It's All The Same

            You would think that, given the opportunity, the majority of people would try to improve life – at least to the best of their ability. However, for some reason this doesn’t appear to be the case. There is an element to this related to the fact that those with the ability to bring about change don’t see the need for it, while those who want change the most lack the means. But, if this is the case, why do we see the same thing reflected in our fiction?

            With few (at least, comparatively few) exceptions, our fictional worlds tend to function remarkably similarly to ours. Oh, the names of everything changes, but there’s almost always some form of monetary system and a hierarchy of who is in charge – be it a democracy, meritocracy, theocracy, monarchy, or one of any number of other types, there is the familiar leadership structure.

            Now, there are reasons for doing this. Familiarity is important to help people be engaged with the content. If it isn’t an integral part of the story, having a consumer learn and figure out a whole new structure for a society is tedious and unnecessary. So, what people already know is what gets the most representation, which is fair – but I’ve noticed something else, as well: if people are given the option in a factional setting to make things different, they still choose to go with the familiar.

            The first example I have of this is the Dungeons & Dragons campaign I’m running. It’s set in a world I created with the specific intention of allowing the players to have a lot of control over how their society would develop. They were put in a situation where they were building up a civilization, where they were some of the most influential people around, and where there was no monetary system because everyone was struggling to survive. Did they try to influence their government into taking a new, potentially better structure? No. Did they try to create a new system of bartering? No – in fact, they specifically wanted the familiar monetary system and, through actions based on assuming it would resurface, accidentally caused it to re-emerge.

            Now I’m seeing the same thing again in Chronicles of Elyria. This is a game designed to be almost entirely within the control of the players – they run the governments and control the economies, laws, and the research. It is perfectly set up for people to test new ways of doing things, and yet... All these people who are setting up governments are setting up the familiar governing systems (to be fair, these are partially built into the game’s feudal system), planning for the same familiar capitalistic monetary systems, and planning on law systems that reflect our own.

            I don’t fault them for any of this – it’s all very practical – but I can’t help seeing these scenarios and thinking, why are we just doing the same things over again? Why are we reusing material that, while it works, we know it doesn’t work well? In the real world, I understand – change takes a lot of time, investment, and risk in the real world. On the other hand, in a game, when given this much ability to build and design how the world will function, there is far less risk. Why do we fall back on the same old dysfunctional systems?

            Familiarity is the key, I believe. It’s familiar, comfortable, and easy, so that’s how we choose to do things. We know it isn’t perfect, but at least we know what to expect. It’s all very sensible, of course, but we’re missing out on trying to find a better way of doing things. If we can’t be bothered to find a better way in our fiction, how can we expect to find a better way in our reality?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Basic Income

            There’s this concept being experimented with right now called Basic Income. Some countries already have it and some others are testing it, but I don’t think there is nearly enough information about it given out. The essential concept is that the government gives everyone of the age of majority enough money to live off of – and, after that, all you get told are the details about how the system works – not why it is being done.

            Based on that surface information, there are a number of different responses that jump straight into people’s heads. The ones that really get to me are the people who complain about the government giving money to people who aren’t working for it – a response that shows they have no idea either how an economy works, or how people think.

            The latter isn’t really their fault – we’ve been trained to think that work is unpleasant and that, given the opportunity, no one would work. This has fostered the belief that anyone on any kind of government support is simply lazy and feeding off the rest of society, which is completely untrue. Sure, there are some people who abuse the system, but the majority of people getting money from the government A. need it for one reason or another and B. would much rather be working for their money.

            The truth is that we humans need work. It’s not merely a way to make money; it’s a method for passing the time. Without it, we’d go stir-crazy. Sure, the idea of playing video games all day every day may appeal to some people, but after about three months of that our brains long for something different (yes, I’m speaking from experience) – and that’s where work comes in. We need a variety of things to do, and work helps break up the time, making enjoyable activities more enjoyable.

            Apart from that, no one wants to just be handed money. Oh, we think we do, but it’s just as unrewarding as spending the entire day on the social media website of your choice. It feels horrible to be living off the charity of others, so, given the option, most people avoid it. So why does anyone accept these ‘government handouts’ then? Because money is needed to survive – and our strongest instinct is to survive.

