Cathedrals

My first attempt at a photo essay. Enjoy!

"Pantheum vetustate corruptum cum omni cultu restituerunt"

Our Long Childhood

"Perhaps there is a kind of silver lining to these global...problems, because they are forcing us, willy-nilly, no matter how reluctant we may be, into a new kind of thinking - in which some matters the well-being of the human species takes precedence over national and corporate interests. We are a resourceful species when push comes to shove. We know what to do. Out of the...crises of our time should come, unless we are much more foolish than I think we are, a binding up of the nations and the generations, and even the end of our long childhood."

-Carl Sagan

The moment I read this, in Carl's Billions & Billions, I knew I had a new addition to my list of favourite quotations. There are two reasons that I am interested in the issues that make up this blog, and Carl's quote captures both of them. I am concerned about the magnitude and urgency of the problems we face as a species, but I feel like my generation has the potential to turn those challenges into a new "finest hour" for humanity, and I share Carl's optimism that the 21st century may be the last century of our long childhood.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenges we will have to overcome in the next 100 years. I have begun a series of posts on the problems we will face converting our economy into one better suited for the next age, and I have talked about the necessity of making policy with long-term goals in mind. It is the latter that I am going to focus on in this post.

I have discussed specific environmental and economic goals that I believe we should base long-term policy around in other posts, and I have also discussed philosophical and moral goals in some fashion. In this post, I am going to back out a bit, and try to formulate a set of goals that I believe humanity can achieve in the 21st century. These goals will be as all-encompassing as possible, and they represent the things I think humanity must achieve if we are to truly grow up as a species.

1. Develop a workable Theory of Everything

This goal may be a bit misleading, as it is possible a true "Theory of Everything" does not exist or is scientifically unverifiable. However, I believe that our understanding of physics, including the relationship between relativity and quantum mechanics, is incomplete, and before we can truly claim to be a mature species, we must understand the "purest science" more fully.

2. Travel to, and permanently inhabit, another planet

I have discussed in the past the biological and moral imperative our species possesses with regard to the colonization of other worlds. The moon landing was the greatest single achievement in human history, but in the 40 years since, we have accomplished very little. Of course there have been significant successes, including Hubble, the Shuttle, the ISS and the Mars rovers, but they pale in comparison to the giant leaps we took as a species from October 4th, 1957 to August 27th, 1977, between the launch of Sputnik and the launch of Voyager 2.

We need to recapture the spirit of those times, and turn our minds, and our dollars, to the stars once again. Mars seems the most likely candidate, and the technology exists to go there, and live there, today. All it would take is money and political will. It is also possible that we could go to Venus first, as it is our closest neighbour, and the upper atmosphere of Venus presents the most earth-like conditions anywhere in the solar system. If we could design some sort of cloud city, the colonization of Venus is within reach as well.

3. Establish a global political framework capable of addressing global-scale issues

I have talked extensively about this issue as well. I am not advocating world government, as I believe that the majority of issues are better solved at a lower level of government than that, just as I believe that the federal government in Canada should only manage those issues that cannot be managed more effectively at the provincial or local level.

What I do believe we need is an effective international body capable of dealing with issues of global scale. National governments have proven to be awful at addressing these issues, just as you might expect. I also believe that continued economic integration, and the continued growth of non-zero sumness, will eventually become limited by the lack of political integration across the world.

They system I envision, as discussed in previous posts, is something roughly halfway between the UN and the EU, although in many ways very different from either. Its main responsibilities would be stewarding the global economy/international trade, protecting the global environment, running a global space program, and coordinating peacekeeping/arms proliferation/diplomatic activities in the way the UN Security Council attempts to do today.

4. Establish universal basic education for all children

This one is a no-brainer. No species can claim to be a mature one when millions of its children are not educated. Education is a fairly easy service to provide, and has countless spillover benefits, not the least of which is further leveling of the global economic playing field. Also extremely important is the effect that the education of women has on decreasing population growth rates, and the importance of comprehensive secular education in leading youth away from fundamentalism and extremism.

5. Understand the process by which life came to be on Earth

Every culture in the history of the world has wondered about this question. Who are we? Why are we here, and how did it happen? How unlikely was our existence and what does that tell us about life elsewhere in the universe?

Part of this question is cosmological - investigating how the universe came to be the way it is. Further understanding of that question is covered under goal #1. Another part is evolutionary, how we got from microbes to humans. That bit is fairly well understood today. The last part is perhaps the most mysterious - how a dead Earth came to life about 4.5 billion years ago. If we can answer that question, we will take one more giant leap towards adulthood, whether or not we choose not to use our knowledge to create new life.

6. Create a "learning computer"

This is another goal that might be slightly misstated, as there is not an agreement about what constitutes "artificial intelligence" and by some definitions, we already have "learning computers". What I believe we need to accomplish is to advance computer science and robotics to a level where the vast majority of human effort can be turned towards higher pursuits. If we can solve tough problems in computing, like accurate language translation, voice-to-text, automated call centres that actually work, and mostly robotic manufacturing, we will have accomplished something important.

Progress in this area will be key to any interplanetary colonization effort as well. Take Mars as an example. Initially, it will be very expensive to transport people to Mars and keep them alive there. That means that the large industrial projects that will be the first step to building a new home will have to be mostly automated. Among other things, the construction of subterranean living habitats, the mining of key minerals, and the construction and operation of factories generating massive amounts of chlorofluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons will have to be primarily done by robots. This will require better robots than we have today.

Other advances in computing could also be key. Computers have transformed our society, and the leap from today's computers to say, quantum computers could be equally revolutionary.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

This goal is a tough one to define, because no one really knows what the word "sustainability" means. I have previously stated that I believe the primary long-term goal of environmental policy is to restore 50% of each of Earth's biomes to a pre-human state, but I think that that goal is very long-term and unnecessary to reach what I would call "adulthood". Instead, I think that the primary goals that we have to reach in the next century have to do with what I will call "peak rates". These goals include:

- Achieve a peak in land use before 2100 and preferably much sooner (this means that the total land used by humans will begin to decline towards the aforementioned 50%)

- Achieve a peak in non-renewable energy use by 2050. Diminishing supplies will probably force our hand here, but the top priorities here are to drastically reduce the use of coal (probably by substituting natural gas in the short-term) and get our heads around viable nuclear fusion.

- Achieve a peak in the rate of species extinctions ASAP. This is a critical problem and we are running out of time.

- Achieve a peak in global carbon emissions and the rate of global temperature increase by 2100 or sooner.

- Achieve a plateau in the population growth rate by 2100.

- There are probably others that I can't think of, but these are the key ones.

8. Eradicate extreme poverty

Another no-brainer. All the other great achievements in this post cannot be for only a portion of humanity. We are all in this together, and a key step to levelling the global playing field is to make sure that no one is so poor they cannot survive.

9. Gain the ability to become a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale

This last one is fairly arbitrary, and mostly an enabler for the other goals, but I believe the ability to harness the power of an entire Earth, roughly 1.74x10^17 watts, will be neccessary to reach these other goals. If efficiency gains are such that I am proven wrong, so much the better, but without the ability, most likely using fusion, I can't see a way to reach all of our other goals.

Humanity today is akin to an unruly teenager. We know some things, and we can use that knowledge in some productive ways, but we don't yet know enough and we are not yet wise enough to understand ourselves and our responsibilities.

The day is not far away, but it will take more work before humanity can grow up.

Walk on the Moon (2 of 10)

I have struggled over the last few months to formulate ideas to continue this series of posts. The issues here are pretty formidable, and most of them will not have an easy solution. In particular, the problem of externalities is a difficult one, I have been unable to come up with any credible alternatives to government management in the near term. I have also had trouble with formulating credible ideas on solving the technological efficiency/cost efficiency problem and the labour-saving technology issue. I have some ideas on inherited wealth, corporate democracy and global equality of opportunity, but they definitely need further refinement before they are ready to be put down on paper.

