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.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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"
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.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Citius, Altius, Fortius
"Let me remind you,
You are the favoured few.
You constitute what is without doubt,
The most powerful athletic force
Ever to leave these shores.
You are to face the world's best.
Brown and yellow, white and black,
Young and ardent as yourselves,
Fleet of foot and strong of limb,
From every civilized nation
On the face of the earth.
I have no doubt
You will acquit yourselves honourably
And with distinction."
This is what the Olympics should be about. The pinnacle of human athletic competition. The Vancouver games were wonderful, but they fall short of this ideal. The Olympic games should be about principles, both those of peace and global unity, and those of athletic achievement. There were flashes of this all throughout the Vancouver games, and that is what made us love them. Let us embrace the ideal in full in the future...
Monday, February 15, 2010
Red, White and Controversy
Almost exactly four years ago, I wrote a post called The Red Glasses. It was brought on by a beautiful girl who I became friends with, a member of Canada's national synchronized swimming team. The premise of the post was to think about whether some sports were better than others. I came up with nine criteria, which I still think hold true, that contribute to how a sport should be ranked.
Figure Skating: 4 medal events
Snowboard half-pipe: 2 medal events
Freestyle skiing aerials: 2 medal events
Ski Jumping: 3 medal events
That leaves 94 medal events in a more diverse, more fair and more athletic winter games. The total number of olympic medals awarded per cycle under my plan would fall from 1158 to 774, which I believe would restore much of the lost exclusivity of an olympic medal.
These changes will never come to pass for political reasons (figure skating is too popular), but I honestly think they would make the olympics much better. Let the controversy begin.
Four years later, Canada is justifiably proud to host our third Olympic Games. Every Canadian I know felt something when Alex Bilodeau brought Canada our first home gold. However, with the olympics has come a lot of debate about what the olympics is and what it represents. Many people, including myself, think that the olympics have become somewhat bloated, and that the value of an olympic medal is somewhat devalued by the number of them available.
Purists, like Trent, will go so far as to advocate extreme change. What Trent has said to me suggests that he believes that all team sports should be out of the olympics, along with all judged sports and sports that are not available to the broader world, ones that Trent would characterize as "elitist". That criteria would basically eliminate the entire winter olympics, leaving a bare-bones olympics that basically would include track & field, swimming, combat sports and possibly rowing, cycling and racquet sports.
I am not willing to go nearly so far. I think that Trent's reforms would marginalize the olympics, and endanger the primacy of the olympics as the premier world sporting competition. However, I will not shy away from controversy. I want to propose, in this post, the most radical changes to the olympics that I would support. I want to emphasize that sentence, because the changes that I might consider ideal would possibly fall short of what I will propose. However, I want to make the point here by being controversial.
Just as a reminder, the ranking characteristics I proposed in 2006 were:
1. Degree of worldwide participation
2. Degree of concentrated participation
3. Results come primarily from the differences in athletic skill of ther participants
4. Level of knowledge of the sport and its rules among the general population
5. Easy to understand and participate in
6. Level of national rivalry in the sport
7. Level of fitness throughout the sport
8. Intensity of training required to excel
9. Use of judges or other subjective methods of evaluation (I believe this inherently worsens a sport, because it becomes a matter of opinion)
3. Results come primarily from the differences in athletic skill of ther participants
4. Level of knowledge of the sport and its rules among the general population
5. Easy to understand and participate in
6. Level of national rivalry in the sport
7. Level of fitness throughout the sport
8. Intensity of training required to excel
9. Use of judges or other subjective methods of evaluation (I believe this inherently worsens a sport, because it becomes a matter of opinion)
I will consider these criteria in my evaluation. I will also consider that I believe the olympics are the pinnacle of world sporting competition, and should remain as such.
If you look at the Beijing games, there were 300 medal events. In Vancouver, there are 86. This amounts to 1158 olympic medals awarded per cycle. This, from my point of view, is clearly excessive. Yet, many of the world's most popular sports are not even included. Golf and Rugby sevens are scheduled to be added in the next summer games, and Rugby makes sense. Golf on the other hand, is not primarily decided by the physical abilities of the athletes, therefore it should be left out.
Additionally, cricket, the second most popular sport in the world, is not included in the olympics. The traditional main objection to cricket is that test cricket, the traditional format, can take several days to complete. However, a shorter variant, called Twenty20 cricket, has recently become popular, and that should certainly be included in the olympics.
That takes us to 304 summer olympic events. Far too many, if you ask me. The first priority is to rid the olympics of the events that are not competitive enough or well-known enough to be included in the pinnacle of world sport competition. Additionally, the sports where the result is not primarily determined by the physical fitness of the (human) athletes. These could include the following:
Trampoline: 2 medal events
Equestrian: 6 medal events
Shooting: 15 medal events
Archery: 4 medal events
Racewalking: 3 medal events
Table Tennis: 4 medal events
Sailing: 11 medal events
Modern Pentathlon: 2 medal events
Fencing: 10 medal events
Rhythmic Gymnastics: 2 medal events
.
