The capitalist route to enhanced golf
IT is because of the miracles of modern technology brought to us by greedy, profit-seeking entrepreneurs, and innovators employing scientists and engineers in pursuit of gain that we are today able to communicate in ways that sometimes defy belief.
A minor example of this phenomenon is the ability of electronic instruments to deliver information to us wherever we are. Similarly, we can stay in worldwide contact 24/7.
Thus, as one strolls the avenues and streets of New York, every other person seems to be talking to himor herself. A Rip van Winkle would assume they had all lost their minds. But they are just chatting away on tiny cellphones tucked away in a pocket or bag with a minuscule, hardly visible gadget residing in their ear holes.
Another equally inconsequential example is the Garmin golf watch I bought shortly before I departed abroad. This instrument enables hackers like me to be informed of how far away one is from, for
Collectivist societies stifle private enterprise, placing the state first in line
example, a water hazard, prior to hitting into it, or a green, prior to missing it.
Playing a round in southern Texas I discovered that this golf aid was in my bag. I switched it on and, lo and behold, it immediately, through one of the thousands of satellites floating in space, started delivering information about the course I was on, thousands of kilometres from where I had bought it.
Of course, this is kids’ stuff compared with drones that seek out maniacal terrorists to provide them with the death they apparently wish for. As an aside, whereas it is difficult to negotiate with an enemy who is prepared to die, it is impossible to negotiate with one who wishes to do so, such as Japan’s kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers. You must just kill them first.
It is interesting to note that, with a few exceptions such as Sputnik, practically all those innovations that have altered life on earth, largely for the better, have been created in freemarket economies that encourage and reward risk-taking. Collectivist societies stifle private enterprise, placing the state and its apparatchiks, cadres and functionaries first in line for the goodies.
In those repressive conditions, it does not pay to seek change, challenge conventional wisdom or supply folks with what they want as opposed to what the state decrees they shall have.
Adam Smith taught us that a man in pursuit of his own interests frequently enhances those of society in unintended ways. He is led, wrote Smith, by an “invisible hand” to improve society while pursuing his own ends. Bill Gates comes to mind.
To return to the miracle of modern communications, the internet, of course, enables travellers to stay in touch with the news at home. It was conceived by scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles and Stanford.
Thus one learned about the furore over a recruitment advertisement in South Africa inviting only “white males” to apply. Now, if we did not have race classifications, this would not happen. I usually put down “human” when asked what my race is. Isn’t that what we all are?
Anyway, we are not alone in this madness. At a recent event at Princeton University — one of the world’s great centres of learning that, for reasons unknown, accommodated me as a graduate student in 1978 — various graduate bodies held their own mini conferences.
Thus one learned that there would be meetings of the Asian American Alumni Association, the Association of Black Princeton Alumni and an Association of Latino Princeton Alumni.
In vain I looked for meetings of the Caucasian or, god forbid, White Association of Princeton Graduates. Anyway, we did learn that 40% of the graduate students at Princeton today are foreign, mostly from the Far East. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and so forth.