065. ...piggyback on the pious.
(morning thinking)
Elon’s drilling into brains now. Neuralink is in clinical trials, and he’s still desperate to upload his mind into the cloud - to ditch the meat sack and become pure information. He wants to transcend his corporeal confines.
He's spending billions on becoming a popping, fizzing, electrosynaptic entity - an idea. A floating concept that impacts and interacts with the world through digital ether. An everlasting digital deity.
Elon could become godlike in one easy move if he were to give his entire wealth to ending poverty. He could feed everyone on the planet. Set up a fund to continually dish out nourishment to every human currently struggling to feed themselves.
But there’s a faster route to divinity. Easier than neurosurgery and less glitch-prone than immortality in the cloud. Give it all away Elon and withdraw to a cave on a hill!
He'd be praised, deified, raised up and lauded as the second coming. Or a new, globally unifying, religion might form! The Church of Elon. Elonism. His selfless beneficence would be the greatest feat of generosity ever enacted by a single individual in the history of our species. Maybe he could do it on Christmas day! Hijack an existing holiday, piggyback on the pious the way the Holy Roman Catholic church did. He could make small fry of the loaves and fishes thing.
Bezos's shiny head would glow green with envy and he'd fall over himself liquidating assets to plant trees, reforesting the planet, harnessing the sun to end the climate crisis. We might rename Earth in his name. Planet Bezos. Plan B.
Buffett might make a wealth fund to kickstart a global universal basic income.
Gates and the two Larrys could bestow upon us the gift of free computing.
Zuckerberg, with nothing left to fix, announces he’ll buy up the world’s nuclear arsenal and launch it into the sun. We’ll need to keep an eye on that one. Zuckerberg with nukes is like a toddler with a loaded gun.
It couldn't be easier for these guys to achieve immortality - give your fortunes away and disappear in a puff of smokey mystery.
If this idea holds water, or even just a glimmer of truth, and you’ve got a line (direct or otherwise) to one of these spacefaring billionaires, do us all a favour and pass it on.