What I have said...
- "Economists are not going to [support this idea]"
- To Yoko Ono: "If you support this idea but fail in the attempt I will probably die"
- To Yoko Ono: "If you don't support this idea I will probably die because I'm too lazy to find someone else interested in helping the world"
- If someone was unsuccessful in supporting this idea I would view it as a personal failure for not being able to determine their ability more accurately
- I concluded my efforts in 2011 only after identifying mistakes by everyone I thought might be willing to support this idea or deciding that they would probably fail
I am, unfortunately, still able to imagine a scenario where someone with a reputation tries to get people to use this idea and they are unsuccessful.
I look at things like interest rates this way. They are known to influence investment and spending, and so can change the level of employment. But this is limited.
In contrast, through working less we can create as many jobs as necessary.
To anyone wondering why influential people haven't supported this idea, it is for the same reason that you have not.
The reason that problems exist in the world is that no one thought of this idea before. Since the prevention of war is an essential component, you could also say that no one understood the competitive drive that causes people from other cultures to accept war. It does not help a society to be peaceful if it is overrun by its neighbors, and historically a lot of war was about the loot.
As I said I have tried to avoid conveying that I think that supporting this idea is the 'ethical' thing to do, but I don't accept this as a reason for people not to support it. I would benefit from it just like anyone else from the lower risk of being killed or other similar things for myself and people I know, and as I have mentioned it would also lead to higher quality in games like World of Warcraft.
If anyone thinks that influential people should support this idea, they should say so. The feedback from the Occupy Wall Street forums was that we should distrust authority.
People who have not supported this idea are assumed to view the following issues as not important enough to act on:
- A small chance they, or people they know, will be killed
- Mass shootings like the ones at Aurora and Sandy Hook
- Unemployment and associated problems, including wasteful government spending
- War and its effects like someone you know joining the military and being killed
- Rapes
- Unexpected events in general that cause harm and could have been avoided if people were smarter
- Occupations that appear to be unethical having a 'wage premium', including the sex industry and finance
- Nonviolent crime, like computer viruses and scams
- Unwanted climate change like global warming
- Smart people being unhappy because they feel more responsible for problems
- The fact that the human race is getting stupider as time goes on due to genetic selection
- Biased feedback for games like WoW or Aion that lead to people wasting time on things that do not have the intended result
- Starvation in Africa
- Friends or relatives committing suicide because of relationship problems or depression
- High cost of college in the US and the inaccuracy of attendance at an 'elite' institution as a signal of ability despite that many people perceive it to be accurate
- 'Nice' people going to prison or being accused of crimes, such as Aaron Swartz who committed suicide
- Economic sanctions against nations such as North Korea that are seen as unethical
- Intellectual property law that causes obvious inefficiencies, such as the patenting of round corners on electronic devices
- Government corruption in places like China
- Female persons, or even male persons, not being able to attain important positions in society because of a lack of time
It seems like the definitive statement on the competence of influential people is whether they expected something like Sandy Hook or Aurora could happen. If they did not consider it at all, they are stupid.
In that case, I would expect James Holmes to announce his motivations so that people can agree that the problems of the world are not due to poor intentions. There are enough conspiracy theories floating around (on Youtube, a 94 minute video has 500k views) without expecting people to evaluate another; besides, blogs are not considered "reliable sources".
I dedicate this post to Monk of Firetree US server in the World of Warcraft, who defended me from respawns after I stopped talking after losing a neck item with intellect and spirit to, I think, a rogue, in March 2005. His email address went inactive sometime between an email I sent on his birthday on October 5 and another email I sent on 10 Nov.
