This article was taken from the January issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Now that a global catastrophe of biblical proportions in glorious CGI HD is looming, all belching volcanoes and tumultuous tsunamis and lingering shots of tiny terrified tots; now that the bees have all fracked off, the trees have given up the ghost and the last lonely panda is about to shuffle in ultra-slow motion into oblivion; now that our species is sliding ever more gracelessly into dementia - it's time to admit we aren't so good at this caring-for-everything game. In fact, the opposite is what we are good at: wholesale consumption. Soon we will have eaten our way through most of what is edible, used up all the fuel, converted all the trees into bog-roll. Insufficient food, costly fuel, an increasingly unhealthy population, unemployment and social disaffection will lead to civil unrest. We have to make these factors work together for a global solution.
The government must introduce a lottery, covering all aspects of citizens' lives from birth to death. This lottery will randomise all conceivable decisions, removing the trauma of excessive variety and disappointment at wrong choices. Each citizen will consult a personal Randomiser Device<sup>TM</sup> on waking to find out where and how to spend the next time-period.<sup>1</sup> The removal of choice will eliminate the spectre of jealousy: chance will grant each citizen an enviable job, beautiful husband/wife, chateau, sports car, etc. Nobody will feel hard done by, since, as the saying goes: "Who knows what tomorrow brings?"<sup>2</sup>
Uncertainty about employment may have adverse effects on motivation and skills, but the system will compensate for this.
<sup>3</sup>
With the continuing depletion of the world's resources, emphasis will be placed on energy generation using the most freely available source - human endeavour. In vast halls, rows of treadmills and static cycles arranged facing video screens
<sup>4</sup> will be used to harvest the citizens' effort, running our reduced industry and powering our low-emission light-bulbs.
One part of the scheme will have to be introduced to a still-squeamish populace with some delicacy.<sup>5</sup> With agricultural land dwindling rapidly due to climate change, soil erosion, etc, we face imminent famine. We must grab this bull by the horns and stare the problem in the face. People die every day, and we plant them in holes, turn them into ashes, send them into space - everything except recycle them. The lottery will offer citizens a retirement home <sup>6</sup> to pass the rest of their days <sup>7</sup> in comfort. On demise, they will be processed into biomass and reintroduced into the food chain.
This superficially unpalatable solution is in fact quite elegant: the two systems - exercise/energy, food/recycling - interconnect seamlessly to form an almost perfect closed loop, no mess, no waste.
Thus we can begin to exist in harmony with the planet, making few demands, handing back the land to the bunny-rabbits and little lambs... and the Sun will beam down on us for ever and ever.
Amen. \1. A randomly calculated length of time, generally not less than one day. \2. Actually, the Great Randomising Main Frame will have a pretty good idea, but its five levels of encryption should ensure a safe level of perceived chance. \3. A certain lowering of expectations is reasonable. \4. Showing adult content to ensure continued effort. \5. If indeed the populace needs to know about it. \6. See the 1973 film Soylent Green. \7. Not more than two.
Dinos Chapman is an artist and Turner Prize nominee. He works with his brother, Jake
Read other articles from the Rebooting Britain series - Tax people back into the cities - Teach kids to see in four dimensions - Exercise a green foreign policy - Open democracy to the online masses - Reinvent the way we live together - Pull the plug on broadcast regulation - Enact beta versions of new laws - Make carbon emissions hurt - Slash the universities and go virtual - Make policy using prediction markets - Transform cities into green jungles - Promote another crash - Ditch Twitter: it's dangerous for democracy - Encourage failure - Make education more flexible - Set government data (radically) free
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