That reduces the summer program to 245 events. The next step is to remove the events that are too subjective. Most judged sports are far too prone to individual judges' opinion. The sole exception is gymnastics, where by all accounts the judging is extremely specific. Regardless, it is impractical to take gymnastics out of the olympics, because along with swimming and track, it is one of the founding events of the summer olympics. The following events, however, could be removed easily:
Synchronized swimming: 2 events
Synchronized diving: 4 events
That gets us to 239 olympic events. The next discussion is of the events that allow multiple weight classes. I understand that these sports are usually split this way in competition, but I feel that it allows lesser sports to have a huge number of medals, which I believe devalues the medals awarded in the other events. Usain Bolt's height is a clear advantage for him, yet the shorter men still have to race him. Shotput too, does not have weight classes. Therefore, I propose that the following events abolish (more controversial, I would certainly also go for a reduction) their weight classes, and have a single olympic competition:
Wrestling: eliminates 15 medal categories
Weightlifting: eliminates 13 medal categories
Boxing: eliminates 10 medal categories
Judo: eliminates 12 medal categories
Taekwondo: eliminates 6 medal categories
This would get the number of medal events down to 183. The final adjustment that could be made to the summer olympics is to move some of the indoor events that are traditionally contested during the winter in cold climates. If these events were moved to the winter olympics, it would raise the quality of the winter games, and help reduce the number of events in the summer. The following sports could have this action taken:
Basketball: 2 medal events
Weightlifting: 2 medal events
Boxing: 1 medal event
Judo: 2 medal events
Taekwondo: 2 medal events
Handball: 2 medal events
Badminton: 5 medal events
Wrestling: 3 medal events
.
This would leave 164 medal events in the summer olympics. The breakdown of these events would be as follows:
.
Track & Field: 44 medal events
Swimming: 34 medal events
Gymnastics: 14 medal events
Cycling (various kinds): 18 medal events
Canoe/Kayak: 16 medal events
Rowing: 14 medal events
Diving: 4 medal events
Tennis: 4 medal events
Volleyball: 4 medal events
Water Polo: 2 medal events
Field Hockey: 2 medal events
Association Football: 2 medal events
Triathalon: 2 medal events
Twenty20 Cricket: 2 medal events
Rugby: 2 medal events
.
I believe that this selection of events, with additions as new sports come to prominence (I'd personally like to see an Ironman in the olympics), would provide an olympic games with all the grandeur and scale of the current games, while bringing the games much closer to being the pinnacle of human athletics. An olympic gold would say to everyone "I am one of the world's best athletes," and "I took on the best from all around the world, in a fair competition, and won". That would be a great day.
.
As for the winter olympics, the 86 medal events from Vancouver would be joined by the 19 newcomers from the summer games. I also think that squash and men's mixed martial arts, both popular and exciting sports, should be added. I would also be sympathetic to additional combat sports, being that I wiped out most of their medals earlier in the post.
.
This gives us a starting point of 108 medal events for the winter games. Following the same approach as with the summer games, the first step to fixing the winter games is to take out those events that are not competitive or do not require physical fitness. This pains me to do, because I love curling, but it simply doesn't meet the criteria and has to go. The events I would endorse removing are:
.
Curling: 2 medal events
Women's Hockey: 1 medal event
.
The next, and most arduous task, is to eliminate the events that are too subjective due to judging. Figure skating will be the most controversial here, because it is a core event of the winter olympics and has been around a long time. However, I am of the opinion that the judging is simply too subjective to make it a fair competition at this point.
.
I also think that there are some changes required to avoid eliminating certain events. Moguls events should be changed to eliminate the judged component, and become a simple race. Additionally, the Ski Jumping portion of Nordic Combined should be replaced by an alpine event, most likely downhill.
.
The judging-dependent events that should be removed are:
Figure Skating: 4 medal events
Snowboard half-pipe: 2 medal events
Freestyle skiing aerials: 2 medal events
Ski Jumping: 3 medal events
That leaves 94 medal events in a more diverse, more fair and more athletic winter games. The total number of olympic medals awarded per cycle under my plan would fall from 1158 to 774, which I believe would restore much of the lost exclusivity of an olympic medal.
These changes will never come to pass for political reasons (figure skating is too popular), but I honestly think they would make the olympics much better. Let the controversy begin.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Man From Earth
Of all the films I have seen with a budget of less than $1 million, The Man From Earth might be the best. Many people cannot imagine a science-fiction movie being made for ~$200,000 in this day and age, but here it is. The movie is entirely set in the protagonist's small house and the surrounding area, and the story is driven solely by the dialogue. Yet, the film succeeds brilliantly.
The movie is about a 14,000 year old Cro-Magnon caveman who discovered that he was immortal. He conceals that fact, and bears witness to much of history, until finally he tells his story to a group of professors during a surprise party.
The movie's creators encourage its distribution through file-sharing networks, so anyone can watch it for free. I highly recommend this.
The most striking thing for me about this film is that it brought me back to a thought experiment that I have pondered and enjoyed since junior high. I first started thinking about this in my early days of playing the Conspiracy X RPG. In Con X there is a race called the Atlanteans, who came to Earth in prehistory. They possess incredible nanotechnology that allows them to, among other things, alter their appearance and prevent aging and disease.
In the game, the technologically advanced but psychically dead Atlanteans are defeated in battle by early-Bronze Age humans wielding powerful magic. The surviving Atlanteans decide to go underground, and become solitary demigods living hidden among humans. Each Atlantean assumes a kind of archetype that drives their motivation as they move, unseen, through history.
For example, Azek'al devotes himself to helping the human race improve itself. He has nudged scientists toward breakthroughs, and wishes to one day bring humanity to the point where they are equal to the Atlanteans. D'jeler, on the other hand, is obsessed with power, and works to reunite the solitary Atlanteans under his rule.
The game led me to start thinking about the following scenario: If I found myself alone at the edge of the Sahara circa 2500 BC, possessing a full complement of Atlantean nanotech systems, what would my archetype be? What do I think is most worth doing?
My first thought was to try and use my knowledge of history to influence its outcomes. I tend to think that temporal laws would prevent me from doing this (I would like to believe the "course-correcting" in Lost would happen), but I also soon realized that even if I could change things, it would be far too difficult to predict the actual outcomes of my actions. I couldn't take the risk of accidentally destroying the good things about today's world.
