Hello? McFly?

There's a whole lot more to talk about, but it's worthless if you haven't grok'd and swallowed the below post. Read it as many times as you need to.

Then spend a weekend or two fantasizing wildly what you'd do if your pissant three million could return several hundred million doing absolutely nothing.

And then take a day off work and think about who you would want to have dinner with once you were the financier of the world's most loving and creative corporation (not to mention most lucrative).

Then, put on some man pants and grow a pair.

History is not for the meek.

Then grunt or some shit.

There's plenty left to do once you're ready to move on.

The History of the World Starting Tomorrow

Here it is--as simple as I can put it.

The economy is made up of three sectors: tangible goods, intangible goods and untangible goods.

Tangible goods are things like pistons or ball bearings, or cars.

Intangible goods are things like energy and intelligence.

Untangible goods are things like creativity, caring, love, relaxation, and soul.

World history has been made up (so far) of three distinct periods--each corresponding to one sector of the economy. (You could just as easily say one sector of the world but let's keep it economic for the moment.)

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The tangible age was characterized by cause and effect physics. Human mastery of cause and effect physics led directly, by the end of the Renaissance in Europe, to a society where two or three percent of the population was free from a "nasty, brutish an short" existence.

This small percentage of the population enjoyed education, rights, political representation, protection from arbitrary harassment and many other modern conditions. Though they may or may not have been happy.

These gains took between 1,000 and 10,000 years and benefited perhaps a million people.

The majority of these gains were achieved only after intellectuals put their lives on the line to challenge superstition, the authorities of the time, and the church to implement reason.

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The INtangible age was characterized by probability theory, or quantum physics.

Human mastery of quantum physics led directly, by the end of the 20th century, to societies where most of the population was free from a "nasty brutish and short" existence and enjoyed access to education, relative material safety, the latest technology, political representation, etc., etc.

They may or may not have been happy.

These achievements took around 100 years--and benefited perhaps a billion people.

And were garnered only after artists and inventors challenged the superstition of social norms.

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What few people realize is that the quantum age has been as massively disproven by Hubble as Newton's tangible age was by Einstein.

We just don't know what's next.

Until now, that is.

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Quantum physics said that the universe should be shrinking.

Experiencing negative growth.

But we know mathematically, from the observations of Hubble and others, that not only is the universe not shrinking, it's growing.

And not only is is growing, it's rate of growth is accelerating constantly.

This is hard to fathom, as we're at the height of our love affair with quantum physics. We have adapted relativity in a fundamental way into our philosophy, our ethics, our politics, our economics, our spirituality, our education, and our popular culture.

Relativity, post-modernism, probability, the critical method and REASON have become what superstition and the Catholic Church were to 1400s era Europe. The sole arbitrator of salvation.

We believe that global warming, the trade deficit, violence in the middle east and inner city gangs can all be solved with enough study, repression (usually called discipline), hard work and education.

With the proper application of the critical method.

What we don't know, and will soon learn, is that it is the critical method itself that exacerbates if not causes these problems.

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If the tangible world is represented by material things: stuff..

And the intangible world is represented by the somewhat quantifiable, somewhat mysterious energy and intellect (or reason)..

Then the the UNtangible world is represented by feeling. Emotion. Pleasure. Enjoyment. Mystery. Being. In whatever form we choose to slice it.

And it may be that untangibles are all that exist--and that the tangible and intangible worlds are just frozen untangibles.

This would be very similar to what we learned about the material world when Einstein told us that matter (the tangible) was nothing more than frozen energy (intangibles).

A more accurate description of reality may be that both matter and energy are simply frozen untangibles.

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If mastering the tangible world got a few percent of us rich at the end of the Newtonian era (in all the ways one can get rich tangibly)..

And mastering the intangible world got most of us rich at the end of the Quantum era (in all the ways on can get rich materially and intellectually/energetically)..

Then mastering the untangible world will most likely make just about all of us rich materially, energetically/intellectually AND creatively/spiritually/emotionally.


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And, as the rate at which we learn and share information appears to be accelerating along with the universe--that is by a factor of at least ten with the introduction of each new paradigm--we should reasonably be able to expect that it will happen in a period of ten or so years.

If the tangible era returned it's rewards in a thousand years or so (it could really be much longer).

And the quantum era returned it's rewards in a hundred or so.

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Then this next burst of growth, advancement, and unimagined solutions will likely happen in ten years or so.

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Once the ball gets rolling, that is.

