These Are The Voyages...(3 of 10)

Although income tax changes would be a good first step towards a global meritocracy, far bigger steps toward that goal are possible through the establishment of global equality of opportunity. I think that the clarity I see on this issue compared to the others makes it one of the most important goals to focus on in the 21st century.

Unlike my proposed income tax changes, which would affect 167,000 people (166,000 high income earners in Canada making over $250,000/yr and 1000 contribution-prize winners), global equality of opportunity has the potential to help 95% of the people on the planet. Even if my income tax provisions were applied globally, they would probably affect less than 5% of the world population. Therefore, this goal has to be considered much more critical.

As I outlined in the first post of this series, I see two major components necessary to achieving global equality of opportunity. The first one is obtaining equality of opportunity between countries. Significant progress has already been made on this goal, with many more countries being welcomed into the developed world in the last 50 years. Chinese and Indian incomes are rising fast, and their educational systems are sufficiently robust that most children in China, and a significant number in India, now have the foundation necessary to accomplish virtually any goal they may set for themselves.

In China and India, the work that remains to be done is the equalization of probabilities - that is, it is still much more likely that an American kid will grow up to be rich and powerful compared to his Chinese counterpart. This equalization will gradually materialize if China and India continue to integrate globally and pursue sensible economic policies, and the west should encourage that rather than fear it.

There are a number of other countries, however, where the probabilities of achieving a western standard of living are infinitesimal for most people. In China and India, to some extent, we can stand by and watch the global market begin to equalize opportunities and standards of living, but for other countries, more help will be required.

The countries that are the farthest from equality of opportunity are primarily located in Africa and Central/Western Asia. The biggest common denominator among them is the lack of an adequate education system, but other commonalities include high birth rates, corruption and AIDS prevalence. These are all issues we can do something about.

In terms of education, my belief is that a large percentage of our foreign aid should be going towards the development of secular education systems in these countries. Ideally this would be done in conjunction with a Canadian civil service program, as I discussed in my post Across the Sea. Intense political pressure should be applied to all these countries, particularly with respect to education of girls, as many studies have shown that education of girls is extremely effective at lowering birth rates and fostering development. Health care and microfinance would also be key initiatives, as the above linked post describes.

In tandem with this, we should aim to bring these countries into the global economy more effectively, especially with regard to trade. As I have previously pointed out, the competitive advantage that many of these countries have is in agriculture. The elimination of agricultural subsidies in developed countries could go a long way towards bringing some of the world's poorest countries forward.

Those few initiatives will not be enough, but they would be a good start. Further initiatives could come from looking at the experiences of successful developing countries in Asia and Eastern Europe and modelling development of their experiences. As ardent of a free-trader as I typically am, I recognize that the evidence does show that some protectionism in the early stages of development followed by a later entry into global markets has been very successful in places like South Korea, Taiwan and even China. There are other lessons that can be learned from the experiences of those countries as well.

A final obstacle to the type of global integration that would bring about true equality of opportunity is the fragmented worldwide immigration system. I believe that the ideal we should be aiming for on immigration is of a free flow of people between nation-states, with those states essentially competing for the best people worldwide. People would be able to go to the country whose moral and organizational systems most appealed to them, and this would encourage countries to provide high-performance government as they would be essentially forced to compete for human capital in a competitive market.

Such a system is not possible in today's world, because economic disparity is still too great. If free migration was allowed, the massive influx of immigrants would destabilize the developed countries and destroy the societies that those immigrants wanted to participate in in the first place. For this reason, I think that the first priority has to be equalizing levels of development globally, which can then be followed by the loosening of immigration rules. However, it would not be a bad idea for developed countries to continue relaxing restrictions on immigration, perhaps with the intermediate-term goal of having a relatively open labour market within the OECD. I still have a lot of thinking to do on short-medium term immigration policy before I can get much more specific than that.

Although achieving a more equal balance between countries is probably more critical, equality of opportunity within countries is also important, and I will address that in my next post.

Shikata Ga Nai

As we hit the 42nd anniversary of the moon landing, and the last flight of the Space Shuttle, there are plenty of articles out there talking about the end of human spaceflight. I don't think the space program will ultimately end, but if it did, that would be a travesty of unimaginable proportions.