After seeing The Man From Earth, I started thinking about this scenario again, and I suddenly realized what my answer would be. I have always been fascinated by history itself, and always wished that I could have seen those events and places in their full glory, rather than just the fragments that exist in our time. If I had the chance to experience these events firsthand, the most important thing I could do would be to preserve them for all time, to make sure the true history of our Earth would never be lost.
To that end, the first thing I would need to do is to find a secure location where my archives could be established. I would want a place that was isolated enough that I would be able to work undisturbed, and a place where I would be out of the way of history. In 2500 BC, there were still vast stretches of the Earth that were uninhabited by people, and I would have to choose on of those. I would need a place where I would have a fair amount of space to operate, but not so much that I could not control it. A glance at Wikipedia suggested many potential candidates, almost all remote islands. My search initially led me to either the Tristan da Cunha islands in the South Atlantic or the Prince Edward Islands in the South Indian Ocean. However, once I started considering factors like weather and the logistics of managing several islands compared to one, I realized that the best solution was probably an island I have always been fascinated by, Easter.
Easter Island is isolated and was uninhabited until at least 200 AD, and probably much later. Nothing ever occured there that affected the course of world history, and its climate is pleasant enough to make living easy and provide areas for key parts of my archives.
The next thing I thought about is how easy it would be to construct a modern base in the distant past, without any equipment. I concluded that even for a modern human, it would be extremely difficult to build something like an oceangoing ship. However, that is quite a different thought experiment. I therefore decided to assume that I had a fully functional assembler, an Atlantean device that uses nanites and molecular blueprints to produce useful items.
Once on Easter, the basics would come first. I would construct a base, mostly underground, which would provide floor after floor of storage for artifacts. I would also need a hydroponics facility and living quarters, in order to feed myself and the others I would bring to the island. On the surface I would construct a surveillance and defence system for the island, disguised as a low-tech village. I would also need a number of enclosures for the animals I would bring to the island.
Those animals would be those that we have lost in the days since 2500BC. The human race has been extrodinarily destructive to other species, and although I would be too late to save the Holocene megafauna that were wiped out in the Americas around 10,000BC, I could save many species. First priority would be the dwarf woolly mammoths of Wrangel Island, the last of the mammoths that vanished around 1700BC. After that I would attempt to capture Moas, Thylacines, Dodos, Aurochs, Great Auks and Quaggas, among other species. If feasable, I would bring enough individuals to Easter to establish a viable population. If that turned out to be impossible (as it might with the mammoths and many of the species of Moa) I would collect and cryofreeze as much genetic material as possible, and attempt to maintain a small population of the animals on Easter using artificial insemination techniques.
Obviously I would be unable to manage such a large collection of animals myself. Species like the auks and the aurochs would be largely self sufficient, and could freely roam the island with a minimum of managment. Species that would be unused to the climate of the island, or species that might overrun the native island life (or the other introduced animals) would have to be put in more of a zoo environment. Setting Thylacines loose on the island, for example, would not be good for the Dodos to say the least.
I would therefore have to recruit some assistance. I would obviously want to pick people that shared my love of nature and history, and smart people with a talent for languages would also help. In 2500BC, anyone I recruited would require significant education, but I doubt I would have trouble recruiting adventurers. I would have to find people who would be willing to forgo having families though, as I would want to keep the human population on Easter to a minimum.
As time went on and people became more knowledgeable about the state of the world, I would have to be more careful. Once technology became available that would allow people to get off Easter and back to seafaring societies (probably in the 15th century), I would have to begin conducting recruiting in a different way. I would obviously want to prevent knowledge of my mission and technology from becoming public, for fear that Conquistadors might come knocking with an invasion force. One possibility might be to recruit mostly women, given that they were oppressed in many places until recently, and might welcome the chance for a different life.
Once I was done establishing the Easter Island wildlife reserve, I would begin the more meticulous process of cataloging human history. I would have to have recruits stationed around the globe, with a way to alert me if something historically significant was happening. As time went by this would become easier, as I would have a general idea of where to be and when.
Once I had this network set up, I would likely travel the world with a high-definition video camera, making record of places and key events. I would bring back pictures and video, along with artifacts like books and art. Easter Island would become a place of refuge for the true history of the world, and I would have many, many lifetimes of critical work to do.
Fascinating thought experiment. If only it could be done.
The movie is about a 14,000 year old Cro-Magnon caveman who discovered that he was immortal. He conceals that fact, and bears witness to much of history, until finally he tells his story to a group of professors during a surprise party.
The movie's creators encourage its distribution through file-sharing networks, so anyone can watch it for free. I highly recommend this.
The most striking thing for me about this film is that it brought me back to a thought experiment that I have pondered and enjoyed since junior high. I first started thinking about this in my early days of playing the Conspiracy X RPG. In Con X there is a race called the Atlanteans, who came to Earth in prehistory. They possess incredible nanotechnology that allows them to, among other things, alter their appearance and prevent aging and disease.
In the game, the technologically advanced but psychically dead Atlanteans are defeated in battle by early-Bronze Age humans wielding powerful magic. The surviving Atlanteans decide to go underground, and become solitary demigods living hidden among humans. Each Atlantean assumes a kind of archetype that drives their motivation as they move, unseen, through history.
For example, Azek'al devotes himself to helping the human race improve itself. He has nudged scientists toward breakthroughs, and wishes to one day bring humanity to the point where they are equal to the Atlanteans. D'jeler, on the other hand, is obsessed with power, and works to reunite the solitary Atlanteans under his rule.
