BRICKS has unveiled its new payment system.

 I read today in the various make-believe rags that claim to be news organizations that BRICKS has unveiled its new payment system which is designed to replace the dollar in international trading.  The various "news" articles have varying degrees of explanation as to how it is supposed to work, but I confess to be unable to understand it and note that it apparently depends to some extent on principals that are inherent in cryptocurrency, another subject that I find mysterious.  I am much more comfortable with the more traditional form of currency, even as I admit to not understanding much, if anything, connected to “high finance.”  I do understand that poorer countries sought shelter in the stability of the dollar in years past and are today fleeing the dollar because we are unable to maintain its value, but I fail to understand the new form of money that is emerging.

I posit that “high finance” is but one more subject that average citizenry is not going to understand, and I wonder how much of our world can be a mystery to us while we expect democracy to be a viable form of government.  Whether we like it or not, international trade is already a major determinant in the way in which we live our lives and the quality of those lives.  This time around, we are extremely interested in whether Kamala or The Donald will give us a better economic future, but how many of us understand economics well enough to make that judgement intelligently, particularly when the candidates are telling us what they think the majority of us want to hear?  I hold that the average citizen does not even try to understand the issues being oversimplified in the various candidates proclamations, let alone understanding the international implications of any of it.  What will tariffs on Mexican car manufacturers do to political stability in our neighboring country, how will that impact the cross border drug trade, and what will that mean with regard to the battle against crime in the non-existent ghettos that are emerging in our once beautiful cities.

Put eleven people on a raft in the middle of the ocean and lines between authoritarianism and democracy are very easy to comprehend.  Add more people on the same size raft, in the middle of the same size ocean, and you have a much more complicated set of issues.  Now put a computer on the raft and let two people learn how to use it.  I hold that those two people will eventually learn how to use the computer to influence decision-making on the raft.  Cryptocurrency is but one of the incomprehensible computer based concepts that are increasingly shaping our lives and the average citizen in this country is blinking and looking away.  Now look at the type of individual that is allied with these concepts, and I argue that you are beginning to understand the changes that are occurring in our society.  The new elites are a different breed of human than ruled the world in medieval times and the ways in which they interrelate are far more complex.  My guess is that we will eventually destroy ourselves, but, until that happens, we will continue to drift away from the concepts that united us when I was put on the raft.  

My problem is deciding how I want to cope with the situation.  I long ago decided to join the commuter revolution and, in the beginning, tried to become part of it.  At first, I had a modicum of success, but the complexity of that world developed faster than I could keep up, and today I struggle with machines and technology that I do not sufficiently understand.  My personal advantages in the competition that is life are all firmly based in my life experiences, but the challenges that increasingly determine success and failure are rooted in what I see as the imaginary world of the computer.  Life is phasing me out.  In my youth, I paid 25 cents on Saturday afternoon to sit in s dark room and watch John Wayne take the West away from the Indians that lived here, and I paid five cents for my delicious Snickers candy bar.  I "earned" that 30 cents by taking the garbage out after dinner and keeping my clothes picked up in my room.  Today. the kid down the block has his nose in his thousand dollar phone watching beautiful people do impossible things 24 hours a day, while sucking on his drug of choice which originated in some far off place that he has never heard of and cares not about, paying for it with this parent’s credit card.

Life is different, and, whether I like it or not, it is going to get increasingly different, at a faster and faster pace, in large part, at least, because of the computer.  You and I are in a race to keep up, and, in my opinion, we are not doing a very good job of it.  I see The Donald as an effort to put the brakes on, and The Brat as being eager to rush forward into the imaginary digital future.  I am more comfortable with the former, and while I see the fragility of basing our future on Kamala’s vague mishmash of wishful thinking, I also see the reality of the need to accommodate to the computerization of decision-making.  I sincerely hope that we manage to do it before one of us pushes the nuclear button, even though that may be the only realistic way to change the stupid trajectory that we are on.