Crisis- 2038

by Gerald Huff

  “But let me return to income inequality. It cannot and should not be eliminated—but it does need to be addressed. We need to do three things. The first, as I mentioned, is to have a universal basic income so that people can live decent lives without needing to work at dehumanizing jobs. They should also be free to supplement that income, to the extent their talents and effort allow. This will probably require increased taxation on high incomes, but not so much that incomes become anywhere near level.

  “The second is to ensure that we have genuinely equal opportunity for all of those with talent, leadership abilities, or entrepreneurial spirit. This requires a much more effective educational system, one designed to give everyone the same opportunity to develop and express their talents.

  “I believe we need to continue to invest in AI-based personalized learning tools, much like the ones that gave me my start. In addition, advanced education should be available to everyone—for free.” That generated cheers and huge applause.

  “Finally, we need to change the mindset of those who are either talented enough, or just plain lucky enough, to have generated significant wealth. I do not begrudge them their success or their consumption. But the wealthy never spend all their money on goods and services. Most of their money is managed by algorithms that constantly seek to increase it by finding opportunities with high return on investment. As a result, ROI has become the most dangerous acronym in finance.

  “I want the wealthy of the world to focus on RTH—return to humanity. That return would be measured not by just money, but by the actual outcomes that matter to people—health, liberty, and happiness. Let’s get venture firms and private trusts scouting the world for inventors and entrepreneurs who have ideas that need funding. Ideas that can solve important problems facing humanity. Those ideas may not return anything at all to the investor, and many of them will fail completely. But some of them will succeed wildly, and so the wealthy person will have had a huge positive impact on humanity.

  “Now, my hope is that when the wealthy of the world are on their death beds, they would prefer to leave their heirs ten million or a hundred million dollars, while having improved life for all of humanity, instead of growing that money and leaving a hundred million or a billion instead. What is the point of increasing a family’s wealth beyond all possible utility?

  “If we all begin to measure return to humanity in all its many forms, we will come to celebrate income inequality for the opportunity it creates for the wealthy to lift up all of humanity. Next question, please.”

  Sara took questions for another hour before engaging her audience in a final exercise. “Thank you for all those wonderful questions. Now I have a request for you—close your eyes in silence for a moment. Please, just for a moment.”

  Sara waited until the crowd followed her instructions. “Close your eyes and take the hands of the people on your left and right. Imagine yourself connected to the hundreds of people in this room. You are sharing an experience with them. You probably feel very connected to their thoughts. You can imagine what they are feeling.

  “Now, slowly extend your connection to the millions in New Delhi. These are your neighbors with many shared experiences, but also much diversity.

  “Now, slowly extend that connection to the other nine billion people on the planet, who are all bound together. Concentrate.

  “Feel inside you the joy and anguish they are feeling. You can feel the balance of those two emotions. Humanity on this planet is collectively expressing a negative energy.

  “Now, what is our goal as humans? What is our responsibility? What is our calling? Why are we here? It is the ancient question burning inside every conscious soul.”

  Sara paused and closed her own eyes to connect with the people in the room. “Our meaning, our purpose, our goal, is to shift the energy of all of humanity toward the light, toward love, toward peace, and toward joy.

  “How is this possible? you demand to know. How can I as one person shift the energy of all of humanity? The answer, my brothers and sisters, is different for every human being.

  “First and foremost, you must live right, as our great faiths have prescribed for thousands of years. You must free yourself from attachments and open yourself personally to joy. You must care for yourself, your families, and your communities. Then you must develop your talents to bring progress to humanity and beauty to the world.

  “Talents are not evenly distributed; that is the reality of nature. But everyone has talents they can contribute to make their corner of humanity a better place. And some people have been granted a gift of tremendous talent. And some in today’s societies have the luck of great privilege. Their obligations are no different, but the scale of their potential impact is.

  “These lucky few can contribute in vast ways to make our planet a better place to live and thrive. These great scientists, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators should be eagerly sought out in every corner of the Earth. They need to be freed from arbitrary restrictions, provided resources, and celebrated for their contributions to lifting all of humanity toward the light. We should revel in their success, to the extent it moves us all forward.

  “Now open your eyes. Look around you. Take in your own experience.” Sara paused, opened her own eyes, and silently followed her breath for half a minute. She scanned the audience and smiled.

  “I hope I had an impact on you today, that I changed your perspective on your life and your purpose. It is not easy to change, and perhaps only a few of you will. But if I did have an impact, in some small way, please reflect on my story. I urge you to imagine me ten years ago in a dirt hut in a poor farming village with no electricity.

  “Without that computer kiosk, I would still be in that hut, probably with a family of my own by now. There is nothing wrong with that life, and I would have brought as much love and progress to that community as I could. But my impact on humanity in that hut would be miniscule.