The game led me to start thinking about the following scenario: If I found myself alone at the edge of the Sahara circa 2500 BC, possessing a full complement of Atlantean nanotech systems, what would my archetype be? What do I think is most worth doing?
My first thought was to try and use my knowledge of history to influence its outcomes. I tend to think that temporal laws would prevent me from doing this (I would like to believe the "course-correcting" in Lost would happen), but I also soon realized that even if I could change things, it would be far too difficult to predict the actual outcomes of my actions. I couldn't take the risk of accidentally destroying the good things about today's world.
After seeing The Man From Earth, I started thinking about this scenario again, and I suddenly realized what my answer would be. I have always been fascinated by history itself, and always wished that I could have seen those events and places in their full glory, rather than just the fragments that exist in our time. If I had the chance to experience these events firsthand, the most important thing I could do would be to preserve them for all time, to make sure the true history of our Earth would never be lost.
To that end, the first thing I would need to do is to find a secure location where my archives could be established. I would want a place that was isolated enough that I would be able to work undisturbed, and a place where I would be out of the way of history. In 2500 BC, there were still vast stretches of the Earth that were uninhabited by people, and I would have to choose on of those. I would need a place where I would have a fair amount of space to operate, but not so much that I could not control it. A glance at Wikipedia suggested many potential candidates, almost all remote islands. My search initially led me to either the Tristan da Cunha islands in the South Atlantic or the Prince Edward Islands in the South Indian Ocean. However, once I started considering factors like weather and the logistics of managing several islands compared to one, I realized that the best solution was probably an island I have always been fascinated by, Easter.
Easter Island is isolated and was uninhabited until at least 200 AD, and probably much later. Nothing ever occured there that affected the course of world history, and its climate is pleasant enough to make living easy and provide areas for key parts of my archives.
The next thing I thought about is how easy it would be to construct a modern base in the distant past, without any equipment. I concluded that even for a modern human, it would be extremely difficult to build something like an oceangoing ship. However, that is quite a different thought experiment. I therefore decided to assume that I had a fully functional assembler, an Atlantean device that uses nanites and molecular blueprints to produce useful items.
Once on Easter, the basics would come first. I would construct a base, mostly underground, which would provide floor after floor of storage for artifacts. I would also need a hydroponics facility and living quarters, in order to feed myself and the others I would bring to the island. On the surface I would construct a surveillance and defence system for the island, disguised as a low-tech village. I would also need a number of enclosures for the animals I would bring to the island.
Those animals would be those that we have lost in the days since 2500BC. The human race has been extrodinarily destructive to other species, and although I would be too late to save the Holocene megafauna that were wiped out in the Americas around 10,000BC, I could save many species. First priority would be the dwarf woolly mammoths of Wrangel Island, the last of the mammoths that vanished around 1700BC. After that I would attempt to capture Moas, Thylacines, Dodos, Aurochs, Great Auks and Quaggas, among other species. If feasable, I would bring enough individuals to Easter to establish a viable population. If that turned out to be impossible (as it might with the mammoths and many of the species of Moa) I would collect and cryofreeze as much genetic material as possible, and attempt to maintain a small population of the animals on Easter using artificial insemination techniques.
Obviously I would be unable to manage such a large collection of animals myself. Species like the auks and the aurochs would be largely self sufficient, and could freely roam the island with a minimum of managment. Species that would be unused to the climate of the island, or species that might overrun the native island life (or the other introduced animals) would have to be put in more of a zoo environment. Setting Thylacines loose on the island, for example, would not be good for the Dodos to say the least.
I would therefore have to recruit some assistance. I would obviously want to pick people that shared my love of nature and history, and smart people with a talent for languages would also help. In 2500BC, anyone I recruited would require significant education, but I doubt I would have trouble recruiting adventurers. I would have to find people who would be willing to forgo having families though, as I would want to keep the human population on Easter to a minimum.
As time went on and people became more knowledgeable about the state of the world, I would have to be more careful. Once technology became available that would allow people to get off Easter and back to seafaring societies (probably in the 15th century), I would have to begin conducting recruiting in a different way. I would obviously want to prevent knowledge of my mission and technology from becoming public, for fear that Conquistadors might come knocking with an invasion force. One possibility might be to recruit mostly women, given that they were oppressed in many places until recently, and might welcome the chance for a different life.
Once I was done establishing the Easter Island wildlife reserve, I would begin the more meticulous process of cataloging human history. I would have to have recruits stationed around the globe, with a way to alert me if something historically significant was happening. As time went by this would become easier, as I would have a general idea of where to be and when.
Once I had this network set up, I would likely travel the world with a high-definition video camera, making record of places and key events. I would bring back pictures and video, along with artifacts like books and art. Easter Island would become a place of refuge for the true history of the world, and I would have many, many lifetimes of critical work to do.
Fascinating thought experiment. If only it could be done.
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Phantom Menace
With the UN climate-change conference underway in Copenhagen, the swords are drawn on both sides. Despite the fact that I wrote a post on climate change quite recently, I realized while rereading it that recent events probably necessitate another post. I have heard some interesting viewpoints that have caused me to adjust my position on the issue somewhat, and that is always reason enough to write.
Basically, in my previous post I advocated a fairly aggressive cap and trade system, combined with significant investment in renewables and other efforts, including modification of the GST. I also pointed out, however, that the hysteria around climate change had reached a point where the predictions of doom were far removed from the actual science, and perhaps even more troubling, the issue was actually starting to detract from other worthy environmental endeavours.