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Blasphemy, you say.

No, no, no.

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How very quantum of you, I reply.

How very, very quantum.

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Let me tell you--your rational mind--exactly how it will happen.

The consequence of these numbers will so challenge your current authority--your reason--that it's likely your emotion will over-ride your reason and you will willingly blind yourself to the very simple, almost common-sensical and certain mathematics of these facts.

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Being quantum children, we were raised to believe, as if it were god's own truth, that to gain anything a sacrifice is required.

This is the gospel of the material world--both tangible and intangible.

(Note: one suggestion of how much more efficient untangible growth will be is that both the tangible and intangible are still somewhat tangible--and thus require friction, drama, energy and difficulty to move and change. The untangible world, on the other hand, requires no friction or additional energy to move or change. In fact, it may move and change--that is grow--on its own. In tangible and intangible science, entropy rules, in the untangible, growth and order seem to be the constants.)

The intangible world told us we had to sacrifice much, much less to gain what we wanted (in relation to what the tangible world told us we had to sacrifice), but it never asked if somehow there were gains to be made without sacrifice at all.

Thus, religions told us in the 1970s that we had to think positive thoughts to attain salvation. Whereas a lifetime of purity of thought and deed was required in the 1790s. Similarly, becoming a millionaire required generations of toil in the 1800s, where just 100 years later it could be done fairly routinely with readily available education and 10 to 20 years of serious work.

I would suggest that these diminishing sacrifices extended to many if not most aspects of human growth.

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In science the quantum age told us that we could know EITHER the position OR the velocity of a particle.

In our personal lives it meant we could EITHER have money OR time. Either great sex OR intellectual stimulation.

But these "truths" are no more true than the tangible age's "truths" that we could never have money NOR time. That we could never have great sex NOR intellectual stimulation. That we could never rise above the position of our parents. That we could never live like kings. That we could never afford sanitation, universal education or freedom for everyone. That we could never rest without starving.

Even though we came to have all these things in a very short time once we accepted that the heresies of our time were what we really wanted all along.

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And I can tell you exactly how and why the unfathomably wonderful, rich, enjoyable and pleasurable world that all this data points to will be created.

And, even more importantly, how it will be paid for.

I can tell you exactly what it will mean for your life individually and what it will mean for our collective lives socially and culturally.

It's an unbelievable sight to be sure.

Suffice it to say that we are as blind to what is coming very, very quickly as our 1890 relatives were to the car, universal suffrage, nuclear energy, the creation of the middle class, planes and air travel, unions, desk jobs, phones, cell phones, ball point pens, computers, leisure time, vacations, desk jobs, retirement, sane health care, modern dentistry, clean municipal drinking water, free K-12 education, Microsoft millionaires, home ownership, clean air, consumer protections and all the other amenities of modern life that we now accept as our birthright.

Except that their gains were largely material and energetic/intellectual and ours will be material, energetic/intellectual AND emotional/creative and spiritual.

That is, where they got time, energy and stuff; we'll get time, energy, stuff and meaning.

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I started by describing the world in economic terms for a very specific reason.

This isn't a scientific exposition or a social plea, but a hard-nosed economic revelation.

What I'm about to describe will make billions of people billions of dollars.

It will allow even more to live lives happier and with more "free" time than any society has ever even hoped to posit.

This is an economic opportunity along the lines of getting in on General Electric before Edison.

Or Microsoft before Bill Gates hired Paul Allen.

Or Google before...

You get the idea.

It's neither snake oil nor New Age hooey.

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I don't want you to want this because it's nice, but for what it will mean concretely to the lives of you and your family.

From here on out.

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Starting tomorrow.

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We have a glaring and blatant economic hole in the very middle of our economy that is responsible for everything from the trade deficit with China to the environmental destruction we see all around us.

And a whole lot more.

This systemic price aberration is so small and seemingly insignificant that it has gone unseen for a hundred years.

Not a single economist knows of it's existence. Even though they must be blind not to see it.

And it reveals hedge funds as sluggish and lazy investments.

It will make even menial workers in developed nations rich. And laborers in undeveloped ones middle class.

And, just like the Catholic Church after the Renaissance, the normal, square, economy will experience an incalculably massive loss in status, power, clout and importance after this aberration is discovered.

GE, Microsoft and Google may even be reduced to the status of the Catholic Church today in five or ten years--fighting for their very existence.

MIT and Stanford might just wither on the vine.

Such is the nature of growth.

