Log Jam
I'm sitting here with mixed feelings about what to write about. Right now I'm frustrated about certain political-social climate, I have things going on in my family, I finished an exam today, and I saw a movie. It's a very strange thing. You know when you see those picture of rivers blocked with logs and so nothing is going anywhere. Whenever I think of that I think of that log-rider song. It was a cartoon on TV when we were growing up.
So here I am with half a dozen or more thoughts running through my head with the result of absolutely nothing coming out at all. I'm hoping that in the course of typing I'll look over from the TV and notice that I've written about something relevant.
I think I've finally arrived at something. A couple days ago I watched the movie Aeon Flux. While the movie was not very inspiring I thought about the premise for about 12 seconds. I then dismissed the premise and went to look more deeply at the concept.
In the film adaptation the city of Bregna has a contained population of five million all told. The city is walled off and biotic lifeforms are killed too close to the walls. Anyway, I was trying to think about in what way a city could become so perfectly self-sufficient. I mean, is it even possible? Can we build a dome around a city sized area and survive?
This was what I've been thinking about since my first economics exam on Monday, and still thinking about today. We know we can recycle water and air, that's straight forward. You simply construct a water filtration plant, and an artificial/natural swamp and some sort of artificial river system and filter the water and deliver it. Air is easier. We can filter out pollution (we'll need to recycle particles in the air) and use large public parts, which can be part of water filtration, to clean the air of CO2.
Then the question came of how we actually survive. Well, everything would have to be made out of industrial recyclable or organically recyclable materials, like wood and plastics. Energy would have to be generated through probably wind-solar-hydrogen mix. Again, nothing that will cause waste. Metals are fine because most if not all metals can be melted down and recycled. We'd have to control the population with birth licences.
This got me thinking on the next idea. We need a computer operated economy, centrally planned socialism. The computer isn't some sort of 2001: Space Odyssey, "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't do that." It would just take inventory and order and program the schedule of the economy. I mean in this type of environment what would you do with surplus... sugar? Sugar doesn't keep, so what do you do? Market says that you cut prices, but there's only so much sugar people can eat. So you tell factories to increase production on sugar included goods so that it will keep better. Essentially this type of market is a weird form of rationing. Only so much to go around etc. etc.
Another problem is, how does everyone find work? What about new inventions? Could the economic computer account for demands that are unreasonable? (And that I find unreasonable, take for example the demand for the colour pink has gone up since now both genders wear it, NEVER I!)
Also there's class issues. There would be no room for economic growth. 0% economic growth, 0% population growth, very, very stagnant. If you were born poor, could you move up? What if you weren't productive as a member of society? Should we throw you in the recycler so that I can turn you into fertilizer to raise a crop of potatoes?
I find it all very grotesque and yet oddly intriguing to be perfectly honest. This is typically the type of thing that I write a short story on and save on my desktop then dump it in my "Writing" folder and look at it three years later and laugh.
Oh, and I'm getting smiling wrinkles around my mouth, I'm ageing terribly.
So here I am with half a dozen or more thoughts running through my head with the result of absolutely nothing coming out at all. I'm hoping that in the course of typing I'll look over from the TV and notice that I've written about something relevant.
I think I've finally arrived at something. A couple days ago I watched the movie Aeon Flux. While the movie was not very inspiring I thought about the premise for about 12 seconds. I then dismissed the premise and went to look more deeply at the concept.
In the film adaptation the city of Bregna has a contained population of five million all told. The city is walled off and biotic lifeforms are killed too close to the walls. Anyway, I was trying to think about in what way a city could become so perfectly self-sufficient. I mean, is it even possible? Can we build a dome around a city sized area and survive?
This was what I've been thinking about since my first economics exam on Monday, and still thinking about today. We know we can recycle water and air, that's straight forward. You simply construct a water filtration plant, and an artificial/natural swamp and some sort of artificial river system and filter the water and deliver it. Air is easier. We can filter out pollution (we'll need to recycle particles in the air) and use large public parts, which can be part of water filtration, to clean the air of CO2.
Then the question came of how we actually survive. Well, everything would have to be made out of industrial recyclable or organically recyclable materials, like wood and plastics. Energy would have to be generated through probably wind-solar-hydrogen mix. Again, nothing that will cause waste. Metals are fine because most if not all metals can be melted down and recycled. We'd have to control the population with birth licences.
This got me thinking on the next idea. We need a computer operated economy, centrally planned socialism. The computer isn't some sort of 2001: Space Odyssey, "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't do that." It would just take inventory and order and program the schedule of the economy. I mean in this type of environment what would you do with surplus... sugar? Sugar doesn't keep, so what do you do? Market says that you cut prices, but there's only so much sugar people can eat. So you tell factories to increase production on sugar included goods so that it will keep better. Essentially this type of market is a weird form of rationing. Only so much to go around etc. etc.
Another problem is, how does everyone find work? What about new inventions? Could the economic computer account for demands that are unreasonable? (And that I find unreasonable, take for example the demand for the colour pink has gone up since now both genders wear it, NEVER I!)
Also there's class issues. There would be no room for economic growth. 0% economic growth, 0% population growth, very, very stagnant. If you were born poor, could you move up? What if you weren't productive as a member of society? Should we throw you in the recycler so that I can turn you into fertilizer to raise a crop of potatoes?
I find it all very grotesque and yet oddly intriguing to be perfectly honest. This is typically the type of thing that I write a short story on and save on my desktop then dump it in my "Writing" folder and look at it three years later and laugh.
Oh, and I'm getting smiling wrinkles around my mouth, I'm ageing terribly.