I have since heard some viewpoints that have significantly reinforced those beliefs. I recently read Bjorn Lomborg's Cool It, and subsequently watched the excellent Munk Debate on Climate Change, held in Toronto a couple weeks ago. Dr. Lomborg is 100% on board with the mainstream view of climate science, but he gives people like Al Gore fits with his views on what should be done (or not done) about climate change.
Dr. Lomborg spends much of his book arguing that although climate change will have negative consequences, they are far overblown by supporters of radical action, as well as by the media. Here I agree with him completely. He also makes a case that existing programs like Kyoto are expensive and don't even mitigate emissions by a significant amount, and action severe enough to make a big difference would be economically ruinous. He then goes on to show that the ROI (return on investment) is infinitesimal for dollars spent on fighting climate change, and that it would be far better to spend the money on fighting malaria & AIDS, or on supplying clean water to those that don't have it.
He therefore advocates a strategy of a small carbon tax, combined with a big expenditure on Green R&D and a huge increase in money spent on fighting disease and promoting development in poor countries.
His argument is persuasive, and I strongly agree that development is seriously underfunded; I also concur that in the long term, green technology (including fusion) is our way out of the problem. However, I do take issue with his argument about a small carbon tax. I've previously stated why I prefer cap and trade, and think that the scale can be bigger than Lomborg suggests only if the tax is revenue neutral. Much of Lomborg's argument centres on the huge cost (in terms of lost economic growth) that would result from a heavy carbon reduction program. However, this loss would be mitigated if the tax was truly revenue-neutral. A tax shift, like I have advocated, would make a larger carbon program much more feasible.
The common response to Lomborg is also something I feel like I should address. Many people say "we have to do both carbon reduction and development!" Lomborg rightly points out that with limited budgets, that may not be possible. I still think that there are many things that could be done on both fronts without spending too much money, the distribution of birth control and associated information would be very cheap, and effective. Eliminating agricultural subsidies in developed countries would save money and promote development in the 3rd world. Those are only a couple of the possibilities available to us.
Therefore, I think it reasonable to say that my recent readings have confirmed my views on many aspects of the issue, but perhaps make me a little more hesitant to prescribe a strong response to climate change, especially if it is not 100% revenue neutral. The existing proposals, whereby most permits would be given away instead of auctioned (making it impossible to use revenues to cut income taxes) are certainly not satisfactory from my point of view.
Dr. Lomborg was also one of the debaters at the aforementioned Munk debates, facing down George Monbiot and Elizabeth May on the resolution: "Be it resolved that climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response". I thought that the Con side clearly won the debate, showing that although global warming is a serious problem, it can hardly be mankind's defining crisis. It is one of many serious problems that we face. The response at Copenhagen must be rational and considered, and must not succumb to the hysteria.
However, out of all the recent furor on climate change came one other thing, something which has the potential to do far more damage than people think, in an entirely different way than people think. It is far more of a "phantom menace" than climate change itself (or Bjorn Lomborg's controversial views).
I am speaking of the incident regarding the emails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK. Unlike the conspiracy theorists and the climate change skeptics, who assert that the emails represent the final "nail in the coffin" of the global warming "hoax", my own reading of the content suggests that there is nothing to suggest any sort of global conspiracy or manipulation of climate data.
Nonetheless, what the emails do show is that the scientific process, as it exists today, is far less transparent than it should be. The emails do show some evidence of politics influencing the practice of science, and certainly show unethical behaviour when it comes to the transparent release of information, or the suppression of contrarian views that are so key to the advancement of science.
These problems allow attacks on science itself. Increasingly over the last few decades, beginning with the tobacco companies in the 1960's, political groups have begun to attack science itself, claiming bias, conspiracy and politicisation in order to "reposition" certain issues "as theory rather than fact".
This is a serious problem that has the potential to greatly damage future world progress unless it is dealt with immediately. As I said in my last post, I believe the greatest battle our species faces is the battle to pull ourselves up out of the darkness, to realize our own ignorance and commit ourselves to the pursuit of knowledge. Only if superstition, fundamentalism, dogma and irrationality are defeated can humanity realize its full potential.
In modern times, for the most part, science and reason have been winning that battle. Recently, though, on issue after issue, especially in the United States but also everywhere else, the fight has dramatically intensified. Support for evolution in the United States is actually declining, despite the incontrovertible evidence in its favour. The Catholic Church's stance on birth control has severely damaged efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. In the Islamic world, in a culture that produced many of the world's foremost scientists in centuries past, the recent trend has been towards repression and closed-mindedness. Countless far-right pundits in the United States are making various claims that are completely unsupported by facts, and yet their shows attract thousands of followers.
It is time that we turn the tide of this battle. The CRU emails are a significant blow, but we must "examine all obstacles carefully, because with a little ingenuity they can often be turned into levers". We must seize this opportunity to make science more transparent and accountable. I understand that scientists are hesitant to release their data to the public because they want to make sure they are credited for their discoveries and hard work, but I think it would be reasonable to require all scientific data sets pertaining to peer-reviewed publications be made publicly available on the Internet once the journal has gone to print.
I also understand that scientists are frustrated by "junk science", which most of the work done by climate change skeptics would certainly qualify as. However, they would be better served to allow those people their right to their view, and then use ruthless analysis and incisive logic to expose that "junk science". That would help science far more in the long run that trying to suppress the publication of bad science in the first place.
I am not a scientist, and therefore the ideas I have presented may be impractical or ignorant. However, the point remains. Science is a key pillar of a brighter future, and we must maintain the integrity and transparency of the scientific method at all costs. Otherwise, fundamentalism will surely win more victories in the future.
