Thoughts on the present from the future

– Longvie.ws Editor (August 20, 2012)

You might know of the nice story of the MBA and the fisherman [1]. In short, an American MBA finds a fisherman who spends his days on the beach and tries to convince the already happy man to start a fishing company to make enough money to…spend his days on the beach fishing. The message is that of needs versus wants and, I suppose, the evil that is the business-focused society.

So let’s explore society.

I believe that society has a long term purpose: survival. Whether a small village or humanity as a whole, society fulfills this mission by supporting the happiness or contentedness of it’s people as well as by driving progress. Neither alone is enough. The latter helps ensure the perpetuity of our species (the reason probably society exists [2]) and the former helps prevent society from breaking apart. Progress also fulfills something in the human spirit that allows for happiness.

So what do we mean by happiness? We don’t mean everybody sitting on the beach fishing [3]. Happiness frees a person to fulfill his potential to succeed as he is capable of succeeding: to find a path through life that is reasonably chosen (not prescribed). Happiness defines a meaningful life (or at least having an environment that makes living a meaningful life possible) given that no one’s life is easy.

Humanity is such that we will not be all happy in an environment without pressure. Some of us want to be kings. Some of us want to be builders of large things: corporations, pyramids, whatever. Some of us want to be leaders of men. Some of us want to take ridiculous risks. And so on.

Society vitally provides opportunities for different types of people to fulfill their needs. If not, chaos ensues because one or more powerful people [4] are over-limited. I’m sure an example comes to mind [5]. A viable society allows for disruptive people to fulfill their needs without destroying the society from which they emerged. Our society, for example, allows for people who are not intellectuals or hyper-athletes to be successful. You can start a coffee chain and make billions of dollars without having a high school diploma, without being able to solve an algebra equation, and still meet your need to make a difference, to be important. Every one should have this opportunity [6]. From society’s perspective, happiness is a level of opportunity for individuals to be human beings while preferably contributing to humanity’s overall capabilities.

Some actions are unacceptable: murder (except in times of war), becoming a king and ruling over everyone else. Somebody becoming a king or emperor would limit the opportunity (happiness) of everyone else, maybe too much. And from a survival point of view, there are some forms of society that are more efficient for progress (capitalism being better in this regard than kingdoms, so we think). And that brings us back to progress.

Progress defines the strength of a society. Society allowed us, in the early days, to grow as a species, to protect ourselves and our food supply. This stability lead to growth and gave some of us time to be inventive – so that we were more capable of handling shocks and future crises. The ultimate limit of this is how to survive a planetary catastrophe. That’s quite a long view (hopefully). The same principle holds however if we are not progressing, if we are not making ourselves more robust against perturbation. This is why I have serious problems with people who say we shouldn’t be developing technology, that it’s destructive to the planet, that we should be living out in the woods somewhere with zero footprint or that “we have enough technology already”. That’s short-sighted, on either side of the happiness/progress equation.

Yet, unrestricted rapid technological progress can endanger humanity.

These are the foundational questions of Longvie.ws: thinking about the different paths our society could and should take. What is the most optimal structure of society and culture to get us – as a country, planet, and species – where we need to be? That ideal structure might be some mix of societies and cultures that we have now. It might incorporate new technologies and methods. And there will be many developments in terms of technology and culture – bio/medical/nano-technologies, politics, business development, religion – that make all that possible. We are living during the most rapid technological period of change that man has ever known. These developments need to be understood.  Our essays are roughly drafted musings to begin the discussion from this longer term perspective. We hope to have fun as we go.

Footnotes:

[1] An American businessman was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied only a little while.

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time.

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

“You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

The American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed, and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions, senor?” replied the Mexican. “Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

[2] Roughly seven thousand years ago, humans began to leave their nomadic ways and form civilizations around the irrigation and cultivation of land. As a result, human society and community transformed radically. The creation of government and bureaucracy, of social classes, written language, the rule of law, the notion of the individual, standing armies, and much more, all emanated from this technological change. Dubbed the “irrigation society” by management thinker Peter Drucker (Drucker, P.F. (1965). The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons. Presidential address to the Society for the History of Technology; 1965 Dec 29; San Francisco, CA.), this first great technological revolution of man lasted over two thousand years.

[3] Though that might be happiness for some people.

[4] Some people are inherently powerful.

[5] You might think Alexander the Great or Genghis Kahn. What popped into my head, however, was G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney. These two men had power issues – they wanted it, and in many ways they were distructive forces. But they could have been much more distructive had the history, culture, and structure of US society not imposed on them significant constraints in terms of how long they could maintain power. (Look at Putin over the same time period.)

[6] It shouldn’t be easy, it shouldn’t be assured, life is not fair, everyone has different talents.