The one issue on which I feel like have a formulated at least a beginning solution is the disconnect in our society between profit and contribution. I began by considering the problem as the sum of two smaller problems. First, there are people whose earnings exceed their contribution, however you might define that. Second, there are people whose earnings do not reflect the contributions they have made.

The first group is harder to deal with. I don't think that you can ever come to a fair enough definition of contribution to be able to levy any type of tax or fine to solve this problem. The best solution that I could come up with would be a short-term one, which would involve the addition of a new top-income tax bracket. In the longer term, I actually think that income tax should be completely eliminated, with the revenues replaced by a variety of "optional" taxes like graduated sales tax and pollution taxes.

In any event, the idea goes like this: add a new income tax bracket for those individuals making more than $250,000 per year, with a marginal tax rate of something like 35% (the current top federal rate is 29% for those making over $127,021). Then, allow people to exempt themselves from this bracket (back to 29%) if they can find 1,000 people that will agree with the statement "In my opinion, this person has made sufficient contributions to Canadian society to justify their income".

This system would have to be administered electronically for ease of use. It would ideally be administered by the CRA and combined with the other system I will describe later in this post. Basically, each individual with an income over $250,000 could make a voluntary election on their income tax return to be eligible for the program in the following year. You would also allow each person declaring eligibility to make a 50-word statement about why they think they deserve this rebate. The CRA would publish a searchable database containing only the names and statements of people who had declared. Any Canadian could then access this database through the CRA website, using their social insurance number and a password, and support the claim of as many people as they saw fit.

Hopefully, this would partially and temporarily mitigate the problem by providing a tax incentive for high-income earners to contribute.

The second sub-problem here, that of people who contribute but are not rewarded, could be solved using a somewhat similar system. Anyone could put their name forward for this program, provided they are a Canadian citizen and resident and made under $250,000 in the previous year. Upon applying, each person would fill out and publish a standardized profile, highlighting their contributions to Canadian society. Once you had submitted your profile, it would be vetted by the CRA to make sure that you met the income, residency and citizenship criteria, and then made available on the web. Each person would have 30 days to accumulate 100 votes, in order to keep the number of profiles manageable. Once someone accumulates 100 votes, their profile would be available for the balance of the year. Profiles would be extensively searchable for ease of use.

Each Canadian, upon logging into the CRA system, would be given five votes per year to allocate to five people of their choice. At the end of the year, the top 1000 vote-getters would be written a cheque for $100,000 each. The cost of this program, $100mm plus admin costs, would be high, but I think it would be worth it to help reconcile the differences between profit and contribution. If the program was successful, it could be expanded.

In conjunction, I think these two programs would be a great first step towards rewarding contribution, and one small step towards the 23rd century.

Another Land, Beneath Another Sky

Sadly, Lost is over.

After giving the dust a little time to settle, I would say that it is probably my second favourite serial drama of all time, second only to The West Wing, and barely edging out Star Trek: The Next Generation (although I would still rank the Star Trek franchise as a whole ahead of it). I thought carefully about whether it should be first, but although The West Wing faltered a little in its later years, the first four or five seasons were so well written, so intellectually stimulating, and so real-world relevant they edge out the epic mythology, mysticism and cultural connectivity that makes Lost so amazing.

Lost could have been the best. I'm not sure when that title slipped away, but I would venture that the series hit its high point either in the second half of season 2 with "The 23rd Psalm,"" The Hunting Party,""Lockdown" and "Live Together, Die Alone," or in late season 3 and early season 4, with "The Man Behind the Curtain,""Through the Looking Glass," and "The Constant". Some parts of the last two seasons were mishandled a bit, and that is probably what prevented the show from being my favourite of all time.

Certain episodes of the show, however, rate right up there with the best episodes of any television show I have ever seen. The gold standards for me have always been TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" and the West Wing's "Two Cathedrals", with honourable mentions to The Simpsons "Homer the Great," and several episodes of The Colbert Report & the original Law & Order. Here are my 10 favourite episodes of Lost, the best of which will stand beside the episodes I have just listed as the benchmark for any future TV show I watch:

1. Exodus

2. Walkabout

3. The Hunting Party

4. Live Together, Die Alone

5. Pilot

6. The Constant

7. The Man Behind the Curtain

8. Orientation

9. Through the Looking Glass

10. The Shape of Things to Come

Honourable mentions to Lockdown and Raised by Another, two more great episodes that just missed the top 10. I also have to say that the episode commonly regarded to be the series' best, "The Constant," dropped a little for me because as wonderful as the Desmond/Penny phone call was, I was underwhelmed by the rest of the episode, and feel that the "time travelling consciousness" theme didn't fit well logically with the other time travel presented in the show.

After all this, all these great episodes, the hours of reading theories online, where did the end of the show leave us? The most common response I have heard is "confused," and there certainly were some loose ends left hanging. However, I think that leaving a little ambiguity allows viewers to complete the story in their own minds, which allows a broad spectrum of people to feel satisfied with the show.

That said, here is my interpretation of the show's overarching mythology. I have to give credit to Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen for his thoughts about the effects of the Source on people's souls, which influenced my own thinking.

My first thought about the show is that there is a place for some kind of God in the mythology. Nowhere was this more clear to me than during the final scene. The room Jack & Christian were in could not have expressed more clearly that all the world's religions are just different narratives trying to explain the same thing, the "one true way". Once you accept that, and based on the other evidence presented in the finale, I think it is pretty easy to conclude that the show subscribes to the religions tenet that the difference between people and animals, the cause of consciousness, is that humans possess some kind of soul, given to them by God, which persists into another life after bodily demise.

If each person in the Lost world is a blend of body and soul, I agree with Jeff Jensen that the Source is what gives people those immortal souls. This makes those theories about the Island being the Garden of Eden seem very accurate to me. When Desmond shut off the Source, everyone's souls ceased to be immortal and (in my mind) slowly began to fade away, as the Island started to sink into the sea. I imagine that if Jack had not restarted the Source, everyone in the world would have slowly lost their humanity, and the MiB, if he had escaped, would have been free to institute a reign of terror for a short time before his own soul finally faded away, leaving the universe empty, without consciousness, without love, and without meaning.

However, the show suggests that the source has a variety of other powers besides its soul-giving property. It seems likely to be the cause of the Island's healing powers, and most likely the cause of the Island's constant movement and difficulty of accessing it. It also seems to allow certain people, notably Desmond, Miles, Hurley, MiB, Jack, Ben and Locke, to interact with people who are deceased. Given the finale's reveal about the stages of the afterlife, it is likely that all the people who appeared were still in the "purgatory" stage and that the Source allows people to somehow interact between planes. Desmond appears to be the only one who can actually be simultaneously aware of both worlds. Finally, the source is likely able to be harnessed by "special" people like Jacob and Walt to accomplish various paranormal phenomena.

If you accept all that, which I believe derives relatively easily from the show, you can start to extrapolate to more speculative thoughts on the Lost universe. My current thought on some of the dialogue in "Across the Sea" suggests to me that in addition to the properties listed above, the Source is the cause of human free will. The show suggests, both by the very existence of the Valenzetti equation and by the philosophy of "course correction," that the Lost universe is mostly deterministic, but with a small allowance for free will.

If you take that in conjunction with Mother's statement that everyone has "a little bit of the light inside them, but they always want more" in that context it makes perfect sense. Everyone has a little free will, ability to change small things about the world, but what they all desire is more ability to control their own destiny, and ultimately, the ability to change the Valenzetti equation and change the destiny of the human race. However, people like Eloise & Mother, who warn against trying to do this ("you could put it out") believe that because power is corrupting, that if humans actually succeeded in grabbing control of their own destiny, it would lead to evil instead of good. They believe (I think) that destiny is best left in God's hand rather than man's.

