Rome is burning

For those of you who like to watch the decline of civilizations, I think that we have front row seats to a slightly less sexy Berlin Wall de(con)struction (though with far less immediacy, imagery or baaaadddddd music).

What caffeine fuelled apophenia am I babbling about this fair morn? Well, the call to re-consider the almighty U.S. dollar as the world's key reserve currency.

To paraphrase an advertorial 'its not happening overnight. But it is happening.'

Why I am not an economist

I was reading The Times and came across this from Dominique Strauss-Kahn,the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - "The IMF has called for governments in leading economies to spend a combined 2 per cent of global GDP, or $1.2 trillion (£1,075 billion), to try to fend off the danger from global recession.“If we are not able to do that, then social unrest may happen in many countries - including advanced economies,” Mr Strauss-Kahn suggested.

Kind of reminds me of what Peter Singer argues for in One World, among other places, where he calls for members of the developed world to donate 1% of their annual income, which he argues will not only meet the UN Millenium Summit Goals of halving world poverty, but eliminating it. (see pp 180-195, in particular p 193)

Now, I read these comments by Strauss-Kahn, on the necessity to deal with a global recession, and think of Singer's arguments and a certain frustration builds up in my liver. Trillions of dollars so far have been spent on saving a global financial system which is at best plagued by problems, at worst pathological, yet millions of people world wide live in preventable poverty. Citibank amongst others was 'too big to fail' yet a scheme like Thomas Pogge's pharmaceutical re-incentivisation scheme, estimated to cost 45-90 Billion US anually, seems too big to fund. Simplifying the issue, white collar jobs and investments trump basic health.

Now I am sure that there are peoples out there wondering what loose connections I am drawing, pointing out that what Strauss-Kahn is demanding is 2% of GDP, while Singer's 1% is individual contribution, or that the collapse of Citibank would precipitate great suffering, while Pogge's pharmaceutical ideas are suspiciously socialistic. All true, but this is why I am not an economist. I don't care about protecting an endangered habitat like the Global Economy, or saving endangered species like those poor financial specialists with the dodgy 700 Billion US Bailout.
In fact I don't really care about much at all. But my blood angers up at the weird disconnect that is going on world-wide at the moment between throwing money at a problem for reasons like the importance of national stability, whilst ignoring other preventable causes for unrest. And don't just listen to me. Try that bastion of left-wing intellectualism and academic communism, the US National Intelligence Council:
" New and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate US and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger US citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests."

Wild speculation

So, I was reading this article in the Sydney Morning Hearld yesterday, and began thinking about Nozick's Experience Machine (as one does).

The computer game industry is fast becoming a defining element of our world. Unbelievable amounts of effort, talent and creativity, not to mention money are poured into this field year after year to satisfy an increasingly widespread demographic of our population. Unfortunately, marketing being as it is, games are fast becoming required to be more and more consuming of the user's resources in order to maintain dominance over the hearts, minds and wallets of the client base. This is not to mention that due to the intensely interactive nature of games today, art no longer imitates life so much as it leads to its creation (seriously, hang out on the Internet for more than about an hour and you will discover entire languages. Forget antrhropology in the world, far stranger cultures exist online). However, I can't help but be concerned by the levels of immersiveness being implied by the article. While Nozick's argument was designed as a refutation of hedonism, as I understand it, I think that it speaks to something else, which is a questioning of the fantastic as a dominant force in a person's life. What does it mean when a former recreational activity can be integrate and come to dominate someone's life, providing pleasure, but consuming substantial resources and creating social interactions which, while genuine, are weaker than those formed in the corporeal world due to the removal of some of the basic risks of the social world? When fun turns into duty (and if anyone out there has a friend who plays Everquest or World of Warcraft, you know what I'm talking about), and social interactions with non-players become left on the wayside?

I don't wish to postulate that computer games are in and of themselves bad things: computer games have for years been an extension of other games functioning as learning and teaching tools, often without the user realising it. They teach decision making, visuo-spatial recognition, and a wide range of teamwork behaviours, they really do. But the same body of literature emerging from psychology about their merits also carries with it a darker set of observations. I'm not necessarily talking about violent computer games making violent people. While that is certainly on the table (sorry gamer kids, it really is), the weakened but still rationalised social features, the immersiveness and escapist quality that can endlessly stimulate many minds, indicate to me that as technology continues to advance in this area at a mind boggling rate, Nozick's machine might leave the realm of thought and actually pose us an applied ethics problem: possessing this machine, do we allow ourselves or others to use it? Especially knowing what we know from thought experiments in the past, and on the problems associated with addictive activities.

Thoughts?