The N-Soul Problem

In a couple of recent posts I discussed the phenomenon of megaprojects - that is, those large-scale, costly projects which are undertaken by a society when all of its members become united in the pursuit of  particular goals which the megaprojects are designed to meet.  The pursuit of the goal embodied by the megaproject alters the lives of everyone in the society undertaking the project, because it requires each member of the society to make a sacrifice in order to contribute toward the goal.  Perhaps the earliest historical example of a megaproject is the Tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9.  More recent examples of megaprojects include the war economies which were arranged by the various governments which fought World War Two, as well as the rebuilding of some of those economies which occurred in the aftermath of that war.  The U.S. space program became something of a megaproject in the 1960's when President Kennedy set the goal of landing an American on the moon before the end of the decade.  A much more prosaic example of a megaproject is the construction of the U.S. interstate highway system under President Eisenhower during the 1950's.

I'd like to suggest that megaprojects play a key role in the wholesale transformation and advance of a society.  I'd also like to suggest that there are three important conditions which must be fulfilled in order for a megaproject to realize its full transformative potential:

1. The leaders of a society must be wise in their choice of the goal which a megaproject is supposed to meet;
2. The leaders must present the vision and goal of the megaproject in a way that unites the souls of the members of society behind that goal;
3. And, the leaders must be wise in organizing the contributions of each member of the society in fulfilling that goal.

It is at points 2 and 3 that trouble can come.  Point 1 is also a place of potential trouble - if the leaders of a society choose an unrighteous goal, eventually their project will fail, as the builders of Babel found out.  But I'd like to focus especially on the pitfalls contained in points 2 and 3.  The success of point 2 depends not only on the wisdom and persuasiveness of the leaders of a society, but also on all the members of the society itself.  For instance, if the members of a society are generally unselfish and willing to make contributions toward a greater good, they can be more easily united behind a good goal.  If, however, the members of a society are rabidly selfish and individualistic, then it becomes much harder for any leader to unite them behind the sort of transformative goal that requires an unselfish contribution from each member.  The success or failure of point 3 depends on the humility (or lack thereof) of the leaders of the society.  The leaders will have the greatest chance of success if they recognize that the people from whom they are asking contributions bring not only their material wealth and the strength of their bodies, but also their minds (or souls) - that is, their unique ideas and perspectives.  Those leaders who set a goal and then "hire" the members of their societies "from the shoulders down" as mere drones to fulfill the grand plan of the leaders may find their grand plan failing.

Now one way to destroy a society's ability to conceive and implement megaprojects is to destroy that society's ability to combine.  This is what happened at the Tower of Babel when God confused the languages of everyone on earth because their unified goal was evil.  But it is also possible for evil agents to confuse the ability of a society to undertake large-scale transformative projects of good.  How is this done?  Simply by teaching or persuading a majority of the members of the society to become selfish, materialistic, and individualistic.  This has been the trajectory of American society over the last four decades under the influence of right-wing American media.  It should be no surprise therefore that the ability of the U.S. to engage in transformative megaprojects has declined as well (at the same time that loneliness and alienation in American society has increased).  There is an urgent need for the kind of transformative megaprojects that can enable the United States to weather the 21st century challenges of declining resource availability, increasing environmental degradation, and a changing climate.  But rigid adherence to free-market ideology and excessive reliance on private-sector solutions is hindering the emergence of the needed megaprojects.  A case in point is the success with which the American Right attacked the Green New Deal.

On the other hand, there are the societies of China and Singapore, in which the coordination between the State and private industry is much tighter, and there is still a fair amount of collective spirit.  As a result, China has the most advanced urban infrastructure in the world, and leads the world in rapid transit technology including high-speed rail.  In fact, China is now a major exporter of high-speed rail technology.  Similarly, the Chinese higher education system is the result of intense, goal-oriented State strategic planning which has begun to produce universities which are among the most prestigious in the world.  (Consider Tsinghua University, for instance, which is among the top twenty universities worldwide according to one metric.)  This is occurring at a time in which many American universities are declining in world rankings due to a lack of public funding for basic research.  And the story of Singapore is no less impressive, as demonstrated by the article cited at the end of this post.  But a problem arises in more collectivist societies if the leaders of those societies become insecure and hence begin to assert an unhealthy level of control over the initiative of their private members.  Hence, Chinese President Xi Jinping's actions and policies have begun to threaten the megaproject of Chinese transformation begun by Deng Xiaoping.