I believe that the three great endeavours that humanity has undertaken in our history are exploration, science and philosophy, and it is our destiny as a species to continue with these things. To abandon them would be to adopt an isolationist, luddite and closed-minded attitude that will take us nowhere but to extinction. Humans are driven to explore, to find new places, new technologies and new understanding of the universe. Not only that, but we have a moral obligation, as the most advanced life that we know of, to preserve and protect all life, especially intelligent life, because that is the one thing that gives the universe meaning.

Shikata Ga Nai.

There is no other choice.

Kim Stanley Robinson (via Sax Russell) says it best. This passage is about Mars, but it applies just as well to every other part of the universe.

“The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind. Without the human presence it is just a concatenation of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. All our centuries of looking up at the night sky and watching it wander through the stars. All those nights of watching it through the telescopes, looking at a tiny disk trying to see canals in the albedo changes. All those dumb sci-fi novels with their monsters and maidens and dying civilizations. And all the scientists who studied the data, or got us here. That's what makes Mars beautiful. Not the basalt and the oxides.

Now that we are here, it isn't enough to just hide under ten meters of soil and study the rock. That's science, yes, and needed science too. But science is more than that. Science is part of a larger human enterprise, and that enterprise includes going to the stars, adapting to other planets, adapting them to us. Science is creation.

The lack of life here, and the lack of any finding in fifty years of the SETI program, indicates that life is rare, and intelligent life even rarer. And yet the whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. It's too dangerous to keep the consciousness of the universe on only one planet, it could be wiped out.

And so now we're on two, three if you count the moon. And we can change this one to make it safer to live on. Changing it won't destroy it. Reading its past might get harder, but the beauty of it won't go away. If there are lakes, or forests, or glaciers, how does that diminish Mars's beauty? I don't think it does. I think it only enhances it. It adds life, the most beautiful system of all. But nothing life can do will bring Tharsis down, or fill Marineris. Mars will always remain Mars, different from Earth, colder and wilder. But it can be Mars and ours at the same time. And it will be.

There is this about the human mind; if it can be done, it will be done. We can transform Mars and build it like you would build a cathedral, as a monument to humanity and the universe both. We can do it, so we will do it. So we might as well start.”

Arnulfo Quimare

I highly recommend the book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall. Among other things, it is a story about these two guys: Scott Jurek and Arnulfo Quimare. In between epic race stories, the book has a number of discussions on nutrition, running form, shoes and of course, the Raramuri people.

The book provided a little inspiration and a few tips that I hope will help me with my 5k goal for this year, and with longer-distance goals beyond that. I don't think I'll ever be doing 100k runs like Scott and Arnulfo, but I do want to knock the marathon off my bucket list sooner rather than later.

Here's a short February update on my 2011 goals:

1a. I succeeded at this goal 4/4 weeks in February. I may have made this goal somewhat too easy, and I will reassess during March and possibly update for April. I think I am leaning toward a suggestion from Dana to cap snacks/workout at a set weight (like 200g) as opposed to a "number of bags". That may serve to up the difficulty and increase the measurability of my progress.

1b. Epic fail. I technically failed this goal 3/4 weeks, but I ate at least some unhealthy food at probably half of the meals on our cruise, so to me it feels like I missed 4/4. This goal is proving to be tough because you don't always have complete control over meals. There were a couple occasions where I had already had an unhealthy meal for the week and then I was heading for food with other people and the group consensus led me astray. Of course, there were some other times when I just didn't do it. I'll try to improve this one in March.

2. I visited Belize and Honduras for the first time in February. I enjoyed both experiences, but I'm not sure if either is high on my list to go back to. Belize has potential though, I could see myself back there at some point, if not in the immediate future.

Amit let me know that the letter of the law may not allow me to get a speeding ticket for running too fast. Darn!

3. I've been running pretty consistiently throughout the month, and I think I will at least make an attempt at the Mother's Day run. Unfortunately, I've mostly been running on treadmills, but hopefully it will be warm enough to test the course soon. I think I'm almost back to the level of fitness I was at last year...I think I have a sub-21 minute 5k in me right now, but I'm not down to 20 yet.

4. Not much progress to report here.

5. I've been good about supersetting biceps/triceps regularly and I am starting to see an improvement already. My 3-set, 10-rep bicep curl is up to 55 lbs and my overhead tricep is up to 40 lbs. I want to begin varying my superset in March to continue to provide muscle confusion.

