Computer whizz Dr. Craig S. Wright (University of Exeter; Harvard University; RCJBR Holdings PLC, who may have had something to do with the beginnings of Bitcoin) has written a most engaging essay.
It’s so packed with zingers I’ll summarize it quickly but urge you to find the 15-minutes or so the monograph in full will take to review. You’ll find it via the following link Guns, Butter and the Death of Empires.
I should stress this is neither research nor an argument I found totally convincing, but it’s constructively thought provoking and for this reason I’m bringing it to your attention.
In short, the United States should stop wasting money on bombs (with a GDP multiplier of 0.6) and use at least some of that resource to invest in itself via education, infrastructure and state sponsored innovation (with a GDP multiplier of 1.6).
If you read to the end you’ll discover it’s a love-letter not an anti-American rant. It also summed up my views on how a more constructive U.S. would benefit the world (and itself) if it could be a bit more inspirational and a bit less of the belligerent bore it’s been in the last couple of decades.
Here’s the last line “Empires fade. That much is inevitable. But ideas endure. If the United States aspires to be more than a footnote in the decline of the West, it must rebuild itself as a republic worth imitating—not feared, not pitied, not resented. Admired.” Can I get an ‘Amen!’ here?
Happy Sunday.