  “Here in this room today, and around the world in omnipresence, I have the potential to do so much more. Who knows if my message will resonate? I can only try my best to awaken people to the spiritual force that connects us all, and to open their eyes to the potential for human creativity to lead to a world of abundance, love, and compassion. But I ask you this. Even if I should fail, how many other, potentially more successful Saras are out there? How many Einsteins? Curies? Ramanujans? Gandhis? Tagores? Rumis? Shakespeares?

  “We should be on a worldwide search to find and develop our talents for the good of humanity. We should use technology to conquer the diseases that still kill millions; to provide adequate food and health care; and to educate everyone in the world to the best of their abilities. We should provide everyone with a basic income that enables them to pursue their talents and to contribute to the human cause.”

  Sara took a long drink of water while the audience whispered excitedly. Then she put her hands in her lap and said softly, “My friends, our time is coming to a close. We have covered a lot of ground, probably far too much, but I just can’t help myself. Let me leave you with a final thought. You are going to leave this hall and discuss these topics with great energy with your friends tonight and tomorrow. Then you will have work to do, or a test, or a paper, or a fight with a loved one. It will be easy to slip back into the daily routine.

  “Please, keep in mind two things. First, the vision I have described is possible. It is within our reach. Second, our current social and economic institutions and structures are not prepared for it. They will actively resist it. This could delay it coming to pass for generations. So, if you believe in this vision, then you have an obligation to develop your talents to steer us away from the storm that is approaching. You must make it happen. You must spread the word. You must build the future. If you don’t act, who will? If not now, when?”

  Sara scanned the young faces looking up at her, willing them to heed her call. Then she rose, pressed her hands together, palm to palm, and
bowed. “Namaste,” she said.

  As the students rose as one in a massive wave of applause, she simply repeated, “Namaste.”

  PALO ALTO

  Sam nodded with satisfaction. Sara had owned the room.

  “Okay, everyone, report. What are we doing right now?”

  The team leads chimed in one by one. Their paid networks were active, but ineffective. Real humans in omnipresence were overwhelming them. Sarasmessage.com was struggling to keep up with site sign-ups, which now numbered in the millions. The Web team was frantically spinning up more cloud resources to handle the load. The omnipresence team was trying to rebroadcast sarasmessage tags, but they were coming in too fast. The real-time translation team had just finished posting all the transcripts.

  Sam sat back and watched contentedly. It was a goddamn home run.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 14

  As Senator Harrison Paxton sat at the ancient wooden desk in his Senate office scanning his daily omnipresence activity summary, a spike in mentions of basic income caught his eye. Even more interesting was a chart that showed the correlation with sarasmessage, which he remembered from that oddly captivating VR program that Rena had sent him two weeks ago. The origin appeared to be a video on the sarasmessage.com website. “Margaret, when’s my next appointment?”

  “You have a meeting with the wireless holographic industry lobbyist in twenty minutes.”

  “Cancel that appointment, please.”

  “Are you sure, sir? You’ve canceled three appointments with lobbyists in the last month.”

  “So?”

  “Ninety percent of your campaign funding comes from companies, industries, trade associations, and people represented by lobbyists.” He hated this new AI scheduling program, which focused relentlessly on getting him re-elected. “I don’t care, Margaret. Just cancel it.”

  “Yes, sir. The meeting has been canceled.”

  “Thank you.”

  Harry started the video. He watched the young Indian woman walk out onto the stage in front of an energetic crowd and begin speaking in a foreign language. Subtitles carried an English translation, then disappeared when she explained how she was going to switch to English.

  Harry watched, fascinated by the intelligence, confidence, and wisdom demonstrated by this young girl. He was particularly interested in the section of the video where she talked about a basic income guarantee. She echoed many of the thoughts he held on the subject, but made them so immediate and personal for the young man in the room.

  But her idea of funding basic income through corporate taxes, as a substitute for the salaries companies used to pay, was different. Most pundits kept pushing for lower and lower corporate taxes to “keep companies competitive” and “create more jobs,” neither of which was actually happening.

  Harry assumed that her ideas would draw ridicule. But as he searched omnipresence for Sara, he found that the trolls screaming bloody murder were far, far outnumbered by positive comments and reactions. Supporters seemed to skew younger demographically, but they were all ages, from all over the world, and of every conceivable background.

  Something about Sara’s message was touching a chord in people, and their voices were resonating around the globe.

  Harry reflected on why this might be. She was young and innocent looking, female, non-Western, and not a politician. She was essentially optimistic and pragmatic, using rational arguments for positions that spanned ideologies. She had no one ideological home, and therefore no base and no opposition. She was carving a new path through the hardened liberal, libertarian, and conservative camps.