P.S. I read an article today about an interesting carbon reduction program. The idea is to link the rate of carbon reduction to the actual change in temperature. That is, if the temperature rises a lot, countries would be obligated to cut emissions more drastically. There are some serious potential problems here, mainly with uncertainty and huge fluctuations, but a system like that might be worth considering. You could reduce the volatility by comparing a 10 year rolling average of global temperature to the baseline temperature measured over at least 50 years. You could then say that my 2% per year reduction (see previous post) in the amount of carbon permits issued could fluctuate between 0-4% based on relative temperatures. It's certainly an interesting idea, and I'm glad to see people thinking creatively about this issue.
Basically, in my previous post I advocated a fairly aggressive cap and trade system, combined with significant investment in renewables and other efforts, including modification of the GST. I also pointed out, however, that the hysteria around climate change had reached a point where the predictions of doom were far removed from the actual science, and perhaps even more troubling, the issue was actually starting to detract from other worthy environmental endeavours.
I have since heard some viewpoints that have significantly reinforced those beliefs. I recently read Bjorn Lomborg's Cool It, and subsequently watched the excellent Munk Debate on Climate Change, held in Toronto a couple weeks ago. Dr. Lomborg is 100% on board with the mainstream view of climate science, but he gives people like Al Gore fits with his views on what should be done (or not done) about climate change.
Dr. Lomborg spends much of his book arguing that although climate change will have negative consequences, they are far overblown by supporters of radical action, as well as by the media. Here I agree with him completely. He also makes a case that existing programs like Kyoto are expensive and don't even mitigate emissions by a significant amount, and action severe enough to make a big difference would be economically ruinous. He then goes on to show that the ROI (return on investment) is infinitesimal for dollars spent on fighting climate change, and that it would be far better to spend the money on fighting malaria & AIDS, or on supplying clean water to those that don't have it.
He therefore advocates a strategy of a small carbon tax, combined with a big expenditure on Green R&D and a huge increase in money spent on fighting disease and promoting development in poor countries.
His argument is persuasive, and I strongly agree that development is seriously underfunded; I also concur that in the long term, green technology (including fusion) is our way out of the problem. However, I do take issue with his argument about a small carbon tax. I've previously stated why I prefer cap and trade, and think that the scale can be bigger than Lomborg suggests only if the tax is revenue neutral. Much of Lomborg's argument centres on the huge cost (in terms of lost economic growth) that would result from a heavy carbon reduction program. However, this loss would be mitigated if the tax was truly revenue-neutral. A tax shift, like I have advocated, would make a larger carbon program much more feasible.
The common response to Lomborg is also something I feel like I should address. Many people say "we have to do both carbon reduction and development!" Lomborg rightly points out that with limited budgets, that may not be possible. I still think that there are many things that could be done on both fronts without spending too much money, the distribution of birth control and associated information would be very cheap, and effective. Eliminating agricultural subsidies in developed countries would save money and promote development in the 3rd world. Those are only a couple of the possibilities available to us.
Therefore, I think it reasonable to say that my recent readings have confirmed my views on many aspects of the issue, but perhaps make me a little more hesitant to prescribe a strong response to climate change, especially if it is not 100% revenue neutral. The existing proposals, whereby most permits would be given away instead of auctioned (making it impossible to use revenues to cut income taxes) are certainly not satisfactory from my point of view.
Dr. Lomborg was also one of the debaters at the aforementioned Munk debates, facing down George Monbiot and Elizabeth May on the resolution: "Be it resolved that climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response". I thought that the Con side clearly won the debate, showing that although global warming is a serious problem, it can hardly be mankind's defining crisis. It is one of many serious problems that we face. The response at Copenhagen must be rational and considered, and must not succumb to the hysteria.
However, out of all the recent furor on climate change came one other thing, something which has the potential to do far more damage than people think, in an entirely different way than people think. It is far more of a "phantom menace" than climate change itself (or Bjorn Lomborg's controversial views).
I am speaking of the incident regarding the emails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK. Unlike the conspiracy theorists and the climate change skeptics, who assert that the emails represent the final "nail in the coffin" of the global warming "hoax", my own reading of the content suggests that there is nothing to suggest any sort of global conspiracy or manipulation of climate data.
Nonetheless, what the emails do show is that the scientific process, as it exists today, is far less transparent than it should be. The emails do show some evidence of politics influencing the practice of science, and certainly show unethical behaviour when it comes to the transparent release of information, or the suppression of contrarian views that are so key to the advancement of science.
These problems allow attacks on science itself. Increasingly over the last few decades, beginning with the tobacco companies in the 1960's, political groups have begun to attack science itself, claiming bias, conspiracy and politicisation in order to "reposition" certain issues "as theory rather than fact".
This is a serious problem that has the potential to greatly damage future world progress unless it is dealt with immediately. As I said in my last post, I believe the greatest battle our species faces is the battle to pull ourselves up out of the darkness, to realize our own ignorance and commit ourselves to the pursuit of knowledge. Only if superstition, fundamentalism, dogma and irrationality are defeated can humanity realize its full potential.
In modern times, for the most part, science and reason have been winning that battle. Recently, though, on issue after issue, especially in the United States but also everywhere else, the fight has dramatically intensified. Support for evolution in the United States is actually declining, despite the incontrovertible evidence in its favour. The Catholic Church's stance on birth control has severely damaged efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS. In the Islamic world, in a culture that produced many of the world's foremost scientists in centuries past, the recent trend has been towards repression and closed-mindedness. Countless far-right pundits in the United States are making various claims that are completely unsupported by facts, and yet their shows attract thousands of followers.
