Jay, we are agreeing some more: <...Standard Retirement Units (SRU).
SRU is an imprecise measure of that quantity of funds, that, when drawn down at 5% annual rate, will provide for 50+-5 years of "happy" "idleness", with the cost of "happy" "idleness" defined by each individually.
I define "happy" as secure contentedness, and I define "idleness" as doing whatever I want, when I want, how I want. >
Unfortunately, the idleness component is unachievable because there is always something more to be done in the way of 'what I want'. For example, turn that 50+/- 5 years into 200 or, what the heck, 1000. That would take serious wealth and while there are moves afoot to create that Ray Kurzweil idea of transposable consciousness and memory, the pace isn't sufficient to help me I think.
There is also the question of whether I'd want it to. On first reflection, the answer is a resounding yes. But thinking a bit more deeply about it, the creation of our selves is quite specific in space and time and powerfully associated with other people and ways of life.
I am not sure that a cryogenic neanderthal would be all that happy to still be dragging his knuckles around town. Stopping in for a latte and discussing mastodon hunting techniques with an iPaq-toting WiFi cerfing internerd. He might feel a little bit as though life had passed him by.
He'd be bewildered, culture-shocked, befuddled and confused. Sad, lonely and wishing for the good old days when he didn't have to fill in hundreds of forms and get told off every time he stood on grass, crossed a white line or lay down for a nap. Already, I have got some sense of affiliation with the poor guy.
We have had parliament sitting for over a century, making new laws every day, and still there's no sign of them thinking they've made enough. The rows and rows and rows of statutes, bylaws, common laws, tort and rort laws, unnatural laws, Principles of Te Tiriti and other arcane, suffocating and censorious crushing of the life out of individuals, continue to proliferate.
The lawyers and judges have no idea what the laws are. That's why they have to do long and studious contemplation, at high pay rates, to figure out whether some poor sod, in a moment of pressured decision, made a mistake on form 141KL and whether clause 3.45.231 in the Dog Act, counterweighted sufficiently clause 7.32.192 in the Eating Food Act to give effect to the local authority's power to enter premises, confiscate assets and shut the income of the person down.
I don't think our cryogenic buddy will cope. Pass the Prozac! I don't think most people can cope. But they go on voting for more of the same - like turkeys voting for the proverbial early Xmas.
There is now such a miasma of law that everyone at any instant is committing dozens of crimes. Usually these breaches are ignored until some person who enjoys their pathetic little bit of totalitarian power over others decides to take a dislike to somebody, then they pull out their favourite Catch 22 and throw the book at them. Another non-person comes into being.
No wonder suicide, Prozac, obesity, mindless tv watching and other pathological states are so popular, with the occasional outburst resulting in another shootout, car chase, or general mayhem.
In another 1000 years, there should be about 100 times the tonnage of laws now extant [the lawmakers will grow more efficient in the production of laws with the productivity turbo boost of the infotech revolution]. Good luck to us, let alone Mr Neanderthal. We'll need it.
Mqurice |
