Solutions – too simple, too sane
While working on the second volume of my Physics book, I have been collecting my philosophical and political essays in a new book soon to be published under the title: Solutions – too simple, too sane.
Here is a short excerpt from the Introduction:
In 1848, the first suspension bridge over the Niagara Whirlpool Rapids posed a serious problem to the engineers: how to get the first line across the ferocious torrent of the whirlpool rapids. Boats could not cross the rapids and the ferries were too far upstream from the proposed site of the bridge. Some suggested a rocket, others thought a cannon ball could carry the first line across the 800 foot span. Eventually, the solution was found by a fifteen-year-old boy who flew his kite over the gorge and then they could use the kite string to pull thicker and thicker ropes across to finally get the bridge project started.
Another story involves a very tall bus that got jammed in a tunnel, too low to let it pass through. All kinds of heavy equipment was brought to the scene to extricate the bus and hour after hour they pulled an shoved and failed to get the bus loose. Finally, the solution was found by an eight year old boy who suggested that they should deflate the tires first before trying to pull the bus out.
These two stories illustrate the theme of this book: solutions to mankind’s millennia old problems, called the “human condition”, are simple and obvious. That is why almost nobody ever considered them seriously.
Some very few examples in human history give us a glimpse of how simple sane solutions are: The most dramatic example of an act of intelligent problem-solving in the social arena, is described by Will Durant: in The life of Greece - The story of civilization. In 594 BC, when faced with popular revolt due to the citizens having been mercilessly exploited by the moneyed classes, Solon passed a law abolishing all debts owed either to private persons or to the state. This simple act of sanity saved Athens from revolution.
The history of the human species can be looked at as going around the same circle, at ever more destructive fashion, fighting the same demons we inherited from our evolutionary history, unable to break free and adopt the sane solutions that should be blindingly obvious to anyone thinking clearly and critically about the problems we struggle with.
Look at an example: violent crimes committed by fire arms. Canada is trying to solve this problem by gun registration. Enormous expense, red tape, administration, resistance, resentment. Violent criminals are not lining up to register their firearms. Very limited, if any, result.
The real solution to this ‘unsolvable’ problem is foolproof and obvious: Stop manufacturing firearms and ammunition, destroy any we can lay our hands on. Sooner or later there won't be any left. An even saner solution: remove the causes that make most people use them in violent crime.
Whenever I suggest it, hearty laughter. I am obviously a funny man.
Why?
Because everyone knows that it is impossible.
Before I go on, let me admit: I know it is impossible. Not because of a natural law of physics, not because the Martians forced it on us, but because we humans (a sufficient majority of those in power) choose to make it impossible.
Crimes committed by firearms is just one example. Almost all of our unsolvable social problems have perfectly obvious, sane, simple solutions. All of them impossible.
Everybody knows the joke: the patient is complaining to the doctor: “doctor, when I raise my arm like this, it hurts”. Doctor: “Don’t raise your arm like this and you will be fine”.
And that illustrates the joke on the human species: all of our social problems are like that: we do it to ourselves. The solution is: stop doing it and we will be fine.
Of course, most people know that it is impossible to stop doing it, because we are a species saddled with our evolutionary and historical baggage.
What most people don’t know is: there is no other solution, no matter how many times we go around the same circle!
Until our leaders face the choice between self destruction on one hand, or blindingly obvious, simple and sane solutions on the other, we will continue down the path leading us to extinction.
In this collection of essays I will try to sketch out some of the simplest solutions to mankind’s millennia-old problems that we are still struggling with today.
The simplest things
The simplest things are, by far, the hardest to see:
we’d rather drown in complications;
when we could just simply, happily, be,
we choose to suffer in self-created abominations.
We invent ideologies, wars, financial meltdowns
when all we need to do is: produce,
distribute and consume what we really need
and stop making so many mouths to feed.
Bears, wolves, elk are smarter:
hunt and forage for survival
without trashing their habitat…
…they are not, like us, suicidal.
