Lots

Well, this post is long delayed, behind the last 2 posts on the climate crisis & MMT. It's nice to be getting caught up.

#1, "Mythago Wood", by Robert Holdstock, 2003, 331 pages, 95k words. I suspect this was a cheapie from BookBub. So, virgin growth forest somewhere in rural England has magical powers: it instantiates corporeal instances of archetypal figures from the subconscious of humans living near it. A bad parent father & his 2 sons of course fixate on the warrior-princess Guinevere & succeed in creating several instances of her. I don't think you could write something more masturbatory if you tried. I won't be continuing with the series, LOL!

#2, "The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories" by Susanna Clarke, 2008, 243 pages, 66k words. 8 short stories set in the universe of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell". In general charming and, given Clarke's known issues with chronic pain which greatly limit her output, I was very appreciative to get to read these. And, again, "Piranesi" was 1 of the best books I have read in the last few years.

#3, "The Iron Dragon's Mother" by Michael Swanwick, 2019, 402 pages, 109k words. Swanwick was 1 of my favs Back In The Day. "Vacuum Flowers" was totally iconic when it 1st came out in 1987. This story is not bad, faerie overlapping with the mundane world, lots of plot, yak yak yak, etc. But, a bit too feudal for my current tastes.

#4, "The Once and Future Witches", by Alix E. Harrow, 2020, 555 pages, 151k words. What a great read! Totally conflating the women's suffrage movement of the early 20th century with a movement to restore women's witchcraft to public life! I'm so proud of Harrow, a fellow Kentuckian, who I believe lives in Madison County, 30 or so miles SE of me. How has no one else ever remarked on the fact that witches instantiate most effectively as trios of sisters: the 3 witches in Macbeth, in Cinderella, in Hocus Pocus! Oops, I have 3 daughters!!! A really great read, I was sorry when it was over.

#5 & #6, "The Dreamblood Duology", by N.K. Jemisin, 2016, 948 pages, 257k words. The original 2 novels were "The Killing Moon" and "The Shadowed Sun". A very unique mythos, with a monkish sect which has a few different flavors who manage life, health, dreams, and death. A very compelling read.

#7, "Robot Artists & Black Swans", by Bruno Argento (aka Bruce Sterling living in Turin (Torino) Italy), 2021, 311 pages, 84k words, 7 stories. This is a totally great collection of stories. I really wish Sterling were more productive, he has written so much groundbreaking SF over the last 35 years. And he actually follows me on Twitter, FTW, thanks Bruce! 1 thing I love about this collection is that several of stories have quantum endings: is the cat alive or dead? It doesn't matter! IT DOESN'T MATTER! What a great storyteller!

#8, "Little Brother", by Cory Doctorow, 2008, 399 pages, 108k words. I bought this in hardback several years ago (so I could pass it on), I think that contributed to my just getting around to reading it. What a great book! I read it in 1 day, I totally haven't done that in a while! Teenagers vs the fascist Department of Homeland Security - who are you going to root for? Kudos, next up "Pirate Cinema". Doctorow is indeed the Bard of the Revolution! Preach it!

Yay, caught up on blogging books read! What can I get caught up on next?

My Latest Mad Scheme

My last post was my review/summary of Bill Gates' book "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster". As I mentioned there, throughout most of the book, he kept talking about "how much this would cost", and "how expensive this is", and "Green Premiums" (cost differentials). And as I mentioned in that post, the whole time, I'm like, "wait a minute - MMT sez, worrying about costs is stupid. Money is software. The Fed can print as much as it wants."

At the end of the post, I proposed the following:

I kept having this thought as I approached the end of this book: how about we put 2 grad students to work and rewrite this book making the following changes: 1 grad student tallies how much everything costs - pretty much just as a thought experiment (Gedankenexperiment).

Meanwhile, grad student #2 identifies what the resources involved are, and where there are potential shortages thereof. We then know what we REALLY have to worry about trying to avoid a climate disaster. The other, the $$$, is BS.

OK, so now we've got the 2 grad students' data. What do we do with it? Why, we use it to support My Latest Mad Scheme, of course!

1. We clone both grad students for every country on earth. The clones replicate the computations for every country on earth.
2. We total up all the $$$ that are required to save the planet from the climate crisis for every country on earth. This total we call "$$$NeededToSaveThePlanet"
3. The World Bank creates a "Save The Planet" GL account.
4. Every country in the world with their own fiat currency computes their share of $$$NeededToSaveThePlanet from the following chart, taken from this Jan 2020 article.
   I think that this is fair - current wealth is probably fairly proportional to a country's share of CO2 that is in the atmosphere.
   
5. These countries then direct their central banks to create their share of the $$$NeededToSaveThePlanet and put it in the World Bank "Save The Planet" account. They do not create any entry for these $$$ in their national accounting or debt. This is something that the world will share together. As far as their national accounts are concerned, it is if these $$$ never existed.
6. For countries without fiat currencies, the fiat currency countries pick up their share, proportionally. The ECB covers all the EuroZone countries.
7. We then solve the climate crisis. The world spends from this account as is needed. If it runs short, all the contributing countries contribute again proportionally. What do they care if they do this? It is not going against any of their national account balances. Their Fed equivalent just creates a $$$ amount & places it in the World Bank "Save The Planet" account and forgets about it.
   At 1 point I thought, withdrawals are based on a country's population. But this is wrong, population doesn't matter. What matters is past, current, and future CO2 produced. But again, who cares? When the $$$ run out, the printing presses roll! MMT, FTW!
8. Grifters & other deviant capitalists (they're all just trying to make a buck, i.e., practice capitalism) will of course be a problem. We fund as much % of $$$NeededToSaveThePlanet as is needed to identify and remove from circulation the grifters. And, regardless, if they screw the $$$ #s up, we just PRINT MORE $$$.

So, that's the easy part. Let me repeat it - let me shout it out loud: THAT IS THE EASY PART! [And I think Bill Gates will still be worth > $100B after we do it. So, come on Bill, get on board! MMT FTW!]

The hard part is the resources. And tallying and computing the resources required.

And I think the even harder part is the tech: the 19 technologies Gates identified as being needed to save the planet.

But, following the flow above, we don't have to worry about funding the research for new tech. Just print the damn $$$. And keep our fingers crossed that most of the 19 techs Gates indentified (1 of which was nuclear fusion) are NOT like nuclear fusion, which has been 40 years away for the last 70 years.

OK! Climate crisis averted! Thank you in advance for all your hard work saving the planet! And remember, cost is no obstacle! There is no cost too great, no amount of meaningless $$$ we cannot create, if we can save the human race from extinction!

You're welcome!