            So, how does this Basic Income thing help? First, it makes it for everyone, meaning that the stigma associated with accepting government money are lessened, making it seem like a less horrible option. Next, it makes it easy to get on to – being automatic for everyone. Finally, it encourages everyone to get off of it: it’s only enough money to cover basic expenses, so if people want cars, houses, the latest books or videogames, TV channels, or any of that, they still have to get a job. However, it doesn’t just vanish as soon as someone gets a job, it simply fades out as the person makes more money – but at a rate where the person is still earning on top of their basic living expenses. In essence, you get given, say, $20,000 per year – if you start working, your income goes up by half your earnings until you’re making about $40,000 per year, at which point the Basic Income drops out.

This means that people with disabilities are able to work fewer hours and get a better income, while still having the security that, if worst comes to worst, they won’t end up living on the streets. In fact, it means that no one need ever end up on the streets again! Just like that, a bulk of the homeless problems are solved.

            But wait, there’s more! Think of all the drastic changes a system like this makes to the whole society. Students won’t need as much debt to go through school, people who lose jobs won’t have to panic about finding new jobs, and people can work fewer hours to get the money they need to survive – which will improve mental health across the board.

            Then there’s the work environments – remember that horrible boss you had once? Or that dangerous work environment? The co-workers who made you dread going to work? You couldn’t quit, because you needed the money to survive. But with a Basic Income, you could safely take the risk of quitting and finding a new job, knowing your base expenses can be paid. That may seem a small thing at first, but think – how many bad bosses will there be if their employee’s aren’t trapped working for them? How many unsafe environments if the employees feel safe walking out? The system would actually force work environments to improve. Employers would be forced to earn their employees’ respect and loyalty.

            Then there are all the would-be entrepreneurs out there. Starting a business takes a lot of money and risks. How many more brilliant businesses might start if there is a guaranteed safety net?

            Hang on a moment, though. This is still money being given out by the government. That means it comes from our taxes! Well, yes, but that’s the most brilliant part of it. You see, there are people out there who would have you believe that the best thing for the economy is to give more money to rich people, so they can spend that money on more extravagant things, which generates more jobs and pays more people. Yet, however hard they try to prove trickle-down economy, people are always able to find holes in the arguments and math.

            The truth is that the opposite is true. The economy functions through the movement of money, and the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to spend their money. People with a lot of money have a stockpile of it. If you give $20 to a corporation, they don’t turn around and spend it – they put it in a holding tank, where it may take ages for it to get passed on to someone else. That’s where the economy goes to die. On the other hand, if you give $20 to someone who barely survives from paycheck-to-paycheck, they’ll spend every penny of it and fuel the economy.

            So, yes, the money comes out of taxes, but even though it looks like it’s being given away for free, it’s actually improving the economy. But, in truth, it shouldn’t be thought of as the government giving away the taxes you worked so hard to pay – it should be thought of as a country investing in its people. Once the system is up and running, taxes will be more like paying off the money that was invested in you while you were building your life. And, once you start thinking about it like that, you’ll be happy to pay your taxes, secure in the knowledge that they’ll be going to someone else who is still building their life. Perhaps even your own kids.

            Imagine if a Basic Income could be implemented around the world – converting poverty into unlocking everyone’s full potential.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Built in Obsolescence

            Today I shall say a few word on built in obsolescence. This is something in our current world that is both very important, and extremely horrendous. It is the idea of making products with the express intent that they will only last for a certain amount of time before needing to be replaced.

            A first look at this process (which is used in a great many industries) at first glance looks like a money grab – and it is, to a certain extent. If you build something that lasts forever and sell it to them, you sell one item. On the other hand, if you build something that lasts for 5 years and sell it to someone, they keep coming back every 5 years for a new one.

            It’s a type of job security, for everyone from retail to manufacturing to design. It fuels the economy by ensuring that within our materialistic society people just keep buying more and more things. It sounds horrible – and it is – but there’s a flip side to it: progress.

            Putting an expiry date on items that otherwise need not expire allows for constant work towards improving products. If there wasn’t such a constant turnover of people buying more smart phones, how fast would improvements to them be developed? Not very fast, because there would be far less demand and there wouldn’t be money to pay the researchers.

            So, it’s not all bad, from a certain point of view. In fact, it’s necessary for how our society functions. It makes more jobs, and keeps people with the latest technology. On the other hand, it is extremely inefficient and wasteful. It’s a bit of a conundrum, and not one that’s easy to fix.

            Where is the balance between continuing to improve products and keeping people in jobs, and less waste accompanied by people not needing to spend so much money? There must be a way, but whatever it is will be hard for us to find. The way things work right now are so ingrained in our society that it’s hard to imagine another way.

