick you out for being too damn religious.

Alright, so I realize I already covered the lack of strong religious beliefs in Europe, but just to get the point across, consider the fact that France has actually barred someone from entering their country because she was too damn religious. Meanwhile, my sister’s Darwin fish got her car keyed in the Bible belt. If only we could kick the Baptists out of this country, we might be alright. Added benefit: less incest.

5. You’ll be a happier person!

What better way to judge a country than by how happy its citizens are? The World Map of Happiness is an attempt by British researchers to assess just how happy people are around the world. They’ve found that happiness is contingent on a few things - the level of people below the poverty line, the prevalence of disease, whether healthcare is nationalized and available, etc. Another interesting note is that the study was done as a result of a national sentiment in England that the government should be just as concerned with creating happiness as wealth.

The USA falls farther down the list than most Americans would believe, trailing behind many of the socialized Scandinavian nations, Canada - hell, even the United Arab Emirates. I never thought I’d say this, but boy, I’d love to be as happy as those cats in the UAE.

Conclusion

One should keep in mind that the USA may not be at the bottom of the list on all these items. Sure, we might fare a little better on the Map of Happiness than Germany because of severe immigration problems; yes, we may have lower gas prices than Europe or Canada; absolutely, Denmark has a higher crime rate than we do. But taken altogether, America’s ranking on the ten items discussed in this and last week’s post is pretty dismal. If you live in a crappy house, you move out when you can; why do we treat which country we choose to live in any different?

Does this mean you should just up and ditch America if you truly love the country of your birth? No. But it does mean we should strive as a nation to make it better. Until America stands up and, like Britain’s people did, demand that their government start worrying about Gross Domestic Well-being as well as Gross Domestic Product, the grass truly will always be greener on the other side.

So if you’re patient, and tenacious, and willing to rally the nation behind you, I commend you. Stick it out and make this place suck just a little bit less. Me? I’m not very patient, so I think I might just bail, instead.

A lot of folks are watching the escalation in terrorism along the Pakistani-Afghani border, the growing tension between Iran and Israel, and the pronounced anti-Americanism the world over, and they fear war. There is a movement of doomspeakers who believe our end is coming - or at least some turbulent years - where we will be forced to continue fighting in the Middle East.

I’m not one of them. Here’s what I’m afraid of: innovation. I don’t fear us being attacked by disorganized fundamental religious nuts from the desert; I fear a much quieter and more subtle threat. America may fall, but it won’t be through force of arms; we’ll just be left in the dust technologically and then methodically bought out by Eastern Asia. Don’t believe me? Here’s a few reasons why Eastern Asia, in particular China, will own your ass soon.

4. Eastern Asia has more meat.

They simply have so many people in parts of Eastern Asia, that they don’t have to worry about preserving the life and good health of their workforce. They can just replace them. Same goes for military might. Allied military leaders during World War II thought the Russians were bad, sending legions of cannon fodder until the bodies just piled up and they had to climb over them to keep attacking. There are enough people in China that their top 25% in just about any field outnumber the U.S. and Canada combined. There’s no shortage of muscle and meat in the Far East.

3. China has a lot of damn money.

To give you an idea, here’s the top four economies in the world: the United States, Japan, Germany and China, in that order. But here’s the difference between China and the the rest of us: they are rapidly growing. While the United States’ GDP has continued steadily to grow in small increments, China’s GDP growth in 2007 was 11.4%, compared to our 2.2%.

There is also the concern of public debt. The US owes about 9 trillion dollars to the rest of the world, mainly China. I’m not as strong on economics as Kavan, perhaps, but these are disturbing trends to see. China expands, while we stagnate. Wonderful.

2. We are a bunch of lazy hedonists who have forgotten how to do anything.

Just think about this: Steve in Oklahoma thinks guitar is real damn cool. He goes to a friend’s house, picks up his guitar, and realizes whoa, this crap’s hard. I’m not gonna learn this. Instead, he gets his parents to buy him Guitar Hero and becomes a master of the little-plastic-Fisher-Price-pseudoguitar-thingy. Meanwhile, in China, Steve’s counterpart isn’t playing guitar or Guitar Hero. He’s probably working in the factory that produces Guitar Hero, making the brainrot American kids consume on a daily basis.

How many 16-year-olds do you see anymore working to pay for their car, or trying to save money to go to college in a few short years? Not too damn many. Half our citizenry doesn’t ever have a source of employment before finishing their B.A. - paid for by mommy and daddy.

This is not the case in Eastern Asia. Reading census data from the People’s Republic is an interesting thing; one thing you may notice is that when the labor force is examined, it is from age 15 and up. That’s because 15 is the age these people start working. I’m not for shipping our kids off to the mines at 12, but you know what? Take away the video games, make them mow the damn lawn, and for God’s sake don’t give them some stupid idea that they should never have to work before graduating college.

1. Wal-Mart is gonna sell us out.

When was the last time something you bought at Wal-Mart said “Made in America” on it? Probably a long time ago, since about 70% of products sold at Wal-Mart are made in China. According to another report, Wal-Mart has exported about 1.5 million jobs to China. How are they an American company? So one of our country’s largest employers isn’t even remotely American anymore, great. You might think I’m a nutso conspiracy theorist, but picture this and tell me it’s not frightening: straw rice-field hats on smiley faces.