Monday, March 12, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Science and the art of Job production
Throughout the world, from the united states of america to the not so united states of ethiopia, the creation of jobs is a big issue.People win and lose elections because of it. Kings and empires fall (Robert Mugabe seems to be a current exception though). So, it has always been an interesting problem. Economists win huge prizes and accolades. So, i have decided to concoct my own recipe for this particular purpose.
The story of how i hit on it started off with a boring lab meet where my boss was trying to outline the importance of an obsolete, ancient review on a small set of cells in the front part of the mouse brain. So at the end of the boring review of the ancient obsolete review, my boss described how a protein-gene had been named as FORSE 1 or something along those lines, but unfortunately they never found FORSE2. Science is sometimes like hollywood- sucessful and important genes get sequels and prequels and variants- those which dont get no sequels.
Anyway ,this triggered off a thought in my mind...about how jobs could be created. I think humans capable of minutely studying, measuring,remeasuring,describing,re describing, arguing, rearguing about and over arcane topics ,which will never appeal to the rest of you mere mortals,
( such as studying why there is a kink in one of the RNA molecules in one of the six hundred bacterium which metabolise nitrogen in the gut of the dung beetle) should be collected together under a gigantic building- be given all the money the government can provide plus a connection to the internet with an email id ofcourse. This innovative cream of the human race must be encouraged to buy new machines and fancier chemicals all the time.
Once ofcourse this happens, you will have an entire industry trying to build newer machines and distill fancier chemicals. Now ofcourse, that part of humanity which wanted to do science but never wanted to study dung beetle bacteria will get jobs in such an industry. They will also have a need for less fancy chemicals, less fancy machines and ofcourse computers and email. Thus, some people who wanted to neither study dung beetle bacteria or make fancy chemicals will join this industry. They will obviously be less fancy chemicals and machines-with less flashing lights and lesser numbers of colour that these people would need. Thus,a separate section of humanity would work on this, and there would be more people to service them and so on so forth.
Now, even though they may have demi-god status, dung beetle bacterial experts and those serving beneath them in the consumer pyramid would ofcourse require food and clothes.......this is where the rest of you come in.
Now,what makes this different from all other job producing schemes? The deal is very very simple. In the current world, the number of jobs being created are based on fairly mysterious decimalled numbers supposedly indicative of the health of the economy and some such things. However, the factor which limits the growth of the economy/jobs is the demand for goods and services. This demand is not always constant.
I propose that this constancy can be attained if the government spends a very large part of its budget on science. In science there is always something to study.There are billions of species. At the rate of one species per human- we already have given everyone a job.However, everyone doesnt like studying species. There are ofcourse a hundred odd elements and a multitude of isotopes. At the rate of one chief scientist and a harem of ten phd students and the other odd slave per element, plus one scientist to contest the claim made by every other, you have a few thousand more jobs.
Ofcourse, everyone doesnt like studying elements. There are people who study the universe and its constituents. At the rate of one scientist plus harem per theory and hypothesis- you have more jobs.
The best thing about this kind of an arrangement is the kind of control the govt can have. If you dont want to increase jobs this year, you can ask the scientists to create no new hypotheses or ask them not study new species. However, if you want to create a zillion new jobs, all you need to do is create ten new hypotheses per science- the percolation will ofcourse create a million new jobs ( my estimates suggest).
Anyway, Congress(I) and manmohan, George Bush and Tony Blair- realize the value of science.
Pay the scientists well.Create new posts in science,fund us and you will win every election!
heheh!
The story of how i hit on it started off with a boring lab meet where my boss was trying to outline the importance of an obsolete, ancient review on a small set of cells in the front part of the mouse brain. So at the end of the boring review of the ancient obsolete review, my boss described how a protein-gene had been named as FORSE 1 or something along those lines, but unfortunately they never found FORSE2. Science is sometimes like hollywood- sucessful and important genes get sequels and prequels and variants- those which dont get no sequels.
Anyway ,this triggered off a thought in my mind...about how jobs could be created. I think humans capable of minutely studying, measuring,remeasuring,describing,re describing, arguing, rearguing about and over arcane topics ,which will never appeal to the rest of you mere mortals,
( such as studying why there is a kink in one of the RNA molecules in one of the six hundred bacterium which metabolise nitrogen in the gut of the dung beetle) should be collected together under a gigantic building- be given all the money the government can provide plus a connection to the internet with an email id ofcourse. This innovative cream of the human race must be encouraged to buy new machines and fancier chemicals all the time.
Once ofcourse this happens, you will have an entire industry trying to build newer machines and distill fancier chemicals. Now ofcourse, that part of humanity which wanted to do science but never wanted to study dung beetle bacteria will get jobs in such an industry. They will also have a need for less fancy chemicals, less fancy machines and ofcourse computers and email. Thus, some people who wanted to neither study dung beetle bacteria or make fancy chemicals will join this industry. They will obviously be less fancy chemicals and machines-with less flashing lights and lesser numbers of colour that these people would need. Thus,a separate section of humanity would work on this, and there would be more people to service them and so on so forth.
Now, even though they may have demi-god status, dung beetle bacterial experts and those serving beneath them in the consumer pyramid would ofcourse require food and clothes.......this is where the rest of you come in.
Now,what makes this different from all other job producing schemes? The deal is very very simple. In the current world, the number of jobs being created are based on fairly mysterious decimalled numbers supposedly indicative of the health of the economy and some such things. However, the factor which limits the growth of the economy/jobs is the demand for goods and services. This demand is not always constant.
I propose that this constancy can be attained if the government spends a very large part of its budget on science. In science there is always something to study.There are billions of species. At the rate of one species per human- we already have given everyone a job.However, everyone doesnt like studying species. There are ofcourse a hundred odd elements and a multitude of isotopes. At the rate of one chief scientist and a harem of ten phd students and the other odd slave per element, plus one scientist to contest the claim made by every other, you have a few thousand more jobs.
Ofcourse, everyone doesnt like studying elements. There are people who study the universe and its constituents. At the rate of one scientist plus harem per theory and hypothesis- you have more jobs.
The best thing about this kind of an arrangement is the kind of control the govt can have. If you dont want to increase jobs this year, you can ask the scientists to create no new hypotheses or ask them not study new species. However, if you want to create a zillion new jobs, all you need to do is create ten new hypotheses per science- the percolation will ofcourse create a million new jobs ( my estimates suggest).
Anyway, Congress(I) and manmohan, George Bush and Tony Blair- realize the value of science.
Pay the scientists well.Create new posts in science,fund us and you will win every election!
heheh!
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