Efficiency is not in itself a virtue. It may sometimes help towards virtue, but in much of life, it is not efficiency that is called for, but munificence, profusion and prodigality.
In its strict etymology, ‘efficiency’ simply means being able to do something, and do it well –from the Latin, ex-facere. As language has evolved it has come to mean being able to do something with the minimum of expense, of energy, money or resources. Nature tends towards efficiency, as instantiated in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
But nature also tends towards profusion, with stars, planets, and, at least here on Earth, life in abundance. As soon as there something rather than nothing – the central question of metaphysics – there is ‘inefficiency’. The most efficient universe would be one wherein there is nothing – in other words, no universe at all.
The second most efficient would be one run by a computer, an algorithm.
Which brings us to DOGE and Elon Musk. Many applaud his efforts to cut down government waste and excess, and, like a garden untended for decades, the weeds are high, and there is much to mow. Following the principle of subsidiarity, government should be minimal, like the sort lawns on putting greens, only doing what it is tasked to do, and nothing more.
But how close do you mow, before you hit rock bottom, and there’s not much left?
Peruse, if you like, this exchange. I had never heard of ‘Corbett’, and have my reservations, but even if you just peruse the direct quotations, which seem authentic, warning bells should sound, to put it mildly. For a video version, which brings things more to life, see here.
How ‘efficient’ do Elon and his technocrats – including President Trump – want life to get?
Elon’s life is ‘efficient’ by a certain standard. He has certainly propagated his DNA in an efficient manner. He has sired at least twelve (acknowledged) children by IVF and surrogacy. This would be difficult – inefficient – with one woman in a monogamous marriage, waiting for each pregnancy to come to term. With Musk’s modus propagandi, three women can be pregnant by him at the same time, and all without the hassle and trauma of actual sex and bonding. Plus, you can choose your children based on favorable genetic criteria.
Are we headed for some sort of Gattaca world? Trump and Vance’s support for IVF certainly puts no roadblock on such a vision. Are these people really as smart as people say they are? After all, the natural law is open to and knowable by all, with but a bit of reflection. And ‘procreating’ – for want of a better term – by masturbating into a cup and producing lots of leftover embryos left to linger and die, is gravely contrary to natural law. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
And why does Musk want all our data, and to run all things by A.I.? Well, in his mind, it’s far more efficient than the wet, mushy brains of humans.
What if there is something else at stake in all of this, even beyond the eugenic; something more sinister. A technocratic agenda, hyper-efficient rule by algorithm. There’s now a term for this – algocracy.
It has a nice ominous ring to it. China is already an algocracy of a communist sort (is there any other kind?). You’re fined immediately upon some infraction – such as jaywalking. Your face scanned and recognized by the ubiquitous CCTV cameras, and a moment or two later, the fine garnished out of your bank accounts. After all, your data is already stored – all of it.
Might such a regime, or a similar one, soon be on the horizon for the denizens of America, and here in Canada? Imagine if Trudeau – admirer of China’s basic dictatorship – had this during the Freedom Convoy! Now Carney – also, curiously, very cozy with China – wants to monitor all on-line speech for anything he deems untoward.
To paraphrase Pink Floyd, Daddy’s gonna watch all of your content for you; he’s gonna make sure nothing dirty gets through.
We’re already much of the way there, having given much of our lives over to algorithmic tech companies. Google owns everything in our Gmail accounts – which is why they’re ‘free’ – and knows everything we watch on YouTube. Visa and Mastercard and PayPal track everything we purchase, where we purchased it, and how much we paid, right down to the cent. And your mobile phone tracks and records all your movements, your conversations and who knows what else.
Our bodies are next. Medical records are now on-line, and millions of people have given their genetic code to 23andMe, now bankrupt and up for sale to the highest bidder. Musk with his Neuralink implants wants us all to be permanently hooked up to the Internet, a veritable tech version of Avicenna’s univocal intellect. No more thinking required – too inefficient. Just upload all ‘knowledge’ – as screened and edited by Wikipedia.
The author of the aforelinked article ends with a rather despairing outlook, with us all ending up in Truman Show fifteen-minute smart cities, living in Carney’s modular pods, gulping cricket paste for food. We could run into the woods and live off berries, roots and trapped squirrel, but try surviving a Canadian winter. And might not Musk’s panopticon Starlink find you wherever you go?
What concerns me more is that people may not even want to escape, comfortable, yet lost, in their virtual reality devices, to escape the dreariness of it all. That is, until the machine stops.
Perhaps that’s all a bit bleak, and I hope never comes to pass; but my motto is expect and prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. In the meantime, live generously, prodigally, munificently, which is the Catholic way. Christ made a superabundance of hundreds of litres of the finest wine for the wedding feast at Cana, and twelve full baskets were left over from feeding the five thousand. And there are billions of galaxies and trillions of stars, to show forth the infinite power and glory of the Creator. Our God is a munificentissimus Deus – a God Who gives gifts abundantly.
This is the theme of the 1987 film Babette’s Feast, that to celebrate well, one must go beyond ‘efficiency’, pull out all the stops, kill the fatted calf, and serve wine of the best – or the best you can afford. But we can oft afford more than we think.
And here we may sum up:
Efficiency is doing something for the right telos, its true end or purpose. We need both the leanness of Lent, to remove what is superfluous, but also the superabundance of Easter, to rejoice in all that God has given and promised to us.
All the while, try to live a low-tech life, as much as we might, outside the machine and the algorithm. Books, conversation, meals; walk, hike and bike; play an instrument if you can, and sing, if you can’t, preferably with others. Attend Mass, and received the reality of the Real Presence, daily, as circumstances permit.
Man is not an algorithm, and cannot fit into a code. Nor is God a mathematician, nor a programmer, but the Author of all that is good. And we may take hope in our Saviour’s words, I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.