It is time that we turn the tide of this battle. The CRU emails are a significant blow, but we must "examine all obstacles carefully, because with a little ingenuity they can often be turned into levers". We must seize this opportunity to make science more transparent and accountable. I understand that scientists are hesitant to release their data to the public because they want to make sure they are credited for their discoveries and hard work, but I think it would be reasonable to require all scientific data sets pertaining to peer-reviewed publications be made publicly available on the Internet once the journal has gone to print.
I also understand that scientists are frustrated by "junk science", which most of the work done by climate change skeptics would certainly qualify as. However, they would be better served to allow those people their right to their view, and then use ruthless analysis and incisive logic to expose that "junk science". That would help science far more in the long run that trying to suppress the publication of bad science in the first place.
I am not a scientist, and therefore the ideas I have presented may be impractical or ignorant. However, the point remains. Science is a key pillar of a brighter future, and we must maintain the integrity and transparency of the scientific method at all costs. Otherwise, fundamentalism will surely win more victories in the future.
P.S. I read an article today about an interesting carbon reduction program. The idea is to link the rate of carbon reduction to the actual change in temperature. That is, if the temperature rises a lot, countries would be obligated to cut emissions more drastically. There are some serious potential problems here, mainly with uncertainty and huge fluctuations, but a system like that might be worth considering. You could reduce the volatility by comparing a 10 year rolling average of global temperature to the baseline temperature measured over at least 50 years. You could then say that my 2% per year reduction (see previous post) in the amount of carbon permits issued could fluctuate between 0-4% based on relative temperatures. It's certainly an interesting idea, and I'm glad to see people thinking creatively about this issue.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Life & Death of Leonidas
Most of the posts that I have brought over from my first blog to this one, and almost all those that I have written since, have been on a pretty narrow range of topics. I did this on purpose, as a way to avoid the personal ramblings, the melodrama and the lack of seriousness that filled my first try at a blog.
However, I recognize that although my politics and my philosophy are two extremely vital parts of my empire of ideas, my coherent worldview, there are other things that contribute as well. I recently stumbled on Roger Ebert's blog, which inspired me to come back to some of those other things. Ebert is a film critic, and many of his blog entries are about film, but he doesn't limit himself to that. He discusses media, politics, books and his own personal experiences, which adds to my perceptions of his movie reviews, and deepens my understanding of the man himself.
Therefore, I have decided to try and incorporate some other things into this blog, whether they are experiences, interesting things I've been thinking about, or even comments on books and films. I will steadfastly avoid the song lyrics and melodrama that I have used in the past, but I don't see the harm in writing, for example, about some of my thoughts relating to the movie 300.
First, though, I want to include a short but stirring excerpt from Ebert's blog:
"What do I really need that isn't here in this room?" I asked. "Its dimensions are a little more than twice as wide and deep as I am tall. I don't know, maybe 150 square feet? Here I have the padded wood chair in which I sit tilted against the wall, my feet braced on my straight desk chair. I am holding the three-inch-thick Paul Hamlyn edition of Shaw's complete plays.
This room contains: A wood single bed, an African blanket covering it, a wood desk and its gooseneck lamp, a small dresser with a mirror over it, my portable typewriter, a small wardrobe containing my clothes, a steamer trunk serving as a coffee table, and two bookcases, filled to overflowing. What more do I actually need?"
To this inventory I would today add: A rice cooker, knife and cutting board, to prepare my meals; a small refrigerator; and a MacBook and nice speakers to supply the internet, music, videos and TV.
This hit home for me. I have often thought about the very same question, "what things do I really need?". The list isn't long when it comes down to it. I have often told people that I have no desire to have a big house in the suburbs, even though I grew up in one. The quality of my possessions is far more important to me than the quantity. I think I would have to add a few things to Ebert's list but not many.
I would want a larger bed, first of all. Probably a queen-size. I would probably want a functional kitchen, although I could do with just a rice cooker, fridge and knife, it wouldn't be bad to have a stove and a BBQ as well. I could do without the typewriter as long as I had my MacBook. As everyone knows, I would also need some way to watch live sports, which currently is not available on the Internet. Hopefully that will soon change.
Probably that is all I would need, along with a bathroom with a good size bathtub, to be very happy with my living arrangement. There are a few additional luxuries that I would allow myself, like a real stereo, including a turntable, a video game system, laundry machines and a dishwasher. I would also really like to have a beautiful car, although I think Ebert is limiting himself to only his living environment, and not his other possessions.
The point is, spartan but high quality living beats excessive materialism any day of the week. Also, Ebert's point should be well-taken: books are an absolute necessity.
I want to close with those few thoughts on 300. Most people, including Ebert, dismiss the film as shallow machismo, which it is. Nonetheless, there are some important messages in the movie, beneath all the adrenaline. The controversy about the plot revolves around the post-9/11 portrayal of West vs. East, of the fascist undertones, of the white Spartans facing down the multi-racial, androgynous Persians. Those things are there, and I am not one bit surprised that Iran is upset, along with advocates of multiculturalism.
I hesitate to defend any of this, because those racist attitudes are undoubtedly reprehensible (and wrong!). However, I must point out that the movie is a narration of the battle provided to the warriors at Plataea before they face the Persians. I saw the film as a representation of the imaginations of those warriors, brought forth by the narrative of the story. That is one of the reasons why I feel that the surreal style was so effective.
I also must point out that much of the East vs. West ethos, and the racism, is based on contemporary (Greek) accounts of the battle. Herodotus paints the battle exactly as the movie does, East vs. West, and I must respect the movie staying close to the best available source material.
Finally, I must point out that there are some good messages to take away from the movie as well. The framing of the battle not only puts East against West, it frames it in a way that I find much more applicable to our time. That is, it tells the story of the fight between reason and freedom on the one hand, and "mysticism and tyranny" on the other hand. This is a key message, and this is the real defining battle of our time (and all time). No matter whether you are from Canada, America or Iran, I believe it is critically important to promote science, reason, rationality and tolerance, and to battle against dogma, fundamentalism and repression.
