Riches Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

Archaeologists have discovered over $12 billion worth of gold, diamonds and other shiny stuff at a Hindu temple in southern India, Sree Padmanabhaswamy.

It's as if they suddenly discovered Aladdin's cave

I am reminded of the scene in “Spirit of St. Louis” where Jimmie Stewart (as Charles Lindbergh) is contemplating the fly in his cockpit, and wondering if the fly adds to the weight of the plane and, if so, is there a difference whether the fly is sitting on the dashboard or is flying in the air within the cockpit.

The connection is this: Does this $11 billion add to the total of the world’s wealth or is it somehow absorbed within it? If we were to discover 1,000 more such temples, would that end the world economic crisis? What if that amount of valuable stones were suddenly found, under ground? What if some modern day alchemist were to discover a way to turn lead into gold (really, we can see beyond the edge of the galaxy, we can build robots who mimic human speech and movement, almost – isn’t it time we revisited the transmutation of elements?), would that add enough money into the world’s coffers that everybody could have a million dollars? What is wealth? What is money? And how much of it exists in the world?

I’ve heard all about this supply and demand stuff, how things are only valuable if they are rare, and I think it’s all bullshit.  Fresh drinking water is valuable.  Food is valuable.  Education is valuable.  The services of a doctor are valuable.

We need to rethink the way we compute wealth.  Buckminster Fuller, who not enough people read any more, had a formula.  I forget what letters he used, but let’s say W= RxTxE, meaning that wealth equals resources times technology times energy.  Resources, of course, means everything that planet earth either has or is capable of producing.  Now, anybody who has ever walked down a row of vegetables on their knees, back hunched, and looked down that row to the horizon, and looked to their left and right and seen a long row of people doing the exact same thing, knows that this old earth can produce enough food to feed everybody.

Technology is the amazing part of this equation, because it keeps increasing.  In other words, if wealth were calculated according to Fuller’s formula we would all be constantly getting richer all the time.  We would have an economy of abundance instead of one based on scarcity.

The 3rd part is energy which of course includes manpower, as well as all those other forms of energy which are increasing by the middle factor of T.  And there’s plenty of available manpower on earth.  I have never understood how we can have so much unemployment when there is so much work that needs to be done.

Anyway, go read some Buckminster Fuller. 

He said it better than me.