We waste our enormous brains
on weapons of mass destruction,
and drag the bears, wolves and elk with us
into our self-created mass extinction.
Here is a short excerpt from the Introduction:
In 1848, the first suspension bridge over the Niagara Whirlpool Rapids posed a serious problem to the engineers: how to get the first line across the ferocious torrent of the whirlpool rapids. Boats could not cross the rapids and the ferries were too far upstream from the proposed site of the bridge. Some suggested a rocket, others thought a cannon ball could carry the first line across the 800 foot span. Eventually, the solution was found by a fifteen-year-old boy who flew his kite over the gorge and then they could use the kite string to pull thicker and thicker ropes across to finally get the bridge project started.
Another story involves a very tall bus that got jammed in a tunnel, too low to let it pass through. All kinds of heavy equipment was brought to the scene to extricate the bus and hour after hour they pulled an shoved and failed to get the bus loose. Finally, the solution was found by an eight year old boy who suggested that they should deflate the tires first before trying to pull the bus out.
These two stories illustrate the theme of this book: solutions to mankind’s millennia old problems, called the “human condition”, are simple and obvious. That is why almost nobody ever considered them seriously.
Some very few examples in human history give us a glimpse of how simple sane solutions are: The most dramatic example of an act of intelligent problem-solving in the social arena, is described by Will Durant: in The life of Greece - The story of civilization. In 594 BC, when faced with popular revolt due to the citizens having been mercilessly exploited by the moneyed classes, Solon passed a law abolishing all debts owed either to private persons or to the state. This simple act of sanity saved Athens from revolution.
The history of the human species can be looked at as going around the same circle, at ever more destructive fashion, fighting the same demons we inherited from our evolutionary history, unable to break free and adopt the sane solutions that should be blindingly obvious to anyone thinking clearly and critically about the problems we struggle with.
Look at an example: violent crimes committed by fire arms. Canada is trying to solve this problem by gun registration. Enormous expense, red tape, administration, resistance, resentment. Violent criminals are not lining up to register their firearms. Very limited, if any, result.
The real solution to this ‘unsolvable’ problem is foolproof and obvious: Stop manufacturing firearms and ammunition, destroy any we can lay our hands on. Sooner or later there won't be any left. An even saner solution: remove the causes that make most people use them in violent crime.
Whenever I suggest it, hearty laughter. I am obviously a funny man.
Why?
Because everyone knows that it is impossible.
Before I go on, let me admit: I know it is impossible. Not because of a natural law of physics, not because the Martians forced it on us, but because we humans (a sufficient majority of those in power) choose to make it impossible.
Crimes committed by firearms is just one example. Almost all of our unsolvable social problems have perfectly obvious, sane, simple solutions. All of them impossible.
Everybody knows the joke: the patient is complaining to the doctor: “doctor, when I raise my arm like this, it hurts”. Doctor: “Don’t raise your arm like this and you will be fine”.
And that illustrates the joke on the human species: all of our social problems are like that: we do it to ourselves. The solution is: stop doing it and we will be fine.
Of course, most people know that it is impossible to stop doing it, because we are a species saddled with our evolutionary and historical baggage.
What most people don’t know is: there is no other solution, no matter how many times we go around the same circle!
Until our leaders face the choice between self destruction on one hand, or blindingly obvious, simple and sane solutions on the other, we will continue down the path leading us to extinction.
In this collection of essays I will try to sketch out some of the simplest solutions to mankind’s millennia-old problems that we are still struggling with today.
The simplest things
The simplest things are, by far, the hardest to see:
we’d rather drown in complications;
when we could just simply, happily, be,
we choose to suffer in self-created abominations.
We invent ideologies, wars, financial meltdowns
when all we need to do is: produce,
distribute and consume what we really need
and stop making so many mouths to feed.
Bears, wolves, elk are smarter:
hunt and forage for survival
without trashing their habitat…
…they are not, like us, suicidal.
We waste our enormous brains
on weapons of mass destruction,
and drag the bears, wolves and elk with us
into our self-created mass extinction.
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