Given that mythological context, some of the mysteries of the island become more clear. I will try and go through some of the ones that irked me the most. The first of these has to do with the show's final scene. There has been much debate about the people who ended up in the church at the end of the show, and why they were there to the exclusion of others. As the show explained, the sideways were a kind of shared consciousness, constructed by the souls of the people that had died, because they could not move on until the group was complete.

There also seems to be an element of repentance for people like Ben, Michael and Ana Lucia, who have passed into the sideways but must stay there "a bit longer" to atone for the sins of their life. The Island's properties as the source of human souls makes it "closer" per se to the sideways and enables limited communication between worlds.

So, in a nutshell I see it like this: when you die, you pass into the shared consciousness. If you are a "good person," you simply stay there until you have formed a complete group of the people who were truly important to you in your life. Then you move on (I like to think that when they walked into the light they ended up back on the Island, but a version of the island that was "more real" like the new Narnia at the end of C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle).

On the other hand, if you have been a "bad person," you must accomplish two things before you can move on. Not only must you find your "core group", but you must also atone for your crimes, and if you cannot, or will not, you remain in limbo forever.

So, when we see the group in the church (Christian, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Libby, Sawyer, Juliet, Desmond, Penny, Sun, Jin, Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Sayid, Boone, Shannon, Locke, Rose & Bernard) it makes sense for the most part. There are, however, some loose ends. The first of these is Sayid. His whole backstory has been about his great love for Nadia, and although he may have loved Shannon as well, the fact that he could move on without Nadia seems wrong. The second problem is Aaron. Why is he a baby? Presumably, if he has died, he would appear as an adult.

I also originally had a problem with the absence of Walt, but have changed my mind on this one. Others had a problem with the presence of Penny, or the absence of Helen, but I did not. Locke's real love was for the Island, although he loved Helen as well, that love was lesser. Conversely, Penny's whole life was bound to Desmond, and they could not move on without each other.

I am going to pretend that Nadia was in the church, and that Aaron was, like Jack's son David, an illusion created by the shared consciousness of the people in the church in order to facilitate the "moving on". The real Aaron is not in the sideways, I like to think, because he is not dead. There was an enormous amount of talk in the early seasons of Lost that both Walt and Aaron (more so Walt) were "special," a plotline that was never really resolved. My theory here is that sometime well after the ending of the show, Walt and Aaron return to the Island to fulfill their destinies, and eventually end up replacing Ben and Hurley as the #1 and #2 protectors of the Island. This allows Hurley and Ben to move on with the others, and ties up nicely Walt and Aaron's connection to the Island.

There are a number of other small things that still bug me about the overarching story of Lost, things like the Egyptians, the Supply Drop (and the ultimate fate of Dharma/Alvar Hanso), Miles' weird abilities despite not being "special" in the way other characters were, and the weird consciousness-flashing that Desmond experienced.

Nonetheless, I will leave it there except to say that I always thought (back in the early seasons) that the very best ending to Lost would have all the characters standing on the beach, as a rescue boat finally pulls up to take them all home. They all look at their would-be rescuers, and then at each other, and the series ends with a montage (ideally set to Blue Rodeo's "Lost Together") of each survivor flashing back to some of their moments of joy on the Island, realizing that there was nothing for them back in the real world, and one by one, starting with Locke and ending with Jack, turn around, away from rescue, and slowly walk into the jungle, embracing their destinies.

What They Died For

I have included this picture in lieu of another. The one that should be here is not for a number of reasons, including that it is indeed offensive to many, many people. So too is the one I have chosen, but the primary difference is that this picture is (relatively) unlikely to cause my untimely death. Given the historical precedent of fatwas, firebombed embassies and authors in hiding, the other picture just might.

I understand that the original reasoning behind not depicting Muhammad was fairly reasonable. Preventing the worship of a human being is a worthy goal. However, as many people have pointed out, it has turned out that the ban has actually contributed to the deification of the Prophet.

As with many other religious edicts, this particular one has gone far beyond the original intent and has become a true assault on reason. The fact that drawing a cartoon can land you the death penalty in several countries is absolutely ridiculous.

To all those people who advocate self-censorship in the name of not causing a fuss, or who claim that pictures of the Prophet are not speech, consider the picture above. This picture is speech, it makes a clear statement about the sheer absurdity of a particular religious tradition (in this case young-earth creationism).

In precisely the same way, drawings of Muhammad (and the subsequent reactions) serve to make a statement about another, equally absurd religious tradition. This is speech just as much as my picture is.

This is not about Islam. This is also not about religion. I am just as opposed to laws prohibiting the burning of the American flag. We can't be hypocrites. That is speech as well.

These pictures also make a statement about freedom of religion. It is your right to believe whatever you want to believe, and as much as I will argue that belief should be based on the best available evidence, I will not ever question your right to believe something different. However, no one has a right to impose their beliefs on others, which is what is happening here.

These twin freedoms, speech and religion, form the basis of our society. If they are not worth defending, nothing is. Our forefathers understood this, and in 1939 they went to war to defend these freedoms. At terrible cost, they emerged victorious.

Now, it is our turn. As John McCrae said in his famous poem, "To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high."

As much as we would like not to carry this burden, there is no one else. The task falls to us. As much as we would like to avoid confrontation, there are places where we must take a stand. This is such a place.

Make a statement. Remind people what this is about. I would not be opposed to every magazine, newspaper and website in the free world plastering pictures of Muhammad and Jesus riding a dinosaur while burning an American flag across their front pages, under the headline, "What They Died For".

The 22nd Century Economy (1 of 10)

As much as we like to present history as a series of distinct epochs, in most cases that is an artificial simplification. Within individual societies throughout history, and now in our global society, different periods of history tend to blend together.

Each period of history can be seen as both an outgrowth of its predecessor and as a lead-up to its successor. I believe that most people throughout history have seen their own age as a transitory one, bridging the storied past and the uncertain future; I also believe that this is a healthy outlook because it creates a mindset for advancement and change.

As I have previously said, I believe that it is difficult to form forward-looking policy without a coherent vision of your goal. I believe that this is one of the reasons much government policy remains reactive, because politicians do not have, cannot articulate, or will not disclose their visions of the future.

I aim to be different. I have said before that my long-term environmental vision is of people living in urban "islands", surrounded by mostly unspoiled landscape. That vision drives much of my environmental policy. I want to expand on this vision of the future and discuss some other policy areas from a viewpoint of creating proactive policies that work toward identifiable goals.

In this post, I will start with the economy. I have referred to it as the 22nd century economy because I see our current system as being the 21st century economy, the successful but flawed basis which leads into the next age. I see the 23rd century economy as the "ideal" that the next age will play a part in ushering in. The time scales involved may be longer or (somewhat) shorter, I have simply used the 23rd century as the ideal in homage to Star Trek, which presents a vision of an ideal economy where scarcity no longer applies, people are driven by contribution rather than profit, and merit is the determining factor of success.

What we have now is a nascent global economy, artificially divided into ~200 nation-states, most with some form of mixed market system, combining capitalist economics with a moderately interventionist state. A little over half these states have some form of democratic political system, with the rest being authoritarian.

As I have said many times before, the current system is not in need of wholesale change, as it has been proven to be very efficient and has drastically improved living standards across the board. It can and will, with appropriate guidance, continue to improve life for humanity and bring us closer to our goals.

However, the system should also not remain static, because a fragmented, mixed capitalist economy is not equipped to transform into a global, democratic post-capitalist meritocracy, even if fusion power and replicators (scarcity-eliminating matter-energy conversion devices) were invented and perfected tomorrow.

I believe our attitude should be one of gradual change and improvement, constantly attempting to make our system one that will bridge the gap between the present and the future.

