Green Growth

greengrowth

by Jeff Garzik and Ralph Benko We agree with the recently published Techno-Optimist Manifesto We agree with the recently published , hailing, among other things, the importance to civilization of energy and, thus, of good, practical energy policy. Abundant, reliable, readily affordable power is what unlocks a nation's dynamism, builds factories, creates jobs, enhances national security, and reduces poverty and famine. Techno-Optimist Manifesto A specter is now haunting those of us (including us) who believe that equitable prosperity is a great thing for people and the planet both. This specter is the shade of those who are anti-technology and anti-prosperity. Pro-prosperity goes under the rubric of e/acc, shorthand for “ .” As an aside, that might be a coinage derived from “ .” The latter had its day, although now is tarnished by the spectacular fall of its most enthusiastic and flamboyant promoter, . effective accelerationism effective altruism Sam Bankman-Fried The opponents of tech, and of its attendant general prosperity, have been dubbed the “decels.” Possibly a sly allusion to “incels.” e/acc also goes by the term “techno-optimism.” Many prominent center-leftists are at least as enthusiastic about the promise of technology to improve the lives of people and the planet as are the card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Techno-optimists tend to lean libertarian, whether left or right. Prominent among the leading proponents are masters of the universe , , , (with stated reservations about AI), and . Also notable are economist, blogger, and journalist ( ), public intellectual Peter Zeihan, who refers to the process of deindustrialization now underway as “decivilization,” and , who presents at a16z with exceptional clarity on matters such as . Marc Andreessen Ben Horowitz Bill Gates Vitalik Buterin Peter Thiel Noah Smith an incisive self-professed political southpaw Ryan McEntush how to scale nuclear power The villains in this drama are those who committed to “degrowth,” or shrinking the economy, perhaps by the “spectre of degrowth communism” of “Kohei Saito, the rising star of contemporary Marxist thought….” best exemplified Marxists Never Cease To Delight in Spectral Haunting Marxists just never cease to delight in spectral haunting. Some people just have to learn the hard way. We’ve written about the tussle between us techno-optimists and the luddites at ; ; at ; and at . Let’s up the ante. Toward a Pragmatic American Energy Policy To Build or Not to Build Washington? Just Face Facts Yankee Ingenuity The sweet spot of Washington Power and Light, our policy institute, is good energy policy, the foundation of equitable prosperity. In that, we are not alone. Marc Andreessen recently, in his . wrote: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto “Energy is life. We take it for granted, but without it, we have darkness, starvation, and pain. With it, we have light, safety, and warmth. We believe energy in an upward spiral. Energy is the foundational engine of our civilization. … We believe we should place intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop, and drive them both to infinity. We believe we should use the feedback loop of intelligence and energy to make everything we want and need abundant.” should be And as Noah Smith observes in : Don’t be a Decel “Energy technology is arguably the most important kind of technology that humans create, since everything else we do is downstream of our ability to harness energy.” It isn’t very romantic of us, but … our mission is to encourage policy based on real-world data to produce great results, rather than relying on faith-based dreams we call “hopium.” We consider ourselves proud pragmatists. Pretty much everyone, including the innumerate, has heard of Einstein’s E = mc2, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. the world’s most famous equation. PBS calls it While it is profound to prove that energy and matter are interchangeable, in day-to-day terms it’s not the most important equation around. We nominate, instead, e2/acc: effective energy accelerationism. Capitalism’s monster Those advocating economic “shrinkage” (to steal ) are an odd lot. Consider the frailty of the romantics, like Saito. He was critiqued by Thomas Fazi at , as “capitalism’s monster.” a phrase from Seinfeld Unherd To wit: “It is no coincidence that Saito comes from Japan, which enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. But for most people on the planet, especially those living in poorer countries, climate change among the lowest policy priorities — well below more pressing material concerns such as hunger and poverty, access to water and sanitation, and education. systematically ranks “To the billions of people who still live in extreme poverty, and the millions who don’t even have access to electricity, Saito’s vision of degrowth communism, and his plea to scale back production and consumption, is unlikely to be very appealing. In fact, Saito’s insistence that countries in the Global South should refrain from pursuing growth — even ‘green growth’ — might very well be seen as a form of Western eco-imperialism. … “In this sense, degrowth communism suffers from the same drawback of old-school communism: it’s an intrinsically universalist worldview, one that purports to offer a one-size-fits-all solution for all human societies, regardless of local cultural and civilisational specificities. This globalist outlook is typical of post-Nineties leftism, which Saito harks back to in several respects. This is also evident in his rejection of the nation-state, viewed as a reactionary, quasi-fascist construct, rather than the framework through which virtually all the major social, economic and political advancements of the past centuries were achieved. “It’s a view that is completely at odds with global realities. Capitalism’s monster? At odds with reality? Yeah, that’s our poster child villain, all right! Curtis Yarvin: the greatest living Hobbesian philosopher, formidable poet, and classic antihero, declares Trotsky at Burning Man Among others in the techno-pessimistic camp is the always interesting contrarian Curtis Yarvin – the greatest living Hobbesian philosopher and poet, a classic antihero rather than villain, and possibly simply being arch – recently published “ .” Therein, he wrote: a techno-pessimist manifesto “Where did this ideology come from? While the connection is obviously a coincidence, techno-optimism is a curious historical match for another deeply American ideology from the 20th century: Trotskyism. “In (1924), Trotsky wrote: Literature and Revolution “Through the machine, man in Socialist society will command nature in its entirety, with its grouse and its sturgeons. He will change the course of the rivers, and he will lay down rules for the oceans. This does not mean that the entire globe will be marked off into boxes, that the forests will be turned into parks and gardens. Thickets and forests and grouse and tigers will remain, but only where man commands them to remain. And man will do it so well that the tiger won’t even notice the machine, or feel the change, but will live as he lived in primeval times. The machine is not in opposition to the earth. The machine is the instrument of modern man in every field of life… “Man, who will learn how to move rivers and mountains, how to build people’s palaces on the peaks of the Mont Blanc and at the bottom of the Atlantic, will not only be able to add to his own life richness, brilliancy and intensity, but also a dynamic quality of the highest degree. The shell of life will hardly have time to form before it will burst open again under the pressure of new technical and cultural inventions and achievements. Life in the future will not be monotonous! “Narrator: nor was it. “More than that. Man at last will begin to harmonize himself in earnest. He will make it his business to achieve beauty by giving the movement of his own limbs the utmost precision, purposefulness and economy in his work, his walk and his play. He will try to master first the semiconscious and then the subconscious processes in his own organism, such as breathing, the circulation of the blood, digestion, reproduction, and, within necessary limits, he will try to subordinate them to the control of reason and will. Even purely physiologic life will become subject to collective experiments. The human species, the coagulated Homo sapiens, will once more enter into a state of radical transformation, and, in his own hands, will become an object of the most complicated methods of artificial selection and psycho-physical training. “One can easily see Trotsky at Burning Man…. “Here again the ‘scientists, technologists, artists, and visionaries beyond our wildest dreams.’ Was Trotsky the first ‘effective accelerationist?’ Life takes you funny places.” “Life takes you funny places.” True! Washington Power and Light Last year, we constituted a new, tech-savvy think tank in Metro DC, Washington Power and Light, to advocate for, to quote Bastiat (see below), a “real, serious and pragmatic” energy policy, a policy rooted in technological reality rather than “pretty to think so” romantic dreams. Thus, we heartily welcome a recent big reveal at Ben Horowitz’s blog, “ ,” that a16z has desired to engage politically, seriously, to conduct a savvy “revenge of the nerds” political crusade to make the pro-techno worldview stick: Politics and the Future “We believe that advancing technology is critical for humanity’s future, so we will, for the first time, get involved with politics by supporting candidates who align with our vision and values specifically for technology. “While “Big Tech” is well represented in Washington D.C., their interests are often at odds with a positive technological future as they are more interested in regulatory capture and preserving their monopolies. As a result, technology startups need a voice. “We are non-partisan, one issue voters: If a candidate supports an optimistic technology-enabled future, we are for them. If they want to choke off important technologies, we are against them.” Badly needed! Politicians have mostly taken their eye off the ball and turned Congress mostly into a slapstick pie-fight over mostly trivial matters. Consider the daily political news. Much of it covers the struggle between the Democrats (the Donks) and the GOP (Pachyderms, thank you, Thomas Nast!). And, implicit therein, the forever war between the left and right. And much of the news now is devoted to the internecine intraparty struggles, such as within the administration, between the privileged progressives and the rank-and-file workers of the labor-and-ethnic left. And the marquee battles between the MAGAs (“the Chaos Caucus”) and the Regular Republicans in the House. “A full phase-out of fossil fuels would take the world back into caves.” Meanwhile, note the recently convened and concluded CAP28, whose presiding officer rocked the world by observing candidly, as reported by : Reason “ Al Jaber also that a full phase-out of fossil fuels would ‘take the world back into caves.’ Into the caves we go: said Some scientists and activists have not welcomed Al Jaber's blunt realism, but have said his are ‘verging on climate denial.’ comments “To be sure, Al Jaber has been properly criticized for a possible conflict of interest, as he is also the CEO of the Emirati state-owned oil and gas company, ADNOC. But he's correct to weigh tradeoffs and to point to the fact that world leaders need a more concrete plan, since toothless U.N. agreements don't really cut it.” “What Is Seen and What is Not Seen” We confidently submit that, in the spirit of Bastiat’s final work, – “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen” – that which is invisible is often more consequential than what is visible. CE QUON VOIT ET CE QUON NE VOIT PAS And the previously almost invisible war between the techno-optimists (“the squares”) and the techno-pessimists (“the hippies”) is, we believe, the truly important political, social, and cultural battle now going on. As the fox confided to the , “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Thus, let us look with our hearts. Little Prince Why is the war between the techno-optimists and the techno-pessimists of existential importance? Bastiat, courtesy of : Mises.org In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause — . The others unfold in succession — : it is well for us if they are . Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are and also of those which it is necessary to . Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, . Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil. it is seen they are not seen foreseen visible seen foresee and the converse “In fact, it is the same in the science of health, arts, and in that of morals. If often happens, that the sweeter the first fruit of a habit is, the more bitter are the consequences. Take, for example, debauchery, idleness, prodigality. When, therefore, a man, absorbed in the effect which , has not yet learned to discern those which are not seen, he gives way to fatal habits, not only by inclination, but by calculation. is seen “This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind. Ignorance surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others. It has to learn this lesson from two very different masters — experience and foresight. Experience teaches effectually, but brutally. It makes us acquainted with all the effects of an action, by causing us to feel them; and we cannot fail to finish by knowing that fire burns, if we have burned ourselves. For this rough teacher, I should like, if possible, to substitute a more gentle one. I mean Foresight. For this purpose I shall examine the consequences of certain economical phenomena, by placing in opposition to each other those , and those .” which are seen which are not seen The struggle over tech is crucial because it is, at base, a struggle between prosperity and austerity. Prosperity affords us agency. Poverty is a vice, not a virtue. The Soviet bloc, exponentially poorer than the capitalist running dogs of the West, experienced far worse environmental degradation than did the capitalist world. It is better that we fight over what to do with our discretionary income than scrap for subsistence. Shall we use our surplus wealth to clean up our rivers and air? Plant forests? Invent new tech? Buy more aircraft carriers? Pay down the national debt? These are much worthier fights to have than those available while struggling for survival in a condition of great scarcity. Sorry, Luddites. Few indeed wish to return to the caves. Bad policy.  Bad politics. As Churchill, on the floor of the House of Commons, , ‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’ observed Misery loves company. That said, misery makes for bad policy. So, let’s accelerate our technology and, with it, our prosperity. Then… watch the Congress. Those fights will be merry indeed but much more productive than what we are now witnessing. Bravo to the : “We believe we should place intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop and drive them both to infinity. We believe we should use the feedback loop of intelligence and energy to make everything we want and need abundant.” Techno-Optimist Manifesto To remain great or regain greatness, America can and must have abundant, reliable, readily affordable energy from practical, reality-driven sources. Abundant, reliable, affordable power unlocks a nation's dynamism, builds factories, creates jobs, enhances national security, and reduces poverty and famine. Accept no substitutes. Jeff Garzik serves as the founder and chairman of the policy institute Washington Power and Light.  Before co-founding Bloq, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer and ten years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today. Ralph Benko serves as co-founder and general counsel to Washington Power and Light. He is also the co-founder and general counsel for F1R3FLY.io and has worked in or with 3 White Houses, two executive branch agencies, and the Congress, as well as many political and policy institutes. He is an award-winning columnist.

“What is Essential is Invisible;” Enter Energy/Acceleration

David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens is part of the HackerNoon Books series.
 You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter 64: A Last  Retrospect CHAPTER 64. A LAST RETROSPECT And now my written story ends. I look back, once more—for the last time—before I close these leaves. I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on. What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo, these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question! Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather. Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul’s upon the lid. The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt’s old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says she spoils her. There is something bulky in Peggotty’s pocket. It is nothing smaller than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield. Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with many nods and winks, ‘Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that your aunt’s the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!’ Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they say. ‘Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman’s name.’ Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, ‘Mr. Copperfield.’ ‘I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in mourning. I hope Time will be good to you.’ Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning, bids her look again, tries to rouse her. ‘You have seen my son, sir,’ says the elder lady. ‘Are you reconciled?’ Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, ‘Rosa, come to me. He is dead!’ Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her, and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, ‘I loved him better than you ever did!’—now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year. What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can this be Julia Mills? Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection’s Dirge; eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better in the Desert of Sahara. Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls ‘society’, I see; among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as ‘so charmingly antique’. But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing, and by no means so influential as in days of yore! Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the constant friction of his lawyer’s-wig, I come, in a later time, upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles of papers; and I say, as I look around me: ‘If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to do!’ ‘You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?’ ‘When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town talk then!’ ‘At all events,’ says Traddles, ‘if I ever am one—’ ‘Why, you know you will be.’ ‘Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story, as I said I would.’ We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with Traddles. It is Sophy’s birthday; and, on our road, Traddles discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed. ‘I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had most at heart. There’s the Reverend Horace promoted to that living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls married very comfortably; there are three more living with us; there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since Mrs. Crewler’s decease; and all of them happy.’ ‘Except—’ I suggest. ‘Except the Beauty,’ says Traddles. ‘Yes. It was very unfortunate that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.’ Traddles’s house is one of the very houses—or it easily may have been—which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his dressing-room and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the house; for more of ‘the girls’ are here, and always are here, by some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband’s brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another husband’s sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia metal. And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains. I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me. My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company. O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Dickens, Charles,2009. David Copperfield. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/766/766-h/766-h.htm#link2HCH0064 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

David Copperfield: Chapter 64 - A Last  Retrospect

How can we create a world where no one loses? In the last few months, we’ve seen politicians embrace taboo-measures they would never have considered when we started 2020. Despite years of austerity, major European institutions are now pushing to go in the opposite direction to save our plummeting economy’s demand and supply. Europe and countries worldwide have negotiated huge financial packages to support employment, businesses, and increase the support for a panting healthcare sector. But all these measures haven’t stopped mass layoffs and thousands of company bankruptcies. The European Commission is discussing new Marshall Plans or Green New Deals. How much money goes into these programs is essential. But more important is the way we use this money to shape our next economy. These programs’ capital might not be enough to solve either our present or future social and environmental problems. The lockdown is shining a glaring light on the existing vulnerability and inequalities in our society. The pandemic has accelerated the growth of a technology sector already growing faster than any other industry. And this growth brings two things: the fragilization of workers and the concentration of wealth towards the winner-take-all platforms and their investors. Amazon has hired since the beginning of the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over, this will disrupt even more of the small businesses and employ over 99% of the working population. 427,300 additional employees that form our economies’ backbone Food delivery startups’ during the lockdown, creating fragile and precarious jobs. growth is bursting The good intentions of our recovery plans and the billions needed to recover won’t be enough. To avoid the steady erosion of the most vulnerable living conditions and rights, our health and educational infrastructures, as well as the way we treat life on the planet we all depend on, we’re also going to need a change in the substance of our policies. And to curb this, we need to question the status race our developed countries and companies have joined to compete to see who eats first, who creates the fastest growing ecosystems, the most unicorns, or the most billionaires. Catching up with the superpowers Europe has been trying to catch up with Silicon Valley’s and China’s superpowers without success. We’ve been supporting the deregulation and platformization of our economy. And our economy keeps insisting that the goal of businesses is to maximize returns to shareholders. Not that companies are here to enable culture and support life in all its forms. After decades of warnings, we can now see how years of growing a precarious labor market are now making it particularly hard to channel financial help to workers with fragile employment. This precarity creates a vicious cycle in which the platforms and the asset-rich companies keep getting the rewards. Since the seventies, the economy keeps getting more efficient and generating more value, but most people are getting a smaller portion of this value. Source: EPI.org The rest of the value is siphoned upward to the few and wealthy persons and countries. More than pleasing customers, more than creating jobs, business keeps getting better at serving the single-minded goal of maximizing shareholder value — the rewards for those who already have more than they need to keep investing. And Europe and the UK have been trying to catch up and counterbalance the American and Chinese dominance built on top of their technology organization like the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) and its Chinese equivalent the BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi) by trying to create their unicorns. There are limits to this plan First, Europe’s market is fragmented in its politics, regulations, and languages and won’t out fund and outpace Silicon Valley. And it won’t be able to out control the authoritarian Chinese plans. Second, Europe might never get there. The Chinese economic recovery might make it easier and cheaper for them to buy parts of the European economy. And third, let’s imagine that European countries succeed in dominating the world, and getting our growth back. This growth would only lift the European boats, but what about leaving the unaddressed ground conditions of problems more widespread than the coronavirus, like hunger, homelessness, ecological collapse, or gender and financial inequality? For example, last year, according to the FAO, five million children worldwide died of hunger. That is 30 times more people than have been killed so far from Covid-19, yet no government has declared a state of emergency or asked that we radically alter our way of life to save them. Nor do we see a comparable level of alarm and action around suicide — the mere tip of an iceberg of despair and depression — which kills over a million people a year globally and 50,000 in the USA. Or drug overdoses, which kill , the autoimmune epidemic, which affects to in the US and between in Europe, or obesity, which afflicts well over worldwide. 