This might be one of my crazier ideas. It came to me as I was going to sleep after a weird day. There was a death in my family. Cars are driving themselves off of parking garages. People are getting stabbed in front of my favorite bars. I'm reading a really bad book on the really good topic of happiness. This idea has nothing to do with these things.
We should give every country nuclear weapons. Every company. Every citizen. The right to bear arms taken to its logical conclusion. Guns used to be enough for a revolution. Now you need nuclear weapons and biological weapons. This is what our country is all about. We should give our enemies and friends the map to building killer viruses, and blueprints to all of our secret buildings. Everyone should have a gun to each others' heads at all times. It should be a complete game change. Nobody should have any privacy. Everyone would be in power. What then?
First, we would be able to trust each other. With privacy, there's always a lack of trust. You can't trust someone you don't completely know unless you have more power than they do, and you control them. Well, actually, you can trust them but they can't trust you. Only with equal power can you have complete trust, and only with complete publicity and public responsibility for everything you do can there be equal power. The ultimate table for negotiation is when you both have each others' lives in each others' hands. Pass me the briefcase. Deal. Trust. It's double blind falling into each others' arms. Trust has to be two-way. Sure, it's nice that babies trust their parents, but we don't live in an ideal world until parents trust their babies.
Second, we would quickly find out who the crazy and evil people were. Interesting from a sociological perspective, and also in our own trek to know ourselves. We might find out, of course, by being killed by them all. Or, we might find out by being the crazy and evil people and killing everyone else. Without equal power, you can't tell non-crazy people from people who are forced to be crazy and evil in order to gain power, and you can't tell them from the people who don't seem crazy and evil because they don't yet have the power, or have the power on certain terms. You can't tell if you're crazy because you can't change your situation, or if you're crazy because you have too much power, or if you're actually not crazy at all but just weird.
Third, our society would be forced to evolve so rapidly to the change proposed that we'd probably have to reinvent ourselves. Things would certainly be a little unstable for a while... but if you're an optimist you might say that in the end, we'd have a better world. Right now, we're stuck in a compromised position of being under control of the most powerful entity: the people that control the money of the world. They're a very small group of people, and even though "cooperation" and "working together" is the best game-theory for getting to the top and staying at the top, you also have to take a very special interest in staying there, even when your more cooperative, considerate, and good successor comes along. Also, there are different strategies for public and private conduct. Nobody wants to be replaced. What is a good thing for the person at the top (weapons of mass destruction) can be the worst crime for everyone else. Our system is biased to protect whoever has the most power.
I wonder what would happen. Probably anarchy and the end of the world, but maybe our society would break the bone and it would set better. Crazy late night idea. I think I'm going to have good dreams.
Comments