January 31, 2008

I'm No Fool, No Siree, I'm Gonna Live to Be Two-Hundred and Three Eighty-Three

Justin Katz

I'd have added some sort of spiritual fortification to Dogbert's advice, but his assessment is compelling.

It reminds me of one of my father's favorite topics: the notion that production and healthcare both are going to create a reality in which none of our historical social models apply. Everybody's going to live a very long time, and nobody's going to actually have to do anything (with automation and whatnot). So how are we going to order our society, especially with regard to distribution?

Personally, I think that analysis too greatly minimizes human hamartia, projecting the future based on the misleading present. Whatever the case, I'm also reminded of a small diner in the town in which I went to high school that served a particular breakfast sandwich called the Zebra. It was essentially an entire cholesterol-rich breakfast on toast.

It might be an appropriate use of government resources to distribute those around the country...