The obvious question then becomes, what will this "bridge" economy look like? What kind of system can reduce the problems we face today while simultaneously preparing for a post-scarcity economy and thriving in one where scarcity still applies?

I think we can start by identifying some of the things in the current system that will have to change to reach the long-term vision. Once we have incorporated those adjustments, we can work from there to complete the transitional framework.

Here are some of the problems I see with our current system:

1. The biggest problem is the inability of pure capitalism to price in externalities, that is, effects that economic transactions have on third parties. I have said before that in our system I believe governments must do their best to manage these externalities, but it is possible there is a better way.

2. A related problem is the tragedy of the commons, where a common resource (like fishing stocks or water) is overexploited because it is available to all. Again, government regulation has been the default (and relatively unsuccessful) solution to this problem, although some other novel approaches have been proposed, such as simply privatizing ownership of all resources, removing the incentive to overexploit.

3. The second great challenge we face, as I have mentioned before, is the reconciliation of profit with contribution. If we are move toward a true meritocracy, two things must happen. We must have equality of opportunity, and we must solve this problem. This will be a tricky one to solve, primarily because people don't agree on what constitutes contribution

4. Speaking of equality of opportunity, it is a necessity and we don't have it. There have been significant strides made in this area, but there is still a long way to go. Differences need to be eliminated between countries and within them. The two major sub-problems here are the lack of global economic and political integration disadvantaging people in certain countries as well as the neo-aristocracy created through inherited wealth.

There is progress being made on the first issue, through gradual increase in worldwide development as well as through political and economic integration. It is the second problem that really causes me grief.

I strongly believe that the majority of people who work their way to extreme wealth deserve to have such wealth, because they have indeed made contributions. Probably the opposite is true for so-called "trust fund kids". My observations suggest that the massive wealth they inherit tends to be a deterrent to contribution, rather than an enabler. There are exceptions, but they are rare. To solve this problem, I have previously advocated a heavy estate tax, but I am cognizant of the enforcement problems with estate taxes. A different approach may be necessary here.

5. Capitalism in its current form seemingly disincentivises efficiency in some ways. This is a curious problem, but it is pervasive. Presumably, most people would rather work less, and less time spent on low-skill activities would theoretically free up additional man-hours for more "contribution-added" activities. However, the trend in capitalist societies has been towards more work, not less, and employment economics are such that many people (and unions) are actually strongly opposed to changes that would replace human labour with machine power.

A related problem involves technologies that are more efficient, but more expensive. The energy efficiency of nuclear power, for example, is much higher than other alternatives, but its use is still relatively limited because of the cost. This disconnect between economic efficiency and technological efficiency is an interesting one, which I will have to give more thought to.

6. There is a small disconnect between our current form of capitalism and the democratic ideals we claim to value. The corporation, pervasive in today's capitalism because of its unique ability to raise large amounts of capital from strangers, is not a democratic beast. As a result, many people spend half (or more) of their waking hours in what is essentially an authoritarian environment. It would seem that we would want to move away from this if we could.

7. The last issue I will discuss is a controversial one, because of the atrocious evil that has been associated with perverse forms of the idea in the past. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should include it at all, and am fully expecting people to twist my words and crucify me for them. However, it is a real issue, and I can't not mention it.

This issue is evolution. I would argue that human evolution has been affected by the advent of industrial capitalism and modern medicine. I don't think its revolutionary to believe that there are certain genetic traits that we have an interest in promoting or preventing, mostly to do with inheritable diseases, but also traits like intelligence. It would seem self-evident that since intelligence (for example) is a trait almost universally valued across societies, and absolutely necessary for the survival and expansion of the human race, that we would want to make sure that the next generation is as intelligent as possible. It seems to me, however, that in developed countries, the smartest people are having fewer and fewer children.

By now, half of you are probably thinking I'm about to advocate Nazi-era policies of forced sterilization and the other half are probably thinking "I have five kids so he's saying I am dumb". I am not saying either of these things. I violently oppose the kind of restrictions on freedom and the loss of human dignity that are necessary for the first, and the second is not true in many, many cases, and is only a statistical argument. I am merely trying to say that if each successive generation is becoming less and less intelligent, that is (or will be) a serious problem and one that we should at least discuss in a reasonable fashion.

In the next few posts, I will discuss these problems further and try to point out some potential ways forward. Frankly though, I don't have very many answers yet, and these are tough problems.

As a sidebar, I have been reading about something called Economic Democracy, which is what got me thinking about the dynamics of a post-capitalist economy. Basically the idea is to retain a market economy, but replace corporations with worker-run cooperatives, which would borrow money from state-owned banks based on previous success and (possibly) how the objective of the business conformed with state goals. The cooperatives would pay a flat capital asset tax to the state. It is an interesting idea, and some of the ideas it presents deserve a long, hard look, but it suffers from three main problems in my view:

1. It would not be feasible to establish this system before worldwide political integration has been achieved. The very nature of the system precludes foreign investment, and it would substantially damage the economy through the loss of global application of comparative advantage. It would also reinforce national standard-of-living differences.

2. A worker-run system would suffer even more from a tendency to reject labour saving technologies in favour of inefficiency.

3. The capital allocation decisions made by the state owned banks make me very skeptical. I highly doubt that these decisions would be made effectively because of political interference and the historical inability of government bureaucrats to make good decisions on similar matters.

I will come back to Economic Democracy in later posts.

Mickey Mouse Laws

Before I launch into my latest tirade, I want to reemphasize something that I stated way back in my seminal political post "The Book of Laws", and have espoused ever since.

There are relatively few things that I can confidently say that I hate, but fundamentalism is one of them. When I say fundamentalism what I mean is this: the refusal to adjust one's opinions or beliefs in the face of compelling contradictory evidence.

Given this strong belief, I am firmly committed to changing my mind on anything I have ever written in this blog, if someone presents me with a compelling and rational argument to the contrary, supported by sufficient evidence. That includes what I am about to write.

The reason I wanted to be clear about that is because what I am about to write is pretty controversial, and given the extent of my knowledge on the issue, there is a reasonable probability that my opinions could be biased. Please, record companies, give me a reason why I am wrong...

My understanding of the purpose of copyright is this: it exists to facilitate the creation of creative works, and to allow the author of said works to reap the economic benefit of the intellectual product he/she has created. I think we can all agree that the makers of music, video, literary works and software have rights to the economic benefits of their work. I also think we can agree that these artists have what are called "moral rights", where they have a right to be credited as the creator of a work.

Copyright does not exist to distort the market for creative "goods", and force people to pay for a good that has no value. In fact, laws that exist for the purpose of corporate welfare or supporting uneconomic enterprises are against everything that capitalism is, because they promote inefficient distribution of resources in the economy.

Nonetheless, for certain types of works covered under the Copyright Act, such distortion is occurring. I have two major issues here:

The first is requiring a royalty for the live performance of a copyrighted song. I can understand credit having to be given to the songwriter for moral rights purposes, but buskers having to pay royalties, and thousands of people every day technically in violation of the Copyright Act because they are singing "Happy Birthday" in public seems a little ridiculous.

The second, and more controversial topic is what I perceive as unjustified government support of unnecessary businesses.

In my understanding, the royalties from sales of music are a relatively small part of income for most artists, especially lower-profile artists. The majority of musicians derive most of their income from live performances. More popular bands are able to negotiate better deals with their record companies, but artists, on average, receive about 9 cents per 99c iTunes download. For a CD, artists might receive somewhere between 30c and $1, depending on their recording contract. That level of compensation doesn't seem like it does a very good job encouraging artists to create music.

Nonetheless, record companies, distributors and others have proposed increasingly severe restrictions on people's freedom in order to remain profitable. From prosecuting people who have downloaded music to attempting to force ISPs to release confidential information or "throttle" their subscribers to getting taxes opposed on blank media, it seems as if these companies have serious undue influence over the government.