            We need to view the problem from the outside – and probably completely restructure our society.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Rush Hour

            On my way home from a convention today, I found myself being passed on the highway by every other vehicle. Not just the occasional ones that is normal for me – usually there’s a mix of some passing me, me passing a few, and most going the same speed as me – but all the other vehicles. I wasn’t driving slower than usual, but I did realize this was rush hour. And I started to wonder why it was that everyone was in such a hurry that they would risk speeding tickets (and not small ones, either).

I figure that part of the reason is that most people don’t know how useless speeding actually is. If I look back to times I was in a particular hurry, I found that at the fastest speed I was willing to drive (admittedly not all that much over the speed limit – what can I say? My parents owned a driving school when I was growing up) I managed to shave a whole five minutes off a drive of more than an hour. That’s really not worth the trouble.

But then, I realized, it was unlikely that these people were all on a schedule to get somewhere. Not in the evening. They were most likely going home. So many people, rushing to get home – risking speeding tickets and, judging by the speed, the potential to lose their licences to get home.

            And I realized that what was most important to them was the feeling of getting home as fast as possible – the feeling that they had stolen a few more moments to spend time with their family, work on personal projects, play video games, or do whatever it was they want to do with their lives.

            So many people feel like they don’t have enough time in their lives – and let’s face it: they don’t. There are some extraordinary people out there who can balance professional and personal lives and be perfectly happy, but I don’t think the average person can. Otherwise, why would so many people daily risk the severe consequences of driving dangerously just to scrape a few more moments of time to themselves?

            It seems that I have added yet another reason to my belief that the average work weekshould be cut in half (with the economy adjusted to accommodate it). Not only would it improve mental health, make people happier overall, and increase the number of jobs for the workforce, but it would make people safer drivers because they wouldn’t feel like they had to rush around to have enough time to spend on what they want to do.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Economic Insights

            ‘Tis the season of sales, a joyous time when a wide variety of items may be purchased for a fraction of their cost. Of course, most people are too delighted by the sales to stop and think about what the sales actually mean.

            When purchasing that wonderful item with the 50% off tag, it’s hard to think about anything other than how lucky you are. However, if you pause to consider the implications of that discount, you may come to realise that the store you are buying from is still making a profit. Not as much profit as before, but a profit, none the less.

            The fact is that most products in stores have at least a 100% markup from the wholesale price. This means that if you’re buying something for $100, the store paid $50 for it. This might seem unreasonable and horribly unfair, but it’s a necessity for the economy. When you purchase from a store, you aren’t only paying for the item – you’re paying for the space it has in the store, its availability in the store, the other items in the store that never sell, heating and power for the store, employee wages, and, of course, C.E.O. and investor income. That’s on top of the shipping and manufacturing costs.

            However, taking that all into account, sales still happen – and turn a profit. How? Increased sales. If a store buys ten of something and only sells half, at a 100% markup they are only breaking even. On the other hand, if they throw it on sale, people come in droves and all ten sell – perhaps they sell for less, but they sell for enough to turn a profit.

            Yet, what we see are the sales – a chance to save a few dollars. But, we aren’t really saving money, are we? We’re just paying less than we’re used to, when we’re paying for the excessive number of items produced. If we really wanted to save money, we’d refine the system to produce what is needed. We’d cut down on waste, excessive profits, and everyone would save money (making the people earning the excessive profits less desperate to have so much money).

            What I think would help the most, though, is if everything we purchased had a breakdown of where the money is going – like the nutritional information on food. That way we’d see where our money was really going. I bet that would really quickly change what people (who can be bothered) are willing to spend money on.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Supply and Demand

            Today’s blog starts, as many of them do, with me thinking about things. In this case, supply and demand; how it’s supposed to work compared to how it has come to work.

            First, how it’s supposed to work. It’s all in the name: supply and demand. Supply is how much of something is available and demand is how many people want said something. Say, for example, a farmer in a market has ten apples to sell. If there are only five people who want apples, the farmer lowers the price to make the apples more desirable to purchase. On the other hand, if there are fifteen people who want apples, the farmer raises the price – this way, the people who don’t want the apples very much are dissuaded, the people who still want apples get them, and thee farmer makes more money for his work.

            It is a good system and makes a lot of sense. Sure, the farmer loses out a bit when lowering the price on the apples, but none of the apples go to waste and he’ll probably make a little more money by selling all the apples at a lower price than he would selling a few at a higher one. And while the people who found the higher price on the apples disappointing, it will still have been their choice not to buy one, whereas if the farmer had run out they would be likely to be more upset.

