Ignoring the future

The real problem with legislators arises from the fact that they are elected for a specific limited period of time.  As a result, they are not particularly interested in the longer-term consequences of a current vote, when 'longer-term' is defined as 'not on my watch'.  Their concern is focused on their own term of office, and what serves them best over that range of time.

So when we see the huge and rapid increase in public debt, we see the direct consequences of being focused only on the current issues.  Legislators won't be around to take responsibility for the debts they have incurred.  Current needs are met.  The future can take care of itself, or at the least other people will take care of things.

Another example is the issue of global warming.  That's a future event, well after their current term of office.  Right now oil is profitable and reasonably available.
Who cares about the emissions?  I can't smell a thing.  Unless I go into a town.

The limits on this kind of spending and thinking, if we can call it thinking, were originally managed by keeping the dollar tied to the gold standard.  We couldn't print more money than we had gold to back it up.  It was harder for the country to go into debt.  Having the requirement to live within our current means limited our ability to incur debts.  There is no such limit now, of course, because otherwise we (as a nation) would have experienced great restrictions on our ability to spend money.  Money that we don't have.

We thought that in the future our increased prosperity, triggered by our ability to spend vast amounts of money we didn't have now, would generate the taxes that could be used to pay off our debts.  Kind of like spending money with a platinum card on the assumption that we would earn enough at some time in the future we could pay our debts.

Legislators aren't the only short-sighted people.  I am old enough that it's very clear to me that I have a relatively short number of years ahead of me.  I sometimes find myself thinking about such issues that they won't be my problem because I won't be around to deal with them.  So for those who are both elderly and legislators, the incentive to deal with future problems becomes rather weak.  Can we afford the luxury of short-sightedness?

A final note.  The voting population seems afflicted with the same disorder.  They (and I mean 'we') want what they want when they want it, which is now.  The hell with the future.  It will take care of itself.  We can indulge ourselves in what we want. Someone else will have to pay the credit card bill.

The Afterlife

First of all, you should know I don't believe there is an afterlife.  I think the 14 billion years or so after I die will go as rapidly and painlessly as the first 14 billion years or so before I was born. To believe in the super-natural is to open your mental doors to believe in absolutely anything without any evidence at all.  Not a good plan, and when people have acted on their supernatural beliefs, it has led to really catastrophic consequences.

Given the above, I would have some preferences if there were an afterlife.  And since to believe in the afterlife we have to accept the supernatural, I can posit any conditions I want.  After all, there are no limits or rules about 'supernatural'.  People have manufactured a wide variety of afterlife conditions from clever to adolescent.

My idea of hell is boredom. The conventional idea of heaven includes clouds, harps, streets of gold, and lots and lots of singing, maybe doing nothing, or maybe sitting and talking to relatives long dead. That's about as close to hell as I can imagine, and I do NOT want to be sent there.  I don't even know anyone who wants that in this life for a brief period, much less for eternity.  Like holiday get-togethers that last forever. Without wine.

But least in hell, there might be something to do.  Different torments, scenery, demons, and so on.  Maybe I can get a job.  In fact, I would prefer to be a worker in hell than a guest in heaven.  I could push burning coals with a red-hot broom.  I could dirty up torture rooms (I don't imagine keeping them clean would be a priority). I could carry hot lava in my hands to the lava pools.

Perhaps I could run group therapy for famously bad people. There are some very interesting people in Hell, and they would have a lot of time on their hands. Would a group with Hitler, Judas, various mass murderers and child killers and political figures, be interesting?  Of course. However, there is the problem that if the therapy helped (and I would certainly have plenty of time to work)  and if the members got "better", what would happen to them?  Would they be sentenced to heaven?

And in this hell there would be other workers like me.  I could organize a union of workers, and maybe later we could let the demons join as well.  I wouldn't suggest we could strike for more interesting working conditions, but I wouldn't rule it out, either.

Considering my strong preferences, perhaps the worst punishment for me would be heaven.  I don't like being bad, andit's hard to know just how bad I would have to be to get out of being sent to heaven.  I don't want to be any worse than I really have  to be.

I'll have more thoughts later if I last long enough.