It is exactly when an entity is at it's strongest--and seemingly invincable--that it is most likely to render its environment inhabitable.

And die off completely.

Just like dinosaurs.

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And it is precisely THROUGH weakness and vulnerability (in relation to the previous environment) that a new entity adapts thoroughly enough to become dominant in the new, previously thought to be uninhabitable, environment.

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This pricing aberration lies, as you have likely figured by now, in how we price untangibles.

Think about it:

In the tangible age we valued material goods based upon their demand but refused to allow intangible goods--that is reasoned ideas--to be valued at all.

We did this by suppressing "blasphemous" speech, writing, conversations or artwork and killing or silencing everyone who attempted to value them.

In the quantum age, being somewhat more enlightened, it wasn't suppression of others that kept us blind from the truth, but REpression of ourselves.

We repress desires, dreams, enjoyments, relaxation, creativity and mystery. We schedule free time, mediate the unmediated, and insist upon reasons, measures and sense.

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But, as history shows (despite what Machiavelli said), the longer an entity is oppressed, the more likely its overthrow attempt is to succeed.

Or--more accurately--the more likely it is that the oppressor will crumble under its own weight and be unable to survive in the resulting environment.

And, the more completely it was oppressed, the more likely it is to thoroughly and permanently replace the system that kept it down.

Which is why the only significant surviving authoritarian regimes are the ones that have allowed their people to change with the times--to reform and have piecemeal advances. (The rest are backwaters and eddys--essentially overlooked and unloved statistical deviations that become more likely to effortlessly "right" themselves every day).

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Where this emotional repression meets the physical world--where the rubber meets the road and we make our self-denial universal and enforceable social denial is, as I mentioned before, in how we price our untangibles.

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What the fuck is an untangible price?

$14.99 is an untangible price. $.99 is an untangible price.

There really aren't very many.

That's the problem.

$10 is one.

$14 is one.

$24 is one.

And free is one.

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Those are the prices of compact disks, downloaded songs, movie admissions, paperback books, hardcover books, and network television and radio.

Respectively.

DVDs are usually around $24.

Cable TV $30 a month.

Magazines $4.50 or so.

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These are all socialized, or arbitrarily fixed prices.

In fact, almost all our untangible goods, sometimes described as content, are sold at fixed prices.

Based not on consumer demand, or quality, or value--or even the creation costs--but, on nothing.

(They're actually based on what it used to cost to print and distribute books and records. Which is entirely arbitrary in relationship to the value and costs of the content.)

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All content in today's global economy is priced arbitrarily.

Arbitrarily low.

Which means we CAN ONLY have a disposable, fast food culture.

And this is our silent Inquisition.

Our invisible Berlin Wall.

The barrier that's killing us and teaching us how much it means to be alive and free at the same time.

Which means that it's crumbling as we speak.

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What we'll find when it's gone is meaning.

Enjoyment.

Time.

Pleasure.

Wonder.

Joy.

Happiness.

--Plentiful and high quality untangibles.

And they will all be profitable.

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In fact, just as high quality intangibles are now among our most profitable goods, high quality untangibles will become the same.

Except that in a new era, the definition of profitable will be radically reworked.

Upward.

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Just as thinking rationally overtook physical labor and superstition in the quantum age..

So will feeling enjoyably overtake thinking in the coming age.

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It's what we want.

And eventually we'll pay for it.

Through higher, floating, content prices for books, movies, tv shows, songs and the like.

Call it the Inspiration Economy.

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We don't worship celebrity because we're vacuous..

It's that we can't quench our thirst for ANYTHING ANY artists do because we're so desperate and hungry for the untangibles they allow themselves to consume and and create. (And those that we imagine they allow themselves--not a huge percentage of our current culture workers allow themselves many high quality untangibles-it simply doesn't pay.)

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Interestingly, it's our very fear of launching sustained explorations into the realm of the untangible that keeps the untangibles we do have superficial and trite.

We won't pay for anything deeper than Bruno and Carrie Ann's Dance Wars.

Or Brittany Spears--may god bless her.

Some try to go deeper, but they do so knowing that they will shrink their audience.

And that that directly equals economic and career failure.

With the price of a song fixed, the only way to grow as an artist--measured by any means--is to sell more.

Making better or different songs, to the degree that it will or may shrink your audience, is failure.

If, that is, an artist expects to enjoy modern amenities such as love relationships, health insurance, housing and reliable transportation.