            Since the industrial age, though, this had been skewed. Just about anything can be mass-produced these days, and for a fraction of the cost. Theoretically, that means everything should be cheaper, yet the opposite is true.

            If something looks to be popular, it gets mass-produced. Far more of the item gets manufactured than could possibly be needed, just to make sure more than enough is available wherever it could be wanted. Then all the items are priced to cover the additional cost, along with a healthy profit margin, because if people want something enough, they will pay for it.

            The result is that there are many being sold for several times what they are really worth and there are still a lot left behind as waste.

            So, instead of market prices being controlled by supply and demand, they are now controlled by people seeing how much they can get and generating tons of waste.

            It seems to me that by doing better market research (and with less greed), a lot more could be provided to more people for lower costs, for everything from food to entertainment systems to vehicles.

            We have all the resources and skills to make the whole world run smoothly. Why haven’t we done it?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Why Not End War?

*Disclaimer* Remembrance Day is a pet peeve of mine and, while expressing my ideas on the subject, what I say can sometimes come across as saying that veterans do not deserve our thanks. This is not the case – I simply believe they should not be hero worshipped because that leads to others following in their footsteps and suffering as the veterans have (or falling in battle, causing their families to suffer). I also believe that Remembrance Day should be focused on remembering the tragedies of war so we can stop repeating our mistakes. Gratitude to those who have sacrificed for us should be a constant, passive thing, not something that dominates a day that was once – and should still be – dedicated to peace. If you have strong emotions related to this subject, you may want to stop reading now.

            One day I thought to myself, wouldn't the world be a much better place if every country in the world disbanded their armies and ceased production of all weapons? What a wonderful world that would be.

            Then I stopped to think about what would actually happen.

            According to Wikipedia, Canada has 104,150 people in militaristic jobs. The UK has 371,360. USA, 2,231,447. I started to add up all the countries, then decided it would take too long. I was at over ten million, though, and I’d barely scratched the surface. This doesn't even include the researchers or the people who make the weapons and uniforms.

            So, what would happen if the world did away with war and violence? Mass unemployment. Certainly some of those jobs could be repurposed, but there already aren't enough jobs to go around.

            Why not just have those people in reserve, trained and ready in case we are attacked? Because if no one is fighting, people begin to wonder why their taxes are paying all these people. So the soldiers are sent off to fight – and often to die, which (dare I say it) “conveniently” eliminates the excess population that the world doesn't have enough jobs for.

            It all becomes a great cycle then. We need war so we can employ soldiers so people can afford to eat. If we eliminate war, the whole economy comes crashing down around our ears.

            Like many others, I dream of a world at peace, but it will never happen unless we drastically change the way our economy works. My vote is that we stop siphoning money off of arts programs and we flood the world with artists.

            That is something I’d like you to think about this Remembrance Day (or whatever November 11^th is in your country). I’d like you to think about how much society pressures us into remembering and thanking veterans, how we are taught that they are heroes so that more of us will follow in their footsteps.

            I want you to think about all the lives lost or ruined because we don’t know how to make the economy work without war. What a waste.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Fixing the Global Economy

            I've often looked at the economy and wondered what could be done to make it work better. There’s a complete lack of balance in the wealth, there are far too many people unemployed and – at least in first world countries – there is far too much waste.

            So, here’s my thought of what we need to do. First, we cut the average work shift from 8 hours to 4 hours – this doubles the number of shifts available and entirely eliminates unemployment, while allowing people to either spend more time doing what they actually want to do or to work a second job without killing themselves.

            Second, because there are so many more jobs available, we’ll then be able to cut back on the surplus of products we are currently creating. Between the lower number of products being created and the subsequent less materials required, jobs and employment should balance out perfectly – there will even be a bit of flex room available, allowing jobs to be made available as people need employment.

            Third, we eliminate built-in obsolescence. Because there will be more people working shorter hours (less stress, more relaxation time) and creating fewer products, we’ll be able to afford the time and materials to make things properly and to last. They will be a little more expensive, but we won’t have to buy a new one every couple of years.

            Fourth, balance the money flow. Pay people what they deserve and what they need to survive. There’s enough money out there – it just isn't in the right places.

            The end result is that we’ll be paying more people (shorter hours) to make less things (albeit higher quality) and we’ll have so much less waste that we’ll be able to use our resources to help less fortunate countries. Wouldn't that be nice?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.