Get out there and run everyone! Embrace the pain and learn to beat it like it's a competitor, and run because you love it, not because it's a chore!

Feel it Turn

In 2010, I had two New Year's resolutions. They were:

1. Develop a concrete plan for Dana & I to be in the same place by the end of 2010

and

2. Make 2010 a cash-flow positive year, despite buying a car

I accomplished both of these goals, the latter by less than $100, but I was generally pretty happy with the way 2010 went. I therefore was planning to go about 2011 the same way, with a couple of resolutions that I would slowly progress, without much planning and without putting them down on paper. However, a read of Vincci's super-organized goal-setting process and a realization that my goals this year were more incremental than 2010's prompted me to put something down on paper, albeit a month late. I think that will give me more of an incentive to keep to my plan to accomplish these goals and allow me to set more than just the one or two I had in my head. Some of them, as Vincci also noted, will probably carry over to 2012 as multi-year goals. Anyway, here goes:

1. Eat healthier in 2011 than 2010

Obviously this is one of the most popular resolutions around, and one of the hardest ones to keep. I therefore feel that this resolution is better attacked by breaking it down into a number of sub-goals that can be individually tracked and accomplished.

1a. Limit eating of unhealthy snacks (primarily chips/Cheetos/pretzels/popcorn) to one bag per workout. If I average 3 workouts per week, I want to limit myself to three bags of junk food. Specifically exempt from this resolution are small quantities of one-time snacks, like stealing a gummy bear from a friend.

1b. Limit unhealthy meals to 1 time per week. This resolution, like most, has a subjective dividing line, which I will define as precisely as I can to avoid cheating. Therefore, I will define unhealthy meals as: burger chains, fried chicken, westernized Chinese food, pizza, chicken wings and anything else clearly lacking nutritional value. Not included will be meals that are primarily healthy with a small unhealthy element (a mostly healthy breakfast with bacon included) or "tier 2 semi-unhealthy food," such as red meat, high sodium foods, alcohol, or cheese.

1c. Once I have moved to a new place with Dana (June) I will commit to home-cooking at least 3 dinners per week, with at least one new healthy recipe tried per week.

2. Make progress on my bucket list.

Right now, I have seventeen things on my bucket list. Many of them are clearly not achievable in 2011, but my goal is to knock at least one thing off the list, while making progress on others. The one that I will definitely make progress on is "Visit 100 countries," as I have booked trips to visit at least 3, possibly 4, new countries this year.

Others that I could possibly accomplish this year include:

Getting a speeding ticket for running too fast

See Peyton Manning play

Attending a taping of the Colbert Report

Run every day for a month

I could also make progress toward running a marathon or attending the Summer Olympics. I also expect to grow the list, so it is possible I could accomplish something that isn't on the list currently.

3. Crack 20 mins for a 5k.

This was a borderline 2010 resolution, but I did not make it official and did not accomplish it in 2010, so I will make it official for 2011. My current best since graduating from university is just under 21 minutes. I will try to run the Mother's Day run this year, and if that doesn't happen, then I will target the fall for an attempt.

4. Continue simplifying my life and focus on high-quality, multi-use possessions.

This is a tricky one to explain, because I am not talking about rejecting materialism or aggressively reducing the number of possessions that I have. I am merely talking about continuous evaluation of the question "Do I really need this stuff". Additionally, I want to focus on having higher-quality possessions instead of more stuff. I have already started working on this in 2010, with projects like digitizing my DVD collection so that I can get rid of the DVD's, digitizing as many bills/account statements as possible and significantly improving the quality of my wardrobe. I want to specifically exempt books from this equation, as I have many books and believe that they are a collection worth keeping, and adding to.

Areas where I believe I can make progress in 2011 include consolidating toiletries, building an efficient, high quality kitchen in my new place, continuing to digitize information and continuing wardrobe turnover.

5. My fifth and last 2011 resolution is to improve my arm strength. For several years, arm strength has been a weakness of mine because of its lack of applicability to running. While I have developed serviceable upper body strength in my chest and shoulders, my arms still need work. I will progress on this by tacking on at least one arm exercise or superset at the end of runs, when time permits. I may consider trying P90x to improve overall general fitness & strength.

I will try to update progress monthly. I also want to get back to my "22nd Century Economy" post series fairly soon.