In order to justify these restrictions, it seems to me that there would have to be what is often called a "compelling state interest" to restrict the freedom of citizens to do whatever they want with their digital music files.I think we have already established that preventing file-sharing will have a smaller impact on artists than is generally believed, and will certainly not stifle creativity in music. This case is actually strengthened by some other factors:

1. The amount of money artists will receive for their music recordings looks likely to continue to decline in the future. It has been correctly pointed out that after the full transition from CD to digital music, it is highly unlikely there will be another format change in the foreseeable future (such transitions have forced people to buy the same music over and over again in the past).

2. Even if file-sharing was entirely legal, my empirical observations suggest that people would still be willing to pay for added convenience; sometimes it is much faster/easier to buy music from iTunes as opposed to hunting it down on p2p networks.

3. Some of the characteristics displayed by record companies arguably suggest that their existence actually restricts the distribution of music in an oligopolistic way. Because record companies have so much control over what music is used in radio, television etc, an argument can be made that they are actually distorting the free market for music.

Absent a compelling state interest to protect the economic livelihood of artists, I cannot see what other interest the state might have to justify overbearing copyright laws. The economic value of distributors has been eroded by the Internet to the point where like encyclopedia publishers and travel agents, they no longer provide a useful economic service. Record companies do provide other services besides distribution (like publicity and access to market) that may still be economically useful, but that isn't the point here.

Additionally, changing copyright laws should have the additional positive effect of reducing a key disparity between profit and contribution in our society. I have previously identified celebrities as one of the groups that makes enormous amounts of money while not contributing an equivalent amount to society. If this is a way to actually reduce the incomes of celebrity artists while not affecting the vast majority of artists that are not compensated to that level, so much the better.

I would present a different, but related argument in relation to television broadcasts.

For TV programs, I would argue that there are already a multitude of ways for viewers to watch a TV show after the original airing. Almost all shows are now available on network websites, as well as websites like Hulu. Additionally, the prevalence of PVR technology allows anyone to record shows and watch them at their convinience. Given the ubiquity of TV shows after their original airing, and the existence of time-dependant value for TV shows (many consumers prefer to watch the original airing as opposed to downloading some time later), I don't see a compelling state interest here to crack down on file sharing here either.

For now, here are the specific changes I would advocate to Canadian copyright law:

1. Include an exemption in the Copyright Act that provides for the live performance of someone else's musical work in a public place as long as there is no specific fee charged for listening to the performance.

2. Amend section 80 of the Canadian Copyright act to replace "sound recording" with "sound or television recording" and "musical work" with "musical or television work"

3. Strike section 80(2)(b) of the Canadian Copyright Act, thus allowing the non-profit distribution of digital music and television files.

4. Add a section in the Copyright Act preventing file-sharing sites from displaying advertising content not related to material available for download on the site. This prevents p2p sites from profiting from file sharing without the implied consent of the artist.

5. Prevent the establishment of blank-media levies.

I'll think more about what should be done about films and other forms of media for a future post. I didn't include them here because I haven't yet formed a concrete opinion.

Fier, Responsable et Autonome

There are days when I find myself disillusioned by our politics. I see all the parties running around in circles, trying to offend the least possible number of people while accomplishing nothing.

I see absurdity from the Bloc when Gilles Duceppe compares Quebec sovereigntists to the anti-Nazi French resistance. I see absurdity from the NDP when they introduce a bill that will disqualify a large portion of our most brilliant legal minds from ever serving on the Supreme Court. I cannot count the number of times I have seen Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals make a completely illogical stand on something in order to pander to one voting group or another.

Even the Conservatives, my party of choice on most days, have their moments of insanity. Sometimes they will hitch themselves just a little too tightly to US Republicans and start talking about science as the enemy, or about how we shouldn't be providing contraceptives to developing countries. Other times they will follow the Liberals' lead and forget what they stand for in order to win votes.

However, amidst all these frustrating happenings, sometimes our politicians give us a glimmer of hope. They will stand up and say something that may not be popular, but that they believe in. On occassion, someone might even be bold enough to tell the whole truth.

That's why, today, I must give a wholehearted thumbs-up to Maxime Bernier, for his courageous vision on the future of Quebec. For all his past failings, this is a moment of brilliance:

I would like to discuss with you today the future of our society, the future of Quebec, which worries me very much.

Political debates in Quebec have been dominated for several decades by the “national question.” It’s a legitimate debate, but a debate that’s not going anywhere and will probably not go anywhere for a long time to come. Lucien Bouchard said it recently, and polls also show it: most Quebecers do not believe that Quebec will separate from Canada in the foreseeable future.

Despite this, since the 1970s, we’ve talked a lot about political independence, about the constitution, we’ve held referendums. And meanwhile, we’ve built a system of economic dependence that’s become more and more elaborate.

Quebec has one of the biggest and most interventionist governments in North America, and one of the heaviest fiscal burdens. Quebec has the most far-reaching social programs. Quebec is the province that gives the most subsidies to businesses, artists, parents, and to a host of other groups. And let’s not forget the other problems, such as the fact that Quebec is among the most rapidly aging societies in the world. This will increase the cost of social programs, and there will be fewer young people to pay for them.

Some weeks ago, we learned in a study of the Quebec department of Finance that we rank fifth among the most indebted societies in the industrialized world, not far behind Greece which is currently going through a difficult financial crisis. While we were debating independence, we accumulated an enormous debt and we became dependent on borrowed money to fund an unsustainable level of public services.

We certainly have many reasons to be proud of our culture, our language, of the evolution of our society during the past four centuries. But the political choices that were made in Quebec in the past four decades have led us in a dead end. If we do not change direction soon, we’re going to hit a brick wall.

As it happens, the Bloc Québécois was recently celebrating its 20th anniversary. Instead of discussing the real problems of Quebec, the bloquistes prefer to continue debating a hypothetical project and try to prove that our federal system is not working.

Gilles Duceppe made a fool of himself by comparing the separatist movement to the resistance against the Nazis in his anniversary speech. If the bloquistes spent more of their energy trying to find solutions to the concrete challenges that we face instead of uttering such nonsense, perhaps we’d be in better shape as a society.

Mr. Duceppe also complained, as he has been doing for 20 years, that Quebec did not get enough money from the federal government. He said that our last budget did not redistribute enough funds to Quebec, and that is the proof that federalism is not profitable for us. So in short, Mr. Duceppe, who is fighting for Quebec independence, laments the fact that Quebec is not enough economically dependent on the rest of Canada. He wants Quebec to get more money, he wants us to be even more dependent!

This year, Quebec will get $8.5 billion in equalization payments, an increase of $200 million compared with last year. That’s more than half of the $14 billion in the program. That’s money that comes from the richer provinces, such as Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

It’s true that other provinces, such as Manitoba and the three Maritime Provinces, get even more equalization money per capita than Quebec, and so are even more dependent on Ottawa. But that’s not an excuse. As a Quebecer, I am not really proud of the fact that we are a poor province that gets equalization money.

And if we are poorer, it’s not the rest of Canada’s fault. It should be obvious enough that unbridled state interventionism does not lead to prosperity. If that were the case, Quebec would be the richest place in North America instead of being one of the poorest.

Many studies have shown that the less its government intervenes in the economy, the more prosperous a society becomes. The Fraser Institute regularly compares the economic situation in the provinces and states of North America and has found a direct correlation between the level of economic freedom and prosperity. An analysis of 23 OECD countries over a period of 36 years has also shown that economic growth is inversely proportional with government spending. For every additional ten percentage points of government spending as a proportion of GDP, economic growth is permanently reduced by one percent a year.

So, to repeat, the rest of Canada has nothing to do with the fact that we are poorer, as the bloquistes claim. We are poorer because of bad economic policies that made Quebec’s economy less productive; we are poorer because we live beyond our means instead of having responsible policies; we are poorer because the first reflex of much of our political class is to constantly beg for more money in Ottawa instead of taking the necessary decisions that would solve our problems and put our house in order.