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Because they know the gig from day one, these artists--who in essence subsidize our culture by providing untangible value for which they are not compensated--have a strong tendency toward depressing, oblique and incomprehensible work.

They also have a propensity towards exhaustion, burnout, overdose, premature death and mental and social problems.

OFTEN IN DIRECT PROPORTION TO THE QUALITY OF THE GIFTS THEY DISPLAY.

Not only do we not reward them at market rates--or competitive rates when looked at from the perspective of other industries--but we tax them with an insatiable demand to know every detail of their personal and mental life.

They make themselves vulnerable to subsidize the creation of our most valuable goods and we hire helicopters and photographers to follow them night and day.

To glean any possible detail they might have left out of their work.

That is literally insane.

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Counter-culture artists work a little differently.

Since they know they will not be rewarded financially or intellectually, they extract their payment up front in untangibles. They demand a badge of authenticity and realness--they demand that the audience admit their spiritual inferiority. WHich is why so many half-assed artists come off as arrogant. They are.

I'm almost always surprised by the willingness on the part of audiences to swallow this bullshit and enforced self-hatred but I guess it's a clear indication of just how hungry people are.

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From an economic point of view, all of this he said, she said bullshit isn't wrong, just inefficient.

The time artists spend protecting themselves, the energy used working barriers, defenses and detours into their work, the extra money audiences spend learning about artists outside their chosen mediums (why not reward more information INSIDE their chosen mediums?), the time spent touring because recording doesn't pay, the time spent designing t-shirts or working a day job when one would rather be creating--or even resting--all create an enormous intellectual, economic an dcreative drag on our culture.

Which is why it's often months or years between decent ideas these days. And the decent ideas seem to be getting smaller.

This is what happens in any socialized system. It gets weaker and less productive until it crumbles.

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This is market ignorance.

A fundamental, systemic inefficiency that cannot survive in a free, growing and diversifying world economy.

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Based on the gains of the material and quantum eras, I'd estimate that fixed prices on untangibles are costing us trillions every year.

Though it's likely much higher.

And that's just in dollars. The costs in lost intangibles (energy) and lost untangibles (feelings) are much, much higher.

In a very concrete way, THIS is why you hate your work.

You can't love it.

If you loved it, we've all agreed that you'd do it anyway. Which is completely untrue--you don't have any free time (another untangible) but whatever.

This is also why the world economy is moving upside down. With the cultural freedom of the US growing the least, the relative freedom of Europe in second place and the often authoritarian and superstitious developing world first.

So tell me--why isn't this like a drop out earning more than an MBA?

How the fuck could the dollar be below the Euro? Below the Loonie? When we invented not only their social and political system but also half their technology?

China isn't using ANYTHING but technology created in the West (in a general sense) and management techniques pioneered here. How can they be using them more efficiently--how could they be growing more quickly--unless there was an airtight cap on the system?

Unless the next phase or economic growth was arbitrarily retarded somehow?

Remember, the universe only grows--and the economy does the same thing. So how could is be slowing down in the most developed nations when the 100,000 year trend is acceleration?

You tell me. I'm serious. This is math, not art. Why would the first person to the gold mine--who owns all the stakes and licensing operations--why would his rate of return be falling while miners Joe, Bob and Harry--fresh off the train (that the old timers own); and renting tools, housing and expertise; are going gangbusters?

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Fixed untangible prices ensure that no one can work in the untangible sector profitably.

Meaning that they MUST make a living in the intangible and tangible sectors.

Meaning that since they cannot profit from the consumption of inspiration and time, they MUST consume energy (the hallmark of the intangible age) and tangible resources.

Even the Rolling Stones lose money in the studio writing songs.

They must pay for whatever time they spend writing songs touring with large numbers of semis and pumping out thousands of watts of energy to plastic cup consuming audiences.

If an artist--if anyone--wants to live in a developed nation, they MUST consume energy and natural resources (intangibles and tangibles) at an ever-growing rate.

It's an economic imperative.

There is simply no other way to make money--to grow.

Consuming and producing inspiration, creativity and other untangibles doesn't pay.

It can't in the economic system we've set up.

So even the best bands and song-writers are really just moving companies and beer garden entertainment with killer advertising.

They don't make money off their songs but from touring and playing live where people want them to.

You'd think artistry would be more green--and in places where prices aren't fixed--like painting and sculpture--it is. But in the mass mediums--which comprise most of our untangible activity these days--it certainly isn't.

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Oh, you're an economist yourself, huh?

You want numbers?

Alright, you little bitch.