  Harry extracted the portion of the video about the economy into a message to Esteban, with a note suggesting he watch it before their next lunch.

  “Margaret, can you find Yumi Kagawa and have her call me?” He had hired Yumi as a policy consultant early in his first term and sought her advice whenever he wanted to brainstorm on new ideas.

  “Certainly, Senator.”

  Harry started doodling on a yellow legal pad. Rena teased him endlessly about his extremely old-fashioned attachment to paper and pen. He was outlining the key ideas he had heard in Sara’s speech when Margaret announced that Yumi was available for a video chat.

  “Begin chat,” he said.

  “Good morning, Senator,” Yumi said cheerfully.

  “Good morning, Yumi. By any chance have you seen the VR program and recent video of this woman Sara?”

  “Sara? Of course I have. She’s burning up omnipresence.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  “She’s a breath of fresh air, that’s for sure. Also, an example of how the messenger makes the message.”

  “Say more, please?”

  “Well, what she’s saying is not exactly new. The policy ideas have been around for decades. The spiritual and moral ideas are right out of the religious traditions of the last three thousand years. What’s new is Sara. She’s the opposite of everything that has been turning people off from thinking or believing in change over the last thirty years. She’s young, calm, rational, funny, positive, mysterious, and charismatic.”

  “That’s why she’s gone viral?”

  “I think so. People want to like her. Why the interest in Sara, Senator?”

  “Well, frankly, she’s inspired me to think bigger. We’re so mired in petty issues and coalition building and busting and I’m sick of it. I was thinking about a bold new plan, a new social and economic contract for America.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  “That’s what I’d like to talk over with you.” He looked over his notes. “Here’s what I hear Sara saying. We adopt a universal basic income that replaces existing government social services, with additional funding from a corporate value added tax and taxes on the wealthy. We spur investments in science and technology with the specific goal of lowering the cost of life’s essentials. We make high-quality education available to all, with the goal of finding and developing talent that can move humanity forward. We change rich people’s mindset from money chasing money to investing in solutions for the good of all humanity.” He paused. “I’m not sure how we legislate that last one.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessarily impossible. We’ve been using tax policy to shape investment for a hundred years. If you increase financial transaction taxes and lower taxes on returns from social benefit corporations, you’d be on your way.”

  “That’s exactly why I hired you! What do you think of what I’ve said so far?”

  “I like it, Senator. I like the idea of a big, breakthrough plan that’s non-ideological and has a positive message. It’s going to need some really good framing, though.”

  “Of course.”

  “When I was watching Sara’s New Delhi video, it struck me that she was actually defending and trying to preserve market capitalism. I wonder if we couldn’t spin this as the Saving Capitalism Act.”

  “Ha! I love it! Imagine my Republican colleagues voting against saving capitalism. Still, that name is more defensive and not as optimistic. Sara has such a positive message about the future of humanity. What about the Leading America and Humanity Forward Act?”

  “Interesting,” Yumi said. It’s got a nice patriotic ring to it, and it appeals to altruism, too. But the acronym, though, that’s a non-starter. LAHFA?”

  “Ouch. Okay, we can work on that. So, are you game to really do this? Put aside the battle over the next three percent to be cut from discretionary funding?”

  “Absolutely! How do you want to approach this? We can bring together a lot of staff and experts, or we could go for the leadership approach.”

  “With something this bold, I’m thinking we need to start top down. Can you recommend a Gang of Six?”

  “I agree. Let me think about some names.” Yumi paused. “This is fantastic, Senator. Do you think it has any chance of leaving committee?”

  “A fe
w weeks ago, I would have said no way in hell. But if Sara keeps speaking to the people, maybe the people will finally wake up and speak to the Congress.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SANTA BARBARA - OCTOBER 15

  Roger Driscoll had been busy managing two global launches and lost track of the Sara brand. “Allison, what’s the update on Sara?”

  “The brand is continuing to climb in omnipresence tracking. Still roughly 60/40 net positive sentiment. There was a real-life event yesterday in New Delhi, India that has been viewed more than two hundred million times.” He wondered what kind of event they had staged. “Can you bring up the video for that event please?”

  Within the first ten minutes he understood why Sara’s public personality rating was off the charts—she came across as so purely authentic and so caring about her audience and the issues motivating her that she stood in stark contrast to the competing world brands of politicians and corporate leaders. Frances had discovered a real gem of a spokeswoman.

  When Sara was answering Arjun’s question about income inequality, Roger began to get that uncomfortable feeling again. “Most of their money is managed by algorithms that constantly seek to increase it by finding opportunities with high return on investment. As a result, ROI has become the most dangerous acronym in finance…I want the wealthy of the world to focus on RTH—return to humanity. That return would be measured not by just money, but by the actual outcomes that matter to people—health, liberty, and happiness.”