In the 1970s, Robert Bourassa invented the term “profitable federalism” (“fédéralisme rentable”). That was a very unfortunate concept to put forward as a way to defend the merits of federalism. For many Quebecers, the more money we extract from the rest of Canada, the more profitable federalism is deemed to be.

Both federalist and separatist provincial governments have used the threat of separation to try to get more money. Can you remember the Bélanger-Campeau commission? The whole debate about the fiscal disequilibrium? It’s always the same pattern, the same beggar-thy-neighbour approach. Even when the amounts being sent by Ottawa increase, the reaction in Quebec City is always that it’s not enough, we need more, or else this is the proof that federalism is not profitable.

For my part, the type of federalism that I wish for is not a profitable one, it’s responsible federalism. On the masthead of my blog, there are two words in large characters, two inseparable principles that I consider extremely important: liberty and responsibility. I favour as much individual freedom as possible. But when you are free, you must also be responsible for your actions. You can enjoy the fruits of your labour, but you must also bear the consequences of your bad decisions.

The same is true for governments. A responsible federalism is a federalism that rests on the principle of subsidiarity. This means that issues should be handled by the smallest or lowest competent authority, the one closest to the people. Each one should fund its own programs and decide for itself its own priorities as an autonomous entity.

This way, each province, each region, each community, develops according to its own personality. This allows local particularities to be expressed. And each is responsible for its own policies. If one has bad policies, others cannot be held responsible and should not be forced to help pay the bill.

In a large and diverse federation like Canada, the fastest way to breed resentment and disunity is to have a big central government intervening in local affairs. Separatism in Quebec, and discontent in the West, grew fastest during the Trudeau era, as a reaction against central government activism.

We, conservatives, offer a different vision: a smaller and less interventionist government in Ottawa. The intention of the fathers of Confederation was clear: it was to have autonomous provinces, each one responsible and completely independent in their own jurisdiction.

Even if the Bloc only cares about criticizing, we are solving real problems in Ottawa. For example, our government cut the GST by two percentage points, which allowed Quebec to take up this fiscal space. As a taxpayer, I would have preferred no increase in my tax burden and that the Quebec government find other solutions to its financial problems. But this is an illustration of the flexibility of our federation. Provinces are free to decide their own fiscal policies.

Our government is also going ahead with its plan to reduce corporate taxes so that our economy becomes more competitive. Our government also adopted prudent policies to deal with the economic crisis and Canada is one of the countries that suffered the least from it. All of this helps Quebec and Quebecers.

Let’s be frank: many people in the rest of the country perceive Quebecers as a bunch of spoiled children who are never satisfied and always ask for more.

This perception has some basis in reality. It derives from 40 years of futile debates over independence; 40 years of irresponsible policies adopted by one provincial government after the other living beyond their means and getting us deeper into debt; 40 years of demands to extract yet more money from the pockets of our fellow citizens in the rest of Canada.

We have to get out of this false choice between independence and profitable federalism. We also need to put an end to policies that lead to our impoverishment and to stop expecting the rest of Canada to bail us out with more equalization money.

We are members of a political party at the federal level. As Canadian conservatives, there is obviously nothing we can do to solve the problems of the Quebec government. But we can contribute, in our own way, to changing the terms of the debate. We can shift political debates in Quebec to another paradigm. We can point to other solutions.

Imagine if, instead of exerting ourselves to get more money from the rest of Canada, we aimed at something more positive: to become sufficiently rich that we’re not on the receiving end of the equalization program anymore. Would we not be prouder as Quebecers if this happened?

Imagine if, instead of pointlessly debating the merits of political independence, we tried instead to live within our means and to get out of our economic dependence.

Imagine if, instead of having the bloquistes always trying to impede our progress within Canada, we had a group of conservative MPs teaming up with all those who, across this country, want a more decentralized federalism.

That’s the alternative that we have to offer Quebecers. The vision of a proud, responsible and autonomous Quebec.

-Maxime Bernier

If more politicians were this straightforward, the world would be a better place.

Across the Sea

"Real peace is not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice"

This is going to be an exploratory post. The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, but I have been unable to completely settle on the specifics as of yet. This is primarily because of two significant problems to which I have no answer at the present time, those being the ideal level of military integration with the project and the adjustments necessary to avoid any neo-colonialist outcomes. Hopefully answers to these questions will emerge as I explore the idea further. In the meantime, don't hold me too strictly to anything I write in this post.

This idea was originally born out of my opinions and concerns on a variety of different issues, including the following:

1. Many Canadian youth are unsure about their life direction after high school or university. It would be ideal if there was a program in place that allowed all such individuals to undertake a rewarding experience that might help them define their life path.

2. Many Canadian youth are interested in travelling the world and learning about other cultures. However, not everyone can afford to travel extensively or feels confident enough to undertake travel in developing countries.

3. There is a need for a fundamental reorganization of Canadian foreign aid. We currently spend far less than the global standard of 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid. Part of this is a domestic political problem, but part of it is due to the fact that people see little benefit to foreign aid and perceive that most of the money is wasted or lost to corruption.

4. There is also a need for some change to the Canadian military. This issue deserves its own post, but basically I believe that the military needs to become smaller and more focused, and there needs to be a realization that as a smaller country, Canada is better suited to playing a niche role in international conflicts, as well as being a key partner in traditional peacekeeping, rather than undertaking generalized combat roles as we have in Afghanistan.

5. There is a perception that Canada's influence in international affairs has been declining, and we are now seen as marching mostly in lockstep with the United States. A unique and innovative foreign affairs strategy would help to address this issue, real or imagined. I believe Canadians are proud of our significant contributions to international affairs in the past and would like them to continue.

6. There are significant forces currently shaping the developing world, some of which are not in Canada's national interest. A more comprehensive foreign affairs strategy would help prevent terrorism and promote Canada as a friend to the developing world. Engagement with developing countries would also help address certain global issues (environmental, educational etc), but we must tread carefully in this area to avoid imposing our culture on others at the expense of their own.

7. The engagement of Canadian youth in civil service and international affairs appears to be low and declining. Encouraging this type of initiative could help address this problem.

8. Many types of foreign aid are in fact counterproductive to development. Food aid, in particular, has had disastrous consequences in Africa. Cash aid has subjected countries with something akin to a "resource curse" and has tended not to trickle down to the lowest level.

The solution I propose to these problems is this: instead of spending our foreign aid budget by distributing it as cash or goods to foreign countries, Canada could use the money to set up a well-funded foreign assistance department. The department would employ a small number of dedicated experts, but would primarily rely on manpower from temporary volunteers.

The program would have three options, a post-high school, a post-university, and a summer option. All Canadian youth would be strongly encouraged to participate, possibly through incentives like a scholarship program or an opportunity to earn course credits. I have toyed with the idea of making it a mandatory civil service obligation (as many European countries do with military service), but I think that is too ambitious a goal in the short term.

For each of the three programs, the cost of travel and accommodation in the destination country would be covered for the volunteers. Logistical support could be provided by the Canadian Forces if necessary.

I envision the characteristics of each individual program being something like this:

1. Post-high school - This program would produce the backbone of the assistance workforce. It would be a one-year program which would encapsulate about two months of training and about ten months of deployment. This group would primarily take on low-skilled tasks like construction, child care, environmental clean-up and administrative/logistical concerns. There would also be a security path open to those interested, and could provide a very effective training and recruiting tool for the Canadian Forces. This path would likely require additional training, perhaps six months or so.

2. Summer Option - this option would be focused on rapid deployment, and on providing an introductory experience to encourage university students to take the full program option at the conclusion of their studies. This would be a month of training followed by a three-month deployment and would be tailored to shorter-term projects or projects temporarily requiring additional manpower.