585,000 globally 23.5 50 million 14.7 to 23.5 million people 750 million The point here is not that coronavirus isn’t so bad, and we shouldn’t do anything, but that we should pursue choices that go against the ground conditions that multiply those very dangers we’ve gotten used to. So, what options do we have to rebuild our economy once the pandemic is over? We have two choices. We can either return to our business as usual and keep racing to the top and let those who don’t reach the top fighting for scraps. Or we can also decide to flip the script by lifting everyone’s boats and creating a society where everyone can participate, contribute, and reap the rewards of our economies equitably. The first ingredient to enabling people to participate, contribute and shape our economy equitably depends on incentivizing open source from our governments, research institutions, and companies. In 1993, Tim Berners Lee , a decision that has fundamentally altered our society and created trillions of pounds in economic opportunity worldwide. This choice for the public domain showed the potential for creativity when users have open access instead of only well-funded corporations. put the web into the public domain In 2010, started an open-source hardware architecture project to build microprocessors and chips. This project started in the US and could now be a boon for European industries. This project’s openness allows any company or research group to design their RISC-V processor without having to pay royalty fees for their use. If they don’t want to have their chip, they will have at their disposal a much broader market that doesn’t depend on one or a few brands. , an expert in micro-electronics: “There will be more suppliers, greater diversity and, consequently, more competition and prices adjusted to the quality of supply and demand.” RISC-V According to Lluís Teres Before the pandemic broke out, the expectations were very promising: the estimate that RISC-V will increase its overall revenue from $52 million in 2018 to $1.1 billion in 2025. forecasts And at a business level, open-source organizations are a to the American and Chinese winner-take-all organizations because they are naturally able to build their network effects. real alternative Linux, WordPress, or Odoo are all open organizations worth billions of dollars in valuation. Linux and its derivatives have of market share among supercomputers, of servers, and of smartphones, outcompeting powerhouses like Microsoft or Apple. WordPress fuels and gets equivalent traffic levels as Google, Facebook, or Twitter with ten to a hundred time fewer employees. Odoo, an open-source alternative to SAP, by serving 4 million users who want to keep control over their code and data. 99% 66.6% 76% more than a third of the web grows at 60% per year And although their market value is smaller than the GAFAM or the BATX, what’s even more important is that these businesses enable open ecosystems of hundreds of thousands of SMEs worldwide to create even more value. WordPress, for example, is valued at . Still, estimates show that its open-source solution has enabled markets worldwide to generate in revenue every year from their community members. $3 billion $143 billion These principles of openness also apply to offline and non-tech businesses and organizations. Now that there are so many off-the-shelf solutions to share knowledge, gather communities, and get any business online, there are new kinds of small organizations that will sprout and collaborate to develop themselves. imported the lessons learned from open technology to the more traditional beer retail market with brilliant results: thanks to its open and community-based ethos, it has been in the UK’s drink industry. Brewdog the fastest-growing company has made its provocative ideas spread worldwide by sharing its content to billions of people and enabling their community to organize TEDx events anywhere through its . TED Talks open-source manuals Today, European programs like help hardware SMEs do two things, build an open hardware infrastructure, and transition to open source so they can spread and reinforce their business models sustainably. Opennext Spreading this open approach will enable a burst of creativity, recombination, and new possibilities that will benefit us all. A massive caveat But there is a caveat for this to work equitably since open-source knowledge and collaboration won’t be enough, even if this is a business strategy that works. Most people who can contribute to open source already have enough money and time to contribute and volunteer in projects they like. Everybody else has to work on projects that pay the bills, not projects that contribute to our common good and creativity. Without these conditions covered, it’s nearly impossible to get people to contribute and collaborate on creating long-term solutions to help weather future pandemics, climate change, gender, regional and financial inequality, hunger, and so many other essential but “non-urgent” crises. Accelerated transition? So what if we accelerated this transition by creating widespread Universal Basic Income (UBI) programs? , , or the are all proposing to roll out UBI programs. And among the initiatives that go beyond proposals into concrete action, Australia has unlocked , up to $1,500 per employee, to prevent millions of people from losing their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic. Pope Francis Twitter’s CEO Spanish government $130 billion Studies show that it’s possible a UBI, for people to spend more time looking for higher-paying and more meaningful jobs that better use their skills. Beneficiaries can go back to school and improve their skills, and newborn parents can spend more time with their newborns during parental leave. to fund making it possible During Thatcher’s tenure, The started in 1981, offered those of working age who wanted to start a business an allowance of £40 a week — the equivalent of £154 a week in 2020 — a financial floor they could stand on. The results? The program helped become self-employed, and according to participant testimonies, without the program, the resulting businesses either would have come significantly later or never existed at all. The explosion of creativity that marked the 1990’s and 2000’s was led by creatives like Alan McGee of Creation Records, Julian Dunkerton of Superdry, and the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, who were able to strike out on their own through the ‘Enterprise Allowance Scheme.’ Enterprise Allowance Scheme 325,000 people Giving people free money can help vanquish poverty, lessen inequality, and liberate time and creativity. But under what terms would governments or companies deliver it? In our economic past, we have learned that shared prosperity only really comes with shared power. And this is another brick we need to build a more egalitarian society. A society where everyone can both contribute to our shared well-being and hold companies accountable for their actions. When slavery was abolished, the slaves didn’t just want the means of consumption. Some demanded 40 acres of land and a mule because they wanted the means of production to help shape the economy. To keep their freedom from getting snatched away again, they knew they had to be owners. And this is why an open and participatory intellectual property and universal basic income won’t be enough. The current winner-take-all platforms are built on top of open-source software and nearly as much as they’ve extracted from the creators of this common good. We need to foster the shared ownership, and governance Coops have been pioneering for decades. don’t give back Those who are building and stewarding vast platforms have become our new elites. These leaders often use the language of the crowd — “sharing,” “open,” “connected” — but their actions can tell a different story. Think of Facebook. Despite its influence on our democracies, moods, and self-esteem, Facebook’s two billion users get no share of the platform’s vast economic value. Nor any say in how it is governed. Coops have been historical vehicles that brought life-changing utilities like electricity or internet broadband to people in rural areas that investor-owned companies wouldn’t serve. Instead of giving the lion’s share to its investors, coops spread the rewards equitably amongst their members. And today, in opposition to the race to the bottom led by most freelance platforms like Upwork or Fiverr, we see platforms like , a stock photography platform, retain some of the best stock artists by putting fair pay and excellent work at the center of their mission. Stocksy United Looking forward We need to build businesses that are genuinely accountable to those they claim to serve, for instance, their employees and their customers. As long as companies are responsible for just wealth and not participation, inequality will concentrate among investors in wealthy countries. And we won’t be able to create a decentralized economy where people can keep the wealth they make locally. Businesses, governments, citizens, and consumers have the opportunity to make the most of our connection economy to push for a culture and economy where creativity is open, where the money is accessible and where consumers and workers can influence governance and ownership. Together, we can untap the potential to create a flurry of creativity, make the accountability necessary to veer off our destructive environmental and democratic course, and spread the knowledge and participation that can lift not only the European boat but also everybody’s boats. And for this, we’re going to need European governments to push the Green Deals, and Marshall Plans even further. They need to double down on funding and structuring open-source research and their creators, setting up large scale Universal Basic Income experiments, and making it easier to build and run cooperative-like businesses. These will make it possible for consumers and employees to hold corporations accountable to those they serve. In return, it will spread the rewards more equitably to all stakeholders, not only to investors. This path has the potential to build a new and more generous leadership that goes beyond our regional competitions. Leadership with no losers can regenerate our communities, creativity, and life on our planet. Thanks to Arlette Manasseh, Martin Hauer, Marcus Fulker, Scott Santens, and Nathan Schneider for their contribution and inspiration to this article through their writing, feedback, and books.

A World Where Nobody Loses: US and Chinese Tech Monopoly Alternatives

The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories, by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE JILTING OF JANE THE JILTING OF JANE As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes, or the British national song for the time being, to these instruments, but latterly she has been silent and even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wife with sighs for such care, but now they have come we are not so glad as we might have anticipated we should be. Indeed, I would rejoice secretly, though it may be unmanly weakness to admit it, even to hear Jane sing "Daisy," or, by the fracture of any plate but one of Euphemia's best green ones, to learn that the period of brooding has come to an end. Yet how we longed to hear the last of Jane's young man before we heard the last of him! Jane was always very free with her conversation to my wife, and discoursed admirably in the kitchen on a variety of topics—so well, indeed, that I sometimes left my study door open—our house is a small one—to partake of it. But after William came, it was always William, nothing but William; William this and William that; and when we thought William was worked out and exhausted altogether, then William all over again. The engagement lasted altogether three years; yet how she got introduced to William, and so became thus saturated with him, was always a secret. For my part, I believe it was at the street corner where the Rev. Barnabas Baux used to hold an open-air service