Educational

Over 1,000 people with Ph.D.s got this question wrong when it was first published in a magazine. I did too. How smart are you?

You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn't pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead.

Which gives you better odds of picking the car? Changing doors or sticking with the one you picked originally?

Ready for the answer? Click here.

From Parable to Reality

Disclaimer:
The words below are not written by me. They were written, along with the 20-part story I have also posted on this blog, by Louis Even, a French-Canadian, in the 1930s. I have changed his references to Canada to Australia below for better emphasis.
- Danu

Louis Even

The debt-money system introduced by Oliver into the Salvation Island made the little community sink into financial debt in proportion as it developed and enriched the island by its own work.
This is exactly what happens in our civilized countries, is it not?

Australia of today is certainly richer, in real wealth, than it was 50, 100 years ago, or in the pioneers' age. But compare the national debt, the sum of all public debts of Australia today with this sum 50, 100 years, three centuries ago!

Yet the Australians themselves produced this enrichment by their labour and their know-how. Then why should they be collectively indebted for the result of their own activities?

For example, consider the schools, the municipal aqueducts, the bridges, roads and other fabrics of public character. Who build them all? Builders of the country. Who supply them with the needed materials? Manufacturers of the country. And how come they can be employed in public works? Because there are other kinds of workers who produce food, clothes, shoes, who supply all the things and services required for the wants of the constructors and manufacturers.

Thus the whole population of Australia by its work of different kinds, produce all those developments. If we must obtain goods from abroad, we send other goods abroad in counterpart of them.

Now, what do you see? Everywhere the citizens are taxed to pay those schools, those hospitals, those bridges, roads and other public works. The Australians, as a collectivity, are thus compelled to pay what they produce as a collectivity.

You pay much more than the double price

And this is not all. The population is made to pay more than the price of what it produced. Their own production — a real enrichment — has become for the Australians a debt burdened with interest. When years add to years, the sum of the interests can equal or even exceed the amount of the debt imposed by the system.

It happens that the population may have to pay two, three times the cost of what its members produced. [click to continue...]

I'm writing a book. Well, more a series of essays that I will publish as a book. It's something I've always wanted to do, and indeed have attempted a few times. When I was younger I used to write short stories a lot, and the occasional fictional adventure of 20-30 pages. I look back at them now and cringe, not because they weren't any good - they were pretty good for age 15 - but because I haven't done anything like it since.

The last time I tried to write a book I was 18. It was called 'The Loneliest Number' - a psychological thriller about a group of people who flew to a tropical island under the impression that they had won a holiday prize but really were to be tortured and experimented on by a wealthy, deeply disturbed psychopath. Forced to betray and manipulate each other through a series of controlled experiments, they would be slowly exterminated one by one as their captor sought the most cunning among them so he could pit himself against them one-on-one in a final battle of wits, with a shocking finale.

I got a reasonable way into it and then perhaps in some sort of hundredth monkey moment, a show called Survivor came out and started the reality TV craze, which dampened my enthusiasm for the project considerably. Life had also taken some other turns and my interest in writing all but vanished for a long time. Much later another show called Lost started. I look back at my notes for The Loneliest Number now and am surprised how similar some of the central themes are to Lost. The producers of that project do a much better job than I ever could of course, and perhaps it is little wonder that Lost is my favourite show.

Perhaps if I get enough interest I will post what I wrote of The Loneliest Number. It was done in 1999-2000 and gives some interesting insight into where my mind was running at that time.

Since my company folded about a year ago I have found myself rediscovering many of my old favourite pursuits. This blog was born out of a desire to start writing again and I'm pleased to find I've been able to keep it up for these last six months to the point where it has now become a habitual part of my day. When I started the blog I didn't care if anybody read it or not, it was mostly for my own enjoyment. Nevertheless I've been surprised and touched to find that people do read it and find some value in it.

I'm taking the same approach with the book I am writing. It's a book I have wanted to read and recommend to people, but I haven't found it anywhere yet so I have decided to write it myself. It's about surviving in a world of computers and what it means to be technologically literate, written from the point of view of someone who sees the computer revolution as something as wild with possibility and excitement as the moon landing or the birth of a new republic; written for people who for one reason or another have been living under a stone and are in danger of sinking like one in this new age.

I have been thinking about it for a while now. It was even a project I was kicking around when the company was still up and running. Happily my ideas have been coming together more solidly of late and I'm now confident I can write the book I want to read. I'm announcing it here mostly as a way of committing myself to actually doing it.

You'll hear more about it as I work on it, I'll probably even post each chapter as I write it. Feedback and suggestions are welcome as always. I'd like to have it finished by the end of the year. I'm still thinking about how it will all fit together, but I'm using 'Living in the Cloud' as a working title. Let me know what you think!

Farewell to Salvation Island

After the opening of the barrel, and the revelation of his duplicity, nothing further was heard of Oliver.

Shortly after, a ship, crusing off the normal navigation route, noticed signs of life on this uncharted island, and cast anchor a short distance offshore.

The men learned that the ship was en route to their own country. So they decided to take with them what they could carry, and return to their own country.

Above all, they made sure to take back with them the album, “The First Year of Social Credit”, which had proven to be their salvation from the hands of the financier, Oliver, and which had illuminated their minds with an inextinguishable light.

All five solemnly promised to get in touch with the management of this paper, once back in their own country, and to become devoted and zealous apostles of the Cause of Social Credit in their country.

Next - From Parable to Reality

The Fraud Unmasked

To protect themselves against any future claim by Oliver, our five men decided to make him sign a document attesting that he again possessed all he had when he first arrived on the island.

An inventory was taken; the boat, the oars, the little press, and the famous barrel of gold.

Oliver had to reveal where he had hidden the gold. Our boys hoisted it from the hole with considerably less respect than the day they had unloaded it from the boat. Social Credit had taught them to despise gold.

The prospector, who was helping to lift the barrel, found it surprisingly light for gold. If the barrel was full, he told the others, there was something in it besides gold.

The impetuous Frank didn't waste a moment; a blow of the axe, and the contents of the barrel was exposed.

Gold? Not so much as a grain of it! Just rocks — plain, worthless rocks! Our men couldn't get over the shock.

“Don't tell us that he could bamboozle us to this extent!”

“Were we such muttonheads as to go into raptures over the mere mention of gold?”

“Did we mortgage all of our possessions for a few pieces of paper based on a few pounds of rocks? It's a robbery, compounded with lies!”

“To think that we sulked and almost hated one another all because of such a fraud! That devil!”

Furious, Frank raised his axe. In great haste, the banker has already taken flight towards the forest.

Next - Farewell to Salvation Island

The Banker's Despair

Everyone understood. The members of this little community became Social Crediters. The following day, Oliver, the banker, received a letter signed by the five:

“Dear sir! Without the slightest necessity you have plunged us into debt and exploited us. We don't need you anymore to run our money system. From now on, we'll have all the money we need without gold, debts, nor thieves. We are establishing, at once, the system of Social Credit on the island. The national dividend is going to replace the national debt.

“If you insist on being repaid, we can repay you all the money you gave us. But not a cent more. You cannot lay claim to that which you have not made.”

Oliver was in despair. His empire was crumbling. His dreams shattered. What could he do?
Arguments would be futile. The five were now Social Crediters: money and credit were now not more mysterious to them than they were to Oliver.

“Oh!” said Oliver. “These men have been won to Social Credit! Their doctrine will spread far more quickly than mine. Should I beg forgiveness? Become one of them? I, a financier and a banker? Never! Rather, I shall try and put as much distance between them and me as I can!”

Next - The Fraud Unmasked