3. Post-University - I envision this being the foundation of the skill-based programs. University graduates have specific skills that would allow them to contribute to a variety of projects, especially if they were grouped under an experienced professional. This program would be 1-2 years, with a few months of training at the beginning.

Once the program had been set up, Canada would offer comprehensive development assistance to any country that requested it and met the following criteria:

1. Absence of conflict - The program would not deploy into any country with a severe ongoing conflict. Afghanistan, Somalia and others would be out. Areas of semi-conflict would have to be carefully considered, and possibly there is a small role for the military if there was a deployment to a somewhat unstable area like the Palestinian territories or Georgia.

2. Willingness to accept comprehensive assistance - Countries would not be able to pick and choose what services would be provided. They would be able to request specific things and advise as to areas of need, but the whole idea of the program is to avoid the problems that come from providing one-off services. There is also a plethora of excellent NGO's that can provide single-project services. Obviously exceptions would be made if a particular activity would be prohibited by a legitimate (in Canadian eyes) cultural or religious objection.

3. Need- Prioritization would be need-based as well as logistical. In general, the program would prioritize the poorest areas. However, it would be a waste of resources and a volunteer deterrent if there was not a variety of options available. Trying to have a variety of geographic areas available would be a good idea from that perspective.

The organization would engage for five-year terms, which could be ended prior to that time at the discretion of either party. This would allow governments to back out if they are unhappy, and for the Canadians to leave if conflict or other problems were to arise.

The types of development assistance that would be provided by the program would include the following:

1. Housing - It would be relitively cheap from a materials standpoint to vastly improve the living conditions in many rural areas and slums in developing nations. With a minimum of investment for construction materials and some significant manpower, some sort of housing, even if it was extremely basic, could be provided to many people that do not currently have it. Improving sanitation in these areas would also be a key objective.

2. Health and Wellness - Although it is unlikely that there would be enough medicine/nursing graduates in the program to provide general medical care to everyone, the program would certainly offer advice and help to improve the quality of existing facilities.

The second key part of the health and wellness initiative would be the distribution of information. Education on the causes of ailments like malaria and AIDS would be key, as well as the distribution of low-cost preventative measures like condoms and mosquito netting and information on their use.

3. Education - There would be significant opportunities within this program for volunteers with the neccessary language skills to teach English and French as a part of the program. Additionally, in many countries children are prevented from going to school because they are required to assist their parents with household/farm tasks. In this program, a volunteer could provide replacement labour to enable the child to attend school, although care would have to be taken to avoid distortion of the local labour market.

4. Environment - The primary initiatives in this area would be around providing things like solar powered water purification and information on its use. Labour could also be used to identify an drain standing water that breeds mosquitos, subject to ecological concerns. Again, the focus would have to be on things that would not be done otherwise, to avoid displacing local labour earnings with volunteer labour.

Secondary concerns in this area would include the maintainance of the natural environment in the country, although here volunteers would have to be extremely careful. There is certainly advantages to promoting things like sustainable farming practices and conservation of land, but volunteers may not be equipped to handle such tasks.

5. Business - Canadians could help local businessmen set up the types of buinesses that are key to economic development. I am specifically thinking about microfinance here, providing small loans to people who would not otherwise have access to them is a great way to jumpstart economic development.

I am sure that there are many other areas where Canadians could make a positive difference. There are some challenges, however, that must be addressed.

1. Dependency - The program should be explicitly designed not to create dependency. The focus should be on enabling locals to build a stable society, not on Canadians building a society within the developing country. This is why education and health are at the core of this initiative.

2. Neo-Imperialism - This is a fine balancing act. There are obviously some things that Canada would like to see occur in developing countries, like democracy and sustainability. We can promote these things to a limited extent, but we must not attempt to replace or devalue the local culture as we did to our own native people.

3. Liability - It is likely that some Canadians will be killed or die from disease in the course of this venture. It is critical that this is understood and accepted as a cost of the program. Canadians who die abroad, in service to humanity, should be given as much respect as troops who die in combat.

4. NGO's - This program would overlap with the work done my many NGO's. Although the program's aims are different, some policy must be developed for working with private NGO's working towards the same goal.

If Canada could successfully spearhead development in even 2 or 3 countries using this program, it would be vastly more successful than any foreign aid we have ever given in the past. Canadians would be filled with a new sense or purpose and pride internationally. Our young people would return with a greater understanding of the world and a new commitment to civil service.

We would all be able to sleep more soundly knowing that we have made a difference.

The Guns of the South

History suggests that global hegemony is a fickle mistress. Many empires have come and gone in the few short millenia of recorded history, often rising from nothing to become the preeminent power of their time. Without exception, however, they have not been able to maintain their hegemony. Many of these global powers have suffered a spectacular collapse, others have fallen into a long twilight that persists until they eventually vanish into the mists of history.

I have no reason to believe that this cycle will cease in the near term. Eventually, I am hopeful that humanity will come together as a species, and establish a fair and just society that will take us to the stars as one people, but even the most optimistic of us must admit that we are a long way off from that, even if it eventually does come to pass.

Therefore, there has been a lot of talk recently about the decline of American power, and the possibility that the American twilight has begun. I think that this is vastly overstating the current situation, for the simple reason that the world economy is now interconnected enough that a rudderless Dark Age is unlikely, and that there really is no successor ready to step up and lead the world.

The United States still enjoys significant advantages in business. The American system, and to a lesser extent the system of the greater Western world, is uniquely equipped to encourage innovation and economic achievement. Other systems have shown that they can take western innovation and improve on it, and especially that they can drive down costs and increase efficiency, but no other system has shown the ability to produce revolutions like the Internet.

The American business advantage drives much of the country's global power, and as long as the United States has that advantage, I think it is premature to say that America is entering her twilight. There are, however, two significant risks to American power, which I believe have precipitated much of the extant discussion; these are real risks and could lead to the twilight everyone is talking about.

1. The American "South"

The United States is teetering on the precipice of losing moral leadership in the world. History shows that in many cases, when a society stops being a leader in the propagation of truth and justice, decline usually follows. This is a traditional argument for the decline of the Roman Empire; the theory goes that Rome became decadent and corrupt, and instead of trying to improve the lives of its citizens, the Empire was paralyzed by corrupt officials attempting to enrich themselves and a general lack of moral leadership from the later Emperors. Ironically, Edward Gibbon, in his revolutionary book on the subject, even pointed to Christianity as a driving force in the Empire's decline.

In today's America, we are seeing the world's most powerful country fall further and further behind in many ways. The country now sits in hyperpartisan legislative gridlock, created almost entirely by the people who would be considered, in many countries, to be the extreme right. The Republican Party, once the stalwart backer of business and fiscal responsibility, has fully embraced the "Karl Rove strategy", refusing to compromise, and using the politics of fear to frustrate the opposition.

This political situation has created an America that is unable to provide moral leadership to the world. America was, and is, the best place in the world for scientific innovation. However, science is now demonized by the Republicans because it is based on the search for facts, something the Republicans abandoned some time ago. Support for evolution in the United States seems to be declining, thanks to evangelical propaganda machines. Scientists are portrayed as left-wing radicals because of the work they do on climate change.

This hostility to science will eventually begin to affect the ability of America to innovate. This could have disastrous consequences. Combine that with the regressive stance of the US on other social issues, like abortion and gay rights, and you have a serious risk to US hegemony.

Now, I have been particularly hard on the Republicans here, but the Democrats are guilty as well, for refusing to try to compromise with the few moderates left in the Republican Party. I am more convinced than ever that lobbyists are almost as responsible as Republicans for the sorry state of the USA. When Republicans do manage to put forward a good idea, like tort reform as a way to reduce health care costs, the Democrats will not even consider the idea, because their lawyer buddies don't like it.

