…it’s this one.
You can find that image plus view many other live counters for birth, death and all points in between at https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
All of which of course gets one thinking.
In an open RPG (role playing game) world, it is possible to compete and war and pretty much be a law unto yourself, until the game reaches a point where expansion is no longer possible. In what then becomes a closed world, alliances form and systems emerge as large growing bubbles which slowly absorb and erode, claiming smaller groups and powerful individuals around them, and themselves being absorbed, and growing polarised yet in odd balance with one another, till there’s really only room for 2 or 3 of these über-big players.
And then what…?
Do we live through the excitement (yawn) of living through the succession of petty tyrants and / or great heroes and / or evil despots, watching history repeat itself as the game dumbs down your civilisations, armies and development?
Well, 1, yes, but 2, no.
As any logical game designer would tell you, you wouldn’t intentionally program for your advancement to be eroded and deteriorated from within by your own clans/tribes/etc.
You would program for random variables including biological, weather, geological and space-related influencers and let them do their random work. But you wouldn’t cause a part of your population to dumb down, when you work so hard to make and reward advances.
So why do we allow that to happen in the real world?
The numbers of ordinary humans and the suffered experience of the lower-to-middle class, indicate that our world needs smarter and smarter people to manage these massive bubbles of social and geo-political growth and homogenisation we are experiencing.
But global numeral literacy rates are declining, and while literacy rates are estimated at 84%, it’s not hard to see that few people out there spend time deep in books and instead prefer bite-size chunks of information, skimming the surface, just as television watching has conditioned us into since childhood.
We need smarter people. Smarter people than me.
I can imagine as far as some sort of co-operative/quasi-socialist standardised, global employment system, with fringe opportunities for those wishing to engage in markets and crafts, with foods and other handy-work, even allowing for some scaling, but with diminished returns on this scaling in the way we know capitalism now, choosing rather to divert the lion’s share to pooled research/education/medical advancement within, or related to the product in question. (but I digress)
Hey.
Don’t shoot me.
I’m just spit-balling here, trying to get a grip on a philosophically sound, morally equitable way for humanity to go to version 2.0, from where we are now at 1.782 or whatever…
I’m thinking forward as far as I can project, to a time when there are twice as many people on earth today, for example, and with us all living in the planetary equivalent of a backpackers lodge, in so many bunk beds stacked on one another, we can’t realistically keep on slaving to the greenback and its elitist bosses.
Nor can we continue with our current consumerist mindset.
No one pitches up at a backpackers in their 77 foot yacht with gold-and-diamond-encrusted, matching, his-and-hers bidets….
…know what I’m sayin’
So, I can realistically imagine a world based on points.
A world where outright ownership of ultra-luxury and ultra-exclusive, houses, facilities and assets doesn’t exist anymore, and where lottos determine who enjoys the holiday usage of the prime places, just like we all agree now, the lotto of life has already determined how we all got here in the first place – some born into riches, but most born into poverty, and (more importantly), poorer genetic stock amongst all of us.
I don’t know that I support Basic Universal Income. What I do support is a regionally managed, global system where everything related to the bottom 2 rungs of Maslow Hierarchy needs are removed from the global commerce system and instead managed for appropriate provision to the global community. Outside of that, a percentage of land, etc, will need to be set aside and parcelled for private use, perhaps as small agricultural landholdings set aside on the fringes of regional towns, for people who choose to make their way outside of the system. This could work if points are transferable.
The system of points works now for us already and we are to-a-degree (those of us who have grown up with computers anyway) already used to working for rewards.
So what are the rewards?
We all want nice weekends, nice holidays and nice experiences.
Some because we need to check them off our Instagram “must-insta” lists, and like me, haven’t properly grown up yet, and some because we love sharing cherished moments and gifting them to our loved ones.
Either which way, we are united in our humanity in that we all can imagine ourselves enjoying a sundowner on giraffe leather couch, sipping expensive bubbly, lounging comfortably under the sun, 22″ above the azure-blue Mediterranean in a big, fancy-ass boat.
For now, in version 1.whatever, almost none of us will ever have access to even dream, let alone experience that…
In another way we are united in our common humanity.
Irrespective of our mental energy and the higher value of educated reasoning and seasoned experience, in management and governance, where needed, it is a common factor that one person’s unit of physical time spent in manual labour of whatever sort, is, in the final analysis, equivalent to that of any other human.
Think about it.
Renaldo may work up a sweat while rolling around in the penalty box trying to convince the world that he has been mortally injured and deserving of the free kick at goal. But how Renaldo’s 90 minutes worth of sweat, and many tears, is worth many orders more than Roger the road worker, diligently repairing the roundabout in front of the local school, is completely beyond me…
My point is, Renaldo likes a good holiday just as much as Roger does, and both of them work hard. I’ll concede that Renaldo put in untold hours in his youth, and even today still does, to get to and remain at the top of his game. No one steps on the global playing field if all they ever did was FIFA 2005 on Playstation.
And yet I can imagine a points-driven world where there is a place for passionate sporting stars like him, but changed from the ultra-secretive and commercially competitive money-machine that it is today.
Something more like an amateur-league-like grouping of like-minded humans all dedicated to advancement of the bio-sciences, as represented by sporting medicine in all their myriad forms of participation, and all, equitably sharing in the earned rewards-experiences, while also remaining equally eligible to Roger for the random luck draws of private island, once-in-a-lifetime lotto winning holidays.
I know right… We started with a graphic showing global population and ended by almost mob-lynching a poor and helpless and stupidly wealthy soccer star, but at least got lots to think about in between.
And we haven’t even touched on the global security or judiciary yet…
So hey, feel free to comment, critique, and contribute to the idea generating process of the world beyond tomorrow.
In what other specific ways can you imagine a points-driven, Mario Brothers land-of-tomorrow be operated and managed?
Think of rewards and vitality cards now, only, applied to all of life.
No driving violations this month? Bing! Points.
Had all your medical checkups? Bing! Points.
Ate good balanced meals with only the minimal splurge? Bing! Points.
Contributed to some community cause with time and effort donated?
Yep. Keep ’em coming baby.
So now, what do you think now about Lotto drawings for all, for those super-exclusive experiences?
Perhaps banking your points, or cashing them in for extra lotto draws, with guaranteed upgraded options for you in any case, commensurate with the number of points cashed in, and irrespective of the lotto outcome.
A lotto is a lotto after all.
The point is 10.9 billion people are expected to be living on planet “A” by the year 2100 – just 8 decades (or a generation) away.
Do we want to keep doing it the way we do now, anxious and consumed as we are with issues around housing, food, education and health? Competing for resources while feeding a growing pool of insatiable elitists all keen to empty out the rivers of human productivity and invention, and more of the world becoming increasingly inaccessible, under their control.
Or can we do a humanity 2.0 in a more up-beat and inspired feeling, Mario Brothers, points-gathering kinda way?