I also want to point out that we can learn much from the attitude towards death in the movie (and in Spartan culture). It is my strong belief that we place far too much emphasis on mourning our dead, and do not properly celebrate or honour the person's life and death. 300 rightly tells us not to fear death, but to see it as something that simply is, and to want your death, and your life, to mean something. The movie is riddled with quotable lines, but the ones on that topic are some of the best.
However, I recognize that although my politics and my philosophy are two extremely vital parts of my empire of ideas, my coherent worldview, there are other things that contribute as well. I recently stumbled on Roger Ebert's blog, which inspired me to come back to some of those other things. Ebert is a film critic, and many of his blog entries are about film, but he doesn't limit himself to that. He discusses media, politics, books and his own personal experiences, which adds to my perceptions of his movie reviews, and deepens my understanding of the man himself.
Therefore, I have decided to try and incorporate some other things into this blog, whether they are experiences, interesting things I've been thinking about, or even comments on books and films. I will steadfastly avoid the song lyrics and melodrama that I have used in the past, but I don't see the harm in writing, for example, about some of my thoughts relating to the movie 300.
First, though, I want to include a short but stirring excerpt from Ebert's blog:
"What do I really need that isn't here in this room?" I asked. "Its dimensions are a little more than twice as wide and deep as I am tall. I don't know, maybe 150 square feet? Here I have the padded wood chair in which I sit tilted against the wall, my feet braced on my straight desk chair. I am holding the three-inch-thick Paul Hamlyn edition of Shaw's complete plays.
This room contains: A wood single bed, an African blanket covering it, a wood desk and its gooseneck lamp, a small dresser with a mirror over it, my portable typewriter, a small wardrobe containing my clothes, a steamer trunk serving as a coffee table, and two bookcases, filled to overflowing. What more do I actually need?"
To this inventory I would today add: A rice cooker, knife and cutting board, to prepare my meals; a small refrigerator; and a MacBook and nice speakers to supply the internet, music, videos and TV.
This hit home for me. I have often thought about the very same question, "what things do I really need?". The list isn't long when it comes down to it. I have often told people that I have no desire to have a big house in the suburbs, even though I grew up in one. The quality of my possessions is far more important to me than the quantity. I think I would have to add a few things to Ebert's list but not many.
I would want a larger bed, first of all. Probably a queen-size. I would probably want a functional kitchen, although I could do with just a rice cooker, fridge and knife, it wouldn't be bad to have a stove and a BBQ as well. I could do without the typewriter as long as I had my MacBook. As everyone knows, I would also need some way to watch live sports, which currently is not available on the Internet. Hopefully that will soon change.
Probably that is all I would need, along with a bathroom with a good size bathtub, to be very happy with my living arrangement. There are a few additional luxuries that I would allow myself, like a real stereo, including a turntable, a video game system, laundry machines and a dishwasher. I would also really like to have a beautiful car, although I think Ebert is limiting himself to only his living environment, and not his other possessions.
The point is, spartan but high quality living beats excessive materialism any day of the week. Also, Ebert's point should be well-taken: books are an absolute necessity.
I want to close with those few thoughts on 300. Most people, including Ebert, dismiss the film as shallow machismo, which it is. Nonetheless, there are some important messages in the movie, beneath all the adrenaline. The controversy about the plot revolves around the post-9/11 portrayal of West vs. East, of the fascist undertones, of the white Spartans facing down the multi-racial, androgynous Persians. Those things are there, and I am not one bit surprised that Iran is upset, along with advocates of multiculturalism.
I hesitate to defend any of this, because those racist attitudes are undoubtedly reprehensible (and wrong!). However, I must point out that the movie is a narration of the battle provided to the warriors at Plataea before they face the Persians. I saw the film as a representation of the imaginations of those warriors, brought forth by the narrative of the story. That is one of the reasons why I feel that the surreal style was so effective.
I also must point out that much of the East vs. West ethos, and the racism, is based on contemporary (Greek) accounts of the battle. Herodotus paints the battle exactly as the movie does, East vs. West, and I must respect the movie staying close to the best available source material.
Finally, I must point out that there are some good messages to take away from the movie as well. The framing of the battle not only puts East against West, it frames it in a way that I find much more applicable to our time. That is, it tells the story of the fight between reason and freedom on the one hand, and "mysticism and tyranny" on the other hand. This is a key message, and this is the real defining battle of our time (and all time). No matter whether you are from Canada, America or Iran, I believe it is critically important to promote science, reason, rationality and tolerance, and to battle against dogma, fundamentalism and repression.
I also want to point out that we can learn much from the attitude towards death in the movie (and in Spartan culture). It is my strong belief that we place far too much emphasis on mourning our dead, and do not properly celebrate or honour the person's life and death. 300 rightly tells us not to fear death, but to see it as something that simply is, and to want your death, and your life, to mean something. The movie is riddled with quotable lines, but the ones on that topic are some of the best.
"Remember us. That was his hope, should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be. May all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones..."
and
"Remember this day men, for it will be yours for all time"
are two of my favourites.
The best line in the entire movie, however, is quietly delivered by Gerard Butler:
"You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever..."
The Spartans understood that this was a deadly insult. We, in modern times, don't understand that every story, and every life, needs a ending to be complete.
The best line in the entire movie, however, is quietly delivered by Gerard Butler:
"You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever..."
The Spartans understood that this was a deadly insult. We, in modern times, don't understand that every story, and every life, needs a ending to be complete.
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