after evensong on Sundays. Young Cupids were wont to flit like moths round the paraffin flare of that centre of High Church hymn-singing. I fancy she stood singing hymns there, out of memory and her imagination, instead of coming home to get supper, and William came up beside her and said, "Hello!" "Hello yourself!" she said; and etiquette being satisfied, they proceeded to talk together. As Euphemia has a reprehensible way of letting her servants talk to her, she soon heard of him. "He is such a respectable young man, ma'am," said Jane, "you don't know." Ignoring the slur cast on her acquaintance, my wife inquired further about this William. "He is second porter at Maynard's, the draper's," said Jane, "and gets eighteen shillings—nearly a pound—a week, m'm; and when the head porter leaves he will be head porter. His relatives are quite superior people, m'm. Not labouring people at all. His father was a greengrosher, m'm, and had a churnor, and he was bankrup' twice. And one of his sisters is in a Home for the Dying. It will be a very good match for me, m'm," said Jane, "me being an orphan girl." "Then you are engaged to him?" asked my wife. "Not engaged, ma'am; but he is saving money to buy a ring—hammyfist." "Well, Jane, when you are properly engaged to him you may ask him round here on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the kitchen;" for my Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even with ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the joint so that this gage was evident. The elder Miss Maitland was aggrieved by it, and told my wife that servants ought not to wear rings. But my wife looked it up in Enquire Within and Mrs. Motherly's Book of Household Management, and found no prohibition. So Jane remained with this happiness added to her love. The treasure of Jane's heart appeared to me to be what respectable people call a very deserving young man. "William, ma'am," said Jane one day suddenly, with ill-concealed complacency, as she counted out the beer bottles, "William, ma'am, is a teetotaller. Yes, m'm; and he don't smoke. Smoking, ma'am," said Jane, as one who reads the heart, "do make such a dust about. Beside the waste of money. And the smell. However, I suppose they got to do it—some of them..." William was at first a rather shabby young man of the ready-made black coat school of costume. He had watery gray eyes, and a complexion appropriate to the brother of one in a Home for the Dying. Euphemia did not fancy him very much, even at the beginning. His eminent respectability was vouched for by an alpaca umbrella, from which he never allowed himself to be parted. "He goes to chapel," said Jane. "His papa, ma'am——" "His what, Jane?" "His papa, ma'am, was Church: but Mr. Maynard is a Plymouth Brother, and William thinks it Policy, ma'am, to go there too. Mr. Maynard comes and talks to him quite friendly when they ain't busy, about using up all the ends of string, and about his soul. He takes a lot of notice, do Mr. Maynard, of William, and the way he saves his soul, ma'am." Presently we heard that the head porter at Maynard's had left, and that William was head porter at twenty-three shillings a week. "He is really kind of over the man who drives the van," said Jane, "and him married, with three children." And she promised in the pride of her heart to make interest for us with William to favour us so that we might get our parcels of drapery from Maynard's with exceptional promptitude. After this promotion a rapidly-increasing prosperity came upon Jane's young man. One day we learned that Mr. Maynard had given William a book. "'Smiles' 'Elp Yourself,' it's called," said Jane; "but it ain't comic. It tells you how to get on in the world, and some what William read to me was lovely, ma'am." Euphemia told me of this, laughing, and then she became suddenly grave. "Do you know, dear," she said, "Jane said one thing I did not like. She had been quiet for a minute, and then she suddenly remarked, 'William is a lot above me, ma'am, ain't he?'" "I don't see anything in that," I said, though later my eyes were to be opened. One Sunday afternoon about that time I was sitting at my writing-desk— possibly I was reading a good book—when a something went by the window. I heard a startled exclamation behind me, and saw Euphemia with her hands clasped together and her eyes dilated. "George," she said in an awe-stricken whisper, "did you see?" Then we both spoke to one another at the same moment, slowly and solemnly: "A silk hat! Yellow gloves! A new umbrella!" "It may be my fancy, dear," said Euphemia; "but his tie was very like yours. I believe Jane keeps him in ties. She told me a little while ago, in a way that implied volumes about the rest of your costume, 'The master do wear pretty ties, ma'am.' And he echoes all your novelties." The young couple passed our window again on their way to their customary walk. They were arm in arm. Jane looked exquisitely proud, happy, and uncomfortable, with new white cotton gloves, and William, in the silk hat, singularly genteel! That was the culmination of Jane's happiness. When she returned, "Mr. Maynard has been talking to William, ma'am," she said, "and he is to serve customers, just like the young shop gentlemen, during the next sale. And if he gets on, he is to be made an assistant, ma'am, at the first opportunity. He has got to be as gentlemanly as he can, ma'am; and if he ain't, ma'am, he says it won't be for want of trying. Mr. Maynard has took a great fancy to him." "He is getting on, Jane," said my wife. "Yes, ma'am," said Jane thoughtfully; "he is getting on." And she sighed. That next Sunday as I drank my tea I interrogated my wife. "How is this Sunday different from all other Sundays, little woman? What has happened? Have you altered the curtains, or re-arranged the furniture, or where is the indefinable difference of it? Are you wearing your hair in a new way without warning me? I perceive a change clearly, and I cannot for the life of me say what it is." Then my wife answered in her most tragic voice, "George," she said, "that William has not come near the place to-day! And Jane is crying her heart out upstairs." There followed a period of silence. Jane, as I have said, stopped singing about the house, and began to care for our brittle possessions, which struck my wife as being a very sad