So we have two ends of a continuum: on the one hand, rampant, laissez-faire individualism which prevents people from combining in any way to achieve goals larger than the individual, and on the other hand, a central control which quashes individual initiative and stifles diverse insights.  The United States lies on one end of this continuum and is declining as a result.  China under Xi Jinping has begun to move toward the other end of the continuum and has begun to suffer as a result.  Physicists and astronomers sometimes talk about the n-body problem - that is, the problem of trying to mathematically describe the motions of three or more bodies in orbit around a common center.  I'd like to suggest what I call the "n-soul problem" - that is, how to organize people into groups that most effectively undertake transformative projects for good.  Those who successfully solve this problem will do well.  

For further reading on megaprojects, see "Megaprojects for Megaregions: Global Cases and Takeaways" by John Landis and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Megaprojects And The Curse of Babel

Today's post will be short.  I am zealously trying to guard my schedule because my business has three projects that are due within the next four weeks or so.  (This isn't much fun right now - I long to be an author of fiction sometimes, as I see pictures of authors with relaxed contemplative faces lounging at uncluttered desks...)  But I want to discuss the theme of last week's post a little more and offer a road map for further exploration.  

Last week's post discussed Elon Musk and his boasts that he will establish a colony on Mars.  That post described the physical challenges of trying to get to Mars via rockets whose thrust comes from chemical combustion.  Today I want to mention various estimates of the cost of such a venture.  According to a 2017 report by the Institute for Defense Analysis, the total cost of developing a manned mission to Mars is $120.6 billion in 2017 dollars.  According to former U.S. astronaut and ISS mission commander Steve Swanson, those costs would run from $100 billion to $500 billion.  Elon Musk is purportedly worth $195.6 billion at present.  He seems to have lost another $100 billion between the start of 2022 and now.  If he were to try to send even one mission to Mars out of his own pocket, I think it's safe to say that he would no longer be a high-flying celebrity afterward.  He might wind up needing to take a job as a shopping cart jockey or shelf stocker at a local supermarket.  (The Winco near my house is hiring, by the way.)

In other words, I don't think Musk has so much as a snowball's chance on Venus of sending anyone to Mars.  So why the hype about Musk and SpaceX, then?  That is a question whose answer will require a fair amount of research.  But its beginnings can be traced to the decision by the administration of George W. Bush to begin to privatize delivery of rocket-launched payloads into low Earth orbit.  Due to Musk's friendship with former NASA chief Michael Griffin, Musk's company was awarded the contract for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program to develop commercial resupply rockets for the International Space Station in 2006, even though Musk's company "had never flown a rocket" before, according to Wikipedia.  This award is even more surprising, given that twenty well-established aerospace companies had also bid on the project.  

So it seems that from the start, SpaceX has been a beneficiary of corporate welfare.  And as a beneficiary of corporate welfare, SpaceX may well become a poster child of the effects of privatization on the ability of societies to engage in large-scale, transformative projects.  I'd like to suggest that privatized societies dominated by hyper-capitalists lose this ability over time.  I'd like to suggest further that societies which want to advance in substantive, paradigm-shifting ways need to learn to engage in megaprojects.  These megaprojects cannot be left entirely to the private sector.  Neither can they be entirely the province of governments.  Rather, both government and the private sector must learn to negotiate a healthy balance.  Where this balance is unhealthy, graft and corruption appear and megaprojects do not deliver on their promises.  Crony capitalism is a state of unbalance, and turning free market ideology into a fetish tends to turn societies into crony capitalist states dominated by large players with contradictory self-interests.  

The corrosive effect of crony capitalism on a society's ability to undertake large-scale projects is most clearly seen when a crony capitalist society is hit by a sudden challenge, test, or shock.  One example of this is the botched response of the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina.  Another possible example may well be the botched response of the Japanese government and private industry to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.  (Author Haruki Murakami offers a surprisingly insightful criticism of the response to Fukushima in his book Novelist as a Vocation.)  For an example of the damage which a self-inflicted shock can cause to the systems of a crony capitalist society, we need look no farther than the failure of Russian military hardware and supplies during Russia's attempt to conquer Ukraine.  By the way, that failure is a fine example of the propagation of the outworkings of damnation in a society that ought to be damned.  Putin has reaped what he has sown - and he is not enjoying the reaping.  My hope is that things become even more unpleasant for him and for the Russian military. 

If crony capitalism has extended even to space exploration, I imagine that space itself will inflict yet another unexpected shock.  Lives will be lost.  Because Musk seems to want to portray himself as a doer of megaprojects, the rest of us must ask whether he represents a case of healthy balance between the public and private sector, or whether he is actually a case of crony capitalism.

It would be instructive to delve in more detail into the subject of megaprojects, their role in societal development, and the potential for forfeiting this development by means of privatization and crony capitalism.  But I'm out of time today...