The Rational World

Every once in a while I do a fantasy post on what it would be like to have a rational world.  This has never worked out because rational leaders can become greedy and want their idiot kids to be elites.  As well, they are susceptible to rabble rousers who want to kill them.

Okay, now I changed my mind.  Nobody votes for a rational world.  Let's look at the history of 'Great Stupidities'

Before 1900, the Great Stupidities (gses) were confined to Europe.  They would go into cycles of over-population, followed by plagues or wars.  As soon as there were too many young unemployed men, the powers were worried about a plague and started a war.  Plague would bother the old rich guys, war was a game.

WWI killed too many people, followed by the Spanish flu.  These were world-wide things.  The 1920's and 30's were a time of many gses.  Excess farm production, and then isolationism.  Excess financing.  The Great Depression was a combination of at least 2 or 3 gses.

WWII was the final burn-out of gses.  That started the Great Rationality period of the 40's and 50's.  Marshall plan, interstate highways, power production.  All allowing a rising standard of living, bringing people out of poverty.

People could eat and had it too good.  Then we went into a great era known as 'single issue politics'.  Everybody wanted something without thinking about basic wealth production.  We had a few good spurts of rationality like the World Trade Organization, moon landing, etc.

You look at every one of these 'movements' and you have to ask whether they lifted the standard of living for the masses.  What did computerization do?  What did Moores Law do?  How about Facebook and Google?  Were these just opiates for the masses?

Our problem is that now all the gses are colliding.  You can survive one at a time, but when they interact, it becomes an exponential.  Let's have a trade war with China so we can't look at their virus problem.  Lets spent trillions on single issues like ozone and carbon dioxide.  Let's ignore all physics and math, and look at video cats.

The combination of all the 'Single issue Grand Stupidities' will cause something big like a Great Depression.  Or, people might get tired of following 'influencers' and go for rationality before a big disaster.  I don't see any of that happening right now.  All the influencers are blaming the other influencers and neither of them could math themselves out of a paper bag.

But hey, I have a pension and a house jammed with young people.  The next big wave could be another repeat of 'Kill all the middle class and up'.  The media would make a lot of money with that.

ps.  this virus is not enough of a disaster to bring rationality for a few years.  :(