You whore at the teat of critical thinking.

Who is so critical that you can't even believe your own system of pricing and economics.

Your own fucking math.

(What the fuck are you if you worship at the altar of reason and can't even apply it completely? Who are you if you're a capitalist that hasn't even fucking committed to demand? Not much I'd suggest.)

I'll give you your fucking numbers.

Because by now, it's obvious that your copious emotions--mostly fear--have shut down your rational capacity.

The intellectual in the fetal position as the true force of the universe rears it's confusing, wonderous and beautiful head.

(You thought the truth was cute and homoginized? That it could be contained and controlled? Explained? Reasoned? Dammed and channeled? Taught in classes that met at 8:30 every Tuesday morning in the same off-white clasroom with flourescent lighting? Peon.)

Just remember you're getting this for free, you fucking pussy. That I advertised it and brought it to you.

You didn't track me down.

You weren't interested and started a conversation at the grocery store.

You didn't respond to my emails or buy my book that did it instead of explaining it.

You waited for me to explain it in your language and serve it up lukewarm.

You claim to be on a search for the truth but will only look where some sell-out punk who has already failed will pay you to look.

Did you even miss a single meal?

Were you ever late on your rent?

Did you go without health insurance?

Have faith that god would find a way?

Did you give it even a year?

Did you do what you wanted once all the way?

Just remember that I spent ten years under the fucking pavers of your bullshit working to bring it to your stingy ass and you didn't give a fuck until I cleaned it off and painted it to look like the bullshit you considered real.

Just remember that you--collectively--didn't give a fuck and still don't that I'm living at home with my mother at 40 just to do this shit.

You haven't paid me a dime and will likely try to find new ways to keep from doing so.

And remember that you still won't believe tomorrow--when you wake up, turn to your warm and relaxed still sleeping wife and wonder momentarily if you should believe or not.

When you step in on your kids and are hit with the full-blown wonder of just their existence.

You will know how valuable all that is--with every fiber in your being--and yet you will do nothing.

You will leave and go out and insist to everyone you meet that the truth you experienced that morning was worth shit and that you, out and about, afraid and faithless, alone and empty, hopped up on coffee and muffins, being smart instead of happy--is what is valuable and true in this world.

And go on about being either the pimp or the whore that you have agreed to be.

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I will give you numbers.

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You fucking piece of shit.

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From 1000 AD to 1870--during the material era--the world GDP grew by a factor of roughly ten. (From $117,000 million to $1,100,000 in 1990 dollars).

Or it doubled (very roughly) every 250-300 years or so.

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Over the next hundred years of the quantum era, from 1870 to 1973, it grew from $1,100,000 million to $16,100,000 million.

Or by a factor of 16.

Meaning it doubled roughly every 25 years.

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As each of these rates correspond with the scientific paradigms that defined the periods during which they took place, it's no leap to suggest that the world economy could easily double every 2.5 years or so with the introduction and application of an entirely new scientific paradigm that takes into account and properly values the untangible, which from all evidence is the underlying basis of growth/value/power in the universe as we know it.

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So what is this untangible paradigm?

Ha, that's what I won't give away.

Not for free.

Not before lunch anyway.

I will tell you that in science it's known as dark matter and dark energy.

And is estimated to comprise at least 96% of the universe.

Vastly overpowering and constantly overriding all tangible and intangible forces such as gravity and electricity.

Every iota of matter and energy in the universe--down to the gravity that hold your feet to the ground and the friction that allows your heart to pump (and all the rest)--are immaterial in terms of who's controlling the show.

If matter and energy ruled the universe it would be shrinking.

And we know that it's not only growing but accelerating.

Meaning that this mysterious energy is in charge in a massive and comprehensive way.

Meaning that introducing it into our culture, economy and social structures is likely to yield proportionately valuable results.

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We "know" nothing about it.

Maybe because there's nothing to know.

Maybe because we are it but refuse to BELIEVE.

Or even suspend our comfortable disbelief.

Would this mean that, scientifically, we are able to overcome forces such as gravity and seeming certainties such as friction and decay?

It would appear so.

If you look at the situation from an entirely rational point of view, that is.

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Rationally it would appear that whatever we are is much, much, much more powerful than gravity, decay, inertia, illness, and just about all the other material and energetic limitations we have chosen to artificially accept as our reality.

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But we haven't even allowed content prices to float yet.

So we shouldn't have to worry about any of that weird shit for at least another two and a half years.

Bitch.