sign indeed. The next Sunday, and the next, Jane asked to go out, "to walk with William," and my wife, who never attempts to extort confidences, gave her permission, and asked no questions. On each occasion Jane came back looking flushed and very determined. At last one day she became communicative. "William is being led away," she remarked abruptly, with a catching of the breath, apropos of tablecloths. "Yes, m'm. She is a milliner, and she can play on the piano." "I thought," said my wife, "that you went out with him on Sunday." "Not out with him, m'm—after him. I walked along by the side of them, and told her he was engaged to me." "Dear me, Jane, did you? What did they do?" "Took no more notice of me than if I was dirt. So I told her she should suffer for it." "It could not have been a very agreeable walk, Jane." "Not for no parties, ma'am." "I wish," said Jane, "I could play the piano, ma'am. But anyhow, I don't mean to let her get him away from me. She's older than him, and her hair ain't gold to the roots, ma'am." It was on the August Bank Holiday that the crisis came. We do not clearly know the details of the fray, but only such fragments as poor Jane let fall. She came home dusty, excited, and with her heart hot within her. The milliner's mother, the milliner, and William had made a party to the Art Museum at South Kensington, I think. Anyhow, Jane had calmly but firmly accosted them somewhere in the streets, and asserted her right to what, in spite of the consensus of literature, she held to be her inalienable property. She did, I think, go so far as to lay hands on him. They dealt with her in a crushingly superior way. They "called a cab." There was a "scene," William being pulled away into the four-wheeler by his future wife and mother-in-law from the reluctant hands of our discarded Jane. There were threats of giving her "in charge." "My poor Jane!" said my wife, mincing veal as though she was mincing William. "It's a shame of them. I would think no more of him. He is not worthy of you." "No, m'm," said Jane. "He is weak. "But it's that woman has done it," said Jane. She was never known to bring herself to pronounce "that woman's" name or to admit her girlishness. "I can't think what minds some women must have—to try and get a girl's young man away from her. But there, it only hurts to talk about it," said Jane. Thereafter our house rested from William. But there was something in the manner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the rooms, a certain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story had not yet ended. "Please, m'm, may I go and see a wedding tomorrow?" said Jane one day. My wife knew by instinct whose wedding. "Do you think it is wise, Jane?" she said. "I would like to see the last of him," said Jane. "My dear," said my wife, fluttering into my room about twenty minutes after Jane had started, "Jane has been to the boot-hole and taken all the left-off boots and shoes, and gone off to the wedding with them in a bag. Surely she cannot mean—" "Jane," I said, "is developing character. Let us hope for the best." Jane came back with a pale, hard face. All the boots seemed to be still in her bag, at which my wife heaved a premature sigh of relief. We heard her go upstairs and replace the boots with considerable emphasis. "Quite a crowd at the wedding, ma'am," she said presently, in a purely conversational style, sitting in our little kitchen, and scrubbing the potatoes; "and such a lovely day for them." She proceeded to numerous other details, clearly avoiding some cardinal incident. "It was all extremely respectable and nice, ma'am; but her father didn't wear a black coat, and looked quite out of place, ma'am. Mr. Piddingquirk—" "Who?" "Mr. Piddingquirk—William that was, ma'am—had white gloves, and a coat like a clergyman, and a lovely chrysanthemum. He looked so nice, ma'am. And there was red carpet down, just like for gentlefolks. And they say he gave the clerk four shillings, ma'am. It was a real kerridge they had—not a fly. When they came out of church there was rice-throwing, and her two little sisters dropping dead flowers. And someone threw a slipper, and then I threw a boot—" "Threw a boot, Jane!" "Yes, ma'am. Aimed at her. But it hit him. Yes, ma'am, hard. Gev him a black eye, I should think. I only threw that one. I hadn't the heart to try again. All the little boys cheered when it hit him." After an interval—"I am sorry the boot hit him." Another pause. The potatoes were being scrubbed violently. "He always was a bit above me, you know, ma'am. And he was led away." The potatoes were more than finished. Jane rose sharply with a sigh, and rapped the basin down on the table. "I don't care," she said. "I don't care a rap. He will find out his mistake yet. It serves me right. I was stuck up about him. I ought not to have looked so high. And I am glad things are as things are." My wife was in the kitchen, seeing to the higher cookery. After the confession of the boot-throwing, she must have watched poor Jane fuming with a certain dismay in those brown eyes of hers. But I imagine they softened again very quickly, and then Jane's must have met them. "Oh, ma'am," said Jane, with an astonishing change of note, "think of all that might have been! Oh, ma'am, I could have been so happy! I ought to have known, but I didn't know...You're very kind to let me talk to you, ma'am...for it's hard on me, ma'am...it's har-r-r-r-d—" And I gather that Euphemia so far forgot herself as to let Jane sob out some of the fullness of her heart on a sympathetic shoulder. My Euphemia, thank Heaven, has never properly grasped the importance of "keeping up her position." And since that fit of weeping, much of the accent of bitterness has gone out of Jane's scrubbing and brush work. Indeed, something passed the other day with the butcher-boy—but that scarcely belongs to this story. However, Jane is young still, and time and change are at work with her. We all have our sorrows, but I do not believe very much in the existence of sorrows that never heal. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2004). The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11870/11870-h/11870-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at . https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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