When anyone dares mention the wasteful insanity of making biofuel from corn, or even that agriculture shouldn't be subsidized, the agricultural lobby crucifies them. Basically every bill that is passed is full of easter eggs to appease one congressman or another. Obama campaigned against this pork-barrel spending, but seems unable to stop it.

All these problems are complicated by a serious economic situation in the US today. There is also precedent for this. In Rome, the rapid expansion of the empire created a huge fiscal problem related to the maintenance of infrastructure, and most importantly, the army. The empire was forced to significantly raise taxes to pay for everything. At the same time, debasement of Roman currency caused significant inflation. The resulting economic crisis was likely a key factor in the fall of the western empire.

The United States faces a similar situation. The economic crisis exacerbated an already critical problem by forcing a massive amount of stimulus spending. If the budget had been balanced going into the crisis, it would have been more than manageable, as it is in Canada. However, there was already a fiscal crisis brought on by irresponsible tax cuts and massive military spending since 2001.

All this constitutes the first risk to American power. In order to stem the tide, the USA must accomplish the following things:

i. Health Care - the US is the only first-world country that doesn't have universal health care. This is insane considering that they are the richest of all. Equally insane is the fact that despite the lack of universal care, they still spend the most money on health care of any country. This must be solved through a combination of strategies, including many that are in the current bill. I believe a public option will help, and I also believe in tort reform as a way to reduce costs. I am happy the current bill was passed, and see it as a hopeful sign. However, the work is not yet done. The current bill is especially weak on cost control, and this must be addressed in the future.

ii. The War on Science - All the issues that are long-settled or marginal in most other developed countries must be won and shelved in the United States. I have already mentioned evolution and global warming as the biggest such issues. This doesn't mean that the US has to agree to massive carbon cuts or huge wealth transfer to other countries. It just means that people must acknowledge the validity of the science, and focus on debating an appropriate policy response.

iii. Defense Spending - The United States military has grown to an unsustainable size. The Romans attempted to remedy their similar problems by replacing Roman citizens with mercenaries in many cases, but were unsuccessful. Although the Roman army remained an effective fighting force well into the fourth century, it was no longer an unparalleled power. The United States must avoid a similar scenario, and recognize that it can no longer afford to be the world's policeman.

In the United States, the army rose to prominence as a conventional fighting force designed to engage and defeat opposing armies. It is the most powerful such force in world history. However, such an approach is no longer effective given today's realities. It is unlikely that there will be another conflict between major powers in the near future, as economic globalization has made most of the world's major powers interdependent. Future conflicts will be about rooting out extremist elements not affiliated with a national government, or defending against attacks from small "rogue states".

What is needed for such a world is not a massive army of tanks, infantry and battle fleets. The United States (and Canada) would be better served by remodeling their armed forces into a small, extremely well trained force supported by cutting edge technology. This small army, perhaps half the current size, would be focused on urban warfare, rapid deployment and counter-insurgency, and could be consolidated to a much smaller number of bases in order to save money. This type of model is currently used by the US Marine Corps, and should be expanded to the other services.

iv. Separation of Church and State - This has been a bedrock principle of the United States since at least the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. It has contributed significantly to the rise of the United States as a moral power in the world, and for the United States to avert disaster, it must be emphasized once again. The Roman Empire's decline, coincidentally or not, began shortly after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion.

Traditional battles in this area should be continued, but removing "In God we Trust" from money should not be secularists' most pressing concern.

Instead, it should be stalwart defence of the education system, and advocating against the indoctrination of children into religious traditions without providing them a fair choice. Although much of Richard Dawkins' anti-religious rhetoric is overstated, here he makes an excellent point.
It is considered absurd to refer to a child of Marxist parents as a "Marxist child", because at a young age, children are not intellectually equipped to make choices about political ideology.

However, it is commonplace to refer to children as "muslim children", or "christian children" simply because that is the religion of their parents. The great cause of secularists should be to prevent this from happening, and to infuse the education system with discussions of evidence-based reasoning and rational thought, so that when children reach their teenage years, they are equipped to decide for themselves what religion, if any, they will follow.

If the United States can overcome these obstacles, it will go a long way towards stemming their decline. If they should fail however, someone else may take their place.

2. The Global "South"

Many of the world's nations have gotten a raw deal from history. The indigenous people of the Americas were overrun, enslaved, or exterminated, and now exist in a miserable state in North America, and only a slightly better one in South America. Asia and Africa have been extensively exploited for their natural resources. All of these regrettable things have resulted in a divide between what some people call the global "north" and "south".

The last several centuries have not resulted in appreciable gains for these developing countries. All of the world's major powers have been from what is termed the "north", and imperialism and exploitation prevented most of these societies from expanding their global power.

Finally, this situation is beginning to change. Several small countries have made the leap from developing to developed, and provided a model of sorts for countries to lift themselves out of poverty. The best examples here are South Korea, Taiwan and Chile (to a lesser extent).

Following these examples, the big countries of the developing world are finally beginning to shake off the centuries of exploitation and reassert themselves on the world stage.If the United States fails to solve its problems and starts to slide into oblivion, there will be a chance for another nation to step up and lead. The obvious candidate at the present time is China, but India and Brazil are also emerging.

If America begins to decline, and one of these countries can present a credible alternative, they have a chance to become the next major global power.I will focus on China here because they are the only country developed enough to guess how such a thing might occur.

China has managed to construct an economic system powerful enough to compete with the United States on many levels. They can make a valid claim that they have harnessed the power of free markets while at the same time keeping decision-making highly concentrated and efficient. They can present a credible alternative to the American economic system.

The weakness of the Chinese economic system at this time appears to be innovation. Time will tell whether this is a temporary weakness or a consequence of the greater centralization and bureaucratization of the system, but the first stage of establishing China as a credible successor to the United States is to put them on similar economic footing. To accomplish this, China will have to learn to innovate better.

If China can continue to gain economically, and the United States cannot rectify its problems, an opening will almost surely present itself. In order to become the next global power, China must position itself as a moral leader of the world. At present, they have a long way to go if they are to accomplish this.

China has already begun cultivating significant relationships with other developing countries. In many cases they have provided development aid in exchange for resource access. They have also taken a strong position as the "voice" of the developing world, and have tried to position Chinese interests as an alternative to western "exploitation". They have begun to build relationships by advocating a fairer deal for developing countries on issues like climate change and free trade.

China must continue to expand this influence if they are to succeed. It is certainly true that elements of exploitation still exist between developing and developed countries. If China takes a strong stand on issues like agricultural subsidies, unfair trade agreements and environmental issues, they could be a third of the way to being a global moral leader.

The second thing the Chinese must do to seize their chance is to become more involved in the broader world. If they want to be seen as a moral leader, this is key. China must engage on world issues and show that they can succeed where the Americans have failed. If China engaged more fully in peacekeeping and issues like the Arab-Israeli conflict, they would be two-thirds of the way to being a global moral leader.

The final issues will be the most difficult, and involve the biggest change. If America falters on issues like evolution and gay rights, China must step up if it is to succeed. Human rights must be vastly improved and the Tibet situation resolved successfully before China can be the world's preeminent power. China must lead the way toward establishing a sustainable, global meritocracy. China has fewer problems with religious irrationalism than the United States, but many more when it comes to the freedom of its citizens. This must change if China wants to lead the world.

I must point out one other detail. I have portrayed the rise of China as a threat to American power. However, I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting that this would neccessarily be a bad thing. As tied as Canada is to the United States, if China can make the changes described above and become the world's "big fish", more power to them. The country leading the way matters much less to me than the destination.

From an American persepective, however, there are clearly things that can be done to ward off this threat. In addition to fixing American problems, engaging the developing world on more equal terms would go a long way towards maintaining American dominance. If the United States takes all these issues to heart, it could be a world leader for a long time to come.