The Problems of the World, and How to Solve Them!

There is a type of machine called a Von Neumann machine, and it has one primary function. Anything else it does can be considered a byproduct of performing its primary function. The primary function of a Von Neumann machine is to make more Von Neumann machines. Okay, kids, now give me a description, in a single word, of what a Von Neumann machine is.

Stupid? That's subjective.

Pointless? Maybe.

Recursive? For sure.

The word I'm looking for here is... life.

Life is the Von Neumann machine. This applies to everything from us humans to the bacteria living in our shit.

But we humans are special, or at least we like to think we are. Maybe there are other forms of life like us, and we just haven't met them yet or haven't yet figured out that they're like us. The thing that makes us special is that we can choose not to reproduce. Through sheer force of will, we can break our programming as Von Neumann machines. That's pretty cool ain't it? Except for one little detail...

Most of us don't.

Why do I say this? Well, simply put, it's because there's at least eight billion of us living on this planet. And this figure keeps growing. Eight. Fucking. Billion. I don't know about you, but I can't fully comprehend how many that is. Sure, I can wrap my head around it mathematically; it's eight times the ninth power of ten. But I can't produce an emotional response to a number with that kind of magnitude. You probably can't either.

Here's some more food for thought. For most of us eight billion people, life really sucks. And I don't mean the "I'm an overworked, underpaid, too-old virgin" kind of sucks. I mean the kind of sucks that neither you nor I will ever experience. I mean the shitty kind of life where you've barely got enough to survive, you spend your whole day working your fucking ass off for some slave driver (literally) who doesn't give a shit whether you live or die, and if you're lucky, you get a shack to sleep in and some barebone rations of a very poorly balanced diet.

Why does life suck like this for so many people? Well, there are three main reasons:

1. Large population
2. Limited resources
3. Monopoly of the vast majority of the limited resources by a very small minority of the large population.

Number 3 is the most important, the most overlooked, and sadly, the least escapable of these. Humans are greedy bastards. How did the ones on top get there? Read a history textbook for that one. This is a philosophy essay. Why are humans such greedy bastards? Because we're Von Neumann machines. "The more easily all of you fuckers can go and make more of yourselves, the harder a time I'll have of it," compute the machines on top. "So, I'll do what pappy did, and what grandpappy did, and so on, and keep depriving you of as much resources as I can, all the while enslaving you. That way, you'll spend so much time working for me that you'll only have enough time left over to keep reproducing my disposable workforce. Then I can reproduce as much or as little as I want, have myself a sole heir, and train my heir to rinse and repeat when I finally snuff it for some damn rich bastard reason. So please understand, it's not about having more for me, it's just about having less for you."

Number 2 is pretty self-explanatory. Mother Earth is just one planet. Her renewable resources can only turn over at a limited rate, and she can only give so much. We can conserve resources, and we should, but even that only goes so far.

Number 1 is the clincher. The larger a population is, the more it feels the effects of the limited resources. So, where does our large population come from?

Babies.

But where do babies come from?

Fucking.

That's right. The human population is so fucking large because and only because we are Von Neumann machines and most of us do not break our programming as such. But why don't most of us break our programming, even though probably all of us know that doing so would make life suck so much less for everyone?

The answer is "because life sucks." When your life sucks, even trivially so, you seek entertainment as an immediate remedy. Also, the easiest way to make a human do something is to turn it into entertainment. We are Von Neumann machines. Our primary function as Von Neumann machines is to make more of ourselves. We do this by fucking. We can break the program by will, but will often crumbles in the face of entertainment. So the program turned fucking into our most primal, cheapest, and easiest form of entertainment.

Life sucks, so humans fuck, which makes more humans, causing life to suck more. Rinse, repeat.

How the fuck do we solve this? The obvious solution is to spread knowledge and materials for contraception, but let's back up to the monopoly factor. (It was number 3 in the above list of reasons life sucks, remember?) A few generous souls may try to carry out the obvious solution by grassroots missions, but realistic, large-scale proliferation of birth control, even as simple as condoms, requires the cooperation of the monopoly, and it's not the monopoly's best interests to allow it.

Jonathan Swift had a rather modest proposal for solving this problem, and I think it could work. Just expand it to the global scale, ignore the fact that it's the oldest and greatest dead baby joke in English literature, and Bob's your uncle. There's just one problem. Swift hints at it, but I'll say it straight out.

The rich eating the poor isn't really all that different from what's going on already.

We outnumber them millions to one. We can take their fucking asses. Milk them for every goddamn drop they've got. Beg, sponge, swindle, and steal from those above. Borrow and collect from peers. And when you see someone worse off than you (no matter who you are, you will,) give.

Feed the poor. Eat the rich.

And for fuck's sake, try a little harder to break your fucking programming!